Restoration Ministries International

• To mutually establish a biblically-based way of life free from slanted Bible interpretations and heresy, read:   

“General Rules of Biblical Interpretation.”

• Please download God’s Newer Testament Commands which we discovered on the Internet. You’ll find it very helpful in grasping the way of life which the 1,050 commands in the Newer Testament require of you. One of the foremost commands by our Lord Jesus for the genuinely born again to live tenacious as His redemptive ambassadors.

• To remain free of the bitter hatred of contemporary politics and have the heart of our Lord Jesus, read:   

“True Patriots Are Bible-based Constitutionalists.”

April 18, 2025

A Good Friday Message

To Be Genuine In Christ Is To Forgive And Ask Forgiveness

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus our Lord, (click on title above for a pdf copy)

Each year we reflect on what our Lord Jesus accomplished for us as we commemorate Good Friday. We're reminded of a premier act of obedience that the genuinely born again take because we so overwhelmingly appreciate how much we personally needed to be forgiven. This act of obedience out of grateful love for our Lord is forgiveness. How grievous that within Christianity, whether forgiving from the heart or humbly asking forgiveness is almost as rare as finding love in hell! Over our years of serving our Lord through His Spirit, it's saddened us to observe how few Christians even among the genuine even see the need to forgive or to ask forgiveness of those they've offended. Perhaps it's because they easily give in to their sin nature or because Humanist teachings have deceived so many in Christianity. But there's a pervasive insolence that "I don't have to obey God's Word when it comes to forgiveness." 

What's being rejected is? “Love…keeps no record of wrongs” (1Corinthians 13:4,5). Because of love we are commanded that when we're emotionally hurt by others, we must forgive them: “as the Lord forgave you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13; see also Matthew 6:14,15). And when we hurt others, we are equally commanded, “So if you are bringing your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23,24). The truth of your identity as Galatians 2:20 asserts below must be your reality if you are to live as genuine in Christ with Him living within you. Anything less is sin. 

During our decades of following Jesus as our Lord there have been times in which He has compelled us to flee people who refuse to extend forgiveness to others or ask forgiveness when it's needed. And those who hinder others from taking appropriate biblical steps when it comes to forgiveness have severed relationship with us. It crushes our hearts when we hear Christians habitually voicing disdain toward any human for whom our Lord died. The blinded arrogance which fills their tone is such a discredit to the sacrifice our Lord Jesus made. 

“Once a bitter or hurtful person is deceived, 

he does not recognize that he is deceived, 

because he has been deceived!”

We're amazed by how very, very few Christian friendships hold each other accountable to refrain from voicing bitterness and disdain for others. What shallow relationships they must have! While they may socially support each other, their toleration for slander deeply defames our Lord Jesus and His sacrifice. And in place of the humility it takes to ask forgiveness of someone they've hurt, many choose instead to give presents or do acts of kindness—but refuse to ask forgiveness. 

In light of what our Lord Jesus accomplished for you so that you will live crucified with Him don’t take up an offense against anyone, and quickly ask forgiveness when you’ve offended someone (1John 2:3-6). Keep this pattern in mind when you are hurt by someone:

1. Did he or she say or do something with malicious intent, or did they hurt you unintentionally? The vast majority of hurt feelings are caused by unintentional acts. In fact that person may not even be aware that they've offended you!

2. If they don't realize they've hurt you and therefore haven’t asked your forgiveness, can you just forgive them in your heart and walk away from the offense?

3. If you won’t be able to let go of what was said or done, then you need to either go to the person and discuss it, or forever shut your mouth about it. If you don’t do this, you’ll tell others what happened, causing you to sin by slander.

4. If you do tell others, then you need to ask their forgiveness for having slandered and forgiveness of the one against whom you’ve held resentment and spoke ill of.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

• Pray right now for the Holy Spirit to reveal to you anyone you’ve offended. Is He bringing any specific people to mind? Write down their names.

• Then take action to make contact. Don’t presume they should forgive you. Instead, always take the humble attitude of the prodigal son, whose heart and words recognized that “I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am unworthy...” (Luke 15:18,19). When you ask forgiveness with a humble heart, the person you've offended has hope that you don't intend to hurt them again. Don’t say “I’m sorry” and leave it at that. It’s imperative that you start with something like, “Would you please forgive me for (and cite the specific).” And be sure to ask those who care about you to pray and hold you accountable to follow through. Even if the person you hurt doesn’t choose to forgive you, you have obeyed your Lord’s command and opened a relational door which the person you hurt may later decide to walk through. If the person resists your attempts to reconcile, don’t respond with bitterness or resentment. Pray for them!!!

• Please, don’t participate in communion until you’ve done this. (See 1Corinthians 11:27-32.)

April 12, 2025

The genuine have victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus our Lord, (click on title above for a pdf copy)

With the upcoming commemoration of “Good Friday”, the Holy Spirit would not give us any emotional rest until we sent another email to encourage the genuinely born again. It’s vital that you commemorate what our Lord Jesus has done on your behalf by appreciating this remembrance from our Lord’s perspective of His victory over sin. It has sickened our hearts as the Spirit of our Lord revealed to us many years ago how Satan used anti-Semitic theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, over the centuries to undermine and even obliterate the Passover foundations of our Lord’s atonement. By focusing on our Lord's bloody sacrifice as a time of somber sorrow, they are obscuring the love-motivated victory over sin which His substitutionary death achieved on that Cross. By calling Christians to mourn over the crucifixion rather than celebrating His victory on our behalf by His perfect and one-time Sacrifice, they are casting aside the very reason He chose to suffer — to bring about eternal triumph over death in which the genuinely born again can confidently trust.

✞ We want to encourage the genuine to reflect on the backdrop for our Lord’s sacrifice and why celebrating His completed achievement is so significant. As recorded in the Older Testament, Passover commemorates the Israelites' liberation from slavery in Egypt. This victory came about as each household of Israelites was commanded this by God: to sacrifice a lamb and smear its blood on the lintel and doorposts of their homes on the specific night in which all firstborn would be killed by the destroyer, the firstborn of all who weren't "covered" by a lamb's blood. By this blood, God "passed over" the houses of the Israelites, and they proceeded out of bondage into freedom.

Keep in mind that Passover foreshadows the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Lamb of God (see John 1:29,36 and numerous Revelation references). Passover also symbolizes spiritual victory over the penalty of death which is required for our sins. For the genuine who sincerely experienced the depth of their own sinfulness and need when they placed their trust in the shed blood of our Lord, our Father has passed over your sins. Good Friday should be a time of grateful celebration!

The genuine focus their hearts on what our Lord accomplished on our behalf as the only acceptable substitutionary Sacrifice. Don’t let the condemning voice of your inner sin nature rob you of your joy. Instead, take to heart what the Holy Spirit affirms to us concerning our Lord’s completed atonement for our sins: “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). The prophecies which concerned His sacrifice in the Older Testament were fulfilled by our sacrificial “Passover Lamb” (1Corinthians 5:7). Paul, citing the Hebrew prophets Isaiah and Hosea, exulted in the joyful significance to the genuine of what our Lord accomplished: “Death was swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? But thanks be to God, the One giving us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Corinthians 15:54b,55,57). 

Roman Catholic and many Protestant theologians stress somber sadness regarding the crucifixion as though there really isn't a remedy for the sinful human condition. But our Lord IS the divine remedy. So cast aside any regret on Good Friday in favor of joyful appreciation for both our Lord’s sacrifice and His resurrection. The penalty for our sins has been paid, and our future has eternal hope! Hold tightly to the promise that “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming on our behalf a curse because it has been written [in Deuteronomy 21:22-23], ‘Cursed is everyone hanging on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13). 💠The “curse of the law isn’t that the law is a curse. Rather, the curse of the law is that we deserve death for our sins. But out of love for us, our Lord redeemed us from the curse of having to die ourselves for our violations against God. Thus He gave us victory! 

📌The genuinely born again are never justified as we put into practice His righteous commands in our lives as He wills and empowers us to do. If we did think we could be made acceptable to God through keeping His good and righteous laws, we'd be perverting their purpose the way the Judaizers in Galatia were touting. So, why do we apply our Lord’s commands to our lives? Because we love Him (John 14:15). God's commands and instructions reflect His character and will as expressions of love for both Him and for one another. Through yielding to the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in us, the genuine are guided in living a righteous life that pleases our Lord and brings our Father glory (see Ephesians 5:6-10).

Our Lord Jesus has given to the genuine the victory we couldn’t have ever achieved through our own efforts or by observing particular traditions or rituals. A specific responsibility for you that's carried over from the Older Testament, however, is often overlooked today in nominal Christianity. Yet this intentional personal act connects closely with Christ's atonement: “Purge out the old leaven [your tolerated sin] in order that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For Christ our Passover lamb was sacrificed” (1Corinthians 5:7). 

•The nominal will observe this upcoming “Good Friday” with sorrow as if Jesus really didn't complete in victory the goal for which He was sent. 

•And the reprobate will continue to tolerate sin in their lives as if Jesus' sacrifice is irrelevant to how they choose to live.

"We write this to make your joy complete” (1John 1:4).

How was the jubilant celebration of our Lord’s sacrifice on our behalf abolished within institutional Christianity? Through the teachings and influence of anti-Semitic theologians, many Protestants have embraced without question a mournful view of our Lord’s sacrifice which they've adopted from Roman Catholicism. The Roman Catholic-sponsored Council of Trent (held from 1545 to 1563) decreed that anyone is accursed who trusts in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, by grace alone. Again, this unbiblical doctrine emphasizes that if you trust that you are justified by faith in Jesus’ death on the cross, then you remain cursed by God. This is why the Roman Catholic crucifix continues to have Jesus hanging on the cross: to remind Catholics that His sacrifice to justify humanity before His Father is incomplete. Participation in the sacraments and performing good works are also necessary in order to obtain salvation.

If many Protestant theologians hadn’t been as anti-Semitic as they were, they would have embraced the Older Testament’s foundation of our Lord’s sacrifice. They also would have emphasized for Christians the crucial importance of living repentantly because they fully appreciate the life-giving merit of Christ's death on the cross. Then Christianity would be filled with people celebrating “Good Friday” for the victory which Jesus achieved on their behalf by that momentous event. Please, if you’re genuine, then both our Lord’s death and resurrection should be joyfully significant to you. Don’t let yourself be influenced in any way by either nominal Christians or anti-Semitic theologies. They only devalue our Lord’s consummate victory.

We certainly aren't espousing a different form of Christianity. Rather we are focusing on Christ Himself, the Son of God. Our Father commanded us while we were still in Israel, “Contend for My Son!” By His grace we are contending…

Mike & Sue

PS. We deeply appreciate your ongoing prayers on our behalf. Intense spiritual warfare is being waged against us as we continue to expose the theological deceits that have entered Christianity. And our spiritual enemy is determined to keep us from continuing to reveal to the genuine the way of our Lord. It's taking a great toll on us! But it's truly our hearts' desire that through your prayers you'd experience your own participation with the ministry work our heavenly Father has given us.

April 2, 2025

How will you celebrate our Lord’s death and resurrection?

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus our Lord, 

With the upcoming commemoration of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit would not give us any emotional rest until we wrote this Lament, Commemorate So That You Please Our Lord. Please click on the title to download it. The ongoing pain in our hearts over what the Spirit has been revealing to us about the paganism which has infused the “Easter season” began shortly after we both became genuinely born again in 1977. The anguish increased substantially after we received the Hebraic foundations in 1994. In our September-October 2004 Newsletter, Lessons From The Feasts you'll find further background to this Lament that may startle and convict you about your own religious observances. We encourage you to check this out and discuss it with those who are close to you in your faith journey.

Before this year’s observance of our Lord’s death and resurrection, please remind yourself that our Lord Jesus Himself became human to pay the penalty for mankind’s sin and to reconcile us with His Father. He gave us our only hope for an eternal future! Yet each year nominal Christians within both Catholic and Protestant persuasions commemorate with pagan-originated bunnies and eggs the holy and righteous wonderfulness of what our Lord did on our behalf. Try to envision for yourself the overwhelming insult to our Lord and His bloody sacrificial death out of love for you alongside bunnies and eggs—pagan symbols of fertility and the return of spring from winter's death grip. Satan must be sneering with glee. 

For you genuine who are reading this, we want to remind you concerning your own commemoration of our Lord's crucifixion and resurrection to “look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, Who for the joy that was set before Him endured a cross, despising the shame, and has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Because of His amazing grace and love for you, “He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard” (Colossians 1:22-23). It is crucial in your relationship with our Lord Jesus that you steer clear of entertainment-obsessed nominal Christians who combine the holy Person of our Lord Jesus with “Christianized” paganism. 

Please use this Lament to help you and those you care for in the faith to completely refrain from combining our Lord’s victory on the cross and His resurrection with pagan-originated "Easter" eggs and bunnies which trivialize the true significance of what our Lord accomplished.

Mike & Sue

 

March 28, 2025

The Spirit Of Our Lord Intervenes In The Lives Of The Genuine

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus our Lord, 

Please click on the title of our next Lament, “What foundations must the genuine live by?” In this warning to the genuinely born again in other countries we reveal the nature of demonic takeover of much of the US, nominal Christianity included. We also make known certain  attributes of the earliest genuine followers of Jesus in the Newer Testament which the Spirit-empowered special forces of today must clearly discern and put into practice. Those earliest followers of our Lord Jesus were only a remnant in the vast pagan Roman Empire. But their faith walk was established on the indwelling Holy Spirit and the Older Testament which prepared them to abide in Christ's teachings as affirmed by the New Covenant. The Holy Spirit and Older Testament were the crucial backdrop for the first genuine to recognize and trust the Messiah Jesus as their prophesied Lord and Savior. And the Older Testament and the Holy Spirit are essential for the genuine of today to recognize and put into practice the commands of the Newer Testament.

“Is not My word like fire, declares the LORD, 

and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (Jeremiah 23:29). 

Whether taught or prophesied, our Lord's words in BOTH Testaments are intended to intervene in the life of those they are being given to. Prophecies serve various purposes. Some prophecies are His means of warning (Jeremiah 7:25,26; Acts 11:28), while others are His words of encouragement (Ezra 5:2; 1Corinthians 14:3). But our Lord’s intervention, whether through instruction or prophecy, should always result in a transformational response. We mention this because unlike the current method of academic-format instruction that's so common in nominal Christianity, true instruction for the genuine should be transforming intervention, like a searing fire or a shattering hammer which exposes tolerated sin or self-obsessed goals and actions. Authentic biblical instruction should focus on our Lord's commands which lead the genuine to repent and to apply His commands to their lives out of grateful love for Him. This is a prime method the Holy Spirit uses to transform us into Christ’s character. Please take this as a warning or as an encouragement for your own life and the lives of those who are close to you in Jesus.

🤔Prayerfully examine the Bible for yourself to see whether the eternal destination of "nominal (in name only)" Christians is heaven or hell. The Scriptures attest that our Lord gives to the genuine clear indicators of how to live to please Father and do His will. When you love Him and live according to His gracious criteria, you are firmly assured that you belong to our Lord Jesus and are destined for a heavenly welcome. But if you discover that you are actually a nominal Christian, do you really want to wait until the Judgment Throne to see if you are going to be welcomed into heaven or not? NOW is the time to be sure!

Don't falsely believe that you’ll be accepted at the Throne when there's no evidence in your life to validate that. Ask the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to reveal your spiritual status to you. If need be, ask Him to intervene in your life NOW. And do realize that the changes He needs to make in you likely won't happen in an instant. You can expect Him to work in you according to a pattern similar to this. He’ll first lead you to die to the unbiblical foundations in your life which acted like a spiritual bandage over your cancer of self-rule and willful ongoing sinning. Then He will resurrect you as a new creation into the new life in Christ which the genuine must live (see 2Corinthians 5:17). This intervention can be initially very painful, depending on how nominal you’ve been in regard to living for Jesus as your Lord. But we can assure you that it will be worth it, both in this life and the next!

Take A Lesson About Intervention From The Eighth Graders

While we were teaching and administrating at a retreat center, “Vicki” was the eighth grade teacher at a Christian school in a nearby town. Near the end of the school year she brought her students on a three-day retreat to our center. She had served as a foreign missionary for many years before teaching at the school. Before the retreat started she shared with us her sorrow over her students: “As much as I’ve tried, I don’t seem to be able to instill the kind of motives these kids need to serve our Lord Jesus. They have a pecking order among themselves that's based solely on their grades.” Having known Vicki and her deep devotion to Christ, her sense of failure touched us deeply. We asked her, “Would you mind if we helped? These kids need to be broken down and rebuilt if they’re ever going to have the attitude that serves the interests of our Lord Jesus rather than themselves. Please let us coordinate their activities for the next 3 days.” She nodded gratefully.

If you’ve ever been through military boot camp or something similar to it, you can envision what took place with the students on this retreat. With Vicki's permission we separated the boys and the girls. While the girls shoveled chicken manure out of the coop (a necessary chore we needed to do regularly), the boys shoveled out sheep manure from the barn (also a necessary task!). Then the assignments got progressively harder. We were watching for the helpful boys and girls, the ones who were aware of others’ needs and met them without fanfare. When everyone else was tired and sweaty, they were the ones pouring cups of water or rubbing sore backs. As we spotted kids with these selfless qualities, we complimented them and encouraged the rest of the class to take notice of those who served others (see Philippians 2:1-8; 1Corinthians 16:15,16). 

On the last day we had a picnic and everyone swam in the small river that flowed at the base of the retreat center property. The lodge was a long uphill walk from the river—LONG and STEEP! As we were getting ready to make the trek back, the willing helpfulness of everyone was overwhelming! When we stopped halfway back for a breather, Vicki sat down amid the group and cried for joy. In between tears and laughter she told her class how pleased she was with the caring nature each of them had come to personify. And THEY knew they were changed! That special time knit them together into a unified bond which a number of them recalled even years later. Just a few years after that retreat Vicki died of cancer. And we can picture the “Well done, good and faithful servant!” she heard from her Lord Jesus as her name was proclaimed to the hosts of heaven. 

“If you hear [His Spirit’s] voice, don’t harden your hearts” (Hebrews 4:7).

In a Teaching Email from 2004, Lessons From The Feasts, we cited this account: Mike was given a prophetic warning by the Holy Spirit to tell a retired head of a major denomination these specific words: “There is nothing written about you in heaven!” That old gentleman sadly replied, “Twenty-five years ago my brother told me the same thing.” All the years during which he’d risen to the top of his denomination, he’d been propelled by his own presumptuous view of himself. Now, a quarter century later, our Father wanted to warn him one last time that nothing about him had been recorded in heaven — not even in the Book of Life. 

That’s scary, isn’t it? Please, be sure that you have absolutely no presumption or false expectation about your own eternal destination. Ask the Holy Spirit to confirm His presence in you, and that you’re on the pathway to eternal life. 

If your Bible instruction over the years has not led to your own "death and resurrection", then in all probability you are a nominal Christian – one in name only. Our Father intended that our time on earth be one of ongoing transformation into the character qualities of His Son. He purposes that we alter our goals and plans from the here-and-now to an unswerving focus on eternity in His Presence. That's why "we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him" (2Corinthians 5:9). This is what our forefathers in Hebrews chapter 11 were commended for. Jesus used the Parable of the Ten Virgins to prompt His hearers to take specific action. Five of the virgins prepared themselves in earnest anticipation of the Bridegroom’s arrival. Five did nothing. The consequences of those who did nothing is severe: “‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’ But He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you!’” (see Matthew 25:10-12). 

Our heart's desire is that no one who is reading this will ever hear the sorrowful reply, “I don’t know you!” Only you and the Holy Spirit can confirm your true status in heaven’s eyes. Don’t be fearful or reluctant to find out now.

Mike & Sue