DEWITT TABERNACLE TEACHING SERIES

“RELIGION-IS IT FRIEND OR FOE”

   BY C.W. WOOD                                                                                                             JANUARY, 2019

   A PERSONAL NOTE TO OUR READERS: Dear friends and family of God, we are now one month into a New Year.  This writer has been studying and Preaching God’s Endtime Message for 51 years now.  My testimony is that The Lord Jesus will surely come for us sometime in this year of 2019!  More and more I am convinced that we are being called on to believe The Lord for all of our Families to be in His Bride!  Is anything too hard for our God?  Do we believe He can be that good?  No man as yet knows how good He can be, and is being to his Bride!  May He pour out His blessings of all kinds on His Beloved.  We long to meet those of you that we haven’t yet met.  In the meantime, we love you and pray for you and thank you for your support.  We want to be on the front line against the evils of Satan.  With your help, we can Press the battle, giving the enemy no quarter.                     

                                                                                                                             In His service, 

                                                                                                                            Br. C.W. Wood & Church

   A God given spiritual life in a human being is a deep mystery and causes the change of the whole being upon those that the Holy Ghost descends upon.  The new life as it enters the heart (soul) causes intense inward pain as one of its First effects.  True conversion will be shown in conviction of Sin.  This is a true Sign and will always follow the Spirit’s work.

   A supposed conversion that does not wound the Person and strip them of their love for sin is not a true conversion!  God never clothes us until He has first stripped us, nor does He quicken us with His Gospel until He has First shown us our desperate need.  I believe we could restate that like this, we have to first be shown  we are lost  before we can be Saved.  If you have never been lost, then you have never been saved!  When we See a Person who has never been convicted of Sin, then we can know that they have never been worked on by the Holy Ghost, “For when He has come, He will reprove the world of Sin and of Righteousness and Judgement.”

   When the Holy Ghost comes and breathes on us, He withers all the glory of man.  On those of us who have delved in deep Sin, conviction will be strong and alarming, on others it may be less, but as long as Sin is confessed, mourned over and forsaken, we have evidence of the fruit of the Spirit.  Where these things are not in evidence, the New Birth has not taken Place.

   In order to deal with the lost Souls according to knowledge, we must explain Religion.  First of all Religion has to do with the works and the ability of man, while true conversion is a Supernatural work of God that changes us from the inside out.  Religion is an attempt by unconverted People to Pattern after the converted ones they know, but who lack the Inward Power of the Spirit to walk their testimony!  Religion trusts in how well a Person can obey the Laws of God, while Christianity trusts in how Jesus Christ Kept the Law in our stead.  Religion fails you when the trials become severe, while true Conversion brings us to the mountain top again.  Do  not  claim  that  a Soul has been saved until you See and hear sincere, simple Faith in the Lord Jesus!  If a Person claims to have repented, but it is not followed by Faith in Jesus, then the repentance was faulty and needs to be attended to.  “Repentance is to leave the Sins we loved before; and show that we are in earnest grieve, by doing so no more.”

   Repentance and Faith are twins.  God sends His Faith to the repentant.  There will be a Sorrow for Past Sins and a Holy Grief for having committed them.  There will be a hatred of Sin, which Proves that its hold over us has ended.  There will be a practical turning away from Sin, which shows that the life of the old Soul has been changed.

   Ezek. 18:4 “-------the Soul that Sinneth, it shall die.” (Except the Person repents)  To live under the Power of any known sin is a sign of us being “the servant of Sin.”  “For his servant you are to whom you obey.”  He may believe he is alright, but he is still in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity while a Single Sin still rules in his life. (Unless he has repented and is crying out for deliverance)  There must be a harmony between his testimony and the life he is living!  A Christian Professes to stop his Sinning, and if he does not do so he is a hypocrite to use the name Christian.  This is the Position that those who are only religious hold.  They use the name of Christ in order to gain ground for the flesh man to continue in the world, and the Church at the same time!  This could be called “ignorance gone to seed”  for a man to suppose he is fooling his Creator!

   Another true Sign of having repented is that the Person will pray.  They will Seek the will of God for their life.  When a Person Professes Faith in the  Lord  Jesus,  and yet does not Pray and Seek God’s will and plan for his life, then we dare not believe he has truly repented.

   When the Holy Ghost convinced Ananias of Paul’s conversion it was not “Behold he talks loudly of his Joy and Feelings, but it was “Behold he Prayeth” and that Prayer was for real, heartbroken, and asking forgiveness!

   How can a Person be a disciple of Christ and openly live in disobedience to Him?  If the Person claims to have been converted and declares that he knows his Lord’s will, but does not intend to obey it, we are not to Pamper his testimony, but our duty is to tell him he is not saved!!!

   The Lord has said, “He that taketh not up his cross and cometh after me cannot be my disciple.”  God will tenderly correct our mistakes, but willful disobedience is fatal if not repented of. 

   Jesus must be King over us, as well as Priest, and where this is not so the Foundation of Christianity is not yet laid!  And so we See that there are certain spiritual signs by which we may recognize God’s Handiwork in Salvation.  There is no need for guess work, there are no white-black Birds, no drunk-sober men.  We are changed or else we are still in the Same Worldly Pit!

   A Soul Winner can do nothing without God.  All who suppose they can subdue human nature with sad tales or human arguments will Fail.  When God spoke to Job about Job’s ability to tame Leviathan (the crocodile) He asked him, “Can you catch him with a fishhook?  Can you play with him as with a little bird?”  In the salvation of lost souls our dependence must be upon God, and our Joy be because He has sent us forth to seek to win Souls for Him.

   But now for a word of warning against religious folks who can learn how  to sit in Church with the converted ones and copy much of the true signs of Christianity!  It is not at all wrong to go to Church, but the Scriptures speak of a group of Church going People who were at the White Throne Judgement, and were told by God that He never knew them.  He knew them alright, but that knowing was the knowledge that they had never truly repented and therefore were never really Converted!  They will be horrified at this report.  My Question to the Unconverted is: Hadn’t you many times rather be warned beforehand of your lack than to be told of it when it’s too late to remedy it??

   Do you testify as to being a Christian?  And if so what do you give as your Proof?  Pastors, do not be in too much of a hurry to take People to the Baptismal tank.  Listen, not only to their testimony, but watch their life for signs of a Soul change.  It is much easier to bring an uneducated heathen into the Kingdom than to deal with one who has been educated into the Gospel and baptized while not being converted.  A great burden in our modern churches is the baptizing of unsaved People.  Though their intentions may be good, but their life lacks the spiritual Power to overcome.  And the Fact still remains that there is only one form of Eternal Life and that is the Spirit of Christ in us, which is the Holy Ghost, which is the New Birth, which is what true Conversion is!

   Our Word Prophet, Br. William Branham preached a sermon called “The Token” He Preached it four times and declared that it was perhaps the most important sermon he ever Preached.  Following is a Quote from one of those sermons. QUOTE: “THE TOKEN”

 (1964-Dallas, TX pg. 8)

   The       Prophet       explains

what we have been saying in

 this Sermon.   This      is    not

Religion but Conversion!

 47 “Let me say this to you my Christian Friend.  Our attorney is also our Judge and our--our judge became our attorney.  The case is settled when we receive His pardon.  The judge Himself came down and became the attorney, and the attorney and judge is the same Person.  God became man, that He might justify man by His Own death that He placed upon him.  Hallelujah!  That means, Praise our God!  He deserves all praises.  Our judge and our attorney is the same Person.

48 The Holy Ghost is the Token that we have been pardoned. The case is closed.  To every man and woman that truly has received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, he has been tried, he is identified with his attorney., with his judge, with his sacrifice, and the Token he holds in his possession shows that  his trip is paid to Glory.

 Amen.  It’s all over.  He holds that Token.  It’s his, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is the witness of the resurrection of Jesus.  Amen.  Do you believe it?  [Congregation says, “Amen.”—Ed.]      That’s your identification, you’re holding

49  Now if you haven’t got the Token, you’ll not be coming in.  You must have the Token.  That’s the required price, “When I see the blood, the blood is the Token.  When I see the blood I’ll pass over you.”  You must have the Token.  If you don’t, why, you won’t go.  You’ve got to have the Token.

50 If the Token was not displayed, the token wasn’t showed down there, even the covenant wasn’t in effect.  You say, “Well, now, brother Branham, now wait just a minute.”  That’s exactly right.

51 The Token was above the covenant.  For Israel had a covenant to be circumcised, and any Jew could  go  out  and  show  any  person, I  can prove to you I am circumcised, I am a Jew, I am circumcised according to Jehovah’s command,” but yet that didn’t expel him if the Token wasn’t there also.  He must display the Token.  Do you get it?  [Congregation says, “Amen”—ED.]  He…The Token has got to be there, anyhow.  And if you are in the covenant…If any Jew would say, “I ain’t putting no blood on my door, I can prove that I am a covenant Jew,” the death Angel got him.                                   Amen