Living Hope Fellowship Church...Sermons From the Pastor

OLD WAYS
by Pastor Kevin Badgley

Let's get into the scriptures right away. Jeremiah 6:16 says, "Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein."
I am amazed how many people will not listen to the Old Testament anymore. Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Matthew 5:18 says, "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." The Old Testament is just as important as the New Testament. Don't harden your heart against the Word of God. It is the only way that you can make heaven.
Revelation 2:4-5 says, "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."
Return to your first love of God or, in other words, God will remove His anointing. God will remove His angels that guard the house of God. He will destroy it and call it Ichabod, which means that the glory has departed. That church will be nothing more than a social club, if they do not repent, and remember their first love in the Lord, and their first days of seeking God by faith. If they don't do these things, God will destroy them spiritually, and then it will be no more than a slaughter house for those who have gone into the ditch.
God tells us in the Old Testament and in the New Testament to look back on what He has told us in days gone by. Galatians 5:7 says, "Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?" God is wanting us to believe Him just as much now as we did in the beginning. If you were born again, saved, and bought with the blood of Jesus, there was a love of God that came into your heart. There was a faith in God that came into your heart that could not be explained, but knew that God had touched you. However, some today are dry, cold, indifferent, and can care less if anybody gets saved again. Their heart has turned against God, and they are angry with God. They don't believe God anymore, and they are wondering what all this is about.
Beloved, you have been ripped off by the devil! Satan has lied to you, and you have believed him. The Bible says that all who believe him are damned. What is damnation? It is not having a love of the truth; it is not believing the truth anymore, but believing a lie.
It says this in 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12: "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." They didn't have pleasure in God's truth and righteousness.
Beloved, we need as a church to be like the first church in Acts where it started in the power of the Holy Ghost. The power of God is what started the church, and the power of God will keep the church going. With the power of God they are going to usher in the trumpet sounding, and the rapture of the church out of this world. We will go into the joy of the Lord that God has prepared for them that love Him, wait on Him, and believe Him.
God is looking for a people who are not looking back to the world, but are looking to the old paths that He started them in. Look back to your beginning in God. If you have never had a walk with the Lord, you may not understand all of this. Hang on, and you will.
God wants His people to start looking to Him and remember what He has brought them out of. Remember what He can do! Start reading His Word instead of just sitting around. This sermon can jump start you if you let it. That is all that it is designed to do. You must read the Word yourself. You must pray to God yourself. You must repent from wicked works yourself. You can't fly around on someone else's coat tail, or go from channel to channel, or from teacher to teacher, or tape to tape, or book to book. You must fast and pray, and read God's Word and obey it. That is all that it takes to live for God, but if you do not do all of these things, you cannot make it.
You must look and see what God has commanded! God says to repent from your present standing, turn from your wicked ways, and do your first works. What were the first works of the church, beloved? They healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out devils, and preached the gospel to the poor. They were saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost. Then they rejoiced in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they could walk in power. They walked in victory, and they had a joy that no man could take.
The church world today is out of joy. They are out of gas. Some of them have a lot of energy, but some of them are dead. The Bible declares in James 2:26, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." When something is dead it stinks! God wants people to get up out of the miry clay, out of the deadness, and come into life. He wants them to get out of the things that they are in now, and believe Him for the victory that He has designed the church to have. You must turn from the ways of "now", and turn back to God. You have to do this, or you cannot make heaven your home!
God says to stand in the ways and see. In other words, pray, and seek God, and look in the Word of God, and ask for the old paths. Jeremiah 6:16 says, "Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. . . ."
The way being taught in many places is not the good way. It is just "a way". John 14:6 says, "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." No man, no preacher, no religion, no church, can come to the Father, except by Jesus! Hallelujah!
If you walk in the good way, you shall find rest for your soul. Many in the church are troubled and weary. Many are battling. Many are hammered. They are so troubled and vexed, they look just like the world in many cases. The problem is that they have just enough religion to be miserable, and just enough understanding of God's will to be upset, and they won't follow it. They don't continue in God, and fast and seek after God, so that they might be crucified with Christ, that they can be raised then in His resurrection power. God wants His people to be raised in His power, but, invariably, before we can walk in resurrection power, we must be crucified with Christ. Jesus says that this is the only way to get to God.
Jesus gave the first church a commission. He told them to GO! Matthew 10:1 says, "And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease." Most of the church world cannot produce these kinds of miracles. They can't even heal one disease, let alone all of them. Many do not even accept the fact that there are devils to cast out! Many will even argue and say, Well, He did that for His twelve disciples only. If the power of God was only for the twelve disciples, or for the early followers of Christ, then salvation was only for them! If the power of God, and the manifestation of the miracles of God were only for the first church, then the last church, which is now, doesn't have the power of God, and salvation is not for us either!
The whole Word of God is for us! The devil has lied to us, and stolen from us. The devil has vexed, oppressed, lied, and made a reproach out of the truth! People say, Oh, you can't go back to the old paths. That was old fogy stuff. That is old fashioned. That is not for now. God has changed, and given us a new work, and a new word.
The devil is a liar! He comes as an angel of light! He doesn't always come as a filthy, ragged, vexing, displeasure to men. Many times he comes with a smooth alternative to the gospel. This is what he has done to the church world. When men could not produce the power of God, instead of them seeking God, they listened to the devil. They were not able to produce the miracles that Jesus produced. John 14:12 says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." Do you believe that scripture? If we are not producing what Jesus produced, then something is wrong with us! Nothing is wrong with God or His Word. Nothing is wrong with Heaven, so something is wrong with us! Satan has robbed from us. He has lied saying that it passed away with the disciples, or he says that God is doing something in a different way now. This is what Satan has done to the church at large.
Let's go back to the old paths! Look and see what God has done by His Word. The Bible, God's Word, is old fashioned, but many people, preachers, and churches want a different device today. They are not going the way that Jesus ordained by His blood. They are inventing new devices. They have made the Word of God of none effect by their vain tradition.
Jesus said in Mark 7:7, "Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." It didn't say that they didn't worship God, or that they didn't know all about Christ. It didn't say that they didn't preach out of the Book. Yet, they are doing it in vain! Many do not believe this. They say that way is too hard. They say there is no way that God would send the church world, who is worldly, to hell.
Jesus wants to walk in His bride, in our flesh and bone, if we will let Him. The Lord is calling us out of the modern way, and He wants us to go back to the old paths, to return to our first love, which is Jesus. He wants us to go to the King James Version Bible, which is the real one. He wants us to return to good, sound, hard preaching, which is what He did. He wants us to do all the things He did. Then we will have God sent, Holy Ghost revival!
God wants His people to be free of the modern day tradition, and the dry coldness, and the false zeal of today's modern church. Much of the stuff that you are seeing on T.V. and hearing on many broadcasts is not from God's Word. If it was, people would be getting free from sin, and they would be getting delivered from devils. They would not walk in filthiness and uncleanness. They would walk in holiness. What good is it to be delivered or be healed down here by some means other than God, and then not walk in holiness? Then you will stand before a holy and righteous Judge on judgment day before God. He will say, Depart from me ye workers of iniquity.
Delivering or healing by any thing other than holiness, means they were working signs, but they were working sinful signs. Those signs are lying wonders according to 2 Thessalonians 2:9. This is the spirit of anti-Christ. It says that you don't have to walk in the old ways, because we are going the new ways. Many quote the scripture in Isaiah 43:19, that says, "Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth. . . ."
The old paths are a new work, as far as the church world is concerned. They don't believe the old ways, and for many decades now have not been walking in the old paths which Jesus has called us to. Jesus has called us to victory and to holiness when He was walking the earth. We must continue even at this hour to do the same thing or we will not see the victory or the glory of God.
Today, beloved, harden not your hearts. God is still on the throne. Return to your first love, and seek God's face. Get a King James Bible, and read it, obey it, and believe God. Fast, and pray, and seek the Lord until you see the victory! He has promised us that He would never leave us nor forsake us. Seek the real Jesus!                                                                                

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