Immortality Road

April 12, 2014 · 4:26 pm

Having the Mind of Christ–Key to Staying Focused

We know as Christians that we should have our thoughts on the things of God. For “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee,” the Spirit of Christ in Isaiah tells us (26: 3). But, let’s face it, our minds wander to things of this earth, trivial things, things that do not matter in God’s big picture.

How then do we get our minds to think on the things of God? How do we prevent them from wandering? Is there a focal point that will help us?

He admonished us to “let this mind be in you.” And that is the mind of Christ. But what was in His mind? What does He think about? Paul tells us to think on the things that are lovely, just and of a good report (Phil. 4: 8).

Of course, it all starts with grateful thoughts toward our Savior for delivering us from our decadent old lives. What love our God has for us! Beyond our finite thoughts to comprehend such care for us!

Things That Are Just

But does His mind stop with His interaction with us in His love for us in saving us, as wonderful as that is? Or is there more in His mind? Do His thoughts transcend the personal and enter into the geo-political–even into galactic concerns?

We know that He is a just God, a righteous Judge. Justice is His hallmark; fairness is His eternal standard.

As the righteous King, could Christ be thinking about His soon coming return when He will “rule all nations with a rod of iron”? Do not most every earthly king in exile prepare his heart and mind for his return to the throne, his seat of justice for his people?

Of course, they do. Christ tells us to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” The very first thing that we Christians should be seeking is God’s kingdom. First, we should be studying His word to see just what the kingdom of God is–to see if what we have been taught by the churches about the kingdom is correct. For Christ has much to say about His kingdom.

But we Americans and most people of the world have been too long removed from being a king’s subject. We are individualistic, self-willed, and self-centered. A monarchy is foreign to us after 225 years with our present government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Of course, our republic is a definite improvement on the despotic king George. However, our experiment in governing ourselves is not the kingdom/government of God that the scriptures speak of.

Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, is returning to earth and will rule and reign right here on earth for 1,000 years, according to the scriptures. That is the kingdom/government that we are admonished by Him to seek after.

We must simply stop thinking about God’s kingdom as some mystical ethereal heavenly realm that we are going to escape to. No. Christ is coming back to earth for 1,000 years, and sitting on the throne with Him will be God’s royal offspring, the over-comers. He promised, “To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I overcame and am set down with My Father in His throne (Rev. 3: 21). Somebody will fulfill this His promise, for He does not speak idle words.

Help us, God, to let this vision of rulership with Christ permeate our hard hearts. Help us believe and cleave to your promises, for they are your thoughts; they are the creative seeds that emanate from Your mind to us.

We simply must begin thinking in terms of Christ as this regal sovereign Monarch and how He will completely change the geo-political dynamic.

His kingdom is the good news. Personal salvation provided us by Him, though precious, is but a first step that enable us to first “see” and then “enter into the kingdom of God (John 3: 3-5).

Personal salvation enables us to become a “babe in Christ,” but like an earthly baby, a young Christian needs to grow up spiritually into full maturity. Some of His followers will mature into kingship and will sit with Him on His throne.

This is what our exiled King is thinking about. He is all about preparing and then sharing His throne with His elect. Read His words now with all this in mind, and you will see into His wondrous thinking. We should be filling our minds with these thoughts about His return and rule. These are the things that are true and honest and just and pure and lovely and of a good report. And we are to think on these things, as Christ does at this very moment, and “the God of peace shall be with you.” For He is the living Word. And His words to us are the very Essence that comprises His thoughts. And these thoughts of His will keep us focused. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

18th Surgical Hospital, Lai Khe 1967–Prelude to TET

It had not been thirty days since we moved the hospital down out of the highlands near Pleiku. Ah, Pleiku. We did not want to leave the land of the cool night air and the Mountainyards whose cherry wood pipes yielded intoxicating aromas. We landed in the pressure cooker called Long Bien–Lai Khe, to be exact. That is where we set up the 18th Surgical Hospital–mobile now–right in the middle of a rubber tree plantation.

It is the home of the Big Red One, and knowing that there are thousands of infantry and armor close by gives us this fuzzy feeling that they are definitely going to protect us medical guys. We are here a month setting up this inflatable, expandable, jet fuel guzzling medical marvel called MUST, when Alan Trinkle comes up with this wacked out story.

A few of us are standing in line at the mess tent at shift change at 7:00, and he says, “Guys, I’ve got to talk to you.” He looks as pale as the oatmeal the cooks are dishing up, and he is fumbling with his fatigues and looking around in all directions. His upper lip is a mushy platform for lazy drops of sweat to roll off of. And then he drops it on us. “I saw two gooks in our tent last night.”

MacDonald and I look at each other, our incredulity concurring. Mack says, “What are you talking about, man? Don’t joke about things like that.”

“I’m not joking.” He grabs our arms and leads us out of the line and around the corner of the tent. “Two gooks were in our tent last night. I saw them with my own two eyes.”

“But, Tinkle, that’s crazy talk,” I say. Tinkle was what everyone called him.

“Groovy, listen to me, please. I couldn’t sleep, and I was laying there, and I, and I heard one of them step on some leaves. So I froze, and I just laid there and eased my eyes open a little to catch them in my peripheral vision. I was facing straight up, but I could see them to my left side near the opening of our tent.”

I looked past Tinkle over toward where our GP Mediums are pitched in between rows of forty foot tall rubber trees. Their leaves are a rumpled carpet of crunchy brown patches that would sometimes move and come alive at night after our evening toke break. “Gooks in our tent, huh?” I say.

“Yeah, and they were armed. They had rifles and held them with both hands in front of their chests, and they moved slowly into the tent. But it was like they weren’t taking normal steps. They were gliding sideways. And then they’d look around, and when they looked at me, I’d close my eyes. And then I’d take a peak again after a few seconds.”

“Stop it, Tinkle. You are as full of crap as a Christmas duck. Pull yourself together. There was no gooks in our tent last night.” I look at MacDonald, and he is shaking his head, smiling.

“Yes, there was!” Tinkle yells, dropping his head a bit when he sees the two captains walking by.

“No, you listen up. If there’d been gooks in there, they would have killed us. Plain and simple. That’s what they do. They kill dumbasses like us.”

“No, I saw them.”

“So why didn’t you try to kill them?” MacDonald asks. “Your rifle’s right by your bed, loaded and ready to go. Hell, you owe it to us to kill them if you have the chance.”

“I was afraid to,” he says. “Groove, you’ve got to believe me. They were there.”

He’s gone off the deep end; it is getting to him, I am thinking. And I’m suppose to train him to cross match blood so he can take the other twelve hour shift. “Hey, we are all wigging out with all the blood and guts, but you got to hang in there. Tinkle, I know that we are on a steady diet of insanity for breakfast, fear for lunch, and loneliness for supper, but we got to stay in there.”

“You been hitting the bottle too hard, Tinkle,” says MacDonald. “How much you drink last night?”

“I drank some last night, but I wasn’t that drunk!” Tinkle’s face is glowing red, and he turns and goes back toward our tent.

And I’m thinking there’s no way they could have been in our tent. How did they get there? There are guards posted everywhere. And the perimeter, though only a click away has got hundreds of troops on the alert there. Did they float in from above the trees in parachutes? Did they just materialize out of another dimension? Yeah, the dimension of Tinkle’s alcohol soaked brain.

Later I see him in the tent and he says to me, “We gotta do something. They could have killed us all last night.”

So I start playing along and say, “Why didn’t you wait till they left the tent, then open fire on them?”

“There could have been others around, and all they would have had to do is throw grenades into all the tents, and we’d all have been wiped out.”

“So where did they go after they left our tent?” I ask.

“I don’t know exactly. I was afraid to move my head to the side. They just slipped out and vanished.”

“I don’t know, Tinkle. I think you’re just imagining things. You’re tripping out.”

“No, I saw them. We are in danger. All of us. What if they come back tonight?”

“Listen,” I tell him. “Come on. Let’s walk behind the latrine.” We slide out of the tent, and I am already feeling like a joint, so I make sure I got one so I can blow it when we get behind the bunker near the latrine and shower. I look and nobody’s around. Either they’re sleeping or eating, but the coast is clear. So I lean on the sandbags facing the endless rows of rubber trees and light up.

Tinkle don’t smoke weed. He’s a dyed in the wool alkie. Jack Daniels. That’s the way it is around here. There’s about 100 guys in our unit and it seems like 80% are grassheads, and 20% are alcoholics.

So I’m taking a hit, savoring those fun-giving fumes, and I’m looking at Tinkle. His round face looks at me intensely, his eyes all watery and red and bulging out like they are about to pop out of their sockets. His mouth is just a slit, his lips closed up tight like a kid’s mouth when you’re trying to shovel some cough syrup down him. I say to him, “So what are you saying?”

“I’ve got to tell the C.O.”

“Wait. Wait now. You don’t want to do that.”

“Why not? I’ve got to.”

“Think it through, Tinkle.” I’m trying to reason with him. He’s got this one imagination that he’s holding on to. “You don’t think that if the gooks were walking around inside our compound last night that the grunts and tank dudes out there wouldn’t know about it?” I point out to where the rubber trees end. “You can see our tanks firing at night eight or ten football fields from where the trees stop.”

“Maybe the grunts haven’t seen the gooks yet.”

“You mean that you are the very first G.I.–a medic at that–who has been privileged enough to see Charlie in our midst–when no one else has?” I take another hit. I need more smoke because Tinkle’s such a hard head.

“I know what I saw.” He looks me in the eye. “Groove, if I don’t tell the old man about it, they may come back and kill us all tonight.”

“You go tell the Colonel and your ass will be out of here on the next chopper. They’ll send you to some psych ward in Saigon. The Colonel’s no dummy. We talk when I cut his hair. He may look like a dummy, but he’s not stupid. He’s a doctor, and he’s gonna know your brains are boiled in bourbon. Hell, he may put some heat on all of us.”

Tinkle doesn’t say another word. He turns around and stumbles on down toward headquarters.

I take another hit, and I’m feeling no pain now and laugh a little at what the colonel’s going to say to Tinkle. Son, everything’s going to be all right. We’ll get you fixed up in no time. First Sergeant, see that his straight jacket doesn’t fit too tight because he’s a damn good soldier and he needs to be treated right.

So I go on to the lab to relieve my night man, and I don’t see Tinkle the rest of the day. After my shift, I go back to our tent, and he is sitting on his cot, head in hands, and he’s moaning, “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

“You just get off?” I ask. He just rocks a little, back and forth.

“They didn’t believe me. They said it was delirium tremens. Gave me two days off to dry out and take it easy.” He reaches under his cot and grabs the fifth of Jack Daniels. He’s past pouring it into a glass and turns it up and takes a couple of swallows. “To hell with it,” he says, screwing the cap back on and tossing it onto his cot. “If they don’t give a damn, then why should I?”

I’m perfectly fine with his resignation and say, “Just get some rest. I’ll train you in a couple of days.”

Two days later we were overrun by the Vietcong. The TET Offensive had started all over Vietnam, as we found out later. The officer quarters were blown up with many dead at the 1st Infantry Division headquarters right near where we saw Bob Hope and Raquel Welch joking and dancing not two weeks prior. We immediately packed the hospital up and loaded it into C-130’s and, just like that, we roared off into the steaming black night to God knows where.

If the levels of hell are measured in the depth of the rivers of blood that oozes out of young men’s bodies, then we had arrived at one of the inferno’s lower pits. Our destination that dark night was Quang Tri, fifteen miles from the DMZ, where we set up shop on a sandbar.

I did train Tinkle to take the other shift, and we never talked about the gooks in the tent again.

Eight months later I’m a single-digit-midget with a week to go before I derosed to go back to the world. Tinkle was in Hawaii on R and R, no doubt sipping a drink with his wife on Waikiki. That’s when we got word that they had found tunnels honey-combed all through the rubber tree plantation. I remember saying, “Ain’t that a bitch,” and then that was that because I was going home, and that was all that really mattered to me at the time. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

[I tell my Vietnam stories, for the Vietnam experience helped prepare my heart to be touched later by God. Everything that happens to us–good and bad–is a prerequisite for that which is ahead. Some details of this story I remember; some I don’t. I lost a few brain cells there, I am sure. I’ve used some poetic license to fill in the gaps. I have the upmost respect for all those I served with and for all the patients we helped patch up. If any of you read this, please share your recollections with me. For more stories go here: https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/?s=18th+surgical+hospital ]

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Filed under death, Vietnam Stories

Tagged as Tet Offensive, Vietnam War, war

March 20, 2014 · 6:15 pm

Doctrine of Baptisms–Baptized into His Death Frees Us from Sin

The early apostles taught their third doctrine–the “doctrine of baptisms–with an “s.” For there are several baptisms in the Christian walk–not just the one with water.

The first baptism mentioned was John the Baptist’s “baptism unto repentance.” He encouraged the people to repent of their sins, be baptized in water, thus pointing them to the Lamb of God, who would soon become the Sacrifice for all men’s sins. “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I…he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Mt. 3:11). Here we have three baptisms in one verse.

The baptism in water is symbolic of the death of our old sinful heart (see post on this at https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/baptismempty-ritual-or-symbol-of-death-of-self/ ). Paul taught that it was symbolic of being immersed into Christ’s death. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?” (Romans 6: 3).

Just How Are We Immersed into Christ’s Death?

Just before Christ died, this perfectly sinless man took upon Himself the sins of the whole world, past, present, and future. Sin was transferred onto this sin offering, and He died with all our sins upon Him. Consequently, when He died, my old self died. When He died that day, our old selfish egos died.

When He was literally buried in the tomb, our old lives were buried. Gone. Over with. And when He rose from the dead, we rose from the deadness of our sinful existence, into a brand new wonderful life, energized with God’s Spirit now within (for more on this, see “Introduction” of my book The Unveiling of the Sons of God found at the top of this page). All this has already been done for us by God. We have to only believe it when we read it in Romans 6: 3-7 :

“Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”

We are now free from sin–if we really believe it. Free! We are no longer slaves to the pulls, urges, and demands of that old spiritual nature that held us in bondage to do sinful acts! I’m talking about revolutionary freedom here! We were dead to sin, but now we live unto God by faith in the Spirit that He has given us.

Water baptism is just the symbol of this immersion into Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Believing and walking in this truth is the reality. But God has promised his sons and daughters more and greater baptisms–the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of fire, which takes us into the very presence of God’s transformative power. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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Filed under apostles' doctrine, baptism, cross, crucified with Christ, death, death of self, forgiveness, old self, repentance

Tagged as apostles' doctrine, baptism, death of self, repentance, sin

March 1, 2014 · 8:15 pm

Self-Sacrifice Versus Self-Improvement in Christian Growth

Life is all about love. It is about living to love. Life is our time to love.

But it is about great love, selfless love, agape love. For that is what touches the human heart–love. But this the highest love is the giving-up-one’s-life-for-another kind of love. It is that rare selfless love. And that is the part of the Christian story that reaches into the inner recesses of the heart and gently breaks it. It touches us. That’s the kind of love that is great–laying down one’s life for a friend.

And that is where the Christian’s Savior reigns supreme in touching hearts. Hearing of His undeniable love in taking our sins upon Himself and providing Himself as an offering for our sins–for the selfish likes of us–that is what touches us.

The cool untouchable reflection of Buddha does not touch us like Christ does. It is, after all, an exercise in helping one’s self gain peace. The busy petty pantheons of India, Rome, and Greece do not move us like Christ does.

Nor do nebulous new age imaginations touch us, for they all are mere means of self-improvement, not self-denial to help others.

And we humans know too well deep down in the core of our beings that self-improvement of the self is, well, self-centered and self-important and has little to do with worshipping the Creator who needs no improvement. For His ways are perfect; His thoughts are law.

This then should give us Christians pause. For we are warned repeatedly in almost every book in the New Testament that there will be false teachers. And even though well-meaning, they “will bring in damnable heresies.”

And the heretical teaching most damning, that condemns that vulnerable babe in Christ to a stunted spiritual growth is the doctrine of “self-improvement.” In an old tract it was call “The Modern Smooth Cross,” as opposed to the austerity of the “old rugged cross.”

The smooth modern cross does not demand the death of the old self on the cross with Christ, our sin Sacrifice, the Passover Lamb of God. This doctrine merely re-directs ambitions, improves little idiosyncrasies. It never gets down to the real problem–the sin nature that is brought to the church house.

In this modern doctrine of self-improvement, the self is still there. It is never demanded to die with Christ. Therefore, the sinful self is hibernating there under the initial rush and excitement of fellowship, hiding like a cornered wild animal waiting to strike out and wound whoever would pressure it out of its comfortable lair. Some feel quite at home and feel no threats to their current status in Christendom and carry on walking through the wide gate.

The Self-Sacrifice of Spiritual Circumcision

However, we now must remember that we Christians have undergone an invisible spiritual circumcision, “made without hands, in putting off the body of sins of the flesh (Col. 2: 11-13). For we were already “dead in our sins (v. 13). And now God has provided a way to let that sinful nature die now and avoid the rush. And we have been “buried with Him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised Him from the dead” (v. 12). That is how God sees it and judges it regardless of whether we see it or even feel it. The “we,” the self is dead. He said it; now we believe it.

He died on the cross; our sinful nature died with Him. He was buried; we were buried spiritually, our old sinful nature entombed forever. He was raised from the dead; we are raised with Him and “walk in newness of life (Rom. 6: 4). And we must know this one thing: “That our old man is crucified with Him [it is already done and over with], that the body of sin might be destroyed [that means dead, caput, no more, totally annihilated], that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Rom. 6: 6).

So how to do this in a reality? We must reckon it so. We must account that it is done like God has already done. “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God” (6: 11). Let the invisible chains of sin’s slavery fall off of you. Just walk off of the plantation. You are already dead, so just let the old sinful life go. Be alive unto God. Walk in a new life through Him and through belief in His resurrection. It is already done. God’s Emancipation Proclamation has gone forth. Just believe it, and walk off of the plantation. You are free. You don’t have to sin anymore. Whether you have been going to church three months, three years, or thirty or more years–you are free now. Just believe it; it is already accomplished. I am proclaiming liberty to the captives. Walk on in the light of His love. Give up your life for others. Sacrifice your self to help save mankind. In a word, be like Christ. That is what He is asking us to do. After he told His disciples of these things, He asked them, Are you sure you want to do this? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

The Effect?

“He that is dead is freed from sin” (6: 7). Very few preachers tell their congregations that they are freed from sin. To the contrary, they tell them how sinful they are, but never tell them how to be free from that bondage to sinning. They proudly proclaim that they are a “sinner saved by grace” and will always be a sinner. Where does the Bible say that? Just read 1 John 3: 9. They will proclaim that they “sin every day.”

But why won’t they tell them that they are freed from the clutches of sin? Because they have not taught them that they must let their sinful old nature die with Christ on the cross. No death of sinful heart=no freedom from its bondage. For “whoever commits sin is the servant [slave] of sin,” Christ said (John 8: 34). He also said that “no man can serve two masters.” You cannot serve God and serve sin. Sharp cutting words, but needful.

But tired old churchianity slogs on, “teaching for doctrine the commandments of men.” Their leaders “cause them to err,” and they will give an account to the Judge who will weigh all their justifications and give His verdict, as they are led from the room muttering, “But did we not prophesy in Your name?”

The message written here will bless the hearts of some, but some will scurry out of its light, back to the friendly confines of modern Christendom’s “Today’s Tips for Self-Improvement. ” Kenneth Wayne Hancock {If you haven’t visited my website Immortality Road, please do. There you will find over 300 articles and books exploring the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” all written for you, the elect sons and daughters of God, the future rulers with Christ in His soon coming kingdom
https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com }

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Filed under agape, baptism, belief, Bible, cross, crucified with Christ, death, death of self, faith, false doctrines, false teachers, love, repentance, resurrection, sin

Tagged as baptism, freedom, life, love, sin

February 22, 2014 · 6:39 pm

“Today, If You Will Hear His Voice”–The Time Portal to His Presence

An opening in time–a portal to enter into God’s presence, to be near Him, enough to hear His voice.

So, we ask again, What if God, earnestly desiring to commune with us, has provided a way for us to get into a spiritual place where He would speak audibly to us? What if we could get all of our spiritual ducks in a row and thereby position ourselves to enter His time portal so that we could literally have a conversation with the Creator? He did say that all things are possible to him that believes.

What if, among His many promises to us, there is the possibility that we could get very close to Him, that we could hear His voice and even share a meal together, as we see in Rev. 3. What if He has already created a window of time that opens on a regular basis, a timeframe where, if we can believe it, He will meet us there, after we have met certain criteria that He has set for our holiness?

God has provided this time portal, and it swings open every seven days. It is called the Sabbath. And we are commanded to “keep it holy.” But the true Sabbath is like an island surrounded by the treacherous waters of man’s traditions. Every sect in the earth has their own take as to which day is the Sabbath and how to “keep it holy.”

Keeping It Holy

First, there is nothing we can do that makes the Sabbath holy. We cannot sanctify it through anything that we do or don’t do. We must realize that the Sabbath already is holy. God has already set it apart and hallowed it (Ex. 20: 11).

God created it and sanctified it for man, as Christ said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” The seventh day is not something to be served as if it were this holy thing that needs to be reverently observed–or else. The Sabbath is instead a 24 hour space in time that occurs every seven days in which the Great Spirit Creator makes His presence known with more power and clarity to those who walk with Him in truth.

God has set aside a 24 hour period each week for His people to seek Him. “Seek the LORD while He may be found” takes on more meaning in light of this. “May be found…” God gives permission to find Him during this weekly 24 hour period.

The Pharisees “kept” the Sabbath, but they did not keep it holy, for they injected ruinous teachings, traditions, and concepts about it. The actual Sabbath day of God, on which they assembled and concocted various restrictions as to what can and cannot be done, cannot be sanctified by us and our actions.

It is already made holy by its Creator. And He has set it apart from the other days of the week that we humans, “the apple of His eye,” could have a lifeline to help us get back into His presence. He made it as a space/time connector, a bridge joining us in our bodies to the spiritual dimension that He dwells in. It is His gift to us–a time to peer into spiritual truths, a time for His Spirit to come down and try out His house, which is us–a time for God and us to rest in each other, after we have ceased from working for our self and rest from the sensation of it being us that is still in the picture.

For it is belief in the death of self, our dying with Christ on the cross (Rom. 6: 1-6), and the belief that He now lives within us in a new heart, that enables us to finally “enter into His rest.” “For he that is entered into His rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His.” Our own works were the acts of sinning, breaking God’s law. When we die with Christ, be buried with Him, and then through faith in the operation of God that raised Him from the dead, we too cease from our old works done by our old selves. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts,” (Gal. 5: 24, the “flesh” here being the old sinful carnal nature of man we are born into).

The final crucifixion, the once and for all putting to death of our old sinful nature–that is what we must believe. That is the first step in getting right, in getting our spiritual ducks in a row, that we may enter into His rest, having stopped the insanity of the sin we were bound with.”

For God limits a certain day for special things to happen between Him and His people. That space in time, that portal still is there for some to enter into (Heb. 4: 1-11). “To day if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” That day is the Sabbath. And if we will soften our hearts with belief in the crucifixion of sin and faith that He has given us a new heart and spirit, then we will enter into His rest, ceasing from our old sins.

For it was the sin of His people that He was grieved with in the wilderness. And they could not enter into His rest because of it. But now, if we do not harden our hearts toward Him and just believe Him that the sin is gone, gone, gone–then we can enter into His rest. For “here remains a rest (a sabbatismos–a keeping of the Sabbath in the Greek) to the people of God” (Heb 4: 9).

So Which Day Is It?

Many traditions of men abound as to when is the Sabbath. Hundreds of millions of Moslems believe that the Sabbath takes place from sundown Thursday to sundown Friday. The followers of Judaism and several Christian denominations believe that it starts at sundown Friday and ends on sundown Saturday. Then you have billions of Christians who believe that the Sabbath has been changed, replacing it with Sunday as the holy day of God.

Studying the scriptures will give you the answer as to which day is the true Sabbath. Finding this treasure of knowledge is left up to us all. Seek and you shall find; knock and the door shall be opened; ask, and it shall be given, says our Master Christ. We all must prove it out, taking His word and the common sense that He has given us, being prepared to receive the answer, having no pre-conceived imaginations.

To benefit from this communion with God on His Sabbath, we must have erroneous concepts about Him and His plan straightened out and corrected. To be counted as a vessel for Him to pour Himself into, especially on His Sabbath, we must be holy. We must “purge out the old leaven that the lump may be holy.”

But that opens up another can of worms. What is the old leaven, and how do we purge it out? Kenneth Wayne Hancock {If you haven’t visited my website Immortality Road, please do. There you will find over 300 articles and books exploring the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” all written for you, the elect sons and daughters of God, the future rulers with Christ in His soon coming kingdom
https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com }

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Filed under belief, cross, crucified with Christ, death of self, old leaven, resurrection, santification

Tagged as holiness, old leaven, sabbath

February 1, 2014 · 7:32 pm

Hearing Audibly God’s Voice–He Has Provided the Way

What if God in His infinite love has already provided us a portal that opens up onto a bridge over which we peer into the eternal, and over which after listening with pure hearts, we actually hear the voice of the Eternal One?

What if God has already built into His plan an avenue over which we leave the cacophonous confusion that surrounds us and we traverse it into His pasture where we can see Him and cry out to Him and He sees us and waves and says in an audible voice, “Yes, I do love you so much. Just keep believing”?

What if this doorway is not material, not spatial, not three-dimensional like most doors, but rather an opening in time? What if God, who is infinite and is not bound by temporary earthly limitations—what if He has set aside a slot of time through which we may hear His voice?

Already Touched by Him

Those reading this have already had His spiritual hand tap you on the shoulder, calling you to walk with Him. We have all had wonderful experiences of His love and forgiveness of our sins and shortcomings. Of this we all are grateful.

And yet, we sense that there must be more—more of His presence, more of His Spirit, more of His love flowing through us. We feel the lack in our spiritual lives. It is difficult as we Christians walk around in these fragile shells, as we walk among those of the world who do not really know who we are and what we think in silence away from their presence.

We long to have a closer relationship with God—not just the long distance spiritual arrangement that we now find ourselves in. But rather, we yearn to walk with Him as Abraham and Moses and Samuel and Isaiah and Daniel did. These prophets, along with many others, not only were led by God, but they also had literal conversations with Him.

These are the ones that literally heard His voice and saw his shape. These were and are God’s friends. That is why they are famous today, their stories still ringing down through halls of history. They did not have a long distance relationship with God like some of us; they heard His voice up close and personal. Even Paul of Tarsus was visited by the risen Savior during New Testament times. And are we not living in New Testament times?

What if we could hear the great Creator’s voice? There—I broached the question. What if we could hear, not just the “still small voice,” but His real, audible voice? Our hearts are small and have been trampled upon, but can we get them to enlarge with enough faith to believe that we could experience this as the prophets did?

Right now I am excited like my barely two year old grandson Matty, who dancing up and down, looking up so longingly into our faces as we did “Knock Knock” jokes with his four year old sister, so earnestly desiring to be like us, exclaimed, “Nah, Nah! Nah, Nah!” And I began to laugh uncontrollably, totally enthralled by his belief that he could get in on the fun, that he could be like us. Oh, let the little children lead us, who in their childlike faith believe that all things are possible.

And yet, some Christians will balk right here, their hearts seeping doubts about this radical concept. Us, in the 21^st century? Would? Could God do that for us?

What does He say about it in His word? Is it possible? The demon possessed boy’s father asks the Savior, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

“If you can?” What do you mean, If you can? “Everything is possible for him who believes,” He said (Mark 9: 22-23 NIV). It was possible for His disciples, too, for they had already driven “out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them” (Mark 6: 13 NIV). In fact, “All things, whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Matt. 21: 22).

We, therefore, in Him are only limited by our unbelief.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock {If you haven’t visited my website Immortality Road, please do. There you will find over 300 articles and books exploring the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” all written for you, the elect sons and daughters of God, the future rulers with Christ in His soon coming kingdom
https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com }

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Tagged as Abraham, belief, eternal life, eternity, faith, God's Spirit, prophets

January 25, 2014 · 4:51 pm

God Is the Teacher Teaching Through His Teachers

Oh, my God! This thing is real! You are the great Teacher, and when your Spirit dwells within a member of your body, then You the Teacher begin to teach, and the vessel that you speak through becomes a teacher of God. For it is no longer them that lives but Christ that lives in them. As Paul the apostle and teacher of God said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2: 20).

And really, this message, the death of the old sinful self, is the foundation of the temple of God. We are His temple; consequently, our foundation must be the crucifixion of self, which is how we repent, and faith toward God, which is believing that He raised us up when He raised Christ up. That is the foundation that we are to build on. That is the cornerstone of the apostles’ teachings that we are to continue in (Acts 2: 42).

When we are baptized, we are immersed into His death (Rom. 6: 3). The water symbolizes to all that this is done. And what does “His death” entail? His death is the death of our old sinful nature; it is the end of our sin and sinning. “For He has made Him to be sin for us, who did no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5: 21).

Christ carried our sinful nature on Him; He was the scapegoat offering. He put an end to sin in us, for when He died, our sinful self died. When He was buried, our old self was buried; and when He was raised–HalleluYah!–then we too were raised to walk in a new life! Where old things are passed away! Behold, all things are become new!

“For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin–because anyone who has died has been free from sin” (Rom. 6: 6-7 NIV). We are not bound to sin anymore; we are not under that bondage anymore. Believing in the His resurrection is the key because when we believe it, we are believing that we are being resurrected from the death that comes from the sinful self. Death is destroyed when our sin is put to death on the cross with
Christ. Ingenious plan!

Just the Beginning

This makes us a child of God. Wonderful, yes, but it is just the beginning of our walk with Him. It is the first step, the first stones to be laid in the foundation of us His house. Yet many new Christians are content to remain here as little children of God. But we are admonished to “go on to perfection,” to full maturity in God’s life cycle, for He is all about reproducing Himself. That is His plan and purpose.

But how do we continue growing? What steps must we take? What knowledge do we need, what spiritual meat was He talking about when He said to children of God that He had more advanced teachings for them, but they were “dull of hearing.” He was saying, You ought to be teachers of these advanced things of God, but you “have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God and…have need of milk and not strong meat” (Heb. 5: 11-14).

Babes need milk to grow. And that spiritual milk is comprised of the “principles of the doctrine of Christ,” which leads to Christian “perfection,” which is maturity.

These first foundational teachings of Christ are outlined in Hebrews 6: 1-2: repentance from dead works [sin], faith toward God, doctrine of baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

And to get to full maturity like the early apostles, we must get these solid in our new life in Christ and then–leave them! We must not circle them like the Israelites circled the same old mountain. Forty years they wandered, and only two out of millions went into the Promised Land! We incorporate these teachings into our spiritual life, but we don’t remain there. These doctrines serve as our foundation in Christ, but to fulfill His will for our lives, we must leave them. They are stepping stones for the princes and princesses of the King! They are pre-requisites; they are means and not the end-all-be-all. To complete our royal destiny, we must grow in grace and knowledge and “be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine.”

And we Christians will leave the first principles of Christ’s doctrine and “go on to perfection”–if God permits. He wishes that all of us were prophets. He loves us and wants us to be just like Him. And more importantly, He has provided the way through the first two gifts of the Spirit–the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge, the tools of the trade for His teachers.

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Tagged as baptism, death of self, faith, resurrection, sin

January 18, 2014 · 4:24 pm

The Five Offices of God–For Our Perfection

Unto man has God “put in subjection the world to come.” Man. That’s us, brethren. In the world to come, the next age, the time in the history of this earth after Christ’s return to rule it for a thousand years—God has ordained that some of us human beings will be rulers with Christ in the government that He will establish (Heb. 2: 5).

To rule and reign with Christ in His kingdom/government—that is the high calling. Brethren, are we ready? Have we grown spiritually that we would be strong and pure enough to take on that mantle of responsibility for the King, to be His administrators, His regents, His arms and hands, His heart and mind in the myriad matters of ruling the King’s earth?

To help us fulfill this “high calling” of God, Christ came “that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (2: 9). And Christ will be made complete and perfect by His act of “bringing many sons unto glory” (v. 10). And this glory is us being glorified, which in turn brings final glory to the King and Master. Christ will be fully glorified when He fulfills His final destiny, which is bringing His chosen ones to full spiritual maturity.

He did say, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it die, it brings forth much fruit” (John 12: 24). We are the “much fruit” that He refers to on the road to His glorification (v. 23).

And because we, Christ’s followers, have come out of the matrix of “flesh and blood, He also Himself took part of the same.” Why? So that He could pave the way for our immortality, made possible by the destruction of the devil. Christ destroys the devil when He destroys sin in our life and gives us a new life by faith (Heb. 2: 14). That’s the foundation to build the temple of God on. Since we are His temple,that is where we start.

And Christ brings us to that full mature spiritual growth by sharing His Spirit with His body of believers. He shares His Spirit with His teachers, and they then impart the necessary knowledge to Christ’s brethren, for “He is not ashamed to call [us] brethren (2: 11).

Why God Gave Us the Five Fold Ministry Offices

In fact, Christ set in His spiritual body of believers five offices: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. And Christ established these offices “for the perfecting of the saints [the brethren, us], for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4: 11-12).

Let’s savor this a moment. God has chosen out from among all the Christians in the world a few to be in these offices. Why? What is their purpose? First, they are necessary “for the perfecting” of the members of Christ’s church, which is His body of believers. The Greek word (G2675) translated “perfecting” here means “to be fit, prepared, to be mended and repaired, and ethically, to be complete and perfect, and to make one what he ought to be” (http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/lexicon.cfm?strongs=G2675&t=KJV).

The true offices of God will help us by the Spirit within them to become prepared, ready and fit to assume the duties in Christ’s kingdom—royal duties to be assigned to us of our Father. For this is really the “work of the ministry” that Paul refers to here. The “ministry” of Christ is the administration of His government that will fill the whole earth, according to the prophet Daniel in 2: 44 and 7: 18: “But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.” That’s a long time to be in the presence of the King of kings (that’s us with the little “k”). And we “shall take the kingdom and possess it forever.” We. Us. Ruling with Christ the King.

That’s the gospel, my brothers and sisters. That’s the good news that man needs. Getting rid of the corruption caused by the sinful hearts of the leaders of this present world system and replacing it with righteous rulers who contain the Spirit of Christ in their bosoms. That’s the gospel; that’s the good news. It is the “gospel of kingdom” (Matt. 4: 23; Mark 1: 14-15). But how the gospel has been watered down at best by preaching only a tiny portion of His plan! How it has been poisoned by the preaching of false concepts like the prosperity doctrine! Well did the prophets cry, “Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, Saith the LORD.” And, “My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray.” But then He promises finally, “I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding” (Jer 23: 1; 50: 6; Ezk 34: 2; Jer 3: 15).

How Long Will They Teach Us?

These Spirit-led apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers in our day will continue to teach “till we all come in the unity of the faith” (Eph. 4: 13). They through the Spirit will teach His pure concepts until we Christians are on the same page, until we have His vision. They will teach by His Spirit until the body has the true “knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man” (4: 11).

They will continue to teach the truth until we are fully grown, walking in the Spirit like Peter, James, John, and Paul did after the Resurrection. “Perfect” here means a completed spiritual life cycle growth. They will teach until we all have the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (v. 11).

But don’t just take my word for it. We must prove all things through study and prayer to see if the things expounded here take root and grow in our hearts—to see if this vision of a royal heritage quickens like a seed in warm rich soil which loses its lonely first state and dies, only to be reborn as a green lively plant nourished by the living waters, alive now to reproduce itself, as the Creator has reproduced Himself in us. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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Tagged as "Kings", Holy Spirit, kingdom of God, perfection, spiritual growth

January 11, 2014 · 1:32 am

With Him in the Beginning–Out of His Treasure Things New and Old

The elect of God were with Christ in the beginning. How can that be seeing that we are encased in flesh walking around this old planet earth in the year of our Lord 2014?

Yet Christ did say and the apostle John did record this, “And you also shall bear witness because you have been with Me from the beginning” (John 15: 27). With Him from the beginning. Which beginning? Some will argue that He meant since the beginning of the Christian walk. But the Greek word arche, #G756 in Strong’s, rendered “beginning” in the above quote, also appears fifteen chapters earlier. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God…and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…” (John 1: 1-2, 14). That was before our Christian walk.

The word translated “beginning,” arche, equals in the Greek language “the absolute beginning of all things…” It is that in “which anything begins to be, the origin, the active cause” (http://www.blbclassic.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G746&t=KJV). Arche is that sacred spiritual matrix through which all springs. And so the Holy Scriptures relate an absolutely precious secret in that in this “beginning of all things,” a group of beings–now incarnated, now redeemed and bought back out of the degradation of sin–were actually with Christ in the beginning! That is what it says.

How does that tie in with us, we may ask? When we partake of His Spirit, we are drinking into what we had with Him in the beginning. His Spirit in us transforms us day by day into what we were when we were with Him back then. We are restored by faith, back to that relationship we had with Him before the worlds were ever formed. Before the earth was ever made, before the seven day creation week, before the sabbath day was instituted–we, His children, were there with him in spirit.

For what are we really without Him? Our bodies without His presence within are so much earth and dust. When we receive a portion of His Spirit, we receive into these earthly shells a spark of the divine One.

He who was from the beginning now takes up His abode in our earthly bodies, and the only “I” now is His Anointed One (Christ) in us. For after our own cross experience with Him, it is no longer the old selfish “I” that lives, “but it is Christ that lives in me.”

As we continue to walk this way, we can pray as Christ prayed, “Father, glorify me with the glory I had with You before the world ever began” (John 17:5).

We Must Go Back

But we must go back, back, back into time–before the temporal, before the temporary shackles of our earthen bodies, before the clamor of the flesh’s demands and desires, before the worlds were ever slung into their ethereal pinnings–when we sat around with our Father, rejoicing with Him about the beauty of His plan, “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38: 7).

We must go back there, before Satan was ever commissioned by the Father to be the “accuser of the brethren.” Before Satan became the prince and power of the air, sent down to try us and force us ultimately back to our Father for deliverance.

For we have all strayed like sheep away from our Shepherd. We have strayed from the spiritual pastures we had with Him before He created the pastures of earth. When we return and let Him gather us and restore us back into His heavenly-minded fold, then we will know what it means to have “our conversation in heaven.”

Passing the Test

When we walk in this truth–that we were with Him in the beginning–then we have passed the test–the test to see if we will believe the lie that we are only animal and not children of God, or believe the truth that we are only temporarily in a mortal state before our change to immortality comes.

This is the crux of the matter. When we are stripped of everything and reduced to our lowest state, do we believe that we are His spiritual children, with all the rights and responsibilities, or do we believe the lie? For this lie must be refuted by our walk on earth. Others must see “our good works and glorify the Father.” They will see that, yes, there is a God, for only God can shine the light of joy and love through a person like that.

Why This is Hard to Believe

The children of God were with their spiritual Father in the beginning, so declares the holy scriptures. This message is difficult to receive when a person, dwelling on the earth and its pulls, is full and fat, and is “doing great,” and is living high-on-the-hog.

He has need of nothing, he thinks. But he does not know that as a selfish earthbound mortal, he is really blind to the heavenly way. He is wretched in his blindness to spiritual matters, for he can never be happy being earthly-minded. He is poor, for he lacks the Spirit that was in the beginning. And he is naked, strutting blindly on the earth, willingly ignorant of the truth about what is really happening “on earth as it is in heaven” (Rev. 3: 17).

And the only thing that will wake up God’s people to Him is that He allows the engineering of an economic fall–one that will strip the toys and gadgets from the lost sheep of the House of Israel. In the Old Testament stories, it was always an economic collapse brought on by crooked politicians that finally pierced through the hard hearts. When they became destitute, “then they cried unto the LORD (Yahweh).”

And He heard them and came down by making His Presence known to a prophet, who in turn, led His people away from the moral and spiritual abyss and led them back “to the beginning”–back to the pastures of the Father’s heart.

How to Get Back to the Beginning with Him

We will be restored back to what we had with Him in the beginning. How? We believe that we receive His Spirit–after we surrender our old self on the cross and let it die with Christ, who was the sin sacrifice (Romans 6: 1-6). This is the first step. Then through just believing God and His love granting us a new life, heart, and spirit, we begin to walk in this new life–His Life now incarnated in us.

We believe that His Spirit within us now cauterizes eventually all connections to our earthly past. And then by faith (belief), we leave the bars and chains of earthly thinking with its negative demands, and we begin to walk in the Spirit, in the spiritual state that we already “had with Him before the world began.” For the truth is that we were with Him in the beginning. The “We” here is the portion of His Spirit that we are now, not our earthly body.

For after receiving Christ, anything we are is “new” to our current earthly reality, but “old” in that our new existence in Christ is one we shared with Him before time as we know it began.

A person instructed in the Kingdom of God will, consequently, “bring forth out of his treasure things new and old” (Matt. 13: 52). The “old” is our spiritual relationship we had with Him before our earthly sojourn began. The “things new” is living now through His Spirit within our hearts–right now here on earth.

This sin-free spiritual walk in Christ is “new” and rare, for few have been priveleged to glimpse this; few have been given the eyesalve to anoint the earthen eyes that they may see. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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Tagged as Christ, heaven, sons of God

December 28, 2013 · 10:53 pm

Making Our Calling and Election Sure

We are admonished by the apostle Peter to “make our calling and election sure.” You mean that we have to do something? I thought it was all God and His grace that helps us to be what He wants us to be. It is, but there remains things we must do in order for the spiritual growth to take place.

We must study and pray and eventually fast that the culprit Unbelief might skulk away out of our spiritual lives. For it is unbelief that hinders our growth. But the Spirit has left us a roadmap, a way of cutting through the haze of phony doctrines about God.

Peter tells us in his second letter the steps we should take. He explains that to grow to full maturity, we must add seven attributes to our faith.

Peter writes to those who “have obtained like precious faith with us” (2 Peter 1: 1). The elect, God’s chosen ones for this high calling, have received the same exact precious faith that the early apostles received.

Now this comes about in our lives “through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ (Yahshua)” (v. 1). After we were convicted of our sin-guiltiness, and after we stepped out and laid down our old sinful self on the cross and died in revelation with the sacrificial Lamb of God, we, by believing that Christ was raised from the dead, receive a newly resurrected life by faith.

It is His faith that we have received. God believed in His own power to raise up the Lamb of God, and when we believed that, then we obtained that very same belief in the form of a “new heart” and a new spirit. By believing in His resurrection, we also believe that we were raised from the dead, for we were definitely dead in our sins—the walking dead, as it were. But now we are alive from the dead, and we bear God’s very own faith in our bosom. As Paul said, “Old things are passed away,” and all things “are become new.” It is no longer the old Adamic man, writhing in the guilt of sin, that now lives, but rather the new man Christ, who has now begun His growth within our new hearts.

This is the faith we have obtained with Peter, Paul, James, and John. Faith is the foundation that must be added to, just like a builder adds walls, a roof, windows and doors to the foundation of the new house he is building. And it is this faith—God’s faith now in us, not our faith in Him—that must be added unto.

Adding Seven Spiritual Attributes Insures Three Things

We are to add to our faith “virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity [agape love]” (1: 5-7).

Peter writes that adding these seven spiritual attributes to His faith in us yields three major things in God’s plan for these latter days. First, they insure that we will not “be barren nor unfruitful” (1: 8). God wants us to bear “much fruit” and is glorified when we do (John 15: 8).

Second, the additions to our faith are how we solidify our standing as one of God’s elect; it is how we “make our calling and election sure.” Walking in these seven attributes of God’s nature insures our place in the elect. Or better put, those destined to be part of the elect will build their spiritual house with these attributes (1: 10).

Furthermore, it is through them that “an entrance shall be ministered unto [us] abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior” (1: 11).

Adding them is how we “partake of His divine nature” (1: 4). It is how we make our calling and election sure, how we never fall, how we will be full of spiritual fruit, how we will receive an entrance into His kingdom, and how we will “partake of His divine nature.” That sums up what spiritual growth is about. That is how important these things are as outlined by Peter in his Second Epistle, Chapter 1.

A Serious Assignment

Adding these attributes is a serious assignment that only the Spirit of truth can teach, for it is He that leads us into all truth. Truth being the key word.

“Truth is fallen in the streets,” says the prophet. And there is a famine in the land, a famine of the word of God. Because of this dearth, adding these seven attributes is a formidable task. Why? Peter in the very next chapter forewarns us of how the devil will hinder our growth in becoming God’s elect. He warns us to beware of false prophets and false teachers who “shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them.” And many will follow these hypocrites, who will “speak great swelling words of vanity” and will “promise them liberty” while they are “the servants of corruption” (II Peter 2:1-19).

And how does this second chapter tie into the first? These false “Christian” teachers will spew out false teachings that will hinder a young Christian’s spiritual growth. Peter gives his stark warning to us so that we would not be hijacked and taken away by the enemy, thus prohibiting us from making our calling and election sure. Bluntly put, false teachings will thwart the children of God from growing into fully matured Christians, fit to sit on the throne with Christ. Getting rid of these false concepts about God is where the study and prayer come in after true knowledge comes to us.

Isaiah wonders, “Who hath believed our report?” Who will answer the call to go all the way to the throne of God? Only the adventurous. Only the unafraid. Only the rebels who refuse to come under the yoke of the god of this world. Only those who trust in the Spirit of God within themselves, as He helps them separate the good teachings from the bad.

But man’s wisdom cannot teach this truth to the elect. Old Adamic man just cannot teach it to us, nor the well-meaning manna-gatherers of yesteryear, who fed the flock of God with the spiritual bread that they had one hundred, five hundred, or one thousand or more years ago. That cannot sustain the elect of God for these latter days. For these elect must have the “present truth”—food convenient for them.

God is doing a new thing; He is pouring out new light as to His plan and purpose. The Spirit is pouring out His truth today all over the earth. He has seven thousand unbowed to Baal, and they are like river bed conduits of His living water. Those who thirst will drink. The rest will with parched throats persist in scratching moisture out of broken cisterns of the waters of the past, repositories of the damp shadows of truth.

For God is doing a new thing in the earth, a thing that men will not believe though God Himself tells them. For He has already, even though He has blinded all but the remnant, the elect. But they will prepare and do and put on these additions to the “faith once delivered to the saints.” Kenneth Wayne Hancock