Who are the Nicolaitians? The word in the Greek means the conqueror of the people! Specifically in the Church of God! They are only referred to twice in the Book of Revelation. Both the church at Ephesus and the Church at Pergamos had the same problem! (Verse 2:15). The Nicolaitians were Bishops and prelates of the church gaining a triumphal victory over the laity! This is the very sin that brought forth the Reformation! It is mostly responsible for all our denominational and non-denominational churches around the world! The Nicolaitians compelled and forced church members to submit to the arbitrary dominion of men who have become the ones which the eternal hates! The Apostle Peter warned us that those who are leaders among God’s people must not dominate the faith of others but rather exhort them to do right! (1 Peter 5:1-3). The Nicolaitians are people in the church who have established a hierarchy of power and dominion under a government of ecclesiastical rulers! Comment: Yes! God hates these folks! Correction is very different from condemnation! We take the word disciple from the word discipline. Jesus used the techniques of correction and commendation very effectively! We as parents either tend to over correct and under commend or over commend and under correct! Everything I do cannot be right and everything I do cannot be wrong! That is why I need a Savior! My experience in ministry over the past 45 years has shown me people do not like to submit to authority! This is the nature of Satan! Most people will submit to authority if commended and corrected in love! However some will never! Hell is reserved for these folks! Why will some never submit? Because they want to replace God! This explains why the world is a war! War on God! Jesus asked the churches at Ephesus and Pergamos to repent! Sunday our Pastor Oscar Cope made an important point to us in his sermon! He said that the beginning of repentance is the end of judgment! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Tag: disciples
Who Do You Trust? Psalm 86:11
Hebrew Translation: “Teach me by laying a foundation established and erect controlling me which leads me down the road of life. O Lord; I will walk faithfully and stable in thy truth; unite my heart in the totality of my inner nature to reverence and respect your name.” Comment: We like Jesus disciples have struggled with this scripture! Like Jesus disciples we sometimes do not walk stable following him! We waver in faith getting off the road that leads to life! The disciples would sometimes get off the foundation! Their heart was not always united with Christ! Reverence and respect for his name was not always there! Peter denied Jesus even though he told him he would die for him! He eventually did in Rome years later! Jesus told us to go out into all the world and preach the Gospel! We say let the church do it! Let an organization do it! Pay them so I do not have to do it! Our gift’s God has given us cannot be used unless we do what Jesus told us to do! At the feeding of the 5000 Jesus asked the disciples what do they have? The disciples wanted to send the crowd away! We do not have money to feed this large crowd? Cancel the meeting! Send them home! The disciples were perplexed? They can buy their own food! A little boy in the crowd came prepared! He had more than enough for himself! He had a little faith! Enough faith to give Jesus everything he had! The little boy gave his all! He had the gift of 5 loaves and 2 fish! Bring what you have to Jesus! God will multiply it! Let God bless what you have! Really what he has given you! Doesn’t seem like much but enough! He will multiply it to feed everyone! God is greater than what you have! Have you figured this out yet? Do something with what God has given you! With your life! Don’t waste it on drugs and go to work! With the left overs from a miracle you can feed even more people! Twelve baskets full! Israel had twelve tribes and Jesus had twelve disciples! God can build a nation out of left overs! God can build a church with left overs! God has more than enough for your family! He has more than enough for your church! God can bless you if you bring all you have to him! Peter build my church! Do you want to distribute God to the world? Or keep him for yourself? Sow the seed you have! Do not eat your seed! Share and multiply what you have! The rich young ruler was not able to do that? He valued his possessions more than God! I don’t need to tithe and make offerings? The possessions God had given to him he could not give back! If you give to God what you have he will do more with it than you ever could by yourself! The graveyard is full of excuses! Even David who wrote this Psalm waivered at times! Jesus never did! Wait on God but not on anything else! Do what God has called you to do! Help the needy and the lost! Go after those the world has rejected! Pray and agree with God! Jesus had every excuse to quit! The crown of thorns was very painful! The betrayal of his disciples was painful! His back cut open and bleeding was painful! His Cross was heavy! Your will be done! God’s will is not easy! Jesus had no excuses to die for you! Do you have any excuses not to live for him? He gave his all! Can you? Be faithful! Stand up for our flag and take a knee for Jesus in prayer! Pastor Don Wildes, Mount Vernon Baptist Church, Fairburn, Georgia
No Hope Without Christ! Matthew 12:45
Greek Translation: “Then goeth he, and takes with himself seven spirits that are strange, foreign, teaching with different doctrines unequally yoked together more wicked with malice and mischief, more demonic than himself, and they enter in and live permanently there: and the lowest and furtherest and final state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be unto this wicked generation.” Comment: Remember Jesus cast seven evil spirits out of Mary Magdalene in the Book of Luke? Then she became Jesus disciple! Jesus cast devils out of people and they became his disciples! In 21st century America what would be seven evil spirits you could identify today living in our culture? The spirits would be strange or foreign to the believers in Christ teaching opposition to our scriptures as found in our Holy Bible! These spirits would be unequally yoked together wicked with malice and mischief! Judge Kavannah touched one of these evil spirits called abortion! He had a snake by the tail. How about Darwinism which opposes creation? Opposes a belief in God’s existence! Gay marriage, lesbianism, transgenders, socialism, fascism and how about Islam? There are more than seven evil spirits but those are the top ones! One of the real conflictions in America is that these spirits are not resisted from the pulpit’s of America! Why? There are some exceptions but most Pastor’s play the political correct game! Why? Because these evil spirits are linked to a political party! The Democrats! Since the churches across America took the bait for the 501c deduction they fear losing there tax exemption? Is the love of money worth sacrificing our culture? You cannot defeat Demons pretending they do not exist? My suggestion to American Christian’s is to bind these foul spirits in prayer everyday! Make this part of your prayer life! Encourage your Pastor to speak out on these issues and confront these issues with the scriptures! Raise up a standard against them! Our mid-term elections are coming up in November! Support candidates who hold Christian values! If you do not vote you have given your vote to the enemy of Christ! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Goals! Matthew 4:8-9
Jesus said what profits a man if he gain the whole world and lose his only soul? Remember the Devil offered Jesus all the Kingdoms of this world if he would bow down and worship him! We need a Godly goal! An eternal goal! Depending on our natural gifts we have different abilities. I will never play football in the NFL. I will never go to the Olympics. I am not a rocket scientist. I always enjoyed taking things apart and turning wrenches. I love preaching the Gospel but never had a full time job doing it. I love girls but they are very expensive! I like politics but it is too ugly for me! I would rather do a Bible Study than balance my check book! Math was not my best friend! We should all have one common goal! Reach the Kingdom of God! After this life an eternity awaits us all! Did you ever notice Jesus just had one goal. His goal was to prepare people for Heaven! To do that he had to die a ugly death on a Cross! He had to be raised from the dead! He had to ascend to his Father in Heaven to prepare a place for us there and send his Holy Spirit to us here on earth! How would I know if I had a Godly goal? I would have the same goal for you that I have for myself! My goal is to lead people to Jesus! I do not want to be set apart from Jesus seeking the Kingdoms of this world ending up separated from God forever! Also denying you access to Heaven by my rebellion against Christ! By creating an ideology that opposes the Kingdom of God! I want to share Heaven with you! My goal is that we both share Heaven together! Jesus said they will know you are my disciples if we have love for one another! Do you love the world as much as God does? Humanly impossible! But by his indwelling Holy Spirit all things are possible! Why not give your goals to God and let him sort them out in his eternal plan and purpose for your life! If you fight God’s plan and purpose for your life you will be miserable! If you confederate yourself to him then you will have joy forevermore! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
The Jewish Phenomenon! Isaiah 60:12
Hebrew Translation: “For the non-Jewish nations (Gentiles) and their idol Kings that will not serve and worship thee shall not escape a down fall, those Gentile nations shall utterly be wasted through war.” Comment: Did you ever observe the obvious? The greatest Salvation and the greatest destruction has come through the Jews! Our Savior is Jewish! The disciples were Jewish! The cell phone was invented in Israel. Between 1901-2017 two hundred and one Jews have been awarded the Nobel Prize accounting for 23 percent of world wide recipients and 37 percent of all U.S. recipients! Jews have been awarded 26 percent of all Nobel Prizes and 28 percent of them in scientific research fields! Jews only make up two tenths (.2) of the world’s population and two percent (2) of America’s population! The greatest destruction on the earth has been wrought by atheistic Jews such as Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Lenin and Charles Darwin! You will get some push back that Darwin was not a Jew but wrong! There is a good article in Scientific American that will clarify this! Jews throughout Europe and even America changed their names to avoid persecution! My wife worked for a rich Jewish family in Pittsburg while attending college there back in the 1960’s. She did baby sitting for the children for two years. She found out through them that they changed their names to hide their Jewish roots! We know from Daniel 11:37 The Anti-Christ will be Jewish! He will be an atheist and a homosexual. Albert Einstein helped America build the Atomic bomb that ended WWII. Hitler kicked him out of Germany in the 1930’s because he was a Jew! Hitler was so ignorant that he followed a atheist Jewish ideology of Charles Darwin that drove him to destruction! Evolution says the strong shall defeat the weak! Hitler though he must speed up the process of Evolution which would otherwise take millions of years to do by eliminating the weak! Evolution drives abortion here in America! The religious Jews persecuted our Jewish Messiah in the first Century! Jesus warned them that their Temple and the City Of Jerusalem would be destroyed which the Romans did in 70 A.D. Our attitude towards the Jews will determine the outcome in our lives! God deals with the Jews during the Tribulation period of history! Many will come to Christ when they see their betrayal by the Anti-Christ! God loves all people! See John 3:16. The Apostle Paul a Jew got frustrated with the Jews and took the Gospel to the Gentiles! Paul reminded us to take the Gospel to the Jew first and then to the Gentiles! A Christless Jew is as dangerous as a Christless Gentile! I know! I was one once! Did you know Mohammad has a Jewish background! He was from the offspring of Ishmael. His father was Abraham! Mohammad’s first wife was a young Jewish girl. Yet his ideology in Islam opposes our Jewish Messiah and the Jews? The war in the Middle east over history is a family feud over who is the rightful heir to Abraham! The Arab and Jewish races are both classified as Caucasian’s! Only Christ can end this feud but as long as both sides reject the King of Kings the war will continue! Unless the Prince of Peace lives in your heart men will always be at war against each other and with God! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Trinity of Communion! 1 John 5:7-8
Verse 7: “These are the 3 that witness a good report in heaven, the Father, the written Word and the Holy Spirit or the Breath of God.: Verse 8: “and these are the 3 that witness a good report in the earth, the Spirit, and the water and the blood; and these 3 agree as one.” Comment: So we see in Heaven a Trinity of the Father, Word and Holy Spirit! So where is Jesus in Heaven? Remember the Word became flesh and dwelt among us! Now let us move down here to the earth. We have a good witness of the Spirit, the Water and the Blood! We have the Holy Spirit, the Blood (Jesus Christ) and the Water! The Water? There is only one thing the Lord could be talking about here! Baptism! Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River! Jesus washed the disciples feet with water before the Cross! I believe there are 3 elements of Communion! The body, the blood and water! Baptism is a separate ordinance in the church as so is Communion however you cannot separate them spiritually! After Jesus was baptized the Holy Spirit descended on Him! It pleased the Father! Should we want to please God? Baptism is a witness in the earth to the world that we belong to Christ! In Communion we identify with Christ in Heaven here in the earth and in Baptism we identify with Christ here in the earth as a witness to the world! We do these things in remembrance of Him because He first remembered us at Calvary! God first loved us! Do you want to identify with Christ? Can you be saved without baptism and communion? Yes like the thief on the Cross but would you not want to experience the joy and fellowship of communion with God? In order to be in authority we must be under authority! The ordinances of the Church and the tithes and offerings established by God are there to test you and see if you are under God’s authority? You cannot be in God and not under His authority! Do you forsake assembling together in Church on Sunday’s? If you do you are not under His authority! If we really believe the Word of God then we need to practice the Word of God as a witness for Him in the earth and in Heaven! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Does Satan Work for God? Isaiah 54:16
“Behold I have created the smith that bloweth the coals on the fire, that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.” Comment: Certainly Satan opposes God but by his rebellion against God does he end up working for God? We know Satan runs his own prison! No tax money needed to support! Satan knows who the sinners are! Everyone! He knows his own! He is called the accuser of the brethren! Satan wants you to live in his image! In the image of doubt, fear and death! God asked Satan have you seen my servant Job? Both God and Satan know which camp you are in! What about those that switch sides? Some Democrats become Republicans! Some Republicans become Democrats! Satan would have everyone in Hell except for one problem! It is called the Blood of the Lamb! When your sin has been forgiven the guilt, fear and condemnation is gone and you are then free to serve God and His Christ! The disciples betrayed Jesus at the Cross just like you and I would have done but Jesus forgave them and they became the foundational leaders of the Church! Without God no Heaven! Without Satan no Hell! This is the problem with atheism! Deny God and deny Hell? Come up with a religion or ideology that supports their belief there is no God! Like Marxism and Darwinism! Both were Jews and atheists! To deny their existence does not make them non-existent! If you deny God you support Satan for you deny the Atonement! If you deny Satan you deny God for God created Lucifer the fallen angel! We will cover verse 17 in our next blog posting which is a very encouraging verse for us from God! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Love & Betrayal! Isaiah 53:3
Greek Translation: “He was despised and rejected of maimed and crippled men; a man maimed by sorrows and grief; and we hid it were our faces from him; he was despised like Emperor Claudius who was poisoned by his wife Agrippina so her son Nero could assume power.” Comment: There are four English words translated from the Greek that shed light on this scripture. The words men and man comes from the Strongs #376 which means crippled or maimed! The Strongs root word for Strongs #376 is Strongs #303 which means reversed! That is the condition of man in the Garden of Eden was reversed! From life to death! From health to sickness! The next word aquainted is Strongs #3045. This word means fat! Jesus was surrounded by sorrows like a fat man surrounded by his fat! Dead men needed life but instead rejected him! Man maimed by sorrows and grief hid their faces from him? The word esteemed is the Roman name Claudius. This is Strong’s number 2803. The name Claudius means crippled! Just like Claudius Jesus was betrayed by those he loved! Judas went for the money! Peter denied him three times! All his disciples abandoned him and even His Father! Nothing has changed in the Centuries following including the 21st Century! Men maimed by sin reject him and are perishing without him! Marxism is responsible for 100 million deaths! Darwinism with the followers like Hitler for hundreds of millions of casualties! How about Islam over 1400 years! Hundreds of millions of deaths! However Christ has wrought a change in civilization with 1/3 of the world following him! Jesus will restore your soul, mind and body! If you embrace an ideology that opposes Christ your doom is sure! Christ was maimed for us to deliver us from sin! Why should you reject the redemption effort of God’s only Son Jesus Christ? Jesus can reverse your condition if you let him do so! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Divisional Unity! Acts 2:4-6
Divisional Unity? Sounds like a contradiction or an NFL playoff game where winners move on! What is the Holy Ghost? Ghost translates Spirit of God or the breath of God! God breathed His life into us! We see here at Pentecost or 50 days after His Resurrection and 10 days after His Ascension to Heaven that all the disciples gathered together waiting for the promise! What promise? Remember Jesus told us that He must go to the Father so He could send us the Holy Spirit unto us! To dwell in us! The Holy Spirit is like an escrow or down payment made to us to guarantee our preservation until Jesus second coming back to earth! The Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity and was present even at Creation! The Holy Spirit given to His Church at Pentecost is to endue us with power! Power to promote the Kingdom of God here in the earth! When the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples they began to speak in other tongues! The word tongues translated here from the Greek means to speak in a foreign language. Then we see in verse 6 that the disciples were confounded because every man heard them speak in his own language? The disciples were a diverse group gathered representing many languages! They had difficulty understanding why men that did not know their language could speak their language? Remember the Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis? God divided the one language spoken there into many languages to confuse this civilization from their prideful project of building a tower to heaven! Thousands of years later God by His Holy Spirit brings all the different languages together so they can all understand each other! God brought unity in worship! Man’s efforts at the Tower of Babel brought separation! God’s efforts at Pentecost brought unity of worship to God! The barriers were removed to enable corporate worship! If you go to Heaven your language will be understood by all. If you go to Hell your language will understood by no one! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Fishing Without Jesus! John 21
The disciples jumped into the boat with Peter! Peter was going to show them how to do it! It was his old occupation! Can you imagine taking Thomas the doubter along with you on a fishing trip? I told you guys you would not catch anything! Just wasting my time! The only thing we caught was a cold out on this water all night long! I really had my doubts about this trip! Shut up Thomas! Since the ministry had failed Peter went back to his old job! However it looked like Peter was failing in his old occupation? Was he rusty or bad luck? Failure can be a good thing if it points us to God! That has been my experience in life! When our own efforts fail God can do mighty things through us! If we can trust God rather than ourselves good things will come out of that! The disciples were so into themselves they did not recognize Jesus standing on the shoreline patiently waiting for them after their night of failure! Hey boy’s you caught anything last night? Hell no! I got a little heaven waiting for you guy’s! You boy’s are fishing on the wrong side of the boat! Throw your net on the other side! If in life you fish in the wrong place without Christ you could even catch things that could harm you! John was the first to recognize Jesus from the boat and when Peter found out he jumped into the water and headed to shore dragging the net with 153 fish in it! When Peter got to shore Jesus had a fire going on frying fish with bread! Jesus had already prepared what the disciples were seeking! They did not even need their big catch! Jesus has promised us that He would prepare a place for us! The Marriage Supper of the Lamb is waiting for us! The disciples finally figured out they could not make it without Jesus! Don’t be a slow learner but profit from their mistakes! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com