The Elect of God–The Seekers of Truth

It is like we, the elect of God, are down here on earth where God has placed within our hearts a thirst and hunger for the truth.  We have to know the truth.  This search for truth is what keeps us going.  It is the only thing seemingly that matters to us.  Everything else is just cosmetics and window dressing. 

“Great is the mystery of godliness,” the scriptures say, God being the greatest mystery of all.  And so the seekers search Him out.  And throughout the expanse of the earthly years that He has given us, we discover little bits of truth like pieces  to the puzzle.  We are like children adding a crystal to our tin box that it might lay with a seashell or a discarded brass key.  We know these bits of truth are a special treasure and we hold them dear.

And these little bits of truth, if we endure, begin to add up and, like a jigsaw puzzle, begin to take shape.  A picture of the landscape of spiritual reality emerges as we put things together. 

We begin to see this panorama of God’s purpose and plan to reproduce Himself inside His sons and daughters.  And then we begin to walk in it, thereby exercising His Spirit in us.  And then He smiles, pleased with our belief, and says to those around Him, “See there.  They are getting it!  They are believing my word, and so I will answer their cries and grant their requests.”

And so our faith grows as we see that God really is real and personal.  It is no longer just book learning intellectualism.  No.  He is real, and no one can take that away from us.

And so our appetite for the truth about who God is and why we are here is whetted, and our hunger is unabated.  We need more of Him, who is the Truth.  That is it.  That is the truth.  I am the way, the truth, the life…Thy word is truth…God is truth…

God has placed within us this unquenchable need to know the truth, which is Him and His plan, which entails the heavens and earth and all that is therein.  This need for truth within us was placed there by God.  It is His doing.  And someone will say, What about the others who are not desperately seeking the truth?  To that we must say that we are not to judge another man’s servant.  They were created by God for His pleasure, and although our eyes are dim as to all mysteries, we will continue to trust Him that He knows what He is doing.  He is our Father, and we are His children.  We will submit our finite thinking to His mind, which is magnificent.

For it is all His doing.  “His ways are past finding out.”  Just knowing that it is all summed up in His name, which is holy and is to be reverenced.  For the secrets of His universe are expounded in His name–His original Hebrew name–Yahshua, “for there is no other name given whereby man must be saved.” Find out what it means and you’ll have the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.   KWHancock

YAHWEH IS SAVIOR: THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY CHAPTER 4 “And They Shall Say to Me, What is His Name?”

STEP TWO–KNOWLEDGE OF HIS NAME  [“The name of Yahweh is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe.” Proverbs 18: 10]

 Chapter 4  And They Shall Say to Me, What Is His Name? 

     The quest for immortality is really a search for the knowledge of who the Immortal One, the Creator, is.  And there can be no knowledge of who He is without knowing His true name. 

     Take Moses, for example.  The first thing that he was concerned about when called out by God to do a work was knowing God’s name.

     Moses had already fled Egypt and was shepherding a flock on Mt. Horeb in the Sinai.  It is here that God appears to him out of a burning bush.  Moses goes over to get a better look at the marvelous sight.  Then God calls Moses by name out of the burning bush.

     Moses is dumbfounded, of course.  God then tells him just who is speaking.  “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”  And then He tells Moses that He has heard the cries of His people in Egypt, and that He has come down to deliver them out of bondage.  “Come now therefore, and I will send you unto Pharaoh, that you may bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.”

     And Moses said in essence, “Why me?  Who am I to do such a difficult task?”

     And God said, “Certainly I will be with you.”

          And Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”  This is the foremost thing, the very first thing that Moses knows the children of Israel will ask him when he goes down to deliver them.  Moses knows that if he does not know God’s name, the people will not buy it.  They will know that something is wrong with this deliverer.  If you know God, Moses, you will surely know His name.  If you and God know each other so well that He would be sending you with power to overthrow Pharoah, then surely you are going to know His name (Ex. 3: 10-13).

     God then says to Moses, “I AM THAT I AM.”  And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”  God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD*…has sent me to you’: this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” [*Footnote in the RSV, Exodus 3:15: “The word LORD when spelled with capital letters, stands for the divine name, YHWH, which is here connected with the verb hayah, to be.”] 

          With this information, we may now restore the divine name into that same passage: “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘YHWH has sent me to you: this is my name for ever.”  Stop.  God says that YHWH is his name forever.  “And thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”  With this God is saying that He is to be remembered by using the name of YHWH! The word “LORD” appears more than 6,800 times in the Hebrew canon, commonly known as the Old Testament. That means that the Creator’s name YHWH appears about 6,800 times! The prophets addressed Him by His name YHWH.  They remembered Him by using His name. The name YHWH was a memorial, the way to remember Him.

     Did Moses obey God and tell the children of Israel that “YHWH has sent me to you”?  The answer is yes.  And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD (YHWH) God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. Ex. 5:1.  In fact, Moses penned down the name of YHWH 1,700 times in the first five books of the Scriptures.  And the divine name of YHWH appears in most translations as the title, “the LORD.” 

YAHWEH IS SAVIOR: THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY CHAPTER 3

Chapter 3

  How to Receive Wisdom 

But as we saw in James 1:5-7, the obtaining of this awe and reverence and respect is tied to our asking Him for it in faith, in full assurance that He will answer our prayer.

Here we have three extremely important concepts inextricably intertwined: wisdom, faith, and prayer.  Wisdom is the main thing.  And because we all start out lacking it, we need to ask Him for it.  Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights.  But we must ask for wisdom in faith, in full assurance in our hearts that God not only hears our request, but also grants our request and gives us awe and respect of him.  That is prayer.  And it is a lovely circle because when He gives us a bit of awe of Him, then that is a direct answer to our prayer of faith, which in turn gives us more awe (wisdom) of Him.  This is a beautiful circle.

James outlines for us in the first chapter some necessary knowledge about wisdom, faith and prayer.  First, he is writing to the 12 tribes which are  scattered  abroad.   He  then  says  that  it  is  a necessary thing that our faith be tried (1:2).  It will be tried by temptations that come.  But we are to look at these temptations as a source of joy because it brings patience into our lives.  Patience is that part of His nature (2 Peter 1:4-7) that helps perfect us. She performs a perfect work, if we let her (v.4). Then in the very next verse the apostle says that if any of us lack wisdom or, in other words, if any of you are not letting patience do the work of perfection in you through a lack of  awe and respect of Him, then, by all means, ask Him for wisdom in faith, and He will give it to you.

In v.14 we learn that every person is tempted when we are drawn away from that guiding awe of the Supreme Being by some desire that we allow ourselves to go after.  And when that lust or desire has conceived it brings forth sin.  There was a seed, a thought, a word of desire of something contrary to the Ten Commandments that conceived, and it brings forth the evil fruit of sin, the breaking of the 10 Commandment law of God.  And death is the final result of sin.

In verse 16:  Don’t err.  Don’t make a mistake in what I’m about to write to you, James is saying to us:  Every good and perfect gift comes down from above from the Father of lights.  We cannot manufacture what it takes to become perfect; we cannot in our own thoughts and work and effort here on earth accomplish the great work that He wants done through each of us who are called with His heavenly calling.  It will come down from heaven through prayer, through fearing and being in awe of such a majestically powerful and loving God.

And then, through moving with fear, we can do the deeds that show that we have the faith and assurance that He is living in us and through us.

We need to get wisdom; it is the principal thing.  Without it we will not get anywhere on the road to immortality.  We must realize that wisdom is to be in awe of the Great One, the One who created billions of galaxies.  We realize our need for wisdom, and then simply ask Him as a little child asks his loving parent.  The child fully expects the mother or dad to give him what he is asking for.  We need to ask our spiritual Father the same way for wisdom.  Father, help me to be in awe of You, You who have created all things in this profound universe.  Help me to realize just how powerful You are and to respect your ways.  Father, will You give me wisdom?

Wisdom–What Is It Exactly?

  

Chapter 2   Wisdom–What Is It Exactly?

 

     Wisdom is the main thing, but what exactly is it?  It seems so mystical, so ethereal, so other-worldly. It is just a little bit intimidating and mysterious when you try to figure out what wisdom is according to man’s conception of it.  So you go to the scripture of truth and find the definition of it in Job 28:28:  “…Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” I read the words but I’m not much closer in comprehending just what that means.  I consult a dictionary and find that “fear” means reverential awe and respect.  “Awe” is defined as an emotion of reverence, respect, dread, and wonder inspired as by authority, genius, great beauty, or might.  So then, the scripture of truth says that the main thing, the principal thing is to be awestruck, to have this awe and profound respect of our Maker.

     When we realize just who He is and how powerful and wonderful He is, then more awe will come over us. Solomon, who had it all as far as worldly riches was concerned, summed it all up in Ecclesiastes 12:13:  “Let  us  hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” Be in awe and respect Him and keep his ten commandment law, and you will be doing your duty.

     Awe and respect of God—that is wisdom, and that is the key to open the door to God’s heart.  But what are we humans in awe of?  “Oh, she’s awesome!  Oh, he’s awesome!” is heard when a movie star comes on TV plugging their next movie. Hollywood is awesome? Sports stars and music stars of pop and rock are awesome?  We humans have sold out to very poor gods who cannot deliver.  These movie and music idols offer nothing to their worshippers.  But they are modern mankind’s idols.  Isn’t it amazing that modern man idolizes personalities who make millions by being something other than what they really are?  Our movie idols are phony; they are not real.

Your god is

 who you are in awe of

 

      Your god is who you are in awe of. Man has it built into his makeup to be in awe of something.  It is man’s nature to think that something or someone is awesome.  Sometimes it is a star; sometimes it is himself.  But man is in awe of something or someone.

     To be in awe, then, is the first step in worship. So, it turns out that man is in awe of almost everything except God.  Humans will go onto a mountaintop and exclaim how awe-inspiring the view  is  and  how  the  waterfall  in  the  distance  is awesome.  Man is in awe of things of the earth and this world.  Therefore, man just doesn’t have any true wisdom from above because to be awestruck of Him is wisdom. 

    How does one get wisdom?  “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering…” James l: 5-7.  Faith is assurance that He will do what he said He will do without you having to see or feel it beforehand.  Faith believes and is assured before you receive whatever you ask for.  When you waver, you are not totally sure that He will do what He said He would do. 

     So, we then ask Him for that emotion of being in awe of Him, instead of some worldly figure or thing–and we ask with assurance.

     This may sound like a dumb question, but one may wonder just what is He and what has He done to warrant such awe. Go outside on a clear night and count the billions of stars.  With the new Hubbel space telescope, the astronomers have reported recently that there are 12 billion galaxies like ours!  That’s galaxies like our Milky Way which have hundreds of millions of stars—one of which, of course, is our sun.  Now I know why the Great Creator was perplexed by the ancients’ worship of the sun. The sun is small fry—very small potatoes.

      We’ve got to get back to the Supreme Power that created all of this flabbergasting universe.  And when we begin to get a tiny glimpse of the majesty of this kind of power that created all things, then that’s the beginning of wisdom.

  

Kenneth Wayne Hancock [Ch. 2 of Yah Is Savior–The Road to Immortality]

Book: YAH IS SAVIOR: THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY Chap. 1

[Below please find the first chapter of my book, Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality. I will be serializing it as posts in this weblog, ImmortalityRoad. After posting each chapter, I will be placing them in a page at the top of the blog, saying, BOOK–YAH IS SAVIOR: THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY.]

Step One— Wisdom

“And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom…” Job 28:28.

 

fear, n. A feeling of reverential awe, especially toward God.  New Century Dictionary.

Chapter 1

 

Getting Wisdom, The Main Thing

 

The first step we need to take on the road to immortality is to somehow get wisdom. The scriptures say that “wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting, get understanding.” Proverbs 4:7.  With these words, the Spirit is telling us that the absolute main thing that we need to receive is wisdom.  We cannot get to God without it.  We cannot find Him without it.  It is the principal thing!  He didn’t say to first get love or peace or go to meetings or tithe or anything of the kind. He said that wisdom is the main thing.

To get into a treasure house literally overflowing with rubies, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and gold, all you need—the main thing that you need—is the key that unlocks the door, that opens the way into the treasures. Wisdom is that key.

And  so  we  see  that  wisdom  is  that   principal thing.  It is the key that unlocks the door to the spiritual treasure house of God.  Without it we cannot get any further in our quest to receive of His storehouse. We’ve got to get wisdom.

Many people have tried to enter into the vaults of the  Supreme  Being where His treasures are stored.  Many  have  wanted  to  explore   the   unsearchable riches of the Messiah, without wisdom.  Many people have tried to clone the Messiah or make temples and buildings to please Him, without wisdom. Mankind sometimes uses interesting but futile chants, hums, repetitions, songs, shouts, “slayings-in-the-spirit” and the like, but the Almighty is not impressed by them. He seeks people to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

Many have twisted the word “riches” to mean only money: filthy lucre, mammon, riches of this world, wealth that  the  world  and  Satan  can  give  (“I’ll  give you all the kingdoms of this world if…”) . And yet, Wisdom cries to us in Proverbs 8:18: “Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness.” The durable riches, those that will last, are with wisdom.  And the righteousness that will last and endure is with wisdom, as well.  In the end man will be destroyed “that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches…” Psalms 52:7-8.

The true riches

 

Wisdom says, “Riches and honor are with me.”  What riches?  We know that it’s not this world’s riches.  It’s not money.  We are  to seek after wisdom

and understanding as we would jewels and gold and silver.  What are these true riches that come with wisdom?  Paul says in Colossians 2:3 that all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in the Savior.

The “true riches,” simply put, is nothing less than the full glorification of many sons and daughters  at  the  culmination  of  this  age.  We are talking about immortal offspring walking the face of this earth in the image of the heavenly One who also tread this earth some 2000 years ago.

The Messiah appeared many times to the patriarchs. He walked and communed with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, Moses, Elijah, and many other prophets before His incarnation almost 2000 years ago.  Immortality, communing with the Creator—that is what the true riches are.  That is what comes with wisdom.  Wisdom is the key that unlocks the door to receive the true riches.

 

The mystery of the unjust steward

 

The Savior spoke of the true riches in a parable in Luke l6, the parable of the unjust steward.  The manager was wise in that when he found out that he was going to get fired, he cut all the people who owed his boss money a sweet deal.  This reduced the amount of debt owed to his boss.  It was his last act before his dismissal.  And the Master commended him because he had done wisely. Because in worldly money matters, in things not of the Spirit, unrighteous people are wiser than His spiritual little children.

There is a way to handle money wisely and in a righteous manner.  We live on earth in earthen vessels.  Money buys food and sustenance. We are to  be a good and honest caretaker of someone else’s goods. “If you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon (riches), who will commit to your trust the true riches?  And if you have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?” Luke 16.1-12.  If we can’t in an honest manner take care of the earthly things like money and goods, then He will not give us the true riches which is our own inheritance. And this inheritance is his nature, his immortality and life within us.

It says that the dishonest manager was wiser in his generation.  Sin and dishonesty were generating his actions out from within his corrupt heart.  But he had a “wisdom.”  There was a wisdom that this dishonest man had that children of the Father do not have.  What did he do that was so wise in the unjust realm?  He had respect of the power of the rich men that he had to work for.

If his current boss were going to get rid of him, news would leak out as to why he was being fired. It would soon get around that he was untrustworthy and dishonest.  So, he used that same dishonesty to help his employer’s  creditors, to discount what they owed to him.  This, of course, endeared him to those other rich men, for they had saved money through him.  This would help him find a new job with one of them.

The Lord says that we need to be wise in a righteous  and  honorable  way, the way he was wise in a dishonest way.  We need to have awe and respect of our boss, the Creator, who is the Father of spirits, so that when the time comes when we are  put out of the stewardship of our earthly bodies, He will grant unto us the true riches of immortality and His presence.

If you desire a copy of these trade paperback books, you may order them from Amazon.com or directly from the author at a discount.  Suggested donation is $12.00 per copy.  Send to Kenneth Wayne Hancock/ 475 W. Norwood St./ Norwood, MO 65717 

 

  

 

The Oneness of God–Christ Said, “The Father Is in Me”

Believing in the meaning of His name is of utmost importance.  To ever fulfill our God-given calling of becoming His sons and daughters with His power flowing through us, we must believe on His name.

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12).  And in John 3:18 we discover that “believing on Him” is “believing in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”  And conversely, he that “believes not is condemned already” for only one reason: “because he hath not believed in the name.”

Not believing in the meaning of His name carries a catastrophic result.   The condemnation is “that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).  Because that same apostle wrote, “God is light,” in I John 1:5, we might read the above passage, “God is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than God, because their deeds were evil.”  He did say that He was “the true Light” in John 1:9.

The Savior’s name, Yahshua, which means in Hebrew, “Yahweh is the Savior,” has within it God’s truth as to what His very nature is.  That nature is that He is One.  One Spirit, one expressed image called the Son, One, One, One.  The invisible Father is in the Son, which is God (Spirit) in human form.

Let us get this teaching from the Master’s own lips.  In John 14:10, it is like the Savior is speaking to us today.  Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?  The Father that dwells in Me speaks the words through me and does the works.  The Father is omnipresent.  He is everywhere.  The Son is a vessel, then, that is in the Father, in the Spirit.  We, then, since God is everywhere, we are in the Father, too. And the Father, in turn, is also in the vessel as that same one invisible Spirit.

In verse 11, He commands us.   “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.”  This is a commandment.  In fact, this is one of his new commandments that John tells us about.  He is saying, The things I do only God can do, so believe what I am saying to you about the Father being now present right now with you (in me).  These miracles done through me—it is the Father in me that is doing them.

Believing on Him as the Scripture has just said

In verse 12 He says that those who “believe on Him” will do the same works that He does.  Now, most assume that this means “accepting Him as their personal Savior.”  But it does not mean this.  It means, “to believe on Him” in the same manner that He just expounded on in the previous two verses.  I repeat—those that “believe on Him” will believe on Him as He has just expounded—believing that the Father, the great wonderful invisible Spirit-Creator is in the Son.  There is only one way the Father could be in a human vessel, and that is by the Father being an invisible Spirit.

Let us not forget already what He taught about belief in them.  First, He said that “ if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  Second, He said, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”  This was His teaching on “believing on me.”  That is what He meant when He commanded, “Believe on me.”  It was that we believe that He was in the Father and the Father in Him, as opposed to the idea of the Father in some other vessel.  For the Son is the “expressed image of the invisible God.”

He emphasized this truth by prefacing it with, “Verily, verily.”  This means, “In truth,” and He said it twice to make sure we got it.  And that truth about believing on Him means believing that He was in the Father and the Father was in Him.  And if we get this right, there is a ton of promises He makes to us.  One of them is that we will do the same works that He did.  And “if we believe on him as the scripture has said,” the Spirit will flow out from our depths.  KWH