Message 45 - By
Leroy Surface
“The Scenario” Revisited
Introduction
“Let’s say a Christian has their faith in Jesus Christ and Him
crucified and loves God, but gives in to temptation and commits adultery. Well, if Jesus raptures the church while they
are in the middle of committing adultery, will they go in the rapture?”
The “scenario” has been expanded to include the incestuous man who
lived in fornication with his father’s wife in I Corinthians 5:1, and to David at the time he was committing
adultery with Bathsheba and plotting the murder of her husband, Uriah. The
question is, would they go to heaven if they died in their sin?
How
would you answer these questions?
Did Jesus die to “take the penalty for our sin?”
OR,
Did Jesus die to “take away our sin?”
Leroy
Surface
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“The Scenario” Revisited
“Give Them to Eat”
I was called to preach in a vision from
the Lord in 1962. In the vision, I was
one of the disciples of Jesus on the day they “fed the five thousand.” We
were saying, “Lord, send these away that
they may eat,” but Jesus was saying, “Ye
give them to eat.” Again, in the
vision I was one of the twelve that distributed the “five loaves and two fishes” to the multitude, after Jesus had
broken and blessed them. I was amazed
that my “basket,” which at the
beginning had very little in it, was filled with the fragments of the loaves
and fishes after the five thousand had eaten and were filled (Matthew 14:20). At the end of the vision, Jesus turned
directly to me, looked me in the eye, pointed His finger at me, and said, “You give them to eat.” I answered, “Lord, I have nothing to give. I
have only a high school education, I am bashful and backwards, I stutter when I
speak, and have nothing to give.”
Jesus said to me, “Bring it to me:
I will break it and I will bless it.
Whatever I have broken and blessed is sufficient to meet the need.” Fifty years later, I find myself seeking the
Lord to anoint me to do what He called me to do so long ago, “Give them to eat.”
“Warn Them”
Four years later, in September, 1966, I
was in a time of fasting and prayer when on the tenth day I received another
vision from the Lord. It came sometime
after midnight while I was lying in bed worshipping the Lord. I believe that I was still awake at the time
and in the Spirit when I became aware that something had lifted off of my
eyes. It was so dark where I was that I
could not have seen my hand in front of my face, but the “thing” that lifted off of my eyes was purple and crimson in color
and as it lifted, it split into two parts and vanished away. I heard the voice of the Spirit say, “I have lifted the veil from your eyes.” Immediately I entered into a vision of the
last day, the day described in Revelation 6:14-17. It seemed that the top of the little camper
trailer I was sleeping in was “rolled
back” and I saw the people fleeing from the terrible wrath to come. It seemed that the very mountains were on
fire, as the people found no place to hide from “…the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of
the Lamb” (verse seventeen).
The scene changed, and I saw the great white throne judgment. One by one I saw the people brought before
the one who sat on the throne to be judged, and what I saw is still with me
forty six years later. I watched as
person after person, men and women alike, were brought before the throne by two
angels, one on each side of them. As
they approached the throne, the person would lift up their hands as though to
worship, but before the first word came out of their mouths, their faces turned
to horror, and they began to scream, “There’s
blood on my hands; there’s blood on my hands.” I never heard the one sitting on the throne
say a word to them, but I saw them led away by the angels to a place somewhere
behind the throne to be cast into the lake of fire. They were condemned by the blood that was on
their hands. I understood that all these
I had seen were moms and dads, pastors and evangelists, and every person that
God had placed in any position of responsibility in this life to affect the
souls of others; but they had not given them the “truth,” nor warned them of their sin.
Again, the vision changed, and I was
standing before the Lord once more as I had four years before in the first
vision. Again, He spoke to me and said
these words, “I have set you to be a
watchman for my people.” Basically
He told me the same things He told Ezekiel in Ezekiel 33:7-9; “So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a
watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my
mouth, and warn them from me. When I say
unto the wicked, O wicked man,
thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way,
that wicked man shall die in
his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his
way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his
iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.” The last words I heard in the vision were
these: “If you fail to warn them, I will
require their blood at your hands.”
From that very day I began to receive the “visions” of a watchman.
Vision of “Another Spirit”
Three years later, in July 1969, I
received another vision from the Lord that concerned the entire church world
unto this present day. I saw a spirit come upon a woman who represented the
church, pretending to be the Holy Ghost, and most of the church accepted it as
the Holy Ghost. At first I thought the
spirit was real, but I was troubled by the fact that the ones it came upon
began to exalt themselves before the people.
I questioned the Lord, “How can
this be, when the same thing that happened to Jesus happened to her?” I had seen a spirit in the form of a bird,
come upon a woman who represented the church, and it looked to me like that
which happened to Jesus in Matthew 3:16-17. I had heard a voice saying to the woman, “Thou art a son of God.” Then I saw the woman mount a pedestal and
began to call the multitudes of people to herself, saying, “Look to me; I am the one the spirit came upon. Look to me; I am the one the voice spoke to.” I was thoroughly confused by the scene until
the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me in the vision, saying, “This which happened to her did not happen to Jesus.” In short, the Holy Ghost had come upon Jesus in the form of a dove. I had not seen a dove, but a bird. A voice
from heaven spoke to Jesus. I had
not heard a “voice from heaven,” but
merely a voice. The Spirit of the Lord
told me these words which I can never forget: “Always remember, just as there are many birds but only one dove, so
there are many spirits but only one Holy Ghost, and there are many
voices, but only one Word of God.” As
I awoke out of the vision, I was hearing the words from Revelation 18:2,
“Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,
and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul
spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” Has that vision been fulfilled in our churches
in these last days? Let’s see if we can
determine the answer with a quick look back over those years.
Something began to happen to the church
in those days. Teachers began to arise,
telling the people that they need not “tarry”
any longer to receive the Holy Ghost, but they could simply “receive it by faith.” Others told us they could “teach us how” to receive the Spirit through simply “saying whatever words that come to our
mind.” Still others came and built
large ministries by “teaching” the
people how to speak in tongues, prophesy, and operate all the “gifts” of the Spirit. Our forefathers understood that the Holy
Ghost “would not dwell in an unclean
temple,” but still, others came to tell us you could be “…saved, filled with the Holy Ghost, and
love the Lord with all your hearts,” and still have a continuing struggle
with fornication, pornography, homosexualism, and every other sin known to
man. Looking at the modern church in
America and in most of the world forty three years later, I know that “another spirit” has certainly had its
way in most churches and in the lives of most people.
Vision of the “Sleeping Church”
In the early morning hours of June 11,
1970 I received a vision from the Lord in which the “church” had fallen asleep.
While the people slept, a huge snake with two heads, one on each
extremity, wrapped itself around the church and gathered it in its coils. Each head of the snake looked upon the church
with expressions of great “love,” if
you can imagine love in the face of a snake.
In the vision, I awoke and realizing where I was, I tried to run away
from the snake, but finding that I could not escape it, I turned to fight
against it. I could not prevail until I
picked up a sword (the Word of God), and after a long fight, I was delivered
from the snake as its heads were wounded by the Sword of the Spirit. This vision from the Lord was almost forty
two years ago as I write this, but I have never forgotten the lesson that I
received from the vision. That “religion,” which does not understand
the purpose of “Jesus Christ and Him
crucified,” is built upon a wrong foundation. It is like a snake with two heads, one on
each extremity, the first being “legalism”
and the other being “lasciviousness,”
both of which will damn the soul of those who continue in them. When Paul wrote to the Galatians in 54 A.D,
he was at war with the legalism of Judaism.
When he wrote to the Corinthians only a few months later he was at war
with the lasciviousness that was being brought into the church through a false
doctrine of grace (Jude 1:4).
Both of these would have claimed Jesus as their savior, but one believed
that obedience to circumcision and the Law of Moses was necessary for
salvation, while the other believed that sin did not matter as long as you “believe in Christ.” Both of these extremes today are built on the
same erroneous foundation; that Jesus only took the penalty for our sins and
left us in bondage to sin. Oh what
deception! Forty two years later, I see
a “church” that is asleep in the
coils of the snake.
The “truth
of the gospel” is not found in the middle of these two extremes. The truth is another foundation
altogether. The common foundation that
most of the modern church is built upon is, briefly stated, “Jesus died to take the penalty for our
sins.” The truth of the gospel is,
briefly stated, “Jesus died to take our
sin away.” He delivered us, not from
the “penalty of sin,” but from sin
itself, which He nailed to His cross.
Jesus said, “whosoever committeth
sin is the servant (slave) to sin”
(John 8:34). Sin is a “slave-driver” that lives in the nature
of every person born into this world.
Those who continue in sin do so because they are slaves to sin, and can
never deliver themselves from its power or presence. However, Jesus said, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free
indeed” (John 8:36). He
never, once, spoke of being “free from
the penalty of sin,” but the scriptures speak often of “freedom from sin.”
Vision of the “Super-Churches”
In the spring of 1971 I received a vision
from the Lord concerning the “rising”
of the “super churches.” I saw them rising up out of the ground, huge
domed structures with the appearance of flying saucers, with glass windows and
doors all around. They were beautiful to
look at, but I had an eerie feeling as though I was seeing an invasion from
outer space with alien creatures, except for the fact that they came up from
the bowels of the earth. Multitudes
gathered to a great banquet that was given inside. I entered one of them and stood as near to
the exit as I could. I saw the banquet
tables filled with every kind of delicious foods, gourmet meats, vegetables,
salads, and desserts; everything prepared to perfection. I noticed a platter of sandwiches on a nearby
table, and thought “It won’t hurt if I
eat just one.” I picked one up and
as I brought it to my mouth I heard a voice from heaven thunder to me, “Don’t eat of it!” I put the sandwich down and left that place,
never to return.
Vision of the “Burning Houses”
The vision changed, and later that night,
in the vision, I was traveling across country with a friend at the midnight
hour. We were driving through an
area where many of the pastors of the “super-churches”
had built their houses, all of which were beautiful mansions costing millions
of dollars. I distinctly remember that
it was a great marvel that these men had built their beautiful houses without a
blueprint. I took a side street to show
one of the houses to my friend, and as we approached it, I saw that the roof
was on fire. I ran quickly to the door
of the house and knocked as loud as I could, shouting, “Wake up, your house is on fire; wake up!” The owner of the house, who was one of
the “super-church” pastors, came to the
door in his pajamas and hurriedly got the garden hose and sprayed the roof
until the fire went out; then he went back inside and returned to his
sleep. I left that place with a good
feeling, because I felt that I had saved the man’s house. Half a mile down the road was another of the
mansions, and as I approached I saw that its roof was also on fire. I ran to that house, knocking on the door,
screaming at the top of my lungs, “Wake
up, your house is on fire.” He came
out just as the first man had done, got his garden hose, sprayed the roof, and
went back to his sleep. I still felt
pretty good inside for “saving” the
second house from the fire, but I thought it was certainly a strange
coincidence that two of them were burning the same night. Suddenly I noticed many other mansions that
had been built by “super-church”
ministers, and they were all on fire. I
desperately ran to each of them, each time with the same results; they would
get their garden hoses, spray the roof, and go back to sleep. It was only then that I noticed the first
house was on fire a second time. I ran
back to that house, shouting, “Wake up,
your house is on fire.” The owner
came out a second time, no excitement, no big deal, just get the garden hose,
spray the roof, and go back to sleep.
But it wasn’t over! All the
houses caught fire the second time. I
ran to each of them the second time, and in every case it was “no big deal” to these preachers. “Get
the garden hose, spray the roof, and go back in and go to sleep.”
In the last of the vision the first house
caught fire a third time. By then, I was
totally exhausted. I knocked on the door
a third time crying, “Please wake up;
your house is on fire.” A third time
the pastor came out, still no big deal; simply get the garden hose, spray the
roof, and go back to sleep. This time,
however, neither the pastor nor I was prepared to see what happened. Before our eyes, as he sprayed the roof with
water, his beautiful mansion turned into a house of sticks and straw which the
fire quickly consumed to ashes. Certainly, we are very near that “midnight hour” when the houses will
burn.
Back
to “The Scenario”
“Let’s say a Christian has their faith in
Jesus Christ and Him crucified; loves God, but gives in to temptation and commits
adultery. Well, if Jesus raptures the
church while they are in the middle of committing adultery, will they go in the
rapture?”
A young man who read about “the
scenario” in our January publication decided to place the question on his Facebook page to see what comments it would receive. He told me that without exception, those who
posted a comment said “Yes, the adulterer
would go to heaven.” What a window
this gives into the soul of the modern church.
I preached a message years ago (March 15, 1987) and put it in a booklet
titled “The Call to separation.” I had received a vision from the Lord on
March 6 of that year in which He told me He was calling His people out of the
uncleanness which was already filling the churches in that day. In the message I wrote these words; “When God gives unclean churches over to
uncleanness, they will be ‘bundles of tares,’ waiting for the fire--just sitting
there waiting for the fire! I mean,
unclean from the pulpit to the pew. Unclean:
from the greatest to the least. Unclean:
from the pastor down to the janitor. Everything will be unclean, because God
will give them over to uncleanness.”
I truly believe that day has come.
Today I turned the television on to watch
a few minutes of “Frances and Friends”
where I had seen, what I have called, “The
Scenario” on their December 22, 2011 broadcast. This was only the second time I had gone
there in the six weeks that had past since seeing that shameful “scenario,” so I was amazed to find
Brother Swaggart on his wife’s program explaining “Justification by Faith.” They admitted that a “hornet’s nest” had been stirred up by the broadcast of December
22, 2011. That was the day that Donnie
said that a man could be in the act of adultery at the moment Jesus returned
for His people, and Jesus would accept the adulterous man “…if his faith is anchored in Christ.” I hoped to hear a “clarification” that would say they did not actually believe Jesus
would accept adulterers when He comes and that somehow we had misunderstood what
Donnie meant to say. Sadly, that was not
the case. Let me say up front that I
have no desire to attack these people.
In fact, I have prayed many times that they might fully understand the
message of the cross and blood; because I know that they reach millions of
souls with their message, where I reach but hundreds. Would to God that He would make Jimmy Swaggart my teacher, but it cannot be so until he
understands the truth of the cross and the blood for the sake of his own soul.
After explaining the orthodox doctrine of
“Justification by Faith,” Brother Swaggart took on a question concerning the man in I
Corinthians 5:1-2 who was living in fornication with his father’s
wife. The conclusion he gave first of
all was that the man was actually a pastor, or at least an elder of the church
at Corinth, and second, that he was actually saved, and would have gone to
heaven if he had died in an incestuous relationship (It was Brother Swaggart who said it was incest). The following are Brother Swaggart’s
actual words on the matter:
“So
the question is, was this man saved
during the time he was living with his step-mother, and he was still
attending the church at Corinth, and there is some evidence that he was one of
the pastors, or at least one of the elders in the church. I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t
know. I don’t know that man’s heart, and I don’t know their situation. Going strictly by what I believe Paul had to
say, if I had to make an educated guess,
I would say that he was saved.”
Whether or not it is “incest” to cohabit with your step-mother is a moot point, but is
definitely “fornication” of the worst
kind. It isn’t hard to “know the heart” of this man who was “having his father’s wife;” it was
filled with illicit lust, such as is forbidden by God Himself. He was a slave to sin, and the fact that he “could not help himself” was no excuse
for his sin. If we say we “don’t know their situation,” we are
entertaining “situational ethics,”
which thing God does not entertain. Some
would say, “God understands my
circumstance, and why I do what I do.” If what you do is sin, God does not
understand, because He sent His beloved Son to die on the cross to “take away our sins” if we will believe
Him.
To prove their point that God would
accept the man who lived in fornication with his father’s wife, the panel
turned to a discussion of David and Bathsheba.
Again, the conclusion was reached that David “was a man after God’s own heart” even while he was in the bed of
adultery with Bathsheba, and when he was plotting the death of her husband,
Uriah. Again, I quote Brother Swaggart’s actual words in the following:
“Now of course the question is asked…was David saved
during that time; if he had died before the prophet came to him and he
repented before the Lord…the fifty first Psalm is the greatest prayer of
repentance found in the entirety of the word of God. If you will notice the terminology of that
Psalm, it’s not a matter of “Lord save me,” it’s “restore to me the joys of my
salvation…don’t take your Holy Spirit from me,” you understand, “wash me that I
might be clean.” This is not the prayer
of a man trying to get saved. This is
the prayer of a man who knows he has sinned and done terribly wrong. Was
David saved during all of that time? Yes,
he was! If he had died during that time,
would he have died saved? Yes, he would
have!”
To his credit, Brother Swaggart did not see David’s sin as a light thing. Commenting on the sin itself, he said the
following:
“Yes,
he failed, but he climbed out over it
by the grace of God. I’ve thought about
this a thousand times; I mean, you think about the sins he committed. Adultery
was bad enough; that was hideous, horrible, but to murder her husband in cold
blood, that is, I mean, you can’t get any worse than that, I don’t think.”
A
Vision of a “Burned over Mountain”
Notice the words which say that David “climbed out over it.” I believe that Brother Swaggart
sees himself as the one who “climbed out
over it.” I know a lady minister, a
precious woman of God who received a vision from the Lord concerning Brother Swaggart’s ministry seven years before the scandal of
1988. This lady loved Brother Swaggart dearly, and still does. In her vision, she saw the Swaggart ministry as a beautiful lush green mountain. In the center of the mountain was a picture
of Frances in a beautiful frame of gold.
In the second part of the vision, she saw the beautiful green mountain
burned over with fire. There was nothing
left but ashes, but she saw Brother Swaggart trying to climb the mountain. She said she could hear the ashes crunching
under his feet as he would climb up a few feet and slip back as the ashes gave
way under his feet. Tears were running
down his face as he was crying for God’s help to get back on top of the
mountain. Whether the mountain was ever
green and lush again, she did not see and I do not know. I do know that it would be a horrible thing
for anyone to build again on the ashes of past failures, and never understand
the power of the cross and blood of Jesus Christ to immediately end the sin
problem for all who believe it in truth.
Such a person could stand proudly at the pinnacle of a mountain of
ashes, and never understand that everything they stood upon is nothing but “ashes.”
During the discussion of David and
Bathsheba, Brother Swaggart said at one point “You see, we are bad about categorizing
sins.” Donnie had already compared
smoking cigarettes to committing adultery, indicating that there was no
difference. If people could only hear
their own words, they would understand how foolish they sometimes are. If sins cannot be “categorized,” then the pedophiliac (the one who is molesting
little boys and girls) must be as acceptable as one who loses his patience at a
stuck red light. Is that the level of
gospel we are asked to believe and receive?
By the same criteria, any and every sin known to man would be acceptable
in a “Christian,” as long as they “really didn’t want to do it.” God will not accept such sin in an atheist,
Muslim, Hindu, or in any other person on this earth, but we are asked to
believe He will accept it in a “Christian”
whose “faith is anchored in Christ.” With thinking like this coming from one who
professes to have the revelation of the cross and the blood, I can only conclude
that the entire religious world, including religious Christians, has gone mad.
Concerning David being called a “man after God’s own heart,” one of the
panel had this to say:
“And it was a willful act.
He had to plot and plan it, but this is what I maintain…see if I’m right
in this thing. God knew David’s
heart. He knew that if David was
confronted with this, he was going to repent.
God knew David’s heart, because God
said, “David’s a man after my own heart.
I mean, over and over in the scriptures,
and he said this after…many times after this horrible act was committed,
because he knew David’s heart.”
When God rejected King Saul, the prophet
Samuel said to him, “…thy kingdom shall
not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart…”
(I Samuel 13:14). This took place about
the time that David was born. The “rejoicing of God” over “finding” David is revealed in Psalms
89:20, in a vision God gave to David; “I
have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him.” This “rejoicing”
however, referred to the day God “found
David” as a shepherd lad when he was about sixteen years old. He sent the prophet Samuel to the house of
Jesse to anoint him to be king over Israel.
This was before he killed Goliath, and over a dozen years before he took
the throne at thirty years of age. God
never, at any time thereafter, repeated that David was “a man after my own heart,” even though he certainly was in most of
his ways.
The apostle Paul in his preaching in
Antioch of Pisidia, quoted from the Old Testament, seemingly mixing Psalms
89:20 with I Samuel 13:14 in this way: “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which
shall fulfill all my will.” John Wesley, commenting on this verse, had this to say:
“I have found David, a man
after my own heart - This expression is to be taken in a limited sense.
David was such at that time, but not at all times. And he was so, in that
respect, as he performed all God’s will, in the particulars there mentioned:
But he was not a man after God’s own heart, in other respects, wherein he
performed his own will. In the matter of Uriah, for instance, he was as far
from being a man after God’s own heart as Saul himself was. It is therefore a
very gross, as well as dangerous mistake, to suppose this is the character of
David in every part of his behaviour. We must beware of this, unless we would recommend adultery and murder
as things after God’s own heart.”
Death
in the Pot
And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found
a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred
them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to eat. And it
came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and
said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat
thereof.
II Kings 4:39-40
I transcribed thirty two minutes of this “Frances and Friends” broadcast,
verbatim, so that I would not misquote anything. I have always said that I agree with at least
ninety percent of what I hear from this ministry. I applaud them for many of their stands, both
politically and spiritually. This
particular broadcast was no different; I found many things I could agree with,
and heard much “wisdom” from Brother Swaggart himself, concerning several issues. At the same time, as I was transcribing this
segment just a few words at a time, my mind went to the day that the “sons of the prophets” made a pot of
pottage to eat. Someone had shredded
wild gourds into the pot, and no one knew about it until they began to eat the
pottage. I will assure you that at least
ninety percent of the ingredients in their pottage were very good, but the
pottage was going to kill everyone who ate it.
Very few people know or understand the scriptures well enough to
discover the “wild gourds” that have
been shredded into the message of “the
cross and the blood,” by Brother Swaggart. What
he teaches, however, is not his own invention.
Millions of others have believed the same thing for several hundred
years, but what we must understand is this; it is not the gospel that the
apostle Paul preached, and it is certainly not the gospel the apostle John
preached, neither is it approved by the apostle Peter. Brother Swaggart,
having come through a very tragic event in his own life over twenty years ago,
bounced around for a while, and finally began to teach a version of “the cross and the blood” that seemed at
the beginning to be good. However, he
has now arrived at a position that is acceptable to most of the “orthodoxy” of this day. There is no difference between what he now
teaches and the teaching of Charles Stanley; one of the best teachers I have
ever heard concerning what happened at Calvary, but with one gigantic problem:
Charles Stanley does not believe what he teaches. He says, “That’s
only the way God sees us,” while he continues as he has for many years, to
approve the “eternal security” of
fornicators in the church. It seems that
our beloved Brother, Jimmy Swaggart, has joined him
in that brand of orthodoxy. The
following is the orthodox doctrine of “Justification
by Faith,” as explained by Brother Swaggart.
“Well,
to not have knowledge of justification by faith is to not have knowledge of the
new covenant, because justification by faith really is the embodiment of the
new covenant. Paul explains it
graphically so in chapters four and five of the great book of Romans. It goes back to the words of Abraham, where
it says, Abraham believed God… I think it’s in Genesis 15:6 I
believe…Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for
righteousness. It’s really not
complicated; let me try my best to explain it.
It simply means that a sinner, which is obviously guilty, which would
pertain to every human being that has ever appeared before the Lord, or
whatever the case may be. If that person
evidences simple faith in Christ, he doesn’t have to understand anything about
it, but if he evidences faith in Christ, that faith gives him justification on
the merit of Jesus Christ, because you and I cannot reach the standards that
God demands, it’s impossible, but Jesus Christ did. He came into this world, and He obeyed the
Law in every respect, in word, thought, and deed, never failing even one time,
so that was done for us. Then He went to
the cross to satisfy the sin debt, which was the broken Law. He not only satisfied it in keeping it, but
He also satisfied the broken Law, of which every one of us was guilty. And so whenever He did this, that made it
possible as our representative man…Paul called Him the second man, or the last
Adam. Whenever the believing sinner says
yes to Christ, they don’t have to go through a long ceremony, or whatever the
case…whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, Paul wrote, shall be
saved.” When that person does that, the
perfection of Christ, who was our representative man for all who will believe
Him, was transferred to the believing sinner, and that person is automatically
justified. Now let me tell you what that
means: it means that they are forgiven, and it means that they are also
declared not guilty. It also means that
person is declared to be innocent. Now
listen to this, it also means that person is declared to be perfect, because
God cannot accept anything less than perfection. Now we all know that we aren’t perfect…that’s
ridiculous, we aren’t, but Jesus Christ is, and on the merit of Jesus Christ we
are justified, and this is the way that God does it. He can justify a believing sinner and at the
same time He can satisfy His own righteousness, because He is basing it totally
on Christ because of what Christ did at the cross, all on our behalf. We did it by simple faith…that’s the reason
we keep telling you, you can join a church all day long, and it won’t save you;
you can do good deeds all day long, as good as they are, and that won’t save
you, but when you accept Christ into your heart, the perfection of Christ in
the mind of God is given to that believing sinner, and that person is
wonderfully, gloriously, immediately justified.
God imputes to that person a perfect, spotless, pure, righteousness,
understand, given to that individual, that is everybody who is born again. You can get saved on a street corner, in
somebody’s house, watching this telecast, or hearing a radio program, or ever
how it may be, you can be saved. That is
justification by faith. We can’t get it
by works; you cannot get it by good deeds, you can only get it by faith. You simply trust the Lord, and the righteousness
of Christ is transferred to us.”
I have an older brother, George Surface,
who has gone on to be with the Lord.
George was a man of God and a pastor in the Assemblies of God movement
for many years. As I read these
beautiful words about “justification by
faith,” I am reminded of a quip my brother used to make concerning the
contradiction he saw in the name of the breakfast cereal, “Grapenuts:” The “contradiction” he saw was, in his words: “They are neither grapes nor nuts.”
That same contradiction is found in the “orthodox” view of “Justification
by Faith;” it is neither justification
nor faith. It is a beautiful thought to think that I can
“believe in Jesus” and instantly God
sees me as not guilty, but, innocent, and perfect; when in fact, absolutely
nothing has changed in my heart or nature.
I must continue in sin for years before “learning how” to overcome sin and Satan through trusting in Jesus
as my righteousness. This is certainly not the “justification” the apostle John understood. Hear his words to new converts, I John 4:4,
concerning the many “anti-christs (false
ministries)” that were even then in
the world: “Ye are of God, little
children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in
you, than he that is in the world.” The words “little
children” are translated from the Greek word “teknion,” which means “infants.” John literally says to these newborn children
of God, “You are born of God and have
overcome that spirit of anti-christ because
you are born of God.” The apostle
speaks to the young men in I John 2:14, saying, “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the
word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” It
seems today, that any and everyone who takes the preacher by the hand and says,
“I believe in Jesus as my savior,”
is, according to modern orthodoxy, “born
again.” No, not unless they have
been made overcomers of sin, Satan, and the world by virtue of their “new birth.”
What did Jesus “Take Away?”
Another common thought by most Christians
today is that Jesus suffered and died to “take
the penalty for our sins.” Again,
it’s a wonderful thought to multitudes today: “I’m a sinner; I sin every day; I will continue to sin as long as I
live in a natural body, but ‘Jesus took the penalty for my sins,’ and I will
never be judged for them.” Yes, it’s
a beautiful thought, but it’s a deceiving lie.
Jesus did not “take the
penalty” for anyone’s sin. Jesus was
not “cast into the lake of fire,”
as described in Revelation 20:15, “And
whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of
fire.” This is the “penalty” for sin, death in the lake of
fire, and Jesus did not take that penalty, nor does any scripture or any
apostle of the Lord say that He did.
The apostle John was an old man when he
wrote the first epistle of John. All the
other apostles had been murdered in the persecutions leading up to the
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., but John lived on to the age of almost a
hundred years old. He wrote his first
epistle to once more establish the “truth”
in a way that we would have it forever.
In reality, his epistle is a “primer”
that was written to new converts, whom he called “my little children” (infants).
In I John 3:5-6, John gives four conclusions concerning
those who trust in Christ that were common knowledge to the church
fathers. It was a knowledge, however,
that the Gnostics, the Nicolaitans, the Balaamites,
and the followers of Jezebel all tried to destroy, as they all “…turned the grace of our God into
lasciviousness” (Jude 1:4). We know that these four conclusions
which John gives were common knowledge to the believers in that day because the
first conclusion begins with the words “And ye know….”
And ye know that he was manifested to take
away our sins;
I John 3:5
This is a direct contradiction to the
position of the modern orthodoxy. John
does not say that Jesus “took the penalty
away,” but He “took our sins away.” The apostle John also wrote the “gospel of John.” Most likely he was there when the Holy Ghost
came upon Jesus. He must have heard,
because he recorded them first hand, the words of John the Baptist when he
introduced Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). His mind, as did every other Jew who heard
those words, went back to the law of the scapegoat in the sixteenth chapter
of Leviticus, the “kid goat” that
was a “sin bearer” for the nation of
Israel, to “bear” their sins away
into the wilderness. For over fifteen
hundred years, this ritual of “taking
away” the sins of Israel was performed on the “Day of Atonement,” which was the tenth day of the fifth
month. These young Jews had seen this
done every year of their life, and now they hear John the Baptist, who they
knew to be a prophet, saying of Jesus, “This
is the Lamb of God that will take away the sin of the world.” Jesus took our sin nature upon his body, and
nailed it to the cross. He did not take
our penalty, He took our sin. Notice that he did not say “sins,” but “the sin,”
which Brother Swaggart rightly says, always speaks of
the “sin nature.” Jesus died to take away “the sin” of everyone who would trust in Him, and we have it no
more.
The second conclusion John gives
is found in the same verse:
…and in him is no
sin.
I John 3:5
Certainly we will find little
disagreement on the point that Jesus never sinned, but lived a perfect sinless
life on this earth. The words “no sin” are telling us there is no “sin nature” or “nature to sin” in Him.
It is the words, “in Him,” that the apostle emphasizes. The dwelling place of a child of God is, “in Him.” Paul emphasizes this repeatedly in the first
chapter of Ephesians; “…blessed in
Christ Jesus…chosen in Him…accepted in Him…in whom we
have redemption, etc.” Jesus
Christ, who suffered and died to “take
away our sin,” arose again from the dead and ascended up on high, and has
become the “dwelling place” of those
who are born of God.
The third conclusion is a little
harder for many to believe in this day.
The modern “orthodoxy” totally
denies these words of the apostle and calls any who would dare to teach them, a
“liar and a deceiver.”
Whosoever abideth in
him sinneth not:
I John 3:6
The “secret”
of a life free from sin is to “abide in
Him.” Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you” (John
15:4). In the next verse He
says, “He that abideth in me, and I in
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit” (John 15:5). He continues in verse six, “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth
as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are
burned” (John 15:6). Notice
that Jesus gave no middle ground between “abiding
in Him” and “abiding not in Him.” The one “brings
forth much fruit,” and the other is “cast
forth,” “withered,” “gathered,” “cast into the fire,” and “burned.” The apostle John, who knew the Lord Jesus in
the flesh better than any other man, says, “Whosoever
abideth in Him sinneth not.”
The fourth conclusion given by the
apostle is cast out by twenty first century theologians as mean, wicked,
uncaring, and unloving.
…whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither
known him.
I John 3:6
Many have pointed out that the Greek
wording in this text is in the present tense, and should be interpreted to say,
“whosoever sinneth is not seeing Him
or knowing Him.” If that is the case
the result is the same. Just five
verses previous to this, John says, “We
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” I will point out that this verse should be
understood to say, “We shall be like Him,
because we see Him as He is.” Those who are “seeing Jesus as He is,” are “changed
into the same image, as by the Spirit of the Lord” (II Corinthians 3:18). How you see Jesus is of the utmost importance
to your present experience.
Jesus told the Jews in John 8:24, “…if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” Jesus was their Messiah, but they did not
believe it. They knew the prophecy of “The Messiah” given in Daniel 9:24-27,
that He would “finish the transgression,”
and “make an end of sins,” but they
did not believe that Jesus was “he,”
that is, “The Messiah.” If you reject the one who died on the cross
to “make an end of sins” in “everyone that believeth,” you will
die in your sins. If the only concept
you have of the savior is of one who died to “take the penalty” of your sin, then you will die in your
sins. Jesus is the “Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.” Those who believe upon Him, have their sin no
more.
A Little History
In January/February, 1985 I was in an
extended time of fasting and prayer.
Somewhere around the middle of February, I received a vision from the
Lord concerning Brother Swaggart’s ministry that I
really did not understand at the time. I
loved his preaching, and believed him to be a great man of God, so consider my
confusion as to the meaning of the vision the Lord gave me. I saw his ministry as a large passenger train
filled with people. Many of the people
had boarded his train because I was telling them he was “on the right track.” The
train left the crossing where I was and quickly came to full speed. I thought, “That train is unstoppable,” but I watched as it went three miles
into a wilderness, and suddenly, there was no more track. The train that I had thought was “unstoppable” went tumbling through the
wilderness where there was no track, and the death and devastation was horrible
to see. I understood that the three
miles in the vision represented three years, and the vision was about something
that would happen in three years. At the
time, I would not have believed what did happen almost exactly three years
later on February 21, 1988.
Not understanding the vision, I refused
to believe anything could possibly be wrong with this preacher I admired so
much. It was about six months later, in
the summer of 1985 that I began to hear him say some things that troubled me
deeply. I heard him say on his telecast,
“The Lord told me, ‘Don’t fail me, Jimmy,
because there is not enough time to raise up another ministry to reach the
world.” He said numerous times that
the Lord had told him that he was the only one that He could use to reach the
world, because “…we have the equipment.” I realized then that Brother Jimmy was
listening to a wrong spirit that was bringing him to “exalt himself” above measure.
Before the three years were up, I knew
that something was very wrong, but I still would never have believed exactly
what it was. I was on the radio every
day in several states at that time, including KJOJ in Conroe Texas which was
owned by the Swaggart ministries. In October, 1987, the Lord spoke to me to go
on WLUX radio in Baton Rouge, a station that also belonged to the ministry and
was on the church campus. Shortly after
going on WLUX, I took two of my sons by the station to meet the manager, a good
man named “Ted Sauceman,”
if I spell his name correctly. It was on
that day as we drove around the beautiful campus, looking at the most beautiful
ministry buildings, all of which were white and trimmed in the color gold, that
the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me in the words of Jesus, Mark 13:2: “Seest thou these great buildings? there
shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” I knew that He was not speaking literally
about the buildings, but about the ministry, and I understood for the first
time that God was about to bring His judgment against Jimmy Swaggart,
for what, I did not know.
I never called Brother Swaggart by name in my messages, but I was crying out
against sin in the churches with all my heart.
I hated sin with a “godly hatred,”
because I had myself been a “backslider”
just ten years before that time. I was
using the radio ministry, not only to “cry
out against sin in the churches,” but to tell the many visions I was
receiving from the Lord during that time period; visions of God’s judgment
against sin in the churches. Almost a
year before, I had received a vision of the downfall of Jim Bakker’s ministry
and actually aired it on the radio just hours before the scandal broke on the
five o’clock news, March 19, 1987.
Brother Sauceman
told me that some of the students at the Swaggart
Bible College perceived that I was preaching about Brother Swaggart
and demanded that I be taken off the air. He said there were so many making the demands
that he had to “send above” to get a
decision on the matter. He said that
anytime the words “above” or “upstairs” were used, it meant the Swaggart family.
However that may be, Brother Sauceman told me
that one of the family sent word to him, saying, “Leave Brother Surface alone, because he is preaching the truth.” I was not taken off of the station, but
continued through most of the year, even after the scandal broke. I wept like a baby when the news broke on the
twenty first of February, but sadly, I was suddenly a “hero” to many that had previously tried to hurt me. Brother Swaggart
became their enemy, but I prayed for him because I understood well, what he was
going through.
During the three year period from 1987
through 1989 I received dozens of visions of things that came to pass. Every time another scandal broke, however, I
would weep like a baby, because I identified with those who were failing. Finally, near the end of 1989, I came to the
place that I could not continue in the ministry God had given me. It was tearing me down, because I could
denounce the sins of others, but I did not have a gospel answer for them. I was still plagued at times with guilt and
horrible dreams of a past backsliding in my own life. One night as I wept before the Lord, I said
to Him, “If you can give me visions of
things to come before they happen, then surely you can give me an answer for
the sin problem that is in the heart of man.” I had come to the place that I felt like one
of Job’s comforters who were condemned by the young man Elihu,
“…because they had found no answer, and
yet had condemned Job” (Job 32:3).
I was condemning people I had no answer for. I continued in my prayer that night; “Lord, if you can’t give me an answer for
the sin problem that is in the heart of man, then I will close my Bible and
never preach again.” I continued, “It must be an answer that will work for
everyone who believes it, whether it is a ‘Jim Bakker,’ a ‘Jimmy Swaggart,’ or a ‘Leroy Surface’.”
Almost immediately, the doors to other
churches closed to our ministry, and I began to believe that ministry was all
over for me. In my personal study of the
word, however, I felt compelled to understand why Jesus died on the cross, and
why He shed His blood for us. I began to
ask these questions of other ministers and the most common answer I received
was, “He died on the cross to show how
much He loved us, so we would love Him and try to please Him.” I searched for messages on the blood of
Jesus, but found few. One man of God I
respected very much, compared the blood of Jesus to “horse’s blood” that had been infected with a disease the horse
could overcome in order to make a serum to inoculate man from the same
disease. That certainly did not satisfy
my hunger to understand. Piece by piece
the Lord began teaching me concerning the “truth”
that He had said would “make... free
indeed” (in reality; John 8:32-36).
It was in the spring of 1991 that the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ shown fully into my heart. I was writing a message I titled “The Vision and the Provision.” “The
Vision” was what God had “predestined”
His people to be from the beginning. No
man from the fall of Adam until Christ was able to approach that which God “foreknew” man to be, even though there
were those who kept “all the
righteousness of the law blamelessly” (Luke 1:5-6; Philippians
3:6). There had to be a “Provision” made for man if God was to
have his “Vision.” This is what Calvary was about. Jesus dying on the cross and shedding His
holy blood is our “provision.” If the result of Calvary does not produce a
new creation “in Christ” that is
everything God purposed for mankind from the beginning, then Jesus died in vain. He did not, however, die in vain, but rather
laid His life down to give us a “gospel”
which is “the power of God unto
salvation.” The “power” of the cross is to crucify the “old man” (the old sin nature); while the “power” of the blood is to sanctify. Both are received only by faith; not by our
works and efforts, but they are received in reality, in those who “know the truth.”
While writing “The Vision and the Provision,” I came to the scripture in Hebrews
9:13-14 which says, “For if the blood
of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean,
sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of
Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God,
purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” I thought I knew what a “conscience” was, but I looked the word up in Strong’s Greek
dictionary, and the definition was simply “moral
consciousness,” and I didn’t know what that was. I turned to an English dictionary and found “moral consciousness:” It said, “the innermost thoughts and feelings of
man.” Instantly I understood! It was as though a great “light” had pierced through to my soul. It was not what I was “doing,” or “desired to do,”
that was the problem, because I was not sinning, and had no desire to sin. I was, however, tormented by dreams and
remembrances of my “backslidden past.” The guilt of that past kept flooding back,
and I would wake up from a bad dream feeling unclean. I knew that I had been forgiven and restored
for over a decade, yet I felt like the Pharisees that Jesus spoke to in Matthew
23:25-26, saying, “Woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and
of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which
is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.”
When Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees
to “…cleanse first that which is within
the cup and platter,” He was telling them to do something they absolutely
could not do. We are not, however, “exempt” from the requirements of
righteousness just because we “cannot do
them.” That is what “The Provision” is about! The hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees
was not that they could not cleanse the inside of the cup; it was that they
cleansed the outside and said the cup was clean, while the inside was filled
with excess and extortion. Suddenly I
knew that Jesus had come, died on the cross, and shed His precious blood to do
for me what I could never do for myself.
This is the scriptural definition of mercy,
“…doing for others what they cannot do
for themselves.” I could “cleanse” my outside, but I could not
cleanse my inside, nor can any other person on this earth. That is why Jesus shed His precious blood;
not to “cover” our filthy inside, but
to cleanse us from all sin and iniquity, both inside and out. The
scripture in Hebrews 9:13-14 tells us that if the blood of bulls and
goats could sanctify the outside of man, “…how
much more shall the blood of Christ…purge your conscience (wash the inside
of the cup) from dead works to serve the
living God.” The “light” of this flooded my soul and I
lifted up my hands to the Lord as His presence flooded over me. “Thank
you Jesus for coming and shedding your precious blood to wash me inside.” The horrible dreams and imaginations that had
troubled me often since the time of my backsliding, turned off like you would
turn off a water faucet, and I was troubled no more. I had found rest for my soul, and it was in
Jesus, my Savior, who died for me.
About three months ago I had a dream
about Brother Swaggart, which I did not understand at
the time. In the dream he was trying to
put a new roof on a house. The shingles
were not ordinary in size; but were much larger than the originals, and had to
be placed on the house in an exact manner so as not to leak. He tried three times in different ways, but
each time when the rain came the house still leaked profusely. In the dream I was trying to tell him how he
should do it, but it seemed he simply could not understand. After the third
flawed attempt, I despaired that he would ever get it right; but finally, on
the fourth try, he did get it right, and the rains were kept out of the
house. I am despairing right now,
because his “roof” is still “leaking;” but I continue to pray that
he will “get it right.”
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Those who continue to believe that “justification
by faith” does nothing for them apart from giving them “righteousness” that “only
God can see,” are very much like the vain little Emperor in a classic fable
by Han Christian Anderson. I have copied
a condensed version of “The Emperor’s New
Clothes” from Wikipedia, which describes as well as anything I have seen,
the “righteousness” of much of the
modern church.
A vain Emperor who cares
for nothing but his appearance and attire hires two tailors who are really
swindlers that promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric
invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "just hopelessly
stupid". The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he
can for fear of appearing unfit for his position; his ministers do the same.
When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and
the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects, who play along with
the pretense. Suddenly, a child in the crowd, too young to understand the
desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing
nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes,
suspecting the assertion is true, but holds himself up proudly and continues
the procession, deciding never to be so vain again and to take his position
more seriously.
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the
fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed,
and that the shame of thy nakedness do
not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve,
that thou mayest see.
Revelation 3:18
Message 45 - By Leroy
Surface - The Scenario Revisited
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