How the Old Self Dies–Baptized into His Death

Chapter 28 to the book Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality

     We may not realize it yet, but we are blessed, for we have seen that our old self needs to go.  Many try to redirect or re-channel its activities.  Sometimes we try to clean it up, but He wants it to die. 

     He said to repent and be baptized in water.  Yes, water baptism is a symbol of something else, yet we should still do it.  But few know what the real baptism is.  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Messiah Yahshua were baptized into His death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Messiah was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Rom. 6:3-4. NIV.

     Going down into the water is a symbol of the mortal life we now live in this flesh.  Coming up out of the water is a symbol of the new spirit-being life we shall live, which is the immortal life that we are called to. 

     Water is a symbol of our mortality.  Our first physical birth is an immersion in a bag of water.  We are born of water.  We mortals are about 75% water.  We  begin  in  our  mother’s  womb in water.  During water baptism we are baptized into His death.  To live in this mortal body is to die.  This watery entombment we call a body is really a deathtrap.  It by its very nature has to die.  The Messiah’s earthly body was composed of the same watery stuff that our bodies are.  And He died.  He had to die by reason of the nature of his shell during His earthly tenure.  This watery, flesh and blood body cannot inherit immortality and go into the kingdom of the Eternal One.  To be made of water is to be mortal, to be awaiting death, for water is extremely unstable, subject to every whim of nature’s forces.

     To sin is to die.  Mortality is to be able to die.  Therefore, our mortality is to sin. Sinning insures a human of not receiving a new spiritual heavenly body.  But now He has enabled us to live a life where we do not have to sin, if we receive His Spirit.  “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust (desires) of the flesh (this old mortal body)” Gal. 5:16 NKJV.

He was made to be sin for us

     We, then, when we go under in water, are symbolically being immersed into this watery mortal state of sin with Him.  We “are buried with him by baptism into death.” Rom.6:4. God calls those things that are not,  as though they were.  We are dead already (Yahshua told the disciples, “Let the dead bury their dead”).  He calls it before its actual physical death when we consent to and experience it (in revelation).  The water is the symbol of our earthly mortal bodily state.  This spiritual death of our old self comes now in this revelation before the fruit of death comes to our earthly bodies. 

     In conjunction with this, few know that the Messiah, the day of His death, actually became sin for us—he who had never sinned.  He was the sacrificial  Lamb who was set to be sacrificed  before the world ever came into existence.  God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. II Cor. 5:21. NIV. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Rev. 13: 8.

     The levitical priest, in types and shadows, laid his hands on the sacrificial goat, thereby transferring Israel’s sins upon it.  So did the Father place all of mankind’s sins upon the body of Messiah.  When He died, the body of sin died; our sin died that day.  To whom is the arm of Yahweh revealed?…Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all…It pleased Yahweh to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see His seed. Isa. 53:1,6,10.

     We make the Lamb’s soul an offering for our own sins by realizing that it was us in our sinful state hanging on the tree that day.  We must be immersed in this knowledge.  We must believe that our old self—that old monkey on our back, that old demon that we were, that selfish, egotistical, self-absorbed, sorry excuse for a human being—that old thing that we were is now, in God’s eyes dead.  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.  For he that is dead is freed from sin. Rom. 6: 6.  [I invite you to read my whole book and make comments.  God is calling out His elect (chosen) sons to be manifested in our time.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock]

Why Christ CANNOT Come Back Tonight–And Who Is the Anti-Christ?

“You better get ready!  Christ could come back tonight!” shouts thousands of preachers every Sunday.  “Be ready for the rapture, that wonderful day when we all float serenely up  through the clouds to heaven,” they say.  But they are parrots in pulpits who mimic words that they have heard someone else say, never having proved it out according to the word of God.  Christ is not coming back tonight, no matter how much they  preach about it.

That’s right.  The Savior, known to the English speaking world as Jesus Christ, cannot come back tonight.  Why not?  Because He will not go back on His word.  He said that several things must take place before He returns, and He will not break His own word.

Which Word?

The key is found in II Thessalonians.  Paul is commending the Thessalonians for their “patience and faith” in the face of the “persecutions and tribulations” that they are enduring at present.  This patient endurance in the face of persecution makes them worthy of the kingdom of God, which is a “righteous judgement of God,” just like it is a righteous judgement of God “to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you” (1: 4-6).

The government of God is coming when Christ returns, and it is the stone kingdom that will smash and pulverize all of man’s governments, like the very Roman government at that time in A.D. 54 that is persecuting the Thessalonians (1).  This kingdom, coming down out of heaven, will bring with it “tribulation to them that trouble” these Thessalonians.  “Tribulation” here is the same Greek word used in Revelation concerning the tribulation period to engulf the world system.

Paul goes on to say in verse 7 that God will grant His followers whose earthly bodies expire a rest.  This rest will continue until the Master “shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ/Yahshua the Messiah” (1: 7-8).

A permanent destruction will come upon them, and this destruction will come from the very presence of the Savior and the glory that surrounds Him–right here on earth at His return (1: 9).

So we are talking about Christ’s return to this earth–a physical return, a smashing return, a vengeful return, a return to “recompense tribulation to them that trouble” us.  Then Paul gives us the key to when Christ will come to do all of this.

Don’t be “soon shaken in mind, or be troubled…as that the day of Christ is at hand” (2: 2).  They had heard from some men teaching that Christ was coming soon.  But Paul tells them, “Let no man deceive you by any means” (2: 3).  You mean, Paul, that there will be men preaching that Christ could come right now?  And that they will deceive you?

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day [Christ’s return to earth] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God showing himself that he is God” (2: 3-4).

There is the key.  Before Christ comes back for His elect children and returns to deal vengeance to the unbelievers, the anti-christ, the man of sin, will be revealed.

Christ can’t come back tonight because we don’t know who this man is. 

So just who is this man of sin?  That is the question we should be asking ourselves as followers of Christ and people who long for His return.  How will we know him?  What signs will give him away as to his identity?  Since he will have to be revealed before Christ can return, we should be asking these questions and not listening to the siren song of rapture theorists.

First, he will oppose “all that is called God.”  He will “exalt himself” above God.  He will not just do this in word, but he will literally “sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2: 4).

Wait a minute.  Temple?  The anti-christ will sit in the temple of God before Christ comes back?  Yes.  There will be a man who will sit in the rebuilt temple of God palming himself off as God himself!

Christ speaks of this very scene in Matt. 24: 15.  “When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, “great tribulation shall break out (v. 21)–far worse than any trouble has ever happened on this earth.

What is this “abomination of desolation”?  When a man stands in the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem and claims to be God.

So we first need the temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem before the man of sin can stand in it.  The temple rebuilt and the man of sin revealed.

These are the signs of Christ’s coming back to earth.  But Satan will have his way with the “multitudes in the valley of decision.”  The masses will “wonder after the beast.”  The “coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders…”  And the people will perish “because they refused to love the truth” (II Thes 2: 9-11).  “And for this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie.”

And there you have it.  Let us all beware of false teachings that will lead us astray from the truth.  The end of the age is upon us, but most will be deceived and miss the most important sea change in the history of this world!  Let us “prove all things,” both things we believe to be the truth and things we’ve been led to believe is a lie.  Let us study.  Let us dig deep and build our house on the Rock and on the stedfastness of His word.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

 

 

1.  Daniel 2: 34-45

God’s Endgame–Where This Life on Earth Is Leading Us

This brutal trek through the evil that “so easily besets us” is the proving ground where we, as new models of the old Adam, are perfected and thus become part of Christ.

We have the treasure of His Spirit hidden in our earthly bodies, and we are bombarded daily with stimuli and temptations of the flesh.

Evil is all around us and is necessary, much like, to continue the automobile metaphor, rough and pockmarked roads are needed to drive over when testing the undercarriage of the latest car or truck.

The evil out here in this world is necessary to be there for us to overcome.  When swamped with evil of any kind–loss and heartbreak, deprivation and longing, regret and remorse–whether of our own choosing or randomly foisted upon us by fate as it were, His children call on the great Spirit Father, who is waiting for them to contact Him.

And He heals them emotionally and physically, and they draw nearer to Him thereby, and their old way of thinking melts away into Christ’s thinking.  Then the evil that surrounds them disipates, for they have overcome it along with its purpose.  They will have attained the victory over the enemy–especially the “last enemy”–death.

Then comes the end–the end of evil and its usefulness to God’s purpose, which is to multiply Himself until all His creation is actually, well, Him.

It is like when I asked the Seer the inevitable question.  “Why didn’t God just create us perfect at the beginning and be done with it and spare us all the pain?”

To which he replied, “God could have created us that way, but then He would have so many humanoid robots on His hands, who had no choice in the matter.”

“At least they wouldn’t be hurting.”

“Yes, but that would not be reproducing Himself, would it?  Which is what His eternal purpose is all about.  All He would have are creations that could not further His plan of reproducing Himself.”

I think at this point I literally scratched my head.  “How’s that?” I asked.  This was getting way out there.

“Look.  God is producing creators like Himself.  That is what this life here on earth is all about–whether a person gets it or not.  Some will and they will see this vision of sonship–for themselves, which is to say–for Him.  Remember the Master’s statement: Blessed are your eyes for they see.”

The Endgame

So, “then cometh the end,” it says.  What end?  What is God’s endgame?  Simply put, Christ is the end.  He did say, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22: 13).  “That God may be all in all” (I Cor. 15: 24-28).  The end is God.  The beginning of life is God.  The end of our toil here on earth is God.  In the end it will be only Him.  That’s it.  All of the squabbling and pettiness and imbecility and selfishness and smugness and any other human foible–all of it shall be done away with, and all that will be left is God living at peace with His children.  That’s it.

Christ is the end.  His Spirit multiplied and living in many vessels, who shall populate the heavens as seed sown into the corners of the universe.  It will be all Him.  That is His Endgame.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

The Spirit of God and the Spirit of Antichrist—How to Tell the Difference

The human mind of a child of God wants to be sure—wants to not be deceived, wants to know that what is said to it is sincere and true.  It is our nature for this to be—nothing less than the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help us God.

And this is especially so when it comes to religious things.  Any time someone tries to tell us something about God, we fairly bristle with our protective coating—shielding us from a possible onslaught of deceptive devilish communication.  We don’t want to be deceived and are so afraid of being so used that we just might miss a true word from God.  We are, after all, warned by the prophets and apostles about false teachers and false prophets, “who shall bring in damnable heresies,” said Peter.  Unfortunately, many will see a teaching new to them as false simply because it did not come from “our church.”  Little do they know that many false teachings like the prosperity doctrine, the rapture, cheap grace, Christian sinners, not to mention the hocus-pocus heresies of the church of Rome–these not only stunt the babe in Christ, but they will shipwreck and sink the new Christian.

How Can We Be Sure?

Consequently, how can we know for sure what thought is from God and what is not—what is from the Spirit and what is from the spirit of antichrist?  There is a passage of scripture that tells us how to discern between the two.  This scripture shows us how you will know if it is the Spirit of God speaking through a human being or not, or if that uninvited thought that seemingly pops into our mind is from God or not.  “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God” (I John 4:2-3).

In order to know what these verses mean, we must know that “Jesus” was not the Savior’s actual name [See my books which you can find at the top of this page.  Just click “Ebook…”].  His true name contained the Father’s name, for he came in His Father’s name.  His name was Yahshua, which means “Yah, the Self-Existent One, is Savior” and is the same name as the patriarch Joshua.  So, looking at this again, we see that the person who confesses that Yah is the Savior and the Anointed One and is come into His human abode in the Messiah—that person has the Spirit of God.

Denying that the great Spirit Yahweh was in the flesh of the Messiah Yahshua is the spirit of antichrist.  They are anti-christ, or against this Anointing, which is truth (I John 2: 27).

We must always remember: The Messiah’s name was to be called “Immanuel”–meaning “God with us” (Isa. 7: 14; Matt. 1: 23).  Yahweh with us.  Yahweh in human form walking in our midst.  Believing that in its simplicity opens the doors to His heart.  All the other mumbo jumbo of so-called Christianity is so much manmade window dressing, ‘signifying nothing.’

We must all go back to the “simplicity that is in Christ.”  “Simplicity” here means “absence from pretense” with a sincere belief in the truth that is in Christ.  And that truth is that the great invisible Spirit called Yahweh by the patriarchs took up His abode in His Son, and they are one, and He will rule the literal Kingdom of God forever and ever–right here on earth (Luke 1: 32-33).

This sincere belief is the bow that will launch us as His arrows toward the glorious target of eternity–straight and true, just like He planned in the beginning.  It will help us discern the Spirit of God and the spirit of the wicked one.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock