Blessing Or Curse?
All these blessings will come upon
you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God... However, if you do
not obey the Lord your God... all these curses will come upon you and
overtake you
(Deut 28:2,15, NIV).
In
1993, God spoke to us about a car dealership in our local
town, Aylesbury. He told our son to go and tell them they
needed God in their lives, and to offer them one of our
booklets, God’s Great Genius.
Richard
also had to tell them that God had said He would give us a
red BMW 325i estate car for use in our ministry, and that it
would be donated by a garage. Of course, the garage staff,
being suspicious about our motives, jumped to the conclusion
that this was a clever ruse to try and get a free car out of
them – which it was not.
Anyway,
Richard did what he was told, even though the unique
experience was not pleasant, or what he wanted to do,
humanly. His words were regarded as a joke by the garage
staff, and he was rebuffed as some sort of fanatic.
But God
was not joking. God is no fanatic. He cares deeply about
humans and their problems. And, even though people don’t
like Him invading their space, He tries to warn us all about
our ways which are self-destructive.
If we
choose to go our own way, we reap the harvest of that way we
have sown – in one word, cursing! But if we determine to go
upstream, and choose God’s way, there is a harvest of good
awaiting us – blessing!
The
first way is the natural way; the second way is not natural.
The principle is a living law of cause and effect. It
operates in the world and it operates in the Church. Every
human is subject to it in one way or another.
You Reap What You Sow
I was reminded of this principle one
day when I drove past the garage where Richard had witnessed eight years
ago. It was still closed![1]
The word CURSED! came into my mind.
I recalled some of the curses of the
devil and his demons, like voodoo spells. These are very real! They are not
mere ‘hocus pocus’. If you go to Haiti and see the effect of voodoo curses,
you will know they are not silly antics! They muster real spiritual forces
that devastate human lives – even to the point of death!
God is far greater than any number of
demons, and when people defy Him, they pay the price by bringing a curse
upon themselves. He wants to bless, but He can only do so when we go the way
He prescribes. The choice is ours.
Do not be deceived, God is not
mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap (Galatians 6:7).
Below: The premises of the
former BMW dealership in Tring Road, Aylesbury, which was forced to closed 13 months after they mocked
God’s warnings.
I have only ever pronounced a curse on
other people once in my life. It was upon ‘our’ former church, who threw our
family out of their company without legitimate grounds, trumped up false
charges against us, blackened our character, and criticised and ridiculed
what we said under the anointing of God. While we sought to obey God
unequivocally, they did not.
On one occasion many years ago now, God
spoke to us to go to their headquarters offices to talk to a certain
minister in their employ. So, we went there and asked to speak to this
church leader. We were fobbed off by the doorman with excuses and lies. He
told us that the man we sought to speak to was not there (but his car was in
the car park). He claimed that there was no one representing the church, in
the building, to talk to us. Yet, there were lights on in their offices
upstairs, the blinds were partially drawn, and you could see some movement.
There were people there! But, no one wanted anything to do with us, or to
even speak with us!
Suddenly, a great anger welled up
within me and as I stood in that car park, I pronounced a curse upon their
organisation. That church was cursed from that day on! And it has paid
dearly for their rejection of those whom God sent to them. It has lost
truth, lost God’s love, and lost lives!
Some have forfeited their salvation!
Of course, it is not the pronouncing of
words by themselves that brings a curse. Actions are the substance
behind words. Words merely confirm or back up what is already taking place
in the spirit realm.
The words I uttered in that car park
remind me to this day of the very real judgements of God. These punishments
come upon people when they step back from obeying Him or deny Him in some
way.
Jesus warned the first disciples about
this. He said that whenever anyone listens to, and heeds, the words of one
whom God sends, he will benefit from what is said. But if he does not
listen, he will pay the price for his folly. This principle is recorded in
Matthew 10:40-42 and Luke 10:16.
He who hears you hears Me, he who
rejects you rejects Me (Luke 10:16a).
This principle undergirds prophetic
ministry. The trouble with people is that they don’t take it seriously. I’m
not just talking about the world. I’m talking about the Church. Believers
don’t soberly consider that prophets of God are given things for them. And
when this occurs, if they dismiss the input, they dismiss God. They shut the
door in His face. Jesus stands on the other side of the door, but how long
He will continue knocking is a dangerously unknown entity.
Sowing Disaster
We have seen this so often in our work.
God brings people across our path. He speaks to us in dreams and visions
(sometimes also through prophetic words) for them. We tell them the
revelations, but they usually dismiss them as of no consequence or of little
relevance to them. Why? Because they are self-willed.
This is especially true of those who
may have received dreams themselves (and who doesn’t, when God has shown
them that He will speak to them via this avenue?). They think, “I don’t need
to listen to this guy. He may be a prophet, but so what? I can get what I
need from God direct, without having to listen to him.”
The psychology behind this response is
grounded in pride. Some people want pre-eminence or think they ARE
pre-eminent, so they don’t care what others receive, whether it is for them
or not. They are the masters of their own destiny – or so they think. But
they are in for a mighty rude awakening.... if they ever do wake up!
When God speaks, He does not waste His
words. So, we must take great note of all that He says. He speaks
cryptically and the imagery or words He chooses generally take some figuring
out. They are not always immediately understandable. The more we are willing
to submit to Him and obey Him, the more sense we will make of what He is
saying.
God’s prophetic pronouncements are lost
on those who are not walking in His will. Their self-will and disobedience
causes blindness.
And those who are turning away from Him
will lose what they have already, if, when a prophet comes with a revelation
from God, they dismiss it. God comes again into their lives through this
avenue of another person, to try to wake them up, to help them move on. But
when they reject His prompts, they even lose what they had previously.
Therefore, take heed how you hear,
For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even
what he seems to have will be taken from him (Luke 8:18).
When believers reject prophetic input,
they retrogress spiritually. They lose spiritual insight. Their lives become
empty. They find that God leaves them to their own devices, more and more
influenced by demons.
This is the curse. There is only one
way to defeat it, and that is to do the will of God.
Blessed are those who hear the Word
of God and keep it (Luke 11:28b).
The principle has been written in black
and white for millennia. Yahweh (God) told it to Israel:
Now it shall come to pass, if you
diligently obey the voice of the Lord
[Yahweh] your God, to observe carefully all His commandments... that the Lord
your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all
these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the
voice of the Lord your God...
(Deut 28:1,2).
But, God knew what is in the human
heart, so the way Israel went is the way all humanity has gone. He predicted
their downfall through Moses:
For I know that after my death, you
will become utterly corrupt, and turn aside from the way which I have
commanded you. And evil will befall you in the latter days
[our time now], because you will do
evil.. (Deut 31:29).
Britain's Doom Not Far
Away
The closure of the car dealership is a
type of the foreclosure of Britain. When a nation goes its own way, it
eventually reaps the fruit of that way.
When God spoke to me and told me that
the closure of the garage was a type of the foreclosure of the nation, I
didn’t know what He meant.
I looked up the word in a dictionary.
The word ‘foreclose’ means to ‘bar, preclude, prevent, shut out from
enjoyment (of)...’ (Concise Oxford Dictionary).
God is saying that the nation is being
barred or shut out from enjoying His blessings. It is going under the curse.
He is distancing Himself further from the country. Blessings will diminish
and curses will increase.
National skirmishes like the Falklands
War are now a thing of the past. Britain will have no further national
successes of this nature. Her moral or spiritual defeat will automatically
lead to her national and material defeat.
While the nation is now morally
bankrupt, it is only a few steps away from financial bankruptcy. The
government is abysmally unaware of the working of spiritual principles
behind its success or failure. It looks merely at fiscal policies. But
fiscal policies cannot save it from the curse of disobedience to God.
We see Britain’s inexorable decline
every day in the news.
The now infamous London Millennium
dome, which the British government commissioned to celebrate the new
millennium, was hailed by them as a symbol of a new, brighter Britain. But
it failed to meet expectations and proved to be a massive commercial flop.
It closed a year later, after staking up huge losses.
This is a sign of the times for this
land!
All that is built on the shifting sands
of human achievement, without God, will come crashing down one day. And that
day is not far away for this country.
When any people forget God, throw out
the morality which should govern their behaviour, and become utterly
corrupt, they are finished!
What Is Black Is Now
White
I was working in our garden recently,
cutting hedges, when my thoughts suddenly gravitated to some of the awful
things going on in this nation. God was wanting to speak to me about this,
so that others can take heed.
Then He dropped certain words into my
mind. They were these: vulgar, bawdy, and indecent. He
gave me a mental picture together with these words, and I noted what He
said:
What is vulgar, bawdy, lewd, crass,
crude, indecent and seductive in society is now accepted, promoted and even
commended! This is a spiritual atrocity. And the society that promotes
this spiritual reversal is doomed to fail.
Woe to those who call evil good,
and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put
bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Is 5:20.)
The cheapness and vulgarity of
‘comedy’, the tackiness of much of ‘entertainment’, and the crudity
prevalent in British society are only the tip of the immoral iceberg. TV
channels promote sexual perversion and degradation with impudence and
brazenness, as if the basest elements of society have a right to openly
exploit and indulge every form of vileness and filth. And the undiluted
folly of the liberalism of our times justifies this ‘right’. The result is a
tarnishing of everything that is sacred, and the dehumanising of whoever is
respectable.
These satanic individuals are dragging
down many formerly decent members of society into the pit of promiscuity and
vice. The rotten apples in the basket are corrupting the others. The
contagion is spreading rapidly.
One sin, when tolerated, breeds
another. It happened before in Israel; it is happening today in all lands.
Israel is the example for all:
Alas, sinful nation, a people laden
with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have
forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. They
have turned away backward.... You will revolt more and more... (Is 1:4,5).
You see this revolt in fashion, in the
arts and entertainment. Trends have become revolting and ever more depraved
as time goes on!
What will God do? Here is God’s
pronouncement upon the matter:
I will turn My hand against you,
and thoroughly purge away your dross, and take away all your alloy (Is
1:25). The destruction of transgressors and of sinners shall be together,
and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed (Is 1:28). The strong shall
be as tinder, and the work of it as a spark; both will burn together, and no
one shall quench them (Is 1:31).
This is the destruction facing this
country. Britain is headed for takeover by the European Union. She has sold
herself to foreigners. She has lost her common sense because of the
prevalence of sin. It has stolen her reason and her values. There is no way
back without humbly, obediently, turning to God!
Further
Reading: Why Britain Will Fall Soon! (£1.00).
Dreams From God About The Judgement Of Britain (75p).
Everyone’s Busy With Their Own Agenda
I am writing this in mid-August (2001).
Yesterday, I took some time to have a look at some magazines that had come
in from other ministries. But as I did so, I felt down. I didn’t know why. I
thought it might just ‘be me’.
After ten minutes I began to feel even
more ‘edgy’. I was taking a look at Proclamation, the magazine put
out by Derek Prince Ministries (DPM). It seems to be targeted mainly at
young people.
But as I sat there, I felt less and
less in the mood to read what lay before me. I felt an irritation, an
annoyance, even displeasure. At first, I didn’t know what I was sensing, or
why. Then, it came to me: I was sensing in the Spirit, the displeasure of
God at what lay before me.
Readers who know what God gave us to
pass on to DPM are aware that they have rejected our input. (This is
recounted in AA 5-3 under Paedophiles In The Church! That article is
also included in Sunday Versus Sabbath – The Final World Crisis.)
Shortly after sending Derek Prince
Ministries some of our literature on a couple of occasions, they instigated
a policy of refusal to even accept literature and input from outside
sources. They established a cast iron policy of returning it to the sender.
I asked them how they would hear from God through prophets with that
approach, but I suppose that letter also got binned.
On one occasion when I was writing
another letter to Derek Prince hopeful of objective consideration, Jesus
spoke to me with these words:
I am not found in the
institutions of men.
I continued writing the letter, and the
number of words in it indicated beforehand that I would not receive a
positive response.
At the time, I could see that DPM was
institutionalising, but it has moved on (the wrong direction!) much further
since. I notice that they have taken on large premises in Baldock,
Hertfordshire, to provide the needed office space, and their ministry is
expanding by leaps and bounds, which will make many people think it is
growing with the blessing of God. But appearances can be deceptive.
I remember another time the Spirit of
God spoke to me when I was writing God’s Church – Whose Authority? He
said that as church organisations grow, so do the satanic elements that
infiltrate them. I have never forgotten that statement.
As I read
Proclamation, I saw
some astonishing comments by the office manager. They are very revealing. He
wrote:
Over the last four years, I have
become increasingly convinced of two things: Firstly, through his books,
tapes and videos, Derek has provided us with an incredible resource of
clear, biblical and powerful teaching. Secondly, because of the tremendous
changes taking place in our society, people need more help and support, in
order to extract the maximum benefit from teaching such as Derek’s.
That’s all very true, but something is
dreadfully wrong also. Do you perceive what it is?
Look To Jesus, Not To The Man!
The emphasis is on the man. It’s not on
what Jesus has done, on what Jesus has provided, but on what
Derek has done, on what he has provided. I have a high regard
for Derek Prince. His teaching is very good as far as it goes. But it needs
to go further into accepting the entire faith once delivered to the saints.
I am not saying that his ministry is
worse than any others. In fact, if you want to compare his output with that
of other ministries, it is far and away better than multitudes of others.
But that’s not the point. Comparisons between one person and another, or one
ministry and another are unhelpful and can even be divisive (1 Cor 1).
For we dare not class ourselves or
compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring
themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not
wise (2 Cor 10:12).
Do you know what Paul was getting at?
He was inferring that any human appraisal in matters to do with the
promotion of heavenly values and teachings are futile and worthless. The
ONLY ONE with whom we should compare or look up to is Jesus.
The Only One who can really commend any
teaching is Jesus! And do you know how He does it? Through supernatural
means: signs and wonders, dreams, visions, revelations, etc. Paul could
‘boast’ of plenty of those (2 Cor 12:1-7,11-12), but he didn’t do so to
elevate himself, because he knew himself to be nothing by comparison with
Christ!
And so, God has given us many dreams
and visions, prophetic words and miraculous signs – with more to follow
soon, by raising the dead – that this work is not a work of Malcolm and
Helena Heap, but of the living Jesus, who is behind us in what we write,
where we go and to whom we take these things. (Some proof is given in What God Said About MM.) It’s not a boast when we say that we act as
prophets of the Almighty. It’s within the limits of the sphere of God’s
appointment. Paul said:
We, however, will not boast beyond
measure, but within the limits of the sphere which God has appointed us (2
Cor 10:13).
I hope you can understand that what I
have written is not to elevate us, but to elevate Jesus, His teachings, and
to help the Church mature. I don’t want people looking to Helena or me.
When the now famous early 20th century
evangelist Smith Wigglesworth heard in his old age that people would not
know what to do when he went, he wept. He even considered that his whole
life had been wasted if he had not got across to people the fact that he was
nothing and that Jesus was everything. If they did not look to Jesus at the
end of his teaching them, he felt he had utterly failed!
To continue with what Mark Buchanan at
DPM wrote. He stated that they intend to hold “seminars based on Derek’s
teaching.”
There is a very subtle transition that
has taken place. The man who founded the ministry has taken Jesus’ place!
This is blasphemous. Of course, it’s not intentional. They don’t
deliberately intend to blaspheme or to put themselves in place of Christ
before the people. But it occurs. And it happens all over the place in
churches and ministries which have become well established. People lose
sight of Jesus. He takes a secondary place behind the man who has
inadvertently usurped His position in the Church. For DPM it began when they
shut the door on the prophet(s) God sent them from outside.
Don't Ignore Jesus' Prophets
Many ministries and believers forget
that Jesus HAS (continuous sense) placed apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors and teachers in the Church for its edification and maturing. They
are there until the body of Christ on earth reaches maturity (Eph 4:11-13).
And it has not attained that yet.
If a ministry shuts the door on
prophets, they shut it on Jesus who sends them. We have experienced this so
often, it’s most unusual when we find that someone listens to us or welcomes
our input.
Just in case anyone might get the wrong
impression by our claim to prophetic status, let me repeat: we are nothing!
Don’t look to us! Look to the words we bring. See and hear Jesus in those,
but don’t see and hear us. Look past the packaging to the package. I hope
you know what I mean.
Let not anyone look up to us as if we
were some humans above the level of others. We are not. Of and by ourselves,
we are no better than any one of you reading this. It’s the FUNCTION that we
perform that is different, and because it is a prophetic function in the
Church, that function (or office) is to be respected and heeded. If you heed
a true prophet’s words, you receive the One who moves him, and you receive
the benefit of what he brings from God for you – the prophet’s reward (Matt
10:41).
Unfortunately, DPM, like so many other
ministries, did not. They shut the door on Jesus through the input He gave
us for them. And they have begun to lose their way, as a result.
They are by no means the only ministry
who have done this. I’ll list a few others, just for the record. (They are 5
of over 100 we contacted.)
Morris Cerullo World Evangelism
(MCWE) Between 1992 and 1994 we had contact with Morris Cerrullo’s ministry, which
has a huge worldwide outreach of multiple millions. We attended some of
their meetings and worked with them for a while behind the scenes.... until
we came up against a false minister promoting himself within their ranks.
(And there are a number of them there!) We warned Morris Cerullo in writing
of this debacle, and that if they didn’t deal with the false minister
problem within their ranks that they would meet their demise. That is now
occurring.
Bob Gordon and Proclaimers
International This capable and erudite speaker trained many Christian leaders,
preparing people to lead and minister. In the 1990s I presented him with
some truths of which he was not aware, namely that of the Sabbath and holy
days which are part of the faith once delivered (Jude 3,4). But he didn’t
want to know. I sent material to him on several occasions, until one day my
wife received an irate phone call from his right hand man. He told her in no
uncertain terms that he wanted these mailings ceased! We ceased, at their
request, but soon afterwards so did Bob Gordon. He died.
Garner Ted Armstrong
He was a fairly prominent radio- and tele-evangelist in the USA from
about 1965 to the 1990’s. But, like his father Herbert W Armstrong, who
founded the World Tomorrow programme and reached millions, he got too
big for his boots. He never accepted the Holy Spirit into his life. In fact,
he and his father spoke against the baptism in the Spirit and 'pentecostal'
gifts. They ascribed them to the devil! But these men were of the devil in
that assertion.
I wrote a nine page letter to him on
28th February 1994, telling him of his need to imbibe the Holy Spirit and to
accept believers of other Christian persuasions (he was a cultic
exclusivist) and confronting him about his comments disclaiming that some
other tele-evangelists have heard directly from God. He hadn’t, so he
assumed they could not have heard from God, either.
He dismissed my input. (It is customary
for such high and mighty individuals from that background to completely
ignore negative input. They would reject it as ‘critical’.)
Some time later, he descended into
gross sexual sin and was publicly exposed (in every sense of the word) and
humiliated. He fell from his exalted position. Nine years later he died
unexpectedly!
You will know that God does nothing
before He reveals His intentions to His servants the prophets (Amos 3:7).
When God moves a prophet to go to someone with a specific message, you can
bet something’s afoot! Judgement follows if those words are not heeded.
The number of words God had me write in
that letter to him were 5497, which is 239 x 23. (The content of that letter
is contained in Newsletter 15.) In biblical numerics, 23 is frequently used
to denote hypocrisy. There is much hypocrisy among those who lead in
churches.
Reinhard Bonnke
Reinhard is probably highest on my list of evangelists. He’s a fine
servant of God in every sense. He’s a wonderful man in many ways, totally
different from the previous individual. But remember, comparisons can be
unhelpful, because we are not to compare ourselves with one another, rather
with Christ.
When Jesus has things on His agenda and
we are ignoring those things, He raises up prophets to try to wake up others
to what He wants them to take notice of.
I have had several dreams about
Reinhard, to do with his work, and ours in relation to his. I have printed
them in our newsletters, as well as sent them to his ministry base. But
whether they reach him I don’t know, because he’s such a big wheel. And big
wheels have a momentum that is hard to slow down. I am still hopeful of
positive feedback from him.
More than 50 years ago, God prophesied
via a lady in Germany that Reinhard (he was a very young boy at the time)
would be the servant God would use to bring millions to Christ in Africa.
She saw a vision of a blood-washed Africa, and a little boy who would be
God’s instrument for that purpose. Then she pointed to Reinhard and said
that he was that boy in her vision!
Credit automatically goes to Reinhard
for his 30 years of unstinting labour and sacrifice to achieve that goal.
But, it doesn’t mean that, at this juncture now, he has all that Jesus wants
him to have.
The anomaly is that had he had what is
now being made more widely available to the whole Church, he would not have
been so widely acceptable to most churches, nor would he have been able to
achieve what has been accomplished over the past three decades.
That is not to put a damper on the
‘new’ truths being presented now. It is just a fact of life that many people
don’t want them. To be more precise, about half the Church doesn’t want
them. But then, half of the virgins didn’t want what Jesus wanted them to
have, either (Matt 25). That parable is a warning to the Church now!
The Midnight Cry goes out. The prophets
who have been appointed for this task are doing their job, but who’s going
to listen? I am confident that Reinhard will. But will most who read these
words?
Kenneth Hagin
Like Reinhard, millions of believers know of Kenneth Hagin Sr. Jesus
began a healing ministry through him from a young age. His ministry from
Tulsa, Oklahoma also majored on the power of faith, with resultant gifts of
the Spirit, miracles, healings, visions and dreams.
His teaching has spawned a radical
movement that has been dubbed the Faith Movement, or more derogatorily as
the Faith Cult or the Name-It-And-Claim-It People. While there is much value
in his teaching in helping ritualists and legalists to move into a new
sphere of faith, it is not complete, and it contains some serious errors.
A few years ago God gave me a clear
dream about Kenneth Hagin. I wrote to him about it, and I give him credit
for replying! I explained the dream, but when I told him what it meant, that
Jesus was pointing out that some of his teaching was in need of revision
because it contained error, he didn’t want to know. That was where the
correspondence ended.
The Church Rejects The Message
On 7th August Helena was given this
dream: She saw a person packing the toilet with thick steaks of meat and
fish.
This is allegoric of how the Church
cares little for the truth and for the real meat of the Word. Instead of
living by the meat of God’s Word, the Church has despised it and degraded
it. It has treated it cheaply. This response is reflected by most we have
tried to reach. Prophets are seldom received, especially in their home
country.
As we met together for worship on 28th
July 2001, we received the following prophetic words.
Many people
come before Me, says the Lord, and they pray. But they have their own
agenda. They have not My agenda, says the Lord. And they are seeking the
things of themselves; they are seeking the things of the flesh; they are
seeking to glorify themselves, or to establish what they have started. But I
have not blessed their agenda, says the Lord, for I am here to bless what I
have started, not to bless what man has begun.
That’s a pretty shocking corrective
word from God. We also received these words on 4th August:
There is
little time, and the darkness comes over this world... the time is short.
[God] will do a short work on the earth and cut it short in righteousness.
Too many are waiting for God while He
is waiting for them. But He will not wait for long. He has His agenda, and
what He has called us to promote should be accepted by the Church. But
because many will not, He will cut His Work short in righteousness (Rom
9:28).
Malcolm B
Heap
The Danger of Losing Out
There are several warnings in the N.T.
against losing out.
1. You can lose your reward because of
deceivers:
For many deceivers have gone out
into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This
is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we do not lose
those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. Whoever
transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God
(2 John 7-9).
This is a warning against letting false
‘apostles’ ruin you spiritually through wrong teaching, so that you forfeit
your ultimate reward.
2. You can lose what you have worked
for, spiritually, by poor construction:
Take heed how you build on the
foundation of Jesus Christ because at some stage your work will be tested by
the ‘fire’ of God. If your workmanship is poor quality it will be burned up
and you will suffer loss, although you may still be saved, but only through
a fiery trial. You are the temple of God, and such a holy edifice should not
be defiled. If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him (1 Cor
3:10-17 paraphrased.)
Poor building involves acceptance of
false doctrine, failure to utilise the power of the Holy Spirit,
unwillingness to accept the full will of God in your life, laziness and
apathy.
3. Jesus warned against losing
spiritual understanding:
“You wicked and lazy servant, you
should have used what I gave you, to gain in value. Take the valuables from
him and give them to someone who will use them. For more will be given to
everyone who uses My riches, but I will take them away from those who
don’t.” (Matt 25:26-29, paraphrased. See
also Matt 13:12.).
4. Rebellious Christians can also lose
the Holy Spirit.
Five of them were wise, and five
were foolish. The foolish virgins took their lamps and took no oil with them
(Matt 25:2,3).
5. You can lose your reward if you
tolerate sin or fail to try and overcome.
If your hand or foot causes you to
sin, cut if off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into
life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, and to be
cast into the unquenchable fire (Matt 18:8).
6. You can lose out through self-will
or self-seeking.
Whoever desires to save his life
will lose it (Matt 16:25). |