Blasphemy of Holy Spirit

You made me really think this morning. As I was praying over it these things came to mind.

We know that a person must be born again in order to enter the Kingdom of God, so this obviously has something directly related to the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. This sin and not being born again are THE ONLY LIMITING FACTORS for eternal life and eternal damnation according to Jesus' own words, so they must be one and the same.

Is this why Jesus went to the elect that had died before His resurrection, so that they would be born again (made alive in the Spirit).

For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

I Peter 4:6 NKJV

Could this be the same the same reason that He appeared to those in prison, so that the sin of unbelief was solidified in their spirit?

by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

I Peter 3:19-20 NKJV

We know that the heart of stone is the heart of unbelief, and that when God changes out the heart of stone for the heart of flesh is the same time a person is filled with the Spirit (being born again). Does it not make since that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is retaining the heart of stone (unbelief)?

Revelation of God

You are asking me to separate what God has given me, and to tell you how it makes things different. That is all I know. I was raised Wesleyan (arminian/pelagian), and in a Nazarene church. It wasn't until I was in jail in 2010 and on my way to prison that God brought me to the Truth.

I didn't have anyone to teach me how to believe, or what to believe. I had never even heard of the Doctrines of Grace or the 5 pillars. I had my Bible, and the Holy Spirit.

I threw myself at Jesus feet and I cried out to Him to just make me the man He made me to be. I asked Him to show me what He wanted me to see, and that I was willing to let go of anything and everything that was not of Him.

After spending 6-8 hours a day for 20 months in the Word and in prayer, God had firmly established Truths on my heart that no man will ever move me from. I have still never read any of John Calvin's works. In fact, the only two books I have read outside of the Bible is "Humility" by Andrew Murray and "Attributes of God" by A.W. Pink. I didn't take anything new from these books, but rather God used them to confirm everything He had just shown me over the previous 20 months.

Right before I got out of prison the Chaplin told me "You are a Calvinist, aren't you?" Well, my response was "What the heck is that?"

I just believed what the Bible says, and I was shocked to find out that so many who considered themselves genuine believers didn't believe the same way. Since I have been out I have learned the theological terms that summarize all the things God has solidified in my heart.

My faith allows me to diligently be at rest, to speak with confidence, and to trust in God like never before. When I speak the Word of God, I KNOW that it will accomplish EXACTLY what He pleases REGARDLESS of how the one hearing may "feel" about it.

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in  the  thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:11 NKJV

How Does God Purify a Man for Service?

This is not done through a series of  cleansing, touching by another person, laying on of hands, or baptism. Don't let someone deceive you by telling you that there is a bunch of things you must do. Those are erroneous commandments of men.

Let's see what God does when purifying a man for service. It is God who equips.

Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
II Corinthians 1:21-22 NKJV

For Jeremiah God put His Words in his mouth.

Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, To root out and to pull down, To destroy and to throw down, To build and to plant.” Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.”
Jeremiah 1:9-11 NKJV

Just like for Jeremiah it is the touching of the lips that is done to Isaiah also, which we just saw in Jeremiah is the putting of the Word into His mouth.

So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with  it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.” Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
Isaiah 6:5-8 NKJV

Jesus reiterates this as truth when He is speaking to His disciples.

"You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you."
John 15:3 NKJV

Children of God

I hear the phrase "we are all children of God" often. This sounds good, but it fails as truth when tested against the Word.

All souls are God's is a true statement.

“Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father As well as the soul of the son is Mine; The soul who sins shall die."
Ezekiel 18:4 NKJV

Not all souls are children of God. Only those who come to Christ, (not by the will of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but BY GOD), are given the right to BECOME children of God. It is the BECOMING that indicates leaving one state, namely NOT being children of God, and entering a new state, namely being a child of God.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 1:12-13 NKJV

Don't just say stuff because it sounds good or it is what you have always been told. Test EVERYTHING against the Word, then speak the Truth (the Word).

A.W. Pink on Election

"Election is the taking of one and leaving of another, and implies freedom on the part of the elector to choose or refuse. Hence the choosing of one does no injury to the other which is not chosen. If I select one out of a hundred men to a position of honor and profit, I do no injury to the ninety and nine not elected. If I take two from a score of ragged and hungry children, and adopt them as my son and daughter, feed and clothe, house and educate them, I do them an immense benefit; but while disbursing my bounty as I choose and making two happy, I do no injury to the eighteen who are left. True, they remain ragged, ill-fed, and uneducated, yet they are in no worse condition for my having shown favor to their late companions—they only continue precisely in the situation in which they were.

Again; if among ten convicts justly sentenced to death, the king of England was pleased to choose five to be the recipients of his sovereign mercy, pardoned and released them, they would owe their very lives to his royal favor; nevertheless, by extending kindness to them, no injury is done to the other five: they are left to suffer the righteous penalty of the law, due to them for their transgressions. They only suffer what they would have suffered if the king's mercy had not been extended toward their fellows. Who, then, can fail to see that it would be a misuse of terms, a grievous slander of the king, to charge him with injustice, because he was pleased to exercise his royal prerogative and evidence his favor in this discriminating manner.

Our Savior definitely expressed this idea of election (Matthew 24:40-41)....Divine election, then, is a choice to favor from among those who have no claims upon God. It therefore does no injustice to them that are passed by, for they only continue as and where they were, and as and where they would have been if none had been taken from among them.

In the exercise of His electing grace God has mercy upon whom He will have mercy, and in the bestowment of His favor He does what He wills with His own."

~ Arthur Pink, "The Doctrine of Election"

Those Who Fall Away

Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
John 15:2 NKJV

And this:

Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Matthew 7:22-23 NKJV

This is similar to this:

the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
Luke 12:46 NKJV

And this one:

the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of,  and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 24:50-51 NKJV

And better expounded here:

Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their  bodies  were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
I Corinthians 10:1-2, 4-6, 11 NKJV

These verse MUST be used when interpreting these other verses so that they can be properly reconciled.

For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude 1:4 NKJV

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they  went  out  that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. BUT YOU have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.
I John 2:19-20 NKJV

This is why we are commanded to search out our salvation with fear and trembling. There are many who think they are somewhere they aren't.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
Philippians 2:12-13 NKJV

Thought by Thought

Know this man of God! Not only does Satan desire to kill you and is after your family, but he wants to destroy your testimony. The tendency to sin is already in our flesh, and he awaits the opportunity to exploit those desires.

We are at war, and the battle is intensely fought moment by moment, thought by thought. If we fail to take each thought captive, we run the risk of being caught up in sin. This is where the measurable fruit of the flesh is made manifest, and your testimony is tarnished and compromised. (I will not say ruined, for God always turns bad into good for His elect.)

So then... Do you brutally fight to die to the flesh and lay down your will? How do you win this battle that is raging and so crucial. I tell you this... You CANNOT win. ONLY through the surrender of the will to Jesus in faith does God then guard you and empower you to win. Your part is to trust, and resist the devil. It is God's part to fight. Stand firm in faith, and let God be God.

Why Do We Cast Our Crowns?

Let me share these facts with you. When God saves us and fills us with His Spirit, setting us free from sin, it is Him in us that is causing the remission of sins as He causes us to walk according to His commands (sanctification).

I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
Ezekiel 36:27 NKJV

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,
Ephesians 1:11 NKJV

for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
Philippians 2:13 NKJV

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which  was with me.
I Corinthians 15:10 NKJV

For this reason we will cast our crowns at His feet. When we sin, that is our doing, but when we do good that is of God.

the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying:
Revelation 4:10 NKJV