Jesus Christ made two statements whose significance relative to salvation cannot be stressed enough. Those statements involved SPIRITUAL LIGHT. This subject has been preached and taught for thousands of years, yet only a few people have understood exactly what God’s LIGHT is and the essential part it plays in the life of true believers, whom God calls His Very Elect. In John 9:5 we find Jesus saying to His disciples: “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Then in Matthew 5:14 we find Him saying to them, “YOU are the light of the world.” Jesus and His disciples were 13 different men, no two of whom were alike. What was it that made them all the same thing–LIGHT?

Another passage of Scripture reveals a Truth that Satan has hidden from religious man since the Garden of Eden. We find this unknown (or unbelieved) passage in John 1:4 where it is written about Jesus: “IN HIM WAS LIFE, and THE LIFE was THE LIGHT of men.” Notice that the LIGHT that Jesus WAS as a man, was IN Him.” That same LIFE is in His disciples/apostles which make them also the LIFE AND THE LIGHT OF MEN. Though only a select few are called to be God’s apostles or prophets, all who are His are filled with HIS LIGHT which we must be in order to receive ETERNAL LIFE upon His return to earth. The LIFE AND LIGHT OF MEN has not changed. In order to be God’s people we must all have that light in order to receive eternal life from Him. By the same token, His ministers mush have THAT SAME LIGHT in order to be the LIIGHT (BEARER) THAT GIVES PEOPLE LIFE. Only those who have that light and keep it until the end of life will be saved (Mat. 10:22; 25:1-12). GOD’S LIGHT AND ETERNAL LIFE ARE INSEPARABLE.

Know this: Jesus was a man like all other men. He had no spiritual, physical, mental or material advantage over other human beings, including us. The same Holy Spirit that filled Him then fills His Very Elect today. He faced the same world and its challenges and temptations that we face having the same resources that we have. What made Him GOD’S LIGHT TO THE WORLD and enabled Him to live and overcome as He did was what was IN Him–THAT ESSENTIAL LIGHT THAT HE BECAME. ALL WHO WOULD SPEND EETERNITY WITH HIM MUST ALSO BECOME THAT SAME LIGHT. Jesus confessed that He Himself could do nothing by His own power. He depended on God for everything, even the Words He spoke (Jn. 5:30;12:49). So, what was IN Him that filled Him so that He BECAME what filled Him, which was GOD’S LIGHT.

What was that LIGHT that Jesus became? that His disciples/apostles became? and that we must become in order to walk in victory over Satan and therefore receive salvation upon His return to earth? Read Friends of Jesus, key word–Friends. Other than the Holy Spirit, what is it that we must be so filled with that we can “walk as He walked” (1 Jn. 2:6) and “overcome (temptation) as He overcame” (Rev. 3:21)? WHAT IS THE LIGHT WITH WHICH ALL WHO ARE GOD’S CHILDREN MUST BE FILLED? THAT LIGHT WAS ANCIENTLY AND IS TODAY THE WORD/TRUTH/GOSPEL OF GOD. In order to walk as He walked and overcome as He overcame, WE MUST BE SANCTIFIED BY GOD’S WORD/LIGHT/GOSPEL/TRUTH as was He and His apostles (Jn. 17:17). To be SANCTIFIED is to be SET ASIDE FROM ALL OTHERS. We must become His Very Elect saints, which means that we must be different from the people around us, even our family members. Recall that Jesus told true believers that their families would be their enemies (Mat. 10:35-39). Read that passage. On the spiritual level, I can attest to that truth. Why would God’s people be rejected, even hated? even by their own loved ones? BECAUSE WE ARE DIFFERENT. It is human nature to prefer those who are like us. But God’s people have rejected human nature and have taken on His nature and exemplified by the man, Jesus of Nazareth. we walk in (obedience to) the Spirit, not in the flesh. This automatically places us at odds with those around us.

The Lord characterizes His sanctified, obedient, Very Elect people as: “… a peculiar treasure to Me above all other people … a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exo. 19:5,6). The Apostle Peter describes God’s true saints as “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people who manifest the glory of Him who calls us out of darkness and into His marvelous LIGHT (1 Pet. 2:9).

Who within professing Christendom believes the above-referenced Truths found in the Holy Scriptures? Only a few, which is what Jesus prophesied would be the case in Matthew 7:13,14; 22:24) where He reminds us that, though many are called to walk His walk and to overcome Satan as He did by believing and obeying God’s Words (light), few would answer His call. As I have stated before, God designed this ministry to serve as a missionary service to the Institutional Church which I call the Catholic/Protestant Religious System. Notice I did not call my mission field “God’s Church,” because it is not God’s church. The masses of believers in “the church” are not God’s obedient people. If, that is, we can take God at His Word. I do, which is why He called me to this particular ministry. I am continually humbled by the fact that He chose me to conduct this pre-tribulation work. My hope is that I can lead a few out of Satan’s clutches and into the welcoming arms of Jesus Christ and can save them from having to endure the Great Tribulation and Day of the Lord that are soon coming upon the world.

As I have warned in several series lately, in the near future all who claim to be God’s people will be forced to make a choice as to whom they will obey–Him or Satan. As is the case with all things in the spiritual realm, there is no mixing of gods, just as there is no mixing of right and wrong, righteousness and evil. Such mixing turns so-called “sinners saved by grace” into vomit in the mouth of the Almighty who will spew them out and into the soon-coming hell on earth. Read about this time of death and destruction using the key word–Tribulation.

But before that horrific time there will arrive a church-wide civil war in which each of us will be forced to make a spiritual, life-or-death decision. The spiritually dead will remain dead and the spiritually alive will, if they continue to stand, remain alive. In the face of a world-wide enemy, only those who are truly God’s Very Elect will choose Him. As stated in the series, this war will pit those who embrace His 7th Day Sabbath against Satan’s 1st day sabbath keepers. Read about this war using the key word–Civil.

The coming global war will separate the Lord’s spiritual sheep from Satan’s religious goats who are both in “the church?” Read Who Are God’s People? and “My People Called by My Name,” key words–People and Called respectively. With both sheep and goats in the same organization, how does one distinguish between them? Answer: by their “hair.” In nature, sheep and goats are the same in terms of body shape, size, mental capacity, instincts, language, physical habits, likes, etc. If shown five sheep and five goats even a child can distinguish between them. How? BY THEIR HAIR. If the hair of all ten were to be clipped to the skin, they could not be distinguishable. What does their hair represent? THEIR HAIR STANDS OUT–IT IS WHAT IMMEDIATELY DISTINGUISHES THEM AND SETS THEM APART. HAIR IS READILY SEEN. IT IS THEIR MOST OBSERVABLE FEATURE. IT IS THE FIRST AND MOST OBSERVABLE TRAIT. IT IS WHAT IS KNOWN IN SOCIOLOGICAL CIRCLES AS THEIR “MASTER STATUS.” Among humans one’s master status is his/her social “hair”). It is what is “seen” (most widely known) about the life of the person. We are known by our M.S. A known thief is identified, not as that man who lives on Third Street, but as “that thief that lives on Third Street.” The true servant’s M.S. is that which separates him/her from everyone else. It is his/her “walk” while in this life–righteousness,, holiness, godliness, which all others reject, especially church people. Why? BECAUSE DARKNESS HATES LIGHT BECAUSE IT EXPOSES THEIR DARKNESS.

Anyone who has departed from “the church” will tell you that they are now identified in negative terms by those they left behind. My earliest memory of hearing about “those _______ people” was when someone identified those in a certain church in very negative terms. I was four years old at the time. I later became one of them. However, I found that, thought they were closer to God than the others, they were not where God’s commands us to be. It was at that point that I left them to go on with Christ and into His total Truth. I answered God’s call to “come up hither” relative to the things of the Spirit. This made me a “sinner” who has “fallen from grace.” I say this with the greatest of joy: “on the spiritual level, I am the most hated person in Henderson County, Texas. I hope to one day be on the front of Time Magazine as THE MOST HATED MAN ON EARTH. If what I am hearing from God is true, my dream just might come to pass. After all, Jesus said that if we obey Him, we would be hated as He was hated. He said that if they call the master of the house “evil,” how much more will they call those in His house evil? We are told to “count it all joy.”

SUMMARY: Because God’s WORD is His LIGHT which brings LIFE to man, His true saints are His WORD/LIGHT/LIFE IN A DARK, LOST AND DYING CHURCH. We must let those who reject us see our LIGHT/WORD IN HOPES THAT THEY WILL COME TO OUR LIGHT AND RECEIVE LIFE. L.J.