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Preparing yourself for the study of God’s Word
Before we begin, only if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ (that is; you have believed [trusted] in Him for His promised gift of eternal life) John 3:16, John 6:47 as a few examples; it is very important to prepare yourself to learn God's Word so the Holy Spirit can teach you as to what your reading or hearing is true or false. To be taught by the Holy Spirit you must be filled with the Holy Spirit which means abiding in Christ. To place yourself in fellowship with God the Holy Spirit [also called abiding in the Christ], take a moment to simply name, cite or acknowledge [confess] your known unconfessed sins privately to God (i.e.; with your thoughts directed only to God the Father). Why? Because you cannot grow spiritually if you’re not abiding in Christ [in fellowship with Him] when you take in bible truth.
1 John 1:9, says: “If we confess [meaning to simply name, cite or acknowledge to God the Father] your sins [known unconfessed sins], He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins [known sins] and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness [all unknown and forgotten sins];” NKJV [New King James Version]; we call this REBOUND; read the full doctrine as to “why” we need to use 1 John 1:9 to grow spiritually. Left click the following link to learn more and fully understand the doctrine of Rebound; which answers the question, why do I need to keep confessing my sins all the time? REBOUND
If you have never personally believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is the Son of God, the promised Messiah, as your Savior (that is, believed in Him for eternal life), the issue for you is not to name your sins; the issue for you is to simply exercise faith alone in Jesus Christ alone eternal life; when you do, you will instantly receive Eternal Life: John 3:16, 5:24, 6:47, 20:30, 31.
John 6:47 says: "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me [Jesus Christ] has everlasting life." NKJV
Notice again what Jesus said in John 6:47: "…he who believes in Me (Jesus Christ) has everlasting life." It doesn't say, "will have"; it says, "has." Therefore, the very moment you believe in Jesus Christ for His promise of everlasting life, you have it (it's really just that simple; nothing more and nothing less), and it can never be taken away from you (John 10:28-29). Furthermore, the gift (Ephesians 2:8c) of everlasting life (also called eternal life in scripture) is available to every human being; there are absolutely no exceptions.
John 3:14-15, 16, 17, 18, says: "14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." NKJV
Let us now bow our hearts and take a moment to prepare for worship and learning God's Word. If there is any known sin in your life, this is the time to just cite it privately to God the Father with your thoughts directed towards Him. With your head bowed and your eyes closed, you have total privacy in your mind and soul:
Study to show yourself approved to God!
Grace Bible Church
Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
The Tree of Life is a weekly teaching summary:
God’s Word is taught Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday
STUDY TITLE:
Weekly Bible Study, November 20, 2023, The 8 Stages of Reversionism.
The 8 Stages of Reversionism.
Adversity is what we all will have in life, in one form or another. This adversity is inevitable, however the stress is optional. Adversity results from the freewill of man in this world. It is inevitable that the sin of man will hurt each other. Many bad decisions made from the sin nature create havoc in nations, families, and individuals. Adversity also comes from God himself, for example: natural disasters.
God has given us the tools we need to overcome adversities and prevent them from becoming stress within our soul.
Pschology is actually a very precise science when it comes to the analysis of human instability within the soul.
Schizophrenia, manic depression, disassociation, hysteria, psychosis, are results of adversity becoming stress in the soul. Contrary to popular belief, these psychological problems are not just the problems of unbelievers, but also believers in Jesus Christ.
Psychology says that neurosis is lack of psychic energy in the stream of consciousness. Neurosis can be feelings of anxiety, obsessive thoughts, or compulsive acts. Neurosis can lead to what psychologists call a splitting of the mind resulting in split personalities. This condition is far more common than many experts admit. Some people are able to keep their irrationality within the soul, and thus appear to be perfectly normal. Of course, no one fools God. He knows our every thought, our every motive, and he has always known these things. The only defenses against any form of neurosis are the 2 power options, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and the daily intake of the Word of God. The same goes for the unbeliever, however, without belief in Jesus Christ, he can only rely on the divine laws of establishment given to every member of the human race in the Mosaic law.
The unbeliever must rely on honor, integrity, honesty, and upholding rights of life, liberty, privacy, and property given to men that are true divine laws of establishment. Unbelievers that fail to live by the divine laws of establishment, and believers that fail to intake Bible Doctrine in their soul will result in some form of neurosis. Psychology has a vast amount of information on how they can fix a soul. Medication is a good thing if it can bring a person to a point were he can concentrate on the Word of God. However, the Bible emphatically says that human solutions (psychology) are NO solutions, divine solutions (Bible Doctrine and the divine laws of establishment) are the only solutions.
The problem with psychology is focusing on the problem, instead of offering real solutions. As a child, we all form defense mechanisms within our souls to cope with the outside world. The worse the childhood, the more defense mechanisms we develop. Defense mechanisms are the only means of surviving childhood for many who struggle through it. But, when the child becomes an adult, these same defense mechanisms will destroy the soul.
Reaction and blame will only create more problems within the soul. Dwelling or living in the past is of no help whatsoever. That will just create more problems. That’s why the apostle Paul says; we are to forget what lies behind, and move toward the goal which is in Christ Jesus. If we continue to let past or present adversities penetrate our souls, we are the ones choosing to live in misery and stress, instead of God’s plan and purpose for our lives. We are all imperfect, and we have all done things we regret, or have had things done to us by others that cause us grief, but we have the option as to whether these problems destroy us. If we choose to focus on the problem, we are in essence saying to God that we can handle our own problems, we don’t need His solutions.
1Pe 5:5, You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
God makes war against the arrogant believer, but he gives grace to the humble believer. This means that if we continue to focus on the problems and adversities of life, past or present, then God will allow the pain and misery to continue and we will only have ourselves to blame. Most believers do not even realize this, but even unhappiness is arrogance. God never coerces our decisions. He allows us to choose for or against his plan. It is impossible to be unhappy in God’s plan. But we don’t just suddenly become incredibly happy at the moment of salvation. God wants His creatures to be happy. This requires spending your lifetime learning about who He is, and what it is all about. We either continue to strive toward the goal of occupation with the person of Jesus Christ by renewing our mind with the Word of God, even giving thanks in the difficulties of life, or we choose to focus on the problems and continue to live in misery. We sow to the wind, and we reap the whirlwind. We make our own choices in life, and in the end we only have ourselves to blame.
Psa 119:67, Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your word.
Do we make the Word of God our #1 priority in life? This is the question we must ask ourselves within our own soul. God already knows the answer. He already knew the outcome of your life billions of years before you were born.
So, the solutions He provides will work. Jesus Christ our Lord made this life possible and perfected those solutions. When you start thinking about how infinity superior and stable our God is, it should bring you incredible joy inside your soul. What comfort! What security! The sad fact is that most believers in Jesus Christ will not achieve the ultra-supergrace life. They would rather hear what they want to hear, and so they never advance farther than what they want to hear.
The following are 8 stages of reversionism which Paul was inspired to communicate to the Galatians and Corinthians, many of those who had fallen out of fellowship. Reversionism simply means that a believer in Jesus Christ, even a spiritually mature believer, can revert back to his old unbelieving ways. This is proof that until the day we die, we will constantly need to fill our minds with Biblical truths to avoid reversionism. Most believers trap themselves somewhere in the 8 stages of reversionism.
1. Reaction and Distraction.
As a believer, you can either respond to circumstances and people in your life (using Bible Doctrine in your soul) or you can react to them. This can be as simple as frustration, or it could be reacting to other’s sins. Are you distracted from daily intake of the Word of God? Are you hypersensitive to other’s sins, because they are different from your own? This is when you start drifting from concentrating on your own spiritual life, and become more concerned with what else is going on. Remember this basic Biblical principle: Only you can live your spiritual life, no one else can live it for you. Loss of fellowship through sin, and failure to apply 1 John 1:9 results in advanced stages of reversionism.
The sin nature is genetic and resides in every cell of the human body. The soul, which was created by God, is perfect. Volition, mentality, and self consciousness all reside in the soul. When we sin, we choose to sin. The sin nature simply tempts us, and then we use the volition in our soul to choose to sin. Only the 2 power options of the filling of the Holy Spirit and the accumulated epignosis knowledge of Bible Doctrine can defend us from this temptation. Lack of these is lack of real strength. When we sin, it is inevitable that stress will be present inside the soul, and if we fail to rebound, we move to stage 2 of Reversionism.
2. Frantic search for happiness.
This is because you are out of fellowship, you seek happiness in the world to compensate from frustration, boredom, lonliness, etc… And you must have more than just simple fellowship with the Holy Spirit to avoid this stage of reversionism. You must have acquired epignosis knowledge in your stream of consciousness—the right lobe of the soul, or heart. Without epignosis knowledge, you will not have any spiritual strength to keep you inside the PPOG, or within fellowship with God.
There are 2 types of Christians who develop in this stage of reversionism. The ascetic or legalistic Christian has a trend toward morality. He can have self righteous arrogance, and produce mental attitude sins by judging and looking down upon others who do not fit his moralistic image of a Christian. He does not have the truth within him, because he is out of fellowship, and hence, without epignosis knowledge. His frantic search for happiness is trying to show others how good he is, and deceiving himself into thinking God actually favors him over others, when God’s love doesn’t fluctuate. God loves all believers the same, he doesn’t love one over another because of how good they are. It never depends on how they are. It all depends on who and what God is. And God loves his own righteousness, the righteousness that we receive when we believe in Jesus Christ, which is perfect righteousness.
He is not better than others, but yet he depends on this belief that he is. He joins others who fit his trend of the “human good” syndrome. You could also call this mutual admiration societies. They think they are so great, and they frown on the rest of the world. The problem hear is the tendency to focus on oneself for such high morality, completely loosing track of what is truley in the Word of God. The frantic search for happiness is the result of seeking happiness through people and society, like churches, when only the Word of God in your soul can do this. The second trend is fairly obvious. For the lascivious Christian, this could mean drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, drug abuse or crime.
3. Operation Boomerang.
The more you react, are distracted, and search for happiness outside your inner soul, the more these reactions are intensified. Frustration becomes greater frustration. Discouragement becomes depression. Lonliness become desolation. Here is where you loose your common sense and you let emotion run your soul. Here is where your soul becomes fragmented, and begins to literally split. This fragmentation is prolonged stress inside the soul.
The only defense is to use 1 John 1:9!
When any of us reach this stage, it is usually from deep self pity or anxiety we have accumulated over the years from garbage in our sub-consciousness. As the years pass by under daily perserverance of Bible Doctrine, we will be able to fight this battle more and more head on, and so we should not see this stage as much as we use to. Epignosis knowledge inside the soul will become more and more a line of defense in the battle that wages inside the soul. We will recall The Word of God more quickly, and faith becomes more of a reality from inner proof of contentment.
However, without daily intake of Bible Doctrine, the believer is weakened more and more as the stress takes over his soul. The stress will fornicate with the old sin nature and when cognition of the mind is overrun, then stage 4 will inevitably result.
4. Emotional revolt of the soul.
Emotion is no longer the responder or appreciator of the soul, it now becomes the dictator. Emotion in itself is empty. It is entirely dependent on knowledge resident in the heart. When emotion takes control of the soul, the believer becomes irrational. This irrationality can be subtle, such as sincere and soft spoken pastors who misinterpret the Bible.
Here is where irrationality begins. Instead of using Bible Doctrine in your heart to respond to circumstances, your emotion dictates your behavior.
2 Co 6:11-12, O you Corinthians, our mouth is open to you (Bible teaching); our heart (right lobe of the soul) is enlarged (with doctrine). You are not hindered (from learning doctrine) by us, but you are hindered by your own emotions.
Christians distort Bible teaching when they are under emotional revolt of the soul.
Rom 16:17-18, Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and offenses in opposition to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them. For they are such who serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own emotions, and by smooth and flattering speech they deceive the right lobes of the stupid.
These are apostate believers who are without Bible Doctrine in their souls. They interpret the scriptures with their emotions, without discernment. Bible Doctrine is not about sweet, sentimental emotional deception, it is about principles of truth and integrity that God recognizes inside the soul and rewards accordingly.
Emotion was given to human life as an appreciator of the things the Creator so graciously gives us. Emotion, however, can be very destructive if given full control of the mind. You do not have to be a believer to understand this point. Emotion breeds irrational behavior and instability. The Christian way of life is all about thinking.
We are to understand Bible Doctrine by cognition, by knowledge of God.
Cognition simply means:
1. The mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.
2. That which comes to be known, as through perception, reasoning, or intuition; knowledge. Emotion has NO room in the Christian way of life accept as an appreciator of what we know about the Lord.
Emotion is a wonderful gift from God, and I think you know how wonderful it can be when you think about salvation and what Christ did for you at the Cross. I myself get quite ecstastic at times when I think about all that God has provided for us. It can also be bad when you loose your train of thought, and you let anger or bitterness rule your thoughts. This stage of reversionism is very destructive. You cannot recall Bible Doctrine that you previously had knowledge of, because cognition in the right lobe is where Bible Doctrine resides.
5. Negative Volition Toward Bible Doctrine.
At this point believers are apathetic to the Word of God, and actually shrug it off as needless repetition. A person now may find a church that suits their emotional needs, ignoring doctrinal messages and content. They sit in Bible class, but they are performing rituals without reality. You are so caught up in the adversities of your life that you cannot apply Bible Doctrine to circumstances. You in essence say, Bible Doctrine doesn’t work, but it is you who are negative to the Word of God. Here is where Christians feel so full of self pity and emptiness inside and just cling to the salvation message. They were given such an extraordinary spiritual life, yet they wallow in their self-pity, but they do not understand why.
Ignorance is no excuse in the Word of God. God will always provide actual Bible teaching, we must seek it, hear it, and live it. Spirituality is not a theory, we must live it. Hearing the Word (academic knowledge) is not good enough, we must be doers of the word (epignosis knowledge believed, understood and applied).
6. Blackout of the Soul.
Remember, we are still talking about a believer in Jesus Christ. He or she never looses his or her salvation, what grace! Here is where a vacuum opens in the left lobe (the staging area or the mind) of the soul called Mataiotes in the Greek. Literally, this means vanity as in Eph 4:17. Satan understands more Bible Doctrine than you think he does. So, he feeds on believers blackout of the soul. You see, Satan knows his fate, he realizes it is only a matter of time.
Satan will continue to try and break the link in God’s plan. He has already tried several times, from extermination of the Jews to avoid the covenants with racial Israel from being fulfilled, from attempting to destroy the line of David in the Old Testament by trying to prevent the birth of Christ, to setting up his own utopia millineum to prove Christ a liar in saying there will be wars and rumor of wars until my return.
All he needs is to prove one Biblical promise wrong. Even in his genius, he is no match for the perfection of God.
One of his best attacks on the plan of God is distortion of the truth. Anything to lead the Christian from the path of righteousness. Christians want to teach about love, love, love, and yet they have no idea just what love is! True love is a virtue. It is a system of thinking acquired through God’s word, not through emotion. The true power of love is not personal love directed toward others, but impersonal love. Love directed toward everyone, because it does not depend on an object it is attracted to, but it is dependent upon the integrity inside the soul.
Most Christians talk sincere and smile and teach about loving the neighbor. I’ll tell you what true love is! True virtue love is when God the Father judged His only Son, the uniquely born one, with all the sins of mankind. He had personal love for Jesus Christ. Yet, he judged him. Why? Because integrity always comes before love. The righteousness and justice of God the Father judged Christ on the cross for us, so that His plan would make it possible for us to have an eternal relationship with Him.
That is impersonal love! HE loves us not for who and what we are, but for who and what He is! Perfect righteousness and fairness will always find a way to give his creatures a chance.
1TI 4:1, The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
Satan wants us to feed on distortions such as love and peace for all. Because he knows that if we focus on the emotional love we feel, then we rely on our own weak and pathetic strength. Even in love, we must rely on the Word of God, never on emotion. These believers in Jesus Christ have neglected Bible Doctrine and are now influenced by the knowledge of the world such as Darwinism, New Age Philosophy, Atheism, Conversion to another religion, etc…The result is subjectivity, confusion, instability, and frustration. They buy into liberalism, world peace and disarmament programs, socialism, universal brotherhood of man, and rights for the criminal.
7. Scar Tissue of the Soul.
“Hardness of the heart.”
Evil influence enters into the right lobe of the soul where epignosis knowledge is stored and actually begins to remove the truth of Bible Doctrine.
John 12:40, He has blinded their eyes (perception), and He has hardened their heart: lest (result of scar tissue) they should see with their eyes, and perceive by means of their heart (right lobe), and be turned around (receive conversion), and I restore them.
8. Reverse process reversionism.
They revert back to their unbelieving ways. At this point, they are still saved whether they know it or not. There is no overt sign to the fact that they have ever believed in Christ, that they are born again, and are sons of God. Christians are shocked at what other Christians do, so they don’t believe they are really Christians but merely professing Christians. The sad thing about it, is so few can ever recover from this point. It is not from the failure of the Word of God. It is because these same Christians who judge these people are in reversionism themselves, and the false doctrine they create destroys any possibility of recovery for these people. God’s justice is his grace policy. He condemns those who do not believe in Jesus Christ. He blesses those that believe in His name. Faith alone in Christ alone is the power of grace. He provides it all! A wonderful grace life is provided to every believer, but we must understand what the Bible teaches. At salvation, God the Holy Spirit gives us 7 Ministries and one is a spiritual gift. The spiritual gift of pastor teacher is given to men so that they may study, and beat their brains out each and every day and night to give to the congregation the accurate message, coherently, orderly, and understandably. The scriptures are to be understood in their original languages and in the time they were written.
The following link is to a good news message describing how one can receive eternal life: Ticket to Heaven, it was written for anyone not absolutely certain about their eternal future.
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