Black Thumb Can’t Stand up to God

Yesterday I got a very encouraging call from my friend Travis, whom I baptized a couple of weeks ago.

As has been discussed here earlier, I was re-baptized in December. I had been baptized before, in 1988, but the people who ran the show didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t understand that baptism was supposed to have supernatural effects. They didn’t know how to prepare me for it with confession and repentance. They didn’t explain that I was to go forward as a person who had died to the flesh, giving myself completely to God.

After I was baptized, I found I had much more self-control. I needed that.

Without baptism, people (even Spirit-filled Christians) are controlled largely by demons. Most people don’t know that, but it’s true. You don’t have to be a serial killer or a mad bomber to have demons. We all have them, and if you don’t have God’s help, they rule you. Their influence manifests in physical problems, and it also gives us bad habits we can’t control. Examples are drug addiction, anger (emotions and attitudes can be habits), depression, overeating, laziness, self-pity, lust, fetishes (including homosexuality), and so on. They can cause mental illness.

Travis was trying to get improvement from God, and he needed more help. Like me, he had already been baptized, but the people who had performed his baptisms (more than one) had been incompetent.

Last night he called about something, and I asked him if he had received any benefit.

He told me he had found that he was able to control himself much better than he had in the past. He said he was getting a lot of help with humility. He’s a music student, and when he got to college, his instructors told him a lot of what he had learned was wrong. It was hard for him to accept it and change. Lately, he has been able to overcome his pride and make use of the correction he was receiving, and his playing has improved a great deal. He has also gotten help with other negative behaviors.

In short, like me, he has experienced greater self-control.

He told me something I didn’t expect. He said he is more accountable now. Because he can prevent himself from doing wrong, he can’t blame demons or other people when he gives in to temptation.

It was interesting to hear him say that. I suppose I knew baptism had made me more accountable, but I hadn’t thought about it.

His revelation was very helpful to me. I don’t want to profane the gift of Holy-Spirit-powered self-control. Jesus said that if you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, there is no forgiveness. The Holy Spirit is the last gift God has to offer us on this earth. He’s not going to send another Messiah with more gifts, so if you blow your chance with the Holy Spirit, you are in trouble.

I don’t think a person will automatically go to hell for opposing or insulting the Holy Spirit one time. If that were true, who would survive? I think Jesus meant that if we continued in it, we would be lost. The world is full of reformed pagans who used to blaspheme the Holy Spirit regularly as part of their religions. I don’t think God has made it impossible for such people to escape judgment.

If you have Holy-Spirit-given self-control, and you choose not to use it, there is no hope for you, because God has no more gifts for us to receive. The only thing left for him to do would be to override your free will, and he will never do that. He throws people into hell every day because he prefers it to taking away their free will.

It’s always good to learn something from a person I’ve taught. I am not Jesus. I am not right about everything. I am not the source of the useful knowledge I spread. I just pass on what I hear from God. If I do a good job, the people I communicate with will eventually hear from God, too (hopefully better than I do), and at some point, each of them should be able to teach me something.

If the people you teach never come back and teach you, you have failed.

Preachers tend to glorify themselves and set themselves up as little gods, especially when they have TV shows. They try to give themselves franchises; they convince their flocks that anyone who wants to hear from God in their churches has to go to them. It’s sick. Jesus is in the reproduction business. He wants to multiply himself. He doesn’t want us to worship popes and pastors. Each of us is supposed to communicate with the Father directly.

When I think about this, I always think about what I was told about the Iraqi army, which was the 4th-largest army at one time, yet which could not stand for more than a day or two against other armies.

When Iraqi commanders received fancy new equipment, they confiscated most of the manuals. If an officer was in charge of 50 tankers, for example, only he would have all the tank manuals, and when there were problems, people had to go to him. It was a bureaucratic strategy; the essence of bureaucracy is to put your own job security above the welfare of the organization. An officer who is the only source of vital information is automatically indispensable. You can’t demote him.

Because of this policy, the Iraqis were much weaker than they should have been. They had equipment they couldn’t run, maintain, or repair properly.

That’s the story, anyway.

When “men of God” convince their followers no one else is qualified to lead, they make themselves seem godlike and indispensable. Unfortunately, they keep their followers undeveloped, deformed, and vulnerable.

The Catholic Church has always been a huge offender in this area. They used to have a policy of punishing common people for owning Bibles, and of course, they tended to burn people who heard from God. They also conducted services in Latin, which few people understood.

The only reason God leaves saved people on the earth is to help other people get to know him and receive salvation. The Bible says so.

Moses was the humblest man on earth. Some of his followers tried to make him the exclusive representative of God; they complained that other people were prophesying. Moses said, “Are you jealous for my sake? Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!”

Preachers are extremely disappointing, but we continue to insist on idolizing them. We love to worship things we can see.

I asked if anyone had shown interest in having Travis baptize them, and he said two people had. He is taking his time, however. He says he wants to be ready to do it. He wants to be improved to the point where he can do a competent job. I’m not sure he’s right to wait, but it’s wonderful to know that he’s aware that pride and rushing could cause problems. I can understand his hesitation. Before last month, he had been baptized at least 4 times, and the people who did it failed because they weren’t prepared.

Like Torben Sondergaard says, if you don’t do it right, it’s just a pool party.

It’s very rewarding to see that I have been of some use. I hope I see more fruit in the future. If the things you tell people are true, sooner or later, they will bring you a harvest, and after that, you will be blessed through the people you blessed.