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Anytime that antichrist is mentioned, most people immediately think of a wicked world ruler, a dictatorial thug who appears as evil and causes death, destruction and mayhem. And eventually, there will be such a person, the son of perdition, but many or most of his causes will seem just, and will cause worldwide turmoil. But exactly what is antichrist? This article should help clear that question up.
Fornication, Antichrist and Original Sin
Was sexual intercourse or anything associated with it the original sin? The answer is no, it was not the actual transgression. Seems that a lot of people believe that it was the first sin, apparently because to many, it is the most natural inclination of most human beings. I don't think so. What is the first thing that a baby or small child does when it is upset, angry or doesn't get it's way? It screams, cries, becomes angry and wants to lash out at someone. It is not necessary to teach a baby or child to do wrong, because it is the way we are born: of a sinful nature, capable of sinning, prone to sin, apt to sin, steeped in sin, involved in sin [Romans 5:12-14, Jeremiah 17:1, Job 5:7, Romans]. It is needful to teach a baby or child to do good. Before going further, it might be good to expound on a point: a person who dies before reaching the point in time at which he or she becomes aware, in the heart, that they are sinful and need to repent, will be in heaven [Deuteronomy 1:39 > Romans 5:13]. There cannot be any set age for that, and I reckon it is possible that a person could be up in years before the Lord convicts their heart of sin, giving them a chance to truly repent of their sins and accept Jesus Christ as Savior [Leviticus 5:17, Acts 2:38, Romans 10:9-13, Proverbs 1:23-33]. I have heard testimony from Christian believers who had never been convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit until in their seventies. To say that everyone has the opportunity by the age of, say, ten or twelve, is to state what scripture does not and to put God in a box. Saying thus, the first thing that most babies do is to disobey their parents and kick and holler [Ephesians 6:1, Colossians 3:20, Exodus 20:12]. It's hard to tell what an infant is thinking, but it's obviously not good [Jeremiah 17:1]. Of course we know that babies do not know any better, but it is still sin. Yet, when unaware, it does not count against them [Romans 5:13]. Per Leviticus 5:17, again, we know that the young do not have a heart felt awareness of what sin is. Since a baby gets angry when it doesn't get his or her way, what do we classify that as? It is going against the parents' wishes, as well as God's, so what is it? And what is it whenever we commit any sin? If it is going against God's wishes, then it is disobeying God, His commandments. And since sinning is against God, or in other words not allowing God to rule in our lives, it is going with self will only, worshipping our own will, our self. We worship the one whom we obey. Worship [Greek proskuneo; sebomai; latreuo] means to make obeisance to; to revere, stressing the feeling of awe or devotion; to serve. By obeying our own will instead of doing what God's will is, we are doing all of these. So in essence we are making our self our god, as it were. This is what the serpent, the devil, talked Eve and Adam into doing in the Garden of Eden, aspiring to be gods, which required disobeying God's commandment, not letting God rule over them [Genesis 2:16,17, 3:1-6, II Corinthians 11:3,4, Revelation 12:9]. This is why satan, or lucifer, got cast out of heaven before the creation, where he had been a cherished angel of God. He tried to usurp God's authority, take over the throne, by worshipping himself as God, but he is a false god [Isaiah 14:12-14, Ezekiel 28:11-19]. But how do we know further that sexual activity was not the original sin? There are a number of ways. To use some reasoning, would God say for humans to not do something, and then, after they've disobeyed Him, tell them to go ahead and keep doing it? That doesn't sound like much of a God to me, and would be a God who contradicts Himself, which He doesn't do. We see from Romans 5:13 that sin existed before the law of Moses was given, sin being the transgression of that law, any breaking of it [I John 3:4, Nehemiah 1:7-9]. So sin is sin, with or without a commandment being given. Therefore, if sex was a sin before Adam and Eve were even created, it is a sin now, even between a man and a woman who were meant and ordained by God to be together [Genesis 2:20-24], which we know isn't so. Notice the similarity between what was said in Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:5-9, when Jesus was speaking specifically about marriage. These verses tell us that Adam and Eve were ordained to be together, so if they had sexual relations at any time, it could not have been a sin, because they were ordained from the beginning to be husband and wife. Further, it came to pass the scripture that says that the man will cleave to his wife, cleave [Hebrew dabaq] meaning to cling to, remain close. Eve sinned first, and then Adam was persuaded to, desiring to remain close to his wife in all aspects. Additionally, when Eve sinned, she did so without Adam partaking, and then, a little while or a moment later, Adam sinned as well. This rules out sexual intercourse. Any sin will alienate us from harmony with God, so therefore, the original commandment [Genesis 2:17] is the root of all sin, the foundation for the ten commandments, which are the structure for the other 300-400 moral commandments. The original sin was disobeying God, by going along with the human self will, making self a god, the one who decides what right and wrong are. There are a lot of people, including believers in Christ, who mistakenly think that anyone who does not have a sexual desire is evil, adding strength to the human notion that sex was the original sin. That thought comes from a misreading and misinterpretation of Daniel 11:37, which is referring to an evil world ruler during the end times. The popular quote is referring to an evil, wicked person, probably a male, though not necessarily. He, according to Webster's, can mean "that one whose sex is unknown or immaterial (of no importance)" or "one that is strongly masculine or virile (having the nature, properties or qualities of a man; masterful, forceful, vigorous)". The two Greek words listed in Vine's for he are houtos and ekeinos, meaning this, this person here and that one, that person, respectively. Him, as in II Thessalonians 2:8,9, referring to a wicked world ruler, is a pronoun and an objective case of he, in other words, possibly referring to a woman. To the main point, the popular quotation of Daniel 11:37 is, again speaking of a wicked ruler who seeks to destroy the people of God and is totally against even God Himself, "Neither shall he regard...the desire for women...". The actual and correct wording, even in the original text is "neither shall he regard...the desire of women...". The two words interchanged makes a world of difference. It is obvious what desire for women means. The desire of women means having understanding, respect and consideration for the feelings and effeminate qualities of females, rather than just viewing them as "one of the guys". Remember also that just as there are many types of Christ portrayed in the Old Testament, there are also many types of antichrist portrayed in the Old Testament. Saying thus, there are rulers of nations now, who can be types of either, without being the specific one listed in the Bible. Obviously there will not be another Christ. By virtue of the fact that the Bible speaks to and expects the same manner of living toward and for God, whether male or female, most women would be wicked if the verse meant no regard, or desire, for women. Since people erroneously think that lack of desire for women makes one wicked, then due to that, to reiterate, most women would be wicked, because most women desire men, not women. In contrast, the ability to abstain and even not having a desire, urge, propensity or longing for sexual relations with the opposite sex is a gift from God or else a premeditated action to prevent it, in order to fully devote one's time to the work of the Lord. Not every believer is able to, and the apostle Paul, though admonishing us to remain celibate, does recommend marrying as opposed to "burning", so to avoid fornication [I Corinthians 7:1,2,7-17,25-40, Matthew 19:10-12]. A lot of people marry because it is expected of them, and often, companions in marriage are chosen one by the other for the wrong reason, sometimes because the sensual is mistaken for what is truly love, Christian love being described in I Corinthians chapter 13. People, especially younger people, often succumb to peer pressure, conveyed in the spirit of society's accepted norm, and damage their relationship with Jesus Christ or, in the case of unbelievers, inhibit the opportunity to be converted to Christianity. God forgives sins, including fornication and adultery, but what often happens, I believe especially in the case of fornication, is that, firstly, envy springs up, depriving the person from wanting a relationship with the Lord and, secondly, a one world mentality takes precedence, yearning to be like everybody around them, which is what peer pressure ends in. During the very end times, a one world type of order will be achieved, all who refuse being killed [Revelation 13:14-17, 16:9,14, 17:12-14]. Yet the idea is not a new one, because many civilizations have been types of one world orders, all evil, beginning with Nimrod's kingdom, the image of the beast, or devil, then the Tower of Babel [Genesis 10:8-10,11:1-9]. Here we discover a few things. Verse one says that all inhabitants were of one language and one speech. Speech is, obviously, something spoken, but it goes deeper. The Hebrew {Old Testament] word for speak is dabar, which means word, matter, something. This word not only means what is said, but also the content of what is said, connoting a matter or affair, i.e., activity. The definitions of language include words and their meanings; a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, gestures, marks, or esp. articulate vocal sound; the suggestion by objects, actions or conditions of associated ideas or formal system of signs and symbols (alphabet)... Saying thus, even if the entire world spoke only, say, English, that would not in itself constitute a one world order. Language and speech has very much to do with thoughts, intents and action [Matthew 12:34,35]. We speak what we think, and we do what we both think and speak. But when most all people have the same thoughts, intents and actions, that does constitute a one world order. And there are many small examples of a one world order, much like Sodom and Gomorrah or the Nazi's Third Reich in World War Two Germany. Sodom and Gomorrah inhabitants were of one mind toward a sexual nature and a financial desire. Those cities supplied a hard to find commodity to the rest of the world: pitch. It was used to waterproof boats and houses and to preserve the dead, and only they had it, and manufactured it. They were wealthy, and they became perverted. King Nebuchadnezzar had a golden statue built, and ordered everyone to worship that image, which was probably either of himself or the Babylonian god. Anyone refusing to bow down to it was to be killed. However, the three Hebrew men would only worship their God, Yahweh, Jehovah, the God of Israel, the Christian God, mankind's Creator, and were saved from death [Daniel chapter three] (we can assume that Daniel was off somewhere else during this episode, but he too was meant to be killed, but was saved by God, at a later time (Daniel chapter 6)). Now, what is the one thing that so many people seem to be preoccupied with, especially the younger people, and are made fun of and even ostracized for not partaking? The answer is sex, which is apparently thought to be some kind of a cure all for problems, which it is not. Talk to anybody who has been married for five years or more, and you will find that most of the time, sex is not something that couples are engaging in very much. Why? Because the basis of a strong relationship is not sex, it is friendship, love and verbal communication [I Corinthians chapter 13]. But sex sells and it controls, and Americans are preoccupied with it. And because of so much peer pressure surrounding that activity, and so many people engaging in it, especially the unmarried, our culture has been transformed into sort of a one world sexual order in that regard. When you refrain and choose to be celibate, you are the oddball, and everyone around you strives to get you to be like they are: a one world order mentality. I can speak from past experience, that sex outside of marriage lends itself to nothing but discontent, loss of values which are important, and ultimately, envy towards the things of God. Talking with a minister recently, I mentioned envy as being associated with fornication, and though not disagreeing, he pointed out that fornication, and many or most sins for that matter, are a result of selfish ambition, another attribute of satan, as well as our human nature. I agree with that, and pondering upon that, I see that the two are intertwined. Selfish ambition and envy have a lot in common. Envy [Greek phthonos] is different than covetousness (jealousy) [Greek epithumetes, pleonexia], two meanings of which are a luster after and wanting more, both in a bad sense. Envy is the feeling of displeasure produced by witnessing or hearing of the advantage or prosperity of others, whether of things tangible or spiritual. Further, envy desires to deprive another of what he has, also not wanting whatever it is for self. Selfish ambition does not necessarily direct one to gain what another has, but does often seek to deprive another of what they have, if that is what it takes for the one who has selfish ambition to get what they want. Cain was envious of his brother Abel [Genesis 4:2-8] and murdered him. Cain could have given the best offering possible, of his crop, and received a blessing from God, but didn't desire it. Instead, he intended to deprive Abel of his blessing from the Lord, by murdering him, because it condemned him, and instead of being glad for his brother, and also desiring a blessing from God, Abel's blessing produced displeasure in Cain, due to a bad heart. Envy is the root of murder, both physical and spiritual murder [I John 3:12, Ezekiel 23:45]. Fornication is a sin which is sin against the transgressor's own body [I Corinthians 6:18], and contributing to the other person sinning against their own body, thus it is envy in that it seeks to deprive another, even if subconsciously, of innocence in that arena, which robs the other of a blessing or harmony with the Lord. There is a certain amount and type of rightfulness between a person and God, even if not a believer in Christ [Romans 7:9], until that person becomes aware of being in a sinful state [Leviticus 4:13,14,22,23,27,28, 5:17]. Therefore, committing fornication, or any other sin for that matter, destroys the other person's being "alive" spiritually, their zest for life, breaking them down, as well as self [I John 3:13-16]. Now I do believe that a person has to repent of their sins and accept Jesus Christ as Savior in order to be truly alive spiritually, but a person not a Christian, until convicted by the Holy Spirit [John 16:7-11,13, 14:26], has a zest for life and has a certain type and amount of spiritual life, or invigoration. Genesis 11:3,4 tell us two things here. The people began to be industrious, and they used their labor and product from it to defy God, by trying to attain to godhood of their own accord, by their own power, might, skill and ingenuity. They did the same thing that Lucifer [satan] did, as mentioned before: they wanted to be gods unto themselves [Isaiah 14:12-14], getting to a lofty height (spirituality) by their own way, instead of God's way. Incidentally, people in that area still make brick just like Nimrod's followers did, and a documentary on the 'History Channel' made some and tested them for strength. If a solid enough foundation had been laid, the bricks could have sustained enough of a load to have supported a tower two miles tall. Those people wanted to reach heaven and be gods, and they wanted to do it by their rules, instead of God's. God had to hinder the effort of the tower builders, so he confounded their language, else they would have went wild in the area of wicked imagination. Babel, a forerunner of Babylon, means confusion. America has turned into an almost anything goes nation morally, and nearly every religion on the planet is practiced and tolerated in the U.S.A., causing so many doctrines, agendas, edicts, rules and protocols to flourish that our society is no longer recognizable compared to how it once was and is meant to be. And it is a mass of confusion. Of course, illicit sex isn't by any means the only thing that can be one world order oriented, and it isn't the main one. Actually, I think it is one result, and defense, of the fear of the primary agent for implementation of the one world order: centralization. The definition of centralize is "to concentrate by placing power and authority in a center or central organization. People often rebel against the ominous threat of a dictatorial kingdom by doing what makes them feel good. And if a totalitarian regime can gain control over the populace by sanctioning "free sex", then it will do so. Centralization, in order to be successful, requires nearly complete control, which requires a high degree of morality and ethics, at least outwardly, which America, and the rest of the world, is pushing for more and more, under a guise of fairness, equality and lack of discrimination. Morality and ethics are being mandated and enforced by the government more and more, but two things to note are: it is superficial and only outwardly, because it lacks many of the Biblical concepts and precepts, and; it not only omits, but tries to force out, Jesus Christ, thus the concept of humans being sinful and needing to repent towards God. Overall, it will end in disaster, because it is man's feeble and vain attempt to attain to their own righteousness, a sinful version of what Israel tried [Romans 10:3], turning the Mosetical law's purpose into a system of humanism. Many church members are deceived as well and fall into one of two groups. The one group recognizes the danger of a moralistic society outside of the Lord, and rebels against it by sinning, wrongly thinking that it will usher in a more sure state of grace [Romans 6:1,15]. The other group knows that God wants morals from His people, realizing that grace more powerfully enables it, though we are still imperfect, but condones anything enacted by government which contributes to an enforcement of morals and ethics, failing to look deeply into the matters proposed, missing some important points, not discerning that people cannot be forced to be Christian believers [Genesis 2:16, Ezra 2:68, Psalm 54:6, Matthew 10:8, Revelation 22:17]. Many church members will strongly support, advocate and push for legislation which will try to force certain Biblical precepts upon all people, which should only be a matter of choice. Pastor Doug Batchelor summed it up well, when he said that "we don't want a government which will not honor the last six commandments, nor one that will enforce the first four. We also do not want a government, that is, an administration, which will support, much less enforce, ungodly principles, agendas and laws, which is what the current governing body has done for the past seven years. Sadly, the day will likely come when Socialism and Communism will be instituted via a Christian guise. When sex outside of marriage is permitted by to be acceptable by a culture, the concept is, firstly, a disregard for one of God's spiritual and physical rules. What society is saying, in essence, is that marriage no longer means anything as pertaining to the way the Almighty instituted it. So if marriage and it's intimacies are no longer sacred, than a distinct blur appears, to certain people, between the right and wrong of adultery, homosexuality, bestiality and all other forms of sexual conduct, by virtue of the line disappearing. If, for example, homosexuality is condoned, even promoted, because some say that they were born that way, then what will prevent people from saying the same thing about tendencies to engage in bestiality, underage sex, lying, stealing or even murder (to take it to an extensive degree)? After all, by saying that someone was born with certain tendencies and should be allowed to indulge in those appetites, they are saying that they can't help themselves and cannot change. Now, there are many, who will condemn any sexual activity outside of heterosexual relations between people of proper age, which they should well do, while condoning heterosexual relations between people of proper age outside of marriage. However, as far as God is concerned, that is like saying that it's not okay to steal a million dollars, but it is okay to steal ten thousand dollars. Or that it isn't okay to lie, unless lying will improve your lifestyle, or some such thing. People have created grey areas which God did not. You could say that committing fornication is self hate and hatred for others, deep down within. It is self hatred because of being sin against one's own body. Would we do something detrimental or harmful to ourselves, or to others, unless we entertained some hatred (masochism, in a spiritual sense)? First there comes envy, which fosters hatred, and perpetuated to it's fullest extent, turns to murder. The envy is often well hidden, at least for a time, not always noticeable to even self, but it will eventually manifest itself, most notably toward the things of God,and in some or most cases, maybe only toward the things of God. People with envy generally still love their children and their spouse, other family, friends, at least in all earthly regards, yet they may discourage them from becoming Christian, which is one manifestation of envy. You can hold certain values and still be steeped in envy towards God's things. Folks who disdain God generally are against theft, burglary, assault, lying, many things. But why? Is it due to a genuine sense of justice, or is it because of fearing that those things may befall them? In that case, it is a product of selfish ambition, in that they don't really care that others are stolen from, only that they themselves are kept secure against those crimes and wrongdoings. The human nature of all people has a tendency towards envy [James 4:5, Jeremiah 17:1] , and only the Holy Spirit can keep our sinful inclinations in check. I see envy sprouting and in action all the time, and so do you, both without and within the organized church. How many times have we been in or witness to a conversation, in which some person is referred to, and that person or group of persons seems to be the subject of favoritism of one type or another, or is in a good, pleasant or cheery mood all the time, or has more possessions or money than they are thought to need, and someone says something like, they don't need to be shown special favors or, they don't need all that money, or even, I can't stand that person always being in such a good mood. By and large it is revealed that that same person making the comment does not desire what the subject of the conversation has either. Often, complaints are made, such as at work, so that nobody has whatever it is that not everybody has. That is envy at work and is one root attribute of the purveyors of a one world order. They do not want God to rule in their lives, and they don't want Him to rule in anybody else's life, either, because with God there is individualism, sovereignty, and independence, all of which are contrary to centralization and a one world rule. There are more and more mandates, edicts and laws being legislated and implemented which are envy based. For example, policies stating that Christians are required to recognize gay marriage as legitimate are against Christian doctrine, and the people promoting such mandates do not want the Christian to have the conviction that gay marriage is wrong, taking displeasure in that adherence to Godly doctrine, nor do they want that conviction either. By taking prayer to the Christian God out of schools, the same thing is being stated and manifested. These are just a few examples of a multitude of manifestations of envy, and not one person on this planet, of understanding and discerning age can actually and honestly say either of two things: that they haven't witnessed envy being shown, and; that they haven't been guilty of envy, at least once in their life. Every one of us has seen it, and is guilty of envy being present within us, to one degree or another, or at least able to work through us. But being in a genuine relationship with the Lord and therefore recognizing it, enables us to thwart it through Christ's power. If we commit fornication in any manner at all [Exodus 20:14, Leviticus 18:20-30], including in our thought life [Matthew 5:27-32], we have just watered the seed of envy and if we're Christian, God will chasten us and withdraw the Holy Ghost from us for a time [Hebrews 12:2-16]. By doing so, we also open our heart's door for a spirit of bitterness [Greek pikria-a root producing bitter fruit], which envy produces, adding envy to envy and hatred to hatred, left unrepentant. If it goes long enough without repentance, a person can end up like Esau, who eventually still felt remorseful for selling his birthright, but was unable to repent to God [Genesis 25:27-34, chapter 27(note verse 41), 28:1-5 (note verses 6-9), 31:11,13, 32:3,6-12,17-23, 33:1,3-11, Hebrews 12:16,17, Malachi 2:13, Obadiah 10, Jeremiah 48:13]. Two things are of special importance here: fornication in a spiritual sense is making obeisance to anything besides God (Genesis 28:6-9, II Chronicles 21:11) and; we can be remorseful of something wrong we've done and even make up to a person we've wronged, yet still not be repentant towards God [Genesis 25:31-34, 27:41, 33:4,9, Hebrews 12:17], as Esau. Note also that bowing down, or making obeisance, as in Genesis 33:3,6, is simply showing respect to another, such as when military people salute a superior officer or when we remove our hats and put our hand over our heart and say the Pledge of Allegiance. Another important point to make is the misconstrued verse in Hebrews chapter 10: verses 26-29. Some will tell you that sinning wilfully means that you will die lost, unable to repent. That is a bit of a misinterpretation, though it can and will lead to that condition, if sustained and continued long enough on purpose. Keep in mind that many things in the Bible, if not all things, pertains to a nation or group of people, and/or to an individual [Deuteronomy 28:1, Exodus 19:5,6, I Peter 2:9, Jeremiah 18:7-10]. Israel, as a nation, was always turning away from God, sometimes through ignorance, but God has never forsaken Israel for good, though He has allowed them to be afflicted by other nations, and circumstances, many times [Exodus 2:23-25, 16:3,4, Isaiah 48:10, Ezekiel 22:15-22, Luke 3:16] in order that they might see their fault and return to Him [Isaiah 44:22, 55:6,7, Romans 11:1,2,18-26, 2:28,29]. If Israel, as a nation, turned it's back on God completely, which some Jews have done and were destroyed, after some time God would give that country up completely. But God has always known that Israel, as a whole, would not, so He was able to make the promise that He would never forsake them. The word sin has different distinct meanings, or senses, depending upon context. The Greek hamartia means "a missing of the mark, not always inclusive of concrete and intentional wrong doing, such as with the people Jesus was talking to in John 8:21. They were sinning by not believing in Jesus Christ, but it was due to ignorance, the Holy Ghost not yet being shed upon the world, which enables us to believe in Christ [John 7:39, 16:7-14]. This ties in with Romans 3:23, in that we have all sinned, whether we realize it or not [Ecclesiastes 7:20, Leviticus 4:13,17 > 4:14,22,23,27,28, 5:1-5,15]. These verses from Leviticus tie in with Romans 7:9 and 5:13, which show us that sin is not counted against us when we are not aware that we have sinned, though we are still guilty of it. Nonetheless now, in this age of grace, the Holy Spirit will, with born again believers who have the Holy Ghost, convict us of any sin in our life [I John 3:18-21], and assure us when we are okay [Romans 8:14-16], revealing to us what is sin by "checking" us with the Holy Ghost when we are about to do something which is a sin, a going against the moral laws delivered by Moses [I John 3:4]. Just a few words on receiving and being possessed by the Holy Ghost. We know that if someone does not have the Holy Ghost, then they do not belong to Christ or God [Romans 8:9]. However, it is possible to have repented of one's sins and believed in Jesus Christ, yet still not have the Holy Ghost abiding in them which, in that case, that person, or those persons, need to be prayed over or for so that they receive It [I Peter 1:11, the Holy Ghost is referred to as 'It"]. There are two instances recorded in the Book of Acts in which people were called believers by the apostles, but they didn't have the Holy Ghost until the apostles laid hands on them and prayed for them to receive the Holy Spirit. One group hadn't even heard of the Holy Ghost, but they had repented of their sins and believed in Christ, and had been baptized [Acts 8:14-17]. The other group had repented of their sins, under the preaching of John the baptist, but had yet to believe in Jesus Christ Himself. Paul taught them, they believed in and were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, but didn't have the Holy Ghost until hands were laid on them and they were prayed for [19:1-7]. Another word for sin is the Greek hamartema, which means "an act of disobedience to divine law". What I believe often happens is that we tend to rationalize. We are aware in our minds that something is sin, but we do not have a genuine heart felt knowledge [knowledge of the truth-Hebrews 10:26 Knowledge in this verse is Greek epignosis, meaning exact or full knowledge. Other Greek words for knowledge do not indicate a knowledge quite that extensive] that any given act is sin, so we do it, thinking that it is okay due to circumstances. Unfortunately, when some believer is caught in a fault, most of the brethren tend to alienate that person, counting them as not a true believer, instead of helping them with their problem, or else tell them that it's okay because God understands [Galatians 6:1-3]. In reality, it is never okay for us to sin. God is long suffering, but not tolerant, of sin. And there is a point of no return to Him after constant disobedience. Keep in mind two things here: Christ and grace do not discount or make void the moral commandments [Matthew 5:17,18, Romans 6:1,2, 3:31, Ezekiel 11:19-21], and; the man of sin, the wicked world ruler referred to in Thessalonians, is called [Greek] anomos, meaning lawless concerning the moral commandments [II Thessalonians 2:8-12], forsaking them and promoting that. Sinning wilfully [Greek hekousios] means voluntarily, willingly, on purpose. Some will take Hebrews 10:26 to mean that if we knowingly sin, then we're through, out of God's grace and doomed. However, there are a couple of problems with that rendition. Firstly, we often are aware when we're doing something wrong but, again, tend to rationalize, not having the full knowledge of the truth. So what it means is that if we sin wilfully after receiving the full knowledge of the truth, then we can expect judgment of some sort, possibly permanently. King David knew that he was sinning by desiring another man's wife, sleeping with her and getting her pregnant, and then sending her husband, Uriah the Hittite, his general, into the heat of the battle so he'd be killed, which was murder by manipulation. What happened is that he let his human spirit and flesh be in control, and likely rationalized that somehow it was acceptable, perhaps because he was king [II Samuel 11:2-17]. There are several points to this. The book of Psalms is full of lamentations and prayers by King David, some of them due to being severely cast down for that heinous sin. Yet, David eventually truly repented and found favor once again in the eyes of the Lord [I Kings 15:1-5]. There is a difference between when we don't really believe that something we're doing is wrong, and thinking that we'll sin, then confess later to receive forgiveness. Doing that gets us into very hot water with the Lord, and can result in permanent and eternal separation from the Lord. David was overcome with sexual lust when he did that set of acts. Because the Lord tolerated David (and Solomon and others) having many wives and concubines [I Chronicles 14:3, II Samuel 5:13], it may be that David, due to that and the fact that he was king, likely, in his lustful state, talked himself into believing that it was acceptable to have Uriah killed, in order to save his position's honor. Keep in mind that though God is long suffering, He is not permissive of sinful acts [II Peter 3:9]. What King David did was the same thing that we, and all believers, including the apostle Paul, experience. We fail to let the Holy Spirit direct our paths at times, usually due to the body and human spirit guiding what to do, other times actually trying to please the Lord but being unable to overcome our own thinking and perception of the right thing to do, or the proper way in which to do it. At our best we often fail to do as the Lord desires, losing some battles to the flesh [Romans 7:14-25]. With King David, what he did was a premeditated act, and we can only conjecture that he was not using his brain in a moral capacity. To say that we'll do something, anything, sinful, and repent later, rather than rationalizing that it is okay due to a circumstance, is more in line with what the verse in Hebrews is referring to. In that event, it is only by God's grace if we regain a right relationship with Him. The Lord is judge of that, but I do believe that if it becomes much of a habit at all, then a severing from God, Christ and the Holy Ghost will result. I believe that we often refrain from sins because we are taught that such and such a thing is wrong to do, yet we do not truly believe in our heart that some particular act is wrong. We have an intellectual, but not a heart felt, understanding that something is wrong. Let's examine, one more time, the other part of the first sentence in Hebrews 10:26. The key word is knowledge. The Greek word is epignosis, meaning exact or full knowledge, discernment, recognition. If, after gaining full or exact knowledge that something is wrong, we sin anyway, that is a true willingness, and then it becomes less of a chance to receive forgiveness for it. King David had to endure a lot of chastening from the Lord, alienation from His presence and perform a great deal of soul searching in order to re-establish a right relationship with God, but he eventually did. He was a lot like the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32. There are a multitude of spirits in the world which influence people, some good, some bad. And the devil is a slick operator. He imitates the attributes and actions of God, and is able to duplicate some of the things that God does, though only to a point, such as the magicians of Egypt duplicating some of the wonders that God did by the hand of Moses [Exodus 7:10-12,19-25, 8:5-15,16-19, II Corinthians 11-14]. The devil, satan, also presents a convincing, rational argument for us to sin [Luke 4:1-13], and as often as not, if we sin at any given time it is due to yielding to our own sinful desires [James 1:13-16, 4:1-10], which are preyed upon by satan through suggestion, and which are often consistently baited by others [I Timothy 4:1, II Timothy 3:1-9,13], the devil working through them as well. We need to be aware of two major points about sin: there are sins of commission and omission, there being several hundred moral commandments [Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy], which James confirms [James chapter 2]. Grace was implemented by God in the Garden of Eden [Genesis 3:21], in one form, and what grace consists of was foretold by the prophets of old [Isaiah 51:7, Jeremiah 31:33, Ezekiel 11:19-21, 36:25-29, Proverbs 1:23-33]. It is clear that God always intended to put His laws and statutes into our hearts. We are what we think, earthly wise, and our actions reflect what we are thinking with the mind, the heart directing what those thoughts are [Proverbs 23:7, Matthew 12:34]. If, when a person knowingly commits a sin, they don't feel right in their heart, it is not totally a voluntary act heart-wise, because we are making our soul sick [Micah 6:13]. If we can sin and not feel convicted, or remorseful, then something is wrong [I John 1:10, 2:16, 3:19-24, Hebrews 10:38, 12:5-13, Job 21:7-18, Psalm 94:12]. Sometimes sinning is a heat of the moment thing, such as getting mad and saying or doing something which we do know better, or any number of things, and our heart may not be convicted until after the fact. That often happens when we let the mind and especially the human spirit, override what the soul is bidding us to do or refrain from [Romans 7:14-25]. If we get chastened by the Lord later, then know that it is Him chastening us, in order to cause us to repent and allow Him to cleanse us [Hebrews 12:5-11, Jeremiah 33:8, Psalm 139:23,24, 51:1-17, I John 1:9]. There are many reasons why humans sin. Sometimes it is due to not learning or being taught proper doctrine, so we become accustomed to wrong ways. Our human nature tends to rule over us if we aren't circumspect, and through force of habit we often find it hard to adhere to some of God's ways [Romans 7:14-33], doing our own thinking instead of letting God instill the right mindset within us [Isaiah 55:8-13]. Be aware that if we stubbornly refuse, or never know, to submit to the Lord, after so long He will give us up to our own evil ways, allowing us to be deceived, thinking that we are okay [II Thessalonians 2:10-12, Romans 1:19-32, Isaiah 66:4, Zechariah 7:11-14, Jeremiah 18:11-23, 32:21-23, 51:39, I Kings 22:20-23, Revelation 16:13,14, Psalm 81:8-16, Isaiah 6:11,12, 30:1-3, Leviticus 19:31, Hosea 4:14, 7:11-16, Amos 2:4, 4:4,5 (leaven, mentioned in Amos 4:5, represents sin)]. There has been an erroneous mindset since almost immediately after the Day of Pentecost, wherein believers think that grace is a disannulling of the moral commandments. The apostle Paul warns us of that false doctrine in Romans 6:1,2, and in various places in that, and other books it is stressed that grace does not discount the moral law, only the ritualistic and ceremonial law. When discarding the moral commandments is done it is wilful sin, but as explained above, it is sometimes or often due to a lack of the full knowledge of the truth, is part rationalizing and is something like Adam and Eve did, actually the same thing, except worse, because we who believe have the Holy Ghost warning us what not to do. Yet, there is only one unpardonable sin, which is blasphemy of the Holy Ghost [Mark 3:28,29], which cannot likely be done unintenionally. To reiterate, grace, and a way by which to obey God's laws, was foretold in the Old Testament [Ezekiel 11:19-21, 36:25-27,29, Isaiah 51:7,8, Jeremiah 31:33, Psalm 51:7-14] and reaffirmed in the New [Matthew 18:3, Colossians 2:11, I Peter 1:23, John 3:3, 4:42]. What has happened is that false teachers have crept into the church, often to appease parishioners who want their ears tickled [II John 7-11, Jude 4,16,19, II Peter 2:1-3,10,14,17-19 > Colossians 2:18-23, 3:1-17, I Timothy 1:19, 4:1-3, II Timothy 1:14, 3:1-7,13, 4:3,4, Romans 16:17,18]. Paul tells us to let anyone who preaches a gospel other than what they [the apostles] taught, be accursed [Galatians 1:6-9]. Righteousness in Christ does not come by the deeds of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ once we have repented of our sins and accepted Christ as Savior. Abiding by the [moral] law is simply a result of holding faith in Christ Jesus [Acts 2:38, Romans 10:9-13, 2:26, 4:5, 6:14-23, many others, James 2:14-26], not that we won't stumble at times [I John 1:8-10, Ecclesiastes 7:20]. What confuses many people, especially in the book of Romans, is a misunderstanding of the words 'law', 'work' and 'justification'. People also seem to forget, neglect or not realize that if an interpretation of any particular passage contradicts any other passage, then the interpretation is wrong, and a deeper dig is needed. Many denominations are built upon one or a few verses, to the neglecting of things they don't want to adhere to. Without using a dictionary to understand what certain, original words were, in the Greek, the original language of the Bible, it is easy to be misled and next to impossible to fully understand what many of the scriptures mean. The translators, in many places, did not use the best word to display the meaning. In some cases, the English language has more apt words, whereas in other instances, the English language is limited, compared to the Greek. It is simple and clear to understand that when we are born again, converted, which is a supernatural act, more than simply performing a 180 in our actions, that ignoring morals are not a part of grace. The moral laws have both dos and don’ts. Paul showed that it is the doers of the [moral] law that are just before God, not the hearers only, and that converted Gentiles, which never had the law committed to them, do more naturally after conversion the precepts the law reveals, the doings of the law written in the Gentile believers’ hearts [Romans 2:13-15]. Jesus said that out of the heart comes what we think [Matthew 12:34], and what we think is manifested in what we do [Proverbs 3:1, Philippians 1:10]. Christ said that He did not come to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill [Matthew 5:17-20]. Grace instills the spirit of the law into our hearts if we truly have the gift of grace [Ephesians 2:8], and in many places it is made clear that we are to refrain from sin, which is breaking or going against the moral law [Romans 6:11-23, 8:4-14, I Corinthians 15:34, Galatians 5:14-26, I John 3:4], which the Holy Ghost helps us to do [John 14:16-18,26, 16:7-13]. It’s simply that under grace, we don’t need to memorize what every commandment is or go around worried that we might sin. The Holy Ghost is our instructor now, rather than the concrete commandments themselves [Galatians 3:24, John 16:13]. Since we now see that Christ came to save us from our sins [Matthew 1:21], to enable us to obey the commandments, better and better as we go [Philippians 3:13,16] or, more accurately, obeying the spirit of the law and honoring the commandments, to either intentionally disobey the commandments or to think that we are righteous because we do obey them, is against Christ or instead of Christ, which is antichrist [Greek antichristos]. Rationalizing is instead of Christ, and God, which is what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. They didn’t necessarily purposefully go against God, per se, but they did rationalize, they did aspire to be gods unto themselves, making themselves equal with God, and they did knowingly and wilfully disobey God, though not necessarily for the purpose of crossing God. It might be fit to say that they wanted the best of both worlds, which is impossible and which we sometimes do. Note that after sinning and when being questioned by the Lord, they manifested shame and showed respect to God [Genesis 3:8-13]. In Genesis chapter three, we read that the devil was the most crafty of any other creature God created. What he did was is the equivalent of this: say as a teenager you have a curfew of ten. One of your friends says something like, ‘you can’t go out anymore, huh?’ The friend is stating a half truth, which is what satan did. In verses 4 and 5, satan told some more half truths. He knew that if the people ate of the forbidden fruit, that they wouldn’t die instantly, or even soon. And he also knew that by their eating the fruit, that their eyes would be opened, but to what? Eye represents mental and spiritual abilities, acts and states [Vine, W.E., Unger, Merrill E., and White, Jr., William. Pg. 74. © 1984, 1996, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words], and means to become autonomous by setting standards of good and evil for oneself, instead of letting God set the standards of good and evil. To know [Hebrew yada] means to know by experience, to know intimately, thoroughly, in the heart. Wise in Genesis 3:5 is not the Hebrew hakam, which stands for, primarily, wise, skillful, practical, in an Old Testament religious sense, as well as a skillful sense concerning craftsmanship [Exodus 31:1-6, I Kings 7:13,14]. In this verse, Genesis 3:5, wise means delusion, shrewdness, and magic, a connotation of worldly wise, distinct and in direct contrast to wise in the things of God [Isaiah 55:8,9, James 3:13-18, Philippians 3:17-19, Luke 16:8, Mark 4:12, Isaiah 5:20-25, Ezekiel 28:2-10, I Kings 22:15-40, I Corinthians 1:17-31]. Reference is made in this context of wise to many people who were doing evil and were “wise” in that regard, in an evil way [II Samuel 13:1-18, Genesis 41:8, Jeremiah 50:35, Ezekiel 27:9, Obadiah 8, Exodus 7:11, Isaiah 44:25]. There were times, off and on, the last being in 1998, a nearly full transgression in 2004, during which I consorted with lascivious women, and lived with a woman for a few months in 1997, using rationalization to convince myself that it was okay, but it is not. God never said to not do this or not do that, except in certain circumstances. Sin is black and white, no gray area included in His commandments, yet forgiveness if we fall short. The commandments are precepts we were always to obey, while at the same time a teacher of sorts, revealing to us that we need something more, a Savior to be exact, because at our best, we fall short when it comes to obeying the commandments, as have the best of the best [Galatians 5:1, Philippians 3:4-17] (there is a reason why the cops keep a watchful eye on massage parlors and why the C.I.A. makes extensive use of those employees, who will work with/for that agency) . I used to use one or another excuse to justify my behavior, such as it was okay because I had a lot of stress. Or, that I was just as justified as some of the married couples, who withhold from one another unless the other sees things their way or lets them buy some item they want [I Corinthians 7:1-6]. My biggest excuse was that it was okay at times since I had been rather ostracized and blackballed, hindering my previous efforts to find a wife. Bottom line is, sin is not okay, and we have to let the Lord make the best of what circumstances exist [Philippians 4:11, Exodus 16:4,8]. As a matter of fact, even well after my last promiscuous excursion, my thought life gave me problems galore. Because of the sins, envy was very prevalent within me, towards God’s things, not all of them by any means, but it produced a root of bitterness [Hebrews 12:15-29], which was pretty prevalent for a number of years. During all those years, I still maintained a strong sense of justice, didn’t steal, lie nor cheat or defraud anybody, and stood up for the oppressed the best that I could. But I was still not submissive to the Lord, being driven largely by the same spirit which drove the Pharisees, in that I did, for a few years, set out to establish my own righteousness, of sorts, and partially, while striving to regain a lost relationship with Jesus Christ [Romans 10:2-4, Isaiah 55:7, Jeremiah 3:1,22, 15:19, many other]. Remember that the Old Testament is the foundation for the New Testament, and the NT is the fulfilling of the OT [Matthew 5:17,18], noting also, that, per these last verses here, you cannot return to a place which you haven’t already been. While true that King David and King Solomon, as well as others in ancient times, who were of the Lord, had many wives and many concubines, it was only because the age of grace had not yet arrived in full, which time is now, and began with the Day of Pentecost (in complete fullness), Christ having instituted it, that God was long suffering [patient, not tolerant] towards it. God at one time winked at ignorance of sin, but now commands us to repent and refrain [Acts 17:30]. There was one time in which God ordained a sin, and it was with King David and his men, before David was made king. They were hungry and ate of the shewbread, the bread which was not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests [Matthew 12:3,4,7, I Samuel 21:1-6 (note that David’s men had kept themselves from women)]. Because of that, some will say that it is okay to commit certain sins when in trying situations. That thought is false, and I have learned that lesson the hard way before. What people fail to take into account, is that the Mosetical law stating that only the priests could eat the shewbread was a ceremonial or ritualistic law only, not a moral law. The fact that eating the shewbread was condoned is a type of act of Christ, our high priest, which illustrates the doing away with the ceremonial, ritualistic and blood sacrifice portion of the Mosetical law, which man eventually turned into one big program of sin, striving to largely keep the letter of the law, but totally missing the spirit of the law, not realizing that they weren’t even keeping the letter of the law either. I will add also, that though I use the words “doing away with the ceremonial, ritualistic and blood sacrifice portion of the law”, that isn’t totally accurate. For example, the blood sacrifice was not disanulled, as it were, but rather it was transferred to Christ, who became the final and truly expiatory sacrifice, once, for all who will believe. For those who may have trouble comprehending that the shewbread statute was not a moral law, think of it like this: you can take a loaf of bread, and in your most holy state, other holy people with you, and pray all day and all night for that loaf of bread. When you are done praying over it, that loaf of bread will still be merely that, a loaf of bread [Haggai 2:10-14] (that is a different matter than prayer/healing cloths Acts 19:11,12]. I truly believe that one reason why there are so many backsliders in America, is because that when people get caught up in a fault, most of the brethren fail or neglect to reach out and help that brethren overcome [Galatians 6:1-3], which the law of Christ bids us to do, instead, ostracizing them when they do seek help in dealing with their sins, so most end up remaining in their sins and delving deeper into them. Some believers, especially older ones, don’t really know how to specifically help others overcome faults, because most of them were always moral to begin with. And once they got converted and filled with the Holy Ghost, they simply obeyed Him, not going out into left field like I, and a lot of them in my generations, have done. At the same time, there are also a lot of concision adherents and dogs in the organized church [Philippians 3:2,3]. Dogs [Greek kuon] means morally impure, using Christ’s liberty as a cloak of maliciousness [I Peter 2:16]. The concision [Greek katatome] are those who basically are strict Judaizers, attempting to use the deeds of the law to attain to righteousness, Pharisees, the same type of people who had Christ murdered on the cross [Matthew 27:18, chapter 23]. Try not to confuse strictly Judaism with being moral. Again, being moral and doing the deeds of the moral law is a result of being righteous in Christ, rather than a means to it. A huge difference exists there. I John chapter three coincides with Hebrews 10:26,27, which mentions that sinning wilfully results in a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which is true. But does that mean that once we sin, even knowing better, that we are bound for hell with no way to repent? As already gone over, King David knew better than to commit adultery, let alone murder. When King Saul was out to kill him, David had a once in a lifetime chance to kill Saul, but would not [I Samuel 24:1-15], which would have been murder. This was well before having his general killed, so he definitely knew better yet, in time, he was able to regain the good graces of God, though not without much difficulty, and, he paid for that the rest of his life [II Samuel 12:9-20,]. Let’s look at Hebrews 10:26,27 closer. If we wilfully sin after receiving the knowledge of the truth, then God has nothing else to offer than what He already offered, Jesus Christ and His grace. We can’t be born again twice, only once, though we can be refreshed [Philemon 20, Malachi 3:10 (tithe means tenth, and is more than simply money > I Samuel 15:22, Hebrews 13:15, I Peter 2:5)]. Sometimes, even when we haven’t knowingly sinned, we, like King David, have to do a lot of soul searching, asking the Lord to cleanse us from sins we don’t even know about, things deep down which cause us to sin [Psalm 19:12], possibly suffering in order to further cleanse us and draw us closer yet to the Lord, as Job. We also have to take up where we left off [Philippians 3:16], and confess our doubts, unbelief and sins [I John 1:8-10, Mark 9:14-29 (note verse 24)]. There is no righteous person who does not sin [Ecclesiastes 7:20]. Looking at the prayers of two righteous men, Daniel and Nehemiah, we realize that sometimes, the most righteous people have knowingly sinned [Nehemiah 1:4-11, Daniel 9:3-19]. We tend to get caught up in work, chores, activities and programs, and neglect to pray and study. The spirit of the world will, if possible, sweep us up into the flow of earthly doings, and keep us so occupied that we do, in a way, unwittingly leave God on the shelf [Ephesians 2:1]. The devil “loves” to keep us so busy doing things, that we forget the most important part [Luke 10:40-42]. Verse 27 of the tenth chapter of Hebrews is a key here, and misunderstood by many, sometimes purposely misrepresented. Keep in mind that the prodigal son was well aware of right and wrong, was a son before going worldly and wasted his inheritance [Ephesians 1:11-14, 5:5, Luke 15:11-32]. If we turn from God, we should expect to be fearful and look for judgment and fiery indignation. What is this judgment and fiery indignation in this verse? Judgment has many more applications than the judgment day at the end of time. Many judgments come in this life [I Timothy 5:20,24, Ezekiel 22:19-22, Zechariah 13:9], as often as not to purify us [I Corinthians 5:1-5] and humble us, hopefully to repentance. and acceptance with God. Living with the pigs and being worse off than his father’s servants was the prodigal son’s judgment, and he finally came to his senses and repented, and was accepted. Judgment of many kinds starts with the church, and it is to purify and refine us, which is one Christian entitlement: judgment by fire [I Peter 4:12-19, Matthew 3:11, Mark 9:49, Luke 3:16]. We are told that as believers, we will be tried and baptized by fire, as well as by the Holy Ghost. What is this fire? I disagree somewhat with Vine’s rendition on that matter, as they didn’t go quite deep enough in explaining. Their definition of fire [Greek pur] is divine judgment upon the rejectors of Christ. While true that anytime we do not do as Christ wants, we’ve rejected Him for that moment. But where John the baptist says that we shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, he is talking to believers, believers to be during his time, not the rejectors of the Gospel. Baptism means immersion into something, and when we become believers, we are baptized, or immersed, in the Holy Ghost. That does, by virtue of our changed character and manner of living, usher us into a baptism of fire from the ungodly elements of the world, causing us to suufer as Christ did while He was on earth [I Peter 1:14, 2:21,23, 3:16-18, 4:1,4,12-19, 5:6-10]. See also Matthew 20:20-28, Hebrews 2:18, 5:8, 11:23-27, Malachi 3:2,3]. Fire is trials, tribulations and general problems which should cause us to more tightly cling to Christ, thus purifying us from ourselves. This aspect is deeper than this article needs to go, and I’ll touch on God’s fire in a different piece, but if you reference all places for fire, you will discover that God uses fire to destroy, either the very wicked in the O.T., or to rid the flesh of ungodly attributes, which purifies and refines. I want to touch on one important point real quick, in order to eliminate an excuse. It apparently is in some people’s minds that if they remain unaware of the ways of the Lord, that they won’t have to answer for disobeying Him or not being in tune with Him. That thought is made void by one verse: For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law… [Romans 2:12]. What has happened in the church is, that the older generations were always much more moral to begin with, all of their lives, as was most of society, than the younger generations have been, and so when people my age (5o years old) were in their teens and twenties, and wandered off from the Lord and got into immoral activities, the older generations didn’t really know what to do more than pray and beseech us to amend. Very few of the older generations ever were taught or knew about spiritual warfare or how to remedy bad living, in an explanatory way. There are also a lot of churches who have lost sight of a basic beginning of someone becoming a Christian believer: you have to be spiritually born, reborn, born again, regenerated, made anew by the Lord, which can occur anywhere, not only in church [John 3:3, 4:42, I Peter 1:23, Colossians 2:11, Matthew 18:3, Isaiah 51:7, Jeremiah 31:33, Psalm 51:13, Ezekiel 11:19-21, 18:31, 36:25-27,29]. Just “turning over a new leaf”, doing a 180, practicing morals, does not get it, because that is human attempts, works of the flesh, humanism, Pharisaical, redundant and useless for establishing a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Anybody can be good. Most people are good when in places where it is expected of one to be good. Being good, that is, adhering to morals and ethics, is a result of being cleansed by the Holy Ghost, but does nothing of itself to become one of God’s people. You are not right with God because your parents belong to church and God, because your uncle is a preacher or because your sister plays the piano. It is through and by the faith of Jesus Christ, once we’ve repented of our sins and accepted Him [Acts 2:38, Ezekiel 14:14,16,18,20]. Living a Christian life is part discipline [Ezekiel 18:21-28], just like anything else, though we who believe have also the Holy Spirit within us to guide us into the right way more perfectly, to show us what scripture means and to enliven us. Unfortunately, the flesh (body and other human attributes) is often conditioned in ways not of God, and through force of habit we can find it hard to do what pleases the Lord [Romans 7:14-25]. And here is the “catch-22”: not only are there many moral commandments guiding us away from what the Lord does not want us to do, the Holy Ghost helping in that, there are also many moral commandments of what we are to do [Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy]. This is where a great many congregations are falling short. Saying thus, it is as much of a sin to neglect doing what we are to do, as it is to do what we are not to do [James 2:10]. Back to the point of wilfull sin, or any sin, there is a deeper part than what Romans 7:14-25 covers, where Paul writes that he found it hard to do what pleases the Lord, and habitually natural to do what does not please the Lord. It is found in I John chapter three, which contains both solutions and problems. And once the problems are found, the solutions are revealed. I’ve had to search the scriptures and my soul and dig deep. I was once so wayward that I didn’t think I’d ever reunite with Jesus and His grace. And I’m about to get into some scripture which a lot of believers do not understand, and which a lot of church people not believers misuse, being envious and not desiring others to be saved. Many, many times I have asked the Lord to confirm that I belong to Him. It gets to the point at which you no longer have doubts most of the time about God and what the Bible says, but at times the doubt is in whether or not you are truly ready to die at any given moment. After being accepted by the Lord in or around 2004, after having been quite wayward, finally being an outcast, driven to despair by God in order for me to be completely honest with Him and myself, and having the witness of the Holy Ghost within, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I could be right, in lieu of what certain scripture seemed to say. Thanks to preachers Doug Batchelor and Perry Stone, who I’ve seen on YouTube, I bought a Vine’s Bible Dictionary, learning what certain words are in the original Greek and Hebrew, and began to truly understand what the Bible says. Firstly, it doesn’t matter what you have done, God will forgive you, excepting blasphemy of the Holy Ghost. If you are studying Biblical things, then you have not, I’m sure in myself, that you have never done so. I think that people who commit that sin die pretty quickly thereafter, like as Annanias and Saphira, who lied to the Holy Ghost, which is evidently the same thing [Acts 5:1-11]. Keep in mind that Mary Magdelene, was, before following Christ, an actress, singer and a prostitute. That is not in the Bible as such, but is historical. During slow times back then, many of the singers and actresses used prostitution as a sideline. The apostle is writing to the believers, as all of the scriptures in the New Testament are, calling us the sons [Greek teknon > child] of God. How do we know that we are God’s children? Because we have the Holy Ghost within us [Romans 8:14,16] and are led by Him, and we love the brethren [I John 2:3-5,10,21, 4:7,13,15,21], having an uncondemned heart and confessing that Jesus is the Son of God, continually purifying ourselves [I John 3:3]. Verses 4-10 of I John chapter three are key, and are misused by some to falsely condemn believers [I Timothy 3:6], when misunderstood. Whosoever commits sin breaks the law of Moses [v. 4]. Jesus here to take our sins away [v. 5]. Verses 6-9 can be construed to mean that if we sin, then we have never known Him, and that we are of the devil, and that anyone who is born again cannot sin. This is a misinterpretation, and can also be made to sound like no matter what a believer does, it is not sin. Very false on all counts. Sin is sin no matter who does it. When a believer sins, who is sinning? Or, in other words, what performs the sin? It is the flesh, the body [Galatians 5:19-21]. Our flesh, in present form, cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor go to heaven, until it is changed [I Corinthians 15:50,51]. We will be given a glorified body [Philippians 3:21] before going to be with the Lord, whether alive or dead [asleep] [I Corinthians 15:35-44,51-54, I Thessalonians 4:14-17, Hebrews 11:5, Genesis 5:24, II Kings 2:11,12, Acts 1:11, Daniel 7:13, John 14:3, Acts 1:11], because our flesh is perpetually corrupt [Romans 7:14-25, Jeremiah 13:23]. It is our flesh that sins, which it can, and is of the devil by virtue of being born of a sinful nature, that quality passed down from Adam to each of us, who sinned in the garden, along with his wife Eve [Romans 5:12,14, Job 5:7, 14:1,4, Psalm 51:5], having given in to satan, the serpent. Paul, in Romans 7:14-25, is not meaning to say that he intentionally sinned, but he still did, in one way or another. We can sin by becoming too Judaistic, missing what the Holy Ghost is saying to do, or bidding us to do. For example, we need to study and pray daily and much. However, even that is sin if the Holy Spirit bids us to go visit someone who is sick or in need, whatever it may be, but instead, we decide to study extra or just pray for the person who we’re supposed to minister to or help out. One of the biggest things Paul had to overcome was relying upon the moral law to become righteous, because he was a model Pharisee, a truly moral one in most regards, yet he missed what it was really about, until he met the Lord on the way to Damascus, to persecute believers, but ended up being converted. Saint Peter and other apostles and disciples committed sin, many years after the day of Pentecost and after having converted thousands to Christ. How? By showing respect of persons, not in a premeditated way, nor because they wanted to shun some of their brothers in Christ, but they feared some of the brethren who were stricter on some of the Jewish customs, and followed them in a manner which made them more Pharisaical than Christian [Galatians 2:1,11-21], got caught up in the wrong spirit [Ephesians 2:1,2, 6:12], and transgressed a couple of moral laws [Leviticus 19:15, Deuteronomy 1:17, 31:6, I John 4:18, Isaiah 51:12]. This was over seventeen years after the day of Pentecost. The unjust may use this example as an occasion to act sinfully toward select people. The just in Christ will utilize this illustration to realize that even the most blessed do stumble, thus taking heart in the fact that even the lowest of us in God’s realm can defeat the desires and lusts of our flesh, as well as our wayward tendencies. The aura of spiritual death and eventual physical demise hinders our attempts to remain just [Romans 5:14], affecting adversely how we think, thus act [Jeremiah 20:7-9], even discouraging us to the point of not desiring to continue walking in Jesus’ way [John 6:66], for one or another of a multitude of reasons. Note that Jeremiah, though downcast due to persecution, continued on with the Maker, and so did Peter and the other disciples. None of them were infallible and neither were they programmed. It was a deliberate exercising of free choice, both when they sinned and when they repented of the thought to draw back to perdition [Hebrews 10:39]. I John 3:6 plainly states that whoever abides in Christ does not sin, nor has anyone who sins seen or known him. As stated before, some will misrepresent this verse in order to cast those overtaken in a fault or stumbling out of a relationship with the Lord [Galatians 6:1-3, I John 4:6, Matthew 23:4-7,12,13,23], being haughty, presumptuous and wanting to be the big dog to the exclusion of certain brethren [III John 9-11]. So if we sin, there appears to be a paradox, a contradiction with what we claim to believe. Who abides in God? I John 3:9 shows us who. It is whoever is born of God, converted, regenerated, born again. And who is born again? Evidently not the part of us which sins. So who? Jesus answers that question in John 3:6. We can only be born physically once, and so the flesh is flesh, sinfully natured. It is the spirit, or soul, the very root of who we are, which is born again, begat supernaturally. I and others sometimes use soul and spirit in place of the other, which are two separate entities, as man is a triune being [Hebrews 4:12, many other]. Soul [Greek psuche] is the breath of life [Genesis 2:7], the life giving force, the seat of personality. Both humans and animals have a soul, referred to in that sense [Ecclesiastes 3:21]. The spirit [Greek pneuma] denotes "the wind (John 3:8), because it is invisible, immaterial (not consisting of matter) and powerful. It is the “sentient element in man, that by which he perceives, reflects, feels, desires”. The emotions are associated with the soul, and the spirit is higher than the soul [Genesis 2:7]. The spirit is the eternal part of man. The soul, as I perceive it, can be placed into one or another groups. For example, some people have a gentle character, some a vehement character, some a vindictive character, others a mean character, some a kind, etc. We all know people who have the same type of soul, or character. Soul is rather generic, whereas the spirit, the eternal part, is unique and an individual. You will not understand or believe this, unless you have already discerned this, or until you are shown this, probably by the Lord. There are some people who are so naturally perceptive of things intangible, that they realize these things outside of the wisdom, insight and discernment given by God. So what I have shown is, that it is the body of a believer which sins, and cannot abide in Christ, even if perfectly following His ways and biddings, because Christ is eternal, and our bodies, in their present forms, are not. As already gone over, the body must die and/or be changed. If any of us, in our current form, were to look at God in the face, it would kill us [Exodus 33:17-23], and it would even have killed Moses. Incidentally, anyone who thinks that obeying the moral commandments is a sissy needs to study the historical Moses. He was raised a warrior and served as a general in pharaoh’s army, leading the campaign against Nubia. After murdering the Egyptian [Exodus 2:11,12,15], Moses fled, traveling clear across the Sinai Desert, up and around the tip of the Red Sea, in all probability, ending up in Arabia. That would have been quite a task even for a seasoned warrior. Of course Moses wasn’t perfect, but he was not immoral, either. He was tougher than any of us, and more moral as well, yet human and sinfully natured. Our born again spirit cannot sin, because the spiritual seed of Christ remains in us. That does not mean that we can allow our bodies, the flesh, to do as it pleases and still be righteous before God. Some take it to mean as such, claiming that the spirit is the only thing that matters. That, in turn, is the source of the belief that since only the spirit within matters, notwithstanding what the body does, then it is only the concept of Jesus Christ that matters. That is a part of the New Age movement, and is antichrist, because it claims that it doesn’t matter whether or not a person believes that Jesus was a real person. "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is [was] come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ is [was] is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist… [I John 4:1-3]. A record of Christ’s ministry, life and execution is found in the ancient Roman Empire’s records. A good illustration of the man called Jesus Christ is found in Bill O’Reilly’s book, ‘Killing Jesus’. If it doesn’t matter what the body does, then there is really no such thing as sin. If there is no such thing as sin, then there is no need for a Savior, thus, no need to go to church, study the Bible, pray, or even do good at all. Do you see where that belief leads to? This belief has qualities of Gnosticism, though the Gnostics considered marriage to be evil and worthless, but the original Gnostics never believed that Jesus Christ was anything more than an allegorical figure, considering everything about Him, including salvation, to be a myth. They took Saint Paul’s liberty in Christ teaching to an extreme form, something he never taught, turning it into a completely anti-Jewish doctrine, thereby rejecting any obeisance to the moral commandments or at least some of them. The Nicolaitanes, a Gnostic sect, mentioned in Revelation 2:15, taught that fornication was acceptable to God, as did the churches of Pergamos andThyratira. The Apostle Paul was not anti moral commandment. He was against allowing the keeping of the moral commandments to take the place of Christ, against using the keeping of the moral commandments to be used as a means of justification, which they cannot. It doesn’t take much reading in the New Testament to figure out that immorality is not in keeping with the doctrine of Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, God forgives and Jesus empowers us to be holy, moral, without blame. In summary, the original sin was not sexual relations of any kind, rather it was disobeying God, which covers all sins. If we sin, we have a way to receive forgiveness through Jesus Christ, as well as a way by which to refrain from sinning. Freedom from sin is not strictly an act of discipline, which would be humanism, though of course some discipline is involved. Rather, keeping free from sin is a matter of allowing God, through the power of Christ by the Holy Ghost, to cleanse us from sinful desires. Any sin is an obeisance to the spirit of antichrist, the devil’s spirit, because sin is against Christ and/or instead of Christ, thus putting ourselves in the place of God, unsuccessfully, the same thing that Lucifer, the devil, did when he was a cherished angel of God, before even the creation of the world. All sin is technically idolatry and spiritual fornication, worshipping something besides God and whoring after false gods [I John 5:21]. We, as believers, are obligated to study God’s word and teach others [John 5:39, II Timothy 2:15, Exodus 18:19,20, 24:12, 35:30-35, Leviticus 10:8-11, Deuteronomy 4:9…]. In closing, be aware that not all who attend church, regularly or not, are true brethren, therefore not concerned about the good for your soul, nor is every “ordained” [by man] minister a true servant of God and Christ, or else truly called to proclaim the Word. When we sin, as a believer, it is the flesh overriding the spirit, and we need to repent and ask the Lord to help us to allow the Spirit of Christ work in us to take away sinful desires. By Todd A. Slee Note This is a first draft with few corrections. Though accurate and inspired by the Lord, it is subject to additions, revisions and fine tunings. It is about some extremely important issues, which cause problems that I myself have fought, scratched and scraped in order to overcome, to the point at which I am now at. Once saved, always saved, is a fallacy: we've got to keep going [Philippians 3:9-17] Note: Though I've shown that sin is not accountable when it is not known to be sin, in that aspect, that has nothing to do with not being accountable to man for crime. Sin is the root of crime, and it is mostly self explanatory in civilized nations. But there are forms of certain crime which a lot of people may not truly realize is crime, though they should. Nonetheless, even though we may not be held accountable to God for something we do not truly know is sin, if it is a crime, then we are still accountable to the government for that crime. Another aspect of this is, that, according to James 2:10, if we've committed one sin, then it is as though we've committed them all. This coincides with teaching that we are born with a sinful nature, and under sin, though, again, we may not be accountable to God for a specific act if we do not know it is sin. At the same time, if we're believers and have the Holy Ghost, then He should check us before we do something sinful, because the Holy Spirit does not condone any sin.
What Antichrist Is
1. Fornication, Antichrist and Original Sin