A Sermon for Bible Believers
The Spirit of Adoption (part 1 of 4)
- For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
To understand best how the Spirit of adoption works, it would be necessary to understand the nature of the olive tree, for there is a spiritual olive tree as well as a physical one. Therefore, we will begin with the description and history of the olive tree and its significance to God.
Description of the Natural Olive Tree
The olive tree, an evergreen, is native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean and adjoining coastal areas of southeastern Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa. It grows best in direct sunlight and is well suited for rocky calcareous subsoil. Its trunk is knotty and gnarled with smooth ash colored bark and leathery silvery green leaves. It has feathery white flowers, a solid fine-grained yellowish wood, and an edible fruit—the olive.
Due to its extensive and robust root system, it is drought, disease, and fire resistant. It is capable of regenerating itself even if fire destroys it. Its hardiness lends it a very long lifespan. Most olive trees are hundreds of years old and experts estimate a few of the olive trees in the Mediterranean area are 2,000 years old.
A symbol of peace, wisdom, glory, fertility, power, pureness, and the color green, which signifies life; Bible believers believe that it was the original Tree of Life when God had given it supernatural abilities to sustain life forever.
- ¶ And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
- Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
- So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
Since the beginning of Creation to the present day, it has always been one of mankind’s greatest obsessions to prevent aging and its subsequent death.
While good health and a long life are worthy objectives, only through the Lord Jesus Christ—Who paid our sin penalty with His own life—can we find eternal life.
- For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
- And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
The Miracles of the Olive Leaf
This tree of life—although the Great Flood has greatly diminished its power—still has awesome abilities to enhance our lives. To appreciate the spiritual olive tree, it is necessary to appreciate the natural olive tree first.
Blood Pressure
Oleuropein is a polyphenol that can help lower bad cholesterol and blood pressure, prevent cancer, protect against oxidative damage, and help guard against cognitive decline. [2] Most of olive leaf and oil’s antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and disease-fighting characteristics are a benefit from oleuropein. [3] [4] [5] Oleuropein caused tumors in animals to completely regress and disappear in 9 to 12 days. [6]
- In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Olive leaf extracts in animal studies lead to significant drops in elevated blood pressure regardless of when supplementation occurs. [7] [8] The extracts have the ability to both prevent and treat high blood pressure. [9]
A drop in blood pressure also reduces pressure in the heart’s left ventricle, resulting in improved blood flow to the heart’s own coronary blood vessels. Further human studies verify that olive leaf extracts significantly reduce blood pressure. [10]
One particularly fascinating study was conducted among identical twins, which eliminated genetic variations, with blood pressure in the range of 120-139 mmHg over 80-89 mmHg (borderline hypertension). After 8 weeks, placebo recipients showed no change in blood pressure, but patients supplemented with 1,000 mg/day of olive leaf extract dropped their pressures by an average of 11 mmHg systolic and 4 mmHg diastolic. [11] The supplemented patients also experienced significant reductions in LDL cholesterol.
Another human study compared olive leaf extract against Captopril,® a common hypertension drug. [12] Patients with 140-159 mmHg over 90-99 mmHg (stage-1 hypertension) took twice daily, either 500 mg of olive leaf extract or 12.5 mg of Captopril® which was increased as needed to 25 mg. After 8 weeks, both groups experienced a drop in average blood pressure (11.5 and 13.7 mmHg systolic; 4.8 and 6.4 mmHg diastolic, respectively), with the olive leaf extract performing as well as Captopril®. Although oleuropein acts as a natural calcium channel blocker and Captopril® is a well-known ACE-inhibitor, both oleuropein and Captopril® decrease the tension in the walls of blood vessels and promote a widening of the blood vessels (vasodilation), which lowers blood pressure. [13] [14] [15] [16]
Arterial Health
The endothelial cells that form the lining of arterial walls maintain even blood flow and pressure, and regulate smooth muscle cell distribution around the arteries. Atherosclerosis is a dysfunction of the endothelial cells where plaque buildup causes hardening of the arteries, eventually blocking blood flow and triggering a heart attack or stroke.
Olive leaf extracts increase the production of nitric oxide, a signaling molecule that helps relax blood vessels, [17] [18] improving blood flow. A class of molecules known as matrix metalloproteinases, or MMPs, which makes vessel linings vulnerable to plaque damage by dissolving the gel-like matrix that holds cells together, are reduced in production and activity by olive leaf extracts. [19] [20] [21] LDL-cholesterol, one of the earliest events in atherosclerosis development, is prevented from oxidizing by olive leaf extracts. [22] [23] [24] Oxidized LDL causes inflam-mation, damaging arteries, and olive leaf extract targets that inflammation. [21] [25] [26]
Polyphenol compounds in olive leaves directly prevent the formation of arterial plaques, reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke. First, by reducing the production and activity of “adhesion molecules,” [27] [28] [29] which cause white blood cells and platelets to stick to arterial walls, and then, by reducing platelet aggregation (clumping), which reduces the risk of tiny clots forming at sites of plaque. [30] [31]
Diabetes
Chronic blood sugar elevation (diabetic and pre-diabetic state) imposes substantial oxidative stress throughout the body, which rapidly accelerates aging by triggering inflammation and tissue damage. Diabetes treatments have two main goals: lowering blood glucose to normal levels and limiting the damage done by the inevitable blood sugar spikes that still occur—both goals realized by olive leaf extracts.
Olive leaf extracts and oleuropein lower blood sugar through several mechanisms. They slow the digestion of starches into simple sugars, slow absorption of those sugars from the intestine, and increase the uptake of glucose into tissues from the blood. [32] [33] They protect tissues from oxidant damage caused by glucose binding to proteins (glycation). [34] [35] Levels of other natural antioxidant systems in the body also increase, improving the degree of protection. [34]
Blood sugar and cholesterol in diabetic animals supplemented with olive leaf extracts experienced significant reductions. In one dramatic study, researchers divided diabetic rats into two groups, where one group received olive leaf extract and the other group received glyburide (Diabeta®), a common glucose-lowering drug. The results of the study proved that the antidiabetic effects of the extract were superior to those of the drug. [36]
When researchers fed lab rats a high fat, high-carbohydrate diet, they developed all the signs of metabolic syndrome (excessive abdominal fat, hypertension, abnormal lipid profile, and impaired glucose tolerance). However, when they received olive leaf extracts with that unhealthy diet, all of the metabolic abnormalities either improved or disappeared. [37]
Supplementing with 500 mg of olive leaf extract once daily resulted in significant reductions in hemoglobin A1C levels, the standard marker of long-term exposure to elevated blood sugar in diabetic people. [32] Supplementation also lowered fasting plasma insulin levels, where chronic insulin elevations contribute to diabetics’ higher cancer risks. [32] [38]
Cancer
The Mediterranean diet is renowned for its ability to reduce the risk of cancer. [39] [40] Oleuropein is the key component of the diet’s anti-cancer effects that reduces cancer risk.
Oleuropein’s antioxidants battle cancer formation at its earliest stages. Malignant cancer cells develop from damaged DNA from reactive oxygen. Olive leaf extracts inhibit that oxidation which damages the DNA. [41] The growth and organization into tumors of cancer cells rely on a host of chemical signaling factors that olive leaf compounds inhibit and disrupt. [42] [43] [44] Oleuropein also suppresses an enzyme that cancer cells rely on to derive and store energy from dietary carbohydrates. [45]
Inflammation is another major promoter of tumor growth, which oleuropein and olive leaf extracts prevent. [42]
In many breast cancer cells that depend on estrogen for their survival, oleuropein reduces the cancer cells’ ability to respond to it. [44]
Oleuropein also inhibits the production of the “protein-melting” enzymes that cancer cells use to invade healthy tissues and metastasize to distant parts of the body. [20]
Oleuropein and olive leaf extracts reduce the rates of occurrence and subsequent development, of a broad variety of cancers, including those of the brain, head and neck, breast, liver, bladder, prostate, and skin, as well as leukemia. [43] [44] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50]
In another especially vivid study, researchers orally supplemented mice with a high spontaneous cancer rate, with oleuropein. The tumors completely regressed and disappeared in 9 to 12 days. Upon examining the tumors before they vanished, no cancer cells remained alive and their consistency was disordered and crumbly. [6]
Neuro Disorders
By suppressing inflammation and reducing the damage done by oxidative stress, olive leaf extracts help protect the brain and central nervous system from the damage brought on by strokes and age-related degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. [51]
Damaging processes such as oxidative stress occur within minutes of acute brain injuries as a stroke or trauma, which worsen by the return of normal blood flow to the area. [51] [52]
Animals that were pre-treated with olive leaf extract and then induced with a stroke experienced a sharp reduction in markers of oxidation and an increase in normal cellular antioxidant systems as compared with untreated animals. [53] [54] Microscopic examination of brain tissue revealed a similar decline in injury to brain cells and up to a 55% decrease in the volume of dying brain tissue. [51] Spinal cord injury in animals pretreated with oleuropein showed similar results. [54]
In the case of neurodegenerative diseases where oxidative stress occurs more gradually, the end effects accumulate over a lifetime, producing the same inflammation and other changes that result in abnormal proteins that kill neurons and otherwise interfere with brain function. Olive leaf extracts help prevent these abnormal proteins from assembling into the neurofibrillary tangles seen in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s and similar diseases. [55] [56] [57]
Arthritis
Folk remedies in the Mediterranean have long been using olive leaves and their extracts as a remedy for arthritis. Research has now proven that olive leaf extracts do in fact interfere with the development of several different kinds of arthritis, including gout, rheumatoid arthritis, and osteoarthritis.
The accumulation of uric acid crystals in the joints is the cause of gout, which are the byproducts of impaired recycling of DNA and RNA in cells. In a mechanism mimicked by Allopurinol®, the gold standard drug therapy for gout, oleuropein inhibits xanthine oxidase, an enzyme that converts DNA and RNA into uric acid, thus preventing the buildup of uric acid. [58]
When researchers administered oleuropein at the earliest sign of rheumatoid arthritis in animal models, oleuropein prevented symptoms from developing and produced marked improvement in the microscopic appearance of joint tissue from the affected animals. Even when administered after arthritis was fully developed, there was still significant improvement to inflamed joints, compared with untreated animals. [59]
Oleuropein administered similar benefits on osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease. In animal models, olive leaf extract reduced joint swelling, improved the microscopic appearance of joint tissue, and prevented the production of inflammatory cytokines. [60]
Viruses
The antiviral activity of oleuropein is surprising, [61] especially in light of the fact that there are no effective manmade drugs against viruses. The virucidal effect of oleuropein against hemorrhagic septicemia rhabdovirus (VHSV) reduces virus infectivity and avoids cell-to-cell fusion of uninfected cells, probably acting on the virus envelope. [62] Oleuropein treatment also efficiently blocks the secretion of hepatitis B surface antigen from infected HepG2 2.2.15 and reduces the viremia of hepatitis B virus (HBV). [63] Oleuropein has the ability to bind and inhibit human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in a dose-dependent manner HIV-1 integrase activity. [64] [65]
Osteoporosis
Oleuropein stimulates production of osteoblasts (bone-building cells), which counters bone density loss and fights osteoporosis. [66]
Pharmacological Effects
Oleuropein is antimicrobial against both gram negative and positive bacteria, including Lactobacillus plantarum, Bacillus cereus and Salmonella enteritidis. [67] Oleuropein is antimyco- plasmal, even against mycoplasma strains resistant to common antibiotic treatments. [68]
Oleuropein is good for the treatment of human intestinal or respiratory tract infections. [69] The molecular mechanisms underlying oleuropein antimicrobial activity are still a mystery. [70]
Olive oil and olive leaf extract are renowned natural traditional remedies used for the treatment of different conditions, including polio, psoriasis, candida, allergies, colds, tuberculosis, chronic fatigue, various infections in the lungs, liver, teeth, ears, etc., dermatitis, wound healing and treatment of burns, stomach and intestinal pain, malaria-induced fever, alopecia, rheumatic pain, otitis, rickets, distortions, sciatica, hypertension, as a diuretic, as a laxative and as an aphrodisiac. [71] A liquid olive leaf extract has an antioxidant capacity almost double that of green tea extract and four times higher than vitamin C.
Where I Found the Best Deal
After doing the research for this sermon, I came to realize that the olive tree could solve my own several health issues. Therefore, I have spent many more hours comparing dozens of products out of hundreds, trying to find the best potency for my dollar. What I have found is the product pictured here with an Oleuropein content standardized to 40%—super concentrated for something that’s not medical grade. The average content potency of other competing products was 20% with some going as low as 6%. You can save some money with the 120-capsules bottle over two of the 60-capsules bottles.
Interesting Facts about Christianity for Bible Believers
for Bible Believers
How God Gave Us the Bible and Purified It
and Purified It
No care was taken about how the people were led as long as the priests were fed. Instead of God’s Word, man’s word was obeyed; instead of Christ’s testament, the pope’s canon. The law of God was seldom read and never understood, so Christ’s saving work and the effect on man’s faith were not examined. Because of this ignorance, errors and sects crept into the church, for there was no foundation for the truth that Christ willingly died to free us from our sins — not bargaining with us but giving to us. [72]
The Morning Star of the English Reformation
of the English Reformation
From his position of influence at Oxford University during the 14th century as a seminary professor and a priest within the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), the Lord provoked Wycliffe with the greed, vice, abuse, and excesses of a religion that owned one third of the wealth of England while its clergy made up only two percent of the population. Monasteries that originally had served as spiritual sanctuaries had turned into swamps of material gratification. Opportunists within the RCC used the Roman religion to amass power, fortunes and land holdings while shielding themselves from prosecution and taxes. Disgusted and angered, he began expressing his dissident views through his books and tracts, setting the stage for the Reformation that would kindle 150 years later, eventually giving a pure English Bible to every man.
In the years that followed, as Wycliffe was attacking the RCC with his writings, God protected his life with the crucial support of the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt (Ghent – Belgium through his mother), who also became his ally. Gaunt, the Earl Marshal Henry Percy, and a number of other friends always accompanied Wycliffe whenever the Roman clergy summoned him. Gaunt had political power through the Crown and sometimes threatened the clergy that he would humble their pride, hinting at the intent to secularize the possessions of their Church.
Wycliffe and Gaunt had a two-way relationship. Wycliffe needed Gaunt to protect him so he could reform the RCC. [73] Gaunt needed Wycliffe, the leading scholar of the leading university in England, to marshal support for seizing the church’s assets to finance his ambitions of making England a world power.
Accountability in Stewardship
Wycliffe wrote essays “On Divine Dominion” and “On Civil Dominion” where he taught accountability in stewardship. A leader may legitimately lose his office and privileges if oversight found him faithless.
[…]
Men held whatever they had received from God as stewards, and if found faithless could justly be deprived of it. [74]
- Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:
- And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.
- His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:
- Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
- Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.
- For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
- And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Needing funds to prosecute the on-going Hundred Years War with France, Gaunt asked Wycliffe to present his ideas on dominion before Parliament in 1371. Gaunt had hoped that Parliament would feel justified to pillage RCC assets. In the matter of tithe payments or church tax, the king’s council asked Wycliffe his opinion on whether it was lawful to withhold them to Rome and he responded that it was. [75]
The King Is Supreme
In his De ecclesia (“On the Church”), Wycliffe clearly proclaimed the supremacy of the king over the priesthood [76] in that the king is above the pope in temporal things.
- This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.
- ¶ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
- Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
- For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
- For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
- Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?
- Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.
Christ is the Head of the Church
At this time, the king was under the power of the pope where he had to ask permission to do anything or risk excommunication and damnation in Hell. Wycliffe attacked the Pope and the clergy for their worldly wealth and dominion, luxury and pomp, and for claiming the Headship of the Church.
- And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
- For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.
- For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
- Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Transubstantiation Is a Fraud
In 1379-80, he boldly published his tracts On Apostasy and On the Eucharist. He opposed the idolatry and superstition of the Mass, saying that no one can recreate the literal body of the Lord Jesus in the Mass (transubstantiation). Rather, independent of what the priest says, the reception of Christ is spiritual through faith in the Eucharist. [77] Referring to Berengarius of Tours’ statement of 1059, Wycliffe interpreted this to mean that the bread remained bread even after the consecration.
The doctrine of transubstantiation is a satanic doctrine. Known as the spirit of bondage, transubstantiation gives the RCC the perceived power over death and Hell, even power over the body of Jesus Christ Himself. To that end, people will obey the RCC to escape damnation.
- And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
- And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:
- For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.
- And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
- Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
Satan desires bodies, especially the body of Moses. Considering that he has deceived and enslaved billions of people over the centuries with the pretended change of the bread and wine into the physical body and blood of Jesus Christ, what could he do if he had possession of the real physical body of Moses? Fortunately, only God knows where the body of Moses lies. Satan also knows that God is going to use the body of Moses during the tribulations.
- Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
- ¶ And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
- These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
- And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.
- These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.
Crimes and Frauds of the RCC
He attacked the very idea of indulgences, of a gratuitous quid pro quo forgiveness that nullifies God’s gift of forgiveness.
Wycliffe accused the clergy of simony [80] (selling of church offices) when they collected annates [81] (the first year’s consecrated profits of a benefice) and indulgences (reducing time spent in Purgatory). He also rejected the doctrine of Purgatory because the Pope is a mere man who has no power over death, even of his own.
The Scriptures teach that only the blood of Jesus Christ, not Purgatory, can cleanse away sin.
- But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
- ¶ And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
- And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
- And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
- And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
- And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Wycliffe also disapproved of clerical celibacy, pilgrimages, and praying to saints. [73] Even the Apostle Peter, claimed by the RCC to be its first Pope, had a wife.
- ¶ And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever.
- And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them.
- A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
- Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
- One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
- (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)
- Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.
- What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
- Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.
- How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?
Wycliffe rejected the Requiem or Requiem Mass because it is a fraud. A Requiem is a Mass in the RCC offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons. [83] However, death is final and there is no changing of its outcome. Either God wrote a person’s name in the Book of Life or He didn’t. If the deceased rejected God during his lifetime, he has then chosen to spend eternity without God, Mass or no Mass.
The RCC Attempts to Silence Wycliffe
On 22 May 1377, Pope Gregory XI issued five papal bulls against Wycliffe, denouncing 18 theses of his as erroneous and dangerous to Church and State. The RCC will stop at nothing to suppress any threats to its power over the people and their wealth. The next year, the RCC summoned him to appear in Rome where he faced martyrdom if not for the protection of John of Gaunt and the Great Schism of 1378. It was at this time that there were two Popes competing for Head of the RCC—a French and a Roman Pope. While the Roman church in England remained loyal to the Roman pope, the Roman pope meanwhile caused the monarch of Bohemia to break its alliance with France and ally with England, France’s nemesis, ending the Schism.
In 1382, two years before Wycliffe’s death, the Romanist Archbishop of Canterbury, William Courtenay, lodged heresy charges against the Oxford scholar. The Blackfriars Synod convened to judge 24 of Wycliffe’s teachings. Ten of them were condemned as heresy and the rest labeled as errors. The bishops received temporal power to restrain the power of Lollardy at Oxford where the bishops ordered Wycliffe’s writings burned. In the prevailing hostile mood, some of his followers recanted in order to avoid death. Wycliffe himself escaped imprisonment and death because of his connections to the English court. Condemned as a heretic and banished from Oxford, he spent his last years at his Lutterworth parish. [84]
Courtenay was quick to seize the initiative obtained at Blackfriars and urged Parliament to pass a Statute of the Realm outlawing dissent.
The three doctrines that Wycliffe expounded which upset the Roman Catholic Church the most as being subversive were:
- His opposition to emphasis on good works;
- His opposition to the Sacraments as vitally important to salvation.
- His work upon an English translation of the Bible as the best guide to a moral life.
The Crowning Work of the Bible
It was not until the twilight years of his life that he came to a fully developed position on the authority of the Scriptures. He believed that it is the right of every Christian to study the Bible, which emphasizes the need to know the importance of Christ alone as the only way to salvation through grace and not of pilgrimages, works and the Mass.
Wycliffe had come to regard the scriptures as the only reliable guide to the truth about God, and maintained that all Christians should rely on the Bible rather than on the teachings of popes and clerics. In fact, he even said that there was no scriptural justification for the papacy. [86]
Publishing Wycliffe’s Bible in 1382, he translated the Latin Vulgate into Middle English.
Though banishment prevented him from appearing in public outside of Lutterworth, John Wycliffe still had many disciples, students from Oxford, itinerant preachers and others who hungered and thirsted after righteousness. They spread the gospel truth through England and Scotland. Called “Lollards” by their enemies, he properly referred to these itinerants as “evangelical men” because of their message, or “apostolic men” because of their love for Bible basics.
His associates completed the translation of the Old Testament by 1384, the same year he suffered a second stroke, and died at age 60 while he was at Mass in the parish church on Holy Innocents’ Day, 28 December 1384. His assistant, John Purvey, chose Midland English, the dialect of London, which came to dominate the entire country when he updated additional versions in 1388 and 1395.
Final Thoughts
God had first raised up Wycliffe, and then many others, to break the terrible terroristic power of Satan’s sun worshippers [91] which eventually resulted in the RCC losing their grip over the temporal power over most countries. This has been termed “The Reformation.” With the loss of their control over temporal rulers, the RCC changed its tactics to good works in order to regain its majority in the populations. When it regains temporal control, terrorism will repeat.
God’s word—the Bible—only made the Reformation possible when Wycliffe inspired other holy men to provide the life-changing Bible to the masses in their mother tongue. Out of the English courts’ Norman French and three English dialects, the English of Wycliffe, Oxford, and Chaucer, became the universal language of the world.
About Me and the Ministry
In the month of November after my last class for the semester, the Lord enabled me to travel to my hometown of Daudu where I conducted my grandma’s funeral. It wasn’t easy because she died without Jesus. However, it was an opportunity to preach Jesus to my family members regardless. My mother was also there and she feared for my life daily because so many people are involved with Satanism and are offended with the Gospel.
I stayed at my mother’s humble dwelling during the month that I was there, where I preached the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in six schools. About 6000 students heard the gospel and many accepted Christ as their Saviour.
Almost daily, I went door-to-door to talk to my mother’s neighbors about the Saviour of the world Who died for their souls.
- For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
- For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
- He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Praise God for His faithfulness and the many doors He’s opening for me to serve Him. I’m getting more opportunities to preach in schools and preaching for our national pastors as well as soul winning with them. Thank you for your prayers and support!
I invite all of you to be a part of this great ministry of bringing the Gospel to Africa’s lost by financially supporting me. The vast majority of these people have never heard the Gospel. Without someone physically meeting them one-on-one, they will remain lost.
- For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
- How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
- And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
I am already here as a native and it is my desire to devote my life entirely to the Lord’s Ministry. There is a ministry of giving individuals who have profited a thousand times over from blessing others. If there is anyone who wants to know more of this ministry, email your phone number to Russell Lee (russell.lee.2012 at gmail dot com) and he can help you become financially free by biblically blessing others. May God bless all of you!
- I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.
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