Communicating with God’s World of Spirit – its laws and its purpose | Pastor Johannes Greber

- 140 - Proverbs 19: 16: ‘He who keeps God’s commandments shall keep his life; but he who disdains the word of God shall die.’ John 8: 51: ‘Whoever keeps My word shall not see death in all eternity.’ • The sin of apostasy from God therefore carries with it spiritual death. Romans 6: 16: ‘Do you not know that you are either servants of sin, which leads to death, or servants who obey the call of righteousness?’ Romans 6: 21-23: ‘What fruits had you to show in those days when you served sin? Only such of which you are now ashamed, for they end in death. But now that you are free of sin and have become God’s children, you have the fruit of sanctification, and eternal life as a result. For the wages of sin is “death” but God’s gift of grace is eternal life.’ James 1: 15: ‘Not all sin leads to separation from God, but only ‘the sin that is fully developed brings forth death’. It is not the stumbling and falling of those who believe in God and seek Him that bring forth spiritual death, for the stumbling is through human weakness, and the falls are suffered on the road toward God. • But abandoning God, turning your back on Him, and living as though there were no God, that is the sin that brings forth spiritual death. The ‘dead’ are God’s enemies. They have placed themselves under the rule of the spirits of Evil. Hosea 6: 7: ‘For like Adam they have broken the covenant: they have faithlessly fallen away from me.’ They have deserted [their God] and serve the Prince of Darkness. They have chosen him as their god. That is the meaning of the word ‘idolatry’ that occurs so often in the Holy Writ. Hosea 5: 4: ‘All of their doings will not allow them to return to their God; for the spirit of idolatry lives within them.’ Because of their disloyal beliefs they are not ready for a return to God. Hosea 13: 14: ‘Why should I free them from the power of the kingdom of the dead? Why should I redeem them from death? No. Rather: O death, where are thy scourges? Hell, where is thy plague?’ Plagues and scourges are the punishments that God imposes upon apostates through the spirit powers of Evil. They have to be worn down first by suffering and wretchedness; they must become

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