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Blue Ridge Mountains - Greenville, SC
The War is Over
Did you know that most Christians still believe their relationship with God is dependent on their performance? They believe answered prayers and God's blessing in their lives are in direct proportion to their holiness and ability to overcome sin. If they attend church, pay their tithes, read their Bibles, and control their flesh, they have somehow earned the blessing of God.That may sound reasonable at first, but that line of thinking will destroy your confidence in God and couldn't be further from the truth. The truth is, sin isn't even an issue with God. That may seem like a radical statement, but it is exactly what the Word teaches. Romans 3:4 says,
"Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar."
When Jesus came on the scene, one of the first things He had to do was counter all the religious traditions and doctrines of His day. Paul recognized the same problem. He said in Romans 10:2-3,
"For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."
Just because people are zealous or religious does not mean what they believe is correct. One of the most misunderstood doctrines in the Bible is what really happened when Jesus came to earth, fulfilled the Law, and was sacrificed for our sins. When He said in John 19:30 "It is finished," everything changed.
Jesus forever changed the way God relates to mankind. Sure, there are scriptural examples of God's catastrophic judgment on sin. But God's greatest act of judgment was when He placed His entire wrath upon Jesus for our sins. This forever satisfied God's wrath. Since that time, God hasn't been judging our sins (2 Cor. 5:19). God's not angry with us; He's not even in a bad mood.
Look at the angels' joy at the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Luke 2:13-14 says,
"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."
This scripture is very familiar to many, yet there is a lot of misunderstanding about what it's saying. Some translations say they were proclaiming "good will among men" or "peace to men of good will." Basically, this passage has been interpreted that Jesus was bringing peace on earth among people. But that's not why these angels were praising God. If that interpretation were true, then Jesus' own words in Matthew 10:34-36 would contradict this. He said,
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household."
Jesus Himself said He was not sent to bring peace on the earth among people. The peace that the angels were praising God for (Luke 2:13-14) was peace BETWEEN God and man. They were announcing the end of God's war on sin. Peace now reigns between God and man.
Prior to Jesus' coming, God's wrath was against man for his sins. It wasn't total wrath. Even in the Old Testament, we see God's mercy and grace. Yet the Old Testament Law was a ministry of wrath (Rom. 4:15; 2 Cor. 3:7, and 9), and man's sins were held against him. But when Jesus came, God quit holding man's sins against him. This is exactly what 2 Corinthians 5:19 and 21 say,
"To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation…For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
The word "reconciliation" is talking about making peace. God was no longer holding us accountable. Instead, He imputed our sins to Jesus, making Jesus accountable for our sins. Jesus became what we were so we could become what He was-the righteousness of God.
Jesus was like a lightning rod that drew all the judgment of God unto Himself. He not only bore our sins; He actually became sin (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus said in John 12:27-32:
"Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."
Many have thought John 12:32 means that if God is properly glorified in our preaching, then He will draw all people to Himself. But that is not what this scripture is saying.
If you look in the King James Version, notice that the word "men" in verse 32 is italicized. That means it wasn't in the original language. The translators put this word in italics to let people know this was their addition, but it wasn't a part of the text. If you take this verse in context, I believe the Lord was saying that He would draw all JUDGMENT to Himself. Jesus, like a lightning rod, attracted all of God's judgment for all of mankind's sins for all time unto Himself.
All the murder, all the perversion, every vile and rotten sin imaginable, all sickness, and all disease ever known to mankind actually entered into His physical human body. Isaiah 52:14 talks about the crucifixion of Jesus and says that He was marred more than any man, to the point that He was unrecognizable as a human being.
That could not have happened just from physical beatings, especially since the Word says that not a single bone was broken in His body (Ps. 34:20 with John 19:36). I believe His body was completely disfigured from cancers, tumors, diseases, deformities, and anything else that human beings have ever suffered.
Jesus didn't ask for the cup to be taken from Him just because of the physical pain He would suffer, but because He did not want to become sin. He hated becoming what He came to redeem us from. And the worst of all Jesus' sufferings was total rejection from His Father. Matthew 27:46 says,
"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
God the Father forsook Jesus so that you and I would never be forsaken. All that we would have suffered through billions of years in eternity-the grief, the pain, and worst of all, the complete separation from the presence of God-Jesus experienced. And He experienced all of this for us. The judgment was made and the sentence carried out. The price was paid in full, once for all.
When we say God is still judging us for our sins as individuals or corporately as a nation, we are saying that the price Jesus paid wasn't enough. Therefore, a judgment must again be made and a sentence passed. That would be "double jeopardy," and that is not what the Bible teaches.
Some of you may not like this, but it's true. Sin isn't a problem with God anymore. It's the church that has made it a major deal. Neither past, present, nor future sins can separate us from God. The only people who will go to hell are those who have spurned and rejected the greatest sacrifice that has ever been made. In heaven, we won't answer for our individual sins; Jesus already has. We will answer for our acceptance or rejection of Jesus.
You might now be thinking, You're just giving people a license to sin. Well, it seems to me that people are doing a pretty good job of that without a license. What I'm saying will not free you to sin; it will free you from the condemnation and the guilt that comes when you do sin.
To continue in sin is just stupid. You'll be opening the door for Satan to have an inroad into your life (Rom. 6:16). If you sin, you will suffer the natural consequences of it, but it will not be because of the judgment of God.
After reading this, I am sure many questions have come to your mind. This subject counters so much of what is being taught in the church today that you need to hear the rest of the message. I teach on this extensively in my series The War Is Over. Order it or go to our website and download the entire message in MP3 format. It will change your life.
The War is Over
By Andrew Wommack
Reprint Courtesy Andrew Wommack Ministries www.awmi.net
The Sky Is Not Falling
"Recession Starts Taking Toll: Will it lead to another crash?""Worries are building that today's sagging economy may be on the brink of collapse."
U.S. News & World Report
Running Short of Cash: "The United States and its allies scramble to head off a global financial disaster…Finance ministers from the United States, Britain, France, Japan and West Germany met last week near Frankfurt to find a way to avert a global economic collapse."
Newsweek Magazine
As you all know, these sentiments have been expressed many times over by the media in the last few months. Many are even comparing our current financial situation to the Great Depression.
It may surprise you, however, to learn that the two quotes above were from November of 1974 and December of 1982 respectively. They were made by the fear mongers in the 70s and 80s who were predicting financial collapse. It did not come to pass then, and this current financial situation is also not the beginning of the end.
Let me quote a few statistics that you probably won't hear from our media. Unemployment rose to 24.75% in 1933. In time, that improved, but even during Ronald Reagan's first term in the latter part of 1982, the unemployment rate rose to 10.8%. Yet the rest of the 1980s were some of the strongest economic years of growth this country has ever had. Today the current unemployment rate is about 6%-7%. Amazingly, that means 93%-94% of Americans are still working.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell from a peak of 381.17 in October of 1929 to a low of 41.22 on July 8, 1932-a decline of 85%. The Dow did not return to its peak for more than 22 years. From 1929 through 1933, about 10,000 out of the 25,000 banks in the United States disappeared (source: Business and Media Institute). It's nothing like that today.
There were no federally insured deposits during the Great Depression, but today the FDIC guarantee is up to $250,000 per account. That simply means there will be no runs on the banks as there were during the Great Depression.
The mortgage foreclosure rate during the Great Depression was 50%. In August of 2008 the national foreclosure rate was 4.4%. It may be higher now, but it's not even close to what it was then. The truth, even though it may be painful, is that we have needed a major adjustment from the unsound lending practices of the last few decades. For example, illegal aliens and others who had no way to pay back their loans were receiving sub-prime home loans with government guarantees. That's just wrong!
Marvin Goodfriend, who is a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business in Pittsburgh, speaking on National Public Radio, said that there is no real threat of another Great Depression. That depression lasted nearly ten years. He sees this turning around in the next few months. On a scale of 1-10, with the Great Depression being a 10, he sees this current situation as a 3 or 4.
All of this is to say, THE SKY IS NOT FALLING. Chicken Little is out there again, predicting the worst, and I'm amazed at how many people are buying into this. I kind of expect this from the unbelievers, but many Christians are just as worried as those who don't have the promises of the Lord.
Do you remember the Y2K scare? The unbelievers weren't too moved by this, but Christians predicted this was the beginning of the tribulation. I had a pastor friend who advocated that his members move out into the country, buy a year's supply of food, and use guns to protect themselves. I know some people who were so stressed, they lost their marriages over that scare.
Or how about the bird flu? I was in Scotland in October of 2005 when one of the leading experts of the British Health Care system said there was no question about if the bird flu would infect humans and cause a pandemic, but only when. Then he said that it might be one year or at the most two years, but he stated emphatically that one-third of the world's population would die by October of 2007. In October of 2007 I read in USA Today that there had been a total of twelve human deaths worldwide from the bird flu. Although it's sad that anyone died from that, it's a far cry from a pandemic.
Can you see a trend or pattern here? The world likes to exaggerate (literally lie) and present the worst-case scenarios because bad news sells. I can't do much about the world, but I would like to use my influence to affect believers. We are not to let our hearts be troubled:
"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me" (John 14:1).
Isaac went through hard times. There was a famine in the land (Gen. 26:1). Isaac was a stranger in that land. He didn't own any property. But the Philistines around him panicked. They didn't work their fields. What was the use? But Isaac saw it as an opportunity and took advantage of their idle fields.
Genesis 26:12 says,
"Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and the LORD blessed him."
This happened during a drought! What was he doing sowing seed when they were in a drought? He was believing God! That's what we should do.
And since there was a drought, others hadn't planted, and therefore food was in short supply. Isaac got premium prices for his crops. The next few verses go on to tell how Isaac became so prosperous that Abimelech, the king of Gerar, came to him and asked him to leave because he was more prosperous than that whole nation.
In Genesis 26:14 and 16 reads,
"For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants: and the Philistines envied him…And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we."
This is the news believers should be listening to. We have promises from the Lord that He will provide our needs according to His riches IN GLORY by Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:19). We aren't limited by this world's economy! Let those who only trust in money panic. In God we trust (Ps. 91:2, 118:8-9; Isa. 12:2, 26:4; and Nah. 1:7). We should be rejoicing.
I'm not saying you shouldn't make adjustments. If you bought into this world's philosophy, getting all you can and getting it by mortgaging your future, then come to your senses, and follow the principles of God's Word. Even if you haven't been burned, you've learned a valuable lesson, and now you can go forward with a new focus on the Lord as your source.
And let me point out the obvious: This is not a time to cut back on your sowing. You will only reap what you sow (Gal. 6:7). This is a time to believe God as never before. This is our greatest hour. We can demonstrate to the world, as Isaac did, that there is a God in heaven who blesses His people, even in the worst times.
With this in mind, I am announcing another building program. We have run out of space for meetings at our Colorado Springs facility. So, in this time when others are drawing back, I am believing God. It is too soon to give you all the details, but I've met with our builder and have talked to neighboring businesses about acquiring their land. Here we grow again.
Some will say this is the worst possible time to expand, but I'm not marching to the drumbeat of the world. I know this is what the Lord is leading me to do, and the response we are receiving to this message confirms it. The world is hungry for the message of God's unconditional love and grace.
We are setting personal records in every category of ministry: phone calls, website contacts, mail, and teaching material orders are all at record numbers. We are even beginning to receive applications for Charis Bible College's fall term-next year! More growth is coming, and now is the time to prepare.
Many of you have partnered with us in this ministry, and I believe God's blessing on us extends to you. You can claim prosperity and blessings because you have been planting seed in good ground. Jamie and I are believing with you for a hundredfold return.
Most importantly, "let not your heart be troubled...believe in God" (John 14:1).
Be sure to tune in to the Gospel Truth television programs December 15-26. I will be teaching on this very subject in my new series, In God We Trust. I think it will be a timely faith builder.
The Sky Is Not Falling
By Andrew Wommack
Reprint Courtesy Andrew Wommack Ministries www.awmi.net
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