Guard of the Heart
JUDE 1:5-6
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this (Jude is dealing here with a condition of a people who were slipping from their first estate of the faith of what they had known), how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. (Notice - Something happened to these people along the journey of life while under the ministry of an Exodus prophet that caused them to afterward believe not. We have seen this same thing repeat itself in this day under this end time exodus prophet’s ministry also. Why is it that we have seen so many over the years fail to hold to the truth of what they first believed and knew was true? – we want to know the answer to this, so that we can be on our guard against the same thing)
6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
This is not just a problem for human beings, because we know that a third of the holy angels of heaven failed to keep the faith of what they had first believed - they fell for Lucifer’s lie, and under the darkness of the lies that he told them, they became bound by chains of confusion – and that same condition that Lucifer caused in heaven has now become a reality on earth.
People in this day don’t know what truth is anymore.
II PETER 2:4-6
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness (Darkness is to be in a condition of spiritual ignorance of the truth of the word of God), to be reserved unto judgment; (Right up until this end time age, you had to die to go to hell to see the things that were down there, but now this condition of hell and its demons has been given access to the people of the earth by a “stairway” of science and technology, and so now the people of the earth are able to be influence and tormented in a far greater way than they have ever been before this time)
5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
Something happened to the people of the entire world at the time of Noah that influenced them away from God, and caused them to become a sinful generation that God had to end with a total destruction of a cataclysmic judgment of the entire earth.
What went wrong with that generation, and where did they failed was not in the realm of the seen world, but in the realm of the unseen spirit world of a condition deep within the seat of their affections – their hearts. The darkness of what their age had come to had penetrated deep into their hearts.
Brother Branham reads these two above scriptures in the sermon titled “Souls in Prison Now” preached 10th November 1963.
PROVERBS 4:23
23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. This work “keep” means to guard, watch, watch over.
New International Version - Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
New Living Translation - Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life
We want to first speak a little on these chains of darkness that Peter speaks of in 2nd Peter 2:4.
When a person is bound by a chain, then that is something that is designed to keep them from having freedom, and from escaping to a condition of freedom. And we also know that darkness is symbolically used for spiritual ignorance of the truth of the word of God. To walk in the light is to walk in the truth of the word of God, especially the light of the truth of the revealed word for your age.
**And so if we put these two things (chains and darkness) together, it is clear to see that this is a description of the condition of many people who are living in this end time Laodicean age of where complete darkness and ignorance of truth abound.
*We are living at a time of when billions of people have become so influenced under the conditions of Satan’s Eden that he has created on earth, and have become so bound up with all the chains of his lies and fake news to the point they will never be able to find the truth of what would set them free from those chains - many have become souls imprisoned now, imprisoned in chains of darkness under darkness.
SOULS.THAT.ARE.IN.PRISON.NOW_ JEFF.IN V-2 N-22 SUNDAY_ 63-1110M
25 And my subject this morning, the Lord willing, is: Souls That Are In Prison Now. Uh-huh. Souls That Are In Prison Now, shut up, forever condemned. Never, there's no way of being saved, see, souls that have been imprisoned now.
II TIMOTHY 3:1-7
1 ¶ This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent (lack of self-control), fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded (pride mixed with arrogance), lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women (woman who are morally weak and venerable - gullible) laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
*It is important that we realize that the world that we are living in today is a very different world than that of any other age. It is a world that has been infiltration by evils that have not so much been manifested in an external way of like a natural war of which we have all been captured and lock away in physical prisons, but a world of where we have been thrust into a spiritual warfare that is far greater than that of any other age. And the enemy of this hour wants to capture as many prisoners as they can by their deceit and lies and lock them up and chain them up on a spiritual level of the condition of the affections of their hearts.
There is a saying that goes – “the first casualty of war is truth”.
*The first lie that was told in heaven marked the beginning of war in heaven. The first lie that was told on earth (to Eve in the Garden of Eden) was the beginning of the greatest battle ever fought on earth – a battle that would rage on and be fought in the spiritual realms of the human mind and heart. This is why we need a guard of our hearts in this hour.
PSALM 101:1-6
1 ¶ A Psalm of David. I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O LORD, will I sing.
2 I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.
3 I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes (because what you see with your eyes affects your spirit): I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.
4 A froward heart shall depart from me (this word “froward” means twisted, distorted, crooked - in other words a heart that is bent out of shape of what God intended for the human seat of affections to be): I will not know a wicked person.
5 Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off: him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer.
6 Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me: he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me.
*Our heart is the place from where we truly believe from, it is the place of where our soul resides, and from where the deepest part of where the spirit of our subconscious mind exists of our unconscious thoughts. It is our thoughts that are far deeper down then the everyday thoughts of where we live and think in our conscious mind.
**Our conscious minds think in English, but our subconscious mind thinks in concepts of motives and desires, and so this is where the seat of our conscious thoughts are generated from - our conscious thoughts surface from that realm.
*And this subconscious realm of these thoughts of our heart is also the realm of where faith or doubt in the word of God truly exists within us. It is also the realm of where our true character lays. This is why faith in that realm comes by hearing the word, and doubt in that realm comes by hearing things contrary to the word – that is how doubt first entered into the heart of Eve.
PROVERBS 21:2
2 ¶ Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.
*The heart of man is where the seat of his affections lay, and what we sow as seeds into that subconscious realm will affect the garden of our minds of what grows and forms from the deepest level of what we are in our spiritual makeup. And this is why we cannot fake true faith in God, because true faith can only come from that subconscious place, it cannot be worked up in the conscious mind by positive thinking, it has to be something that must first be planted into our subconscious realm though the gateway of our conscious minds (we have studied on these things before).
EXPECTATION_ PHOENIX.AZ SUNDAY_ 54-0228A
E-42 Now, you say, "I've got faith." The first thing, you have to have a base for faith. That's God's Word. Well then, the man goes to school and he learns theology. He reads It, said, "God said so." "Yes, I believe that." He believes it here in his mind. See? But he's got a subconscious also. And that subconscious disagrees with this. Because when he starts to do it, he's a little bit scared it won't happen, and it won't. That's right.
*We can learn the word of God in our conscious minds by reading our bible and going to church and so forth, but if our hearts are constantly being exposed to certain negative influences of the world of the many voices of Satan’s fivefold ministry, then that can be the reason why many will struggle to have a truth faith that comes from the heart – this is where the greatest battle is being fought in this age.
The god of this evil age has designed the things of this age to try to rob us of a true relationship with the true God that God desires for us and has designed for us to come into by the vehicle of the truth of the word revealed to us for this hour.
**As young people – we have to learn to guard our hearts in this evil age of what gets passed out minds and becomes a character of either faith or doubt deep within us. Jude is addressing this problem and was trying to put them in remembrance.
SATAN'S.EDEN_ JEFF.IN V-2 N-20 SUNDAY_ 65-0829
14 Now, let us look now to this great... for a few minutes, this great, sinful day that we're now living in. I don't believe there ever was a day that I've ever read in history... There's been greater days of persecution, when the children of God was put to death on every hand. But to see the deceitfulness of the enemy, we've never had a day like this we're now living. It's the most cunning, deceitful day. And when I see that, it brings this, that, the Christian has to be more on his toe today than he ever was in any age.
***These people who are bound with these chains of darkness is the result of the god of the evil age blinding them in the realm of their conscious and subconscious thoughts, so that even if they heard the word of truth spoken to them, all the lies and confusion and fake news and conspiracy theories have become chains of darkness to them, and for many, those chains of darkness will never let them go free to believe the truth – the gospel of truth has become permanently hid from them.
II CORINTHIANS 4:3-4
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
**Notice here – their minds have been blinded; in other words, there mind cannot understand what truth is anymore. Even if the light of truth was shining right in front of them, their understanding and reasoning has become so bent out of shape by all the evils of this age that they could never come to a belief in the gospel of truth and light.
Light will save a person… And light is truth, while darkness is anything that is a lie.