Part 1 - God's Puzzle Solved

God’s Eternal Fire439Paul explains the basic doctrines of Christianity, “ 1 not layingagain the foundation [doctrine] of repentance from deadworks.” God identifies any human effort to make yourselfrighteous, as dead works. Being right with God requiresrepentance and not doing dead works. Religious worksdo not change you or anyone else. You must become likea little child. Repentance is asking God to change you.“Repentance” in Greek means “a change of mind.” TheApostle Paul said he was blameless in keeping The Lawbut counted it all as “dung” (Philippians 3:8).There is nothing you or anyone can do on a religious basisthat will change you. Repentance from dead works isjust a beginning principle or the first step on the ladderto Christ. This is not strong meat. Strong meat comeslater. After repentance from dead works, three baptismscan take place: 1) Water, 2) Holy Spirit and 3) Fire. Waterwashes away your sins, but it can never change you.When The Israelites left Egypt (a picture of sin), they hada water baptism by going through the sea. That was theirsymbolic baptism and repentance was not required (althoughcircumcision was necessary). They had their sinsoverlooked so that when they reached Sinai, God couldbe their God. Here is another example. At the time ofNoah, the world was so evil that every thought was nothingbut evil. Then, God baptized (by flooding) the wholeworld. In this way, He cleansed the world from sin (readGenesis 6). However, there was no repentance. In a similarmanner, when Israel went through the wilderness, thewhole generation rebelled against God and ended up dyingin that wilderness. A new generation came up andthey were, also, baptized when they crossed The JordanRiver. They went into the promised land, but there was