Jesus Receives and Defends Repentant Souls

Christ Triumphant - A Devotional by E.G. White

Jesus Receives and Defends Repentant Souls

Today's Text: And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Zechariah 3:2

The Message:      Satan claims a right to have those who once stood under his black banner, but who have turned from sin to the living God and have cast their helpless souls upon Jesus. All who take hold of the merits of Christ by faith have the pledged word of God that they shall make peace with Him....      Trials are permitted to come upon the chosen people of God. The expressions are used, "God tempted Abraham," "God tempted the children of Israel." This means that the Lord permitted Satan to tempt them in order that their faith might be found unto honor and glory when the judgment shall sit, and when every person shall be judged according to the deeds done in the body. God knows every heart, every motive, every thought in the heart; but He permits Satan to try and tempt and test His believing ones in order that their trust and confidence in God may be revealed....      The Lord hates sin; but He loves and forgives the repentant, believing sinner, and takes everyone under His guardianship and control. Satan is on the track of every soul, but with every temptation that is permitted to come upon the children of God's pardoning love, He makes a way of escape in order that they shall not be tempted above that which they are able to bear....      "And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him." The work of Satan is plainly defined as that of resisting the meritorious work of Christ.... When Christ steps in between the tempted souls and Satan, the adversary is angry and opens up with a tirade of abuse and accusation, declaring that Christ is unfair in protecting these souls, and in lifting up a standard against him....      In the presence of the unfallen worlds, in the presence of the universe of heaven, in the presence of the angry adversary who has painted them in robes of blackness and moral defilement, urging that they be given into his hands, Jesus answered Satan's malignant charge whereby he accused them before God day and night. To those who stood before Him, earnestly watching the controversy and marking the determination of Satan to destroy the righteous, Jesus spoke, saying, "Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment."-Manuscript 27, 1894.

Commentary: My friend, the power of sin upon us is the power of Satan.  Those who are under his banner have no victory over sin.  It is only as we are under the blood stained banner of Jesus Christ that we may gain the victory over sin.  Satan knows that all those who are connected to the living God through Jesus Christ will overcome sin.  Thus he exercises all of his efforts to separate us from Jesus Christ as our mediator and redeemer. In these last days the arch deceiver has corrupted the whole of the Christian world by leading them to worship a altogether different god than the One true God of the Bible.  He has supplanted the Father and His Son Jesus Christ for a triune god that is made up of three individual god-beings, each a god unto themselves, but also collectively god.  He has taken the Spirit of God and presented Him as a separate being unto himself called the Holy Spirit, and as such has introduced another mediator between God and man, while the Scriptures tell us "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;" (1 Timothy 2:5). The trinity is as perversion of who God is, and has separated the people from the only power that can give them victory over the adversary of souls.  The Bible teaches that through Jesus Christ we can gain the victory over sin, but we cannot gain this victory while we look unto the trinity for it presents to the believer a false image of God.  The only Spirit that can give us victory over sin is the Spirit of Christ, for He gained that victory in the wilderness and at the cross so that He could impart that victory to us through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit in our lives. "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:" (Colossians 1:27) The trinity teaches that the Holy Spirit is not Jesus Christ but the spirit of another being; a being that does not know what it is like to be tempted by sin in the flesh; a being that has not gained the victory over sin, and as such cannot give us the victory.  If we are looking unto God through the false teaching of the trinity, we are looking unto a god that cannot give us victory over sin and as such cannot save us. God receives and defends every repentant soul, but unless we are repenting to the Only true God through His Son Jesus Christ (John 17:3), we are repenting in vain.  Jesus said in Matthew 15:9 "But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."  The trinity is not a doctrine of God but a doctrine of man, and as such all those who worship God in this way are worshiping Him in vain. My friend, the trinity is the central doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and all of its doctrines are founded upon it.  Therefore, if we come up to the time of trouble, when the mark of the beast is being implemented, holding to this view of God, we will as readily receive the mark of the beast as those who worship on Sunday. Now is the time for us to awaken to our true condition before God and heed the straight testimony of the Faithful and True Witness of Jesus Christ today. God bless,

Video of the Week Who Will You Worship? - Matt Dooley Matt Dooley of Line of Truth Ministries traces Satan's desire for worship from heaven to the end of time, and how he has accomplished this through the trinity.