 
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

DEDICATION

COMMENTARIES ON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 - What is faith?

CHAPTER 2 - Where does faith come from?

CHAPTER 3 - Different types of faith

Unsound Christian doctrines

CHAPTER 4: - The Roman Catholic Church

What is idolatry?

Who is the "Rock" upon which the Church of God is established?

Comparative analysis of the Bible and the 7 Sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church

Interpreting the Scriptures without the help of the Holy Spirit leads to misinterpreting them

CHAPTER 5 - The Trinity of God

CHAPTER 6 - When our faith starts failing us

The discipline of the Lord

You think that you are doing God's will, but things do not go well in your life

Why our faith weakens when the testing times take too long?

CHAPTER 7 - How to avoid losing our faith?

CHAPTER 8 - How to increase our faith?

CHAPTER 9 - When, how, and why to apply our faith?

A powerful weapon against Satan

CHAPTER 10 - Conflict between our faith and our decisions

Personal desires and the will of God

Meddling in a quarrel

Tithing: Is the commandment of tithing in the New Testament?

Tempted?

Raising your children

Where have we gone astray from the Lord's way?

CONCLUSION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND CONTACT

ENDNOTES

CITED WORKS

#  ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I thank God for letting me write this book in the

hours following my secular working schedule. I also thank all those persons

who prayed so that this book could come out as an e-book.

#

#

# DEDICATION

To the glory of God and to

the patience of my wife Martha

##

# COMMENTARIES ON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

#

Nicolás A. Morales

Copyright 2018 by Nicolás A. Morales

Smashwords Edition

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# INTRODUCTION

This book is addressed to all those people who believe in Jesus Christ and want to know some of the basic, and some of the most controversial teachings of the Christian faith. In the first chapter, I establish the basic requirements to have faith: its origins, meaning, recipients, and purpose. Chapter 2 is a detailed exposition of the foundations of the Christian faith. Here, you will get a better comprehension of the relationship among God, faith, and men.

The book comprehends a long but not exhaustive list of sects and the Author analyzes some of their teachings. In this book, I speak of how to avoid losing the faith, of how to make it grow, and how to apply it. Many testimonies at the end of each chapter tell of the power of God to heal, to protect, to guide, and to correct. The last chapter deals with the conflict between God's will and our decisions. This is one of the reasons why faith can fade away and disappear from us.

# CHAPTER 1

# WHAT IS FAITH?

The faith of many born-again Christians is starting to fade away due to the many hardships of this life, the bad testimonies of some so-called Christians, and the entertainments of this world. Therefore, we need to fight the good fight of the faith (1Timothy 6.12) and to inflict on the enemy, Satan and His demons, one more stumbling block to hinder His schemes against the people of God.

In this first chapter, I give you a definition of the Christian faith so that you may have a better and deeper understanding of some of the teachings contained in it. This faith has been bestowed upon all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ by God himself and handed down to all the believers in an infallible book called "The Bible".

Nobody can put something into practice and get good results unless he or she knows it and have received the proper training to do so. Similarly, faith can only be put into practice when one knows its origins, its meaning, its recipients, and its purpose. Let us quickly review each one of these four basic things that are necessary to put our faith in practice. First, the Christian faith has its origin in God as it is stated in the book of Romans (Romans 12.3) when the apostle Paul is urging Christians to be humble in the body of Christ by keeping the measure of faith God gives them. Second, to find out about the faith's meaning, one must know first how God defines faith. The definition of the faith God wants us to learn is in the Bible in Hebrews 11.1: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." The first part of this verse, being sure of what we hope for, has a defying request in it. Believing in the Author and Finisher of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the core demand related to "being sure of what we hope for" because it requires believing in Jesus who always fulfills His Word. Third, who are the recipients of God's faith? The recipients are all those who open their hearts to believe in the Son of God, Jesus Christ; thus, they become the vessels in which God will pour down His laws, precepts, and ordinances that constitute the faith of God. Lastly, the purpose of this precious faith of God given unto men is, first, to please God. As one can read in Hebrews 11.6: "and without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Next, to obey God, to stand firm in Him by the power of God's faith, to believe in His miracles, and to overcome all the trials and tribulations that will happen in our Christian lives.

All disciplines and training never come alone, but other disciplines or types of exercises help them. If we pretend to have an active Christian faith, this must be helped by two other requirements that God did establish to make it work. These requirements are hope and love as declared in 1 Corinthians 13.13, "and now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greater of these is love." It is so because without true love for God we cannot obey Him and without hope in His promises we cannot keep our faith alive.

It is necessary to analyze a bit more in detail the verse of Hebrews 11.1 to have a better understanding of its meaning. In the original Greek of the New Testament, according to Vine's Expository Dictionary, the word used for assurance is the noun Hupostasis,1 which literally has the meaning of standing under, support

It is necessary to give a further explanation of the expression "standing under". When someone is standing under something that can protect them, they are also under the strength of such a thing. As God's children, we should run and stand firm under the covering of the accumulation of all the teaching and precepts given by God to men, which constitute the "faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints" (Jude 1.3). In the written Word of God, we can find all the promises that support our faith. These promises are like the shelter we must stay under to stay protected. Psalm 91.1 says, "He who dwells in the shelter of the Highest will rest in the shadow of the Almighty."

As a matter of illustration, the following anecdote tells something that happened to me so that anyone can appreciate better the meaning of standing under a good thing that can protect them. A few years ago, I was leaving my workplace. Winter has started, but the temperature was not too low, so there was slushy snow everywhere. I was standing at the bus stop under a highway waiting for the bus. I had opened my umbrella because there were some flurries and I did not want them to fall on my head. Then, a vehicle went by, and the passengers were making fun of me because I was covering myself with the umbrella. As they passed by, they shouted: "Hey! It's not raining!" I never minded their shouting, and I kept my umbrella open. A few seconds after they were gone, another vehicle went by on the highway above my head and splashed a bunch of slushy snow right on the top of my umbrella. Does somebody see the analogy? Our faith protects us like an umbrella, and like a shelter under which we can abide in confidence because its builder is the Almighty God.

Besides, the second part of Hebrews 11.1, the expression certain of what we do not see, is telling us that seeing what we cannot see is a matter of the conviction we may have of the thing that we are expecting to see happening. Faith does not come along with reasoning; instead, they oppose one another. Faith invites us to believe in things we cannot see yet, as already done. To have that certainty, one must rely upon God's promises, but to gain the inner strength of mind to keep on believing, we must believe that God is more than able to make things happen out of nothing or from nowhere. He can make things happen to back up His Word.

To summarize the idea of what faith is all about, we can imagine faith as a stringed musical instrument, like a piano or a guitar; whose maker is God and from which we can play so many notes and use the instrument to the glory of God.

## Introduction to Testimonies of Chapter 1

In this first chapter, I have defined what the meaning of faith to God is. In the next two testimonies, I make emphasis on believing the words that God speaks into our hearts. Nevertheless, I understand that probably many Christians have never listened to the voice of God. I want to encourage them to pray to the Lord so that He starts communicating with you.

## Testimony 1. God provided my first computer

In the year 2005, I was working as a driver operating a small motorized sweeper. That year, I was about to switch jobs, but for my future studies, I was going to need a computer. I used to drive the small sweeper, sitting in a small cabin and I was praying. I was asking the Lord to provide a computer for me or to let me get a raise in my wages to be able to save and buy it on my own. Every day I repeated to the Lord: "Lord, please provide that computer for me, I will need it." After a few days of repeating the same request over and over, the voice of the Lord spoke to my heart and told me, "Do not ask me anymore for that computer. Start giving me thanks for it. You already have it." "What?", I said, "The Lord told me that I already have the computer", and at that moment I believed the words that the Lord had spoken into my heart. This is faith, believing in the things that we hope for, even though we have not seen them yet. From that moment on, I just gave thanks to God for my first computer in Canada even though I did not know how or when God was going to give it to me. Nevertheless, I was determined to give Him thanks every day until He provided it for me. I went to find out about the computer prices, and I could not afford to buy one, because they were too expensive, I did not have any savings, and I had not gotten a raise in my salary.

In the second month, after the Lord had spoken to me, a Christian friend of mine gave me a call. I picked up the receiver, and after we had greeted each other, my friend asked me, "Nicolas, do you have a computer?" "No" I answered, "but I am trying to buy one. Do you have one for sale?" My friend told me, "You do not have to buy it from me, I am going to give you my computer." When I heard that, I rejoiced in the Lord. My friend brought the computer with all the programs he had already installed in it. The computer was in good condition, and it helped me out for four years.

## Testimony 2: God provides me with a second computer

My first computer worked for four years before it broke down. Then, I started praying to the Lord for another one. My faith increased after seeing how the Lord had provided the first one. Then I kept on praying for another computer. After one month of prayer, a Christian sister called me up, and when we were talking, she told me, "We want to come to visit you because we want to give my daughter's computer to you. At that moment, I did not tell her anything about the prayer petition I had before the Lord. I waited until they came to my place to give them the testimony of how the Lord was using them to answer my prayer. The computer was in perfect working condition.

# CHAPTER 2

# WHERE DOES FAITH COME FROM?

Trying to think of an acrostic with the word FAITH, I found an interesting one: Find An Incredible Tool Here. Yes, but where is "here"? Where can we find the faith we need to overcome our weakness and temptation, and from where does faith come? Faith is an incredibly powerful tool residing in God, hiding in His written Word, and being available to all those who approach Him with a sincere and humble heart. The Almighty God has planted a necessary amount of faith, as small as a mustard seed, in our hearts, so we can start watering it with the heavenly water, which is a symbol for the written Word of God.

## A. The Almighty God: Author and finisher of our faith

If one tries to believe in something that cannot see, it might sound illogical; nevertheless, men have believed in many things that they have never seen. When we accept something that we cannot see as a fact, and we decide to believe in it, it becomes illogical or senseless for many people, but valid for us. For instance, when a person decides to buy a house, he or she believes that all the utilities such as water and electric service are in perfect working conditions. Even though one cannot see the water in the pipes, it is a fact that there is water and when one turns on the faucet, he or she will get fresh water. Another example is the air that we breathe, which we cannot see, but we can experience that we cannot deny. The fact of the existence of nature in its different forms, some visible and other invisible, speaks of a superior Being or a mastermind behind all the creation that the Bible calls God Almighty. True Christians have experienced the invisible presence of God and the effects of God's power to change their lives, just by believing in His invisible presence and unquestionable changing power. God has granted a necessary amount of faith to every human being, just the necessary to believe in him even though we cannot see Him.

Moreover, God created us according to His image and likeness, and then we also have a measure of faith to remain faithful to God by trusting in him. In that manner, He can operate His will with His power in us and through us. Faith is a gift from God which is innate to Him as one of His qualities: His faithfulness. God sees all things of His creation as fulfilled, as accomplished according to what He has decreed. God is one-hundred percent sure that what He says will be accomplished.

God is the one who gives us that amount of faith that will be necessary to face Satan and our weakness in our Christian walk. Faith is like a seed that is planted by God in our hearts, but it depends on us how much this seed can be developed in to accomplish the purposes for which He has called us. That seed of faith must be watered to make it grow, to quicken it to produce a hundredfold the power enclosed in it. What is the power enclosed in it? The power is this: true faith backed up by God and our prayers, which will reach the heavenly throne of God and move Him to act in our favor. The Lord Jesus said in Mark 11. 24, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

God has created us with a free will to make decisions that will take us closer to Him or further away from Him. If we use our faith, the Lord will be pleased, and we will draw ourselves near to Him. If we do not use it, we will miss the purposes for which God has called us.

### 1. How to believe in God as the provider of our faith

There is a process through which one should go to believe in God as the Heavenly Father and the provider of our faith, in Jesus as God's Son, and in the Bible as the Word of God. This process starts with believing in Jesus as the Son of God, accepting Him as Lord and Savior of their soul. To experience God as the Heavenly Father, and His Son Jesus, as God, Master, Lord, Savior, friend, and elder brother, one must become a child of God, born of the Spirit of God accordingly to what John 1.12-13 says: "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in His name, he gave the right to become children of God –children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." To become a child of God, we must surrender our heart to Him and open our minds and our hearts to receive Him. It is necessary to confess Jesus with our mouths as our personal Lord and believe in our hearts that He is the resurrected Son of God, and then we will experience God as the provider of our faith. God the Father sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die in our place so we could have, by asking Him into our hearts, forgiveness for our sins, salvation for our souls, and everlasting life with Him.

Ordinarily, nobody can have faith in somebody that they have not seen. A child cannot trust a voice that he or she cannot recognize. Jesus says that He looks at His children as His sheep; Lord Jesus says in John 10.27: "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me."

I have written the paragraphs above to help everybody realize that true faith is born out of the confidence that they can have in the person in whom they put their faith. Someone cannot trust the Almighty God and His Son Jesus Christ as their heavenly Father and the provider of their faith if they have not known both of them. In the Bible, the Lord made many promises and assertions, and all of them have found their accomplishment at their respective pivotal point in History. For example, God scattered the people of Israel as a punishment for having rejected Him as the Messiah. He also promised to gather them back as a nation in the land of Palestine. We can find this promise in Jeremiah 32: 37-38 and its fulfillment when Israel became a State on May 14, 1948. The Lord Jesus Christ is God who does not lie. He has promised to keep our faith and take us through this stormy life if we learn to recognize His voice and follow Him in obedience.

Moreover, He has also promised to make us more than conquerors and to reveal His perfect will for our lives, but how can we build up this faith to be more than conquerors and to obey God's will for our lives? A true faith supported by prayer is the only way to keep a relationship with God. Hope and confidence in Him and His Word should follow. Trusting in Him will increase our faith. It is worthy to have the privilege to trust in God Almighty and to have the assurance of believing in Him who will never let anyone down.

### 2. Why do we need the faith that comes from God?

We need the faith that comes from God to face all the situations that can arise in our lives. We need some inner strength every day. Unbelievers build up this inner strength in their preparation, their possessions, or the things they have decided to believe in; however, their preparation resides in human wisdom and their limited knowledge of things; their possessions can become useless in times of sickness, and their beliefs can change according to situations or their convenience. On the contrary, believers who have put their trust in God have their inner strength in the faith which they have received from God. This faith is based not only on the supremacy of God to make possible all things but also in His knowledge of all things before they happen.

## B. The Written Word of God: Spiritual Food

The Bible is the spiritual food of the born-again Christians, and as such, we need to have it every day, as much as we need to have natural food to strengthen our bodies. If somebody does not eat properly, their bodies get weak, their organs do not work well, and eventually, they get sick, and if they do not receive proper medical attention, their bodies die. Something similar happens with our faith when we do not feed our inner being with the Word of God. If we feed our body more than our spirit, then our natural behavior and reactions will be stronger than our spiritual desires, our faith will weaken, and it will fade away. As true Christians and true worshipers of the Almighty God, we need to be vigilant and feed our spirits as much as our bodies, even more, if possible. Why? Because even though the spirit is willing, if someone does not take good care of it, then, it will become weak. The Lord Jesus says in Matthew 26.41: "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." When we are in Christ, God will help us have a willing spirit to obey him. However, when we do not set aside some time to pray, to read and meditate on the Word of God, and to praise the Lord, then our soul and our body will oppose our spirit. We will end up doing what pleases us more than what pleases God.

When we are conscious of the weakness of our minds to stand firm before temptations, we must start praying and reading the Word of God to have the spiritual strength to help the weakness of our mind. If we, as believers, start feeding our spirit with the spiritual food God has provided for us, which is the Word of God, then we will be strong enough to face all kinds of trials and tribulations that our faith may endure.

## C. Why do Christians believe in God as their, God, Creator, Heavenly Father, older Brother, Lord and Savior, and Best Friend

### 1. Who is God?

First, God is Spirit, and He was from the beginning of the creation of this world hovering over the waters, as stated in Genesis 1.2: "...and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." Also, we can read in John 4.24: "God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." God is Spirit, but as the Spirit, He is not like any other spirit, such as the angels. God's Spirit is unique, and He is the Spirit of God, the One who knows all the thoughts of God. This is confirmed in 1 Cor. 2.11: "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God."

As Spirit, God can fill up everything, even the whole universe, with His presence, and at the same time, He is more than able to dwell in our tiny hearts, "for nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1.37). How can I be assured that His Spirit is living in me, in my heart? I have had the experience of listening to the voice of God from the deepest parts of my heart. I do not mean that I have imagined it or thought that I have listened to the voice of God. Indeed, God has been pleased to let me hear His voice out of His sovereign will, not because I deserved it, not because I am better than everybody else. If you pray for it with a humble heart, He will also let you hear His voice. I can give testimony that He still communicates with us as He did with His prophets and servants in the Old Testament. The answer to the former question of who God is, can only be received and understood by those brothers or sisters in the faith who have ever experienced the Spirit of God speaking into their hearts, to give them directions, to console, to admonish, to reveal His will, or merely to let them know that He is real. As a word of encouragement, I advise those Christians who have never experienced the voice of God, to stay in prayer and ask God to give them guidance on their problems. When He speaks to you, please, do not be scared, or disobey whatever He asks you to do. Remain humble before Him and obey.

### 2. God is not an invention of the mind

It is hard to believe that there are persons who have tried to define who God is following their minds. Unfortunately, these persons are full of pride, maybe because they are intellectuals. What they do not realize is that the things of God cannot be understood based on the amount of knowledge obtained in the world's institutions. The things of God ought to be discerned by the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, who reveals the spiritual things of God about us. The apostle Paul made a distinction between a man without the Spirit and a man with the Spirit of God: "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2.14).

A person who wants to know who God is must humble himself or herself before Him and allow Him to do as He pleases, for it is the Son of God who reveals God the Father to us, as Jesus declares in Luke 10.22: "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Consequently, the nature of God as God cannot be accepted if it is not by the revelation of the Spirit of God to us. The Spirit of God is living in the Person of Jesus Christ the Son of God and living in us. Take the example of a person who denies the existence of God without having any sound ground to support His arguments. First, let us define the word reify for you to understand the following lines better. The dictionary of English says that the word Reify means "to make real or concrete; to materialize." God is not an idea in men's minds to _reify_ the feelings and mental concepts they have of the heavenly Deity, as stated in the book The Making and Remaking of Christian Doctrine. According to this book, the idea of God "is constructed imaginatively in the mind, built up on the basis of analogies, metaphors, and models thought to be appropriate." Only those who have never experienced the Presence of the Almighty God, who have never listened to His voice, who have never felt the touch of His hand, who have never confirmed His guidance, who have never experienced His commanding, comforting, or whispering voice, can deny the existence of the only true God, and can treat Him like an object. God exists forever as the Almighty even if some people do not want to believe in Him. God makes Himself real to those who have put their trust in Him, to those of a humble heart. Since this is not a treatise on apologetic, I will tell you in the following subsections why Christians do believe in God as the Creator, the heavenly Father, the elderly Brother, the Best Friend, and the Lord and Savior of their souls.

### 3. God as the Creator

God is the Creator of all things visible and invisible. He is the Maker of everything, and everything exists by his power. "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Colossians 1.17). God has revealed Himself to his people, to all those who have come to believe in Him as the Creator of the whole universe and everything in it. To accept God as the Creator is a matter of believing without having seen: by faith. In the same way, we believe that one day in the past we were born; even though we did not see ourselves being born, we believe because we see how other children are born. In the same manner, as believers, we accept God as the Creator by witnessing the visible and invisible things of nature.

### 4. God as our loving heavenly Father

As a loving Father, He is always caring for us, providing us with health, food, and protection; all these by His good pleasure towards us His beloved children. Whoever has experienced the voice of God calling them His son or His daughter can testify that He is their heavenly Father. As a loving heavenly Father, He truly cares for us, and even for the atheists, and He is waiting for them to repent.

### 5. God as our Elder Brother

As our elder brother, the Lord Jesus gives us his excellent example of obedience towards God the Father, his help, his best piece of advice, his protection, and his boldness to do the works of God. He is patiently waiting for somebody to call Him, and as soon as they call upon His name, He comes to them, and starts renewing, helping, and fulfilling the Father's perfect will in their lives. Would not anybody like to have the company of such a Brother? Yes, Jesus can be anyone's best Friend in good and bad times. In bad times, He will always carry them in his arms because He promises: "[I] will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged" (Deuteronomy 31.8). He wants to help us to carry our heavy burdens and to exchange them for his light ones. He says: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (John 11.28-30).

### 6. God as our Lord, Savior, and best friend

If somebody has a best friend, he or she would like to share and to spend most of their time with him or her, especially if that is a romantic love relationship. One can only build a healthy relationship when there is good communication, and they must find out what their friend's likes and dislikes are.

Well, you may not have realized that the Lord Jesus is the best friend you can have in this life and the next. He is always there for you, and He is willing to help you to have all the good things that come from Him. He is right beside you in your troubled times, waiting for you to call upon him so that He can give you His encouragement, His strengthening, His guidance, and His consolation if you need them. To make all these things possible and to enjoy all the benefits of His friendship, the Lord Jesus wants us to let Him become our best friend and to show it by spending time with Him in prayer. God has always wanted to establish an intimate friendship with us. He is longing to have a love relationship with you.

As human beings, we call other people by titles like Mr., Mrs., or Miss, to address them respectfully. How much more we ought to respectfully address the Son of God as Lord when we approach Him. There may be many "lords" in the world but God –Jesus, for he is God (Hebrews 1: 8) –is above them all. That is why He is called the Lord of lords in the book of Revelation 17.14. When we assign to God the title of Lord, this means that we are accepting his lordship over our lives and that we recognize Him as God and as the sovereign Master of our hearts. Accepting his Lordship means that we are not going to act or move according to our will to do things, but we are going to double check with Him in prayer to do something.

## Introduction to the testimony of chapter 2

The purpose of the following testimony is to encourage born-again Christians to believe in the written Word of God, in his promises of healing, and deliverance. We need to open our heart and prepare our minds to believe in everything that is written down in the Bible. The focus of this testimony is to quote the Word of God when we pray or intercede for other people. We must do this without doubting that God will honour his Word by fulfilling it, and that we are going to see the answer to our prayer if it is according to God's will.

## Testimony 3: A little girl is healed of club feet

When I was going to attend a Bible college in Dallas, Texas, I had to live for 10 days with a family because I had arrived 10 days before the beginning of classes. The couple who had received me were the parents of a little girl, two years old, who suffered from a disease called club feet. This disease hinders babies from being able to stand on their own because their feet are dangling without any strength in the ankles to support their body's weight. Several times during these ten days I was left alone babysitting the little girl because her dad had to be at work and her mom had to run some errands. When I was babysitting her, I used to pray over her legs, feet, and ankles, quoting the Word of God in Isaiah 53:4-5: "Surely, he took up our infirmities ...and by his wounds, we are healed." I just spent a few minutes daily interceding for this little girl. Her parents were always sad because they had not seen their daughter walking despite her age. I am sure other Christians were praying for this little girl also. Immediately after I had prayed for her, I exercised her legs by standing her up and prompting her to walk by wrapping a towel around her chest and grabbing the towel from behind her, not letting her grab my hands. By the fourth day, she began putting her feet on the ground. On the ninth day, her dad had just come back from work, and I asked him to receive her about five meters away from us. I was holding the little girl, I put her on the ground and asked her to go towards her daddy, and I let her go. She started walking, little by little approaching her daddy one step at a time. Her parents were filled with joy and gratefulness to the Lord for healing their daughter.

# CHAPTER 3

# DIFFERENT TYPES OF FAITH

I once asked a teenager:

"Do you believe in God?" and he answered,

"I only believe in facts," he answered.

"Can you see the waters in the lakes, rivers, oceans, and creeks? Tell me, do you know from where the vast bodies of waters like lakes and oceans come?

He could not answer that question. I continued, saying,

"You can't answer that question because there are no scientific means to answer it. You must accept the fact that the Creator of all things set up a specific place for the waters."

## A. The faith of the believer

Why and how does a believer become a believer? In this life, we all need something, a belief, or someone, a person or a pet, to hold on to because we are social beings. When beliefs are concerned, these can be our own set of ideas stored in our minds, based on our experiences, in what we learn, in what we read or studied, or in any other kinds of things that we want to make up to have a standard to follow. When somebody decides to believe in God, then his or her beliefs will be changed by the revelation of God in his or her life. Some people start believing in God after they have some spiritual experience with God. Sometimes God uses extreme means such as resurrecting people so that the unbeliever may believe. In one way or another, God has provided the way for men to believe in Him.

God has given us a spirit who witnesses to us that there is one God who has revealed Himself to the world in three divine Persons: God as the Father, God as the Son, and God as the Holy Spirit. These three divine persons form only one God. As Christians, we must believe in the concept of the Oneness of God, but also in the Trinity of God (more on the Trinity of God in chapter 5). God commands us to honor and worship the Son as we honor the Father: "that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him" (John 5.23). Only the presence of God can completely satisfy all the desires of our hearts. That is why a person with a humble heart will procure every way to find the truth, that truth that will make his or her heart feel complete without any void left. In John 14.6, Lord Jesus Christ says that He is the Truth. When somebody has an encounter with the Lord Jesus and accepts Him in his or her heart, he or she will have the Person who is the very representation of God the Father --Jesus the Son of God (Colossians 1.15)

## B. The belief of the unbeliever

According to the dictionary, an unbeliever is "one who has no religious faith" (Funk, p.1454). Then, an unbeliever is an atheist. They deny the existence of God, do not believe in the Bible as the Word of God, and are always arguing against the spiritual principles revealed in the Bible.

They have no faith; nevertheless, they believe in something, sometimes in themselves and in what they can do with their intelligence and their strength. However, why can't they believe without seeing? Even scientists must believe and accept things they cannot see or prove.

Faith is an abstract concept. Its meaning sometimes cannot be grasped without having previous experience of the supernatural or of having a desire to believe in a superior entity, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all present to whom the Bible refers as God. The stumbling block that atheists have is that they only believe in things they can see or prove. I would invite atheists to open their minds and start believing in the things they cannot see or cannot prove. How can they explain the existence of the air in their surroundings? Can they see the air? The same happens with the existence of God; nobody can see Him, but anybody can experience Him. If an atheist humbled his or her heart before God, He would manifest Himself unto him or her. His Word says: "For though the Lord is exalted, yet He regards the lowly. But the haughty He knows from afar." (Psalms 138.6).

Atheists do not want to humble their hearts and start believing in the existence of an invisible God who is kind and compassionate to good and bad people. The Bible says that He is so good that "He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5.45). He has loved us with His everlasting love; He loves even the atheists and is waiting for them to repent, to open their hearts, and to receive the Son of God to get salvation for their souls.

## C. Unsound Christian doctrines

##

There are many denominations which call themselves Christians, but they are not real Christian denominations, they are sects, because they hold false doctrines. One of their main characteristics is that they use godliness as a "means to financial gain" (1 Tim. 6.5). Below is a summary of their beliefs and of how they have twisted and altered the Word of God.

The main reason why I must expose the so-called Christian denominations that do not hold a sound doctrine is because God wants us to know how they twist the teaching of Christ, and so, they go deceiving people and causing some Christians to go astray because they are not well rooted in the Word of God. The counsel of the Lord is to stay away from them, except if the Holy Spirit tells him or her to speak to them with the purpose of leading them to Christ Jesus and His Gospel of salvation. One must pray for them so that they, or at least some of them, may repent and quit believing and teaching their false doctrines. Therefore, the Lord tells us in 2 John 9-11: "Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work."

### 1. The Jehovah's Witnesses (The Watchtower Society)

In Revelation 22.18-19, God speaks of the greatest condemnations for those who alter the Word of God.

The organization of the Watchtower Society has brought the curse mentioned in Revelation 22.18-19 on themselves: they have altered the words of God and had not put their faith in the One who reveals the Scriptures, God Himself, through His Holy Spirit. As an example of their altering of the Bible, let us quote John 1:1. In this verse, they have changed the word "God" for "god" (with a small "g") in the last part of this verse where it is referring to Jesus as the Son of God because they do not accept Him as God, but only as "a god". Besides, they do not trust in the guidance of the Spirit of God who reveals us the Scriptures, but they place their trust in their spiritual guides. The Lord Jesus said in John 14.25, 26: "All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

The Lord Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit in John 16.13 saying, "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth." "All these texts denote personality. Notice –The Holy Spirit, he, not it, teaches; brings to mind; guides into truth; speaks; hears; declares future things, glorifies; comforts; bears witness, and comes, as a person comes."  The Holy Spirit of God is the "Spirit of truth" that the Lord Jesus has left with us, because the apostle Paul says that there are men who do not hold a right doctrine and they go deceiving others (2 Timothy 3.13). Our faith must be rooted in the sound doctrine according to the words of Jesus Christ. If somebody does not teach according to the words of Jesus, says the apostle Paul, they have been deceived, understand nothing, and among other things, "they think that godliness is a means to financial gain" (1Timothy 6.3-4). False Jehovah's Witnesses deny the deity of the Lord Jesus, but in Colossians 2.9, the Bible declares that Jesus is God. This is one of the most important teachings regarding the divine nature of the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament. This book is only the Watchtower's altered translation of the Bible, called "The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures." They also teach people to put their trust in the words and teachings of the representatives of the Watchtower Society and in their altered book, which they use as their bible.

Jehovah's Witnesses teaches that the Holy Spirit is only the active force of Jehovah, but He is not God. This teaching is contrary to what the Bible teaches of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 5.3-4, the apostle Peter first tells Ananias that he has lied to the Holy Spirit, and therefore he has lied to God. These verses are telling us that the Holy Spirit is God.

The Bible teaches in Mark 3.29 that anyone who denies the Holy Spirit as God commits the sin of blasphemy, which is the unforgivable sin.

Another wrong teaching of the Word of God that Jehovah's Witnesses has to do with their refusing to permit blood transfusion. In Acts 15.20, the apostle Peter was addressing some of the Pharisees who believed, telling them that they should not make it more difficult for the Gentiles to turn to God. The Apostles were admonishing the Pharisees to abstain from blood, but to abstain from blood does not mean that the person cannot accept blood transfusion when it is necessary to save that person from dying. It is a misinterpretation of the Word of God. What it means is to abstain from shedding blood by murdering a person or eating the blood of animals whether dead or alive. "The primary reason of the prohibition was, that it was thus used in the feasts and compacts of idolaters. That blood was thus drank by the pagans, particularly by the Sabians, in their sacrifices, is fully proved by Spencer, De Leg., p. 377-380 But the prohibition specifies a higher reason, that the life is in the blood, and that therefore it should not be eaten." It has been a custom of different cultures through the centuries, and even in the beginnings of the Christian era, to drink the blood of animals. The apostle Peter was forbidding the brethren of the Early Church to abstain from these two practices, as well as to abstain from murder. The early Church did not practice blood transfusion. The first blood transfusion in humans was done in the year 1818, when "James Blundell performed the first successful blood transfusion of human blood."

#### a. What Jehovah's Witnesses teach about hell?

Jehovah's Witnesses teach their members to deny the existence of Hell. They do not believe in everlasting punishment, but in an utter extinction of the souls. This kind of teaching is far from what Lord Jesus says about hell: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10.28), undoubtedly, there is a hell because Lord Jesus always says the exact words to mean something. The verse in Matthew 10.28 "declares, not the casting in, but the doom which follows, namely, the destruction (not the loss of being, but of well-being) of "both soul and body(Vine's, p.543) "To the passage in Matthew 18 [v.8-9], that in Mark 9:43-47, is parallel; here to the word 'hell' are applied the extended descriptions 'the unquenchable fire' and 'where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.'" (Vine's, p.542). In these verses of Mark 9.43-47, Lord Jesus is not speaking of hell as of a place of total annihilation (complete destruction). On the contrary, he is speaking of hell as the place of "the unquenchable fire" signifying that hell is a place of everlasting punishment, and this is confirmed once more when He says: "where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9.44).

When Lord Jesus mentioned the word "hell," the Greek word that applies is "Gehenna," which translated into Hebrew means: "Geyheenom" (Webster's, p.606).

Hades is the state in which all the dead exist. In the New Testament, a descent to Hades may simply refer to someone's death and disembodied existence. In this sense even Jesus enters Hades. Following David's prophecy in Psalm 16:10, Peter interprets the resurrection as God delivering Jesus from Hades (Acts 2:27; Acts 2:31). Similarly, Jesus prophesies that the Son of Man will be delivered from the heart of the earth, just as God delivered Jonah from Hades (Matt 12:40). In both instances, Hades refers to a disembodied existence ("Hades Definition and Meaning-Bible Dictionary-Bible Study Tools." https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/hades/)

The equivalent word for "grave" in Hebrew is "Keber," which means "Tomb," and in Greek is "Mnemeion" (Vine's, p.1154).

Hades, "in Revelation 6.8 it is personified, with the signification of the temporary destiny of the doom; it is to give up those who are therein [Revelation] 20.13" (Vine's, p.517). Hades is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word "Sheol": Sheol and its Greek translation, Hades, (Hades Definition on Meaning). In Hebrew, the word "Sheol" means "Cave" (Funk & Wagnalls, p.1238)

#### b. Arguing against hell

"The book Let God Be True", published in 1946 and later revised, has been the mainstay of the Witnesses on doctrine. Quoting from page 99 of the 1952 revised edition from the chapter 'Hell, a Place of Rest in Hope":

The doctrine of a burning hell where the wicked are tortured eternally after death cannot be true, mainly for four reasons: (1) It is wholly unscriptural; (2) it is unreasonable; (3) it is contrary to God's love, and (4) it is repugnant to justice" (Drencher, p.37).

#### c. No hell for the wicked

"Just as there is no heaven for the non-144,000 righteous, so there is no hell for the irreformable, or wicked. Quoting Let God Be True again, on page 98:

Who is responsible for this God-defaming doctrine of a hell of torment? The promulgator of it is Satan himself. His purpose in introducing it has been to frighten the people away from studying the Bible and to make them hate God" (Drencher, p .53-54).

#### d. The 144,000 who were sealed.

These consecrated men are Jews that God will set apart for His purpose during the Great Tribulation (Revelation 7.14), and the Bible declares that they are servants of God belonging to the tribes of Israel: "Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel" (Revelation 7.4; Revelation 14.4). Jehovah's Witnesses teach that these 144,000 are the only ones who are going to be resurrected to live in heaven. The privilege to live in heaven is reserved only for these 144,000, who they say are from all nationalities. "Nevertheless, the hope for the vast majority is to resuscitate in the future in a land turned into a paradise" (Translated by the Author from: "¿Qué enseña realmente la Biblia?" [What Does the Bible Really Teach?] p.74)

### 2. Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the name that members of this group of an unsound doctrine have assigned themselves as a congregation. Unfortunately, the members of this church go out as missionaries spreading their gospel, "other than the one" (Galatians 1.8), the apostle had preached to the Galatians and us, even today. They state that Joseph Smith, their main prophet, received the revelation of the Book of Mormon from the angel Moroni, but the Lord Jesus said that after John the Baptist there would be no more prophets to come and teach new doctrines regarding the main teachings of God: "For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John" (Matthew 11.13). The apostle Paul, speaking to the Corinthians says: "so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, 'Do not go beyond what is written'" (1 Corinthians 4.6). Paul was saying that we should not prophesy falsely, but some so-called prophets do precisely that, behaving haughtily; they believe they are unmistakable, believe that God always speaks through whatever they say, and their words must be received and obeyed with the same authority as if God Himself had spoken through them. Can somebody imagine the kind of confusion we would fall in regarding all the different teachings of these false prophets?

#### a. Authenticity of the book of Mormon

"He Joseph Smith] came up with 531 pages of material that copied extensively from both the Old and New Testaments, with a narrative that is historically implausible in the extreme, and that does not pass reasonable tests of being prophetic in nature" ([https://www.religiousresearcher.org/2014/07/09/so-you-think-the-book-of-mormon-is-authentic/). The book of Mormon is an excellent work of plagiarism.

#### b. Mormonism and polygamy

In the early 1830's, Smith extended this view of the role of men to include polygamy as it was practiced by Old Testament prophets like Abraham. Smith taught that a righteous man could help numerous women and children go to heaven by being "sealed" in plural marriage. Large families multiplied a man's glory in the afterlife. This teaching was established as doctrine in 1843.

#### c. Mormons do not believe in the Trinity

"Mormons believe that, God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three distinct personages. They are separate beings united in the purpose of bringing all of God's children back to His presence, but They are not one singular being. Together They comprise the Godhead" (https://www.mormon.org/blog/do-mormons-believe-in-the-trinity). Mormons forget on purpose the passage in the Scriptures when the apostle Peter told Ananias and his wife that they have lied to the Holy Spirit and later he said that they have not lied to men but to God (Acts 5.3-4). This is a confirmation of the perfect unity of the Divine nature of the Holy Spirit with God. Another verse that speaks of the perfect unity of the three divine Persons in one Godhead is John 14.8-10:

Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10 Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

Verse 9 tells us of the unity of Jesus and the Father when He says: "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" Lord Jesus did not say: "Anyone who has seen me is as if he had seen the Father." Lord Jesus is saying that He and the Father are one in nature, not in purpose only. Of course, the Trinity is united in purpose because each one of them works together with the other two Divine Persons in everything, they are not divided. For example, regarding to salvation of men, the One who first spoke about it was the Lord Jehovah in Isaiah 43.11: "I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior." Is Lord Jehovah excluding Lord Jesus from the salvation plan of God? Not at all. The apostle Peter in Acts 4.11-12 is speaking about Jesus and in verse 12 he says: Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." The Holy Spirt also works in the process of salvation of our souls because He is the One who stays with us to work out the holiness (sanctification) that God wants us to have. The Lord says: "Be holy for I am holy" (1Peter 1.16). The Holy Spirit works out the sanctification in us through the Word of God and giving us conviction of sin, justice, and judgement (John 16.8).

We have, and we know, the perfect pattern of comparison: The Bible. We have the Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible and guides us to all knowledge and all truth as the Lord Jesus says: "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth" (John 16.13). Knowing the Bible, and having the Holy Spirit in us, we can tell who is right and who is wrong. If they teach beyond what is in the Bible, or if anyone comes to us with other kinds of teachings different from the sound teachings of the Word of God, consider them as false teachers, false prophets, and people who do not hold a right doctrine.

Lord Jesus Christ knew that this false religion would appear in the future. Mormons put their faith in whatever the "Elders" of their church teach, and they put aside the advice of the Lord in John 5: 39: "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me." In other words, the verse in John 5:39 implies that by searching the Scriptures and with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will come to know the truth, that is Jesus and His gospel of love.

### 3. The Seventh Day Adventist

This denomination is one of the most difficult to denounce as a church with a false doctrine because they do hold many orthodox Christian doctrines. Following there is a brief commentary on one of their central teachings —the doctrine of the Sabbath.

#### a) The doctrine of the Sabbath

The Seventh-Day Adventists put emphasis on "The Sabbath" as the day of the week that must have a special mention and in which all Christians should worship God. They say that God sanctified the seventh day of the week and that God rested on this day from all the work of creation and so they recognize the Sabbath as "God's rest." Truly, God sanctified the seventh day of the week, but the Sabbath was given to Israel under the old covenant, under the Law of Moses. Under the New Covenant, the one ratified by the blood of the Son of God, there is a call to worship God and be holy every day of the week, not only on the seventh day. Besides that, the Bible uses outlines of speech such as metaphors, similes, parables, allegories, and others. One of these figures of speech is called a type "A type is a prophetic symbol designated by God. The word type comes from the Greek word tupos. A tupo was a mark formed by a blow or an impression, creating a figure or an image on the object that was struck. Therefore, a type prefigures something or someone to come. That which is being prefigured is called antitype."

A type is an assertion about a person or event talked about in the Old Testament that comes to pass in the New Covenant, in the New Testament and the fulfilling of the type is called anti-type.

The Sabbath, according to the New Testament, was a type of God's rest that would come in the New Testament times under the grace of God, or in other words, under the New Covenant. After Jesus went back into heavens, the revelation of the antitypes happens in the New Testament. The central teaching in Hebrews 4.1-11 is that the Lord Jesus Christ is God's rest for his people. Therefore, Jesus is God's rest for all born-again Christians under the New Covenant. To explain this assertion, let us study this passage from Hebrews. Verse 1 says: "Therefore since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it." Also, Verse 3 says, "Now we who have believed entered that rest," God is talking about having believed in his Son, Jesus Christ, who is God's rest, and He talks about the importance of entering that rest, Jesus, when you believe. To go from one day to another, for example, from Friday to Saturday, nobody needs a specific requirement as to believe. That is why in these verses God speaks of His rest not meaning a day, the Sabbath, but meaning a Person: His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the rest that we must enter or the rest that some will miss entering, as Hebrews 4.3 states: "So I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest". When people have not believed in Jesus like the rest of God, they are missing a significant revelation which helps us to live our lives quietly and peacefully.

### 4. Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.

In English speaking countries, they know this church by the name of Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, and in the Spanish speaking countries it is known as Hispanic United Pentecostal Church. They call themselves Pentecostals, but they are not a true Pentecostal church because they do not know or recognize the Holy Spirit as God and they do not know who the Son of God is.

Denial of the Trinity of God characterizes this false Christian church. They argue that there are not three divine Persons in one God, but that Jesus is the only God. Even though they accept Jesus as God, they do not know Him, and they do not recognize Him as the Son of God. In John 20.17 Jesus is speaking as the resurrected Son of God and says that God the Father is His Father and His God. They do not believe in mentioning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit when they baptize their followers, but only mention the name of Jesus. However, the Lord Jesus did mention the three of them when He says in Matthew 28.19, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Unfortunately, they deny the Deity of the Holy Spirit which is the unforgivable sin.

### 5. False prophets, teachers, Christs, and brothers

Nowadays, there are many so-called Christians who say they have their faith in Jesus Christ, and they also pretend to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ; but, on the contrary, they are preachers of their gospels. They go around the world misleading people and abusing the grace of God for personal profit. Among them, we have those who preach the gospel of prosperity. They teach their followers that God wants all his children to become financially prosperous. There is nothing wrong when it is God who prospers somebody, but he or she has his mind focused in the things of God and when in his or her heart God is the most important Person and He is above everything else in their lives. Nevertheless, there are some Christians who have their minds focused only in making money and God is not the most important Person and He is not above everything else in their hearts.

There are also those who preach the "stop suffering gospel." These false prophets teach their adepts that God wants us to stop suffering in this life, that nobody must be sick, or suffering any affliction; besides, they sell different kinds of objects making people believe that these are going to bring healing for their ailments. Since sin stepped into this world, each one of us is vulnerable to get sick, but we also have the power of prayer to fight diseases back and not die before God's appointed time for us to go. In the meantime, we are in this world and we will be suffering in one way or another, for example we might suffer persecution, discrimination, diseases, rejections and many other kinds of attacks from Satan, but with Jesus we have the victory.

Also, some men call themselves the Christ and they make their follower believe that they are Jesus Christ, the Son of God. These are false prophets, teachers, Christs, and consequently false brothers who mock of the grace of God. Even though they are preaching in His name, they are also doing evil things and using the message of the Gospel for their profit.

Matthew 7.21-23: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and, in your name perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"

I would like to explain these verses quickly. The fact that the Lord will not recognize all those who are working out miracles, prophesying in his name, and casting out demons, is based on another fact, that they are evildoers. How can we explain this apparent contradiction, that somebody does all these things and calling Him "Lord, Lord," but at the end when the time of judgment comes, He finds them as hypocrites, and recognize them not? What are their wrongdoings? They are not seeking the presence of the Lord to do God's work for the glory of God, but for their glory. They are not praying with humility but with arrogance, only asking for their own benefit and not for the benefit of others. They are not crying out before the Lord for the salvation of souls; they are not praying to bring more people into the church to teach them in the ways of the Lord, but to take advantage of them. They only want to increase their wealth in their bank accounts, because they are pastors who work for a wage, and do not care for their congregations. The Lord Jesus spoke of them in John 10.12: "The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So, when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it."

Of course, there are faithful servants of God, men, and women, who are paying a high price for the sake of the name of Jesus, and for His Gospel. Some of them are even putting their lives on the line for their faith in Jesus. The Lord says to them: "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!" (Matthew 25.21). There are also men and women of God whom He uses to work miracles (1 Corinthians 12.7-11), and to cast out demons (Mark 16.17). He uses them as well to prophesy to the people of God for their strengthening, encouragement, and comfort (1 Corinthians 14.3),

The prophet Daniel spoke of those who go around the world supposedly preaching the Gospel and who like to be called servants of God, Apostles, Anointed ones, Reverends, or Ministers of the Most-High God, but they are true evildoers. The Bible says in Daniel 12:2 that on Judgment Day "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt."

### 6. New Age Movement

This group of unbelievers sees God as impersonal vital energy and they believe that all things are god and God is in all things. They believe in astrology, reincarnation, spiritism, and deny the Lord Jesus as the Son of God as well as His divinity. They have no faith at all in the God of the born-again Christians.

### 7. G-12 Neo-Pentecostal Movement

The G-12 movement is known as the "Group of 12," and its members promote the church growth by establishing Home Cell Discipleship Groups. The main thing that is wrong with these home cells is that as soon as a group reaches 12 people, they must start a new group of 12 without considering the spiritual growth of its members and the maturity in the knowledge of the Word of God. They organize spiritual camping or retirements for which they must pay to participate. They pray for possessed people to set them free and use regressive techniques like the ones used in psychology in which they take people back to a point in their past, where they might have suffered certain trauma. This regressive technique should be used only for trained professionals in Psycho-analytic therapy to bring the person back to their present life. Otherwise, they can do more harm than good. The Lord Jesus disapproves the fact of taking people back to past periods of their lives and make them remember former things. The Lord says: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past" (Isaiah 43.18).

Lord Jesus does not need to use regressive methods to bring deliverance to people, because there is power in the Word of God to set people free.

### 8. Spiritual Procrastination

Churches of false doctrines are increasing in number and in their membership due to spiritual laziness of some born-again Christians. "Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known" (Habakkuk 3.2).

Nowadays, there are in the churches form by born-again Christians, some brothers who are taking too long to start obeying God's will. Some of them stay in their comfort zones, carrying an invisible sign that reads: "Do not disturb"; this shows their wrong behavior and attitude. Due to this disobedience, the churches of unsound doctrine such as the ones mentioned in the sub-sections above, have experienced an increment in their membership. These brethren who like procrastinating the will of God need some help from God; they should start praying and fasting to get rid of all those things that are hindering them from doing the will of the Father in Heaven. Lord Jesus says that doing the will of Godְ is the "food" that keeps Him going: "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work" (John 4.34).

I do not want to become obnoxious to anybody, my dear brother and sister in Jesus, but I cannot diminish my desire to encourage everybody to seek the Lord's countenance day and night, and the earlier, the better. The following word of the prophet Isaiah should be like the daily bread in our spiritual lives: to seek for the Lord's countenance at night and in the morning. The Prophet says: "My soul yearns for you in the night, in the morning my spirit longs for you" (Isaiah 26.9).

## Introduction to testimony of chapter 3

Testimony 3 tells about the Jehovah's Witnesses trap to keep an increasing membership. They deceive their followers by telling them that they can drink with moderation. God does not have any society with the world or with Satan. Drinking alcoholic beverages is a practice that belong to the secular world and God is against it. "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find its" (Matthew 7.13-14).

## Testimony 4: Jehovah's Witnesses deceives their followers

One day in summer, a friend of mine invited me over his house for supper. When they were serving, he came to ask me what I wanted to drink, he had four choices: juice, pops, wine, and beers. I thank him, but I only had two choices, whether juice or pop, I chose some juice because as born-again Christians we are called to restrain from drinking alcoholic beverages. At the dinner, there were other guests, and I wondered how I could dare to speak to any of them about the Lord with the smell to liquor in my breath.

After telling you about this anecdote above, I want to make a commentary about holiness in the Christian life. The word "holy" means "separation to God," "set apart to God," and the will of God for us is to be Holy as He is Holy (1 Peter 1:16), for "it is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality" (1 Thessalonians 4.3), "for God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life" (1 Thessalonians 4.7).

Once, I ran into an acquaintance who he is a Jehovah Witness. We started talking about the doctrines of the Jehovah Witness, and as we were talking, he let me know that he drank beer. That surprised me because I thought they were people devoted to the Lord Jehovah who is God and is Holy. He told me that Jehovah's witness allowed them to drink liquor (as the people who does not know God does in the world), beers, or wine but with moderation. His answer made me think about what would happen to an alcoholic who wanted to change his lifestyle if he or she ran into a member of the Jehovah's Witness. Maybe that person will become a religious member of the Jehovah's witness, a follower of their wrong doctrines, but he would continue as an alcoholic, there would not be any change in his or her life. What would happen to this alcoholic person if he or she runs into a so-called born-again Christian who drinks alcoholic beverages? Let us guess I am that so-called Cristian (God forbids it). Do you think he or she will believe in my words when I try to tell him or her about the salvation plan that God has for them through Jesus Christ? No, they will not believe in my words because they know that drinking is not good for the brain and health in general, and it is not from God either. All things that people without the knowledge of the Lord do such as partying with secular music or alcoholic beverages, following the world's fashions, orgies, smoking cigarettes or doing drugs, and other wicked things they do that I cannot even mention, all these things belong to the world and not to God and their practice turn them into enemies of God. The Lord says that in James 4.4: "You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 6.9-10).

I feel compassion for the members of the Jehovah's Witness because they think they will inherit the kingdom of God, but they are deceiving themselves. Even if they drink beers, wine, or any other kind of alcoholic beverage with moderation, that does not make any difference to God because God says that "a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough" (Galatians 5.9). This verse means that for God there is no such "moderation" in drinking, for Him it is the same if you have only a sip of liquor or a pint of it. The Lord says that we do nothing good to a brother or sister that wants to quit drinking if they see us drinking because we are serving as a stumbling block to them who are weak: "Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. for if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? So, the weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge" (1 Corinthians 8.9-11). A person who drinks just occasionally (Social drinker), or a drunkard who drinks every day, but both have a weak conscience. When he or she sees me drinking a small cup of wine or a beer, he might ask if it is wrong to drink a little wine or beer. If I say no, then he or she will drink a little cup of wine or a beer, but his or her conscience is weak, that means he or she will keep on drinking because he or she likes it, so you will take him or her back to his or her former lifestyle.

It is not easy to be a born-again Christian, but with the help of the Spirit of God, it is possible to overcome temptations. A born-again Christian is subject to friend's discrimination, rejection, and mockery because he or she does not do as they do, but that is the cost they must pay for being followers of Jesus Christ. Giving up the desires of the flesh is not easy, but we must choose whether to please God or to please ourselves. The Lord calls us to a separation from the world when he says: "For everything in the world –the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever" (1 John 2.16-17).

# CHAPTER 4.

# THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

I used to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and for this reason, I would like to help Roman Catholic people to know the truth of Jesus Christ and get saved from an everlasting condemnation in hell. I love Roman Catholic people with all my heart, but I have to write this chapter to let them know of the way of the Lord so they can be saved.

## A. How can anyone become a true Christian

When someone is born as a Roman Catholic, he or she believes that he or she is a Christian from birth. Also, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that when babies are baptized, they become members of the Catholic Church, the only true church. Yes, it is true they become members of the Roman Catholic Church, but they are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ, the one He founded when he walked upon this earth. According to the Scriptures, baptism of babies does not turn them into a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. The same applies to children born to evangelical families, they must repent from their sins and then accept Jesus in their hearts. Until then, they can belong to the Church of Jesus Christ. A Catholic who has accepted Jesus Christ in his or her heart as his or her personal Lord and Savior of their souls become a child of God and a born-again Christian, which is what God wants us to be. Lord Jesus says: "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (John 3.3)

Roman Catholics believe they are Christians of birth after they receive baptism as babies, but the Bible teaches that only those who repent and believe in Jesus and the Gospel become born-again Christians.

## B. Children of God by creation or children of God by adoption in the Holy Spirit

Every human being is a child of God by creation, and everyone comes into this world carrying the lousy nature pass onto us by Adam and Eve. This sin and all the other sins we will commit while we grow up must be forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. This cleansing happens when someone proceeds to repentance and ask Jesus into his or her heart as personal Savior of his or her souls. Only then, this person becomes a real child of God by adoption in the Holy Spirit of God. "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." (John 1.12).

If a Roman Catholic truly loves God, he or she will ask the Lord Jesus into their heart; and in doing so, they will obtain the threefold gift of God: forgiveness for their sins, salvation for their souls, and everlasting life with Jesus Christ. This threefold gift cannot be obtained through the Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. In order to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and to understand the Scriptures, one needs to invite the Lord Jesus into his or her heart, believing in him as their personal Lord and Savior of their souls, by a short prayer such as this: "God, I recognize myself as a sinner before you, and I want You to forgive me from all my sins. I invite your Son Jesus to come into my heart as my Lord and the Savior of my soul. God, fill me up with the presence of your Holy Spirit so I can understand the Bible and learn how to live according to your will. Thank You Father for washing my sins away by the power of the blood of Jesus, in Jesus name I pray, amen."

Until anyone accepts Jesus, the Son of God, as his or her personal Lord and Savior of his or her soul by making a prayer like the one above, then, he or she becomes a born-again Christian according to the will of God.

The ordinary Catholic does not mind too much about the doctrines of this church. They live their lives and attend the church as a custom, but without letting God work in their hearts and minds to bring about real changes in their lives for the better. Some of them do not even go to church regularly.

## C. Who are the "Saints" in the Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church teaches people to believe in the "saints" who are in heaven making intercession for them. God calls saints all persons that have come to Him with a repentant heart and have asked Him for their sin's forgiveness by accepting Jesus in their hearts as their personal Lord and Savior of their soul. As well, the Word of God calls "saints" those who lived godly lives away from idolatry under the Law during the Old Testament times. In Psalms 16.3 we read: "As for the saints who are in the land..." In this verse, God does not speak of the dead now, he is speaking of people who are still alive and have asked for forgiveness for their sins, and so they have washed their sins with the blood of Jesus as 1 John 1. 7 declares it: "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son, purifies us from all sin."

The Roman Catholic Church also teaches people to believe that the ones they call "saints", who are in heaven, are interceding for them. On the contrary, the Bible teaches us that there is only one and unique mediator (intercessor) between God and men, and this is the Son of God Jesus Christ as the Word of God confirms in 1 Timothy 2.5: "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."

## D. What is idolatry?

The Oxford Dictionary defines Idolatry as this: "The worship of idols" [or] "[the] extreme admiration, love, or reverence for something or someone." Also, an Idol is: "An image or representation of a god used as an object of worship. [Also, as] A person or thing that is greatly admired, loved, or revered."

Catholics have a great devotion and reverence for the virgin "Mary" and the "saints" that their church has canonized`. The word idolatry does not mean only to worship idols but also to have an extreme admiration, love or reverence for someone, and Catholic have all those feelings for the Virgin Mary and the "saint." When a devote catholic gets in the church, he or she comes before a statue and wet their fingers in a bowl of "holy water" (which is only regular water) and next, makes the "sign of the cross" on their faces, knelt before the statues and start praying to them. God forbids men to pray to statues because these are only pieces of carved wood or pieces of sculpture, "who have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes but they cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but they cannot smell; they have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but they cannot walk; nor can they utter a sound with their throats" (Psalm 115.5-7).

Catholics put their faith in things that they can see. That is why they make pictures, or statues of the "Virgin Mary", the apostles, or any other man or woman that they have decided to worship by decree of the highest representative of this church -The Pope. God does call these practices idolatry, and He abhors those who make them and those who revere or pray to them. Why? First, because God commands us not to make an image of a man or a woman to worship them, to pray to them, or to make them our intercessors before God."

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Altars are made to worshiping the Virgin Mary on December 7th in Nicaragua

## E. Who is the Virgin Mary

As believers in God and His written Word –the Bible- we must love and respect the Virgin Mary, in the same way, we must love and respect each other now. Virgin Mary is the mother of the Son of God not the "mother of God" because her relationship with Jesus is in the flesh. Besides, no man begot God, and no woman carried Him in her womb. Even though in Jesus there were two perfect natures defined, He is true God and true Man, but the relation of the Virgin Mary to him was only in the flesh as the mother of the Son of God. When Jesus was born from the Virgin Mary, He was born as the Man Jesus, as the Son of God. Jesus existed with the Father before the creation of the world and before Mary was born. We must love and respect the Virgin Mary and we can call her "blessed" because she was the pure person that God chose to bring His only Son into this world, but we cannot revere her, sing hymns to her, or use her as an intercessor between God and men. We cannot make any representation of the Virgin Mary neither whether in the form of a statue or a picture. God says in Deuteronomy 4.15-16 that [we should not make for ourselves] "an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman." Anyone who does it sins before God.

Most Catholics know that the Virgin Mary is called the "Queen of Heaven," but in heaven, there is not such a Queen in heavens, only one King: Lord Jesus Christ. He is "King of kings, Lord of lords." When the Bible describes the preparation of the Lord Jesus Christ in His coming back to Earth from heaven to fight in the war of Armageddon, it calls Jesus King of kings and Lord of lords as stated in Revelation 19.16: "On his robe and His thigh, he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS."

God is not pleased with those persons who call the Virgin Mary the "Queen of Heaven" as we can read and find out in the book of Jeremiah 7.16-19:

So, do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger. But am I the one they are provoking? declares the Lord. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?

In Verse 18, the Lord mentions the children, the fathers, and the women, to say that everybody is doing their part to provoke him to anger, and at the end of this verse God says that they are offering cakes of bread to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to other gods to provoke him to anger. In other words, God is ranking the

#### a. Did the virgin Mary stay virgin forever?

I have been using the term "Virgin Mary" to stress the original physical state of purity that the mother of Jesus had when God chose her to become the mother of His only Son Jesus, but did Mary stay always a virgin? The Bible says: "But he [Joseph] had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus" (Matthew 1.25). And the New Testament Greek-Spanish says: "[But he did not have any conjugal relationship with her until she gave birth to a son. And he named him Jesus.] (translation of the Author-).

Besides, the Bible says that Jesus had four brothers and at least two sisters: "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things? And they took offense at him" (Matthew 13.55-57). As you can see and read, Jesus had brothers and sisters. They were not cousins as the Roman Catholic Church teaches to her followers. Unfortunately, in the same way the Jews took offense at Jesus, nowadays, Roman Catholic people take offense when they hear or read the verses above quoted because they are taught to deny the Word of God.

Queen of Heaven, the Virgin Mary, in the same category of "other gods." There is no Queen in heaven, but only one King: God Himself.

## F. Was Mary ascended into Heavens?

There is not any hint in the Bible about the ascension of the Virgin Mary into Heavens. Jesus was the only One who ascended into Heavens (Acts 1.9-11). The ascension of Mary into Heavens is a story made up by the Roman Catholic Church to assign to Mary the same Divinity of God. Mary carried in her flesh from birth the stain of the original sin. For this reason, she proceeded to recognize herself as a sinner when she said: "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior" (Luke 1.46-47). Mary was humble enough as to recognize that she needed a Savior for her soul, and she accepted God as her Savior. Are you going to do the same? Are you going to accept Jesus as your Lord and your only Savior?

Born-again Christians believe that we are going to be taken into heavens when our Lord Jesus comes back to gather together with His sons and daughters who are going to be snatch away to meet with the Lord in the clouds, which is known as the first resurrection of the believers as it is declared in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18. This belief does not give place to accept the ascension of the Virgin Mary as something that happened to her because if this event would be true, the Lord would have left it written in the Bible. If God left written record in the Bible of the taking away of Enoch (Genesis 5. 22-24) because he "walked with God," this means that he did as God commanded, and if God left written record of the snatching away of Elijah when he went up to heaven (2 Kings 2.11-12), do not you think that if the ascension of Mary to heavens were true, God should have left a written record in the Bible about such an awesome event happening to the mother of the Son of God? But because it is not true, it did not happen, then there is not even one verse in the whole Bible that states this event taking place neither as a prophesy in the Old Testament nor as an outstanding happening in the New Testament in the same way that is written the taken up of our Lord Jesus Christ in Acts 1.9-11.

## G. The Traditions in the Roman Catholic Church: Did Mary stay virgin forever?

The dictionary Funk & Wagnalls defines tradition as "the knowledge, doctrines, customs, practices, etc., transmitted from generation to generation." Catholics have been receiving their traditions from their parents or their forefathers. All these idolatrous practices in the Roman Catholic Church have been handed down from generation to generation as traditions, but they are not Scriptural, which means that they are not found in the Bible. For example, the processions are a long walk taken with a statue usually representing the Lord Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or any of the saints that they venerate and worship.

God considers the traditions of men as a futile, or empty way of life. Many of these customs and practices in the Roman Catholic Church have to do with idolatry, for example, the veneration of many different virgins with different names.

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## H. Who is the "Rock" upon which the Church of God is established?

The Lord Jesus did not leave us, as his church, hanging on a thin and weak thread tied to Him, standing in a swamp, or on shifting sands. On the contrary, He established his church on a solid Rock, Jesus Christ Himself. When Jesus asked his disciples "...Who do you say I am? (Matthew 16:15), "Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16) To this confession, not to Peter, the Lord Jesus called _this rock_ , as we can read in Matthew 16:18, "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on _this rock,_ I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." Why cannot Peter be "this rock"? Because the Bible is clear to specify who is the foundation on which the Church of God is built: "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11). Because the Lord Jesus Christ the Almighty God (because He and his Father are one and of the same divine nature –John 10.30), is the foundation of the Church, because of this, the gates of Hades would not overcome the Church of God. God calls Himself the "Rock" in Isaiah 44.8, "Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one." And in 1 Corinthians 10: 4: "and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ." Can you imagine if Peter would have been "this rock"? The Church of God would not have lasted even one year because a few days later Peter was denying his Master and Lord three times.

The Greek word used for the name "Peter" in Matthew 16: 18 is Petros and the Greek word used for "rock" in the nominal phrase "this rock" is petra. "PETRA denotes a mass of rock, as distinct from petros, a detached stone or boulder, or a stone that might be thrown or easily moved."  The nominal phrase, this rock, in Matthew 16:18, stands "metaphorically, of Christ and the testimony concerning him; here the distinction between petra concerning the Lord Himself, and _Petros_ , the Apostle, is clear."  Therefore, I conclude that the Roman Catholic Church is not the true church of God, as they argue, and if they want to practice Papal succession, it only applies to them as an organization, but this has nothing to do with Peter the apostle as the first leader of the Roman Catholic Church because Peter did not practice idolatry as Catholics do, and besides, Peter is not the Rock upon which the true Church of God was built –Jesus is the Rock

When somebody who is Catholic, truly wants to seek for God and when they truly have a heart for God, they will start reading the Bible; and God, out of his immeasurable mercy, will lead him or her unto salvation. God will open the eyes of their hearts to see the truth of God. God will give them a contrite and repentant heart to ask for forgiveness of their sins.

The Roman Catholic Church says that she is the only true Church for the handing down of Peter's leadership to their bishops, called Popes. This is a mistaken affirmation because Peter never practiced idolatry. They also say that Peter was the first Pope and that Jesus handed him over the keys of the Kingdom of Heavens. The keys of the Kingdom of Heavens are prayer and the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ because it is by intercession and preaching that men are saved and thus, they can enter in the Kingdom of Heavens. The keys of the Kingdom of Heavens were given to Peter and to the whole Church of Jesus Christ. The Lord spoke the same words first to Peter and then to the whole Church of God, not to the Roman Catholic Church, and these words are first in Matthew 16.19 when Jesus addressed them to Peter and then in Matthew 18.18 when Jesus addressed the whole Church of God when He says: "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loose in heaven." The same authority and power to bind and loose was given to Peter and to the whole Church of God, even today.

## I. Comparative Analysis of the 7 Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church

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### 1. The Sacrament of Baptism

According to the Scriptures, Baptism means to be submerged in a body of water as to cover somebody's whole body. One of the definitions of the Oxford dictionary is as this: "The Christian religious rite of sprinkling water on to a person's forehead or of immersing them in water, symbolizing purification or regeneration and admission to the Christian Church. In many denominations, baptism is performed on young children and is accompanied by name-giving." In the New Testament time, when Jesus was ministering the Word of God to all people, He gave the ordinance of being baptized with the sole purpose of witnessing unto the world that a person had already believed in the Son of God and trusted Him as his or her personal Lord and Savior of their lives. Jesus set up the initial condition of believing in Him as the first requirement to be able to receive baptism. Jesus said, "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 16.16).

Is baptism administered unto babies valid before God's eyes? The first meaning of baptism is a personal public testimony of having believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, can a baby believe in Jesus when he or she is still a baby or a toddler? Of course not. Babies hardly start experiencing what is life all about, and they cannot make a personal decision for Jesus. Besides, there is not even a clue in the Bible of babies getting baptism or of their parents or god-parents making a personal decision in their children's place. Therefore, the baptism of babies is not valid in God's eyes.

The Lord Jesus Christ taught through the apostle Paul in the letter to the Roman, chapter 6, verses 3- 4 what is the true meaning of baptism and these verses state that when a person's body is immersed in water, symbolically he or she is being buried together with Christ Jesus having died, symbolically, to the body of sin. When the person comes out of the water, symbolically, he or she resurrects into a new way of life in Jesus Christ. We can read Romans 6.3-4: "Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."

To be baptized is first, an act of obedience to the Word of God expressed by Jesus in Mark 16.16. Secondly, it is a means through which, symbolically, we become one with Jesus in His death and His resurrection, and thirdly, it is a testimony unto the world that we are not ashamed of being born-again Christians. Jesus says that "unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3.3) and He also said, "I tell you the truth unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again" (John 3.5-7). Then, it is the will of God that we become born-again Christians.

Let us see now, what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about baptism:

Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit (vitae spiritualis ianua), and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word.

Next, I will analyze sentence by sentence of the above paragraph, and I will compare it with the sound teachings of the Word of God.

"Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life," This is a wrong concept, and I will explain why: The Bible teaches that the basis of the Christian life is, first, to know who Jesus Christ is -He says: I am the way, the Truth, and the life" (John 14.6). Second, to know the Scriptures to realize about the will of God for our lives, and remain in it, to avoid errors, and to know Jesus more deeply. Jesus says: "You study[a] the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me and says: "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God."

God wants us to come to know the truth, and Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14.6).

"This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2.3-4).

It is necessary to obey God and receive baptism after passing a few sessions to understand why somebody gets baptized, what is the biblical way to be baptized and why, and to learn other few things related to the faith in Jesus. if a person has just believed in Jesus as the Son of God and has received Him as his or her Lord and Savior of their lives and after doing this, he or she dies suddenly without having received baptism, is that person going to be condemned because he or she did not have the opportunity to get baptism or because he or she did not have the "basis of the whole Christian life"? Of course not. In Mark 16.16, God says that the most important thing to start somebody's life as a true Christian is to believe in Jesus Christ. On the day of the crucifixion of Jesus, there were to thieves condemned to crucifixion also, one of them did not believe in Jesus as the Lord and Savior of his soul, but the other one did believe. This last thief did not receive baptism because he was hanging on his cross, but he was saved from everlasting condemnation because Jesus promised him that on that same day, he would be in paradise with Him.

In Luke 23.42-43 we read: "Then he said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' Jesus answered him, 'Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.'"

If a person is dying in a hospital bed and has never believed in Jesus, but if in the last moments of his or her life he or she accepts the Lord as his or her Lord and Savior, then they will be saved, even if they did not have the opportunity to receive baptism due to their conditions.

Catholics say that Baptism is: "The gateway to life in the Spirit." Baptism is not the gateway to life in the Spirit. To live a true life in the Spirit of God, we must be born again of the Spirit. Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3.3).

How can we be born again? Jesus spoke about entering the Kingdom of God, which means to be saved and live forever and ever in the presence of God in His Kingdom. Jesus says, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit" (John 3.5).

What does it mean to be born of water? At the beginning of the verse in James 1.18, the Word of God teaches us what helps us to have the new birth in the Spirit or in other words, to be born again. This verse says that it is the Word of God which is the "Word of truth" the one that can help us to experience the new birth in the Spirit. James 1:18 says: "He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of all he created."

The "water" is used symbolically for the "Word of God" as it is clearly expressed in Ephesians 5.26: ": "to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word," where God is speaking about the cleansing and washing of the people of God through the Word of God to purify His people.

"Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God." What freed us from sin is to come to God with a repentant heart, asking for His forgiveness and then accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Baptism does not free us from sin, neither make us to be reborn as sons of God. The Word of God says that it is the Word of God the one that bring about the new birth, and so we can be reborn as sons of God, but previously we must believe in Jesus and receiving Him as Lord and Savior, then we become children of God. John 1.12: "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God."

The Catechism says that through baptism "we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission." Being members of Christ is to be incorporated in the Church of God. A person becomes a member of Christ, or a member of the Church of God, not when he or she gets baptism, but when he or she believes in Jesus and accept Him in his or her heart, receiving Him as his or her Lord and Savior. Since this moment, the person forms part of the Church of God, not to the Roman Catholic Church, but to the true Church of God from whom Jesus is the Head according to with Colossians 1.18: "And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy."

The Catholic Church also says this about baptism: "This sacrament is also called 'the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit,' for it signifies and brings about the birth of water and the Spirit without which no one "can enter the kingdom of God"

The verses quoted are: Titus 3.5 and John 3.5

Titus 3.5: "he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit"

"The washing of regeneration." This phrase means that there is a process of regeneration in our minds and hearts, and regeneration is a long process worked by the Holy Spirit through our Christian lives. Regeneration is a spiritual process that is caused by the Word and depends on the obedience we give to the Word. When a person receives baptism, he or she is not regenerated yet.

Titus 3.5: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost"

The thing that "brings about the birth of water" is not baptism but the Word of God. And the thing that brings about the birth of the Spirit is not baptism but the regeneration of our mind by the power of the Word of God and the working of the Spirit in our lives which helps us to obey this Word by faith. Therefore, the three things that help us to bring about the birth in the Spirit of God are our faith in the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and the blood of Jesus. 1 John 5.7-8: "For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement." The blood of Jesus is the first one which enter in operation to produce the rebirth in the Spirit because as soon as we confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior our sins are cleansed and we become forgiven from them all by the power of the blood of Jesus as it is stated in 1 John 1.7: "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." Secondly, the water is referring to the written Word of God, which washes our mind and hearts as soon as we take it in, and thirdly, the Spirit of God because He is who helps us to understand and live the Word of God by faith.

### 2. The Sacrament of Confirmation

The Funk & Wagnalls Canadian College Dictionary defines the word confirmation like this: "A religious rite in which a person is strengthened in his baptismal faith and admitted to all the privileges of a church."

In the "Catechism of the Catholic Church," it is stated that: "From that time on the apostles, in fulfillment of Christ's will, imparted to the newly baptized by the laying on of hands the gift of the Spirit that completes the grace of Baptism."

There are several misinterpretations to be considered in the paragraph above. First, in Matthew 3.11 the Word of God teaches that it is Jesus who baptizes his followers with the Holy Spirit that He had promised to send: "I am going to send you what my Father has promised but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24.49). Lord Jesus can baptize anyone who has repented and believed in Him without the intervention of any men as He did when He poured down His Holy Spirit, the gift of God, the first time on the day of Pentecost. The sacrament of confirmation is a practice that has no biblical basis, though the Roman Catholic Church misinterpret the Word of God to justify it. God sees you as a member of His Church (of the Church of God not of the Roman Catholic Church) from the very moment you believe in Jesus, repent from your sins, and accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior of your soul.

Regarding the "laying on of hands" to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, or to receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit, this must be accompanied by earnest prayer, and must be administered by a person who is converted to Jesus, i.e., a born-again Christian, somebody who has accepted Jesus as his or her personal Lord and Savior. Priests from the Roman Catholic Church need to turn to Jesus by accepting the Lord in their heart, and by obeying the true Christian faith. This Christian faith is according to the Scriptures, but it is not the same to the teachings of the Catholic faith, which are according to dogmas, rules, traditions, and rituals made up by the Roman Catholic Church. At the end of Act 6.7 says: "...and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith." Nowadays, many priests from the Roman Catholic Church have obeyed the faith and quitted the Roman Catholic Church. In the sacrament of Confirmation, the priests believe that they are administering the Holy Spirit when they make the sign of the cross in the person's forehead with a little bit of oil, but it is a wrong belief because a person who is not a born-again Christian, as it is the case of the priests in the Roman Catholic Church, cannot administer the Holy Spirit. Moreover, you have never seen a priest during the sacrament of confirmation laying his hands on the person receiving this sacrament and earnestly praying to God to bestow the gift of the Holy Spirit to that person. Also, no candidate to the sacrament of Confirmation has ever spoken in other tongues, as it happened to all the disciples upon whom the Holy Spirit had come down and received the gift of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Speaking in other tongues, or angelical tongues is a regular sign of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon a person nowadays as it was in the early Church of God.

In conclusion, it is not by the sacrament of Confirmation that a person receives the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, there is room here to make the following question: Why do candidates to Confirmation do not speak in tongues when they receive the Sacrament of Confirmation? First, because the priests in the Roman Catholic Church are filled with anything else but not with the Holy Spirit as the apostles, and the disciples in the early Church used to be. Nobody can pass on what he or she does not have. Second, because the apostles and disciples were genuinely converted to the faith in Christ Jesus and were followers of Jesus and His teachings, but the priest of the Roman Catholic Church are not truly converted to the faith in Jesus and are followers of the Pope and his false teachings. The Holy Spirit will not fill a person who is practicing idolatry, following traditions, and teaching men made rules and dogmas as teachings of God. Jesus says to these priests: "Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition" (Matthew 15.6), and He also says to the whole Roman Catholic Church: "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men" (Matthew 15.8-9).

According to the sound doctrines of the Bible, a person does not receive the Holy Spirit for the first time when he or she receives baptism, neither the person receives the gift of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation. The Bible teaches that any person who believes in Jesus as his or her Lord and Savior receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul asked some disciples: "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" (Acts 19.2). He did not ask: "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you were baptized?" Or, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when they lay on hands on you?" When anyone believes in Jesus, repents from his or her sins, and ask Jesus into their hearts, then the Holy Spirit, the Son of God and God the Father come and dwell in them, as Jesus promised when He says: "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (John 14.23).

### 3. The Sacrament of the Eucharist

In the Roman Catholic Church, they believe in the transubstantiation of the bread and the wine that they give when celebrating the sacrament of the Eucharist. The Merriam-Webster dictionary online defines the word Transubstantiation as: "The miraculous change by which according to Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox dogma the eucharistic elements at their consecration become the body and blood of Christ while keeping only the appearances of bread and wine."

The Roman Catholic Church always uses objects to represent holy things, and this is not pleasant to God. For example, the wooden carved image of a man (or in any other material such as clay, iron, stone) that is on the crucifix, they say it represents Jesus Christ. Honestly, this image on the crucifix is not Jesus Christ because nobody knows what His face looked like, neither what the color of His eyes is, or the shape of His nose. God forbids us to make any similarity or image, and He says this: "To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One" (Isaiah 40.25).

There are some literary figures call Figures of Speech. One of them is called Metaphor. The definition of the word is: "a figure of speech in which a word or phrase denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them" ( Dictionary by Merriam-Webster: America's most-trusted online dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/)

The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church says: "At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood."

Catholics say that at the invocation of the Holy Spirit the bread and wine become Christ's Body and Blood. The idea of invocation of the Holy Spirit has no biblical basis. Jesus never instructed His disciples to do that, so the bread and wine turn into His body and blood. When Jesus says, "I am the gate" (John 10.9), it does not mean that He is a physical gate made from wood or iron. He is speaking metaphorically using a known object to teach spiritual things. When Jesus takes the bread in the Last Supper, He says, "This is my body given for you" (Luke 22.19), but He did not mean that He was holding Himself in His hands at that very moment, but He meant that the bread represented His body.

Similarly, when Jesus says, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22.20), He did not mean that the cup of wine was really a cup full of letter made out of blood (a covenant is usually a written agreement), and in the case that this pact is a spoken pact or covenant, like the one made by God with mankind in Genesis 9.9-12 after the floodgates of heavens were opened, or the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17.10-14). There is always a condition of obedience to God that men must fulfill to be part of those covenants and to remain in them. In the same way, the New Covenant ratified by the blood of Jesus also has a condition to enter in it. God already made His part under this New Covenant, which is having sent His only Son to die in our place, now God is waiting for each one of us to fulfill our part in the New Covenant, which is living by faith in Jesus and in obedience to God's spoken and written Word. The only way to enter in this New Covenant is by believing in Jesus as the Son of God and accepting Him in our hearts as our personal Lord and Savior of our souls.

The Roman Catholic Church calls Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist, the "Sacraments of Christian Initiation." The sacraments of Christian initiation lay the foundations of every Christian life. The sharing in the divine nature given to men through the grace of Christ bears a certain likeness to the origin, development, and nourishing of natural life. The faithful are born anew by Baptism, strengthened by the sacrament of Confirmation, and receive in the Eucharist the food of eternal life. By these sacraments of Christian initiation, they thus receive in increasing measure the treasures of the divine life and advance toward the perfection of charity.'

It is not by practicing these three sacraments of Initiation that a person will have a solid foundation for his or her Christian life, but by knowing Jesus and His Word; this is accomplished through prayer and meditating on the Word of God. The paragraph above says that by the Sacraments of Initiation of the faithful [that he or she] "advance[s] toward the perfection of charity." It is not to the perfection of charity (love) that we must advance, but to the perfection of holiness. The Lord says through the apostle Peter: "But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy" (1 Peter 1.15-16). It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality" (1 Thessalonians 4.3).

### 4. The Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation

Under the subtitle of The Many Forms of Penance in Christian life, Catholics try to appease personal guiltiness for their sins. They say that "The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which expresses conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others." Among the many prayers and litanies that Catholics offer to purge their sins are those offered to the Virgin Mary and to the saints. These prayers are in vain because neither the Virgin Mary nor the saints can take somebody's prayers to the presence of God. The words that the Virgin Mary spoke in the wedding at Cana in Galilee were not an intercession as if she was mediating between Jesus and men. There is not even one verse in the Bible that supports her role as mediator between God and men. The biblical method to show that someone is sorrow for his or her sins is this: "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective" (James 5.16). This healing mentioned in James 5.16 is not only physical healing but also heart's healing. A person who does something evil to another person is sick from his or her heart. His or her heart is full of evil things as Jesus says that: "For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander" (Matthew 15.19).

Telling another person that we have wrong her or him and asking for his or her forgiveness is the greatest act of penance, even if we are not guilty, we must look for the person that has a grudge against us and apologize or ask for forgiveness. If the person rejects our apologies, we are free of guiltiness, because we obeyed God's counsel when He says: "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5.23-24). If we come first to God but never forgive or reconcile with the person who offended us, we are doing nothing to get forgiveness for our sins; it does not matter for how many days we may fast or how many prayers we offer for forgiveness.

#### a. Should we confess our sins before a Priest?

The Bible teaches that "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1.9). The confession of our sins must be direct to God, to Jesus, without the mediation of any priest, but that of Jesus. This confession must be with God and with our fellow man or fellow woman.

The Bible teaches that Jesus is our High Priest before God that He is making intercession for us and we can approach Him with confidence and without any mediator:

"Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (Hebrews 4.14-16).

Jesus never instructed about almsgiving as a means of showing repentance or to having somebody's sins forgiven, or as an act of penance. This belief has its origin with John (or Johann) Tetzel (1465-1519), who collected money (by selling indulgences) to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Johann Tetzel a Dominican friar preached on indulgences, making people believe that their relatives were suffering in the Purgatory (A place of punishment that the Roman Catholic Church made up. The Purgatory does not exist) and induced them to pay for their relatives'sins so that they stop suffering in the Purgatory. They also could buy indulgences to get forgiveness for their present and future sins. "John Tetzel claimed that no repentance was necessary on the part of the buyer in order to obtain the benefit of the indulgence. This seemed ludicrous to Martin Luther" (John Tetzel: Salesman of Indulgences-Christian History for Everyman. https://www.christian-history.org/john-tetzel.html.)

"His experiences as a preacher of indulgences, especially between 1503 and 1510, led to his appointment as general commissioner by Albert, archbishop of Mainz, who, deeply in debt to pay for a large accumulation of benefices, had to contribute a considerable sum toward the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome" (Johann Tetzel-Dominican friar-Britannica.com." <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johann-Tetzel>).

#### b. Why is it that priests are not allowed by God to absolve sinners?

First, Jesus never said that to absolve people's sins would be an exclusive right of the priests. The apostle John says that the unique Advocator we must forgive our sins is the Lord Jesus, his counsel says: "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. However, if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One" (1 John 2.1). Second, the words that Jesus spoke to the disciples in John 20.23 were not only for the disciples He had at that time but to all His disciples from all centuries to come. Jesus says to each one of His followers: "If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven" (John 20.23). The power to forgive or to retain sins is given to all Jesus' followers. Moreover, nobody can guarantee that the absolved person will forgive in his or her heart the person who sinned against him or her.

A priest can have the absolute power to absolve sins only in his organization: the Roman Catholic Church, but not in the true Church of God. In the Church of God, which is formed by those who have believed in Jesus as the Son of God, repented from their sins, and invited Jesus into their hearts as their Lord and Savior of their souls, in this Church, every born-again Christian has the power to forgive or to retain sins. For this reason, as born-again Christians, we have the authorization from God to forgive our sins one to another.

### 5. The Anointing of the Sick

The Catholic Church teaches that "only priest (bishops and presbyters) are ministers of the Anointing of the Sick. It is the duty of pastors to instruct the faithful on the benefits of this sacrament, the faithful should encourage the sick to call for a priest to receive this sacrament."

The practice of praying for the sick to get them well was not limited to the elders of the church, because Ananias was only a disciple, and he was sent by the Lord to lay hands on Saul of Tarsus so that he would recover his sight: " The Lord told him, 'Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight'" (Acts 9.11-12) Of course, according to James 5.14, if a presbyter or bishop is available, he can lead the prayer for the sick, but in cases when no priest or elder is available the Lord allows anyone in the church to pray over his or her fellow brother or sister, even over a non-believer. It is so, because sometimes a person who has not believe in the Lord might be healed by the prayer of a believer and then the sick might start believing due to the healing miracle. The Lord Jesus says that the permission to pray for the sick is for those who have believed in His name, and "...they will lay their hands upon sick people, and they will get well" (Mark 16.17-18).

The authority to pray over the sick and make them well can be a gift of the Holy Spirit given to any believer in Jesus: "Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12.7-9).

The problem that the Roman Catholic Church has is that She wants to turn everything into a rite, but Jesus did not instruct His disciples to do that. On the contrary, Jesus was spontaneous, and He was not setting up a rite every time He had to heal somebody. He healed the man with a shriveled hand: "Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." So, he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other" (Matthew 12.13) and take heed of it: Jesus healed this man in the synagogue, and He did not anoint the sick man with oil. When the oil is available, any born-again Christian can use it to anoint and pray for the sick. The oil is just a symbol of the Holy Spirit, so, if the oil is not available, the sick can still heal merely by the power of prayer in the name of Jesus. The heavenly oil, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, rest upon the believer and his or her faith in the power of prayer will work miracles.

Under the title The Effects of the Celebration of this Sacrament, the Catechism says that:

"Only priests (presbyters and bishops) can give the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, using oil blessed by the bishop, or if necessary, by the celebrating presbyter himself" (Catechism, Second Part, Second Section, Chapter 1, Article 5, IV, Clause 1530).

The Catechism say that the oil used to anoint the sick must be blessed by the bishop or presbyter celebrating the sacrament. This blessing of the oil has no biblical support because it the the prayer of the believer the one that causes the blessing of God upon the sick and not the oil blessed by the Bishop or Presbyter. The use of the oil is only an act of obedience to the Word of God. If oil is not available, but there is a believer who has faith and a life of prayer, then, God will answer his or her prayer even when they had not used any oil to anoint the sick.

### 6. The Sacrament of Holy Orders

This sacrament must do with the calling to serve God in the Catholic Church under the rules, ordinances, and dogmas. Article 1579 of the Catechism entitled Who Can Receive This Sacrament states that:

All the ordained ministers of the Latin Church, with the exception of permanent deacons, are normally chosen from among men of faith who live a celibate life and who intend to remain celibate "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." Called to consecrate themselves with undivided heart to the Lord and to "the affairs of the Lord," they give themselves entirely to God and to men. Celibacy is a sign of this new life to the service of which the Church's minister is consecrated; accepted with a joyous heart celibacy radiantly proclaims the Reign of God.

The Roman Catholic Church has Celibacy as her main requirement of ordination to become one of her ministers. God allows any man who wants to serve God, but has not received the gift of continence, to get married, Anyone who feels the calling of God to serve Him can be married and set an example to society of a Christian family. Among the requirements that the Lord has placed over the ones who desire to serve Him with an office in the church is the condition of being "the husband of but one wife" (1 Timothy 3.2).

Peter was an apostle of the Lord, and the Bible testifies that he had a mother-in-law: "When Jesus came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever" (Matthew 8.14). Peter was married, and he has been one of the greatest ministers of God. The Roman Catholic Church should be more open and allow those men who want to serve God to be married when they have not received the gift of continence.

### 7. The Sacrament of Matrimony

Under the subtitle Conjugal fidelity of the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, the clause 1649 states:

There are some situations in which living together becomes practically impossible for a variety of reasons. In such cases, the Church permits the physical separation of the couple and their living apart. The spouses do not cease to be husband and wife before God and so are not free to contract a new union. In this challenging situation, the best solution would be, if possible, reconciliation. The Christian community is called to help these persons live out their situation in a Christian manner and in fidelity to their marriage bond which remains indissoluble.

The paragraph above expresses that marriage is indissoluble. However, in the next paragraphs (following the quotation of Clause 1650) I will explain the biblical exception, (given by the Lord Jesus) to the command: "Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate" (Matthew 19.6).

The Clause 1650 of the Catechism says:

Today there are numerous Catholics in many countries who have recourse to civil divorce and contract new civil unions. In fidelity to the words of Jesus Christ – 'Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery' The Church maintains that a new union cannot be recognized as valid, if the first marriage was. If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God's law. Consequently, they cannot receive Eucharistic communion if this situation persists. For the same reason, they cannot exercise certain ecclesial responsibilities. Reconciliation through the sacrament of Penance can be granted only to those who have repented for having violated the sign of the covenant and of fidelity to Christ, and who are committed to living in complete continence.

In Clause 1650, The Roman Catholic Church quotes Mark 10.11-12: "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. Moreover, if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery." The Roman Catholic Church does not accept divorce as an option to solve marriage's difficulties even in serious extreme cases, it does not matter if they are related to adultery or fornication. Then, cunningly the Roman Catholic Church ignores the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 19.9: "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." The Lord Jesus disagrees with the Roman Catholic Church because He does accept divorce in the specific case of sexual immorality (marital unfaithfulness), i.e., adultery or fornication. Next, I will quote the commentary by Rev. Donald C. Stamps on Matthew 19.9:

God's will for marriage is one mate, one marriage for life (Matthew 19.5-6; Genesis 2.24) to this Jesus gives an exception, namely, 'marital unfaithfulness.' Marital unfaithfulness (Gk. porneia) includes adultery or any kind of sexual immorality. Therefore, divorce is to be permitted when sexual immorality is involved. The following are important Biblical facts concerning divorce. (1) When Jesus criticizes divorce in vv.7-8, he is not criticizing a separation because of adultery, but a divorce permitted in the OT in those cases where a husband discovered premarital unchastity after the marriage ceremony had taken place (Deuteronomy 24.1-4). God's desire in such cases was that the two remain together. However, he permitted divorce due to premarital unchastity because of the hardness of the people's heart. (2) In the case of immorality after marriage, the OT law prescribed the dissolving of the marriage by executing both the offending parties (Leviticus 20.10; Deuteronomy 22.22). This, of course, would leave the innocent person free to remarry (Romans 7.2;1 Corinthians 7.39). (3) Under the new covenant, the privileges of the believer are no less. Although divorce is a tragedy, marital unfaithfulness is such a gross sin against one's mate that Christ states that the innocent party has a proper right to end the marriage by a divorce. He or she is free to remarry another believer (1 Corinthians 7.27-28). (4) Paul's treatment of marriage and desertion in 1 Corinthians 7.12-16 indicates that a marriage also may be dissolved by the desertion of an unbelieving spouse. He further indicates that marriage by the believer in such cases is not sin" (1 Corinthians 7.15).

In her Article, The Effects of the Sacrament of Matrimony the Catholic Church makes any of the spouses a slave to the wedding vows, which is contrary to God's will under marriage. They state the following in the Clause 1640:

Thus, the marriage bond has been established by God himself in such a way that a marriage concluded and consummated between baptized persons can never be dissolved. This bond, which results from the free human act of the spouses and their consummation of the marriage, is a reality, henceforth irrevocable, and gives rise to a covenant guaranteed by God's fidelity. the Church does not have the power to contravene this disposition of divine wisdom.

The Word of God teaches in 1 Corinthians 7.15: "But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace."

Rev. Donald C. Stamps in his commentary to 1 Corinthians 7.15 says:

In the even that an unbelieving partner abandons or divorces a believer, the marriage relation is dissolved, and the believer is freed from his or her marital obligation. 'Not bound in such circumstances' means that the believer is released from the marital contract. The word 'bound' (Gk _douloo_ ) literally means 'to enslave'; the faithful believer is no longer enslaved to his or her marriage vows. In this case, the abandoned believer is free to remarry, provided he or she marries a Christian.

## In the case of adultery, the spouse can forgive his or her mate, but it is not convenient to begin regular marital relationships without the guidance of the Holy Spirit, because only God knows if the other mate will straight up his or her wrong way. If he or she does not quit adultery, the other spouse runs the risk of getting infected with any venereal disease.

## J. Interpreting the Scriptures without the help of the Holy Spirit only leads to misinterpret them

In the Clause 1629 of the Catechism, it says: "For this reason (or for other reasons that render the marriage null and void) the Church, after an examination of the situation by the competent ecclesiastical tribunal, can declare the nullity of a marriage, i.e., that the marriage never existed.130 In this case the contracting parties are free to marry, provided the natural obligations of a previous union are discharged."

Under the subtitle Matrimonial Consent in Clause 1629 it says: "For this reason (or for other reasons that render the marriage null and void)..." At the beginning of this Clause, when it says "For this reason," it is referring to lack of consent in one of the two spouses involved in a marriage; and in the second part, the one between brackets, "for other reasons that render the marriage null and void", it is referring to the different reasons for the person to be incapable of contracting marriage and in such cases they will consider the matrimony as null or void. These "other reasons"" are found in the Code of Canon Law in the Clauses 1095-1107. Nowhere in these Clauses is adultery or fornication considered as reasons to dissolve the marriage validity. The Roman Catholic Church do not accept divorce of the mates in any situation, opposing the words of the Lord Jesus when He said: "except for fornication." They speak of the indissolubility of the marriage in their Clause 1650: "The Church maintains that a new union cannot be recognized as valid, if the first marriage was." However, what happens if he or she in the "valid marriage" committed adultery? The Roman Catholic Church in the Catechism does not speak about that. They simply ignore it, so ignoring the words of Jesus. Jesus spoke about infidelity in marriage leaving a way out for the affected spouse: Divorce. In this way, there is the innocent spouse who deserves his or her freedom and the guilty spouse who probably will not change his bad habits and will continue as an adulterer the rest of his or her life.

Clause 1085 of the Code of Canon Law at its paragraph 2 says: Even though the previous marriage is invalid or for any reason dissolved, it is not thereby lawful to contract another marriage before the nullity or the dissolution of the previous one has been established lawfully and with certainty."

Paragraph 2 of Clause 1085 does not speak explicitly about fornication or adultery. It seems as if the Roman Catholic Church does not want to mention these terms. Does Clause 1085 consider the case of adultery a reason to render a matrimony invalid? If the answer is affirmative, then both spouses are free to remarry, but in this case, the Roman Catholic Church is giving license to commit adultery to the spouse who is guilty of committing adultery and the provoker of the legal separation.

## Introduction to testimonies of chapter 4

The next testimony is about the conversion of my mother-in-law. She lived for 73 years as a Catholic, practicing the things that they consider would help them to enter Heaven, but Lord Jesus said that we must be born again of the Spirit of God to enter Heaven. After she accepted Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior of her soul, she began living according to God's will. Testimony 5 make emphasis on the spoken words of God. It speaks of how God can take the minds and the spirits of devoted brothers and sisters and put His words in their mouths. In this way, God can give us guidance on somethings that are not specifically spoken of in the written Word of God. For example, He can tell us how to proceed regarding to our jobs, or He can speak His counsel to us regarding any difficult situation we may going through in our lives.

Testimony 6 tells briefly about my conversion to Christ and of the difference that makes having received Jesus as one's Lord and Savior.

## Testimony 5: The conversion of my mother (Testimony of my wife)

It was wartime in my country, Nicaragua. I was getting together with three other sisters to pray and intercede for the Church of God in general in a praying cell called Maranatha. I worked in a hospital, and I was tired of seeing so many wounded people. I started asking the Lord for an opportunity to go abroad to have a break from so much violence. I applied for a scholarship in Mexico to continue further studies in the health field. The time went by and after two years the application for the scholarship had not been answered yet. One day, after almost two hours of intercessory prayer, the Holy Spirit spoke through the mouth of one of the senior sisters that were attending the praying group. He told me, "Martha would you like to stay in the country, or would you like to go abroad?" Then, surprised, I told Him, "Lord, if it is You who is speaking, I will not answer to my sister. I will answer in my mind, and You will speak to me through her mouth." Then I spoke to the Lord in my mind, and I told Him, "Lord, You know that for a long time I have been waiting for an answer concerning the scholarship I applied for." The Lord said, "Whether you decide to stay here or to go abroad, I will bless you all the same." The Lord said, "You are hesitating about going or staying because of your mom, are you not?" I continued speaking to the Lord in my mind, and I said, "Lord, You know that I am the last one who still remains with my mother and if I leave, who is going to look after her?" Then, the Lord spoke once more through the mouth of the prophetess and told me, "If you are hesitating because of your mom, I will take care of her when you are abroad, and in about one year from now, I will deal with her and with your younger brother."

The next week, I received the surprise that my scholarship to study in Mexico for two and a half years had been accepted. I was in Mexico and about a year later I received a letter from my older sister in which she told me that my mom had accepted the Lord in her heart. I was filled with joy and gladness for the goodness of the Lord.

I could see the beginning of the process of the regeneration of my mom. She was a very religious Catholic person. She used to make vows to the statues and fulfill them by walking on her knees on the ground for long distances. She used to worship the idols of the Roman Catholic Church, i.e., the statues. When she dragged herself on her knees to worship the statues, her knees were blooded, and her knees' skin came off.

After a few years, I went to visit my mom for the first time since I had left for Mexico. I learned from my older sister how my mom and my youngest brother came to know the Lord. My sister used to invite them to come over to the church, but neither of them ever accepted the invitation. My mom was such a strong believer in the dogmas of the Catholic Church that I would never had imagined her attending a service in an evangelical church. One day, after my sister had invited them several times, they accepted the invitation to come to the Christian Evangelical Church. The preacher made the altar call to anyone who wanted to accept the Lord Jesus into their heart. My brother was sitting in a pew in the far back when he suddenly went deaf. The preacher in the front started signaling to him to come forward. At that moment, my brother could not hear anything, but he heard the voice of the Lord telling him, "Come forward because I want to save you." When my brother realized he was deaf, and that the only voice he could hear was the voice of the Lord, then he knew the Word of God was true, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as well. After this, my brother went forward and accepted Jesus in his heart. Two weeks after he had accepted, he quit smoking, drinking, and straightened up his relationship before the Lord by marrying with the lady that was his girlfriend at that time. When my mom saw all the changes that her son had gone through in those two weeks, she said, "I am going to accept Jesus into my heart because if God has done all those changes in my son's life in only two weeks, then the miracles written in the Bible happened; and besides that, I have heard about the changes that have happened in somebody's life when they have accepted the Lord." My mom went to the church with him with the intention in her heart of accepting the Lord on that day.

After my mom was converted, she did away with all the Catholic statues she had. Now, she has had a change in her heart and in her mind. She was reading the Bible and attending the prayer groups; but the dearest memory I had of her is that she had become a witness for Jesus in her community, on the buses, and everywhere. She had several friends in her neighborhood and she tried to reach them for Jesus.

I was filled with joy when I saw the work of the Lord in my mom. He had developed faith in her, the gift of serving others and supporting the senior sisters of her local church. Glory to God! He is faithful in his promises! He had said through his maidservant a word of prophecy and it came to pass because my mom turned her life to Him. Since then, after twenty years of faithful service to her Lord and Savior, my mom has gone home to be with the Lord and my brother is still serving the Lord.

## Testimony 6: The belief of the unbeliever vs. the faith of a believer

Several years ago, when I was not a born-again Christian yet, I thought that I had tremendous faith. I grew up as a Catholic, so, my knowledge about faith was related to believing in things like the Rosary, statues, which they had told me they represented the saints in heaven. I also believed in the crucifix, and in making promises to the saints, and all the other things the priests taught me. At that time, I did not know that God prohibited many of the things I was practicing. I took part in the processions, where some men carried a statue of a man on their shoulders, which they had told me was Jesus Christ, but indeed it was not. When I was a member of the Catholic church, I used to worship the statue in the form of a man that is on the crucifix, because I believed this was indeed a representation of God, but the Lord Jesus Christ is a living God, and He wants us to invite Him to live in our hearts. I used to pray before the crucifix as if I was praying to God, but the Lord says that "gods made by human hands are no gods at all" (Acts 19.26). I asked things from the other statues of the saints as if I was asking them from God because I believed that they were listening to my petitions and that they were making intercession for me before God. These statues are called saints by the Roman Catholic Church, but the Lord speaks of them as idols made by men's hands, "They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them" (Psalms 115.4-8).

Now, as a born-again Christian my faith is placed in God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ who is God, and in the Holy Spirit who is God Himself (Acts 5.3-4; John 4.24). I am a believer in the power of God to heal, to protect, to provide, to restore, and to save from everlasting condemnation. I can witness God's greatness, the mercies of God towards us all, and that God still speaks directly to men with an audible voice. I have faith in the blood of Jesus, which has the power to cleanse me of my sins and save my soul from eternal condemnation.

# CHAPTER 5

# THE TRINITY OF GOD

## A. Revelation of God in the Old Testament

### 1. Manifestation of God in the Creation

At the beginning of the creation of the world, God is mentioned in Genesis 1.2 in the form of the Spirit of God who was moving over the waters. The apostle Paul tells the Romans that God has manifested to men through creation: For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities –his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse" (Romans 1.20).

### 2. The name of God, which speak of His triple divine nature in one God

God has revealed Himself to men as the Godhead: Three divine persons who make up one unique God and this is known as the Trinity of God. From the very beginning, God showed Himself as the triune (three-in-one) God. God in His Divine nature can co-exist in two ways: as one Person, which is known as the Oneness of God and in three Persons, which is known as God Triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in unity.

### 3. God as One

In the Old Testament, God manifested Himself to men as one Spiritual Being and as one Person, who was in His essence invisible, but He used to manifest in the form of a "Theophany." This Theophany in the Bible is called "The angel of the Lord" who appeared on different occasions to transmit a message to a specific man or woman. Every time men realized that they had been in the presence of the angel of the Lord, they counted themselves as dead due to the word that the Lord had spoken to Moses: "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live" (Exodus 33.20). This is confirmed in the Scriptures several times, for instance, when the Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon: When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, "Alas, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face! But the LORD said to him, "Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die (Judges 6.22-23). Other passage occurred when the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush: "There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up... Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. Then he said, 'I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.' At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God" (Exodus 3.2, 5-6).

At the beginning of Genesis 1.26, God speaks in the singular as One: "Then God said,... "And in Isaiah 6.8: "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send?" Here, God also speaks in the singular.

### 4. God as Three.

Continuing with the verse in Genesis 1.26 now God speaks in the plural: "...Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. The Hebrew word for "God" used in this verse is "Elohim" a plural word meaning "gods". This means that God the Father is speaking with God the Son (Jesus), and with the communion of God the Holy Spirit. In Isaiah 6.8 the Lord end up saying: "And who will go for us?" God is speaking in the plural once more.

#### a. God in Deuteronomy 6.4

Some sects like the Seven-Day Adventist, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, and some other monotheist religions do not believe in the Trinity of God (the unity of three Divine Persons in one Godhead). They only believe in God as one basing their arguments on the verse in Deuteronomy 6: 4 that says: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one." This verse does not mean that God is represented only by one Divine entity. On the contrary, it does mean that three divine Persons: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are in a perfect unity. The word Trinity does not mean that there are three Gods or three separated divine personages but means that the three Persons that makes the Trinity are in a perfect unity in nature and in purpose because God is one.

## B. Revelation of God in the New Testament

### 1. Revelation of the Trinity of God in the New Testament

The Trinity of God is explicitly revealed when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan: "As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him, I am well pleased'" (Matthew 3.16-17). Following is a commentary of Rev. Donald C. Stamps on the Trinity of God:

THE TRINITY IN EXAMPLE. The baptism of Jesus is a striking manifestation of the fact of the Trinity. (1) Jesus Christ, declared to be equal with god (John 10.30), is baptized in the Jordan. (2) The Holy Spirit, who is also equal with the father (Acts 5.3-4), descends on Jesus like a dove. (3) The Father declares that he is well pleased with Jesus. Thus, we have three equal divine persons; it is contrary to the whole of Scripture to explain this event in any other manner. The Trinitarian understanding of God teaches that these three divine persons exist in such unity that they are one God.

Sometimes the benediction of the apostle Paul was mentioning the Trinity of God, for example in 2 Corinthians 13.14 when he says: "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."

### 2. The role of God the Father

#### a. Creator

As the Father, God is the Creator of the heavens and the Earth. He is also the Creator of all things visible and invisible. He created everything by the power of His word. As the Creator, God made all creatures according to their kinds. He made a tiger like a tiger and a cat like a cat. There is not such thing as the evolution of the species. From the beginning, God made man like a man, and apes like apes. Many centuries have passed, and nobody has ever seen an orangutan undergoing evolution to become a man. God made man according to His image and His likeness.

As the Creator, God made the heavens and the earth. Watch carefully that in Genesis 1.1 it says, "the earth". When God created the universe, He also created the earth as the only planet with all the conditions so that man could live in it. Scientist spend a great deal of money every year in outer space programs searching out the universe trying to find another planet like the earth to go and live in it, but unfortunately, they will not find any because the earth is the only planet with all the conditions for men to survive.

#### b. Provider

God The Father provides men with all necessary things to live on the Earth. The most important provision that God did for mankind is giving His only Son, Jesus, to redeem men from their sins.

#### c. Raised Jesus from the dead

In fulfillment of the prophecy spoken by David the psalmist. He did not leave Jesus in the grave, so his body would not see decay, and He resurrected Him on the third day after He died: "because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay."

#### d. Protector of Israel

Israel has always occupied a special place in God's heart, not because He wanted to consider her higher than other nations, but because He wanted her to glorify His name and set an example of worship and obedience to the Lord. The Lord was please in choosing Israel to glorify His name among the nations of the Earth, and He does it by protecting her from her enemies. However, any nation, which voluntarily chooses the Lord to glorify and worship His name, can enjoy the same blessings from the Lord.

"For this is what the LORD Almighty says: "After the Glorious One has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye" (Zachariah 2.8).

#### e. The Father gives testimony of His Son

####

"And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life" (1 John 5:11-12).

#### f. Draw sinners to Jesus

####

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day" (John 6.44).

#### g. Promised the outpouring of the Holy Spirit

"And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions" (Joel 2.28).

### 3. The Role of God the Son: Jesus Christ

###

#### a. Gives peace without comparison

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14.27).

#### b. He is the image of the invisible God

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. (Colossians 1:15).

#### c. Baptizes with the Holy Spirit

####

I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire" (Matthew 3.11).

#### d. Judge of mankind

####

"He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead" (Acts 10.42).

#### e. Intercessor and Mediator between God and men

Jesus has the role of intercessor and mediator between God and men, "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1Timothy 2:5).

#### f. Giver of the Ministry Gifts to His Church

####

"And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers" (Ephesians 4:11).

#### g. Savior of Mankind

The blessed hope of all believers is the appearance of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who will take us to live with Him for an eternity:

"While we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ" (Titus 2.13).

### 4. The Role of the Holy Spirit

#### a. The Holy Spirit convinces the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment

####

About the Spirit, Jesus said: "But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and the coming judgment" (John 16.7-8).

#### b. Reveals the Truth and future events

The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, will also reveal the truth and the coming future: "he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come" (John 16.13). He will reveal Jesus to you more and more because Jesus is the Truth: "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14.6).

#### c. Holds back the appearance of the man of lawlessness: the Anti-Christ

The Holy Spirit is the one who is left with us until Jesus comes back to take His Church away into heavens. The Holy Spirit is now holding back the appearance of the anti-Christ, the man of lawlessness: "And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie" (2 Thessalonians 2.8-9).

#### d. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one

Jesus says that the Father and Him are one (John 10.30) and in 2 Corinthians 3.17 the Bible teaches that the Lord is the Spirit, therefore, wherever Jesus is, the presence of the Father and the Holy Spirit are present also.

#### e. Giver of the Spiritual Gifts of God for His people

####

The gifts of the Spirit are given to the Church of God for her strengthening, encouragement, and comfort, and they are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12.8-10, and says the Lord that the same Spirit gives His gifts away even today: All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines (1 Corinthians 12.11).

#### f. Helps us in prayer

####

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans" (Romans 8.26).

In conclusion, the proof of the presence of the three Divine Persons in one God cannot be more evident as it is shown in the verses above, but the Holy Spirit need to be living in a person so that he or she can receive the testimony of God about Himself, His Son, and His Holy Spirit, and understand the unity of the three of them.

## Introduction to testimony of chapter 5

The Spirit is the Lord (2 Corinthians 3.17) and He tells us what we must do when we are proceeding unproperly. Testimony 7 tells of my experience in which the Spirit of the Lord spoke to my heart and changed my plans because I was about to get in troubles.

## Testimony 7: The Spirit of the Lord told me, "You must pay."

I was living in Canada, and I had a job, but I was laid off. I was receiving my check from employment insurance, but at that time I was very naive and misinformed. I did not know that while I was receiving employment insurance, I could not leave the country. If I wanted to go abroad, I had to let them know and wait for their permission. An evangelistic crusade and Christian concert had been organized in Costa Rica, and I wanted to go; but I was short seven hundred American dollars. I prayed to the Lord and told Him: "Lord if it is your will for me to go, provide the rest of the money I need." The Lord put it in my heart to call up a brother in the faith who could probably lend me the money. I contacted him, and he told me: "Yes, Nicolas, I can give you that money and do not worry about paying me back right away, because I do not need the money. Pay it back when you can." I thanked him and got ready to go to Costa Rica; but I did not notice anything about my trip to the employment officers. They continued to send me the check bi-weekly. When I came back from Costa Rica, I found the checks in my mailbox. I cashed them and started using them. Two years later I received a letter from the Employment Insurance office, I had to pay them back $1,200 (CAN). At that time, I had just $900 in my savings. I said: "I am not paying back anything because I did not know. At that time, I was renting a room in a sister's house, and I asked her if she could lend me the money, and she answered positively. I put the money in a government envelope, and I mailed it. Afterward, I got on my knees to pray, and I told the Lord: "Lord please, vindicate my name, You know that I did not act with malice. I did not know I had to tell them I was going abroad. Please Lord, vindicate me and restore my money." When I sent the money to them, I also sent a letter explaining, and I asked them to forgive me. About two months later, I received an envelope from the Employment Insurance office in which they had forgiven me and sent me a check for $1,200. I was so happy, and I thanked the Lord for his divine intervention. The message of this testimony is that it is better to obey the Lord, which is the part related to our faith than to do things according to our own decisions. The Lord helps those who fear Him, and He sends His angel to defend them (Psalm 34.7).

# CHAPTER 6

# WHEN OUR FAITH STARTS FAILING US

## A. Why does our faith start failing us?

When things start getting difficult in our lives, we try to solve them the quickest and the easiest way, but in the Christian spiritual realm, things do not always work like that, but in God's way. His ways are higher than our ways, as God declares in Isaiah 55.9: "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." By using His guidance, His wisdom, His patience, His timing, and His example of obedience, we can avoid a failure of our faith, and we will stay spiritually strong. Following are a few things that we are missing to avoid getting weak in our faith.

## 1. Lack of spending time with the Lord Jesus in prayer

##

It is difficult to focus in prayer because as soon as we decide to start praying many things distract us. For example, we receive a telephone call, we feel hungry, we feel like sleeping, or we start getting lazy, and some other things can happen which will interrupt the time for praying. For this reason, it is important to get ready to avoid interruptions by cancelling all appointments, or phone calls, drink some water early, eat at least one hour before starting to pray (if you decide to pray at dawn, do not eat before praying), do ten minutes of exercise to relax your muscles and to be alert.

As a baby needs to stay close to his or her mother and be nurtured with breast's milk to grow healthy, the same happens to us as Christians. At the time of our spiritual birth, we are considered to be spiritual babies and we also need to drink the spiritual milk provided by our heavenly Father, as the Lord says in 1 Peter 2.2-3: "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good." The spiritual milk is equivalent to the basic foundations of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, such as, what is the meaning of baptism? How are we born again? Who is the Son of God? Why was Jesus crucified? What is the trinity of God? What is the meaning of and the difference between the baptism in water and the baptism in the Holy Spirit? Even though these are basic and important teachings, God expects us to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the purpose of His first coming and His second coming (Philippians 1.9), in our faith (2 Corinthians 2.15), in love one to another (1 Thessalonians 3.12), in the knowledge of God's will (Colossians 1.9), and in the knowledge of those passages from the Scripture that are a bit difficult to understand. Nevertheless, all these kinds of growth are dependant on our maturity level in our Christian lives. In other words, how much are we growing in the knowledge of Jesus and his teachings? For all that, the Lord wants us to spend more quality time searching his Word and in prayer to avoid the weakening of our faith.

### 2. Avoid losing your faith by fixing your eyes on Jesus.

When we start doubting the words of the Lord Jesus, we open the doors of our heart to an evil spirit of unbelief. We should avoid this happening at any cost, otherwise, we would make wrong decisions which will affect our live for a short period or forever. When we forsake the habit of bringing unto the Lord in prayer our personal affairs, our faith becomes weak. When this happens, we quit praying. God wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him in prayer. Proverbs 3.5-6 says: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your way acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."

When Peter and the other disciples saw Jesus coming toward them walking on the waters, they were terrified because they were amid very strong winds. Then Peter wanted to go to the Lord and Jesus agreed (Matthew 14.29-31).

In this passage of the Scriptures, we can see Peter making good use of his faith at the beginning of his determination to walk towards Jesus because he had his eyes fixed on his Master. He was not minding anything else but Jesus. As soon as he took his eyes away from Jesus, he saw the winds and came to realize that men cannot walk over the sea, and then he started to sink. When we take our eyes away from Jesus, our minds and our hearts will drift away from Him also, from His written Word, and consequently, our faith will be gone. If our faith is under attack by the enemy of our souls, Satan, we need to get closer to Jesus and ask Him to help us to fix our eyes on Him, so that we can be strengthened in our faith, hope, and love for Him.

If we give place to doubting the Words of Jesus, we are opening the door of our heart to unbelief. We must avoid this happening at any cost. Otherwise, we will make decisions that will affect our lives for sure and forever.

Sometimes, when our faith starts failing us, it is because of having quit the habit of consulting with God in prayer about our personal affairs. When our faith starts getting weak, we do not feel like kneeling before God in prayer. When this happens, we need to call upon God to ask Him for his strength to overcome that apathy for prayer. God always wants us to have a close and intimate relationship with Him through prayer. Lord Jesus expects us to trust in him with all our heart and to learn to depend on Him always (Proverbs 3.5-6).

## B. The Discipline of the Lord

##

Almost nobody likes to be corrected, and sometimes if God corrects us, we might start rebelling against him. Also, if we lack the spiritual discernment to understand that a problem is coming to us as a correction from God, we might start thinking that God is not helping us and because of that our faith start to fail us.

Occasionally, the Lord must deal with us in a way that is harder than usual. This is due to the great and incomparable love that He has for His children. Let us suppose that we as children of God are starting to wander away from the Lord's will for our lives. The Lord, as a loving Father that wants the best for His children, will start to intervene in our lives. First, He will use a very gentle way to approach us and let us know that we are taking the wrong way. He will speak to us through his written Word, He might give us dreams or visions (Joel 2.28; Job 33.14-16), He might speak kindly into our hearts (Genesis 50.21), or He can use other Christians to bring us a word from Him, so that we understand what His good will is for us. If one persists in disobeying the Lord, He will start using harder methods of disciplining what is ordinarily called "punishment", but the Lord punish us because He loves us. Some people do not believe in God as a Father who disciplines (or punishes) his sons or daughters, but the Word of God states in Hebrews 12.5: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son," and the book of Proverbs 3.11-12 says "My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in." The Lord Jesus confirms one more that He punishes those He has taken as sons in Revelation 3.19: "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest. and repent.

One of the most common situations in which we start straying from God's will is when we involve ourselves in business with unbelievers, or with people who call themselves Christians, but their behavior does not show their faith.

## C. Involving you in business with unbelievers.

##

Many Christians, incur serious problems because they ignore the counsel of the Lord and they get involved in business with unbelievers. They can sometimes be used by Satan to destroy our spiritual lives, and the Lord advices us not to do it in 2 Corinthians 6.14-15: "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common. Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?"

The phrase "to be yoked together with unbelievers" is equivalent to: " _HETEROZUGEO_ , to be unequally yoked ( _heteros_ , another of different sort)." When a Christian starts going along with an unbeliever and if the relationship is dangerous to the eyes of the Lord for any hidden reason that we may not know, then, he or she will be forming a yoke, or a bond, with that unbeliever. When this happens, the Lord will warn us with a gentle voice. If we are not in the habit of reading his Word daily, He will speak to us through his Spirit, who is living in us, to try to warn us; but if we do not obey, then He will use Plan B to try to call our attention. Plan B starts with a spoken warning. He can speak to us directly in our hearts, through third persons, or through a message delivered by a servant of the Lord, but either way, He will make us realize that He is warning us. If we insist on disobeying Him, then He might use physical discipline to correct us. He will do this out of His immeasurable love for us. When this happens, the born-again Christian only has two choices: to use his or her faith to obey God and set himself/herself apart from the unequal yoke, or not to use his or her faith and disobey God doing things according to his or her own understanding or will. But, Proverbs 3:5 invites us to "lean not on [our] own understanding." Why? Because God knows the future and we do not, and because God knows people's hearts and their intentions. God wants to protect us from running into a stumbling block because He knows that when we get into bonds that are not good, our bodies can suffer damage, or we can be financially, emotionally, or morally affected.

Continuing with the idea of being unequally yoked with unbelievers, let us read what Rev. Donald C. Stamps wrote in his commentary on 2 Corinthians 6.14:

"In God's eyes people ultimately are divided into two categories: those who are in Christ and those who are not. Therefore, believers must not be in partnership or in an intimate association with unbelievers, for such relationships can corrupt their relationship with Christ. This includes partnership in business, secret orders (lodges), dating, marriage and close friendships. A Christian's association with unbelievers should be only such as is necessary for social or economic existence, or to show unbelievers the way of salvation."

To be unequally yoked with unbelievers is like trying to run a vehicle with three wheels of a car and one wheel of a tricycle. This will not work out. God wants to protect our faith because it is easier for an unbeliever to take a believer down from the platform of faith, than for a believer to take an unbeliever up to the same.

## D. You think that you are doing God's will, but things do not go well in your life

My dear friend, do not despair! Sometimes the Lord wants to put us under test to make our faith grow stronger. During times of testing, it seems as if He is not with us anymore; but He is still in control, He is carrying us in his arms when our lives get tougher.

Do you remember the story of Job in the Old Testament? Job is an appropriate example for the times when everything might go wrong. During all his trials, Job did not speak against God but blessed Him. Do not lose heart, the Lord is telling you: "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1.9).

During our Christian walk, different kinds of testing may pour down on us, such as financial problems, loss of job, sickness, disturbing neighbors, a disease that seems unrelenting, the death of a loved one, and unexpected accidents among other things. When we think that we are following Jesus wholeheartedly, our faith is going to be tested, but we are supposed to rejoice amid all this testing because they come to us for our own sake as we read in 1 Peter 1. 6-7: "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith \--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

Obeying and following the Lord is costly because it demands everything of us; and on top of it, He puts us to the test. God does not make mistakes, my friend, He knows our weaknesses and He knows also when we may start complaining about Him or his methods; but He is God and He will use anything to work on our characters until we reach the spiritual level, He wants to take us to. The main purpose of all these trials and afflictions in our lives as children of God is, "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4.12-13)

Truly, nobody likes to be tested, but the Lord knows that we need these types of afflictions and testing to move us to higher levels in our relationship with Him. Without this testing we will not grow spiritually; when everything goes smoothly or easily in our lives, we do not worry about praying, fasting, reading the Bible, or praising and worshiping the Lord. but sometimes the Lord will allow some of these afflictions in our lives because we are not obeying His will as we should. Then He must call our attention to rebuke or discipline us through these afflictions so that we can be aware of our going away from his will.

God is a loving Father and as such, He will sometimes discipline us to straighten out our walk with Him. When this happens, only two options are left for us: (1) We humble our hearts before the Lord and accept his correction or (2) we harden our hearts and reject his discipline. This second option will lead us into bitterness, which is dangerous because it can make us miss the grace of God for being rebellious before Him as it is stated in Hebrews 12.14-15: "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness, no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many."

Even when we are obeying the Lord, He still puts us under trials to test our faith and to help us in our spiritual growth.

## E. Why our faith weakens when the testing times take too long

The longer our faith is being proven, the weaker it becomes. Why? Because we exercise our own faith without replenishing it at the source: the presence of the Lord. As an example, the following happened to me: I used to believe at the beginning of my Christian life that I had such huge faith that nobody and nothing could make me doubt; but until that day, my faith had not been proven yet. One day, the Lord started to test my faith. It happened that about eleven years had already passed since the first time I tried to get married, but the Lord had stopped me. I was getting desperate and tired of waiting for my wife from the Lord and my faith to wait was running out. I fear that I could make the decision of marrying a girl out of the will of God for me. I could not stand the fire of waiting because at that time I was 39 years old and I was still single. My faith was weak, and I feared for what I could do, or for what could have happened to me if I had quit my faith in the Lord.

I will tell you what I did when I felt so vulnerable. I got on my knees and started to cry out before the Lord, shedding my tears before the only One that could help me at that moment, our gracious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To stand in our faith we need perseverance, and this is a quality that we cannot get if we remain away from the Lord. In my desperate spiritual condition, God saw the sincerity of my heart and led me to the source of all strength and faith: Jesus and his Word. At that moment, I had the Bible in front of me and the Lord guided me to a verse where I could find the strength I needed. This verse was 2 Thessalonians 3.5: "May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance." After I had read it, I could feel how the Lord Himself was strengthening my spirit. He was sharing with me His ability to persevere and I felt a great renewal in my faith, which helped me to wait until the Lord brought my wife to me a year later.

The apostle Paul knew about getting weaker in faith, maybe because his own faith had been weakened through the several trials and tribulations he had suffered. Paul saw the need to send Timothy to the Thessalonians to strengthen them in their faith because the church there was persecuted, as Paul describes in 1 Thessalonians 3:2, 3: "We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God's fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials."

The apostle Paul considers that Satan, the tempter, can weaken our faith through different kinds of temptation, or by obstructing our walk, or our plans. Because of that, he says in 1 Thessalonians 3:5: "For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless."

My dear fellow Christian, we are human beings subject to temptations and all kinds of attacks from the enemy of our soul, Satan. For this reason, when our faith starts failing us, and if in one way or another we deny God, He remains faithful "for he cannot disown himself" (2 Timothy 2. 13), but do not forget to proceed unto repentance. Therefore, I encourage you to cling to the Lord as much as you can through prayer and reading his Word, so that you can be renewed in your relationship with Him daily.

## Introduction to testimonies of Chapter 6.

In this couple of testimonies, I show how weak our faith might become when we do not do, as often as we should, the things that build up our faith, such as praying, praising, and reading the Scriptures.

## Testimony 8: A short downtime in my faith.

##

About a year ago, I had gone through a few years of testing. Some problems were going on in my life and I was feeling worn out. I understand we are human and sometimes physical, financial, or relational problems can start taking a toll on us. I started to feel a bit down, and the voice of the Lord spoke to my heart and told me, "Watch out, your hope is down." At that moment the Lord reminded me of His Word in 1 Corinthians 13.13, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." In other words, the Lord Jesus was telling me, if you miss hope and love your faith has no foundation. Of course, I had a lot of love for my Lord and my neighbor, but my hope was failing me. Our hope is related to our faith because it is hope in the Word of God. If we lose our hope, it is as if we stopped believing in God's promises. That was precisely what was happening to me. I was starting to forget about the promises of God and to lose faith in an Almighty God, capable of doing anything good for us if we just believe in His promises. After the Lord warned me about the condition of my hope, I went on an alert state of mind and began remembering and repeating the promises of God in his written Word. Afterward, I started seeing things from God's point of view and I trusted God for a way out of all my problems. I can say today that God is more than faithful and He always will give us a way out of our problems if we just believe it.

## Testimony 9: Divine Healing (Testimony of my wife)

##

After five years in Mexico, I finished the first part of my studies and I moved to the city of Cuernavaca to continue. When I was established in this city, I started having many health problems. I was suffering from a swelling in my back where I had had some stitches because one of the muscles close to the spinal cord had been torn. I also started to have a lot of pain on the right side of my face, the right hip, and in general, all the right side of my body ached. I decided to send a letter to the intercessors in Nicaragua. I asked them to pray that the Lord would help me. After two months, I received a letter from an intercessor. This was a lady whom I had not seen or talked to since I had left Nicaragua. In this letter, she wrote, "The Lord showed me that you are very sick from the right side of your body, and we have decided to start praying for you." The months went by and the pain on the right side of my body left, but the pain from the muscle in my back was not disappearing. The same intercessor wrote me a letter and told me, "What you are going through is a big fight against the enemy. Satan is attacking you." I was wondering why I was not healing from it if the stitches were fine. Then the right arm started to bother me. I began praying, asking the Lord to take away the pain, but it did not go; on the contrary, it was increasing. One night in my desperation, I said, "Lord, I am getting tired of it. I am asking for healing repeatedly and I am not healed. Where are you, Lord? If you want to answer me, it is fine; but if you do not answer me, it is also fine." I began to cry. I laid face down and I told the Lord to do his will in my life. I was still facing down on my bed when suddenly I started feeling something hot coming over my back. I felt the heat getting into the painful area in my back. Slowly, I started to feel better. Then I said, "Oh Lord, You are visiting me because certainly, You have mercy on me." I fell asleep. The pain in that area of my back has been under the control of the Lord since then. Sometimes we are tested in our faith, and the Lord was doing that with me. Praise the Lord because He is the greatest Physician.

# CHAPTER 7

# HOW TO AVOID LOSING OUR FAITH

## A. The value of an acquired possession

##

In the secular world, the kind of possession you can get will depend on the power of the currency you have: the greater the value of your currency, the greater the quality, and uses of the object you purchase. Nevertheless, it does not work like that in the spiritual realm of our precious God and Creator. In the law of provision of our heavenly God, one does not need any money to buy from God, as He declares in Isaiah 55.1: "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost." Consequently, whatever one obtains from God comes out of his infinite love towards us, and He has many things in His riches in glory to meet our needs, as the apostle Paul confirms in Philippians 4.19: "And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." One of the most precious gifts that God has bestowed onto man is faith. In the next paragraphs, we will review some practices which are the most powerful spiritual tools we have as Christians and at the same time some of the least used. Nobody can avoid losing something that he or she has not yet learnt to value.

## B. Prayer

When you are in love with somebody, you want to spend time with that person, you desire to feel the touch of that person, you long to hear his or her voice as much as possible, and you expect to become intimate with that person. Well, the same happens with God's feelings towards us. He wants to talk to us, to make us feel His tender touch, to make us experience His unfailing love and patience. He wants to hear our voices, our fears, our petitions, and our grievances. He wants to see our hearts opened for Him. He wants us to have a real intimacy with Him, but you cannot build up that intimacy without spending time with the Lord in prayer.

Spending time with him in prayer and reading his Word, we will find out what pleases the One who has loved us with an everlasting love.

We have in the Bible so many examples of prayer, of how men and women of God poured out their souls in search of an answer to their petitions or simply to become strengthened in times of trouble. When I speak about praying time, I am including in it a time to read, meditate on the Word of God, and praise the Lord.

### 1. Why is it that we cannot spend at least one hour in prayer

Well, one reason could be because there are some Christians that do not know how to pray (for even some of Jesus' disciples did not know how to pray --Luke 11.1), or that they do not know what they must pray for. Those are the main reasons why they cannot pray or stay in prayer the minimum time the Lord requires of us. Once the Lord Jesus took three of his disciples and went to pray by himself, but he asked them to keep watch with Him, meaning He wanted them to join Him in prayer. In Matthew 26.40, we can find out the minimum time the Lord wants us to spend in prayer and communion with Him. We also read in Matthew 26.41 the reason why we should spend time with the Lord in prayer. Then the Lord walked away a bit further to spend some time alone with his Father, as we read in Matthew 26.39-41:

"Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will. Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. 'Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?' he asked Peter. 'Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.

From the piece of Scripture above, we learn that we must watch and pray so that we can overcome temptations. If we have a job and our boss requires us to stay overtime, most of the time we would stay longer because we have an interest. If we could work night shift because they will pay us a better salary, we would make the change and would endure staying awake. Why would we do this? We would do it because we are going to make a better salary. How about our interest in the Lord? Are we interested in becoming more like Him, in knowing Him better through his Word, in searching His perfect will for us, in the salvation of souls, in seeing people truly converted to the Lord, in seeing our faith working changes or miracles in our own lives and in others' lives? We must desire to be in the presence of the Lord in prayer with all our heart and mind. We are the ones who get the benefit of remaining in His presence, and when the times of trials and testing come, our faith will strength us, and we will surmount them with the victory.

Sometimes, we do not want to pray because we do not know how. I would like to clarify that to pray means to have a free talk with God, like the one you have with your best friend, and Jesus is our best friend because He put His own life in atonement for our salvation. To pray does not mean to repeat a series of pre-written prayers, prayers that somebody else has written before. To pray does not mean either to say the Lord's Prayer once, twice, or many times, even though the Lord's Prayer is the prayer that the Lord did, but this does not mean that we must pray only using the Lord's Prayer. Of course, we can use it occasionally when we pray, but not as a string of repetitions, because the Lord's Prayer has a deeper meaning in each one of its sentences, and we cannot use it only to be repeating it once and over again. Instead, we could open our prayer time for example, first, asking God to forgive us of our sins; second, inviting the Holy Spirit to guide us in prayer; and third, we could say the Lord's Prayer. After this, we can praise Him with spiritual songs, hymns, or choruses, and then, we must start a free and open talk with God to tell Him all our personal worries, our desires, our needs, and to ask for His help in the situations of other people. At the end of our prayer time, we could close with another Lord's Prayer. When we pray, we must invite the Holy Spirit to assist us in our prayer because we do not know what to pray for, and sometimes we ask in accordance with our own convenience, as the Lord says in Romans 8.26: "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." We can learn how to pray by reading the prayer examples in the Bible, for instance, Daniel's prayer in Daniel 9.3-19. We can get together with our brothers and sisters in the prayer time scheduled at church. We can agree on getting together with other brothers and sisters at home to pray, or we can pray over the phone.

Have you ever taken part in a staying-awake prayer night? If not, you are missing a huge blessing. I know this type of prayer time has almost disappeared from Christian churches, but it can be recovered if we want more of Jesus. To stay awake all night long is not easy, but it has a great blessing. During this time the children of God rejoice in praising the Lord, praying for our relatives and the problems in the world in general, sharing testimonies, reading the Scriptures, paying attention to the preaching of the Word, and in worshiping the Lord with our own words. The Lord Jesus spoke in a parable in Luke 12:37: "It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them." The Lord Jesus had the custom of going on his own to pray and many times He spent the four vigils of the night praying to His Father. This means that He used to pray all night long until the daybreak.

### 2. We do not pray because we do not have faith in God

###

Can you imagine yourself trying to keep a conversation with somebody that you did not believe in? It would be unbearable, would not it? If you did not believe in the words another person speaks to you, you would not want to listen to him or her and, probably, at the right time you would excuse yourself and walk away.

Sometimes we behave with our Lord just as I described in the paragraph above. We do not believe in His words, but if we are going to have faith in God, we must set our minds to believe His words. Believing in God is a decision that you make with your intellect. God has given us basic intelligence to make the right choice. To have faith in God is just like that: we must set our hearts and our minds to believe. But to achieve that goal we need the help of the Word of God because it is by being in touch with the words of Jesus that we are going to believe as it is implied in Romans 10.17: "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ."

### 3. Putting excuses to not pray.

###

Praying is never easy if we do not have the right motive to do it. To desire to be in the presence of the Lord and have an open and sincere talk with Him, should be the main reason to spend time with Him in prayer. Another reason why we cannot stay in prayer is that we have the wrong motivations, we do not believe He can truly help us in our situations, or we do not want to wait for God's answer.

I want to clarify something important: whenever I speak of prayer time, I am also including a time to meditate in the Word of God. Prayer and studying the Word are for me like twin sisters. Both have to be done with the same intensity. We should not prayer more and study the Word less or vice-versa.

There are some people, including some Christians, who think that God is an entity who is up there in Heaven and that He is too busy to listen to their prayers. Others think that God is just a name written in a book called the Bible and that He does not exist, or that He is not watching over us. They think that God is only an idea in some peoples' minds. Hence, these people live according to their own wishes and make their plans without considering God in their daily walk. People with this kind of mentality will never have faith in an almighty God who is invisible; consequently, they do not have any reason to pray to God. Despite their unbelief, we can intercede for them by praying to the Lord for mercy, and someday something may happen in their lives, and after this, they can come in repentance before God, and not resist Him anymore.

## C. Fasting: crying out to God

##

I must insist on another practice that is even more difficult for Christians to do: fasting. Yes, the Lord Jesus said that there are certain kinds of demons and spirits of infirmity, and other things that can bind some Christians that can only be cast out but with prayer and fasting, as when the disciples were trying to cast out a demon from a child and they could not, but the Lord did. Then the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him why they had not been able to cast the evil spirit out of the child and the Lord pointed out: "But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting" (Matthew 17.21). Prayer and fasting were a habit of the Jews. If we truly want to see people changed, delivered with a new heart, and following the Lord Jesus, we need to pray and fast for them from time to time, or as the Spirit leads us to do it. Why is it necessary to pray and fast? Because we need to have integrity in all our ways; we need to be a little bit more like Jesus in our character, behavior, and decisions. We need to have intimacy with Jesus through praying and fasting; then, He will acknowledge with pleasure all the works we do in Him and for His glory, and we will pray for the needy, the sick, the possessed, and the Lord will set them free.

### 1. What are we doing when we pray and fast

These are ways of strengthening our faith because we are going to come to believe that the purposes of these two actions will reach the throne of God and because we will spend time meditating on the Word. If your petitions are according to the will of God, you will know that your effort and sacrifice will not be in vain, as the apostle John says.

Almost nobody likes to practice praying and fasting due to the idea of not eating for one or more days. Do not worry, for the Lord will strengthen your stomach. This is the most powerful combined weapon we have, as the people of God, to tear down and destroy the evil plans of Satan against us.

Besides the delivering of the power of God through prayer and fasting, the Lord Jesus related these two actions with the increase of our faith. In the reading of Matthew 17.14-21, the disciples were trying to cast out "a demon" from a lunatic son of a certain man who had brought his son to the disciples but "they could not heal him" (Matthew 17.16). The disciples were amazed at the power of Jesus to drive out the demon and then they asked him: Why couldn't we drive it out? Then Jesus told them they have so little faith and the need of praying and fasting (Mark 9.29). In some congregations, prayer and fasting are not practiced anymore. No wonder many Christians suffer from depression and other kinds of attacks from the devil. It happens mainly because they are lacking the power of God (the anointing of the Holy Spirit) and the authority that comes through prayer and fasting to destroy the strongholds of Satan and drive out demons and spirits of infirmity.

When you pray and fast, do it secretly. Do not let everyone know that you are praying and fasting, except when it is done with other members in the church. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 6.6: "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." Yes, our heavenly Father will reward us by answering our secret prayers, according to His perfect will and in His perfect timing

## D. The power of praising and worshipping the Lord during the prayer time

Praise and worship should come along with prayer when we try to approach God. There are many reasons why we should worship God. Among them all, we need to praise and worship Him not only to show our reverence to Him as King of kings and Lord of lords but also because He is the One whom his people ought always to praise. In Psalm 22, we find two main reasons to praise God. First, because He is enthroned as the King and second because He is the only true God to be praised by his people. Psalm 22.3 declares: "Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel." When you spend time praising, singing, and worshipping the Lord, He will visit you through his Holy Spirit. He will make you feel his presence and after having experienced Him you will never be the same. Your attitudes, your plans, your feelings will be changed, and you will be aligned with the perfect will of God for your life. When you praise and worship God, He will show Himself to you and your faith will be affirmed and increased.

Praying to, praising, and worshipping God should be considered like the air, water, and food that we need to live. We cannot live without these three: air, water, and food. In the same way, we cannot be spiritually alive if we do not take the time to be with God, to enter His presence with praise and worship.

### 1. How do praise and worship relate to our faith

First, we must praise the Lord because He gave us a measure of faith so that we could believe in Him and in His Son Jesus Christ.

We must rejoice and celebrate for the answers to our prayers even when we have not received those answers yet. If you are going to celebrate, you will do it with gladness, joy, and thanksgiving in your heart. You will have a party with Jesus to show Him your gratitude for all the prayers that He has answered for you, and for the ones that He has not answered yet, but He will in his perfect timing. You will come into the presence of the Lord as He says in Psalm 100.2: "Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs." Have faith in God and in His time, He will give you an answer to your prayer.

Second, faith is a powerful weapon to keep our spiritual life in progress. If we would not have faith in God, we would act based only in our experiences and personal knowledge. In this case, we might run into troubles when making some decisions because we do not know the future. If we make the wrong decision, we can put our spiritual and physical life in peril, but God knows the future and He can reveal it to us helping us to make the right decisions still on time. When in prayer, God warns us of what is coming ahead, and later we confirm it, and we see how God has protected us from dangerous or embarrassing situations, then, our faith will be strengthened, and we will encourage others to place their faith in the only God who can reveal the future. Ans so, with a grateful heart we will worship and praise the Lord for God is good and His mercies endure forever.

## E. Studying and memorizing the Scriptures.

God has sent his only begotten Son, Jesus, to show us the way to God. Jesus said to the Jewish leaders in John 5.39: "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me." In the same way, we should diligently study the Scriptures because in doing so we will know Jesus better and deeper and we will experience the freedom there is in Him. Besides that, we will be affirmed as true disciples of Jesus (John 8.31-32). Lord Jesus says that He is the truth (John 14. 6) and that the Truth will set us free. Then He is the only One who can set us free from everlasting condemnation, from making the wrong choices. Once you experience that freedom in your heart, you will be strengthened when the time to shed some tears comes. Besides, you will feel more secure, no more anxiety, no more depression because the joy of the Lord will be your strength (Nehemiah 8:10). In Jesus, you are free to worship, to witness, to study his Word, to serve Him, and to "praise him with tambourine and dancing" as He commands us to do in Psalm 150.4.

Our faith will become stronger and stronger when we spend time reading, studying, and memorizing the Word of God.

I want to encourage you, to do your best to keep your faith up and focus your mind on Jesus through knowing the Scriptures, praising Him, praying and witnessing of Him. Then the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will visit you and will increase their presence in you. The Lord Jesus said in John 14.24: "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

## Introduction to the testimony of chapter 7.

Giving up our will to do God's will is one of the most difficult decisions any true Christian must make. If we want to keep the presence of God in our lives, we need to die to the fleshy desires which battle against the desires of the Holy Spirit living in us. The following testimony is about a dear love that I had to let go to keep myself in the center of the will of God.

## Testimony 10: Renouncing everything that can take us away from our faith in the Lord

Satan tempts us with things that attract us the most. These things may include the love of money, the desire to have power or fame, or the desire to possess a person that cannot belong to us.

If we do not walk in the Spirit, we are not making our best effort to obey the guidance of the Holy Spirit, then our faith will start getting weak.

A few years ago, before getting married, I had fallen in love with one lady and then with another one. At each of these times, the Holy Spirit told me, "This lady is not the one I have chosen to be your wife." In these circumstances, I had only two choices: I could obey the Lord, or I could disobey Him and deal with the consequences. With great effort, I ended up obeying the Lord and giving up my own desires. God is good, and He wants to give us what is the best for us. I understand that it is very difficult when one must give up all his or her fleshly desires; but if one wants to keep the presence of the Lord, then one must die to the desires of the flesh. We must give up anything that can take us away from God. Disobeying is like a deadly poison to our faith. Sometimes we forget about, or do not want to believe in, the promises of God; therefore, we start disobeying God and our faith becomes weaker and weaker until it dies and disappears completely from our hearts. The counsel of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians 5.19 is, "Do not put out the Spirit's fire." We must open our minds and our hearts to know what the will of God is if we do not want to quench the fire of the Holy Spirit in us. We need to be filled with the Spirit of God. We must obey Him all the time; we need to keep learning from the Word of God; we need to, praise Him daily, "pray continually" (1 Thessalonians 5.17) and fast, and witness to others about Jesus and his plan of salvation for mankind. When we keep doing all these things, the Holy Spirit will come upon us and He will fill us with His presence, which will help us to know and obey the will of God.

# CHAPTER 8

# HOW TO INCREASE OUR FAITH

## A. Exercising faith

God has bestowed on us a measure of faith for each one's benefit and to bring glory to Himself. I would compare faith to a muscle; as the English saying goes: "Use it or lose it." Our muscles need to be put under exertion, so they can respond in a proper way when we suddenly must use them. Testing is to faith what exertion is to a muscle. Faith must be put under the test and it must be sturdily built on the Word of God to become stronger. By the time you must use your faith, it will be ready like a muscle in good condition, to stand the time of waiting that is in general necessary until God answers our prayers.

Our faith is like a little plant that must be taken care of properly to help its growth. If you do not water your plants, they become weak and eventually die. The same happens to faith, if it is not watered with the Word of God, it withers until it dies in our hearts. Faith is a precious gift that God has given us from the time of our conception in the womb of our mothers. It is there as a seed even before our birth, but we do not start using it until we become conscious of what we want, of what we do, and of our surroundings. Even though we have the power to use our faith in the right way, when we are grown up, we end up using our faith in the wrong way because it is influenced by things which are strange to the will of God, or by our own way of thinking. Sometimes we do not even want to use our faith because we have decided to believe only in factual things, or in things that we can see or prove. Faith that is not watered is faith that weakens and dies.

### 1. Looking at Jesus and His Word

When somebody is asked to look at something, they expect to find and see something tangible, but the kind of faith that pleases God works in the complete opposite way. God wants us first to believe in what we have not even seen and to believe in it as done. It is as when someone has planned a project or a goal. In the beginning, this person might not have the financial support to develop the project, but still he or she has already taken the first step, which is planning. Secondly, to carry out his or her plans, they will work to save the required money to start working on the project, or they will try getting financial support from third parties. In this way, they will be building upon their project little by little, but sure of walking on track to their goal. Similarly, to increase our faith, we need to approach God in faith, to build our faith upon the foundation of the Word of God and set it up as our main goal to please God.

## B. Believing

Believing is one of the first steps to increase our faith. In the same way, a child believes in his daddy, so God our heavenly Father expects us to believe in Him. A child goes wherever his dad takes him, believes whatever his dad tells him, and behaves as an obedient child doing whatever his dad asks him to do. Why? Because he or she believes and trusts in his or her dad.

### 1. listening and obeying the Word of God

The next step to increase our faith is to listen, believe, and obey the Word of God. When God speaks, He does it basically in three ways: (1) by his written Word –The Bible; (2) directly to your heart; (3) in an audible external voice. He can also use other ways to speak to us for example, through dreams, visions, or through consecrated brothers or sisters. Sometimes, God will give us directions that seem odd or illogical, but you must move and act by faith believing in your heavenly Father. In whatever He demands from you, just obey Him. He knows what He is doing, He knows the future, and He holds our lives in his hands.

When a Christian rightly tunes with God, when he or she is not living anymore to please himself/herself but God, when God's agenda goes before theirs, then God will start getting in contact with them in a way that He has not used before. For instance, God will start making his voice audible to you, and when this happens, your belief in Him will be stronger, and your faith will be increased. When God speaks to you, do not panic, because God will not contact you to destroy you or to hurt you. Remember that He is a loving Father as it is stated in Jeremiah 31.3: "The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: 'I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness." You will come to realize that the God you have believed in is not a mere name written in a book called The Bible. Then He will become a more personal, real, and intimate God to you. If you have never experienced the voice of God, I would encourage you to start praying about it, so that God gets in contact with you.

### 2. Believing in his promises

When a man promises something by pledging his word, he may keep his promise or break it, but God is not a man to lie, and will never break his promises. God has left so many written promises in the Bible, so we can keep the faith alive and growing. Now, many Christians are growing cold in their faith because they have quit obeying one of the many commandments the Lord gave to us: to pray. If we do not set ourselves apart to stay in the presence of the Lord and to build up an intimate relationship with him, then our faith cannot be renewed and eventually, we will quit believing in God's promises for his people. The disciple Jude is encouraging God's people to pray to build up their faith (Jude 20).

When we pray, we must pray believing in God's promises without looking at the adversity of the circumstances.

Therefore, believing in his promises is to remain in Jesus' goodwill for us, but we need to make sure we are in Jesus to increase our faith day by day. The increase of our faith can neither be held back nor be stagnant. The Lord compares faith to a tiny mustard seed: when it grows it becomes the largest of the garden plants (Matthew 13.32). To have an increasing faith, we ought to look at Jesus the Keeper of what He has promised to His people.

##

## C. The time of waiting

This is the time in which it is necessary to keep on hoping until the Lord answers our prayers. If we do not learn how to wait upon the Lord, we might have faith but if it is not supported with hope, it will be useless. I used to say that I had a huge and strong faith, and at that time I was presenting some petitions before the Lord in prayer. The months and the years went by and my petitioning had not been answered yet. One day I could feel I had started to become a bit desperate, and my heart was getting anxious. At that very moment, the Lord had to intervene, and He spoke to me saying: "Watch out your hope." Yes, despite the great faith I had, my hope was growing weaker. If this happens, it does not matter how great or strong you think your faith is. It will simply be as resistant as a huge soap bubble and when it bumps into something it will pop. Then, I came to realize that I had to be searching for the Word of God, praying, praising, and witnessing more often to keep my hope alive. Our faith will be strong enough to resist the times of trials if we learn to wait upon the Lord in prayer and meditating on his Word; by doing that we can have a solid foundation upon which our faith and our hope can be supported.

1 Corinthians 13.13 says: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." The Lord mentions these three: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest is love because if we do not have a true love relationship with our Lord, we will not be able to remain in His presence long enough to build up our hope. If we are not aware of the state of our love for Jesus, if we do not care too much about it, then our hope will be weak or absent.

## Introduction to testimonies of chapter 8

These two true testimonies are to increase your faith in the Almighty God who can do impossible things to protect us or to help us to understand His will.

## Testimony 11: God has the power to immobilize anyone

I am going to tell you of the power of God to save us from destruction or to stop us from making the wrong decisions. Once I was in love with a girl and I got engaged to her, out of the will of God. Then God started speaking to my heart telling me that it was not his will for me to marry this girl. One day I told this girl that I was going to make the announcement before the brethren in the church we were attending. I was sitting on the pew when the lady that was directing the course of the service said that the microphone was available to anyone who wanted to announce something. At that moment, I tried to get up from the pew and I could not. God had immobilized me. Time passed and the allowed time for announcements was over. When I was sitting in the pew, I said, "Truly, God, You are against this relationship, and I will not keep on disobeying." After the service was over, I went to my girlfriend and told her what had happened. She understood, and we agreed not to continue our relationship.

My friend, if you have never believed in the power of God to stop someone from doing something, then this testimony is for you to build up your faith in the only Almighty God.

## Testimony 12: The invisible wall

At the beginning of my Christian life, I heard a testimony of a Christian youngster who had been drafted into military service in his country. But He was in a dilemma: "If I go to war, I will use my machine gun against somebody, and I might kill that person and I do not want to die or to kill anyone." As a Christian, he knew that the Bible says that he must submit to the authorities (Romans 13.1). Then he decided to go and get registered as a soldier. His superior gave him a rifle to send him to war, but he did not take it. He said, "I do not need it." His superior asked him, "Are you crazy? You are going to war." He answered, "Yes, but I am a Christian and I know that my Lord will protect me." He was probably thinking that they would send him to help in the kitchen where he would not need a weapon. Can you guess what his duty was at war? He was sent to the front-line to pick up the wounded soldiers and bring them back to the barricades to be taken to the military hospital. This Christian fellow spent three years in the service doing the same thing and the Lord protected him every day. He said that when he went to pick up the wounded soldiers, two invisible walls surrounded him, and he could see the flash of the bullets when they hit the invisible wall that God had set up to protect him.

A few years after I had heard this testimony, I went to visit a church in Ottawa, Ontario. This church had become famous because of the way the Holy Spirit of God was moving in the worship services. At the end of the service, the pastor used to call the congregation to the altar to be prayed over. On that specific day, there were eight of us visiting, and the pastor asked us to line up in front of the altar. The pastor was standing on the left of the sanctuary and he was calling each one of us to him to be prayed over. When it was my turn, he gave me a sign to come to him and I started walking. Halfway there, I was suddenly stopped by an invisible wall in front of me. I could not keep on walking, and I saw the pastor starting to walk towards me to pray. The Lord had stopped me, so I could experience an invisible wall like the one that was protecting the soldier. At that very moment, when the invisible wall stopped me, I remembered the story of the young soldier at war. Having these types of experiences with the Lord have increased my faith a lot because I know that God is more than able to stop anything or anyone at any moment.

# CHAPTER 9

# WHEN, HOW, AND WHY TO APPLY OUR FAITH?

When you must put something into practice, first, you must prepare yourself, set the stage and provide for the right conditions to start off. This is precisely what happens when we are planning to put our faith to work. We need to be well equipped to go out and fight the enemy of our souls –Satan. The Lord Jesus talked about taking the time to consider if we are properly prepared to confront the enemy: "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?" (Luke 14:31).

When you are planning to grow vegetables in your backyard, you need to plow and turn the soil, take the big stones and weeds out, apply some fertilizer and then, plant the seed. Preparation is necessary for all tasks in life. For example, we need to be prepared beforehand if we want to succeed in an exam, at work, or in any kind of enterprise in this life. Similarly, in the Christian walk, it is necessary to be prepared to face and win the battles against Satan, his demons, and his satanic ministers. Below are some key points in getting ready to have an effective, unbending, and powerful faith.

## A. When to put your faith in action

To have an effective faith, we need to have the main foundation on which it will stand well established. That foundation for having a bold faith is knowing the Scriptures and believing in them by faith, praying, and fasting. We can use the analogy of building construction. Before setting up a building, the engineers must study the land where this building will stand. They must make sure that the terrain is safe and solid so when the building is up, it will not tilt or sink. In the same manner, if we have not set up the faith's foundation properly, we cannot use it effectively.

## B. How to put your faith into practice

The main attitude we need to move the hand of God in our favor is called obedience. True believers walk not only in obedience to his written Word but also to his spoken Word. We all know about the written Word of God, the Bible, so now we need to start putting it into practice in obedience. The other part of the condition to have the favor of God is being obedient to the voice of God, that is, the spoken Word of God.

### 1. The Spoken Word of God

When I say that God has spoken to me, I am not boasting about it; on the contrary, I say it in humbleness, for I do not consider myself better than you in any sense. But it has pleased the Lord to speak His words into my heart; indeed, He can also speak to you, my brethren, if you just ask for it in prayer with a humble heart.

I would like to emphasize the spoken Word of the Lord. God speaks to us in His written Word, but He also speaks to us directly to our heart or using the mouths of other brothers and sisters in the faith. He takes control of their spirits and minds and puts his Words in their mouths, and in doing so He gives us guidance about things or situations that are not specifically spoken of in the written Word of God. For instance, He can tell us how to proceed regarding our works, or He can give us a piece of advice about any rough situation we might be going through. God can speak directly to our hearts, through dreams, visions, or through other believers who have consecrated their lives to Him. For instance, when the Lord spoke to Joseph in dreams through an angel and asked him not to go back to Bethlehem (Matthew 2.13). I hope you already have had the experience of listening to the voice of God.

Many Christians have never listened to the voice of God, many of them because they do not believe that God can still speak to men as He used to speak to the prophets in the Old Testament times, and to the apostles and disciples in the early Church.

There are some situations that God needs to let us know of that are not written in the Bible. In these cases, God does communicate His will to us by using His voice and speaking it into our hearts, ears, and minds. For instance, we can read that God showed to Peter in a vision a sheet full of all kinds of animals and asked him to kill and eat them (Acts 10.12). Even though God was speaking to Peter, he was resisting his voice. Then, when God saw that Peter was not obeying, He spoke a second time (Acts 10.15). Can you see my dear friend and brethren in Jesus, how the Lord spoke to men in the past, and He is still speaking to us today, not only through the written Word but also with his voice? God can speak to men to give them specific directions of things that they do not know and that are not in the Word of God (Acts 10.19-20; Jeremiah 33.3). Another example of how God can speak to us is in Acts 13.2: "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."

It is of crucial importance to learn how to listen to the voice of the Lord when He speaks to us. Why? Because He is a loving Father and He wants the best for us his children; and when He sees that we are about to commit a sin or to wander away from his perfect will, then He warns us. The Holy Spirit is living in every person that has ever accepted the Lord Jesus into his or her heart. Through the Holy Spirit, God lets us know when we are proceeding improperly, and He also lets us know when we are about to sin before Him. If we despise the voice of God the first time that He warns us, and we go on sinning, the Holy Spirit will still warn us a second time; but if we have already disobeyed the first time, disobeying the second time will be easier for us. If God wills it, there will be a third time and then many other times in which we will probably hear the warning of the Spirit. Sometimes we will keep on disobeying because we have already disobeyed previous times and nothing wrong has happened to us. For example, no punishment of God has fallen on us, so we continue disobeying when sin comes to knock at the door of our hearts. The main problem in despising the warnings of the Spirit is that our ears and our hearts can become callous, and later the spoken word of God will not penetrate in us, and we will not be guided by the Spirit anymore.

## C. Why do someone must apply his or her faith

The Lord called us to form part of his Church, that great church made of the redeemed ones, those called out from the darkness into his wonderful light, and He calls us a chosen people (1 Peter 2.9). The Lord did not call us out of the worldly manner of life we used to live in to sit us down on a church's pew every time there is worship service (even though we need to attend all these services when we can). No, He did not call us to hide and to be scared to death of the evil one, Satan. He did not call us to spend the rest of our lives in mourning, lamenting, and walking like a downcast person. He did not call us to continue being engaged in the kinds of affairs we used to when we were serving Satan and pleasing him in his wicked desires. Moreover, He did not call us to say that we are following Him when we continue pleasing ourselves or pleasing others, as the apostle Paul said to the Galatians (Galatians 1.10). The Lord calls us to equip us with His spiritual weapons to destroy the strongholds of Satan and to apply our faith to see miracles happening.

## D. A powerful weapon against Satan

The Lord has given each one of his children a measure of faith to use as a protective shield. Prayer and faith are the most potent weapons we have against Satan. As we can read in Ephesians 6:16: "In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." There are two more significant reasons for our measure of faith.

### 1. To test us as followers of Jesus Christ

It would be a lot easier for us as His disciples if when we asked God for something, He would give it to us right away. However, the Lord wants to make us grow spiritually to take us to higher levels in Him. Sometimes we ask God for things to equip us to do His work of spreading the good news of Salvation. It might be money, a vehicle, clothes, health, or many other things; but He does not answer our prayers immediately. Then we must persevere in prayer, giving Him thanks till the answer to our prayer comes. Nobody has to be discouraged if the Lord gives him or her a negative answer to any of their prayers, because He knows what is best for us. For instance, the apostle Paul said that he was suffering from a "thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment him" (2 Corinthians 12.7), and he said, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness'" (2 Corinthians 12.8-9). The Lord did not heal him but gave him the strength to continue serving his Lord and Master.

The Lord can still answer our prayers not in our life span but after it. True servants of God "live by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5.7). In Hebrews 11.13 the Lord teaches us that we must keep our hope in his promises and believe in them: "All these peoples were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance." The result was that God answered heir petitions even though they did not see them.

Our faith must be tested to bring glory to God, and sometimes God takes us through difficult times to see whether we are going to stand firm in our faith in Him or not. If we persevere in faith, He will reward us with the great salvation of our souls. In Jesus, we have the assurance of our salvation if we persevere in doing God's will until the end. Lord Jesus spoke about perseverance and salvation in Matthew 10.22: "All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." In the same way, the apostle Peter encouraged the converts who were under persecution in the Early Church with the following words in 1 Peter 1.6-7: "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire --may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

### 2. To show that Satan's power is limited compared to the unlimited power of God.

When there is a problem, it might be secular or spiritual in origin, but despite its nature, we need to solve it with God's help, not by our own strength. If it is a secular problem, we need to pray with faith and authority and ask God for directions. For example, when we are running out of money just halfway until we receive our next paycheck, we can trust in the Lord for the supernatural provision or a perfect piece of advice. There are still families that live from paycheck to paycheck to cover their basic needs, and they need to put their faith in the Almighty Christian God, the God of all provision, who has a promise of blessing in Malachi 3.10, in which He has the promise to bless abundantly those who obey the command therein. The Lord can bless them by promoting them to better positions, so increasing their salary, or if they had only a part-time job, the Lord could provide them with a full-time job. He can also provide in other ways so that nobody should spend too much. When somebody obeys Malachi 3.10, they will be amazed by how God can bless them.

Another kind of secular problem could be the low marks of our children at school. In this case, parents must pray and analyze all the possible situations that might be causing the problem in their children. Through prayer, God can reveal whether the problem has its origin in the parents, in the children, or in something or someone else.

We can run into many other kinds of spiritual problems. The Holy Spirit living in us can help us to solve these problems. We must use our faith and wisdom from God to destroy Satan's plans and to put him to shame. It does not matter what the nature of the spiritual problem is. There is only one outcome: we have won the battle because Satan has already been defeated by Jesus' death and resurrection (Colossians 2.14-15). By the power of his name and praying with faith, we can overcome the evil one in the spiritual battles. Satan has the power to influence mankind negatively, but the superior power of God and our faith in Him and His Word will give us victory by destroying the strongholds of the enemy of our souls, Satan.

Satan has always tried to keep Christians trapped in his schemes, and he is always trying to lure us into sinning against our faithful God. I encourage you not to lose faith when you are going through harsh times facing persecutions, temptations, or going through different testing waiting for the right person to marry. When you go through all these things, you need to look up into heavens to cry out to the Lord, and trust in Him because you have a faithful God. As David says, "I lift up my eyes to the hills where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth" (Psalm 121.1-2).

## Introduction to testimonies of Chapter 9

The expected believer's fruit in Christ Jesus is to be obedient to the words of Jesus. A person who has turned into a follower of Jesus Christ will do as His Master tells him to do when He speaks to him or her and will be obedient to the written Word of God as well.

## Testimony 13: The expected believer's fruit in Christ Jesus (Testimony of my wife)

This testimony is about one of my older sisters. I arrived in Canada after 10 years in Mexico where the Lord had taken me as a jewel in his hand to mold me and polish me, taking me through many trials and afflictions. My sister and I had not seen each other for twenty years. She had gone to live in the United States, taking her son and daughter along, after fleeing from the civil war in Nicaragua. She heard that I was living in Canada, that I was already married, and that I could travel out of Canada because I was already a resident. She had a talk with her daughter about inviting me to California where she lives, and they sent me the plane ticket. My trip would only be for three weeks. One day before leaving Canada the Lord came to me and told me, "Remember to witness to your sister about me." I arrived in California, and we wept for the re-encounter, and we spent three days very happy to see each other once more.

After three days in her house, I began noticing a terrible relationship between my sister and her daughter. I was sad, and I began to understand that the Lord had not taken me into their place just to visit them, but for a mission. I had to bring Jesus and his salvation plan into their lives. I came under much stress because of the bad relationship between mother and daughter. It was so bad that I did not even want to finish the first week at my sister's house. I wanted to return to Canada right away. I spent almost the whole three weeks talking to my sister, and to her daughter about the power of the Lord to change their sick relationship. Near the end of the third week, the Lord spoke to me again and said, "Today is when you must prepare dinner for them. Ask them to sit down, speak to them about Me once more, and give them the invitation to accept Me into their hearts. Tonight, is the time because it will be complicated for you to come back here."

After we had finished having supper that night, I asked my sister if she wanted to accept Jesus as the personal Lord and Savior of her soul, and she answered, "Yes, I will accept Him with all my heart. I do accept Him." My niece kept silent. She was wondering what her mom had just done, but it took me by surprise that my niece's husband said, "I do not understand too much of what you have talked about, but if they accept Him, I will also accept Him in my heart." That night the three of them accepted the Lord Jesus in their hearts, my sister, my niece, and her husband. Next morning, I came back to Canada.

I planted the seed of the Word of God in their hearts, but then I said to the Lord, "Well, Lord, it is going to be very difficult to disciple them from a distance." Then the Lord told me, "Pray so that somebody else waters the seed." So, I kept on praying. Exactly one year later, they were invited by a friend to visit her Christian Evangelical Church (a church formed by born-again Christians), and they kept on going to that church. A few years later, my niece quit attending the church and believing; but we are praying for her with the hope that one day she will come back to the Lord with a truly repentant heart, wishing to seek the presence of the Lord once more. My sister and her daughter's husband are still persevering in the church and believing in Jesus who has saved their souls from eternal condemnation.

I feel joy in my heart when I know that my sister is firm in her faith in Jesus Christ and she serves the Lord as an evangelist. The Lord fulfilled the word He spoke to me that night because thirteen years ago I went to visit my sister and I have not gone back. My heart rejoices because I know that my sister is persevering in the faith. Glory to God!

## Testimony 14: God warned me of a coming natural disaster: an earthquake (Testimony of my wife)

At the age of 14, I accepted the Lord into my heart; but I was not instructed in the Word of God because there was nobody around me to do that. Nobody had ever invited me to go to an evangelical church, but the Lord started giving me dreams in which He showed me parts of the Scriptures. I did not know these dreams were in the Bible because I had never read it before.

One night, on December 22nd, 1979, my mom asked me to deliver some Christmas cards to some friends in the neighborhood. When I was coming back home, I started feeling very sad, like anguish, an uneasiness that I could not understand. My mom was busy at home, but she did not want my help, so she sent me away to sleep. Then I sat down on my bed and suddenly I heard a voice telling me, "Martha, do not get undressed to sleep, keep your clothes on." At the same time, I smelled a bad odor, something like rotten bodies. I smelled and felt the sense of death. I was aware that I was not breathing that bad odor, but I could smell the odor of rotten bodies in my nose. I was so worried that I decided to pray the only prayer my mom had taught me, the Our Father. Then I went to bed wearing my clothes.

It was about midnight, and everybody was already sleeping. My mom's bed was about five meters away from mine. I started feeling a violent jerking movement on my bed and much noise like the crash of many trucks. An earthquake of a magnitude of 6.5 on the Richter scale was going on. The whole capital city, Managua, had been flattened down in just thirty seconds. I was trying to get up and I could not, but in a fraction of a second a mighty force took me out of bed, and something launched me as if with springs. This force sent me to the side of my mom's bed, and I grabbed my mom. I had ended up beside my mom when the wall that was beside my bed collapsed onto it. My mom was worried because our house shared walls with two neighbors. The entrance door got blocked up, and a fire broke out because my mom had left a lit candle which fell onto the wooden floor. There was a second strong earthquake, and my mother and I could not escape from our house. The fire was still going, but my brother managed to put it out.

My sister, who lived across from our house, came to us with some help. She used the trunk of a tree to bang down the front door, so we were able to escape. Just about half an hour had passed, but it seemed like centuries to me. The earthquake destroyed everything around us. There were several replicas one after the other. When the night was coming to an end and the day was breaking, the whole neighborhood was standing outside of their houses. Most of them, men and women, were half naked, just wearing very light night clothes because those days had been warm, and a heat alert was on. Then my third older sister told my mom, "Look, Mom, Martha is the only one dressed in this neighborhood." I remembered the voice I had heard telling me not to take my clothes off to sleep. The Lord had told me that because He does not like us to show our nakedness.

The Lord Jesus Christ is faithful, and even though I had never attended an evangelical church or read the Bible, He got in contact with me because I had received Him in my heart as my Lord and Savior. Glory to God!

# CHAPTER 10

# CONFLICT BETWEEN OUR FAITH AND OUR DECISIONS

In our daily lives, we run into situations that may put our Christian principles to the test. What should we do when our faith conflicts with our decisions? We need to know how to deal with every situation with prudence and wisdom from God. The worldly wisdom that we might have acquired through our lives' experiences or our secular studies might not be wise enough to be used under certain circumstances. We need to have the wisdom of God. For instance, what should a man do when an armed robber breaks in his house? Is he going to fight him off until he overpowers him? Fighting him would not be a sage decision because the robber might kill him if he has a gun. Is somebody obligated to interfere in defense of a person who is being assaulted by an armed robber or by two of them? Not at all, but at least he can call for help because meddling might have terrible consequences. In the Bible, God pours his wisdom down unto men and reveals to them many general pieces of advice, to help them to know how to deal with each one of these dangerous situations. By obeying God, they will spare their lives and the lives of others. There are some decisions that we must make in our Christian lives that will be in direct conflict with the accepted secular behavior, but if they are under God's guidelines, we better follow them.

Below are just a few of the many situations that may come into our lives in which we would decide, and we will see what the Word of God says about them.

## A. Personal desires and the will of God

As human beings, we grow up, and every year we make new resolutions and set new goals in our lives. Some of these are to be fulfilled in a far-off future and others soon. If somebody is not a born-again Christian, they might plan their future and start working on it to have their goals fulfilled; but sometimes it happens that, for one reason or another, they cannot achieve their goals as they planned them. In the meantime, while somebody is trying to achieve their goals, they might run into either right situations or bad ones. Let us consider the case of somebody who is very smart and can solve all the problems that come into their path, without consulting with God. In the end, they will have succeeded and have managed to do what they had planned. Everything worked out perfectly without having considered God in their plans. The fact that somebody can succeed in their plans is not a problem, but not considering God's opinion is. Why? If everything goes smoothly, on track, and they have got what they wanted, why do they have to care about God's will in their business? The answer is that even though they might have succeeded and have become prosperous due to their success, they can start moving away from God because of all that prosperity. Some people are close to God when they do not have very much money or not too many goods; but as soon as they start prospering, little by little, they start moving away from God.

If it is the will of God, He can help us prosper financially, materially, or spiritually; but if God does, let us not forget to pass on His blessings to other people who are in need.

If somebody is reading this book and he or she is not a born-again Christian, I encourage them to become a true Christian (in other words, a born-again Christian) and start taking God's opinion into account for all their plans and goals. In Proverbs 3.5-6 we read: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."

Now, if somebody is reading this book and he or she is already a born-again Christian, that is, if they have been born again from the Spirit of God (John 3.5-7), they have the responsibility before the Lord of double-checking all your plans with Him in prayer. I know that this is a practice that not too many born-again Christian have, but if somebody does not want to miss the target of their goals, set them up with the Lord's guidance and approval. They will not miss the target if they move according to God's will. 2 Corinthians 2.14 says, "But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ..." When God's wisdom leads us, when our plans are in Him, when our goals are according to his will in our lives, we will always succeed.

## B. Immigrants to a new country

When somebody is forced to leave his or her country of origin to start a new life in a foreign country, like Canada for instance, and if they come as refugee claimants, upon their arrival they ask them for a written declaration of the political reasons for which they are applying for the refugee status. If somebody is already a born-again Christian, they must tell the truth on that written declaration and keep on trusting the Lord for the results. Whatever the immigration decision might be, they can be sure that the Lord will be with them and He will bless them, whether He lets them stay in the country or not. If anyone is just a Christian from birth, that means that they can be Catholic, Anglican, or belonging to any other Christian denomination, but not to the born-again Christians. Then, when they are just Christians from birth, in this situation, they will probably try to do whatever they can to stay in the country and it will be harder for them if after they have tried different means to stay, the government deports them. On the other hand, when someone is a born-again Christian, even if they deport you, it will be the will of God for your life, and if they trust in the Lord with all their heart, they can be sure that He will bless them the same whether in the country they are trying to migrate to or in their own country. Obedience to the will of God is what counts at the end.

## C. Meddling in a quarrel

In Proverbs 26: 17 we read, "Like the one who seizes a dog by the ears is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own."

The Word of God is wisdom, the wisdom of God. In the above verse, the Lord makes a comparison between two hazardous situations. If somebody grabs a strange dog by the ears, the dog will try biting their hands until they release its ears, and they could be seriously hurt. In the same way, somebody could be seriously hurt if they meddle in a quarrel not theirs. If there is a quarrel, and somebody has no part in it, but he or she try to become a mediator, something as perilous as a shooting or stabbing could happen to them at that moment. and somebody can die because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In these cases, it is better to leave the situation in the authority's hands. Do not meddle in others' quarrels. Recently, in the city I live, a young man was shot to death when trying to defend a senior who was being bothered by two men on the street. Following, I make an analysis related to the situation I just told about based on the following questions: Did this young man do wrong, did he disobey the Lord by trying to help an old man? This young man had just left a reunion and the wisest thing he should have done was to go back to his friend and acquaintances and called for help. Do not forget that two men were assaulting the old man and the young man was coming by himself. The biggest mistake a person can do in this situation is trying to play the hero, which was what he did. What about if the old man was pretending that he was in trouble? Because nowadays nobody can trust any strange person and it might have been a trap to bring the young man over and to rob him. In this case, the piece of advice is the same than before: he should go and get some help or call 911 for police assistance.

Does this quarrel that Proverbs 26.17 refers only to physical quarrels? What if somebody is asked to intervene?

There are two hypothetical situations here: First, the quarrel can be a verbal or a physical quarrel. Second, that the quarrel can be a family related quarrel or that the participants in the quarrel are strange to the person who intervenes. Remember that this verse emphasizes two things: that the person who might intervene is just a passer-by and that the quarrel is not his or her own.

Let us talk about the family related quarrel. It can be a verbal and physical quarrel between somebody's brother-in-law and his or her sister, between father and mother, or between (or among) other relatives. To exemplify the wisdom of the advice of God of not intervening, I am going to relate a real case that recently happened in the province I live in: There were a mother and her two teenager children, boy and girl, 15 and 12 respectively. The father came home and started quarreling with his wife, first, just verbally and then he became physically violent. Her two children tried to fight their father back when they saw how their father was mistreating their mother. In the end, the man killed his wife and his two children as well. There is wisdom in God's way of thinking. If the boy or the girl, instead of trying to help their mother in their own strength, would have called 911, probably a police patrol would have arrived soon at the scene of the quarrel, and maybe not all of them would have died, or perhaps none of them. In general, when one is present in a family quarrel, the first reaction is to act impulsively without considering the consequences of our rushing. If a man who is related to the family had gone by, and try to help the mother and her children, he might have been seriously hurt or killed in case that the aggressor is armed with a gun or a switchblade knife. Let us guess that he managed to overcome the aggressor and kills him. He will be processed by the justice for man-slaughtering. In the other hand, when the person who intervenes is not related to the family, the situation is similar, he or she has the option of calling for help or intervening and kill or be murdered. Besides, there are many cases in which the relationship between spouses is pathological in the sense that even though the man is an aggressor, the woman never complains or accuse him before the authorities. In situations like this, it does not matter how many times somebody tries to dissolve the quarrel, the ill-related couple will continue to live like that in agreement. When this happens the wisest thing to do on the side of the bystander is to let other relatives of the couples know about it or to talk with the lady and suggest to her some family therapy or to take the case before the authorities or a family counselor.

In situations of quarreling when somebody's life might be at risk, or when the quarreling is not theirs, we cannot apply Jesus' words in Matthew 25.45: "Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." God is wiser than us, and He knows what He counsels and for what reason He counsels it. We must not try playing the hero. It is wiser to look for the authorities' help.

##

## D. Tithing: Is the commandment of tithing in the New Testament?

Tithing to the Lord means that the believer is going to set aside 10% his or her monthly income. In this case, we could be dealing with a situation in which somebody can make the right decision, but he or she feels tempted to make the wrong one. Tithing to the local church is something that has bothered many Christians all around the world. To tithe means to give up 10% of your monthly income to the Lord. Many Christians do not think they must give their tithes to their local church because they lack the necessary instruction regarding why God asks for our tithes. Other so-called Christians know about the reasons and purpose of tithing but they do not do it for two main reasons: (1) they consciously choose to disobey the commandment of God, arguing that tithing belongs to the Law in the Old Testament and it does not apply anymore in the New Testament times; and (2) some of them lack the faith to start obeying God's Word.

Some people teach that we should not tithe to the Lord because that happened under the Law. They need to know that some teachings (commandments) given under the Law still apply in New Testament times. For instance, "Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you" (Deuteronomy 5: 16), You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal "(Deuteronomy. 5.17- 19). "Love the Lord your God and keep His requirements, His decrees, His laws, and His commands always" (Deuteronomy 11.1). However, we could ask, which laws, commandments, and decrees are we going to keep now under the grace of the New Testament covenant? The Lord answers this question when He is our personal Savior, and we study the Bible in a praying attitude with the help of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of the Lord guides us to all knowledge and all truth.

God gave us the commandment of tithing, so we would not fall into the temptation of amassing more and more money, because in doing so we would put our hearts into our money and not into God (Matthew 6.24).

If some people do not obey the commandment of giving the tithes, how much less will they obey the Lord if He would say to them what He said to the rich young man in Matthew 19.21: 'If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.'" Would they be willing to give up everything to serve the Lord? For instance, going as missionaries to the uttermost ends of the Earth (Matthew 28.19-20). Those who do not tithe unto the Lord have placed their heart in their money, but not in God.

I have confirmed with some Christian friends that they have been taught they should not tithe because this was a command given by God to the people of Israel under the Mosaic Law in the Old Testament. Let me ask these persons: Was not also given to Moses under the Law the commandment "You shall not steal"? Does it mean that because we are not under the Law anymore but under the Grace, now we can steal? Of course not! And I could ask the same question with all the other commandments given to Moses under the Law (excepting the 4th one, the Sabbath, please read the teaching on the Sabbath in chapter 3, C-3-a) such as, You shall not kill, You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, etc.

The Bible mentions tithing for the first time when Melchizedek, a priest of God Most High. Melchizedek is a type of Christ because Jesus Christ in His Divine nature (Hebrews 1.8; Isaiah 9.6; Colossians 2.9) has no beginning or end Melchizedek received the tithes form Abram (God changed the name Abram to Abraham but until later in Genesis 17.5) after Abram had defeated the king Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him who had taken away his nephew Lot as a captive (Genesis 14. 9-17). The fact that Abram gave the tithes to Melchizedek is an example so that all nations which descended from Abraham would give their tithes to God Most High.

Let us remember that as Christians we also are by faith in Jesus Christ counted as sons of Abraham, who is considered the father of the faith. I also must remember those who say that tithing was only for the people of Israel that the Church of Jesus Christ is the body of Christ who is the head (Colossians 1.18). The Lord Jesus was a Jew; therefore, all born-again Christians form part of the people of Israel because we are one body with Christ Jesus and that the Church of God (all born-again Christians) have been ingrafted into the main Olive tree which is the nation of Israel. Moreover, by the Holy Spirit we have received the Spirit of sonship, and we are children of God since we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior (Romans 8.15-16; Romans 10.9); then, the Lord Jesus becomes our elder Brother because He is the Son of God. For this reason, also, the Church of God form part of the people of God upon earth. In Romans 11.11-24, the apostle Paul makes a detailed explanation saying that the Gentiles have been grafted in the cultivated olive tree. Jesus Christ is this cultivated olive tree, and therefore, spiritually we form part of Israel because all born-again Christians are part of Jesus who is the Head of the Church of God. God confirms that we belong to Him in 1 Peter 2:9: "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."

Why does God want us to give up one-tenth of our income? Does He not have enough, as to ask us for our money? Indeed, God has enough of everything, and He does not need our money, but this commandment was not given favoring God but to favor us. The problem with men is greediness, and God knows it. Some people are never satisfied with what they have and to have those things they want, they need more and more money. For a greedy person, tithing is impossible because they look at it as an enemy to their savings. Having an egotistic or a disobedient heart makes it impossible for us to obey the commandment of tithing, even though it is a commandment with a promise of blessing. The other teaching about tithing is that God wants us to do it, so we can learn to trust in his provision and for us to avoid putting our hearts only into our money. "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many grieves (1 Timothy 6.10)." Some people love their money more than God. Once, my wife and I were evangelizing an acquaintance of us to win him for Jesus, and we were telling him how much God loved him. We told him also that God wanted him to surrender his heart to Him, and his answer to this was, "Yes, I give God all my heart but not my wallet". Poor fellow. his god was his money.

### 1. Tithing is the will of God in the New Testament

Yes, my dear fellow Christian, it is implicit in the words that the Lord Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and teachers of the Law in Matthew. Many Christians say that they do not tithe because that commandment is not in the New Testament and that this was only for the Old Testament times under the Law of Moses. When the Lord Jesus was rebuking the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, he told them: "Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices -mint, dill, and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law –justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former" (Matthew 23.23). The Lord mentioned three attributes of God, which the Lord said were at work under the Law and they are still at work in the New Covenant, (in the New Testament times) these attributes are justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Let us analyze each one of these and their relationship to tithing in the New Testament:

(1) Justice: The first meaning of justice is "the quality of being just" (Funk & Wagnalls, p.735) and the meaning of Just is: "Fair, even-handed, and impartial in acting or judging." Lord Jesus wants us to be fair with God. If we work, it is because God provides us with health and our jobs, would not it be fair if we show God our gratitude by just giving Him the tithes He demands from us, and He still defeat us in giving, because Tithing is a command in which God promises "to throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it" (Malachi 3.10). Do not you think it would be unfair on our side if we do not let go just ten percent of that hundred percent with which God has blessed us? In return, He gives us more than we gave Him according to His promise in Malachi 3.10.

(2) Mercy: The Lord showed what to put into practice justice and mercy means when the Pharisees brought to Him the woman caught in adultery. The men said to Jesus: "This woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now, what do you say?" (John 8.4-5). If the Lord Jesus had remained faithful to the Law of Moses, He would have stoned the woman to death, but thank God for Jesus Christ who came to establish the New Covenant based in the love, mercy, justice, and faithfulness of God, and we are not anymore under the Law of Moses but under the Law of Christ which is love (Romans 10.4; Romans 13.10). Jesus did not condemn the woman but forgave her sin, gave her the opportunity of repentance and turning back to God, all the contrary to what was written in the Law. In the same manner, through tithing God gives us the opportunity to show our love to God through obedience, we receive the mercy of God who does not want that our hearts be hooked to the love of money: "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money" (Matthew 6.24). God is love and He wants to teach us how to be merciful with the poor and needy as He commands in Deuteronomy 15.7-11.

The justice and mercy of God are proven through tithing when He asked us to let go part of our incomes to provide for the poor, the seniors, the disabled, the orphans, or the needy. Deuteronomy 26. 12-13 teaches that tithes should be to assist the needs of the servants of God: those who does not work because God has called them to dedicate their lives full time to serve the people of God, helping the poor, and preaching the Gospel (more about this in sub-section 6: "Management of tithes and offerings"). Tithes should also help the foreigners: there have always been needy foreigners who arrive in our countries and God expect us to provide for them the necessary things for a decent living. Tithes should help the needs of the orphans: we need to care for the fatherless ones. God is the Father of the orphans, and He wishes that His people provide them with things for their physical, emotional, and intellectual development. For the needs of the widows: There are some abandoned widows and seniors, nobody cares for them, so God wants us to take care of their basic needs so that they do not lack food or clothes. The "religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1.27). God the Father does not want us to be indifferent to the needs of the foreigners, the orphans, disabled, seniors, and widows.

(3) Faithfulness: When we tithe, God sees with pleasure that His children are learning to walk in obedience and faith in God and learning to depend on the faithfulness of God. God will never let us fall short of anything that we need for our daily living: "The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing" (Psalm 34.10). Obeying the Lord regarding on tithing is a matter of faith and the actual condition of our hearts.

God wants that through the exercising of our faith we develop a greater love for Him than for money. Some brethren give their tithe with the hope that God return them double or more of the tithe they gave. God has promised to bless us abundantly when we tithe, and that blessing can be in different ways not only moneywise. He can bless us providing for us materially, keeping us healthy, keeping our jobs, keeping us from accidents, and if the person is a farmer, God can bless their lands and their harvests.

When Lord Jesus referred to the habit of tithing that the Pharisees had according to Matthew 23.23, He rebuked them because they had neglected justice, mercy, and faithfulness. What Lord Jesus told them in this verse, had already been commanded by Lord Jehovah in the Old Testament: "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6.8). It was necessary to exercise justice, mercy, and faith under the Old Testament as it is also necessary to exercise them in the New Testament times.

In the last part of Matthew 23.23, Lord Jesus said: "You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former" Lord Jesus was telling the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law to practice justice, mercy, and faithfulness, but also to continue tithing. Besides, there is no verse in the New Testament in which Lord Jesus commanded to stop tithing, and the apostles neither. In the New Testament, the apostles made a special mention about offering without neglecting to tithe, because in the Old and New Testament offerings were out of a free will and with a grateful heart towards God, but tithing was a command of the Lord. In the Old Testament, the people of God gave tithes and special gift, free will offerings, and whatever they had vowed to give to the Lord out of their possessions, how much do we give to the Lord nowadays out of a free will?

Whatever was wrong or sinful to the Lord in the Old Testament, it is still wrong and sinful in the New Testament. If God said that the people of Israel were robbing Him because they were not tithing, would not it be the same sin of stealing from God in the New Testament when someone does not give their tithes unto the Lord as He commanded us? If a father tells his son in his childhood that taking away things that do not belong to him is stealing, would this teaching change when his child grows up? Not at all: whatever was a sin in your childhood is still a sin in your adulthood. Similarly, robbing the tithes of God in the Old Testament is still the same robbing of God in the New Testament.

When I was attending Bible College in Dallas Texas, I met a young pastor who gave me away this song and now I want to share the lyrics with you, sorry because I cannot sing it out for you:

I have learned one thing in my Christian walk,

I cannot win God regarding giving away.

The most I try to overcome Him in giving,

He always wins out because He gives me back

a lot more of what I gave Him.

If you want, you can test Him

and start today to tithe unto Him, and

you will see that in a short time you as well

will say: I have learned one thing in my Christian walk,

I cannot win God regarding giving away.

The most I try to overcome Him in giving,

He always wins out.

You cannot give away without love

neither you can love without giving away,

If I give, it is not because I have a lot,

on the contrary, because I have, that is why I give Him.

If God would ask me to give,

it is because He wants to give me back,

and when my God gives me more

it means that He wants to ask for more from me.

I have learned one thing in my Christian walk,

I cannot win God regarding giving away.

The most I try to overcome Him in giving,

He always wins out, because He gives me back

a lot more of what I gave Him

### 2. Tithes and Offerings

There were many types of offerings in Old Testament times. These were according to the celebrations or the purpose for which God had established them. The people of God fulfilled with all the rituals and ceremonies to offer them, but the first and main intention was to approach God to thank Him and worship Him.

When the Israelites brought their offerings, they must do it wholeheartedly and fulfill with all the purification ceremonies. Moreover, they must put salt in all offerings of grain and sacrifices, before presenting them to the Lord. This salt was called the "salt of the covenant of God". Salt was a symbol of the preservation from sin that men had to seek before bringing their offerings to the Lord. All kinds of offerings were a most holy things before the Lord.

Salt was the opposite to leaven, for it preserved from putrefaction and corruption, and signified the purity and persevering fidelity that were necessary for the worship of God. Everything was seasoned with it, to signify the purity and perfection that should be extended through every part of the Divine service, and through the hearts and lives of God's worshippers.

The command of seasoning all offerings with salt was given first in Leviticus 2.13, and then it is repeated by the Lord Jesus in Mark 9.50 when He tells us: "Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with each other." In the New Testament times, we are the sacrificial offerings to be presented before the Lord: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God -this is your spiritual act of worship" (Romans 12.1). That "we must have salt in us" means that we must walk in fear and reverence before God, so we can keep ourselves pure and preserved from sinning as much as we can. This does not mean that we are not going to sin anymore, but if we sin, we must proceed to repent as soon as possible to be forgiven by our merciful God through Jesus Christ His Son. Thank God for His beloved Son who is our Advocator before God and for His Holy Spirit who warns us of sin and of the evil ahead.

Reverend Donald C. Stamps wrote the following about tithes and offerings:

"Sometimes the people of God used to bring their offerings with lots of generosity and with free will to help in the needs of the temple (Exodus 35.20-29; Exodus 36.3-7; 2 Kings 12.9-10; 1 Chronicles 29.1-13; 2 Chronicles 31.5-19). "There were also numerous times in Old Testament history that God's people selfishly held on to their money rather than give it to the Lord in regular tithes and offerings. During the building of the second temple, the Jews seemed more interested in building up their property, while leaving God's house in ruins. As a result, said Haggai, many of them were suffering financial reverses (Haggai 1:3-6). A similar thing was happening in the prophet Malachi's time, and once again God was judging his people for refusing to bring in the tithes (Malachi 3:9-12)."

Nowadays, some believers do not give their tithes or offerings as they should. The excuses are such like these: they are saving to travel in their vacations, to buy a bigger house, for their children's university studies in 20 years from now, to buy a new vehicle or a more spacious one, for buying more video games to their children, and for many other reasons. The excuses for not tithing to the Lord and give generous offerings are too many, and they are the consequence of a not regenerated heart, of a heart that has not had a genuine encounter with Jesus Christ. These brethren have been members of the church for many years, and some of them even are ministering the Lord, but they have not had a real experience of conversion.

As a result, they continue living as carnal (worldly) Christians and not as spiritual ones (1 Corinthians 3.1-3). They continue being mere infants in Christ and cannot grow because they do not want to give up the desires of the flesh and the sinful nature of the natural man, the man without the Spirit, to become a spiritual man, a man living according to the will of the Spirit of God.

### 3. The offerings in the New Testament

In the New Testament, all ceremonials and rituals which accompanied the offerings in the Old Testament disappear, because all offerings pointed at Jesus Christ because He is the perfect offering, the perfect holocaust, who takes us closer to God. As well, the offerings unto God must be voluntary and "each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give" (2 Corinthians 9.7).

How can a man decide in his heart? When a man has clear in his mind why he must tithe to the Lord and give freely generous offerings, then he will give his offering spontaneously with right judgment and equity as the God will put in his heart. Why in some Christian churches struggle to have the necessary expenses covered, or that in some of these churches hardly they collect to share with the needy for example with the orphanages, or with the missionary field? The churches that happen to go through these situations are lacking faith, and they cannot give lavishly because their faith is failing. The Lord does not keep anything for Him, whatever you place in the offering plate for the needy, missionary field, or for the expenses in the house of the Lord will be returned to you: "Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done" (Proverbs 19.17).

The main problem with churches that sow sparingly is that they have not learned to walk in the Spirit, to move themselves according to the will of God, and to be in complete harmony with the vision, mission, and passion of God. The Lord says that it is He who causes in us "to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:13). The Lord meant that if the Spirit of God leads His people, we will give our offerings with no reluctance or compulsion, and God will place in our hearts the generous offering He wishes us to give. This generous amount will not affect our budgets, because He will provide enough for food, bills, vehicle maintenance, clothes, and all the other expenses in a family. Why? He will provide enough for us because He loves the cheerful giver. He has promised to bless us abundantly and "God can make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work" (2 Corinthians 9.8).

Tithes and offerings should come out of a grateful heart. Our offering will be directly related to the state of our conscience. If we are greedy, we will give sparingly; if we are generous, we will give generously. "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously" (2 Corinthians 9.6). "God has promised to reward us according to how we have given to him (see Deuteronomy 15.4; Malachi 3.10-12; Matthew 19.21; 1 Timothy 6.18-19; 2 Corinthians 9.6)."

### 4. How does God look at offerings?

"But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16.7).

"As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. "Truly I tell you," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on" (Mark 12.41-44). In the story of the poor widow, the Lord Jesus saw in the widow's heart: love, humbleness, and unselfishness. So, God received the widow's offering well because she was of a good conscience and the love of God was in her heart. These qualities are the ones that God expects to see in the believer's hearts when he offers up to Him. The Lord brings to light the stinginess of the riches. The Lord knows when His children are giving their offerings to please God and when they are not.

### 5. Some requirements to please God with your offerings

#### a. Everybody should bring their offerings in peace with their neighbours

Nobody shall bring their offerings to God if they have a quarrel going on with somebody, even if they are not the ones to blame for it: "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5.23-24).

#### b. Offerings must be secret

Therefore, when somebody gives their offerings, they should not make public how much they gave and to whom they gave.

#### c. Give offerings wholeheartedly

When somebody brings his or her offering to God, they have to do it from the bottom of their heart and according to what they have decided in their heart to give. The person who offers should try to live in the Spirit, so whatever he or she gives will please God. As an example of God's fidelity, I will tell the following anecdote:

Once, a Christian sister was attending an evangelistic crusade and the time to collect the offering came, and they ask for a wholeheartedly offering to cover the need of somebody. The sister told her husband: "I only have 50 Córdobas (Nicaragua's national currency), if I give them away, we must return home on foot." Her husband agreed, and she gave out all the money she had. The worship service was over, and everybody headed home. When they were leaving, the sister saw a bill almost buried in the grass and dust, picked it up and surprise! It was a 500 Córdobas bill which belonged to nobody. God had returned to her more of what she had given up, with love, in her offering to God.

When at the church or in an evangelistic crusade, they are collecting the offering whether to help the needy, for the missionary field, or for an internal need related to the temple and if somebody feels in their hearts that God is asking them to give a very generous offering, do it. It might be a certain percentage of their savings or most of the money they have available at that moment. Give to God generously, and you will see that God does not hold anything back for Him, but in the Lord's time, He will return to you more of what you gave to Him in your offering.

#### d. Nobody shall begrudge their offering or give it under compulsion

Not to begrudge your offering means that one must give out of a goodwill with a cheerful heart; and not to give their offering under compulsion means that they should not give their offering because they must do it, as by force.

#### e. When somebody gives their tithes or offerings, they should not lie

"Liars will not enter in the Kingdom of God, but their portion "will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur" (Revelation 21.8). Sometimes, somebody might ask a brother or a sister if they are tithing, and they say, "yes," but before giving up his or her tithes they keep back a certain amount out of the tithe. They do hold some money back from their tithes, because they consider that the 10% is too much money for the church or the pastor. Indeed, when someone gives their tithes, they do not do it for the church or the pastor, they do it to please the Lord, and the reward will come back to them form Him.

The book of Acts tells the story of Ananias and Sapphira: "Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife's full knowledge, he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet.

Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God" (Acts 5:1-4).

Ananias and his wife dare to lie to the apostles, but the judgment of God came to them because they have lied to God, not to the apostles. This passage of Ananias and his wife teaches us that even though we may think that nobody is watching on us when we do something wrong, there is a God in heavens who is watching over us all the time and sooner or later what we might do in secret will come up to light and will be made public.

#### f. Nobody shall steal from the offering plate

Some brethren in some congregations do not believe that God is real and that He punishes sin according to His methods; therefore, they do not fear God. I will tell you a real case that happens in an evangelical congregation: There were two Christian sisters and most of the times they oversaw collecting the offerings in their congregation. Once, one of them was counting the collected amount in an office, but the office's door was ajar. A brother happens to pass by the door and saw when the sister was hiding some money in her underwear. This brother went to the pastor right away and told him what he had seen. The pastor called the sister and faced her with the brother. She did not recognize her fault, went mad because they were mistrusting her and left the church. The other sister who was her partner in stealing stayed in the church because nobody had seen her doing anything wrong. A few days later, this sister quarreled with one person, and she went so much upset that one artery in her brain burst out, and she died immediately. These two sisters were young ladies, but they did not recognize their sin. Then, one of them underwent the spiritual and physical death and the other one, the one who stayed alive, will run into a spiritual death if she does not repent before she dies. We must fear God: "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left" (Hebrews 10:26). God is good, but it would be better for us if we learn to fear God and keep ourselves away from evil doing (Hebrews 10.28-31).

### 6. Management of the tithes and offerings

I want to make clear that the first purpose of tithes and offerings should not be to pay the rent or the mortgage of the building where the congregation is getting together to worship. We must remember that if we use the tithes and offerings to the spreading of the Gospel and to bless the missionaries, the poor, and needy, then the Lord is going to bless His people in such a manner that He will provide enough money to pay the building.

Some brethren teach that tithes were to give them to the tribe of Levi, so they could live and feed on them and that pastors are not descendant of the tribe of Levi, so they need not collect tithes in the New Testament times. Indeed, the priests of the tribe of Levi were the primary recipients of the tithes as God had ordered. The same principle of helping with tithes those who minister unto the Lord and serve in the temple is applied in the New Testament when the Lord says in 1 Corinthians 9.14: "In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel." This passage from the Scriptures does not mean that pastors should earn huge salaries out of the tithings of the Lord or receive what they collect as tithe as their wage, but due to their service to the Lord, they can be allowed a small fair percentage of the tithes and offerings for their living. This small percentage must be determined by the congregation after sessions of prayer and fasting so that the Holy Spirit would be who reveals the exact percentage for the pastor's monthly wage. This percentage should remain fix, and the amount of money (the pastor's wage) out of this fixed percentage will increase depending on how much the pastor works for the Lord by setting the example to his congregation to win souls through evangelism and teaching and organize them to do the same. If there are some brothers or sisters, who have their jobs but assist the pastor in the management of the church, it is fair to give them some financial help at least for their transportation or gasoline. The elders of the church should look after each one of these cases individually and in an attitude of prayer and fasting, so the Holy Spirit guides them in the amount of money they should give to the brethren. The most a pastor works for the Lord by bringing souls into the kingdom of heaven, the most he will be blessed in his salary. The pastor of the congregation must also give his tithes to the Lord out of his monthly wage. If the congregation belongs to a Christian entity and the pastor has agreed to give a certain percentage to fulfill with this responsibility of the statutes of the organization, he must do it by faith.

## E. Tempted?

We cannot deny the fact that some people suffer temptations almost every day and others occasionally; but what matters is how we react when we are tempted God says in His Word, "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13).

I want to start with a specific kind of temptation which is a difficult one to control: when somebody gets upset about something. Anyone's real character comes up when something provokes them. It might be a work or a family situation. The problem that annoys somebody can come from anywhere, any person, any situation. How somebody handles his or her instinctual reaction, will depend on their relationship with the Lord and on how much they know and live His Word. The Lord wants to mold our characters until we "...become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesian 4: 13) Satan is always trying to find fault in us, and he will do whatever it takes to make us fall into this type of temptation and other ones.

How can somebody fight back against Satan when he comes against them with this kind of weapon? For some people, it does not take too much to make them lose their composure; but if somebody is a born-again Christian, they have to be on guard and learn from the Bible how to deal with this situation. In the book of Esther, King Xerxes was enraged when he heard from Queen Esther the evil plans that Haman the Agagite had against the Jews; but he did not react right away, nor did he make a quick decision against Haman. The king went out to ease his rage and probably to think about the situation of Queen Esther as a Jew (Esther 7.7). When anyone gets upset, they must remember James 1:20, "For man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires." Calm down and think the situation over. Do not react hastily, because, in this kind of situation, someone's faith principles can come into direct collision with their decisions. Reacting in the flesh (in other words, reacting in our natural being) will only lead us to make the wrong decisions.

When somebody makes anybody upset, he or she must remember the words of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 11:29, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Remember that no one will ever learn how to become meek and humble until they stay quiet when somebody offends them or puts them down. Of course, nobody likes to be humiliated, but if somebody does not go through this type of bad experience, he or she will never learn how to be humble as the Lord Jesus is humble.

There is always a battle between the flesh and the spirit, and our natural desires cause this battle. Our natural desires gnaw at our souls. Therefore, the apostle Paul says: "For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want." (Galatians 5:17)

Another kind of temptation in direct conflict with our decisions is our sexual desires. If someone does not want to fall short of the grace of God, they must restrain from all type of immorality (1 Corinthians 6.18). I know it is hard for men, even for Christian men, and for some women, to abstain from sexual immorality. For instance, pornography tempts some spiritual leaders. Even though nobody can see them, God does, and sooner or later what they do in secret will come to light, for "There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known." (Luke 12:2). Women must be careful with this kind of temptation also. Some married women start paying attention to nice compliments other men can make at them, and then they get engaged in sexual relations, which is called adultery. Sometimes, they even dare to forsake their families, running away with another man. Sexual immorality also has to do with unmarried women, and in this case, it is called fornication when they do it with an unmarried man, or adultery if they do it with a married man. God says that the adulterers and fornicators fall under His judgment. "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral" (Hebrews 13.4).

There is a decision to make when Satan comes against us with sexual offers. He will come and tempt us with what we like most, but we must remember that our God is a jealous God and He tries to protect us from destroying our bodies, which are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are God's temple, and He lives in us. The struggle between faith and the decision of satisfying our flesh gets harder when we are feeding the flesh more than the spirit. If we feed the flesh more than the spirit, we will not be well rooted in our spiritual convictions. We might believe in the Lord and the Bible, but just on the surface. We will lack a genuine relationship with our Lord Jesus, and we will not have a fear of God in our hearts. Our spirit can be fed by reading, studying, and memorizing the Word of God, praying and fasting, praising, and witnessing about what God has done in our lives. Then our spiritual nature will be stronger than our carnal nature, and we will be "more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Romans 8:37). The Lord's way to overcome the fleshly desires that battle against our souls is to "flee the evil desires of youth..." (2 Timothy 2.22) because He knows our weakness regarding sexual desires and He recommends us to flee from them: "Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul" (1Peter 2.11).

Everybody should refrain of gossiping and slandering which are two sins of the tongue. We need to stay away from those who like to indulge in sins like these, and here is where faith gets into conflict with our decisions If somebody has a very close friend and one day he or she turns into a gossiper, one must set aside from his or her company, and if one contacts with him or her should take advantage of this opportunity to show them the way to Jesus; otherwise, at any time he or she might get one into trouble. Talking about evil companies around us the Lord says in 1 Corinthians 15:33, "Do not be misled: 'Bad company corrupts good character."

## F. Politics

Politics can become a very subtle temptation if we are not aware of our exact role in this world as born-again Christians. The explanation that follows does not apply to those Christians from birth because they have not yet repented of their sins and accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior of their souls, so they are not able yet to understand the spiritual ways of God. The desire to be involved in politics must do a lot with the desire for money, power, and fame. The born-again Christian who likes to engage in politics concludes that God used Joseph in Egypt, and Daniel in Babylonia, to help rule those kingdoms in their days. The fact that God used them to help rule those kingdoms had different purposes. In the land of Egypt, God gave Joseph favor with the Pharaoh to spare the Hebrews of annihilation (utter extinction) due to a great famine. Daniel and Joseph did not promote themselves as politicians in those days, but the circumstances led them in that direction to fulfill God's plans. God let Daniel find grace before king Darius of Babylon to become a voice of representation of the Jews before the king, but overall Daniel's central role was to bring glory and honor to the only true God when he became the only prophetic voice capable of interpreting the king's dreams. So, King Darius said: "I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end "(Daniel 6.26).

### 1. What about those Christians who want to effect change?

First, I must make the distinction between those who consider themselves "Christians from birth" and "born again Christians." For Christians from birth, in the case of dishonest and evil ones, there is no difference if they take part in Politics and during the exercise of their offices they lie, steal, pretend to be reasonable persons, or murder somebody, in extreme cases, if the political situation demands it. The only purpose is to effect changes according to their interest. If they are honest Christians from birth who might love the Lord and have good will and intentions, they will not last for too long in their offices. Other politicians that might surround them will realize that they (the dishonest politicians) will not be able to steal people's money utilizing cunning and deceiving stratagems due to the presence of the honest Christian from birth, who can denounce their evil intentions.

Second, for born-again Christians, for the faithful ministers of the Gospel of God, there is no room to be involved in political affairs. The ministers of the early Church, the apostles, were engaged in only two main things: (1) prayer, and (2) preaching the Word of God. They did these mainly to facilitate the spiritual growth of the members of the churches, and to explain the Word of God to them. If we want to effect changes in the society, we need to start first by renewing the hearts, and minds of peoples. Only by the Word of God and by the regeneration of our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit can this renewing of peoples' minds and heart happens, but the change must start in us first.

When a born-again Christian gets involved in politics, he or she will not have the Lord and his Word as the main topic of his or her discourses, and neither will he or she use their political campaigns, platforms, or social reunions to exclusively witness of the Lord's Plan of Salvation, i.e., to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

## G. Raising your children

### 1. How society has changed in its moral, civic, and spiritual values

From the beginning of the 17th Century in North America till the beginning of the 19th Century, there were several moral and civic principles taught to our children that have factually disappeared in the present days. In the following paragraphs I mention just a few of them:

#### a. Children were taught to respect their parents and the elderly

A simple way to show respect was to say a greeting when they arrived at the home, and their parents were there chatting with some friends or relatives. Now, many children enter their homes and do not greet anyone present at home whether it be their parents, grandparents, or just visitors.

#### b. The communities were more open, and people interacted more often with each other

In past centuries, people interacted more openly and worked together for a more centered and just society based on community-oriented goals. In the early years of the 19th Century, many industries have boomed in North America and parents were less and less in contact with their children due to the work schedule. Consequently, children made up their groups according to the different habits or inclinations they were developing due to loneliness.

#### c. Unhealthier ways of living took over in society

Simpler and healthier manners of living were underestimated and overrun by more sophisticated, scientifically advanced, and unhealthier ways of living. From the 19th Century ahead, the tobacco industry was at its pick, and many teenagers had smoking cigarettes as a past-time, and drinking was also on the rise among teenagers. Little by little, ostracism due to addictions was taking over, and the community sense was disappearing. Now, the aftermath of the dismembering of society is evident in different ways, for example, shooting sprees at schools, acceptance of same-sex marriages, use of opium and other kinds of stupefacient are on the rise.

#### d. Most families do not live up to Christian principles, and in consequence, society ignores them.

A former Christian-based society has dissolved in a multi-cultural religious society. Without firm Christian principles, society is like a small sailing ship in a stormy sea with little chances to make it safe to port. Without a solid Christian foundation, society perishes. Nowadays, many children disappear in North America due to child sex exploitation, organ traffic black-market, and satanic groups that kidnap them to satisfy their demand for sacrifices. About 20 years ago, there was a picture in a local newspaper of about 100 tables which had about 57,000 photographs of children whose whereabouts were unknown. Many people do not know for example, that on October 31st Satanist groups get together in secret rituals to offer sacrifices of children to Satan. I am sure that many of these 57,000 children ended up as a sacrifice to Satan. As well, crime and terrorism have skyrocketed in the last two decades of the 21st Century. All these things are happening because a significant part of society has given their backs to the Christian God.

In the article entitled: I moved my kids out of America. It was the best parenting decision I've ever made, there is a mother who has two sons, and she was so scared of how the North American society was developing that decided to leave to another less developed country. In her article she wrote this: "In America, it seemed every third child was taking pharmaceuticals to treat behavioral issues, anxiety, or depression. High school students were unloading automatic weapons into their classmates. Opioid use was reaching all new highs."

### 2. Where have we gone astray form the Lord's way

###

#### a. Lack of family devotional

God has wisdom in His commands, precepts, and ordinances He has given us. God says in Proverbs 22.6: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it." If parents train their children in the ways of the Lord, they will grow old with the wisdom of God and will make the right choices according to the will of God for their lives. Nevertheless, the responsibility of training a child falls on his or her parents, not on the schools' teachers. The family devotional is essential at home to let God mold the character of our children.

#### b. Lack of strict regulations on institutions that look after the children's welfare in the past led to destroy many children's lives.

The lack of control and regulations that looked over the welfare of children in orphanages in the past led to child abuse. The lack of psychological and spiritual preparation to deal with the orphans of the people in charge led to child abuse. Due to the orphanages' leaders departing from God's Words, they incurred in children abuse in all sense. In many cases, religious people took care of these children, but they did not know God, because if they have had a genuine relationship with the Lord God Almighty, they would have had a fear of God in their hearts and would have not sexually abused many of those children under their protection. They were just religious people, but they did not have any compassion and real interest for the welfare of those children. They were in those positions only for financial and morbid interest.

#### c. God's discipline helps to turn children into wise and useful men for society

There is no child abuse when somebody disciplines his or her children according to God's methods. If we overthrew the counsel of God to discipline our children at home, then, we will run into horrible consequences. Proverbs 13.24 says: "Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them."

Analyzing the verse just quoted a bit closer we can see that there are two important words: "Loves" and "careful." This verse is saying that parents who love their children will discipline them carefully. This careful and loving discipline is in accord with Proverbs 19.18: "Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death." These two verses are telling parents that they can use physical punishment, but with care, and not stretching their arms to hit their children with intentions to destroy them. A wrongly inflicted corporal punishment can easily lead to the child or youngster dead. Children's physical punishment is reserved only for parents. Teachers are not allowed by God to physically punish their students at any age.

In the Commentaries on the Bible of Adam Clarke, he quoted a commentary on Proverbs 13.24 by Rev. Mr. Holden who says: "By the neglect of early correction the desires (passions) obtain ascendancy; the temper becomes irascible, peevish, querulous. Pride is nourished, humility destroyed, and by the habit of indulgence the mind is incapacitated to bear with firmness and equanimity the cares and sorrows, the checks and disappointments, which flesh is heir to."

The instrument that parents should use to inflict a physical punishment must be of such a texture (should not be something hard like an unbending object for example) that when the child gets hit by the "rod" is not going to be severely physically hurt. As well the part of the body where the punishment will be applied is also important, so the child is not destroyed. Besides, the parent's mood to inflict the punishment is also essential. The parents should not be too angry as to inflict a wild or savage punishment to their children. They must punish them with love. I remember that every time my parents were going to punish me, first, they call me aside and explain to me what I have done wrong, and that I was going to receive a physical punishment because they loved me and wanted to help me to stay away from disobedience and rebellion. My siblings and I were hit with a belt and on the legs because they are a part of our bodies that can stand a good portion of physical punishment. Parents who love their children will discipline them, not always with physical punishment. There will be an occasion in which the type of disobedience will not merit a physical punishment. In this case, the punishment could be cutting off some privileges such as, not allowing the child to go to the cinema, to go to play with their friends, or to cut their allowances for a period. If parents do not discipline their children with love and care, they can easily pass from disciplining to abusing them.

If somebody was born in the last 30 to 40 years, it might be difficult for them to understand the wisdom of the Word of God. If parents spare the physical punishment from their children, their children will not learn to respect anybody, and the children's pride will be nourished, as Rev. Mr. Holden said:

he [the child] will learn no limits, and his ability to wait and be patient will not be edified. That is why, in these days, you run into so irascible persons, full of bitterness, because they have been exposed to some situation that they have not been able to cope with. Some of them know no limits at all and their levels of indulgency are so high that they end up in troubles or in delinquency.

Rev. Loren W. Helm wrote in his book A Voice in the Wilderness: "If the child is not taught to obey his parents, he will have difficulty obeying God. It will not be easy for the undisciplined child to comprehend God's absolute authority over his life when he is converted."  God speaks about training a child in Proverbs 22.6-7. Correction by using physical punishment, which God calls "punish him with the rod" is not easy for parents because they love their children so much that they do not want to discipline them, but certainly acting in this way is a wrong type of love.

"To correct a child from his own ways into an obedient and submissive behavior is not easy. It cannot be done without God's help, without his constant wisdom and counsel. To the observer, correction appears cruel. But the mystery is that it is just the opposite –it is ultimate kindness. Correction grows out of a heart deeply rooted in divine love. To do less leads, sooner or later, to tragedy."

When the laws of men compromise the Christian faith, we must be prepared to stand for our Lord Jesus and our faith in Him. Here we can apply the words that Peter and the other apostles said in Acts 5:29, "...We must obey God rather than men!" Christian parents must give to their children deep and clear explanations of their cultural surrounding, and how its different holidays or celebrations oppose their Christian faith. As examples of these celebrations, I will write only about three, because these are the ones I fully know: one is from Canada where I live, and the other two are from my country of origin -Nicaragua. So, we have (1) Halloween on October 31st; (2) the Feast of Santo Domingo (Saint Domingo) in Nicaragua from August 1st to August 10th; at this feast, they worship a statue of a man which they say is a saint of the Catholic church. Catholics say that "a statue is only a representation of the saint of the Roman Catholic Church, but they are not worshipping them". This asseveration is not true because in the processions they stop in some houses, so people can adore and pray to the statue. I was a Catholic, and I know how people kneel in adoration to pray to the statues of the saints, sing choruses or hymns to them, and carry them in processions by the streets of the towns. All these activities are ways of worshipping and God considers them idolatry, and besides, God prohibits us to make statues; (3) the celebration of the Conception of the Virgin Mary, on December 7th, in Nicaragua. At this feast, they worship a statue of a woman which they say is the Virgin Mary. I have chosen only these three festivals specifically practiced by Catholics because one of the purposes of this book is to bring the truth of God forth to help Catholics to avoid the sin of idolatry in all its forms. God does not command us to isolate from people, but He asks us to abstain from things that are not appropriate for us such as practicing idolatry. All the celebrations formerly mentioned honor and worship Satan and the idols. The Lord does not want us to be like puppets, but He warns us to examine things and ponder if they are appropriate for our spiritual lives. The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6.12: "Everything is permissible for me but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me 'but I will not be mastered by anything." Parents are called to instruct their children at home, before they start to receive instruction at school."

## H. Secular theories at school

Nowadays at all levels of schooling, from elementary school to university, our children are being influenced by so many humanistic and scientific theories that teach them to deny God and His power. If you do not want to give Satan a foothold to destroy your children spiritually, as parents, you must take good care of their spiritual instruction, and teach them how to pray and how to experience God in their own lives. Your children will find themselves in a real confrontation about what they have read or heard from the Bible and the scientific theories about the creation of life and the universe, or about other topics in which they will need assistance to learn to stand firm in their Christian faith. For example, at schools, teachers teach children about the Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe. One of the premises of this theory is that the universe was very hot at its beginning due to the high amount of radiation and heat involved in the process of evolution and formation of the same. Scientifically, organic compounds cannot be formed out of inorganic elements such as the ones that endured the high temperature evolved in the formation of the universe. No form of life in all its different genders could have come out of the high temperatures that existed in the Big Bang Theory.

As born-again Christians, we must be on guard, so that when the temptation to give up our faith comes to give place to self-indulgence, we will not surrender our wills at all with the help of God. If we cry out for the help of the Holy Spirit, He will assist us, and strengthen us to help us to stand firm in our faith in Jesus. Let us move closer and closer to Jesus, and He will reveal Himself to us more and more every day.

## Introduction to testimonies of Chapter 10

These testimonies show what it takes to be pleasant to God. Fixing our eyes on Jesus will help us not to doubt the words of the Lord because He is more than faithful to fulfill His promises to us.

## Testimony 15: Not having business with unbelievers (Testimony of my wife)

When I first started attending the evangelical church, I remember the first time that I read 2 Corinthians 6.14-15. These verses speak of the great advice of the Lord regarding to not having romantic relationships with unbelievers. After I read it for the first time, the Lord made sure I never forgot it. I was only 17 years old, and I never imagined how vital those verses would be for me. The Holy Spirit reminded me about those verses every time I was about to fall in love. I had started working in the hospital, and sometimes I saw a handsome fellow and said, "How much I like that fellow!" When the first signs appeared, showing that I had started to fall in love, the Holy Spirit would come to my heart and tell me, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers; for what harmony is there between Christ and Belial?" I used to fear in my heart because it was the voice of the Lord warning me by his Holy Spirit. The Lord wanted to keep me safe.

I tried to be an efficient worker. Many doctors in the hospital used to live in debauchery, and they picked any female worker that paid them attention and had illicit sexual relations with them. I could see how many of the girls were getting pregnant and having babies with these doctors. The doctors were never responsible for those children. When I saw the girls' pregnancies, I longed to be pregnant also; but the Lord was always warning me saying, "Just observe." Then I could see all the troubles my friends had gotten into because the doctors did not want to be responsible for their children. Looking at my friends' deplorable conditions, I always remembered the Word of the Lord in 2 Corinthians 6.15. In my case, if I had disobeyed the Lord, I would have been exposed to worse situations than the ones my friends had fallen into because Satan inflicts harder blows on those who try to keep themselves pure in the Lord's way. I fell in love several times, but there was always that inner voice of the Spirit, like a powerful influence of the Lord over my life to protect me. In my family, I have had good examples. My three older sisters had gotten married in the church, and my mom never divorced my father. When once I was in love with a doctor, the Lord told me: "He is an adulterer who has laid down with many women. He is not appropriate for you."

Another day, the Lord showed me a vision of the doctor I loved. In the vision, this doctor was sitting in a dark spot in a cafe where I had gone. The next week one of my friends invited me to come to a cafe to have something to eat. I agreed, and we went. They were dancing and having some beers, but I was bored because I did not drink and was alone. I felt as if somebody was watching me. I did not feel comfortable, and I said to my friend that I was leaving. Two weeks later this friend told me, "The doctor was at the cafe, but we did not see him because he was sitting at a table in a dark spot having a beer, and this week he came to me and asked about you. I think this doctor has fallen in love with you." At that moment, I remembered the vision. Again, the Lord came to me and told me, "He is not for you because you do not know something." Indeed, I did not know it then, but I came to know it later, and I will tell you what it was at the end of this testimony.

I had to resign from my position at that hospital because I felt that I could not restrain my feelings anymore. I was sincere with the Lord, and I told him, "Lord, I am trying to avoid him, but my feelings are choking me. I know that he would take me because he needs somebody for him and for his son, but you keep telling me that he is not for me. I do not know why but You know."

When I quit working at that hospital, I felt a great relief. I thought that everything was going to be fine from that day on. I managed to finish my studies with more peace, but we had a break just before Christmas. Another friend invited me over to her place. I did not know that my friend knew the doctor I was in love with, and she did not tell me that he was coming to her place as well. When I stepped out of my house, the voice of the Lord told me, "Martha, today you will decide between him or Me. I am going to show you what is going to happen in the next seven hours." Moreover, the Lord showed me everything that would happen between the doctor and me. At one point in our conversation, he told me, "If you want, we could arrange our lives right now because I am waiting for you. My wife left me, and if you want, you can come to live with me right now, make up your mind." I answered him, "I have nothing to decide. It was my pleasure to have seen you. Goodbye." He left, and I have never seen him again. I had made up my mind for Jesus my Lord. I spent seven hours out of my house, and everything happened just as the Lord had shown it to me in the vision.

I do not know my dear reader if you believe that the Lord can speak to us in dreams and visions, but He does. God speaks to us whenever He wants to disclose the future to give us guidance, protection, or to warn us. Joel 2.28 says, "And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions."

Lord told me that I did not know (something), He did not say what it was. I discovered through friends that were working with the doctor, that one day, when he was on duty, and he had to lead in surgery, they found him under the influence of a stupefacient, because he was a drug addict, and due to that he was fired from the hospital. The Lord spoke to me once more and told me, "Martha, this was the only thing that I had not revealed to you about this man's life, because I was testing your faith."

## Testimony 16: The promise of having a husband came to my life in the Lord's perfect timing. (Testimony of my wife)

##

After I had quit being in love with the doctor, I said to the Lord, "Lord I know that everything has a price." I was under much pressure because almost everybody wanted to see me married. I was 31 and still single. My mom used to tell me, "How in the world can you still be single? Go and have a son, I will take care of him. I do not want you to be so lonely."

I applied for a scholarship abroad, and the Lord granted it to me. One evening when I was attending a prayer group, the Lord spoke through a prophetess and said, "In this trip that you are going to take, you will meet the man who will be your husband." Then I thought, "Lord, is it that I am going to meet him where I am going?" I had been in Mexico for ten years, and during this time three men said they were in love with me; but many situations hindered me from choosing any of them. I kept waiting and waiting. One day, I received a telephone call from Nicolas, one of my old acquaintances in Managua, who was living in Canada. At the time, he was studying the Bible in the United States. He broke the ice saying, "I want you to be my official girlfriend." I wrote a few letters telling him of several experiences I had had with the Lord. I told him of the many times the Lord had spoken to me, times that He had healed me, times when He had revealed to me things to come, and other divine experiences. I had no idea how ignorant he was in the knowledge of the things God can do for us. When he answered my letters, he broke up our relationship because he did not believe the testimonies to be true. I felt very offended, and crying I said, "Lord, I have waited all my life to have a family, to get married as you commanded it, and to have my own house which has been my golden dream since my childhood." I was broken hearted and inconsolable, but I opened the Bible. The Lord gave me Psalms 27.10: "Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me." When I read these words, the Spirit of the Lord lifted my heart and comforted me. I took a piece of paper and a pen and started writing a letter to him to put things straight. When I had finished, I sealed it and said, "Tomorrow I will mail it, and I do not want to know anything about this 'so-called friend of mine anymore.'" The next day the Spirit of God told me, "Martha, take the letter, rip it up, and throw it out because I am going to deal with him." I wrote another letter to my friend saying, "Well, I understand that with this, you are breaking up our relationship from a distance. I wish you the best in your studies and good-bye."

Two years went by. I was almost 40, and I was disappointed due to those ups and downs that we have when things do not go as one expects. At the end of the tenth year in Mexico I said, "Lord, I have waited upon You. I have desired to be a mom, and now my time in Mexico has almost run out. I must go back to Nicaragua, and You told me that on this trip I was going to find my husband." I felt in my heart that I had to go into a time of prayer and fasting, so I went into a partial fasting time for 40 days. I finished this spiritual exercise on December 31st at two o'clock, on my knees, crying because I had hoped that in those 40 days, I was going to meet my husband; but it was not like that. On the first Sunday of the new year, the Lord spoke to me: "Today, you will receive a telephone call from abroad. When I was on my way home, the Lord told me, "Remember that there is a child who is living in the same house. When you get back home, ask him who called you, because two people have called you from abroad." When I entered the house, the child told me, "Martha, brother Nicolas called you and he said he would call you again this evening." Then the lady owner of the house said, "Yes, Martha, brother Nicolas called you and he said he would call you back around nine o'clock tonight." I was surprised since he had stopped talking to me for two years. I wondered, "Why?" Maybe he wants to wish me well for the New-Year. My emotions overcame me. The Lord told me: "And you still ask me about that? You know perfectly well why he wants to talk to you." In effect, it was to propose marriage to me. After we talked, I told him that I had to double-check it with the Lord if He would reveal it to me. I asked him to call me back the next day at the same time.

That night, I could hardly sleep. I did not fall asleep until 5:30 AM. The Lord spoke to me in dreams, and that morning he gave me this dream: I saw the Lord stretching out his arms with two slices of bread, and He gave one slice to each one of us. Then I said, "Ah Lord, I understand. What You want to tell me is that You will bless us in the same way, but You will bless him over there, and You will bless me over here." The Lord did not say anything, but He asked me to give him back the slice of bread and He asked the same of Nicolas. The Lord took the two slices of bread, put them together and approached me saying, "Martha, stretch out your hands." On one hand, the Lord put the two slices and on the other, He put a little toy, and said, "This represents your son, and this represents the bread. Remember that this is within my will, your provision is within my will." I understood that the Lord was giving his approval for our marriage and that He would bless us evenly.

When the telephone rang the next day, I ran to pick it up. Before coming to Canada, I had to meet all the requirements of the scholarship, request my Canadian visa in Mexico, and I had to arrange several things to get married in Canada. All this took ten months.

The Lord spoke to me: "Remember that I am going before you. 'I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron' (Isaiah 45.2). I am the One who puts the key into the door of the impossible, I am the One that goes before you." The Lord had three keys in his hand. He took one of them and put it into the lock of a door, opened it up and showed me all that would happen at my wedding feast. I am married to a servant of God. In His perfect timing, the Lord gave me my family after 22 years of waiting.

# CONCLUSION

There are so many religious denominations in the world, but only one of them claims to have a God who had a Son -Jesus- who died and came back to life and now lives forever at the right hand of God the Father in heavens, and this is the Christian faith. Nowadays, many believers in Jesus Christ quitted the faith in the Lord that saved their souls. This book was written to help those Christians who had known the love and the grace of God to come back to the One in whom they believed, to their Lord and Master of their lives. It was also written to strengthen the faith of all believers. The Lord Jesus is still communicating with His people as He did in the past, and He is asking all believers to get rooted in the written Word of God and to start praying to experience the voice of God.

After studying the different kinds of stratagems, Satan is using against the Church of Jesus Christ to destroy the Christian faith, the least and the best we can do is to stay close to the Lord Jesus and to fight the good battle of the faith. I hope, and I pray to my dear Lord that, through the reading of this book increased, strengthened, and renewed your faith.

# ###

Thank you for reading my book. I hope your faith has been renewed. If you enjoyed it, won't you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer?

Thanks!

Nicolas A. Morales

# ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND CONTACT

I was born in Nicaragua, but I immigrated to Canada 30 years ago. I graduated as Chemical Engineer in 1984 in Nicaragua. Besides my mother tongue, Spanish, I speak English. I turned into a born-again Christian in 1988, and the Lord Jesus changed my heart and my plans, so I gave up my will to do God's will. After having received my landing immigrant status in Canada, my Lord Jesus gave me the opportunity to study His Word in the Hispanic Institute of Ministry (Bible College) in Dallas, Texas. Having gained a Diploma in Pastoral Studies at this Institute, I returned to Canada in 1998, and a few months later I was sent to teach the Bible in a Spanish church in Surrey, British Columbia (Vancouver). I have been a leader and promoter of the home-cell discipleship groups. I am active in the Lord's service by doing street outreach person to person and teaching the Word of God wherever I have the opportunity. I got married in 1999 to my dear wife, Martha.

I have worked as general labor for 30 years and have taken a few health courses at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario where I gained the certificate as a Personal Support Worker. Obtaining this certificate gave me the opportunity to help patients, seniors, and disabled people in hospitals, and in Long Term Care facilities. Moreover, I have also taken some basic computer courses, but I consider that the most important of all the works I have done has been my service to the Lord. I took part in a course to minister families at Crossroad Ministry Prayer Centre at 100 Huntley Street in Burlington, Ontario. Afterward, I went to Costa Rica to join some Christian conferences held in San Jose, which was later followed by an evangelistic crusade with the goal of reaching out the lost souls from Mexico to Panama.

Four years ago, I started writing my first Christian e-book with the purpose of edifying the Church of God worldwide. The first book Is entitled "Commentaries on the Christian Faith So That Your Faith May Not Fail." There is a Spanish version of this first book. I pray to my dear Lord that many persons may know the Lord as their personal Lord and Savior of their souls through the reading of this first book. I will write and teach on the Word of God until my last day upon this earth, so that the people of God may know the sound doctrine according to the words of our Lord Jesus, and their faith may be increased and strengthened. May God bless you all! It is all about Jesus!

CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR:

mailto: esdrasmsolis@gmail.com

Friend me on Facebook: Nicolas A. Morales

#  ENDNOTES

. Vine, W. E. Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc, 1997, Print, pp.77.

2. Ibid.

3. Avis, Walter S. Funk & Wagnalls Canadian College Dictionary. Markham,Ontario: Harper and Row P., Inc., 1989, p.1134.

4. Kaufman, Gordon D. Essay #6: Reconstructing the Concept of God: De-reifying the Anthropomorphisms. Book by: Coakley, Sarah; Pailing, David A., The Making and Remaking of Christian Doctrine. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, Print, p.96.

5. Dencher, Ted. Why I left Jehovah's Witnesses. Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: Christian Literature Crusade, 1985, Print, pp. 98.

6. Barnes'Notes on the Bible. Acts 15: 20 Commentaries. Biblehub.com/commentaries/acts 15-20.htm.

7. Garcia, Kristin. A Brief History of Blood Transfusion Through the Years. Stanford Blood Center,  https://bloodcenter.stanford.edu/a-brief-history-of-blood-transfusion-through-the-years/, March 10, 2016.

8. Precept Ministries. The International Inductive Study Bible. Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1992, Print, pp. 2107-2108.

9. Oxford Dictionaries. https://www.en.orforddictionaries.com.

10. Stamps, Deuteronomy 4.14: "You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore, watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman."

11.Vine's, p,974.

12. Ibid.

13. Catechism of the Catholic Church- Vatican. Part 2, Section 2, Charter 1, Article 1- Clause 1213. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM

14. Ibid, Article 1.1 Clause 1215

15. Ibid, Article 2.I- Clause 1288.

16. Catechism, Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 1, Article 3-III- Clause 1333.

17. Catechism, Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 1- Clause 1212.

18. Ibid, Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 2, Article 4-V- Clause 1434.

19. Ibid, Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 2, Article 5-II- Clause 1516.

20. Ibid, Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 3, Article 6-VI- Clause 1579.

21. Ibid , Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 3, Article 7-IV- Clause 1649.

22. Ibid, Clause 1650.

23. Stamps , p.1444-1445.

24. Catechism, Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 3, Article 7-IV- Clause 1640.

25. Stamps, p.1761.

26. Code of Canon Law. Book IV, Part 1, Title VII, Chapter III, Clause 1085, paragraph 2. https://www.google.com.

27. Stamps, p.1408

28. Vine, p.1258.

29. Stamps, p.1792.

30. Ibid, 1 John 5.14-15: "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him."

31. Clake, Adam. Commentary on the Bible. Google Store App. Leviticus 2.13.

32. Stamps, p.1392.

33. Stamps, p.1393.

34. DeCambeau, Wendy. I moved my kids out of America. It was the best parenting decision I've ever made. https:/www.theweek.com/articles/703660/moved-kids-America-best-parenting-decision-Ive-ever-made.

35. Helm, W. Loren. A Voice in the Wilderness. Parker, Indiana: Evangel Voice Publication, Inc., 1973, Print, p.87.

36. Helm, p.88.

# CITED WORKS

1. Baltsan, Hayim. Webster's New World Hebrew Dictionary. New York, New York: Mcmillan, 1992, Print.

2. Barnes' Notes on the Bible. Acts 15: 20 Commentaries. Biblehub.com/commentaries/acts 15-20. Htm.

3. Clake, Adam. Commentary on the Bible. Google Store App.

4. DeCambeau, Wendy. I moved my kids out of America. It was the best parenting decision I've ever made. https:/www.thewieek.com/articles/703660/moved-kids-America-best-parenting-decision-Ive-ever-made

5. Dencher, Ted. Why I left Jehovah's Witnesses. Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: Christian Literature Crusade, 1985, Print.

6. Garcia, Kristin. A Brief History of Blood Transfusion Through the Years. Stanford Blood Center, https://bloodcenter.stanford.edu/a-brief-history-of-blood-transfusion-through-the-years/, March 10, 2016.

7. Helm, W. Loren. A Voice in the Wilderness. Parker, Indiana: Evangel Voice Publications, Inc., 1973, Print.

8. Kaufman, Gordon D. Essay #6: Reconstructing the Concept of God: De-reifying the Anthropomorphisms. Book by: Coakley, Sarah; Pailin, David A., The Making and Remaking of Christian Doctrine. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993, Print.

9. Precept Ministries. The International Inductive Study Bible. Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1992, Print.

10. Sociedad Bíblica Internacional. Nuevo Testamento-Nueva Version Internacional Griego-Español, Miami: Florida, 1990, Print.

11. Stamps, Donald C. The New International Version Full life Study Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992, Print.

12. Vine, W. E. Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1997, Print.

