Dear Saints of God and Members of the Body of Christ,
If this gets repetitive, I can't apologize. We must be and remain established, established, established,
established, established in the grace of God. In justification. In no more condemnation. In being freed from sin. In never having to worry again about God's good opinion of us.
But what do we see today? Remarkably, we see the same false teachings attacking grace as the ones Paul dealt with. I say this is remarkable because you would be tempted to think
that, at some point in the last two-thousand years, the enemies of the cross would give up. But no. Satan always inspires a new gaggle of "Circumcisionists"—"Judaizers"—who will whisper the lie to you: "Grace is not enough."
Or they will pronounce the lie plainly from their cars, as Johnny Greene is doing today in the twenty-first century.
In a way, we are honored to be in the position of defending the evangel. We are actually BLESSED that we can face and overcome the same challenges Paul and the first-century believers faced and overcame, namely, wolves within and without the camp who would distort the evangel of Christ with their vain philosophies and mistranslated Scriptures in order to OWN
you (make you subservient to them) as you await their next pronouncement of what you must do to ensure your salvation and renew God's favor of you.
Yet we, like Paul and the first-century believers, are ESTABLISHED in the truth. We know we are established because, when the wolves come in, we are strong enough to repel them, to put them away, to
basically say, "Get behind me Satan." We are armed with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God" (Ephesians 6:17).
The enemy SNEAKS in, always using Scriptural language so as to put you off your guard, but then to blindside you with the return of law, the return of threat (the threat you were used to in organized religion), the return of
worry, condemnation, guilt.
"Do you think God is REALLY pleased with you?" hiss the snakes and growl the wolves. "Do you think that you can just NOT WORRY about the many ways you are displeasing God?" It is no different than the voice of Satan in the garden—except, in this case, Johnny Greene's voice is much more menacing that that of the voice of Satan
in the garden that caused the first woman to doubt God's words.
Do not doubt God's words to us! This is a good exercise for us to stand firm in the faith. As Paul says, "There must be sects among you, that those who are qualified may be becoming apparent among you" (1 Corinthians 11:19).
The body of Christ is being shaken today more than ever. As the end of the eon draws near, Satan would seek to discourage and shipwreck as many members of the body of Christ as possible, to keep them from ruling over him in the celestial realm. But no. We are not having it. We have the Word of God. And we have able teachers who, like Timothy, can "expose, rebuke, and entreat with all patience and teaching" (2
Timothy 2:4).
Throughout this show, I think it is Thursday, not Friday. Everything I said I would do "on Friday" or "tomorrow," I will do on Monday.
May the grace of God remain with you all.
Yours in the faith,
—Martin