Q&A With Matthew Tuttle & Nathaniel Urshan

This is one of my favorite presentations of True doctrine.

Be ye holy…

“Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”

I Peter 1:13-16 KJV

Being holy is a conscious decision. It’s not something that is done in us, it is something we make a decision to be. The word holy in the Greek translates to: sacred (physically, pure, morally blameless or religious, ceremonially, consecrated).

A word that is synonymous with holy would be righteous. We can try to be holy by our own righteousness,which the Word says is filthy rags. This would be self righteousness, or righteousness according to me. I tell my youth that righteousness means ‘right living.’ Self righteousness would be ‘right living according to me.” But we have to live righteous according what His word says. It tells that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled. It’s amazing how many so called Apostolic’s will be so self righteous towards someone hungering and thirsting after righteousness. But that isn’t the point of this.

If you want to look, act, talk, mingle, and live exactly like the world, that is your prerogative. But when you come to someone that is hungering and thirsting after righteousness and you call them a Pharisee or a legalistic person, you are just as bad as the accusation you just hurled. Just because some lives for God “harder” “more conservatively” or “stricter,” be careful not to judge a person because of your preconceived ideas, or more rightly so, the conviction of God. I would be more worried about someone slipping than i would someone hungering and thirsting after the things of God, after right living, and righteousness.

We are commanded through out scripture to be ye holy 3 times. It commands us multiple times to be separated, and the idea of being a group consecrated to God is a continuous scriptural theme. God never wanted to clean and unclean together. We are commanded to not be of the world, even though we have to be in the world. The biblical idea of separation from the world isn’t hard to find. We are separated unto God inwardly and outwardly, but the outwardly is visually for the world. It shows our modesty, our shamefacedness, our humility and safeguards our own integrity against would be fallen sinful man. I understand that most Christians have a problem with putting any rule on anything in the physical, I don’t understand where they get that from. I do believe it is a out of a fear of living under “Old Testament law.” As if there is only one Old Testament set of laws. The real problem with these people is that they try to apply the Old Testament TO the New Testament. Meaning they learn the New Testament, and anything mentioned in the Old Testament must measure up to the New. That is erroneous. Our foundation is and always will be the law and the prophets. That is what “scripture” is when mentioned in the New Testament. We have a foundation of Deuteronomy 6:4. That doesn’t change. It is set in stone, so to speak, that there was only One God of the Old Testament, and that will never change through out eternity. So when Jesus comes along in the New Testament, suddenly there are thousands of years of prophets, men and women of God, through all of the Old Testament that were lied to by GOD? Because the Old Testament says there is only One God. That same God proclaimed that HE alone is the savior and NO ONE is beside Him. But yet these people that say that in Genesis that God said “let US make man in OUR image” means that even from the beginning God and Jesus were teaming up and running things. So if God and Jesus (which by the way, it is killing me to even type that) made heave and earth and Jesus sits at the right hand of God physically, then what did God mean when he said he is God alone, and beside him is no savior? That did God mean when he said Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord?

YOU HAVE TO APPLY THE NEW TESTAMENT TO THE OLD. Not vice versa. You need a foundation in Old Testament scripture to even understand what happened at Calvary. You need to know why there even was a savior born to a virgin. All of that is from the Old Testament. The need for a spotless sacrifice and Jesus Christ being the sacrificial lamb is completely weird and random if you don’t understand the LAW that you so claim we are trying to be saved by. I mean, it just gets comical.

I told someone the other day, you won’t find a Jew or Rabbi on this planet that would tell you that anything in the Old Testament even insinuated plurality in persons of the Godhead. And he said, “I don’t care what a Rabbi has to say, they aren’t even saved.”

That’s all I needed to know that this was a person that has only cherry picked New Testament scriptures, that without an understanding of who God is via the Old Testament (which He is that same God, sorry to break it to you) make no sense to someone. I can understand when a Christian, wrongly guided in the Bible, can see a scripture that says both the words God and Jesus, or Father and Son, or God the Father of Jesus Christ” can be confusing without the knowledge of the Old Testament. But getting them to see that is almost impossible and I have to just leave it alone.

Anyway, I am rambling. I feel like I made my point in there somewhere.

Btw, this is why I don’t wear a WWJD bracelet or any other jewelry for that matter. The manner of conversation, the manner of separation from the word, is what we adorn ourselves in, not worldly trinkets and superstition.

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Love, love, love, and ecumenicalism.

There is a huge wave of concerning mindsets going through the Church right now. I know some people would say, “Well that’s not the True Church then” but they still are a part of the True Church as of right now. But they are trying to bring in some things that just aren’t right. We are parading singers on platforms that literally sing with people who are in false doctrine. We have new “standards’ being pushed by a younger generation, because we all know that the younger generations can always justify what was previously taught not to do. Everyone wants to give everyone a chance and love them to death, but in all reality, they plummet them further into the abyss.

We recently, and I mean 2 years ago, had to make a horrendously difficult decision and uncomfortable at best. Our church (pastor) without any direction or counsel from the church decided that he wanted to go a different doctrinal way. That’s fine with me, but I won’t be able to do that. In an effort to grow the church, he decided to “error” (his own words) on the side of grace than to preach Truth. First off, you are erroring. It’s “err” on the side of caution. But scripture doesn’t back that up. Scripture tells us to be vigilant, to be holy, to be set apart, to preach the Truth, with doctrine, which is profitable for reproof (disapproval), correction, and instruction in righteousness (right living according to God.) That brings up an interesting point.

Many people equate self righteousness to standards. We dress and act a certain way because we are self righteous, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I mean, there are always going to be those ones that think they are better than everyone else because of what they look like or have, but as a group, no. But in all reality, turning your back on standards literally is self righteousness. You think you know how to live right according to your self, not God.

Women on the platform in pants, short hair, makeup and ear rings, while us congregants are trying to teach our children to live right. I could go into detail on the entire situation which would blow your mind, but I digress. We had to leave and find a new church that taught the truth, that wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed to preach it over the pulpit. We found that church and have been there 2 years. But we have watched others who were what we thought sold out to the Truth, stay in that church (although most left) and backslide with them. It’s heartbreaking really.

“This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.”

Titus 3:8-11

This is where the title comes in. Love. What is love? The dictionary says its deep feelings of affection. There are some other definitions, for this cause, this is the one I chose.

We all have a desire to care, most of us anyway. Well, we all should. But what is true Biblical love? Biblical love is what doctrine is about. Biblical love is sacrificial (John 3:16) demands obedience (John 5:3). What Biblical love isn’t is sloppy agape or greasy grace. So when we come to someone to bring them the truth, and they reject it 2 or 3 times, they are a heretic. That’s what the Bible says. Grace comes in with what God decides to do after we tell them the truth. And we can deliver salvation to someone with grace, I am not advocating anyone being ugly. But sometimes the Truth doesn’t look pretty to someone who feels convicted. Flesh rears its ugly head and they become defensive, but that’s a different situation.

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, And touch not the unclean thing; And I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, And ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

2 Corinthians 6:14-18

I don’t know how you can read this and still have sloppy agape and love for people who do not live according to the Bible. Now, don’t get me wrong, we love everyone. We witness to everyone and we want to bring everyone to the knowledge of Christ. But there is a major difference in loving someone to salvation and love them in their sin. What happens when you love someone in their sin? I am glad you asked.

“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

Romans 1:24-32

The point of the above verse is that last line. These people who do these things are worthy of death, and those who take pleasure in them as well. That means if you enable sin, you are guilty of it. No one wants to hear things like this anymore. The world has infiltrated the Church so much that if you feel this way or voice it, you are accused of being a bad Christian. I didn’t write the Book, I just try to live by it as best as I can.

My precious pastors wife told me that Bro. T. W. Barnes said that the political world is a reflection of the spiritual world. GOD HELP US. But it’s true. I see it. I see the BLM, feministic, love what is bad and shun what is good mentality so much. I have interactions with people who claim to be in the Truth, on Apostolic platforms that call me a zealot or a Pharisee. You can call me whatever you want, but I only know one thing, Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Principles

As time moves forward, and the Lord tarries, the more and more “open-mindedness” is increasing. People these days can talk themselves out of anything. They can run through rabbit trails to justify anything and everything, leaving all rational reasoning behind. And the Church is certainly not exempt from this. But the Lord has been dealing with me in the area of principality. The definition of principle is a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or a chain of reasoning.

I tend to be a wordsmith and an amateur at that. But, I digress. The definition states that it is a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation of a system. Obviously, it says that, you just read it. But that is the portion of the definition I love. FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH. Fundamental is “of central importance.” Can you see where I am going with this?

Many people today like to say “well, I feel…” and then you can insert anything at the end of that sentence that has anything to do with a difference of opinion. Let me give an example. “I don’t feel like I need to go to church to be a good person” or “I don’t feel like God cares about the way I look on the outside.” I literally can not handle a sentence that begins with “I feel” or “I don’t feel.” The problem in those sentences is I. That leads to a very narrow and narcissistic view on anything that would follow. What it comes down to, the things of God are not contingent on how I feel about them. They aren’t contingent on my feelings, my thoughts, my opinions or how well it fits into my agenda. They aren’t contingent on my loved one’s status with God (saved, not saved, believer, atheist.) But what the things of God are contingent on is principle.

As of late, I have heard many Apostolic’s and former Apostolic’s using these sentences. I’ve watched many leave the faith over things that they couldn’t feel this way or that way over. Or they feel that certain things aren’t necessary anymore, even though a couple of years ago the preached them. They use excuses like, the Bible doesn’t say that in black and white. Or, God won’t send me to hell over not wearing a skirt. Or, the Bible doesn’t say you have to wear skirts, everyone wore dresses back then.

The list goes on and on. But it’s time to keep the main thing the main thing. People can ask every question, foolish questions, sincere questions, and at times, the answers aren’t always comfortable. “Can I go to heaven if I don’t get baptized?” That isn’t a comfortable question. “Why did God take my child?” That is a very uncomfortable question. To answer either of those, you would have to base your answer on principle. Consider the following verse.

Isaiah 28:10 – For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:

A precept is a general rule intended to regulate behavior or thought. Other words for precept are command, ordinance, oracle, injunction.

We are given precepts and lines all over the Word of God. Here is an example: The Bible does not say that you can’t smoke Camel cigarettes. But as Christians, Apostolic ones at least, we believe smoking cigarettes is wrong. Why? The Bible doesn’t say its wrong. Well, you are correct, but it does say that our body is a temple of the Holy Ghost and that it doesn’t even belong to me (1 Corinthians 6:19.) So the precept is that our body belongs to God and is a temple of the Holy Ghost, and the line is that I don’t damage my body with cigarettes. God gives the precept, and He gives us the power and authority to draw the line, and He HONORS the line.

Consider Moses. He had to go up Mt. Sinai to get the commandments from God, and God told him to draw a barrier so that the people wouldn’t follow him up the mountain.

Exodus 19:23 – And Moses said unto the LORD, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.

God told Moses to draw bounds (lines). God did not tell Moses where to draw the lines, He just told him to draw them. So Moses did. And God honored those lines. That’s the same way for us. We are His servants.

Lines aren’t placed to keep people in, they are placed to keep the enemy out. Lines aren’t placed to hinder people, or to keep us from “living life,” they are placed to keep up set apart and unblemished from this world. It is up to the pastor to place lines, that has been God’s fundamental truth since the beginning. When you don’t understand the importance of precepts and lines, and how they are unmovable, then you will be easily swayed by the voices of this world and the enemy. Draw your lines, and keep those lines! Because God is.