Mike     Thank you very much for your reply.  The Lord has been doing a major overhaul the pass few years in my life of the things that I have been taught.  So coming upon your website is one of many steps the Lord has been taking me.  There is much to read and pray about. Its amazing when its time to see and understand certain things its like someone throws a switch, and the light shines upon what has always been there.  I just didn’t see it before but the inward part of me just knows it’s true. Thank You Much D____

Hi again, D____,
The pleasure and the joy are all mine,
That “inward part of me” you spoke of is the working of God’s spirit within you, agreeing with His word within you, simply because He has been preparing your heart to receive His word.
” I just didn’t see it before but the inward part of me just knows it’s true.”
Here are your own words from your earlier e- mail:
“The Lord has been leading me down some interesting roads this past few years doctrinally. I guest that what happens after being broken by the Lord for the past 7 years.”
Many of us read but a part of God’s Word and decide what part we like and what part we don’t like. Then we tell ourselves that we are the “good seed” in the parable of the sower, and we take pride in the fact that we do not consider ourselves to ever have been the “tares” growing side by side with the “good seed.”
Likewise we read of “falling on the Rock and being broken or else the Rock will fall on us and ground us to powder.” We naturally think again, that this is a simple matter of multiple choice, and we so quickly forget that “it is God that works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”
In truth it is God who is working our will and our actions. Our apparent ability to choose is actually all the result of circumstances beyond our control. In reality our choices are all caused choices and not free will:

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I [ am] Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.

Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Three times we are told that what appeared to Joseph’s brothers to be their choosing, was in reality God’s working. “It was not NOT you that sent me hither, but God.”
And so we learn the depth of Christ’s statement:

Mat 4:4  But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Luk 4:4  And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

“Man” is not ‘some men;’ “man” is every person who has ever lived. Everyone who has ever lived will “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” We all must “keep the sayings of the prophecy of this book.”

Rev 1:3  Blessed [ is] he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

“The time is at hand” was “at hand” two thousand years ago for those who had “eyes to see and ears to hear” two thousand years ago.
This statement is repeated at the end of this book to make sure we don’t misunderstand that we are to keep everything said between these two identical statements:

Rev 22:7  Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.

“The sayings of this book” are “every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” It is not just the book of Revelation, or the entire New Testament. “The revelation of Jesus Christ” begins in Gen 1:1 and it ends at Rev 22:21.
So “fall on this Rock and be broken, or this Rock will fall on you and grind you to powder” is again, not multiple choice. The “seven years of being broken by the Lord” of which you speak is really just Him grinding you to fine powder which can be easily conformed to “the image of His Son:”

Lev 2:1  And when any will offer a meat [ Hebrew – grain – flour] offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:

Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

“Fine flour” is flour that has been “ground to powder.” It is not an option, but a command that we make all our grain offerings of finely ground flour.

Mat 21:44  And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

The word ‘but’ makes this appear to be multiple choice, but the “sum of God’s Word” is the truth of God’s Word, and the sum of God’s Word tells us that we must live by “every word [ the good and the bad] that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
In other words, “don’t eat” actually becomes a prophecy that you will eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is not an encouragement to do so, rather it is God “working in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” And since it “pleased Him [ the Father] to bruise Him [ the Son], Adam’s will was “worked” to want to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “It was not you, but God… that He might work a great deliverance.”

Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Psa 119:160  The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.

2Pe 1:20  Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private [ Greek – its own – apart from the rest of God’s Word] interpretation.

If you are ever privileged to attend one of our conferences you will find that everyone there shares the same story with only the minor details being different. We all have been dragged to God through painful circumstances beyond our control. And so we all learn:

Act 14:22  Confirming the souls of the disciples, [ and] exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

It is not promised to be easy. It is promised to be hard. But it is also promised to be sure:

Php 1:6  Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform [ it] until the day of Jesus Christ:

Your brother in Christ,
Mike>