The Ministry of Spiritual Understanding
Book of 2 Corinthians Chapter 5
Most people look at Christians as a bunch of religious fanatics, but this is true for only a few people who have their doctrine mixed up, and they need to get it straight before the Lord returns.
There is nothing fanatical about preserving our future, and this is what a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ will do; it will preserve your future.
I may get a little off track for just a moment, but I think we need to know these things.
According to those who live by the Marxist movement in our nation today, the greatest enemy of America is the white Christian. They say so without blinking an eye.
The truth is their greatest enemy is Jesus Christ because they are the children of the Devil.
A Marxist is a supporter of the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels:
Marxism, a body of doctrine developed by Karl Marx and, to a lesser extent, by Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century. It originally consisted of three related ideas:
- philosophical anthropology,
- a theory of history and evolution.
- an economic and political program.
There is also Marxism as it has been understood and practiced by the various socialist movements, particularly before 1914.
Then there is Soviet Marxism as worked out by Vladimir Ilich Lenin and modified by Joseph Stalin, which, under the name of Marxism-Leninism which has become the doctrine of the communist parties set up after the Russian Revolution.
Offshoots of this include Marxism as interpreted by the anti-Stalinist Leon Trotsky and his followers, Mao Zedong’s Chinese variant of Marxism-Leninism, and various Marxists in the developing world.
There were also the post-World War II nondogmatic Marxists who have modified Marx’s thought with borrowings from modern philosophies, principally from those of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger but also from Sigmund Freud and others.
In nations that adopt some version of Marxism, they have started in a way that looks good to many people, but in the end, it turns to socialism, and then some version of communism, and it never works out to be a benefit to the real people who have to give their lives to support such a system and have no say-so in that government.
Marxism has never worked because evil men enforce their version on the people, and the government will then control every aspect of their lives and their economic classes.
There is no home ownership for the people and really no true freedom.
In fact, in Marxism, the government owns everything from land to homes, and all else.
Capitalism, far from perfect, allows freedom to those who are willing to work for it.
The trouble with people today is they do not want to work for anything and expect everything to be free.
Free health care, free education, free life to do as they please, but they do not want to think that someone has to pay for these things, or they are okay with these things as long as someone else is paying for them besides themselves.
Look at how many of them refuse to pay for the education that they borrowed from the taxpayers.
Marxism still uses an anti-supernatural approach to life and its origin and begins with the premise that there is no God and tries to explain a life that is lived without God, which we, as Christians know, is not possible.
We have already tried life without Christ, and found it meaningless.
They all believe in the theory of evolution or some part of it, even if they claim to be liberal Christians.
The term “liberal” has come to mean “my way or the highway”!
Liberal so-called Christians accept the Gap Theory or some form of a gap theory and many of the theories of evolution and try to put them in the Creation Story given to us in the Book of Genesis.
To accept this is to say sin was in the world when God created us and that the death of the Lord Jesus was unnecessary and just a fable.
The truth is, if God created man, then man is a morally responsible being. Responsible for his own actions.
This is not new!
Jdg 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Pro 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Much of this is coming from the younger generation, and God warns them about these things.
Ecc 11:9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.
Ecc 11:10 Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.
Those without God say they are not morally responsible for themselves or to any god and are free to do as they please.
See if you believe you descended from some animal, you are taught that animals do not have a moral understanding, but even this is a lie.
This is the very reason the world was destroyed in the day of Noah and will be destroyed when the Lord returns.
When the Lord Jesus says, “as in the days of Noah,” this is part of what He was referring to.
In either case, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, but there is far more corruption in Marxism than in Capitalism, and the people have no real say-so in the government with leaders who put forth their own version of Marxism.
The same ones who teach Marxism made their own millions under Capitalism, so they are hypocrites to begin with.
What many of them seek is the destruction of America and a full-on atheist society.
Every Marxist politician has their own version of Marxism, and none of them are the same.
It is a fact that it was Marxism that began the Liberalism we see in the false church today!
It is Marxism that began liberalism in our government.
It is Marxism that is pushing the Liberal church into social change, which goes against the Word of God.
It is Marxism that pushes liberals to conceive that change is not achieved through individual salvation and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but through the church itself confronting society concerning injustices.
The Church is not to be an object of worship, and it is becoming nothing more than an idol.
The Book of Revelation says the Church has left its first love, who is Christ Jesus.
The only true Church is based upon the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
1Co_3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Marxism in itself is humanism, more indebted to liberal theology than it is to Scripture, and Scripture that does not go along with their Marxist liberal thinking is removed from Scripture.
This is why there are so many versions of the Word of God today.
As Christians, we place our hope in the Theocratic government of the Almighty God!
We will answer to God for everything we have done, even for every word that we have spoken.
God says: Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Marxism and liberal theology are all about works, and there is no hope in works!
Where is our hope and the hope of the true church?
*****2Co 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
We must not get discouraged every time our body will not let us do what we want to do.
We will fall into a state of exhaustion and weariness from time to time, and we will suffer for the cause of Christ.
With all our troubles and difficulties, it does not change what we are waiting for. What are we waiting for?
We are waiting on the day we will be with the Lord where we will receive a new body with none of these difficulties.
Through all our uncertainties, we can be certain about this thing that Jesus promised.
For we know it is true!
We will not receive some temporary body when we get to Heaven; we live in our temporary body now as we live upon this earth, but we will receive a glorified body when Jesus Christ returns to take us home.
1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
Much of the world looks upon this as some imaginary fable, but there is more physical proof that the Word of God is true than it is false!
So, what does happen to us when we die?
When we die, we go immediately to Heaven to be with the Lord! Here we will stay until Christ returns to claim this earth as His own on the Day of the Rapture.
Rev_6:11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
You cannot place a robe on a spirit; there has to be a body to wear a robe.
1Th 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
1Th 4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
1Th 4:15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
1Th 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
1Th 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
One thing is sure, even if we existed for a time without a body, we would still be more alive than we are today!
Just as our present bodies will be part of our eternal bodies, temporary bodies could be part of our eternal bodies.
That glorified body gets in there somewhere!
Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Eph 2:6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
Eph 2:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
- We will receive immortality!
- We will receive a home, an eternal mansion in God’s New Heaven.
As we get older, we all feel the truth of verse 2.
*****2Co 5:2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
2Co 5:3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
2Co 5:4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
God never said it would be fun growing old.
One thing I have noticed as I aged is that time seems to fly by.
The years are going so fast that it’s Christmas before you know it and another birthday has taken place and you get to see doctors more than you see some family members.
As Christians the Scriptures give us a picture of our bodies as a tent which houses our spirit.
In fact, our spirit is our conscience, and our heart is our soul, and this is our real self and this sack of flesh that covers them is the thing that is perishing with age.
God is a spirit; the human soul is a spirit.
God made man after His own image and endowed him with attributes which belong to His own nature as a spirit.
Therefore, man is different from all other of God’s creations.
Only man is capable of communion with our Maker.
If we were not like God, we could not know Him; we would be like the animals that God created.
The human spirit was rational, moral, and a free agent before the Devil caused Adam to sin, but we still have those attributes, so we can be saved.
This sack of flesh we wear as a covering will spend some time in the grave unless you are alive at the time of the Rapture, but this flesh must certainly die one way or the other.
2Pe_1:13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
2Pe_1:14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
Job 19:25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
Job 19:26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:
Job 19:27 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
The body we have now is our means of glorifying God since after salvation the Holy Spirit moves into our heart.
1Co 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
1Co 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Our bodies are not to be our masters; our bodies are to be submitted to God in order that Jesus Christ can be glorified in that body.
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Php 1:20 According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.
Once Adam and Eve had sin in their hearts, the first thing they realized was that they were naked.
Noah cursed his grandson because he looked upon Noah while he was drunk and naked.
To the Jew, nakedness was a terrible sin because Adam and Eve knew their nakedness after sin, and they were ashamed.
This is the way Jesus Christ presents to us the modern church.
Rev 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Nakedness describes a soul that is uncovered before the Lord.
Our nakedness must be wrapped in the Lord’s righteousness!
A sinner who remains lost has nothing to cover himself against the wrath of God.
Those who know the Lord are now clothed with the robe of righteousness.
This is the robe that we will wear when we first get to Heaven!
Isa_61:10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.
*****2Co 5:4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
Once we understand we will be clothed, which means our bodies will be transformed at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Any underclothing we had on will be swallowed up by our upper clothing until nothing is left of those garments.
The old is completely replaced by the new!
1Co 15:53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
1Co 15:54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
1Co 15:55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
Don’t you just love the Word of God that never leaves anything out?
We do not have to guess about our salvation; it is real!
Our salvation is also eternal!
*****2Co 5:5 Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
2Co 5:6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
2Co 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
2Co 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
The Holy Spirit is not some influence sent to us from Heaven; the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Triune God.
Believe me when I say there is no order in those three persons of the Triune God except for the order that Jesus gave us.
God is the same no matter what person you are dealing with; He is One God, not three Gods!
The Holy Spirit has characteristics, and He has personality.
He has intellect, knowledge, a mind, and emotions and a genuine personality.
He teaches, He testifies, He guides, He convicts, He regenerates, He intercedes, and He commands.
When He moves into our hearts, we will know it and our transformation will begin.
There is a saying that our youth used to use: “If you are what you were, then you ain’t”.
It’s simple: if you are the same old person you were before your salvation and you just say the Holy Spirit moved in, then you have been deceived, and you are not saved.
2Co 1:22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
That word earnest can be interpreted as “a down payment” on our redemption which will come when the Lord Jesus returns.
We have this confidence when we no longer look at our circumstances, but we only look upward and forward to a future so wonderful that it is hard to imagine the wonderful things God has planned for us.
1Co_2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
When we walk in the faith of the truth of God, then surely, we can put up with this wicked world for a few short years.
The greatest relief we can obtain in this world is to be busy serving the LORD.
No matter what we face, the Holy Spirit will stir up our courage to face it all, if we listen to Him.
We need a refilling of the Holy Spirit daily and sometimes on the same day, and God will provide that refilling if we ask Him, in the name of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit will stir up the faith that is in us, so if you have no faith, the Holy Spirit has nothing to work with.
Now this does not make us blind to the things going on around us; He just gives us the courage to go through them.
This shows up in our power to be a witness for the truth of the Gospel!
*****2Co 5:9 Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
2Co 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
We must make it our ambition to speak and act in a way that our life pleases the LORD.
If we live only for the LORD, it does not matter if we are still in the body that the Lord gave us or we are absent from that body which is to be at home with the LORD in Heaven.
Wherever we are, our goal is to make the Lord rejoice by living for Him and in His will for us.
If we are not in the will the LORD has for us, we will be miserable even though we may be saved.
The “Judgment Seat of Christ” is the judgment of believers, not unbelievers.
There will be no unbeliever there.
Paul is speaking to the Church, all the ones who have a new nature in Jesus Christ.
Only believers have a new nature in Jesus Christ.
- The judgment of believers is a surety; it will happen, and nothing can stop it from happening.
- The judge who will judge us will be the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Joh 5:22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:
Joh 5:23 That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.
- Each believer will be judged for the things we have done in the body we lived in after salvation until that body died.
a.) We will not be judged for sin because the Lord Jesus died for all our sin and our sin is under the blood.
God will never again charge us with any sin. Though we must still ask for forgiveness because it is like a slap in the face to our Lord Jesus Christ.
b) Each believer will be conformed perfectly to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We will receive that perfect, eternal body, a body just like the one that Christ went back to Heaven in.
1Jn 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
1Jn 3:3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
c) When God saved us, He had a purpose for each of us, and He will judge us on how well we have accomplished what He gives us to do.
This judgment will decide on any gifts we may or may not receive.
1Co 3:13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
1Co 3:14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
- This judgment will determine our rewards and the degree of those rewards, whether good(gain) or bad(loss)
All those who survive the fire of the “Bema Seat Judgment” will be greatly rewarded. So great that it would blow our minds if we knew them today.
Glory, honor, immortality, part of the inheritance of the Lord Jesus, a mansion, just a few that are mentioned in the Scriptures.
We will behold the face of God and have a glorified body. We will be treated as kings and priests. The joy of life and pleasures that never end are just a few more of the rewards we could receive.
This is just a taste of the rewards we can receive at the “judgment Seat of Christ,” which will take place at the Rapture of the Church when we meet the Lord Jesus in the clouds.
Only the Church will be at this judgment at that time. Not one lost soul will be there!
*****2Co 5:11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.
I know that God will use everyone He saves, but we have to wonder sometimes what keeps that good Pastor from quitting on God.
They are attacked and criticized for the stance they take on the Word of God.
They have to deal with problems on the inside and on the outside of the church.
They have to deal with church members, many who are still babes in Christ and others who think they know it all.
This verse gives us some idea of what keeps good men of God preaching and ministering, and we should take notice of what God says here.
The word “terror” here means fear, reverence, being in awe of the Lord.
It does not mean the kind of fear that trembles and shrinks back from God, though he must be aware of it.
The Lord must be held in the Highest regard and respect; He is God!
These things compel that good Pastor or Evangelist or Missionary to spread the “Good News” of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
2Co 5:21 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.
He will preach the judgment of God:
Rom 2:16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.
He will preach the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
Rom 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
He will preach the desperate need for all of us to reconcile our relationship with the One True God:
2Co 5:20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
2Co 5:21 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.
God knows what kind of person we are, and He will use that to assign us all a ministry.
1Co 4:1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
1Co 4:2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
That good man of God will preach faithfulness!
1Ti 1:12 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry;
1Ti 1:13 Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
1Ti 1:14 And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
1Ti 1:15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
Amen