|
|
GWEA Monthly Message
REV. GORDON WILLIAMS, MARCH 2010
 We have now entered into what is called the Lenten Season during which is a period of 40 week days. It begins with Ash Wednesday and finishing on Easter Sunday. This is a time to look at the atoning death of Jesus finishing with His death on the Cross of Calvary where he paid for the sin of the world (Jn. 19:30). However during the 3 days that He was dead and unseen to the eyes of people, Jesus was "made alive in the Spirit; in which He went and preached to the spirits in prison who formerly did not obey? God? (1 Pet. 3:18-19). He also preached the Gospel "to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the Spirit like God? (1 Pet. 4:6). It climaxes with His resurrection from the dead after which he showed Himself to some women (Matt. 28:29; Mk. 16:9), Peter and the 12 disciples and to more than 500 people and to Paul (1 Cor. 15:5-8).
During this time, we need to watch John the Baptist prepare the way for Jesus by introducing water Baptism for repentance (Matt. 3:11) and putting an end to the Old Covenant (Lk. 16:16) and getting rid of the Old Covenant (Heb. 8:7). We need to watch Jesus do His ministry as He brought into place the New Covenant by which He gave salvation by forgiving sin (Lk. 5:20), healed the sick (Lk. 5:12-13) , cast out demons (Lk. 8: 26-39) and promised to send the Holy Spirit, our Heavenly Counselor (Jn. 16: 7-15). He made the New Covenant effective as He paid for the sin of the world on the Cross of Calvary and rose again physically from the dead (Lk. 24:36-40; Jn. 20:27). And so shall we also be raised from the dead (1 Thess.4:15-17).
After I was ordained, I was sent to Maxwell, Ontario. In one of the four churches that I was pastoring was a married couple - the woman was a Christian and her husband was Hindu. After preaching on Easter Sunday, he asked me to visit him because he had a question that needed to be answered. He explained, "If what I heard you say on Sunday is true about Jesus being raised from the dead in a physical body, then the Christian religion is the most materialistic religion in the world. Is that true? I told him, "Yes, it is absolutely true. The apostle Paul said, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in you sins.? "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are most to be pitied? (1 Cor. 15:17, 19).
When we believe in Jesus Christ and receive the authentic Baptism of the Holy Spirit, we "were sealed with the Promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory? (Eph. 1: 3:14). I received a call from a man who thought that he had lost his salvation. I asked him if he had received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of tongues. He said that he did but thought that the Holy Spirit had left him. I assured him, that he felt this way because he had not been praying in tongues every day (Eph. 6:18). So I encouraged him, as Paul did Timothy, "to stir up the gift of God that is within you? (2 Tim. 1:6). In his case tongues (Acts 19:6). His tongues language was the guarantee of his reservation in heaven. Don' t neglect the spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 12:6-8; 1 Cor. 12:8-10). This is all because Jesus was raised physically from the dead and He said that we could do the "works?"and "greater works" than He did (Jn. 14:12).
Yours in Jesus,
Rev. Gordon Williams
|
