P.O. Box 640109

El Paso, TX 79904

25 April, 1999

Dear Children,

Boy oh boy, am I ever chompping at the bits to get into this one! In fact you might even say that this week’s sernonet actually started way back during the Jimmy Swaggart Easter Campmeeting. Because it was during one particular service that God the Father both gave and interpreted a message in tongues (through two Spirit filled people might I add) that really burned itself into my soul. And although I didn’t retain the entire message, the one part that really caught my attention (and likewise stuck in my brain) went something like this: "Pray that your children will be saved!"

So you might ask what’s so earth shaking about that? I mean after all, any God fearing parent in their right mind would want their children to live in Heaven with God Almighty for all eternity. But, even though salvation for your children is very desirable, it certainly doesn’t come any too easy. In fact the Scriptures that immediately came to mind as I received this message at Campmeeting are found in the book of Proverbs. And reading just a few of them we find: (Proverbs 3:1-2) "My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee." (Proverbs 4:10) "Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many." (Proverbs 9:10-11) "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased."

Now these verses from the book of Proverbs all focus in on the topic of "long life". And all too often when I think about salvation, I think about the "long lifetime" needed for most folks to be able to accept it. I mean being perfectly honest with you, most of us are so all fired stubborn that it actually takes many years of "fleshly" living before we can ever make up our minds to make the change. And of course the change that I’m talking about is that Great and Glorious Change of accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Because you see it’s only through this acceptance of Jesus Christ that any of us can have the necessary life changing experience of allowing His Spirit (God’s Spirit) to take complete control over our lives.

So just how long do you figure it took me to get to that point in my life? Well I think the part about "long life" fit me very well. Because you see I was somewhere around the age of 30 before I even started seeing a need for God’s Spirit to control my life. And seeing how the "long life" worked so well with me (I went from a child to an adult before I got saved), why do you think God is focusing in on salvation for the children?

Well the reason I think that God gave the message the way that He did is because of the fact that time is getting very short. And if you’ll seriously consider what happened at Columbine High School, in Littleton, Colorado, I think you’ll be able to understand where I’m coming from. Because back in the days when I was growing up as a child, the chances were still pretty good that children would grow up. You see not only did I live in a nation of "God fearing" people, but I also lived in a very small town of "God fearing" people. And seeing how everyone including my family was so "God fearing", there really wasn’t a whole lotta bad stuff going on. Back then the children were kinda like what you might want to call protected.

But that was then... and this is now... and because of Satan’s ever increasing control over our nation (and the world) there were 15 young people who lost their lives last week in a very bloody massacre. So how many of those 15 teenagers do you really figure had lived the "long life" needed for them to make their right choice... the choice that would take them on into those pearly gates of Heaven? How many of them do you really think were ready? Well I know of at least two of them who are very sorry by now that they didn’t choose Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

So there were at least two of those who died who likewise must have "busted Hell wide open"... but then again there was at least one who received a most glorious welcome by God’s very own Heavenly host (angels). You see Rachel Scott was a Christian... a bonafide, certified, sold out child of God. And even though those demonically controlled gunmen tried ever so hard to get her to change her mind, she "held on tight" to her faith until the very end. Because you see it was right in the middle of that bloody massacre when one of the gunmen pointed a gun in her face and asked her "Do you have faith in Christ?" And as the story has been reported, Rachel hesitated for only a few seconds before giving him the answer of "Yes"... which immediately resulted in the loss of her life.

But even though she lost her life, she really didn’t lose it. Because you see Jesus laid it all out in John 12:25-26, when He said, "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour."

Now based on the Scripture that we have just read, do you really figure Rachel hated her life? Well the answer to that one is "Not at all!" Because even though I don’t know all of the details, I feel pretty confident that Rachel was a fun loving teenager looking forward to a very "long life"... that is until it became necessary for her to deny her lifestyle of serving and following Jesus Christ in order to live. Because you see it was at that very moment in time, as she seriously considered which answer she would give the gunman, that her eternal salvation would be determined.

Because even though I know that what I’m about to say is going to upset just a few of you (especially those of you who watch and believe in the TV ministry that preaches the "unconditional love of God"), I’ve still gotta tell it like it is. You see God’s love and His salvation is forever, but it is not unconditional. In fact one of the conditions that God has so lovingly put into the Scripture (and one, might I add, that fits Rachel’s situation quite well) is found in Luke 12:8-9: "Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.

You see if you’re not careful those "buts" in the Word of God will get you into a whole lotta "everlasting hot water". Because if Rachel had believed in that "once saved always saved" garbage, and if Rachel had denied that she was a follower of Christ in order to save her life, just where do you figure she would have gone for all eternity if the gunman would have killed her anyway? Well the Word of God doesn’t lie... and the Word of God says that the act of denying Christ is a sin that will likewise separate that person from God Almighty for all eternity. And of course it’s this kind of separation from God that gets a little scary... because in plain and simple terms it means Hell’s fire and eternal damnation!

But... Glory Be To God!!! Rachel’s salvation is now complete because she did not give in to her fleshly desires to live a long life on this earth. Because during her time of crises she met God the Father’s conditions for salvation by both believing in the Word of God and listening to the Spirit of God. Rachel wasn’t fooled by Satan’s lies because she totally trusted in God Almighty... and now she has made Heaven her new and glorious home! She died so that she might live!

So this example of Rachel is the reason why I believe God said what He said in Campmeeting: "Pray that your children will be saved!" Without a doubt the times are changing. Satan is on the rise! His power of deception is getting stronger and stronger day by day... and the young people of today don’t have a whole lot of time left. They must accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, be baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, and do it as quickly as possible!!! That’s what I believe! But, besides all of that, there’s at least one more possibility as to why this generation’s children don’t have much time left. You see I believe in this phenomena called the rapture of the saints of God... and I believe it’s just around the corner... and nobody in their right mind would want to miss this upcoming opportunity to shorten their long life on earth. But that’s a story of it’s own and hopefully we’ll cover it when we finish up on the series of The President, The People, And The Religion.

And having said all of that, we can now proceed on with the rest of this week’s message of The Good Fight Of Faith (The Spirit Of God Verses The Flesh Of Man) part III. Because it’s in the rest of this sermonet that I must do something that the Spirit of God has put in my heart to do even though my flesh is extremely uncomfortable doing it. You see I know that what I’m about to fess-up-to is not even logical or practical in the "eyes" of the world... but without a doubt it is what Father God (through His Holy Spirit) has told me to do. He said confess it... and since He said confess it... then that’s exactly what I must do!

You see it was on the day that I became unemployed with The Toro Company that my Heavenly Father informed me of one very important fact. And what He told me was that even though I didn’t have a job with Toro I still did. Because regardless of the unemployment circumstances, it was His divine will that I have a "special" position in The Toro Company that would allow me to do the job that He had intended for me to do all along. So one month after having been "let go" from The Toro Company, God the Father wants me to "tell the world" that I’m not looking for another job because He already has a job for me at Toro. Understand?

Well if you don’t understand please let me help you understand. Because what I’m going through right now is called "the battle between the Spirit and the flesh". Without a doubt, each and every piece of this flesh that makes up my physical "flesh and bone body" is screaming for me to get out into the real world and start looking for a job. It just ain’t "natural" to sit around and wait for a job to come to you... but that’s what the Lord has told me to do. And seeing how I’m not in this life to serve the flesh, then I must do as Father God directs me through His Holy Spirit.

So for the past month His Holy Spirit has continued (day by day) to tell me not to look for another job but to only trust in Him and wait. And that’s exactly what I’ve done each and every day until Thursday of this past week. Because you see it was Thursday morning (my one month anniversary of being unemployed) that the Lord said it was time for me to make a move. But the move that He wanted me to make was not a move out the door to look for another job, but a move of God to write what "thus saith the Lord" in the message for this week.

And even though this message is directed at that one very "special" person in The Toro Company (the one who has been specifically told by God the Father to create that "special" position for me at Toro), it also applies to the rest of you sermonet readers as well. Because you see there are at least a few of you out there who must not only pick up on what "thus saith the Lord" in this message, but who also must act on it in order to receive whatever blessing the Lord has promised you. And of course to name just a few of these potential blessings, they could include financial (cash), health (healing), relationships (love), or a million and one other different things which could even include salvation.

So for all of you out there who have been personally given the promise of a specific blessing on your life by the Holy Spirit, but have yet to receive this blessing in your life, please pay very close attention to what we are about to say. Because it’s through the Scripture of today’s sermonet that I hope to be able to show you how very important it is to not only hear what "thus saith the Lord" through the Spirit of God, but also to "shout it out" in faith for all the world to hear. And in order to keep things as simple as possible, for the rest of this message we’ll just call this very wordy process of "hearing from God, believing in God, and telling everyone else about it" the "process of confessing".

Because reading from Romans 10:1-17, we find, "Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it?"

Now the information that Paul laid out for us in this Scripture is some really great stuff... but it definitely ain’t all that easy to understand. So let’s see what we can do to put it into plain and simple language: In the beginning God the Father created man. And this man was made in the image of God. And of course seeing how God was Three Persons in One (God the Father/God’s Soul, God the Son/God’s Body, and God the Spirit/God’s Spirit), that was the very good reason why he made man with a spirit, a soul, and a body. So here was Adam with his body, his soul (that part of him that made him who he was... Adam), and his spirit (which was one in the same with the Spirit of God). You see God was a very real part of Adam (and Eve) because His Spirit (the Holy Spirit) lived inside him. Adam and Eve belonged to Him (He was their Father) and likewise His Spirit was both in them and on them (God the Father was a part of them). And that’s the way it was until that fateful day when Adam and Eve chose to obey Satan instead of God their Father. Because you see once they did what Father God had told them not to do (they took a bite), their act of disobedience became the dreadfully dirty deed called sin. And it was this very first sin that all the sudden made them the property of Satan.

What a shame! Adam and Eve’s unique privilege of having the All Knowing, All Powerful, and Ever Present Spirit of God living inside them had just been taken away. All the powers that God Almighty had earlier shared with them through His Holy Spirit were now "history". Adam and Eve had just become imperfect through sin, and Father God’s Perfect Spirit could no longer live inside of them. So from that point on, Adam and Eve’s imperfect bodies were only capable of producing more imperfect bodies (children)... and that’s the reason why everybody (except Jesus) who has ever been born on this earth since Adam and Eve has been born IMPERFECT!!! .

So seeing how mankind had just lost the ability to think "perfect" like God, God the Father came up with a few laws (thou shalt nots; the Law of Moses) to help everyone understand what the word "perfect" actually meant. And seeing how these laws were not meant to make anybody perfect (they were only meant to show us how imperfect we really are), there still remained the problem of making "imperfect man" perfect for God.

But, even though Adam and Eve messed up God’s original perfect plan (Plan A), all was not lost. You see God had an alternate plan (Plan B) that would allow any man, woman, or child another opportunity to become perfect. And through this alternate means of becoming perfect they could once again enjoy all the benefits of having God’s Spirit live inside of them. But the only drawback of this alternate plan (Plan B) was that the person who signed up for it would have to do so in faith, without ever totally understanding what they were getting into. And just in case you haven’t figured it out yet, the name of "Plan B" was none other than Jesus Christ.

So God’s laws were nothing but a bunch of rules and regulations, and their only intended purpose was to show us how really imperfect we are. Because you see the only real way that any of us can get back to the place of being perfect in the eyes of God is through the process of believing in Jesus (His death, burial, and resurrection). Everything has already been put in place for us to be able to once again have the Spirit of God living inside of us... but we must first of all accept it in faith!

And now that we hopefully understand all that, let’s get back to the story in Romans 10:1-17. Because you see it was these Jewish folks that Paul was talking about who wanted to continue on believing in the law... and even though the law couldn’t make them perfect (righteous). And that’s why he said what he said when he said "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." That was what Paul said, but it was only the beginning of his message. Because Paul goes on to say, "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

Talk about a deep subject! And what makes matters even worse is the fact that if Adam and Eve hadn’t blown it we wouldn’t even have to be going through this in the first place. But they did... and we are... and this is exactly what it takes to become righteous (perfect) in the eyes of God. And if we continue on with the reading we might even discover a few more of the "perfect" details. Because, "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed... For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

Now the key to Satan’s success story of "how he has gotten so many folks to follow him right on into the burning fires of Hell" is found in the following statement that we have just read: "Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." Because getting back to the bottom line reason for this message in the first place, what I’m doing in this sermonet is nothing less than openly confessing my relationship with God the Father through His Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God has told me what to do, I believe it was Him, and I’m not even gonna be the least bit ashamed of it. Because regardless of what the world might say, I know what the Word of God says. And the Word of God says that not being ashamed of one’s relationship with Christ is one of His requirements for salvation. It’s sorta like just another necessary part of the process!!!

But let’s not stop there! Because reading on into John 12:37-50, we find just one more real life situation in which Old Splitfoot manages to somehow convince a few more "almost saved folks" to turn away from their salvation. So as you read this, please pay very close attention to how Satan uses "the flesh" to carry out his very effective tactic of getting people to "be ashamed": "But though he (Jesus) had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him... Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness... He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that this commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak."

Now before we go any further I need to first tie in the fact that the words Jesus spoke while on this earth were the words that he received from the Holy Ghost ("For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.") And even though Jesus was God in Heaven (The Word) before He became The Perfect Man on earth (and likewise gave His Perfect Life for the sin of the world), He was only able to do what He did through the Holy Spirit. You see Jesus Christ was only able to live the Perfect Life that He lived because of the Spirit of God that was in Him. And that’s why we find in Hebrews 1:1-2, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds..."

OK, so after having read all of that is your brain starting to give off a little smoke? Well just throw a little water on it because we’re not even through yet. You see the words that Jesus spoke came from the same Perfect Information Source that we can also get our "perfect information" from. And reading from John 14:12-26, we can get a few more of the details of just how we might tune into this Perfect Information Source that Adam originally had before he lost it: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."

And what do you think about all that? Well just in case some of you might not get the connection, The Comforter is none other than the Holy Spirit. And ever since that dreadful day of Adam and Eve’s sin, no one has been born in the Spirit of God (from birth) except Jesus. But because of what Jesus was about to do (the cross) everybody would once again have the opportunity to have God live inside of them (be born-again). And that’s why Jesus goes on to say, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him... If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him... These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."

Now the point that I’m trying my very best to get across to you today is that the Spirit of God communicates the up-to-the-minute Living Word of God to each and every man, woman, boy, or girl who has accepted Jesus Christ and received His Holy Spirit. And it’s only through this same Holy Spirit (The Perfect Source of Information and Power) that the followers of Christ can one day become the full fledged adopted children of God.

It is so important that we understand this one point! You just can’t say that you are a believer in Jesus Christ if you don’t believe in and confess what His Holy Spirit tells you!!! Please hear what the Word of God says: "And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." (Matthew 10:18-20)

Refusing to obey the Holy Spirit could mean not only a loss of blessings but also the loss of salvation. Don’t play around with God! Believe in the Word of God... confess the Word of God... and Keep on Keeping The Faith In Jesus!!!

Love,

Dad (Bruce Hallman)