Additions to Faith Insures Spiritual Growth

The Spirit of Christ through the apostle Peter has given us one of the “New Commandments” that Christ spoke about. When obeyed, it will insure our mature spiritual growth in God. Christ’s desire for us is that we bear much fruit. “Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, Christ said. The commandment that Peter is talking about is this: “Add to your faith” seven attributes of God’s very own “divine nature” (II Peter 1:4-7).

We will grow spiritually if we add them. But in Chapter Two he tells us why very few Christians obey this commandment. He warns us of the false teachings spewed by false prophets and false teachers whose doctrines wilt the young plantings of God. Instead of the latter rain from heaven watering young Christians, false concepts about God stunt their growth. You can see the effects on well-meaning church goers every Sunday morning, sitting there in the same pew that they have sat in for decades, still singing “Just As I Am,” stunted now, unable to grow to full spiritual maturity because of the drought of His word. The maturity that Christ and the apostles talk about is becoming just like Peter, James, John, and Paul. Church goers have been told that it is impossible. But “with God all things are possible.”

But Christ’s elect are scattered out there. Some will hear that faint sound of the ancient trumpet, and their heads will turn up to the sky from whence the call was made.

For God calls whomsoever He will. No man through his own willpower will become His elect, His chosen ones. He does the choosing. He places the hunger for truth in them. They don’t know at first how it all works. They just know that they need to find the truth. They need to get to the bottom of this thing called life-on-planet-earth. And somehow they finally realize that it was God all along who arranged all the serendipitous coincidences, all the failures and victories, and all of the, well, miraculous turning points in our lives.

In my case, the miracle was when Mortality was rearing its desperate head–my head, actually, which was going down for the seventh time. And there with me God had Larry Golden pull me out of that South China Sea undertow at Da Nang Beach in Vietnam. The LORD gives life, and the LORD takes away life. Blessed be His Name.

Such is the calling and election that God makes upon us. He has a plan and a timetable for everything. And He will put a hook in the jaw of those He is angling for, if that is what it takes. He has a purpose to reproduce Himself in us. He is omnipotent and will bring it to pass. He has created all things, and all things are in His repertoire. And He uses both “good things” and “bad things” to bring His plan and purpose to full fruition. Full fruit production is bearing “much fruit.”

Which takes us back full circle to the “additions to the faith.” They are virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and agape love. These attributes of the “divine nature” are powerful. They are like the finest fertilizer for God’s young plants.

They hold many promises for those who want to grow. “For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ [Yahshua]” (II Peter 1:5-8). With these seven added, you will be full of fruit. With them you will “make your calling and election sure.” With these seven added, “You shall never fall.” With them added, “an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom” of Christ, our “Everlasting Father” (II Peter 1:10-11; Isaiah 9:6). Such promises are breathtaking!

Those that have an ear to hear, let them hear what the Spirit is saying (Matt. 11: 15; 13:9; Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 29, 3:6, 13, 22). In other words, God gives understanding to whomever He desires to give it. He opens the ears of the spiritually deaf. If He is doing that for us, then we need to hear and listen closely to what the Spirit of God is saying through Peter about the additions to the faith. Those with an ear to hear will understand.        Kenneth Wayne Hancock

2029 Asteroid Coming–Sign of Christ’s Return?

In a few short years, the sons of God will appear on the scene at the end of this age.  There are many signs that have already taken place, but many have not happened as of yet.  The rebuilding of the Temple, for example, is a huge sign.  Also, the destruction prophesied in the book of Revelation must come, for it will be the setting of the manifestation of the sons of God.  Most everyone thinks that the rapture will occur taking all the saints out of the earth.  This is not true because several righteous individuals mentioned in Revelation are still on the scene during the Tribulation Period.

These righteous ones are the sons of God who will rise like a phoenix out of the ashes of Mystery Babylon the Great, the present world system.  They will come forth in the midst of terrible turmoil and trouble.

As to exactly how these events will come to pass, many mysteries remain.  This we do know: they will be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye.  Their mortal bodies will be swallowed up by their immortal bodies that are reserved for them in heaven, as seen in II Corinthians 4 and 5.  Their resurrection will take place, and they will receive a new spiritual body as outlined in I Corinthians 15.  And they will stride forth upon this earth as immortal heralds and ambassadors of the soon to fully arrive Kingdom of God.  They will do the “greater works.”

When will these things be? The year 2000 on the Roman calendar is here.  According to the genealogies in the Bible, it has been roughly 2,000 years since the Savior was born and 4,000 more since Adam was created.  That is 6,000 years.  We know in our hearts that the time of the Savior’s return is soon.  We want to ask, Why hasn’t He come back?  6,000 years of recorded history has elapsed.  What is happening?

And some of us think back to 10, 15, 20, and even 30 or more years ago when our flesh was young and soft and our teeth were sound and our hope was strong, and we think, Oh, how our hearts yearned for His kingdom to come to this earth!  We did everything in our power to make it happen when we thought it would happen—and yet, it did not come in then.  The thousand year reign did not start when the numbers and figures and calculations said that it would.

And this has been a supreme trial for some of us, as it evidently was for the early apostles.  They just knew  that their time was the time!   The Messiah was walking upon this earth!  He was doing miracles daily, incredible spiritual feats.  They were thinking, Would it not be just a few days when Christ would set up His kingdom by destroying the evil Roman world system and setting us up, along with the Master, as the rulers during His 1,000 year reign of peace?

But they did not savor the things of God.  It was not for them to know in their then present spiritual condition “the time or seasons which the Father has put in his own power.  But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”  They did not understand the timing, as we have not understood the timing for the time of the end.  But like a faithful sentinel gives warning in advance, we were given knowledge of impending events to come upon the earth.

Still, the “day is  as a 1,000 years” passage just won’t go away.  It has been approximately 6,000 years, and still He has not come back.  Some say that He could come back  tonight.   Some  say  that He has already come back, and we are living in the 1,000 year reign of peace already.  The scriptures say that we will not know the day or the hour of His return.  It did not say, however, that we could not know the year. {Come to think of it, Noah knew exactly when the flood would come, for God told him, “Yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights…” (Gen 7: 4). And Christ said, “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24: 37). Noah knew!}

I am proposing the following, not as a prophecy, but as something to ponder.  The 6,000 year reign of natural man has always been figured from Adam’s creation in 4,004 B.C.  What if in God’s eyes the 6,000 year period starts with Adam’s fall instead of Adam’s creation?  Where in the Bible does it say that we should calculate every date from Adam’s creation?  Should we presume that Adam sinned in his very first year of existence?  We do not know for sure when he sinned in the garden, but what if that year was a few years after his creation.  What if the year of Adam’s fall is the starting point of sinful man’s 6,000 year span of time on earth.  A day is as a thousand years.  Six days shall God work with Adam—in Adam’s sinful lost state!  There is a 1,000 year sabbath day period of rest coming to this earth.  It is prophesied.  But when does the six day 6,000 year period end?  What if the starting point of the 6,000 year period begins with Adam’s sin?

If, for instance, Adam fell, say, 33 years after his creation by God, then the first 4,000 years ends in the year 29 A. D., which is the time when Adam’s sin was placed upon the Lamb of God’s shoulders on the tree.  It was at the death, burial and resurrection that the curse was lifted, empowering Christ, the last Adam, to rise in us.  Since that time, only 1,971 years would have elapsed (as of the year 2,000, the year this book was published). In this scenario, we would lack 29 years till the 1,000 -year reign, or 22 years before the Tribulation Period starts. So that would make the date the year 2029.

This is, of course, a supposition at best.  No one knows for sure.  In fact, it may not be for us to know the year when He is coming back, but He puts that wondering in our hearts.  And another thing—it may not be for us all to be alive when He comes back to set up His reign.

The point is this: We need to lay up for His sons that are coming.  He said that they are coming, and they shall come forth.  We may just have a role to play like the prophets and apostles who saw these things from far off and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims here on this earth.  And they laid up for their children and grandchildren the truth of this heavenly city populated by us.  They laid up this truth for you and me.

WE are the “heavenly things” that were purified by a greater sacrifice than the blood of animals (Hebrews 9:23).  Yes, we are those “heavenly things,” His prodigal sons and daughters.  And some of us will be last and some will be first to be revealed to the world.

All this notwithstanding, it is going to be a while yet before He comes back.  All the signs are pointing to the prophecies being fulfilled, but there are many things that has to take place, which to expound upon is beyond the scope and space of this book.  Nevertheless, we need to occupy till He comes, walking in the vision that He has revealed unto us through the writings of the prophets and apostles—the vision of the soon unveiling of the sons of God.

{To see more about the killer asteroid Apophis predicted by scientists to come perilously close to earth in 2029, just go to youtube and type in “2029.” Scientists discovered this asteroid in 2004, four years after this chapter was written and published.}

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

[This is the last chapter of my book The Unveiling of the Sons of God. Free copies with free shipping are still available to you. Get yours while supplies last. Just email your name and mailing address to wayneman5@hotmail.com. Be sure to mention the book by name.]

Sexual Mores of a Lost GI–Saigon, 1967

A lawless invincibility permeated the atmosphere.  It was like being out in a Wild West town like Tombstone, Arizona, in 1880. That’s the feeling I got. But it was a Tombstone that was  stoned and fully armed. We were the cowboys in town, where even a medical lab technician like myself was locked and loaded. Only thing was, we had M-14’s and M-16’s instead of Colt 45’s and Winchester 30-30’s.

And many of us relished the freedom at first. Most of us were a year or so out of high school, thrown out of those rigid classrooms taught by Victorian spinsters, their long hair severely pulled into a bun. We were extracted from high schools and homes that thoroughly supported corporal punishment. “You get swats at school, you get swats from me,” said most every father to their sons.

The discipline was demanding and yielded an artificially quiet classroom, despite the internal rumblings in the groins of those red-blooded American teenagers. Teens who yearned for freedom to explore, teens who could not “get no satisfaction” from the plastic play they were asked to audition for by their teachers, parents, sheriffs, and mayors.

They wanted freedom.  In thousands of classrooms across America, they were demanding freedom. But they were just too young and inexperienced to know this truth: Better be careful what you ask for.

Because your Uncle Sam has just the answer. You want freedom?  Okay.  How about I send you to a place where you can do just about anything you want to do. No fathers leaning on you to be someone you don’t want to be. No sheriffs poking a flashlight into your car, breaking up a nice session with your girlfriend. No society dictating how you should look, walk, or talk. Yes, you’ll miss your mom, but you’ll get over it in a little while because you’ll be free.

I mean total liberty to drink all the beer and whiskey you want to drink without fear of getting caught; all the marijuana you want to smoke. What? Never seen a joint before? That’ll come soon enough. And you will have all the human beings you want to kill. And you’ll have all the girls you want to copulate with. What if I send you to a place where no one in authority will correct you about your morals, about what is right or wrong for you.

You just do a good job, and then you will have a license to do just about anything you desire. You want to run naked through a house of ill repute at two in the afternoon, chasing oriental girls clothed only in sheer pink lingerie? That can be arranged.  You want to be able to buy a pack of Kent cigarettes, seemingly straight out of the carton, shipped directly from the States, except after pulling the red cellophane ribbon and opening the pack, you realize that they have a funny texture to them and instead of being clipped straight across at the end you light, they are tapered, twisted at the end.  The filter end is intact.  You light it up, and then you will smile because for two dollars, you have just purchased twenty filtered marijuana cigarettes.

Never fear. As your Uncle Sam, I’ll make it that you will never run out of these sophisticated joints because I will pay you $240 a month, enough to buy 120 packs of them.  How is that for freedom?  Nobody is going to bust you here because nobody really gives a damn about you here.  Just as long as you do your job.

And don’t worry about the sex.  You’ll get plenty where I am sending you.  You see, these wars take a toll economically on people.  To eat and get by they will sell their daughters. They will work in bars and clubs, which are fronts for whorehouses, and they will be waiting for young men with money, and they will lie in wait for you young bucks panting after the scent of easy virtue–young bucks who think that they are now finally free. I’ll make it real easy for all who want to be free from the constraints of society’s codes of conduct.

How easy will I make it?  How about this little dream.  They let you and your buddy out on the corner, and you light up a “Kent,” and you saunter down to the middle of the block, and you go into this large, smoke filled dance hall.  Scores of pretty Vietnamese girls are all over the place.  And when I say “girls,” I mean girls–not women.  Don’t worry.  They’ll get prettier each month you stay in country.  It’s amazing how that happens.  In fact, the girls will actually begin to morph into Anglo-Asian beauties by the time your year is up.  Their eyes will begin to look sympathetically upon your angst. In fact they will begin to look like the girls from your very own home town. Don’t worry about it; it’s just a little trick that a lonely brain plays on you the longer you stay here. Very magical, indeed.

And so, you slide over to the bar and get a beer.  Three girls approach you, smiling demurely at you. You think you hear one ask, “Dance?” as she reaches, yes, she reaches out to you.  You don’t even have to speak first and come up with some stupid pick up line, as if you really knew what you were doing.  Is that easy enough for you?  You like this kind of freedom?  And then you follow her to the dance floor.  “Chain of Fools” is screaming and rumbling out the corners of the building, the bass and Aretha trading primordial moans.

Then you notice that the girl has a name tag pinned to her blouse.  “Suzy,” it says.  Right.  And then you notice a curious stamp confirming that she has actually been inspected by a physician and is cleared to work there.  You think, Grade A, and at first you’ll think it’s pretty cool, except it’s not very romantic and you can’t really communicate with her as you begin to realize that sex is a great goal, but romance and companionship and someone to kid and laugh with–that’s what really meets your need.

And so it kind of turns you off, but it’s too late now.  You are going through with it.  The song ends, and I’m sorry to say, so does your little secret dream of having, shall we say, a more substantial romantic tete a tete, as sentimental as that sounds (for you are very old fashioned still).  For she now, with a whisper of her porcelain fingers, leads you, much like a calf to the killing floor, to what you have longed for, when you sat there in those boring biology and chemistry classes as you stared at the virgins back home who would not let you be–well, free!  Free to do with them whatever you wanted, when you wanted it.

But this oriental princess (I hope I’m not making this too easy; I thought that this was what you wanted), this little Asian girl of leisure, now leads you past the lines of vertical beads and out of the dance hall, down a hall way and into her nest, a windowless room, a bit bigger than the  bed, and proceeds easily without moral ambiguity to disrobe. Oh, yes. I know. Too easy. But this is what you wanted.  Freedom.  Freedom from morals, from laws, from the chains of protocol. You want more freedom?  I got more for you here in the land of freedom, Vietnam.  After all–isn’t freedom what we are fighting for?

Freedom. Yes, how about those anger issues that have been seething in your heart that you could not express in the States, where you could not actually strike out and smite your fellow man, like those bastards in school that picked on you, that treated you with so much disrespect that you yearned to wreak vengeance on them but couldn’t.  Well, just wait, my little nephew, you will get your chance, yes, even you lab techs pull guard duty during Tet, where you’ll be overrun. You won’t be in one of those candy-striped hospitals at Da Nang or Cam Rahn Bay.  No, no, no.  That would be too sheltered from the fruit of anger, too cloistered by protective squadrons of Air Force jets and semi-permanent installations that would shield and prevent you from the ravishes of war and the revenge that seeps up in your craw as you tend to the fresh, wild wounds of once angry young men.  Now sedated, defeated, resigned to their fate, staring off into the distance, vacant-eyed, cold and shivering now, looking into your eyes, wanting you to comfort them, knowing that you probably can’t save them, but maybe you could just…well, love them in the hour of their call to the other side.

Death, the fruit of anger, you’ll see plenty of it. But you will be still too young to realize that the root of murder is hate and its cousin anger.  You’ll find out all about it this year though.

During your twelve month baptism of fire, you’ll have plenty of time to freely “run the gamut” and “plumb the depths,” as they say, the depths of the dark emotions of the heart.  You’ll be able to see revenge creep up into the upper chest of a medic, making him crazy with hate for the NVA soldier, lying peacefully there with three holes in his chest.  You’ll get to see this medic look around and then start pounding that NVA soldier’s face with his fist. Before you judge him, though, keep in mind that the medic lost three patients this morning. In his mind, he’s reeking a justified vengeful justice upon his enemy. Sometimes un-corralled liberty does that to you. Don’t be concerned. You’ll be okay.

Yes, we wanted freedom from the mundane. We got it in a place where all that mattered is surviving one more day. Funny how raw freedom negates civility. And it’s funny how mortars make agnostics cry out to God. And it’s funny how war seldom makes a saint. Well, except that handful who died saving others.

But for most of us who made it back home, we are left with memories that only we can share. Some memories are scenes from a macabre comedy, despite our uncle’s dark sarcasm. But they are for another day, even though you probably wouldn’t believe me if I shared them with you.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

[The above is a my portrait of the young man in Proverbs 7.]

The Need for the Additions to the Faith

When the Spirit of Christ says through Peter, “Add to your faith” certain attributes, He is not saying that we must add them in order to be saved. Personal salvation is not the issue, though it is the first important step on our spiritual quest. The additions are the key to our spiritual growth after salvation. They are the key that unlocks the door to our spiritual perfection.

Like Jeremiah, Yahweh has known us by name before our earthly mothers brought us out into the light of day. We add these heavenly attributes of God’s “divine nature” because we are called and chosen by Him to do just that. Our names are written down in the book of life before the worlds were ever spoken into existence by our God and Savior Yahshua, the Son of God.

Consequently, we have no choice in the matter. My readers are a rare group of humans who have seen through the plastic façade of churchianity and have “come out of her.” He has predestined a vanguard who will be the first fruits that will show their brethren the way to the glory land. They have been “called according to His purpose [the reproduction of Himself—Love].”

“For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified” (Rom. 8:28-30). He knew us before we were born into mortality. He gave us our destiny to be like the Son before we came here. Because of our pre-destiny, He called us; He “got our attention” that He is real. He showed us the phoniness of human society and culture and began to teach us His way. He saved us out of the quagmire of sin by justifying us. And in His mind, He has already glorified us. For He declares the end from the beginning.

All I can do is shake my head and go, “Wow!” For the Spirit is speaking to me as I write this down. What a precious privilege—to join the ranks of our brethren like David, Jacob, Daniel, Paul, John, and so many more. Their fame lives on because they answered His call upon their lives, just like we are doing. He is working the same way today as He did two, three, and four thousand years ago. He said, “I change not.” There is not one single scripture that says the miracles ceased being performed by His followers 1,900 years ago.

Our Lives Now Are His Doing

It is His ball game now since our surrender to Christ. When we really believe Romans 6:6, we enter into His rest. How do we enter into rest? When we die with Christ on the cross and are raised up from the dead with Him, we have ceased doing our own works for our old self. It is because our old man Adam is dead. And so we begin our Sabbath rest when we cease working for our old selves. This is what brings the love, joy, and peace and the other fruit of the Spirit. This is what casts out fear. There is nothing to be afraid of now. What are they going to do, send me to Vietnam? Once our old ego dies with Christ, what are they going to do? Kill our body? “Death has no more dominion over us.”

So we wait on the Spirit of truth to lead us into all truth. And He shows us that we are to grow spiritually, that we are to finally mature by bringing forth “much fruit.” And then the Spirit through Peter tells us that in order to bear “much fruit,” we need to “add to your faith” seven additions, seven facets of His divine nature. These seven things are crucial in order to come to full maturity/perfection. With them we will be able “to make our calling and election sure.” What calling? God has called us “to be conformed to the image of His Son.” In other words {Oh, words that will get you thrown out of churches} to be like the Son of God!

“Nobody can be like Jesus! That’s blasphemy!”

“Well, if you won’t let me be like Jesus, will you let me be like Peter, John, and Paul? They performed miracles like Christ. They bore much fruit.”

Bearing Much Fruit

To become a mature Christian, we have to add these seven attributes of His divine nature. If these seven things are pulsating and abounding in us, then they will enable us to bear much fruit   of the Spirit, never to be barren of love, joy, and peace (II Peter 1:8).

Those Christians who do not add them to the faith will be blind to the vision of our true destiny, for they will have forgotten that they were purged from their old sins (v. 9-10). Old sins are like blighted branches that are lopped off at the cross. Belief/faith in His resurrection gets them started in Christ, but they need the additions. If they don’t add them, then blindness overtakes them. They will get stagnant, which stops spiritual growth.

Such is the state of most church houses. Every gathering in them is a cookie cutter copy of the last meeting. Because no new light is being shared, the manna becomes stale and spoils, and most of the clergy and laity languish in the stalls of forgetfulness.

It is sad really. I still want to reach out and touch them like I have endeavored to do, but they say that they are “increased with goods and have need of nothing” (Rev. 3:18). I am learning to not be dismayed nor frustrated. For one who speaks God’s message is honored, but not “in his own country and in his own house.” (Mt. 13: 57). This explains why we can’t get any respect from those in our own home. [Perhaps you have experienced this. Please share in a comment].

The Need to Add to the Faith

Finally, those foreordained and predestined will feel the need to add the seven additions to the faith. God will reveal the need to them. No man with man’s wisdom will do it. “It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy” (Rom. 9:16). But those who are called and chosen will soldier on to complete the quest. That quest is “to be conformed to the image of His Son.” The gainsayers will tell them that it can’t be done, that they are crazy for thinking such a thing. But the elect will hear His voice. The others will just hear a rumble off in the distance, shrug their shoulders, and ask for seconds on the apple pie.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock