Monthly Archives: May 2010
The Sword of Our Mouth! Our Words Cut Two Different Ways!
(Ver 2.0) I have taught on this subject of the significance of the spoken words of our mouth a couple of times now. Today’s lesson will be Part 3 in the series and I will be talking about something that is completely new and different to many Christians. However, if you haven’t read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“. This lesson will be focused upon God’s usage of the symbolic nature of a “double edged sword” to describe spoken words. If you have read through the Bible you should already be aware of how God teaches us very clearly that Jesus has a double-edged sword coming out of His mouth. We will see verses in this lesson that describe Jesus is able to destroy those who oppose Him with this symbolic sword. This double-edged sword is widely accepted by theologians as a figurative representation of the power of God’s word spoken. If we do not understand this concept, I will attempt to expound next in this lesson on this subject to clarify it and to help us better understand the concept of the power of spoken of words. Let’s start by reading some foundational verses found in Revelation:
Rev 19:21 And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
God is truly an awesome God! It shocked me a while back when I heard about a group of people in the U.S. that were getting together to form a militia to help God fight the coming Anti-Christ. They were gathering guns and ammo like it would be useful to God’s victory over evil. Where do people get these types of foolish ideas? I really have no clue. These people obviously do not know God, the Bible or understand the omnipotent power of God. This verse in Revelation 19 reveals to us that the LORD Jesus will be sitting on a white horse and He will be able to kill everyone opposing Him, simply by speaking some choice directed words at them. That is a clear example of the power of God in action. God says something and then it happens. Pretty awesome, isn’t it? You can learn concept this from reading the Bible starting in Genesis 1 and going all the way through to Revelation 22. God’s spoken words will always prevail and will always come to pass. Let’s examine some additional verses because the Bible instructs us to establish every truth in the mouth of two or three witnesses (Mat 18:16):
Rev 2:12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;
Rev 2:16 Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword1 of my mouth.
Jesus speaking to the church in Pergamos, warns them to change or else they will also see the sword of His mouth come against them. We can easily understand that God is a Spirit (John 4:24) and that God is not talking about a literal physical sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus. We must therefore, conclude that this described sword is a symbolic representative for the spiritual force that exists in the power of God’s Spoken Word. I really hope that you understand this concept. Did you notice that God says this figurative sword has two edges? Two edges describes a weapon that can cut in either of the two directions depending upon which way a person swings it. Two edges could could also symbolically mean something else. The words of our mouth can be a blessing to someone or a curse to someone. There exists two possible realms of opposing types of words in the world. In the last Bible lesson we observed two types called “idle” or “lazy” words versus “working” and “productive” words. But there are others like “good” words or “bad/evil” words, “positive” words or “negative” words and words of “blessings” or words of “cursing”. All of these are examples of a sword that can be used for two different purposes.
I find it fascinating that the English word “sword” is the letter “S” followed by word “word”. I believe the letter “S” can stand for “Spirit” and we will learn more about this very soon. The power of any sword or spoken word is always the same. It is non-existent until used or spoken. Therefore the power of any weapon will forever be dependent upon the directed purpose of the user. In much the same way how a natural gun is used in the hands of the shooter, a spiritual weapon can be used for two completely different purposes. The natural gun can be used as a positive weapon to help feed or protect people or as a negative weapon to hurt or rob from people. These are parallel truths concerning the words of our mouth. What I would like to do is give some additional scriptures that help to confirm what I have just said so let’s take a look at these:
2Th 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
God is speaking prophetically in this verse about the coming events in Revelation. The wicked one described here is the future antichrist who will soon be revealed. The double edge sword we read about in Revelation in the mouth of Jesus is now called something completely new and different in this verse. The symbolic double-edged sword of Revelation is now defined to be the “Spirit of His Mouth”. This is still the same equivalent description of God’s Spoken Word that is infinitely powerful. God’s spoken word has ALL of the ability to destroy or literally consume anyone who is opposing Him. Do you understand that God’s spoken words are His Spiritual Power released? This is an awesome revelation of something that is found within the character and nature of God the Almighty. God is often described in the Bible to be omnipotent, but what is that makes God this way is what we will explore now:
Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
You can see a second confirmation that the Spoken Words of God are Spirit! This verse was Jesus speaking to us and He says that His words are this Spirit that quickens. To quicken is an old English term that means to give life to us. God’s words are declared to be a force of life to us. Because of what God has spoken to us we can live. Now recall, what we previously read in Revelation. In those verses God states His spoken Words are something that produces death. These represent the same spiritual power directed two different ways for two different purposes. This is an example of a double-edged sword. A knife can be used to kill someone or it can be used to save someone’s life if used in a wise knowledgeable way by a surgeon. Wow, these are very important lessons to learn and apply to our spoken words.
You will notice if you study the Bible, that Jesus chose His words very carefully and never shot off His mouth with random thoughts. His words were always focused, directed and had a purpose. Much of what Jesus said to people were words recorded by the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. In John 12:49 Jesus said He was told what to speak by His Father in heaven. How many of us can say that? How many of our words come from the God in heaven? We should learn to become more like Jesus because, God’s words were always active, relevant and important. Now let’s look at what the Bible says about the Power of God?
Heb 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
We can now see and learn from another verse about the Word of God. This time God reveals to us that “All” of His Power is in His Word. The Greek written here does not say “His powerful Word” it says “The Word of His Power” and that makes a huge difference. Some translators tried to change the meaning to “powerful” word but the KJV Bible stayed true to the original Greek and preserved it as an accurate truth. Here is the difference, does God’s Word have power or is it His Power? Can we try to think why this is important? If God said I am LOVE it would be completely different than Him saying I have love. I believe this principle is what God was saying to us in Hebrews 1:3 to His spoken Word. I believe that God is attempting to give us a revelation that His Word is His Power and His Power is His Word.
Therefore, we cannot separate God the omnipotent from His omnipotent Word or we could say His Word is God (John 1:1)! This is why John 6:63 said the Words that Jesus spoke to us were from God’s Spirit and they contain His life giving Power for those who received them. Always remember that God’s Words are Spirit! God’s Words are Life! God’s Words are His Power! As we have seen before they are also a weapon against His enemies. So we can all begin to understand that the Spoken Words of God can give life to some that will receive them and can take life away from others who do not accept the free gift of salvation. That is the nature of a double=edged sword. One aspect and application is always positive and the other is very negative. That was a summary of several foundational truths that the Bible teaches us about the Word of God and the Sword of the Spirit.
So how does this apply to us? What good does all of this information do me? Are there any benefits to speaking God’s Word for me? In other words what’s in this lesson for me? We all know that God is all powerful, so how does this power help me? Start by asking yourself this question. Why did God give us a huge book of His Written HOLY Words? Does the written Word of God have any visible power rising out from the pages? Obviously not! Therefore, these written words can only help me if I can learn to speak them. I beleive that only by learning to believer and speak His Word will it ever help us. I beleive this is “one” of the main reasons why God gave us His written Word. God gave us His Word so that we can put it in our minds (Eph 4:23). He also gave us the Word so that we could put it in our hearts (spirits) to believe it. Finally, I believe that He gave us His Word so that we can now choose to put it in our mouths to speak it (Mat 12:34).
Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than ANY two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of( soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Let me introduce you to a hidden secret, in the Bible it says God is not the only one with a “two-edged” sword in his mouth. In fact we do not have to think very hard or for very long before we figure out that every created human in the world can open their mouth and speak words either positive or negative. This also includes other created spiritual beings like angels, demons and Satan. All of these beings were created with mouths which emit words that come from their spirits (Mat 12:34). But, this verse in Hebrews says plainly that God’s sword is sharper and more powerful than any of the others that might exist. This verse clearly informs us that the other mouths have power in them, but implies that they are in a limited capacity compared to God’s spoken Words. Do you get this concept?
If man was made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26), like the Bible clearly says we were, and if God’s Words are sharp and powerful, then our words must have a limited resemblance to His. But, here is the major part of God’s contribution to man, God gave us His spoken words written in a book form in order to permit us to put them in our mouth to speak them. And the Bible says that God watches over His word to perform it (Jer 1:12). Wow, I hope you understand what I just said. The implications are far reaching if you can accept it and believe it.
Eph 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
In Ephesians chapter 6, God commands the church to put on the armor of God. Each of the armor pieces described to us is a symbolic representation of a spiritual truth of the completed freely given work of God to and for humans. In fact every piece of armor is something that God has already provided to us freely. It is now up to us to make the freewill choice to take each item and put it on. This aromor included the Shield of Faith, the Breastplate of Righteousness, the Belt of Truth, the Helmet of Salvation, and the Shoes of Peace. God is telling the church that there is a spiritual war and we must get ready for it. So far all of the weapons of armor that I just mentioned were defensive types of weapons to keep us safe from the blows of the enemy Satan. But, then in verse 17 of Ephesians 6, God finally tells the church to take the “Sword of the Spirit”, which is directly defined to be “the Word of God”. How is this Sword of the Spirit going to help us? I believe very firmly that we now have the direct implied connection to our mouths! Can’t you see this? The only way that we can use the Spiritual Sword of the Word of God against an unseen spiritual enemy to our advantage is to speak it. Leaving the Bible on our coffee tables will do nothing to keep the devil out of our houses. This is a very powerful, spiritual Bible law being revealed to us. What you say is far more important than what you can possibly imagine or know right now. Take a look at this verse in Isaiah:
Isa 59:21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.
God is prophesying an awesome new covenant reality that is now established with us in the church and God says that He will put His Spirit upon us and His Words in our mouth. Can you see the direct connection between our mouths speaking His spoken words with His Spirit?
God literally says that these words will not depart from our mouths, nor from the mouths of our seed. Who are those called the Seed of Abraham? We in the church are the seed of Abraham (Gal 3:29)! Who is the Seed of the Woman? You probably do not know this, but Jesus was the chosen Seed and we the church are in that Seed of the Woman (Rev 12:17). God’s Word will not depart from our mouths and we will overcome Satan by His Blood and His Word that He has given to Us (Rev 12:11)! I taught you earlier that this was a Biblical Spiritual Law being revealed to us. Let’s look at an Old Testament example of this.
Jos 1:8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
The lessons found in the Bible through intense study are usually very deep and complex and have many hidden truths associated within them. Because we do not understand them completely we can easily just read over a truth and not grasp that these words apply to us and what we should be doing today. Here in the book of Joshua God uncovers the secret to a human’s success on this planet. It is a basic spiritual principle and law that is not very difficult to follow if we can understand it. God tells Joshua that He should speak His word both Day and Night. We could say that means constantly and continually or every waking moment. God was teaching Joshua about the Sword of the Spirit that will cause him to be a great success in this world. But, there is also an implied opposite truth found in this verse. God says by impled antithesis that if we do not speak the Word of God we will not be a success. Do we want to be prosperous and successful in life or dismal disappointed failure? God is telling us how to do both, right here! We have to make the choice. We are not forced to do either but usually being passive results in failure and this is many people’s wrong defaulted selection.
Remember when Jesus was tempted by Satan in Luke 4:1-13? Three times the enemy came to tempt him into a subtle trick. But, here is the lesson learned from this example. Every time the enemy Satan came with a temptation, Jesus brought out the Sword of the Spirit called the Word of God and said “IT IS WRITTEN”. Wow, that is extraordinarily critical to learn from and apply to what Satan does to us. You see the Bible says that Jesus was tempted the very same way that we are tempted (Heb 4:15). But, He was wise enough to use the sword correctly as a living example. I pray that this will be a benefit in your life today.
I guess I have gone long enough in this lesson and given you plenty of new things to think about. The sword of your mouth is either going to be a blessing or a curse to you and to those you direct it at. While your negative words will never be able to put a curse on me, they will cause curses to come upon you and your children. What we say is so completely important that it cannot be emphasized enough for us to think before we speak. If we do not have a Bible verse that backs up what we are about to say, we probably should not say it.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on spoken words you can go to “Part 4“.
The Spiritual Family Structure of God’s Family. Part 2
(Ver 2.8) The spiritual family structure of God is one of those Bible basics that every Christian should be intimately familiar. God is said to be a triune being. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Yet these three personalities of God are reflected in One True God. In my first blog on this subject I talked about Jesus starting a new family of God. I talked about Jesus being born into the world, a product of unique circumstances. Because, God was His Father and Mary was His mother, Jesus was both God and man totally and completely. That means Jesus Christ was 100% God and 100% Man. Jesus Christ was the only one that was both the Son of God and the Son of Adam. This made Him uniquely qualified to fix problems in both dimensions of the spiritual and natural realms simultaneously. Maybe you did not realize that there were things to fix in the spiritual realm, but you really need to stop and go back to read “Part 1” of this series first. Today I will continue to talk about the spiritual family structure of God’s family and I want to start with some things that Jesus said to us:
Joh 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
These are the Words of God coming out of the mouth of Jesus Christ. These words declare that Jesus and God are one in the same. Jesus very clearly tells us if we believe in God, we better believe in Jesus. Because, Jesus was God in the flesh, walking among us like He was one of us. This is the amazing truth of God’s word. It is also the only way to be saved, whether you like it or not.
Joh 14:2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
Jesus continues His discourse revealing great spiritual information to us. Jesus announces that where He came from was His “Father’s House”. A house is always a family structure with relatives and family members living within it. Now, think with me and see who is speaking, it is Jesus the Son of God on the earth. When you are a son on the earth do you live with your father forever? That is an interesting question. Here in the natural realm a man will marry a wife and usually establishes a new independent family and they normally do not live with their parents. What I am getting at, is that Jesus is inferring His Father’s house is not His house. The Bible contains some very complex truths in it and this is certainly one of them. It is definitely hard to understand since the Son of God on the earth is God. But, God’s intelligence is so far above our mind’s thought process that He can do some simple things in ways that are difficult for us to understand. What I want you to begin to understand is that Jesus does not call it His house and that is very important to see. You see Jesus is choosing His words very carefully and using extreme wisdom to reveal something that is far greater for us to know. What we need to do today is to start thinking differently about the family of God. Jesus tells us that He came from His Father’s house from heaven and we now need to figure out what this is or I should say was.
You see, in John 1:18 the Bible says no man has ever seen God. We also know that when Adam was created and his wife was brought to him by God, that God established a new family on the earth which was detached from God’s spiritual family in heaven. You see this truth when you study what God says in Genesis 2:24 “for this cause shall a man (Adam) leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife”. From this statement we can understand that God was Adam’s father that we are told that he left to be joined to his wife. But God is establishing a new type for a future pattern for the Last Adam (Jesus) to come into the world and leave His Father and Mother and to be joined to His bride. Therefore, the family of Adam is a separate earthly family from God’s existing family in heaven that Jesus is speaking of where He came from and this is a prophetic view into an event that was to come after the time that Jesus was speaking these words in these verses in John. Therefore this family of God where Jesus came from was not comprised of any of the men or women that were on the earth. Think with me and make a note that Jesus declares God’s family consists of family members that are not men, so who are they? We will definitely explore this information in the Bible later in this series, but for now let’s continue with what Jesus is saying. Jesus says if it were not this way I would have told you. Then Jesus makes this statement, “I go to prepare a place for you!” Jesus is talking to you and I and He is saying that He was going to be leaving this planet soon and going to build a new household for His new family. To “prepare” has an implication of a building project. I believe that it is not just a renovation of the old, but the creation of a new home that will be better the previous one.
Joh 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
Jesus continues to speak to us and tell us that where He goes we will also be going. Jesus tells us very clearly that He will soon return and “receive us unto Himself”. Have you ever thought about what those words mean? Why is Jesus receiving us unto Himself? So many Chrisdtians in the church like to call the church the body of Christ only. Then they ignore the rest of the Bible. If we were just the body of Christ, we would not need to be received unto Him, would we? I do not ever wake up in the morning and receive my body back to myself. Do you understand what I am saying? It would appear that Christians are now separate from Christ in order to be received by Him. It helps if you understand “Bible Covenants“. Since I have already done lessons on this subject I will not repeat the information here again. You should go back and read these lessons and learn what a Covenant is in the eyes of God. I will help you to some extent, Jesus is called the “Bridegroom” and He is in covenant with His Bride, the church. The church will soon be fully assembled in heaven for the marriage supper of the Lamb of God. During this time we will be fully and completely joined to Him and become one with Him forever. Jesus later tells us in John 14 that “He is the truth, the life, the way”. He also says that “No one comes to the Father except through Him”. Meaning there is no other religions in the world that will offer you salvation or an alternative way to God. That also means there are no other covenants of God that will save you either. God has sent Jesus Christ into the world to provide one way for all the people of earth to come into this new Family of God. We have already seen that God’s previous family structure was in heaven and had a very large location with many mansions in it, before Jesus ever came to the earth. Jesus then tells us that He was leaving the earth to go back to heaven to prepare places for us. So either God has a housing shortage in Heaven or the Heaven that we knew is going away and God is preparing a new place.
Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
Why is it necessary for God to build a new heaven and a new earth? I can understand the earth, but heaven is a tricky thing to consider to be something that is in need of repair. Man has done a pretty poor job of keeping the earth intact. But, come on we are talking about God in heaven now. Why is it necessary for God to create a New Heaven? Evidently, we can see that there was a major problem in heaven that also consisted of a heavenly spiritual war.
Rev 12:7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
If God’s wars are like our wars, there is always a lot of damage done to infrastructure and buildings. Now I do not mean to imply that God makes war like we make war, that is not what I am saying at all. After all it is God’s forces defending Heaven and not threatening to take it. It is Satan and his angels that are trying to overthrow God’s throne. God sends Michael and His angels to fight this enemy. What we have is some new things to consider. Why is Satan at war with God in heaven and what changed? You see in the Book of Job, Satan walks up to God without any conflict and discusses Job. By the time we get to the book of Revelation, we see that Satan is no longer welcome where he previously use to walk freely. Do you remember in the book of Daniel when Daniel prayed and fasted for an answer from God. Do you remember what happened in that story? It appears God sent an angel to answer the prayers of Daniel and Satan and his angels were in a spiritual battle that lasted 3 weeks, until the angels of God finally prevailed. The prince of Persia withstood God’s answer to the prayers of a man on the earth. That is an amazing story of why things can take so long when you pray and ask God for help. There is an enemy of God that is opposed to you and to God. He tries to stop your answers from happening. If Daniel would have resigned after only two weeks of prayer and fasting, Satan would have won. But, since Daniel did not give up, God did not give up and God prevailed and the answer came. Let me give you a picture diagram of the family of God revealed in the Bible as of Genesis 2:
Eph 3:14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Eph 3:15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
Since we are discussing God’s spiritual family structure, I thought I would give you some more verses to establish that God has a family and then also describe the locations for this family. According to this verse written to the church God’s family is now in two different realms of reality. One is spiritual and the other is physical or natural. This verse in Ephesians declares God’s family to now be within the scope of both of these two sets of reality. We have one set that is found in heaven and one set that is on the earth. And God’s family is comprised of selected individuals from both of these places. However, do not attempt to be all inclusive and say that everyone in both realms has been saved and are in the unified family of God. That is what Universal Salvationists like to teach and project. They claim in error that God will save everyone eventually. They clearly do not understand that Jesus came to divide the good from the evil and not to change the evil back into the good.
Here is a graphical representation of God’s new spiritual family. God’s family now consists of members of two different set realms. In the previous diagram I showed how the two families were separate in Genesis 2. The first set realm heaven existed prior to the other set realm created on the earth. The earth is the natural temporary realm where we all live today. God created our current world system approximately 6000 years ago and turned the authority of His creation over to His created man Adam (Gen 1:26). Adam represented a new start and a new natural family structure of God’s spiritual family. Adam’s family was separate from God’s family that already existed in heaven. God did all of this for many reasons and I cannot get into all of the reasons in this blog because it would take a tremendous amount of time to explain. Today, man exists within the constraints and limitations of time and space. We are spirit beings created in the image and likeness of God, but limited to the confines of a natural body. Since Adam’s family was separate from God’s family, that is one of the main reasons that Jesus had to come to the earth in the form of a man. God’s new family established by Jesus Christ the Son of God and the Son of Man, consists of selected members of both of these set realms. Jesus was able to accomplish and provide salvation for man because He was a man as well as a division from His father’s house simulataneously by His death on the cross. Let’s look at the definition of the word translated as “family” in Ephesians 3:15.
G3965
As if feminine of a derivative of G3962; paternal descent, that is, (concretely) a group of families or a whole race (nation): – family, kindred, lineage.
This verse in Ephesians uses a word for “family” that is very interesting. You can see from the definition some widely applicable truths. God’s new family structure is a pattern of another previous structure that God did in the Old Testament. We are said to be a new nation of people descended from the Most High God. This is an interestingly different word that has a feminine connotation attached to it. Why would God put a female reference on the church? Because we are the bride of Christ. The church is a representative spiritual pattern of natural Israel. The natural nation of Israel was God’s wife in the Old Covenant. This was a pattern given to us for the New Covenant.
Jer 31:32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
You need to see what the Bible says and then interpret it using the Bible. God declares to the nation of Israel that I was your Husband. If God was the Husband to the nation of Israel that makes natural Israel the wife of God. A covenant is a marriage in the eyes of God. God proposed marriage to a nation of people and they accepted and entered into a covenant with the Almighty God. This is another example of God being a spiritual male in a spiritual family structure. We can clearly make many assumptions based upon this unlimited information. If God can marry one group of people, what stops God from marrying another group of people? Nothing really, except if you just marry a new group of people and you are still married to the other group of people you are now a polygamist by definition. There is a lot of men on earth that would like to think that God is married to multiple women, but you have not studied the Bible and therefore have put your thoughts into the mix where they do not belong.
Why did Jesus come to earth, being the Son of God? It is because Jesus Christ the Son of God was never married to anyone else before now. I know technically Jesus is the same God and He was married to Israel, but was that God the Father that was in Covenant with them or Jesus, God the Son? You soon realize how smart God is and how tricky He can be. I do not mean to imply that God is a deceiver, what God does is very legal, but yet very unexpected. Satan did not anticipate Jesus Christ and therefore, now realizes that he should not have killed him. Why is that? Why was the death of Jesus so detrimental to Satan? You should really give that some serious thought. You see you can learn from God by reading a clue given to us in the book of Ruth, when Naomi and Ruth are talking and Ruth says I’ll stay with you until “death separates me from thee” (Ruth 1:17). Death is a separating force. Death is a spiritual power that naturally divides one from another. In a marriage ceremony the husband and wife are said to be joined until death do they part. Marriage is a covenant relationship and God uses His death on the cross to separate Himself from Satan. Yes that means Satan was in covenant with God also. You should really study the Bible more, you might find all kind of new things in it, if you look for them. Let’s move on to a verse that helps to clarify what I was saying about Israel and God the Father’s covenant relationship:
Rom 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
This verse in Romans has some amazing information in it. God is writing this section of Romans directly to the Natural Nation of Israel. You can read the context and see this very clearly if you understand the wording. So while the context is talking about the law of marriage that was given to only natural Israel it then declares to them that they have been released from their previous covenant with God, by the death of Jesus Christ so that they can be legally married again. God says very clearly that they are now free to “marry” another, and then describes Him to be the Lord Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead. Did you ever realize that the Jesus who died was different from the Jesus who was raised from the dead? That is what God is saying in this verse. Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and became the “firstborn” from the dead (Col 1:18). This verse now declares to natural Israel that they have been freed from the law of marriage with God the Father by the death of Jesus on the cross. The marriage to Jesus who is risen is in reference to the New Covenant and their opportunity to become the bride of Christ. Jesus confirms this reality in this statement:
- Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
If the old covenant was a way to be saved then Jesus lied. The Old Covenant is not the New Covenant. We can clearly see that truth in verses like Hebrews 8:6 or Hebrews 12:24 when Jesus becomes the mediator of a new and better covenant. Any covenant called new is one that never existed before. All of this information that I am introducing you to will become clearer as the series continues and more scriptures are revealed to you.
Many like to think that God is a polygamist and is in covenant with natural Israel and the church simultaneously right now. While they do not call it Polygamy, that is what God calls it. However, once you realize that the Old Covenant was with God the Father, and the New Covenant is with God the risen Son, I believe that changes everything dramatically. It also means that God is not in covenant with Natural Israel anymore. I do not have time or space to explain that, but you can read my other blogs and find more answers, if you want to know the truth. The natural nation of Israel is able to enter into the New Covenant with Jesus Christ, if they want to. However, most of natural Israel has chosen to close their eyes and not to see the truth, so they reap the works of their own deceptions. There is more I could write and many other scriptures that we could explore, but I have gone too long in this blog. Hopefully I can continue this subject in the future.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons about the spriitual family of God you may continue with “Part 3“.
What Does God Think About Homosexuality? What Does The Bible Say?
(Ver 1.3) This is “Part 1” in a series of advanced Bible lessons on the subject of “What does God think of homosexuality”. This of course is a hot topic and one that is fiercely debated, even in churches. There are so many controversial subjects that people just want to ignore, because they do not want to offend anyone. I never recall Jesus avoiding any issues that were brought before Him but, I also do not recall Jesus ever directly addressing sin in any area of people’s personal lives. People need to understand what Jesus said in John 3:17. Jesus claimed that He was not sent into the world to condemn the world but through Him the world might be saved. This of course, people are very quick to point out, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality and I have even heard people try to accuse Jesus of acting like a homosexual. It is amazing how foolish people can become when they want to justify their erroneous ways and their sinful lifestyles. While Jesus rarely addressed sin, you will find that after He healed people, He would sometimes say, “now go and sin no more unless a worse thing come upon you” (John 5:14). To the woman caught in adultery Jesus said “go and sin no more” (John 8:11). So Jesus never said that sin was OK and acceptable. Jesus never justified sin, nor would He tolerate people doing everything they wanted to do. So it comes down to a question of the definition of what sin is and this varies tremendously from person to person. Some think their sin is better than someone else’s sin and thus they justify themselves to be righteous in their own eyes. The basic modern argument for homosexuality being forced down our throats is a statement that claims this is who we are. They claim that God created us this way. This is the only sin that I know of that makes these assertions. So that is why I am writing about homosexuality and not about adultry today. I have never heard someone caught in adultry say this is just who I am and you will have to accept me this way. Therefore, I am not here to discuss all types of sin today, I just want to focus in on what the Bible says about homosexuality and see if we can determine if God thinks this is a sin, based upon the Bible and not my opinion or yours.
While some people like to claim that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality they quickly forget that Jesus was God in the flesh and that He said plenty about the subject in many other parts of the Bible. While Jesus was walking the face of the earth in the flesh, you will notice that one of the only things that Jesus ever confronted was religious people who thought they knew more than He did and proclaim themselves to be better than everyone else. Self-righteousness still abounds today even in the church. We have church people protesting Homosexuals and Abortionists and in doing so, they proclaim themselves to be perfect. As a result Christians are portrayed on TV and in the news as the hate mongers. Christians are viewed as those who are hateful towards others and intolerant towards minorities. Is this what Jesus did? Didn’t Jesus tell the crowd of potential stone casters, “He that is without Sin, Cast the first stone”? I think you could legitimately change that to say, “To Him that is without Sin, Pick up your Signs and Posters and hold them up!”. It just doesn’t make much sense what people think is right to do, if you think about it. Christians should change and become more like Christ and less like those in the world. In Jesus’ lesson about fishing for men, you must conclude that you never try to clean a fish, until you first catch one. Too many people are trying to get clean fish first and then take them to God to be saved and this is not how it works.
What are Christians suppose to do? I believe that Christians should just tell the truth and that would be a great place to start. The truth is a very difficult thing to tell people sometimes, because it is not easily accepted by many who do not wish to hear it. The truth is often times rejected on purpose so as to deflect blame, shame or guilt away from their lives. While there are many who want to portray an openly gay life style with open pride today, there are equally as many who are ashamed of their ways. People do not like to tell about their childhood experiences, where a grown up abused them and did things to them that they should not have done. These are the areas of life that hurt people and cause emotional and psychological damage and people think that many times they are better left unsaid and swept under a rug somewhere. Because I do not know you, I cannot speak about you. I can only tell you about my personal experiences and you of course can believe them or not.
A male family member that I know of was molested as a child by an older male relative. I know this, because I was there. It was the middle of the night and this male relative tried to molest me too, but I was too big for him and I said leave me alone. Because I did not know what to do, I did nothing to stop him from molesting this other relative. As a result of this attack, this young male family member later turned to a homosexual life style. But, I know where it started and how it started and this was not how he was born. This is rarely talked about in the world, in the news media and on TV. That is unless it is committed by someone in the church. Then it is run up the flag pole like, look at these people who say they are Christians, they are just perverts who molest our children. Because people do not normally talk about these events in their young lives, most pretend that they never happen. What people do not understand, is many Gay men want sex with young boys and that is widely swept under the rug and never discussed. We can easily understand that being a pedophile is a sin, or at the least against the law. But we ignore the bigger problem, that there is a heart issue, a mind issue and an emotional issue that is not being addressed in the victims of these molesters.
As a teenage male growing up in America in the sexual revolution 70’s, I was targeted by older males. Satan also attempted to get me into this lifestyle. I was picked up and did not know what was happening before it happened. These guys were aware that I was under age and did not care. That is why they picked me to begin with. Being naive is both a blessing and a curse, you are kept from knowing what people really want, but when approached you are easily tricked into being somewhere you should not be. Because, I was young and naive, I was a candidate and an easy target for these predators. So how many Gays are talking about this kind of behavior openly, not any that I know of? I am very thankful to God that these creeps did not scar me for life or get me to change who I really am. I am also thankful to God for not allowing them to hurt me more than they did. People rarely talk about these kinds of things, and it is very difficult for me to even admit that I was there. I could have very easily been drawn into the deception of this wrong life style. I could have been deceived into believing that I was just like them. So I have given you my personal experiences with this issue. Gays would make sex with young males legal if they could get away with it. I would venture to say that most Gay men have been molested somewhere in their childhood and have been deceived into the lifestyle, but do not discuss it.
So the title of my blog is “What Does God Think about Homosexuality?” Just based upon what I have written, so far about my experiences what do you think that God thinks about what men do to children? Or even what women do to little girls? Do you think that it is OK, in the eyes of God? Is this how God created people to act? That of course is a very loaded set of questions. God loves everyone, but does not approve of everything that people do. It is not OK to do something’s, just because you are able to and you want to. There are many things in the world that are here, not because God created them for us, but because, man wanted them for their pleasure and self-indulgences. What does God think about “homosexuality”? Let’s look at what God says in the Bible and just see some of the examples of God’s thoughts toward the subject.
Rom 1:26 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:
Churches, who ordain gay ministers, must ignore vast parts of the Bible. Here is God speaking about women who are making a critical mistake. God calls it “vile affections”. These are women who have sex with women for their own selfish pleasure. God calls sex “natural”, but only between a man and his wife. The natural use of a woman is not to have sex with another woman. If you do not know how to read, you can obviously make up excuses and attempt to explain away what God says very plainly. The term “vile” means indignity, shame, reproach, dishonor and disgrace. Those are some pretty strong words for something that God does not look upon with favor. The term “affections” can mean “lusts”. I will talk about this word more as we look at the next verse in the chapter:
Rom 1:27 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.
Now it starts to become much more more obvious to what God is talking about. God is definitely saying that sex between a husband and his wife is natural. However, God says that sex between two males is a clear “error”. The term “unseemly” in this verse means “indecency” . What is indecency? We have heard the term used “indecency with a child”. That means that in the eyes of the law, you are doing something that you should not do to a little child. This can include touching them inappropriately to speaking suggestively to them, or whatever. “Indecency” in the eyes of God is what happens when a man has sex with a man. God calls it something that should not occur. It is an abuse of the specifically designed sexual reproduction principles established by God. You have heard of drug abusers and alcohol abusers, well God is calling men who have sex with other men sexual abusers. God is saying sex has a purpose and was designed in a certain way to be between a husband and wife and anything else is abuse of the design. People ignoring God’s moral standards have sought to establish their own definitions of morality. The term “error” in this verse means to be “deceived”. God is saying that men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women have been “deceived”. Who is the deceiver? Of course the deceiver is Satan. Satan has caused men and women’s minds to be tricked into believing a false reality of who they really are. If you know how to read and to look up the definitions of the words in the Strong’s Concordance you will see that I am telling you the truth.
So now let’s discuss what God says is the reason for this deception and how it works. The Bible says that these men “burned in their lust” one toward another. What does that mean? What does it mean to burn? What is lust? If you look up the word translated as “lust” in Strong’s it is very interesting. Lust means “excitement of the mind”. I have often times heard it said that the mind is the devil’s playground. This is how he is allowed to work to deceive people. Do you know that it is illegal for the devil to appear to you and try to trick you naturally? I guess I won’t go there today, but Satan uses people’s thoughts to entice them into doing things that they should never do. You know that men who molest children or just have sex with other men do not start out that way, they have done it hundreds of times in their minds before they ever act it out in the natural. Doing wrong things outwardly are all just manifestations of inward fantasies, projections and thoughts. The reality of acting out a “lust” is always the result of a previous repeated fantasy of someone’s imagination. What you continually think about, is what you will eventually do. Think wrong things, you will eventually do wrong things, this is how God designed the human mind to work. If you put the right things into your mind, you will get more positive things to come out of your mind into your actions. But, if you put Garbage into your mind, you will always get garbage out of it in what you do. Why do you think the Bible says for us to put forth an effort to “RENEW OUR MINDS”? (Rom 12:2) The renewal process of the mind means a renovation or the replacement of the old previous thoughts in your mind to think new and improved ones from God’s Word. You could call it a mind thought upgrade to think higher spiritual thoughts. By replacing the old carnal thoughts, with new spiritual thoughts we can eventually change what we do. People wonder why we have such problems in our schools and never place the blame on the fact that we have taken God and the Bible out of our schools and are now are reaping the results of producing spiritually ignorant children without morals and standards. Ok, I got off the subject, I was talking about homosexuality and how people become homosexuals and told you about your mind being the cause and then went into schools. Sorry about that. I started this paragraph speaking about lust and I need to get back on track..
Lust is a longing for, something that is highly desired to someone. Did you know if you do everything that your flesh longed for, you would be in really bad shape? Lust is something that is a normal human emotional state, but what you lust after is always the root cause of every problem. The verse in Romans was talking about the unnatural sex between people of the same sex as being a result of unnatural thoughts that were acted out. So why do some men lust for men and others do not? Why do some men lust after alcohol and some do not? The Bible says we are all carried away with different things, there are many different temptations in the world (James 1:14). For the most part, it came about from something that happened in their childhood, their parents could have been alcoholics and it was passed down. This is a factor that you should realize. The sins of the parents are often times passed to the children. Let’s change the focus and go back and see if Jesus ever said anything about homosexuality:
Mat 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
Jesus asks a very basic question about creation and I wonder why Gay people do not see that He is talking to them. While some people say that Jesus never talked about homosexuality, I am about to prove them wrong. Jesus in effect is saying “Are you STUPID”, can’t you READ?” In the beginning did God create them MALE and MALE or FEMALE and FEMALE? Or did God create them Male and Female? Somehow, God must have changed His mind somewhere in the course of human history. I can only guess that this is that these homosexual proponents must think today! They obviously declare that God created me this way. I’m Gay because I was born Gay! The lies and the deception from Satan are very deep when it comes to this issue. People seem to think that God has changed somewhere during the last 6000 years, and the Bible clearly says that God never changes (Mal 3:6). So what do we do with Bible stories like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19)? In this story two men show up at Lot’s house and the house is surrounded by the men of the city. These men demand for Lot to send the men out so that they can have sex with them. However, these men were angels and they strike the homosexuals blind and later destory the city. I guess we just ignore these stories and pretend that they are not in the Bible and let these people continue with their lie. We are just all suppose to get along and become more open and tolerant and just look the other way and pretend that it is not happening. After all God must have intended to created Adam and Steve, instead of Adam and Eve, He just made a mistake.
1Co 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
People can be exceedingly foolish, sometimes. They think you have to have overwhelming evidence to the fact of anything in the Bible in order for it to be true. Just because some people cannot find 15 to 20 Bible verses about the subject of homosexuality, they feel it is not worthy of mention and deem it to be insignificant to their view of God. However, God does not view it this way. In fact God says we only need at the minimum, two verses in the Bible to establish any truth. If you can find just two verses it is an established truth from God’s perspective. That is the Bible law of interpretation and you can ignore it, if you want to. Here is another very clear verse in 1 Corinthians and it says something that is profound if you look up the definitions of all of the words. God starts by declaring that He is talking about the “unrighteous”. Unrighteousness is the opposite of being righteous. To be “righteous” means you are in good standing with God. The Bible declares that true Christians have obtain the righteousness of God, so we know that this verse is not talking about true Christians. The word translated as “unrighteous” means “heathen” and “wicked”. So the unrighteous are clearly warned that they will not inherit the kingdom of God. The verse then goes and defines who these unrighteous people are. Most of the descriptions of these next terms are sexually based. So right there we have a major problem being presented to the church. I’ll start with the word “fornicators” and that word means “male prostitute”. Isn’t that interesting? This is someone who sells their body for the sexual pleasure of others. This word can apply to homosexual prostitutes as well as heterosexual prostitutes. But I do not see the need for most women to buy a prostitute so this is not what God is talking about, is it? Now let’s skip to the word translated as “adulterer”. The word in the Strong’s carries the “male” gender for a word that is a derogatory definition of a “male lover”. Again this is not a good word for men. Now let’s continue to the next word translated as “effeminate”, we can already see the negative implications on this word. The Strong’s defines this word as a “catamite”. A catamite is defined as a boy that is kept for the sexual pleasure of an older man. This is the definition of a homosexual and you can ignore it if you want to stay in your sinful ways, but it does not change the truth. Finally, the last Greek word in the verse tops off the list with the most plain conformation and definition, this word is translated in the KJV as “abuser of themselves with mankind”. Already we see a pattern of definitions that is clearly not an endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle. This Greek word is defined in Strong’s as a “Sodomite”. This is just so clear that those who do not want to know the truth have been blinded by Satan to not accept what God is saying to them in a clear warning. Sodomy is male sex with a male. I mean give me a break, the only way a male has sex with a male is either orally or anally. Males are not designed this way and God tells you very clearly that it is an abuse of the original sexual design of humanity. So those who want to continue to be how they say they were created will probably not change no matter how many scripture verses I give them. Gay men and women will always ignore the truth for whatever they want to do. Either they will see the truth and change or they will encounter the error of their ways for an eternity. This is what the Bible says, so accept it or choose to reject it and die in your sins, it will always be your choice. I’m sorry if I’m being very blunt, but it is time to be plain, sound a clear warning and tell the truth.
1Jn 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
We have already clearly seen the relationship of lust to homosexuality, if you do not understand the relationship of the two, then you do not want to know the truth. What is homosexuality? What is the definition of homosexuality? It is the sexual relationship of two people of the same sex. So why do people do this? The Bible calls it the lust of the flesh. To lust after flesh is said not to be of God, but is said to be of the world. God is giving you some very clear information about homosexuality in a non-direct way. If you think that you can lust after a man and be a Christian man at the same time, God says this is not of Me.
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
This is what churches are doing who let in Gay ministers. They ignore God’s truth and preach their own version of godliness. They do not want to have to change, so they change the Bible to fit what they desire. The subject of lust is widely discussed in the Bible, and you should be able to see how it applies to homosexuality. If you do not, it really doesn’t matter what God says to you anywhere, you have already made up your mind to stay where you are at. Did you know God will let you do that? God never forces anyone to change.
I could give you many, many other Bible verses on the subject that are far more direct and speak clearly on this subject, but I have gone long enough for now. I suppose I will hear some criticism about what I have written. I know there are churches in America that stand up and allow homosexual leaders to teach and preach and to be ordained as God’s chosen ones. These people have gathered together teachers who justify what they want to hear and have chosen to ignore the truth. Do not be deceived with them. If you are going to a church that promotes sin as something good, you are going to the wrong church. I always get amused at people who do not like what God says in the Bible. People like to attack the messenger and want to kill them for bringing them the bad news. God says certain things about homosexuality that will not be popular with those who wish to continue in their ways. I did give you enough information in this one blog to show you how you change what you are doing, if God is talking to you today. If you do not agree with what God says in the Bible, then I prefer not hear the words of fools and idiots, so do not leave me any negative comments. Take up your negative comments with God and not me, I did not write the Bible.
It is difficult not to have an opinion on this subject of homosexuality. We cannot go anywhere, where it is not thrown in front of us. If you have been on vacation to any of the popular destinations in our country, you have been confronted with homosexuality on every street corner. San Francisco has widely been held as the capital city of the Gay community, put we were confronted with it in Key West, Florida and even north in Martha’s Vineyard, then certain districts of New York City. We were in Orlando Florida at Disney World, one year and it just so happened to be the same time that Disney held Gay Pride Day or something like that. There are Gay Pride parades and events in every major city now and they dress up and cross dress and do as many perverted unnatural things as they want to call it all normal behavior. Very few places in the world are now not open to the blatant show of in your face sin. Almost everyone in the media, and on TV and in the Movies have come up with a direct homosexual agenda that is being rammed down the throats of God fearing Christians. The News media likes to put homosexuality in the same category as racial bigotry and hatred. I do not know how they can confuse the two issues and think we can lump these into the same level of intolerance. One is a Sin and the other is the color of someone’s Skin. Is there a difference, you bet there is. The homosexual lifestyle is portrayed as a valid alternative lifestyle on TV. Homosexuals have come out of the closets in droves in the last 50 years. Gay marriage is being pushed in every state as a violation of their rights. Acceptance and equal rights is the agenda of the Gay community. All calling for acceptance in who they say they are. This is the way we were born, this is how we are, it’s in our DNA, and so they would like to try to convince us. They are claiming to have been born with a Gay gene. Now having said all of that, I do not think Christians should go around and hold up signs, telling Gays that God Hates Them. That is idiotic and not helping anyone. Where in the Bible does it say that God hates Gays? Christians should not be in the Gay bashing or hatred realm of existence. We are to preach the good news, like Jesus did in a way that might help some. I believe that Christians are to stand up for what is right and base what we believe solely on the Bible. So have you ever read the Bible? What does it say about Homosexuality? I have not found anything favorable or tolerant about this sin, have you? However, it is still just a sin like every other sin and God views all sin in the same light, on the same level plane. One sin is not greater than another if you study your Bible, you will see that God does not rate sin in varying degrees like people do.
So if you are struggling with this issue and thinking there is no hope, you are wrong. You do not know the power of God to change the hearts and minds of people who want to change. If you want to stay where you are and do what you do, God will let you. I have given you enough information in this blog on what it takes to change. With God’s help you can do it.
If you want to go and read the next lesson in this series you may go to “Part 2“.
Learning and Following the Spiritual Laws of Bible Interpretation!
(Ver 2.4) People generally do not like to follow rules. If the speed limit is 35 they like to push it 41 or 42 and see if they get away with it. Life is full of rules and we should begin to realize that these laws have benefits and reasons for existence. Laws should be viewed as positive things in the world. You live by them every day, they govern what you do and if you violate them, you pay the consequences. Without laws we would live in a world of chaos. There are natural laws, scientific laws, laws of gravity, laws of aerodynamics, laws of governments and these all provide structure to our world. When we abide with them and cooperate with them, we usually live in a world that is safer and generally a better place to exist. So do people not realize that the spiritual laws in the Bible are also given to us for these same reasons. By learning about the spiritual laws of God in the Bible we can better understand what the Bible means. By ignoring these spiritual laws, we have what we have a lot of today, we have a church of chaos, disagreement, contention, arguing, controversy, and the lack of agreement and harmony.
Without people following the laws of Bible interpretation, we have hundreds of possible interpretations available about what the Bible means. I’ve got bad news for most people, not every Bible interpretation is the truth. A lot of the teaching in the church is just someone’s opinion of what they think the Bible says and this is not how God intended it to be. If God was interested in your opinion, he would have asked you to write the Bible. Your opinion is not worth a dime, in the eyes of God. Your intelligence is so far below that of God, that it is probably humorous to God to hear what you have to say and what you think is right.
NO PRIVATE INTERPRETATIONS
So what are these laws of Bible interpretation that we should learn to follow? I hope you understand the importance of laws, for I will not expand that part of the discussion any further. Up until now I have just introduced you to some basic concepts of the usefulness of laws. Now I will talk about a couple of the major rules of correct Bible interpretation that not too many are following. The first law of Bible interpretation should be one that everyone knows, because I think it is the most important to know and use. I’ve already touched on it a little bit in the introduction and it has to do with keeping your opinion out of your interpretations. An interpretation represents a biased opinion of the facts given. People cannot interpret the Bible without putting what they know and have experienced into it. Your personal experiences, your prejudices, your upbringing, even the words of your pastor are all factors into how you view the Bible. What you see in the Bible is always slanted by the many complex factors of influece and these are sometimes very difficult for people to get out of their minds in order to see clearly what God is saying.
2Pe 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
God writes this as being something that we should know first. That makes it sound very important for us to know. Some do not know how God writes the Bible and therefore come to the wrong conclusions. God can hide the most important things in obscure verses deep in the middle of the Bible. I wish I could give you a good reason why God does some of the things that He does, but I’m not God and I do understand all of them, by far. I just do the best that I can with what I have learned so far, and you should do the same. Anyway, this verse in 2 Peter tells us very clearly that the Bible is not open to our private interpretations. In other words, God is not interested in your opinion or what you think that it means. If people would learn this one simple rule, it would help them tremendously. You see in the word “private” carries the meaning of “self”. That means that people are putting their own spin on what God has said. Instead of learning what God says about the subject, they want to ignore God’s words for what they think is correct.
What we learn from this verse in 2 Peter is that the Bible interprets itself. What does that mean? It simply means that God is smarter than you and I, and He has given us His own explanations on what He has said in the Bible. While this sounds good on the surface, it is also a challenge to us. Finding God’s explanations and definitions are not always as easy as you would like to think. It involves an effort and a level of work to study the Bible and find out what God has said. God could have made the Bible easier to understand, but He didn’t, so we work with what He has given us. We bow to His greater wisdom on the subject and submit to His design. If you do not do this you will continue to be lost in your mindless reality and you will miss what God has for you. So learn this first rule and it will change your perspective greatly. It will also cause you to ignore what other people think the Bible means. That alone is worth a fortune of your time and Bible study effort. People on the internet who do not give Bible verses, I very quickly just turn off and do not read. It sure saves a lot of time not to have to listen to the opinions of ignorant people.
Another aspect of what a private interpretation is, can be the use of any other book or source other than just reading the Bible. You see I talked to a guy on the internet the other day and he gave me his interpretation for some prophetic scriptures in the Old and New Testaments. His major problem was the fact that his interpretation was dependent upon information from history books, internet calendars and way too many sources that did not include God or the Bible. That is an obvious example of interpreting the Bible in error. Once you set foot outside of the Word of God you are treading on Satan’s realm and domain of deception. Another example of error is interpretations that name modern individuals, entities, governments, organizations or whatever else you care to interpret into the Bible. I have heard repeatedly the reference to the Pope being the antichrist and this is crazy speculation and a clear example of a private interpretation. The pope did not exist when the Bible was written, but Satan did exist.
Some like to read that God knows the end from the beginning and therefore in Revelation He can tell us of caoming things that do not yet exist like the Pope. While this is certainly possible we must still attempt to interpret the Bible with the Bible and the Pope interpretation is a major conflict with many other verses in the Bible that teach us something differently. Understand that the Bible does not contradict itself in the proper correct understanding of the words written. In other words one verse is not going to conflict with another vese so we must balance the correct interpretation between both truths given. First, God says there is nothing new under the sun (Ecc 1:9). The thing that has been is the thing that shall be again. That right there tells me that the Pope is not God’s enemy and to declare him the anti-Christ is in opposition to God’s Word that there is nothing new. Then there is this verse in the N.T. that says “While we look not at the things that are seen, because the things that are seen are temprorary and the things that not seen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:18). God is basically telling us if we are looking for natural signs and ignoring the spiritual world you are going to miss it. Can you see the Pope? If you can see the pope then the pope is not what we should be focused on. What God is teaching us in this verse is that we should change our focus and not be fixated on the external things and try to perceive the spirit behind the external visible person. Ok, do not misunderstand what I am saying. We do live in a natural world but we should be dominated with the Spiritual things of God and not the flesh. If the anti-Christ comes in the flesh, people are only going to be able to discern him with their spiritual awareness and not by looking at the outward appearance that will easily deceive many.
Therefore learn to change your perspective to God’s point of view and see scriptures and things in the spiritual realm first and then you will understand what is happening in the natural realm. Correct bible interpretation is not easy, but it is achievable by simply learning the rules and this was only one small aspect of the subject and it is impossible to cover it fully in this one lesson.
IN THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES
The next thing that I would like to discuss is often misused and ignored. This law is a law found in the Bible and one that God has clearly spelled out. However, I guess people do not apply it to Bible study and Bible interpretation. Did you know everything in the Bible is not plainly laid out? God gives us some very valuable information in some very minor scriptures. For example, the virgin birth of Christ, which is a basic foundational Christian theological position and critical to the identity of Jesus, is only mentioned a couple of times in vague references. You would think that God would talk about this more clearly and give us many more verses that told us about this, but yet He does not. I was reading a blog the other day and this very deceived man was speaking about “homosexuality” not being mentioned in the Bible clearly so therefore he concluded that it was not important to God and that he could still be a Christian and a homosexual at the same time. What people do not understand is that it only takes two verses in the Bible to say the same thing and that means it is an established truth of the Bible. Because this man only found two or three verses against homosexuality, he came to the wrong conclusion and said it is OK to stay in sin. This is what God says:
2Co 13:1 This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.
Did you see what God says in this verse? God says that if you can find at the least two references in the Bible to the same subject, then that establishes the truth that you should live by. This is a basic truth that our courts and legal system needs to abide by. If it is just the word of one against the other, then you will have a very hard time figuring out what the truth is. But, if you can find two witnesses who agree, then that establishes the basis of the truth. So we learn that we cannot just go read a single Bible verse and try to make it say something that it does not say. We are required by God’s design to get a corresponding and collaborating witness to every truth. Knowing this fact will change almost everything found in many church doctrines. That means the people who try to teach snake handling in churches have a major problem with what they teach. They do err in their interpretation of the Bible by selectively preaching a single verse out of context. I’ll go even further than that today risking offending someone in the Catholic church. The Bible does not teach we need a Pope. Peter was not the first pope that they claim that he was. They take one verse out of context and try to make a man-made doctrine to establish the office of the pope and this is a dangerous way to treat God and the Bible. You can make the Bible say anything that you want it to. There is proof of this in every denominatio of the church. However, if people would only read and study the Bible using the rules of God to understand what is written we would all benefit and come closer to a unified set of beliefs. Learn to search your Bible for at least two verses to establish the truth and this will help you tremendously in how you view the truth.
These are just two of the most important basic spiritual laws of correct Bible interpretation that you need to learn and put into daily practice. Once you finally do this, you will begin to see that there is a major difference between God’s Bible truth from what some people are trying to convince you is the truth. There is a conept from our history that applies to today’s lesson on God’s laws. The Law of aerodynamis always existed from the time of Adam, but no man knew or understood it so we did not benefit from it. Do you see the application that I am getting at and the importance of knowing about God’s laws? People who do not know that spiritual laws exist can never follow them or utilize them to their advantage to understand God’s Word. However, once you discover them and learn to use them they have great potential for the same dramatic change in our lives as the invention of the airplane. Just a short time ago no one knew how to fly and today it is a common occurrence that everyone participates in. This is why I am teaching this subject today so that we can all benefit and begin to use God’s laws to understand the Bible. Thanks for reading my Bible lesson on the Laws of correct Bible interpretation. God Bless!
Deception the Greatest Weapon of Satan!
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 of a series of lessons on the subject of deception found in the Bible. Today I want to discuss how Satan causes people not to see the truth of God’s Word. It is a common practice in military training for Generals and commanders to study their enemies. By understanding an enemies strengths and weaknesses you are better able to defend against them or better yet to defeat them. The more you know about your enemies the better off you are. So does the church have any enemies? You must be an ostrich Christian with your spiritual head stuck in the ground if you do not see that we do. There is a spiritual force of evil in the world that is bent on taking the church down. They have specific tactics and tools that they use to try to defeat the church. We know that the Bible says that we “wrestle not against flesh and blood” so we know that people are not the source of our opposition, even though Satan does use people to try to get to us. We know that those forces of evil that we fight against are the “principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph 6:12). So just because flesh and blood comes against the church with accusations and verbal or physical attacks, these people are controlled by a spiritual force that we cannot perceive with our physical senses.
2Ti 2:26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
We can understand that Satan, our enemy uses “snares” to come against us. A snare is a trap, a trick or strategy that causes us to become captive or a prisoner. If every trap was obvious, we would never be caught. So these traps must be hidden or covered so that we do not see them clearly. I believe that Satan’s primary weapon is the deception of thoughts that are placed in our minds. What is deception and how it is used against us, will be my subject for today. Let’s start by defining the word “deceived” from the Bible:
G4105
From G4106; to (properly cause to) roam (from safety, truth, or virtue): – go astray, deceive, err, seduce, wander, be out of the way.
That is a very interesting definition for the word “deceived” found in the N.T. This word means to “cause to wander or roam from safety, truth or virtue”. If you have ever been hiking in the woods, you know that usually there are designated trails and established pathways. However, if you become adventuresome, and attempt to deviate and make your own way, this is normally where your failure and deception begins. Many times a path will have a fork in it and if it is not clearly marked you better have a good map. Sometimes walking down a path you encounter what looks like a good way to go and it suddenly turns into a dead end. When I was younger, my wife and I started climbing a mountain in Colorado. It took a good part of the day to get to the top. We did this on a whim and were not planning on being gone as long as we were. We took no food or water and on the way back down the mountain decided to try to take a short cut. If this short cut would have worked, we would have been back to camp in time for dinner. However, we ran into a cliff and a steep terrain that there was just no way to continue. So we ended up going back up the way we came and finally back the way we climbed up. This little analogy has vast spiritual implication on it. Jesus told us that he is the “Path”, “The Way” and He revealed there is no other way to God (John 14:6). So where did all of these other religions in the world come from? Who gave us these religions and why are they here? You do know there are well over 20 major religions in the world and within these 20 or more religions there are further divisions or sects and all of these just cannot be the truth. The variation in what they believe and teach is so radically different that there is no way they are even related. This is what I believe about these religions, and why they exist. I believe they are an attempt of the enemy to provide information overload. By providing you so many options and so many possible ways of thinking you are easily overwhelmed to know which one is right. How do you know which one to choose? So God comes to the earth and gives you the truth and tells you that Jesus is the way, but all of the other religions of the world say no, that is not right, we have the only truth. Wow, what a trick! What a major distraction! What a way to get people to not see the real way! Who is responsible for all these lies? The Bible tells us very clearly, that there is one individual, a spirit being that is responsible for this dissemination of invalid and false information and it is Satan:
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
So we can clearly see that the “great dragon” who is called Satan is responsible for the deception that is being perpetrated upon the human race. People are being led down paths away from the truth and in directions that are directly opposite from the truth, into a realm of darkness and they do not even know it. These deceptions are being instigated at every level and every location on the globe. Satan is interested in deceiving everyone, because why? Is Satan just a really bad guy who does evil just because he can, or is there a greater motivation and purpose to his behavior? You should really think about that question and determine Satan’s motivation, since that is not my primary subject I will not try to elaborate on it for now. However, I will talk about a related subject and mention this:
2Jn 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
We have already seen that Satan is the chief initiator of all deception. However, as I said before, Satan uses people to get his messages out. Satan is a spiritual being that controls and manipulates natural people. So we have people, even in churches today that stand up and teach things that are lies. Here is one of the ways to determine if they are telling the truth or not. It would seem that Satan is highly opposed to letting people believe that God came into the world in the flesh, in the form of a man named Jesus of Nazareth. Why is Satan so opposed to this message? Did God’s presence on the earth cause something to happen to Satan that Satan wants to try to undo? Let me ask you this, if I said that the Holocaust never happened in Germany like some idiots try to say in the world, does that mean it is not true? No it doesn’t change the fact that it occurred just because you don’t believe it occurred, does it? But, what happens is it changes your perception of reality and therefore it changes your results and you lose any benefit of believing the truth, because you have bought into the lie. This is the net result of telling people God did not come to the earth in the man Jesus Christ. By telling people that Jesus was just a normal human male, you take away His ability to save you and forgive your sins. As a result you are lost with no hope of salvation and that is really bad news for you.
So this next part will not be particularly popular with some Christians, but yet I believe it needs to be said. Deception involves someone speaking false words. False words is a nicer way of saying lies. A liar is a deceiver. A deceiver is a liar. They go hand in hand. Where one is, the other is also present. They are the Siamese twins of Satan.
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Jesus speaking to the Jews reveals some very strong words of truth, and says they are of their father, the devil. Since that is not my subject I will not go there today. Then Jesus tells us that Satan is the father of all lies. That is just another way of saying that Satan is the initiator of lies. However, it is interesting to note that not everything that Satan says is necessarily a lie. Jesus said “When Satan lies” not “When Satan speaks”. There is a major difference. It also makes deception much harder to recognize. When Satan speaks 10 truths mixed with one or two lies, how do you know which is which? If you notice back in Genesis 3, when Satan spoke to Eve he said some things that were true, but then he also mixed in a lie. This is how Satan operates, mixing truths with lies so that you become deceived into believing the lie. Here is a definition of one of the Greek words translated as “lie”:
G5574
Middle voice of an apparently primary verb; to utter an untruth or attempt to deceive by falsehood: – falsely, lie.
To utter an untruth. In other words to speak a lie. What is truth? Truth is based upon the Word of God, because the Bible says that it is impossible for God to lie (Heb 6:18). So God only speaks the truth. What God says we can take as the truth. The Bible contains the truth of God, but not everything in the Bible is truth. That statement shocks some Christians also, but you have to understand when you watch the 6:00 evening news, is everything that they say or report true? What if they interview a known criminal and he says I’m innocent, I did not kill that woman. Should you believe it just because it was on the news? So it is with the Bible, not every recorded word or statement of men and women in the Bible is the truth. It is true that they said what they said, but it did come out of the mouth of God so why are we suppose to believe it all? Job said some stuff that God reprimanded him for and asked him, were you there when I made the heavens and formed the stars? If you read Job 38:2 God says “Who is this that darkens counsel with words without knowledge”. That doesn’t sound very good for Job’s words, does it? We have the recorded words of Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar Ananias, Pilot, just to name a few men who were not saved, nor were they prophets of God. So truth come from verses that say “Thus saith the Lord”. Truth comes from the Words in Red in the N.T. Also truth comes from the mouth of God’s prophets.
So a lie is an untruth. A statement not based upon facts or clear evidence. A lie is a statement of “fiction”. That is why I avoid reading books labeled “fiction”. They are the words of someone’s imagination, either based upon some facts or no facts. We are surrounded by Fictional movies, books and other examples of entertainment that challenge our Christian faith. There is so much of this in the world today that it is amazing we can think at all. Satan is the author and originator of “fiction”, “untruth”, “lies” and “deception”. That is why I debate the fact that some authors call themselves “Christian Fiction Writers”. To me that is just another oxymoronic term for a true lie. I told you this was not going to be popular, but we need to consider what we feed on. Just as we should watch we eat physically, we should also watch what we put into our spirits. Here is a scripture that confirms this:
2Ti 4:4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
This verse is speaking about Christians who knew the truth at one time, but have now followed fables. The Greek word translated as “fables” means “myths”, “tales” and “fiction”. Do you see the danger of “fiction”? Satan can use it to lead you off of the path of eternal salvation back into a path of darkness. That just can’t be good, right?
1Ti 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith:
We are again warned of the introduction of “fiction” into our lives that results in us questioning our faith. This verse tells us that truth “edifies” or “builds up our faith” and we can clearly see that “fiction” does the opposite.
2Pe 1:16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
Cunningly devised “fiction” will lead some into paths they do not want to go. To say something is “cunning” and “devised” means that it is purposely designed to lie to you and bring you down. In other words fiction is more than just entertainment, it has a purpose and a design intended to do harm to you and to deceive you. You can certainly see why this is not popular, but yet it is in the Bible, so what do we do with it?
So is deception becoming less prevalent or is deception in the world growing? Are there less options or are the number of possible lies being exponentially increased in our daily lives? I believe that with the advent of the internet and the information explosion era that we are living within, we are faced with an increasingly difficult levels of deceptions. Sometimes the false information is blatant and obvious, but other times it is subtle and very tricky to see. There is such a diverse set of false information on the internet and TV, that it is very difficult for most people to figure out what is real. This is what the Bible says about deception:
2Ti 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
The amount of deception in the world is increasingly growing at a rate that is difficult to comprehend. The number of ways to be deceived, the number of ways that lies are presented are exploding on TV, movies, the internet and the other media sources, that there is no way to keep track of it all anymore. If a Christian wanted to discredit all of them they would not be able to. What Christians need to understand is that we are not called to teach against lies, we are just called to present the truth. Those who believe will be saved and those who do not believe, will not be saved (Mark 16:16).
Eph 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
Just as natural children are more easily tricked than adults, spiritual children are more easily deceived than mature Christians. We are admonished to grow up spiritually and to become mature in Christ. Otherwise we will be tossed around easily with the trickery of Satan. You do know that Satan has been around a lot longer than you have, don’t you? You do understand that he has more experience with what to do, than you do. So if you are depending upon your ability to deflect the lies that he will present you, you are already deceived. In this verse in Ephesians God tells us not to accept every teaching that is thrown at us. I found the word “sleight” of men to be very interesting when I looked up the definition. It means “dice”, or “a gambling cube”. The implication is given that these men are gambling with your lives and theirs. They are rolling their cubes and playing a game that is not easily won. The next term in the verse is that of “cunning craftiness”. This term means to be “subtle”. If you recall this is the way Satan came to Eve in Genesis 3. Satan used specific thoughts to deceive the woman and that is Satan’s only weapon against you. All Satan has to do is trick you a little bit, distract you from the truth by just a minor difference and you are now off the true path.
Rom 16:18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
This verse is so amazingly true to our world that we live in, that I am shocked at the reality of our current government. We seem to have a President who speaks “fair” words that have deceived the hearts of the simple minded people of our nation. He says one thing and does an entirely different thing. Simple refers again to those who are not mature, those who are not grown up. To those who are still childlike. It is amazing how many people qualify for this labeled description. It is a very sad statement to the condition of our nation.
Flattering Words, Cleverly Designed Fables, Subtle Words of Deception, these are the tricks of the enemy, Satan. He overwhelms you with information that is contrary to the truth that you have difficulty recognizing the truth. The tricks of the enemy are the same as when Eve was deceived, the words and the number of words is the only difference depending upon your situation and circumstances. Learn to recognize deception and choose not to be deceived.
If you would like to continue reading in this lesson series on this subject of deception, you can go to “Part 2“.
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If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?
A New Commandment I Give Unto You!
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 2 in a series of Bible lessons on the subject of Understanding the Purpose of the Law of Moses. I covered a lot of new information about the Law already and I do not think that I will review any of what I have already covered. Therefore, if you did not read the first lesson, I would suggest that you go back and start your study with “Part 1“. I will say that in my last lesson I introduced you to the fact that the Law was a positive thing given to us by God. In other words I believe that the law was an intentional good thing designed for the benefit of the entire human race. Without laws we would not know or understand sin, guilt, punishment, consequences, to name a few things that the knowledge of the law teaches us. Laws give us guidelines, structure, organization and meaning or definition to what is right and what is wrong. Without laws we would live in a world of full of nothing but chaos. This would be a type of world where everyone would be doing what was right in their own eyes while ignoring the effects to what their actions did to those all around them. Today’s lesson will be an introduction to another brand new concpet. Are Christians in the church today under the Old Law, or under no law or under any new New Law? Many today believe that we are noy under any law and that is not actually what the Bible says. They base this belief on verses like Romans 6:15 which is an example of taking one truth and attempting to make it the only truth. This is just an example of not finding the complete truth of God’s Word on a given subject. Many are guilty of this and it is an easy trap to fall into. Just because we are not under the Law of the Old Testament does not mean that we are not under any New Law. That is the primary subject of the rest of my lesson today.
What is the difference between what is old and what is new? New sometimes can be a relative term. Is it new to you or is it new just because no one else has ever possessed it before you? New to me is definitely stated not to be the old. Old to me is definitely stated not to be the new. I view this concept in the same terms like the Old Covenant versus the New Covenant which are totally separate and distinct covenants of God. Both the Old and New Covenants bare a resemblance of characteristics and features, but they are totally and completely not the same. That was my introduction to the Law of the New Covenant. Let me now take you to some important verses in the New Testament and discuss this New Law of God.
Gal 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
So I asked you a question in my last blog on this subject, did God put Satan under the law? This verse in Galatians is very clearly a clue into the answer to that question. Why was Jesus Christ born a man under the law of Moses? Jesus’ physical mother was a virgin woman named Mary, a direct descendant of David the King of Israel. We know that Jesus is therefore a natural born Jew from the tribe of Judah, by birth. Therefore, God in the Flesh being born under the Law is now bound to all of these laws, commandments, and statutes written in the O.T.. Exactly why did God do this? The God that was outside of the Law and who gave the law has now placed Himself under the law that He gave. That means whatever the law requires applies to everything that God can do and can’t do. Those are pretty strong words aren’t they? Why would God put any limitations upon Himself? Obviously God gave the law, so He must have designed the law to serve a specific purpose that would help Him to accomplish something of greater value. What was that something that God needed accomplished that only the creation of Law could do? You should really think about things like this and search for them in the Bible to see if you can find them. What you should take away from this verse in Galatians 4:4 is, if it was necessary for God to be born under the law of Moses, then it would be necessary for Satan to be put under the same law also. As I tried to teach in the first lesson, that laws only apply to those that are under them. No law is ever applicable to anyone not under the authority of that law.
Jesus made the statement that “I did not come to do away with the law, but I came to fulfill it” (Mat 5:17). So what did Jesus do while he was in the flesh walking under the law to fulfill the law? What did he accomplish to fulfill all of the Mosiac law? Was it just the fact that he did not commit any sin? Was this the fulfillment of the law? I do not think that is the entire picture of what that actually means. Did you notice that Jesus died on the cross? So being sinless under the law did not save Him, did it? We know from other scripture that the Bible says that “No flesh will be justified by God, for keeping the law” (Gal 2:16). So was Jesus in the flesh? Yes, then He was not justified or saved by keeping the law either. This is not what made Jesus righteous or justifed Him. We can discover some valuable clues by searching the scriptures and finding out God’s definition of what this means to fulfill the law:
Gal 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
We can begin to understand what the fulfillment of the law was in the eyes of God by reading this verse in Galatians. God tells us that all of the law is fulfilled in just one word. What was that word? That word was Love! This of course is not a human kind of love, but it is a God kind of love and that is totally different. Humans love Coke, pie, hamburgers because they make them feel good or do something good for them. That is not the God kind of love. God does not love us because we do something good to Him or for Him. Bible, love is not a feeling or even an emotional state. Love is a choice to do the right thing for others even when you do not feel like it.
Rom 13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Here we have another witness to the fact that God says the law of Moses is fulfilled by the single isolated word of Love! To do the right thing for your neighbor means that you do not steal from them, you do not hurt them, you do not lie to them, you do not covet or lust for what they possess, and on and on we could go. Clealry God is defining a new definition for what the fulfillment of the Law represents to us.
Rom 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
All of the law of Moses is summed up into the word “Love”. We can only comprehend the rest of the law by understanding what Love is in the eyes of God. This is why Jesus makes this statement in the Gospels:
Joh 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
If the Law was a negative thing God would be wanting to get rid of it. However, we have discovered that the law is a positive and good thing and that is why Jesus gives us a New Law. You do understand that we are still under the law being in the church right now? It is not the Law of Moses, but it is the Law of Jesus. Jesus initiated a New Covenant in His own shed blood and in doing so, He established a New Law. This New Law is significantly less complicated than the old law while at the same time including all of the Old Law in the single statement. It is amazing how complex the laws created by our government are. I believe the Health Care bill was a very thick stack of papers that are still being argued over to what they mean. Would you say that more laws are better than less laws or are fewer laws better than many laws? According to God less is better. God replaces a thick book of written laws with a single statement and calls it better. God is not opposed to the law, it is more what the law is intended to do and its purpose that God is most concerned with. By Jesus giving us the Law of Love, we are now required to follow ONLY one rule. When faced with a problem in the natural we should always stop and ask, “What would Love do with that?” Did you notice that Jesus said you must love like I have loved you? In other words we are not to love people like we love a can of Coke. I do hope that you understand this profound concept.
Rom 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
God says that by walking in the New Commandment of Love we now establish the law. Isn’t that an interesting concept? What all of Natural Israel was unable to do, God says that we are capable of doing. Why is that? For one thing we have God on the inside of us helping us to do it. Plus we are not worried about hundreds or thousands of rules, because God has simplified it down to just One Rule! That just makes it easier to follow doesn’t it?
If you would like to continue to read this series on understanding the Law you can go to “Part 3“.
Understanding The Bible Definition and Purpose of the Law of Moses! PT 1
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 in a series of Bible lessons on Understanding the Purpose for the Law. Why was it necessary for God to give Moses the Old Testament Law? The reason for these spiritual rules of do’s and don’ts are critical for Christians to understand. While Christians do not rely on keeping the law to be saved, they should still be intimately familiar with what they mean and the underlying reasons for God giving them to the natural nation of Israel. God says my People are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6), so the more we learn and understand the less likely we are to being destroyed in this world. So let’s learn about the O.T. Law and determine what it is and why it was given using the Bible:
Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
God declares a truth about the law that is essential to understand. The O.T. law is based upon “Works”. Works is man’s attempt to do something that they think pleases God by doing without something that they really want to do. I hope you understand what I just said. Every religion in the world is “works” based. Man trying to achieve a state of self sacrifice in order to appear pious or worthy in the eyes of God. In some religions men beat themselves with whips and chains until they bleed. They think through this self inflicted pain and suffering that they have achieved favor with God. They have been deceived into stupidity and foolishness. This religion also teaches that life is like a balance scale and the good deeds that you do will be weighed against your bad deeds and if the good deeds outweighs the bad, you have earned your salvation. This is just another example of Satan’s deception. In Galatians 2:16, we see works being contrasted with true Christianity. True Christianity is based upon Faith in Jesus Christ and what He has done and provided for us. That is completely different than the law of works and the works of the law. This verse clearly tells us that nobody will make it to heaven based upon their works. That is not good news for natural Israel or the other religions of the world.
Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
We can clearly see one of the primary reasons that God gave the law. God declares that No flesh will be saved by obeying the law. So we immediately discover that the law was not given to save us. We can take this reason off of the list of potential reasons for the law. Then God says that by the law is the knowledge of sin. What does that tell you? Before the law was given into the world, no one really knew what sin was. It was only because the Bible said “Thou shalt not commit murder” that you would know that this is not an acceptable thing to do. To know that there is a law that has consequences for doing something and then to do it anyway is the act of a fool. However, to do something that is still not right, but there is no law against it is still sin, but yet God said how would you know it. So one of the primary reasons for God giving the law is to teach everyone what sin is and that these sins have consequences. With the Law comes the Knowledge of Sin!
Rom 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Here is another witness to what I just said. This verse clearly tells us the same thing and gives us another example. By God saying “thou shalt not covet”, we know it is a sin to lust after what our neighbor owns or possesses. So the Law is not an evil, bad or negative thing, but a good thing. It helps us to learn and know what is good and what is evil. The law helps to guide us into what are the right things to do.
Rom 7:12 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
So the Bible again confirms what I just said about the law. The law is Holy, the law is good and just. The law is a positive thing meant to teach us the difference between right and wrong. God gave us the law to show us that we cannot make up our own rules and think that we are good in our own sight. That is exactly what most people in the world do, they reason in their own minds what is good and what is right and they follow their own desires and God says that is wrong.
Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
The word “transgression” means violation. If you get arrested in our world, it is usually because you violated some law that was passed by the lawmakers of the city, state or federal governments. So again we see a principle being established for why the law was necessary. Without law there is no “violation” being committed. People in the world usually pass laws to make people stop something that is potentially harmful or hurtful to themselves or others. For example, driving too fast in a car can cause loss of life and property. So people have developed laws to limit the speeds that cars can go in certain areas. The speed limit varies depending on where the area is located, like it is slower in front of school zones. If you are caught speeding you are charged and if found guilty, you pay fines and there are consequences such as points on your license. So without laws, people could go 100 MPH through a school zone and cause great damage and loss of life and there would be nothing that the government could do to them. This is a key lesson of why God gave the law, so take note of it.
Rom 5:13 For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Without laws in the world (physical, natural, spiritual and governments), the world would be in a state of chaos. Everybody doing whatever they felt like, whenever they wanted to, to whoever they wanted to and there would be no consequences legally speaking that they would ever be faced with. I do think that without law we would also see a vigilante retribution being enacted and people would be forced to come up with their own definition of justice. But, Romans 5:13 informs us that sin has been in the world, before the law existed. But, then it says that these sins would not be charged to their account without the existence of the law. When you read and learn verses from the Bible like these you should automatically think how do these apply to me? How does this apply to Israel? How do these apply to Satan? How do they apply to all of the other spiritual entities in God’s spiritual realm? If you do not think in these terms you will miss out on what God is trying to teach you. Let me ask you a question and get you to thinking. If it is as the Bible says and Satan was found with sin in him from the beginning, what can God do about this, if there is no law against it? I believe you can start to understand the problem that God had. Legally speaking there is nothing that God can do with Satan, unless he is put under the law. That is an amazing thing to consider and probably a key reason for why the law was given. Learn to think while you read and to ask questions and you will learn so much more than just reading it. I’ll get into this more later.
Rom 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
This is an interesting twist and is highly informative. God tells us that the law applies to the spiritual realm and not just the natural realm. We know that God gave Moses the law on Mt Sinai and that it was written down in the natural realm by a man. But, think about it, God is a Spirit and the words that He spoke to Moses came from the spiritual realm. God is clearly telling us that these words found in the law apply to all spiritual beings, including God himself, the angels, you and I and Satan and his demons.
Gal 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
Here is a very scary statement about the O.T. Law. God says that anyone under the law is under a curse, if they do not obey all of the law. Do you know of anyone that has obeyed all of the law? For one thing I do not think you know all of the law and the other thing is you certainly can’t do it all consistently, I do not believe anyone on earth is capable of it. The law is more than following 10 simple commandments, the O.T. law is 5 large books of rules, commandments, instructions, and it is vastly not understood even by the Jews who read it every day. I may be wrong but I believe that this is one of the reasons for God giving the law, to show man that he is incapable of making a perfect score. It is impossible to bowl a perfect score in the game of life playing according to the rules of the “works of the law”. I assume natural Israel has not yet gotten the news yet, they must still think they are able to save themselves.
Jas 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
Here is a second witness to the reality that man is required to keep all of the law. If any man offends or violates a single commandment, this verse in James says that he is found guilty of violating every commandment. I am certainly glad that is not the way our courts work. We would have to have everybody in a prison cell and there would be no free people in the world. If you drove your car too fast you could be sentenced to life in prison. That is what God says about his law in the O.T. Too many times people like to rate and compare sins. This sin is bigger, or greater than another. This sin is just a little one and that isn’t as bad as doing this or that. But, God says every sin is equal, there are no big ones, and no small ones. These are very tough rules to follow. In fact they are impossible for man to follow.
Gal 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
So God says that the Law was designed to be a teaching tool for mankind. An instrument that was intended to point them to Christ. Is this the way the nation of Israel views the law? Obviously not! Is this the way you should view the O.T. law, absolutely. You should use it as a teacher who is pointing you to a savior, the Messiah.
1Ti 1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient,for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
God tells us who the law was given for. To me every human would potentially qualify, but also this sounds more like Satan’s resume than anything else. You do realize that this is why our government passes laws, don’t you? If nobody did bad things you wouldn’t need any laws against doing them. So we pass laws to keep people from doing stupid, foolish things. This is another one of the key purposes of the O.T. law. Because, there are bad, evil people in the world, because there is a bad, evil spiritual force in the world, God was forced to enact spiritual laws. I hope you are getting what I am saying.
Let’s review briefly what we have learned so far and make a list of the key items concerning what the Bible says about the law:
- Sin will always Sin with or without the existence of Law.
- God’s Law is a Positive Thing that Helps us to see.
- The Law is Works Based. Obeying the Law is man’s attempt at earning Salvation.
- No Flesh can achieve Righteousness by the O.T. Law.
- Therefore, no one can be saved by observing the O.T. Law.
- However, Sin is not put on your account, if there is No law.
- Without the Law, no one knows what Sin Is.
- Without the existence of the Law there is no legal consequences for Sin.
- If you violate even one Law you are guilty of violating EVERY Laws!
- The Law given in the natural realm is Applicable in the Spiritual Realm.
- The Law was designed to teach us we need a savior and to point us to Christ.
- The Law was given because of the evil that existed prior to the law.
That was a quick synopsis of the information we have learned from the few verses about the law. We start to begin to understand what the law is and why it was given by understanding these verses. There is of course much more to learn about the law. There is different types of laws. Human laws, laws of nature, laws of science, and spiritual laws, just to name a few types of laws. Let’s continue this lesson with another verse found in Romans:
Rom 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
This is one of the most outstanding and revealing verses in the Bible about the Law of Moses. It reveals some hidden spiritual principles that are critical for Christians to understand. The principle is given to us that the law only applies to them that are under the law. In other words Mexico cannot pass a law that affects me, because I live in the USA. Now, if I go to visit Mexico, then I am under that law system, but as long as I stay in the USA, nothing they do can affect me personally. That is what Romans 3:19 is saying. God tells us that the law is only effective over those that are under that system of spiritual government. USA laws do not affect Chinese citizens or companies unless they come to America. Think about that and ask the questions that I asked you to think about earlier. Does the O.T. law affect you? Does the O.T. law affect the natural Jews? Does the O.T. law affect Satan or any other spiritual entity? Is God bound by the Laws of the O.T.? These are all important questions to consider. You see if Satan is not under the O.T. law, then there is still no punishment for his sins that God can convict him of in any heavenly court. You need to consider these questions and determine, did God somehow put Satan under the Law in order to convict him of his sins? If you do not realize that God is a legal minded God who does everything in a fair and just way, you do not know God very well. God will not throw Satan into hell without him being found guilty and being convicted for his crimes of sin. If God did this, then he would be more like a foreign country that throws people into prison because they just don’t like the way they look. Think about the character of God and realize that God is the supreme judge of all spiritual matters. In the heavenly judicial system, there must be laws that can convict someone like Satan or God would be unjust. God says in Romans 3:9 that the law was given, so that every mouth could be stopped. You see if Satan was unjustly accused of God, he has a legal defense against such actions. However, if Satan is under the law and can see clearly that he is in violation and guilty, he no longer has a defense against such charges.
I think I will end this lesson on that note. I hope and pray that you learned something that was of benefit to your walk with Christ. I’ll try to continue this lesson in a future blog.
If you would like to continue reading this lesson, you can go to “Part 2“.
The Abrahamic Covenant and the Promised Seed!
(Ver 1.1) Today will be a little bit different perspective on a familiar old subject. This subject is widely taught in many different circles and it is interpreted very differently in most of them. We will look at some familiar verses using the light of the Word of God to see what they mean. Using the Bible to interpret the Bible, we will begin to see and understand the truth of the Word of God. The basis of our lesson today comes from the book of beginnings, Genesis chapter 15. As with many things written in the book of Genesis God uses symbolism to convey hidden spiritual information. This chapter of Genesis is certainly no different. In this chapter God tells Abram that he will have a son, who will be his heir. God tells him that the number of his seed will be as the stars of the heavens. In other words God declares that Abram’s descendants will be innumerable, more than he could count. While these words can certainly be taken completely naturally, I believe that God is speaking about spiritual things in a prophetic way. If you have not ever realized it, God is more interested in spiritual things than He is with natural things. If God can fix you spiritually, then you will do the right things naturally. That is the root cause of America’s problem and the rest of the unsaved world. People want to raise children and think they can do it without God and ignore the Bible and then they are surprised to find our prisons overflowing. You will never fix the sin problem, until you allow God to fix the spiritual problem within the hearts of man with His Word. Teach the Bible in school to your children and see if the world doesn’t change.
Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
We can learn much, by reading God’s commentary in the Bible. God purposely gives us clues in the Bible to what other verses mean. Often times these explanations are revealed in the New Testament. This verse in Galatians is very interesting, since our subject is the Abrahamic Covenant and I just mentioned the Seed of Abraham. We can now begin to see and understand that God was speaking prophetically and in a very tricky manner when talking to Abram about his seed. Seed is one of those types of words that can be either singular or plural and you can’t really tell the difference by just looking at it. However, God reveals that Abraham’s seed was singular and this was symbolic of the one man called Christ Jesus. So we know that Jesus Christ is the Seed being referred to in Genesis 15.
Gen 15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
What we begin to see is another example of a Biblical Paradox or Puzzle being given to us. How can one man, Jesus, the Seed of Abraham number beyond the number of stars in the heavens? That of course is a very difficult puzzle to try to answer in a single blog like this. Unless you start to think spiritually and consider what the New Testament reveals to us you will never understand it. Galatians and other books of the New Testament speak of the church as being the children of Abraham. The N.T. reveals that Abraham is the spiritual father of the many people who have come into the church. This is the beginning of understanding this spiritual paradox.
In Genesis 15:9-10 God instructs Abram to take 5 animals and kill them. God tells him to split three of the animals into halves. Now we have a bloody mess on our hands. God tells Abram to spread them out on the ground. We then discover that birds try to come and devour the animals and Abram has to drive them away. These are also all key symbolic references and they symbolize spiritual things. The bloody animals killed represents the covenants of God. The birds of the air represents the demonic forces attempting to prevent the covenant. Blood is always symbolic of the forgiveness of sins. Also in Bible covenants, the animals were split into pieces and they were saying, “thus it be done to me, if I brake this covenant”. So we see that God is revealing to us some very important information about Bible covenants. When two parties would enter into a covenant, they would pass between the bloody pieces of the animals and “cut an agreement” that was mutually beneficial to both participants. Both parties in the covenant were required to follow the terms of the agreement and to be faithful to it. If one party in the covenant had need of something that the other had in their possession, then it would be freely available to the other party. It is exactly like a marriage between a husband and a wife who now have joint ownership of everything. But, did you notice what happens in this covenant in Genesis 15? Who does it say walked between the pieces to cut the covenant with God?
Gen 15:12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.
After Abram drives away the birds, the sun goes down and it gets dark. It says Abram enters into a deep sleep and he is overwhelmed with darkness. Darkness never represents God, but the opposite of God. Darkness always represents Satan and his domain. God gives Abram some prophetic words about his natural children being in bondage for 400 years, but tells him they will come out at a certain time. These verses 13 thru 16, no doubt contain symbolism and information beyond the natural, but I will not attempt to teach what I do not know fully. So let’s look at verse 17, for it is really getting good with this verse.
Gen 15:17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.
As you recall Abram killed 5 animals and laid the pieces upon the ground. Now normally if this covenant was between God and Abram, God and Abram would now be walking between the pieces and cutting the covenant with God. However, we find that Abram is asleep on the ground and two different symbolic people walk between the bloody pieces to cut the covenant. What does this tell us? I believe that it tells us that Abram was incapable of keeping the covenant that God wanted to make, so God makes a covenant with himself. Did you notice what the two symbols were that passed through the pieces? One was a “Smoking Oven” and the other was a “Burning Lamp”. I really do not know how these two symbols can represent anything other than God. Both are God in different forms and using different descriptions. Much like God the Father and God the Son are one God but both are unique and separate at the same time.
In Hebrews 12:29, it informs us that God is an all consuming fire. I know this is not exactly a smoking oven, but you can get there mentally if you think about it. People in Bible days did not have electric power and they cooked with fire. If you look up the term translated as “Oven” you will find that it means a “Fire Pot”. So fire is involved in cooking with an ancient Oven. In Deuteronomy 9:3 God is again called a “Consuming Fire” who destroys. However, everything in the Bible has symbolic meaning if you can find it. In Deuteronomy 4:24 God is again called a consuming fire, but it then further stipulates why. God is said to be a “Jealous God”. That means God does not like it when His wife sleeps around like Israel was guilty of. It is very difficult to actually say that the smoking oven represents God, because we cannot find a direct reference in the Bible that says that. However, if you do a word search and look for the word “oven” in the Bible you will see that it more often than not, refers to a place where wicked and evil people are consumed. People who are consumed by the fire of God. God is certainly the fire, but the smoke could be the evil being burned up and consumed. So it is a little more complex than we can imagine right now to declare that God is covenanting with himself. We can look up the word “Smoking” and see what else it reveals in the Bible:
Exo 19:18 And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
It would appear the “Smoke” is associated with the Old Covenant since “Sinai” is mentioned in this verse in Exodus. We know that God gave Moses the law on Sinai. We know that this verse says God is again the fire that descended upon the mountain. The Smoke is equated to that which ascends upwards. We can again derive, that which is consumed by the fire of God is evil and whatever is left would be the ashes and the smoke, that which remains after God’s burning. Fire normally consumes, oxygen, fuel, oil, or whatever is placed in it. God is definitely the Fire, the flame, the heat, the light. But, the oven and whatever is consumed is a different substance than God. If God is the all consuming fire as we have seen in the Bible, the smoke would be representative of that which is burned up or consumed by God.
Psa 18:8 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
God is again compared in terms of being a device that produces smoke, like an oven, a furnace or any other similar fire burning device. Out of the nostrils of God comes smoke from something that is burned up or consumed by the fire of God’s mouth. It is a very interesting symbolic representation being given to us.
Psa 37:20 But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.
You see the same terms being repeated in this verse of Psalms 37 and it says God’s enemies who are the wicked, shall be as the fat of the lambs, and they shall be consumed into smoke. Verses like these are helping me to see that God’s covenant in Genesis 15 is God walking between the pieces of animal flesh. So we have in a roundabout way identified one symbol that has been said to walk between the pieces and cut the covenant.
The Lamp on the other hand is more easily interpreted using verses in the Bible. We can find several good examples that declare that God is the burning lamp. A lamp of course is a light in the darkness or night. A lamp involves fire, oil and light. All of these symbols are used for symbols of God in the Bible. Let’s find some of these verses and review them:
2Sa 22:29 For thou art my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness.
This verse is exactly what I just said and refers to God as the Lamp that gives us light in the darkness. Darkness again represents the spiritual domain of Satan. People are born into the world that is ruled by Satan. The hearts of men and women are said to be in darkness until they are saved and Jesus Christ shines spiritual light into them.
Psa 119:105 NUN. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
You cannot separate God from His Word, they are one in the same. God is light and in him is no darkness. God is also His Word! God’s word is a spiritual light unto our spirit man within us. By reading and studying the Bible we bring light to areas that have never seen the glorious light of God. God and His Word are the Lamp that is lit to show the way unto righteousness.
Pro 13:9 The light of the righteous rejoiceth: but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.
So many verses in the Bible are very informative and this one has hidden meaning within it. If God is the lamp and the light, what is this verse telling us? The light of the righteous will be GLAD, and the lamp of the wicked will be put out. If Satan is the evil one that rules the darkness, His light or lamp of God has now been put out. To put out a lamp means it is deprived of oxygen or oil or starved of any substance that causes it to burn. This involves any means of causing the flame to be extinguished. We can clearly assume that Satan use to be in the light of God, but God has now turned that light out. It also has spiritual implications to those in the world that refuse God’s salvation and they also walk in the same darkness of spiritual night.
Isa 62:1 For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.
God prophesies that a burning lamp will come out of Jerusalem. This lamp will burn with the light of Salvation. This very bright lamp will also establish righteousness. So who do you think God is talking about? This is a prophetic statement for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ that was to be crucified in Jerusalem to bring salvation to the world.
Joh 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Jesus speaking to the nation of Israel, says He is the bright burning lamp that contains the light of the world. But, Jesus then said that men loved darkness more than this light so they were unable to see the light. Jesus equates the evil deeds of men to be of the darkness of the world. God is therefore being contrasted as being the source of good, the initiator of kindness, goodness, grace, mercy, love and compassion, but the men of Israel as a whole, chose to reject these good things and to remain in their evil darkness.
Joh 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Jesus is again very clear in telling us that He is the Lamp that lights our spiritual paths. Jesus says that if we follow Him, we shall not walk in darkness. We could say in modern language that Jesus is the Flashlight of the present dark World. If you have ever been camping in the forest, with no electricity you better take a flashlight or two. To walk in the woods without one would be crazy. This is how people are in the world, without Jesus and the Bible. They are walking in spiritual darkness and they do not know where they are going or what they bump into or stumble over. The symbolism within the Abrahamic covenant is very powerful, the spiritual implications are very informative. We can see that God, the lamp of the world makes a covenant with the smoking oven that contains the consuming Fire of God. It would appear to me that God in His infinite wisdom took the place of Abraham in the covenant and made a covenant with Himself. In this way God could implement an agreement that both parties were capable of keeping. Abraham was a physical natural man and incapable of keeping the covenant at the level that God wanted to establish, so God made a covenant that He could keep in the spiritual realm with Jesus Christ who was the promised Seed that now establishes our eternal covenant with God. So what was God’s solution for man not being able to keep a covenant? The human race is sin prone, error driven, ignorant of spiritual things and God’s ways. How is God going to make a covenant with people who are prone to errors and mistakes? God’s solution is to became one of us, a man who is both human and God to implement an unbreakable covenant with Himself and His eternal man. We then can see that God has used Jesus Christ, the Promised Seed to bring the rest of the human race back into right standing with God. Everyone that accepts the free gift of salvation will be included. It doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, the door is open to all. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or if you are poor, the door is open to all. It doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, the door is open to all. Because of what Jesus has done, we have now have the opportunity of a life time being presented to all of us. I pray that you make the right choice.
The Bible is so complex that it is impossible to know everything that is in it and to comprehend what everything in it means is also impossible. So we do the best we can, with God’s help in figuring out what it all means. We would be lost without His help, so I am eternally grateful and I hope that you are too.
The Promises and Covenants of God are ALWAYS Conditional!
(Ver 1.1) I want to discuss a difficult subject found in the Bible that is hard for many Christians to get their minds around. Too many Christians like to put everything on God’s back and make Him completely responsible for everything that happens to them. It is like when a major storm comes and blows their house down and they believe God is in control and He had a higher purpose for doing this to me. However, when you read the Bible and study it closely we find out some very surprising things that should cause us to begin to think differently.
When God makes a covenant with a People on the earth, you will find that God is always capable of keeping the covenant and to Him it was a forever agreement and arrangement. However, what we find in the Bible is that it is not all completely up to God and that you and I have a part to play in the relationship for the continued blessings of God to manifest. Let’s review the principle and then establish this spiritual law Biblically and learn what we can:
Isa 1:19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
In this verse in Isaiah, God puts forth a promise to His covenant people. But, this promise comes with conditions. In order for God’s people to eat the good of the land, they must first, be willing and obedient. These sound like two little requirements that are placed upon God’s People! But they really are larger than you think. If people fulfill only one condition such as being willing but not obedient or being not willing and obeying does that match the conditions necessary to eat good? Obviously not, they fail and do not eat the good of the land. This is the basis of a spiritual law, that I call the “IF YOU DO THEN I WILL DO” law! “IF” “THEN” is a popular computer programming construct that is widely used in programming languages. There is also a converse or inverse part of the law that goes something like this:
IF YOU DO THIS
THEN I WILL DO THIS
ELSE THIS HAPPENS!
God knew about IF THEN ELSE computer programming constructs before we knew there were computers. God uses this construction in the Bible in the promises that He makes with humans and the Covenants that He implements with the People. If we apply this construct to the verse we just read in Isaiah 1:19 we can see it more clearly:
IF (YOU ARE WILLING AND OBEDIENT)
THEN
YOU WILL EAT THE GOOD OF THE LAND
ELSE
YOU WILL NOT EAT FROM THE GOOD LAND
This is some very basic Computer Logic applied to the Word of God and yet so profound! If you understand what I have said so far, then let’s go through some other verses in the Bible and determine what else God says about conditional requirements.
Let’s go back and review some words spoken to Natural Israel by Moses from God. These are the Words of God spoken directly to them, but if you look closely they are also prophetic and we can easily notice that they are very conditional:
Exo 19:5 Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:
What does it mean to be conditional? If I said I would give you $1000, if you would stay silent for 24 hours, is that $1000 conditional or automatically yours? No, it not guaranteed! We can see that conditional means, if you follow the instructions and rules you will get the $1000, otherwise you do not. The key word is “IF” you satisfy the requirements! Pretty simple concept isn’t it? However, Christians I guess do not understand these concepts, especially when it comes to God and the Bible.
When we read a verse like Exodus 19:5 and it says to Israel that “you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me and above all people”. What was the requirement for this to happen in the natural realm? God clearly said, “if you obey my voice and keep my covenant”, then I will do what I said and make you above all others. So when did natural Israel ever fulfill any of these requirements? If you searched your Bible and could not find it in the Bible, I have to admit that I couldn’t either. It would seem to me, that Israel has a major problem. Let’s continue with the next verse:
Exo 19:6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
Exodus 19:6 continues to demonstrate what God will do, if Israel obeys and keeps the covenant. What we see in these two verses are a discovery of the fact that God’s blessings to Natural Israel are conditional. In order for those in covenant with God to obtain the best that He has for them, they must do something to qualify for them. Did any of the words in these two verses ring any bells to you? Did you see any parallels or glimpses into another reality that God is prophesying about? To me it was obvious, but to others they miss it, because they may be slightly dull of spiritual eyesight. These key words are echoed in a verse found in the New Testament:
1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Peter writes to the church and declares to them that they are these “peculiar” people, the holy nation unto God, being priests and kings of the Most High. Isn’t that an amazing coincidence? Of course God doesn’t do anything by accident and this verse is put here to show you who the church really is. I know I haven’t introduced you to this concept yet. Many Christian people do not like to think or believe that the Church is a spiritual version of the natural nation of Israel, but yet it is so prevalent in the Bible I do not know how people miss it. This is based upon the concept of natural patterns that point us to greater or higher truths within the spiritual realm. Let us read another verse:
Rev 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Again we see John this time writing about the church and to the church, calling them the kings and priests of God. That qualifies the church as being these royal rulers of the spiritual domain of God. That makes the church a new spiritual priesthood unto God. This is of course difficult to fully accept for many believers. Please do not let it offend you. I will not be offended if you believe something else.
Heb 8:9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
So as we have seen, the blessings of God are conditional. The human continuation and participation within the covenant of God is also conditional. People want to put all of the responsibility on God to whether or not a covenant is valid and that is not what God says in the Bible. You can always depend on God to be faithful and He will never fail you, but that does not relieve you of your responsibility in the relationship.
What if you are married to a spouse and you are the one that is faithful and they are not. Will that work for very long? I know my wife would not put up with it. If you think you can then you are a fool. Is faithfulness a two way street that is required of both marriage participants? Of course it is! So do not put all of the responsibility upon God, God will not fail the covenant. God is eternally faithful. However, humans are imperfect and fail, people make mistakes and God will forgive us. But only if we ask for forgiveness. Repentance is an essential and valuable key part of any Christian life. If we are not sorry for how we how we act and the things we use to do, we are not a Christian. We are just someone who doesn’t want to go to hell.
Hebrews 8:9 clearly tells us that God disregarded Israel, because Israel did not keep their covenant. The Bible says this, God says this and I did not write the Bible. Is God anti-Semitic? That is what some will try to call me for saying something like this. So you can accept it for what it says or you can attempt to explain it away. Covenants with God are always Conditional! Let’s review another Old Testament example of these conditional promises of God:
Deu 28:1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:
The key word “IF” is given to the nation of Israel again and God tells them that “IF” they would diligently follow the Word of God that “THEN” God would make them above all nations. There are very specific requirements to the blessings of God and if you continue to read down in this chapter you will also find that there are very specific curses for not following these instructions. This is a Bible principle and a spiritual law being established by God. This is how God works and this should inform us of our responsibilities to listen and obey. We start by recognizing that we have some responsibilities and then we go about finding out what they are and how to follow them or fulfill them.
Jer 4:1 If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, the shalt thou not remove.
You see in Jeremiah God says to Israel, if they would return and put away their abominations, that God would not remove them. There is a very strong statement with very direct consequences being made to the Natural Nation of Israel. There are just too many verses in the Bible like this that declare God will do something if you first do something.
We cannot pray and ask God for something and then when it does not come, think that God said NO! Many times things like praying for specific answers in the Bible have specific conditions and requirements attached them. You have to base your prayer on the Bible promises that provide the answer, pray the right way, believe the right things, do the right things, say the right things, act in the appropriate manner and then God will do His part. This is a staggering concept to many Christians, but yet it is in the Bible if we look.
God always tells us what to do and then expects us to do it. Then God will always step in and do the rest. Read the Old Testament very closely. Notice things that God instructs Joshua when taking Jericho and other such examples. God would always tell them to do something very specific and if they did it, God would come through and do the rest. When Moses went to God with a problem, either about Pharaoh or the children of Israel, God would always tell Moses to do something with very specific steps and requirements or conditions. If Moses followed and obeyed, God would always do His part faithfully. The Bible is full of examples like this.
Jer 31:36 If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
I guess many Christians cannot comprehend that God would require humans to do anything in order to obtain God’s Grace. It is almost unimaginable that Israel could do anything that would cause God to end their Covenant. I have read in a few Bible lessons from other teachers that some people think that God’s love and all of the blessings of His Covenants are unconditionally guaranteed and nothing that anyone does can cause God to back out of it.
We should go back and reread the Bible and look for how many times the word “IF” is used in verses concerning Israel. We will discover that God has put conditions on many of the things that He has given to His people. God placed responsibility of the continuation of the covenant into the hands of those who He was trusting to do the right things and be obedient. If you study carefully you discover that Israel did a very bad job of fulfilling their end of the bargain. What a bargain they had, they had the fastest and most direct way to the Messiah, they had the first choice at Salvation, they were the keepers of the Holy Word of God and they blew it.
NEW COVENANT CONDITIONS
Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Just as the Old Covenant was conditional, entrance into the New Covenant is also conditional. There is no such thing as Universal Salvation. There is no such thing that everyone is saved automatically, because God wants them to be. God always requires action by man. People need to realize that God has already done everything that He needs to do to get all of the people on the earth saved. However, that does not mean everyone is saved or will be saved. Jesus tells us clearly in Revelation that He is standing at the door of the heart of man, knocking and that clearly indicates that He wants to come in. However, the conditional part of the verse clearly states that the Man on the inside is required to hear the knock and open the door to let Him come in. There are conditions to people getting saved. People are required to act appropriately and let Christ in. There are also specific conditions to staying saved. I really do not want to get into this subject any deeper for I have touched on this subject in other lessons. Realize and understand that the Old Covenant of God with natural Israel was a conditional agreement. It was very clear in the Bible that in order for Israel to remain in Covenant with God, that Israel was required to be faithful to God. Just like in any natural human marriage contract, God’s covenant works this way also. Both parties are either faithful to the vows, commitments and conditions of the agreement or the agreement is terminated. If one party is faithful and the other party is not, the agreement is terminated. There are many very difficult things like this in life and they are also revealed to us in the Bible. Recently in national news several prominent men have been caught being unfaithful to their wives. They have discovered the hard way that there are consequences to their actions in life. Israel may learn very soon that she has also encountered the consequences of her actions.
Then pay attention to things God writes to the church in the New Testament. Why would Jesus and God say so many times a warning for us not be deceived? There appears to be some unseen consequences for being deceived. Perhaps a Christian does not live a long life. But perhaps the Christians finds out like one of the 5 foolish virgins that they were not really known by Jesus. Remember in the 10 Virgin parable there was a need to have oil for the lamps. This sounds like a major condition for entering into the divine wedding feast.
Thank you for reading this lesson. I know there are a of other Bible verses that come to mind that teach this concept that I did not get to include. I appreciate your time reading and I also appreciate your comments, and questions. If you have a prayer request, please leave it and we will pray for you and add you to our prayer list. God bless you until next time.
Speak to Your Rock! Pt 2 – Do Idle Words Keep You Out of The Promise Land?
(Ver 1.6) Today is the second lesson on the subject of the significance of our spoken words. I know this is a very controversial subject and one that many Christians do now subscribe to believe in. However, regardless of what we believe about it, our beliefs do not change what God and the Bible says and the results that we get from the God’s established Spiritual Laws that are found within the Bible. In the last lesson on this subject, we learned about “Why Moses Didn’t Enter Into Promise Land”. God said it was because of Moses’ unbelief, He told him that he would not be able to lead God’s people into the promised land that He had already given to them. Unbelief is one of a Christian’s greatest enemies in receiving a promise from God. This can include the unbelief of what the Bible says or the unbelief of what the Spirit of God is leading us to do. It could even be the unbelief of what a Bible teacher teaches us from the Bible. I am not saying that I am anything important personally in you hearing from God, unless I say what the Bible says and that should make what is said important. All we need to do is read the Bible and see what it says and then believe it, to see that what is written is true or not (Acts 17:11). People should recognize that there are crazy people on the internet doing the same thing that I am doing to help people, many automatically discount what is said as being the same crazy ramblings. By automatically dismissing what someone says, many people at times miss what God had wanted them to know. Not everyone on the internet is crazy, and some of them have some very profound deep things to teach if we are open to them. Learn to judge every teacher by the Word of God and remain open and prepared to change your thinking and beliefs. God is doing some really great things in the world today and those who are open to them will enjoy their benefits. If you would like to read this series from the beginning, I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.
So today I want to discuss more about the Bible topic of “Spoken Words”! But not just any spoken words, let’s talk about those that Jesus called “Idle Words”. What are “Idle Words”? Let’s start by reading the lesson’s foundation Bible verse.
Mat 12:36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
Wow! That is an amazingly strong statement from Jesus. Jesus is obviously directing our attention at our spoken words. But, not just any spoken word, but rather one specific type. God tells us personally that the “idle words” that we speak will be judged by God on judgment day. I mean that could be a very scary statement for some people to even think about. Obviously I can see too many people do not believe what Jesus said or either they do not understand what the verse means. Otherwise, they would probably keep silent more often. In today’s world idle words are all around us, on our cell phones, on our tablets in our emails, on internet websites, on Facebook and Twitter on TV, on radio, raining down from our satellites, printed in our magazines, news papers and fictional books. I mean we are bombarded by idle words coming at us from a multitude of different ways. How many of these text messages that we get or send can be considered idle words? Try to examine your Facebook experience and see how many words are crossing your path that can be called idle words. I know of some people and I won’t mention any names that appear like they are never quiet. To hold a phone conversation with them is impossible, because they are the only one speaking and you just have time to say “yea” or “uh?” occasionally. Some people spend hours and hours on the phone talking to everybody about everything. How many of these kind of people do you know? I pray that you are not one of them. It would appear on judgment day that we may have to sit or stand around and listen to everything that people said on this earth for a very long time. Doesn’t that sound fun? No! I do not think any of us will be very happy on judgment day.
I am generally a quiet person. It has been my personality to listen more than to speak. If you knew me, I believe that you would agree. I know many Other people are different, I know that and I do not fault them for being different. But, nevertheless I believe we need to learn what the Bible says about the definition of “Idle Words”. These are the words that God says we will personally have to account for, so what are they? It would appear that we need to learn to avoid these types of “idle words” like the plague. But that can only begin with us first learning about what they are. Here is the definition of the word from Strong’s:
G692
From G1 (as a negative particle) and G2041; inactive, that is, unemployed; (by implication) lazy, useless: – barren, idle, slow.
The concepts given to us in the Bible can so easily go over our heads. Because we don’t understand them, we may simply ignore them. This Greek word G692 means “unemployed” or “inactive”. That is a concept that most Christians do not have a clue what it means. The Greek word is the combination of the negative particle combine with the Greek word G2041 that literally means to work or toil.
I’m not going to do any jokes right here either, because that would be an example of more idle words. You see idle words are contrasted to be opposite to “employed” words “productive” words, “active” words or “working” words. These are all employment, work and job related terminologies but now they are being related to us in association to what we speak. God is saying that our words ought to be working for us and not just be idle or lazy. What we should learn are working words change things. God used His working words to change darkness to light in Genesis 1. Does God expect us to do the same? The answer is Yes! So how do we get our words work for us? Working words are a concept found in the Bible word “edification”, where we use our words to build up like as in a construction project. In the last lesson about Moses’ big mistake, God told Moses to Speak to the Rock and this is an example of working words. Instead of obeying Moses spoke to the people and called them rebellious. God said to Moses to speak to the Rock and get the answer and instead Moses spoke the problem and did not enter into the Promise Land. If you did not read this lesson you should, it is one of the best ones that God has given to me up to this time. What Moses did was an example of “Idle Unemployed Words”. Instead of using his words to work for him and get the answer, Moses spoke the problem and failed to enter into the promise land.
So we can start to understand now that God says every, lazy, idle, useless, unemployed, inactive,and non-constructive word that we speak we will be judged for all of them. How many words in the course of day do we “employ” that are “productive” to get good “results”? The clear implication to this verse is for us to change what we say to words that “work” for us! As Christians we should become aware of the words that we speak. We should think about what we say before we say it. Just because a thought comes into our mind, that doesn’t mean that we should speak it out. This is a common trick of the devil. Satan gives people thoughts in an attempt to get them to speak them out. Why is this so important for Satan to do this? Believe it or not your spoken words gives Satan entrance to come in and kill steal and destroy from you.
People do not understand what God said in Numbers 14:28, that whatever I hear you say that is what I will do to you. People do not realize that God is listening to what they say. People do not realize that God does to them whatever comes out of their mouths good or evil. That is very strong! Many times people like to think that God is in complete and total control of everything that happens to them. In their thinking they do not believe that they have anything to do with what happens in their lives. They believe that it was either bad luck, or just a coincidence, or an accident or just an unfortunate set of circumstances that they are faced with. But, God has established and given to us spiritual laws in the Bible and this is one of them that every believer needs to grasp immediately. You can very easily discount what God says and what the Bible says. But, if you do that it still does not mean that what happened to you is not something that you at least contributed to making it happen.
Let me give you another New Testament verse that repeats what Numbers 14:28 says. This is a Bible verse that is obviously very controversial and hard for many believers to grasp and believe. This verse is found in Mark chapter 11:
Mar 11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Jesus gives us the spiritual definition of Numbers 14:28 and clarifies a few details that were not clearly given to Moses. Many times we will learn that God teaches things in progressive stages. He will give us a little bit in one place and let us take it in in small parts and then He will give us a little bit more as we are able to chew and swallow it. This way we are not overwhelmed or choked with too much of the new Words of God. Paul taught this way also. Paul told some I wanted to feed you meat but you were unable to partake and I fed you just soft milk (1 Cor 3:2). So God teaches us a few meaty things in Mark 11:23 about how the spiritual law of spoken words work. I guess I should start by giving you the context of this verse in Mark 11. Jesus was traveling through the countryside and He sees a fig tree with leafs on it. Jesus then goes up to the fig tree looking for figs to eat. Finding none, Jesus speaks to the fig tree to curse it and the disciples heard Him. The next day they all walk by the same fig tree. Suddenly one of the disciples notices that the tree was withered and dried up from the roots upward. So what was Jesus doing? Was Jesus just mad or upset at the tree because it didn’t have any fruit on it? No, I do not think so. Was Jesus showing off and saying to them “look what I can do and not you”? No, I do not think so. Did Jesus say “This happened because I’m God and you are not”? Again, No, I don’t think so. Or was Jesus teaching them and all of us an object lesson on the spiritual law of spoken words? I believe that Jesus was telling them a spiritual secret and demonstrating the spiritual law of spoken words to His disciples so that they would learn a valuable lesson in life. You’ll have to make up your own mind in what you believe and figure it out if Jesus was talking to you also. I would personally pray and ask Him to show you what it means. Jesus is no respecter of persons and what He did for one he will do for everyone.
You can see that a “disciple” of Christ is a word that means a student, a learner, a pupil. Are you one of these? Maybe you think you know everything and you are the master? If you do you are in trouble and being covered and blinded by your ignorance. If you are a Christian you must be a Christ follower forever, a student of Christ forever, or in other words His disciple forever. Only He knows everything and we don’t. So whatever Jesus says to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, I believe He is talking to you and I also! Please do not think that you know more than they do. Learn what Jesus was trying to teach them and we will become what He wanted us to become, more like Him.
So what was the lesson of Mark 11:23? Jesus told them and us that if we would speak to the mountain and believe that what we say would happen, we would get exactly what we say. There are so many lessons to learn from this one verse that I cannot teach them all, nor do I claim to know them all. A mountain is a symbolic representation of a negative situation or set of circumstances that we are facing, possibly an obstacle, either physical, mental, spiritual, financial or whatever we are faced with that appears to be a challenge. Jesus told us to speak to it and tell it to be removed and it would obey us, if we believe. Why is it necessary for us to both speak and believe? What we say and what we believe represents us putting our faith to work. That is the opposite of being idle or unemployed. All people both speak and believe either positively or negatively about things that around them. They either speak an expect good things to happen or speak and expect bad things to happen to them. Speaking and believing involves a decision that we make that even though the problem looks big and impossible to move, Jesus said that it would have to obey us and what we said to it would have to be done!
How many Christians believe this truth? I can see there are a growing number, are you one of them. If you are not one of the ones that believes the LORD JESUS then begin to notice what you say and believe and see if it is not what you get eventually. This principle works for you or against in the positive or the negative, because it is a spiritual law! I know this boggles the minds of religious unbeliever who do not believe what Jesus said. You see I did not write these verses in the Bible, I’m just a news reporter doing my best to show them to you with a greater emphasis of importance. These verses have been in the Bible for hundreds of years and people have just ignored them. We are responsible for the information that they say and how they apply to our life. God told Moses in Numbers that the Rock would obey his spoken working words, but Moses spoke to the people and called them “rebels”. God told him his words would bring the answer and he ended up enlarging the problem. Moses didn’t believe God and didn’t enter into the promise land and this is definitely a lesson for us all today.
Let’s look at some more example verses with the Greek word G692 translated as “idle” just to obtain a greater subject knowledge. This Greek word occurs only in 6 verses and is only used 8 times in the N.T. Jesus used this word in describing the man in the parable that went out to hire workers in his field. He goes to men and asks them why are you idle? They answer no one has hired us and then they go to work for the man. It is self-evident what the word means by studying this parable in Matthew 20:1-6. Not working is the definition of “idle”. Therefore, here is another verse in the N.T. that contains this same word:
2Pe 1:8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Greek word for “Idle” is found in this verse in 2 Peter 1:8. However, it was translated as “barren” in this verse. “barren” might mean the basic same thing as inactive or unproductive. But, I believe that God is seeking that we should avoid this situation of unemployed word from occurring in our life. I know it does not directly say “words” in this verse, but think about what the verse is saying, “in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus”? Isn’t that words? Isn’t “knowledge” obtained by words and we can’t say anything unless we have knowledge to do so” Also it would seem that “Idle” could be considered to be synonymous to being “unfruitful”. God is telling us in this verse in 2 Peter that we should not be either of these. You see to be “barren” can also mean to not bear any fruit. Jesus cursed the fig tree in Mark 11 because it was barren. Do you think he was symbolically giving us some valuable clues to spiritual things? It is also interesting to see the context of this verse. Let’s look back at a preceding verse:
2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
The promised land, symbolically represents these “exceeding great and precious promises” that God has given to us in His word. As this verse says, that these promises have already been given, we are now required to possess them. To become a partaker is the same as to become a possessor. God had given Moses and Israel the promise land and told them to “partake” of it. They did not believe God and therefore failed to obtain what was freely given. The promise land represents the blessings of God. The promises of God also represent the blessings of God. Because Moses did not believe he remained in the curses in the wilderness and died there. This is a powerful type and shadow of what we have facing us today. There are giants in our spiritual promise land today trying to intimidate us and keep us out of possessing it. How do we do this? We speak only words that are “useful”, “employed”, “working”, “productive”, “active”, “positive” and “fruitful” words. Then we avoid all spoken words that are “idle”, “unproductive”, “inactive”, “negative” and “unfruitful” words. This is the lesson of Moses found in Numbers 14 and Jesus and the fig tree in Mark 11. These are the words of Jesus found in Matthew. Avoid these “Idle Words” and you will be very glad when it comes to the judgment day and you have a much better opportunity to possess the promises of God in your life today. Thank you for studying the Bible on this website and please leave a comment if you would like to share your experiences in this area of life. God Bless!
If you would like to continue to read this series of lessons on spoken words, you can go to “Part 3“.
Many Will Be Called, But Few Chosen! Predestination Debunked!
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 2 in an important series of Bible lessons addressing the erroneous belief of extreme “Predestination”. If you did not read “Part 1” I would highly recommend that you start there and come back to this lesson. Today I will address the erroneous philosophy of “predestination” again using the Bible. In my last blog I talked about how some believe that God intentionally hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that God could work great signs and wonders in Egypt. I guess some people think that God was just wanting to show-off! I do not know how people can get such mixed up ideas, but I guess it takes all kinds. In this blog I want to talk about another “hard saying” found in the Bible that appears on the surface to indicate that God has preselected some people and others He has purposely rejected. It appears to me that some even take it and twist this message to say that God has predestined some for salvation and others for damnation. This of course to me is clearly in error and it violates the character of God and it turns Him into something that He is not. If this was true, it would make God the Great Nazi Deity in the sky, who kills the inferior races and only selects those who are worthy or superior enought to be saved. Isn’t this what Hitler did? Is God the same as Adolf Hitler? I do not think so! What we have is a classic example of what I call “taking ‘a’ truth and trying to make it ‘the’ truth”. This is a widely popular error found throughout the church body where men choose to wrongly divide the Word of Truth in order to believe in their incorrect interpretation of the Bible. People need to realize that there is more than one truth found in the Bible and in order to correctly interpret any verse you have to take into account all of the other related verses. This of course is a very challenging problem we all face, because none of us knows every related Bible verse. Bible study is like building a house or a building. You must start with a basic firm foundation of Biblical truths to begin. If you try to build on anything else your house of interpretations will fall down too easily. So what we do is learn everything that we can about the basics and then start to build upon what we know and correctly apply these things to the new things that we learn. That is the best that any of us can do. Truth always builds upon truth yielding a sound and tight fitting construction, which will result in a structure that is not easily blown down. True Bible Interpretation is not a house of cards that can be toppled easily. So let’s look at one of these Bible verses that seem to indicate “predestination” on the surface.
Mat 20:16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.
Here we have Jesus, God in the flesh speaking to us directly and you can very easily take it the wrong way. You can use your limited human mind to conclude that God is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient and therefore, whatever God wants is what happens to everyone. You can take this statement by Jesus to mean that God has chosen some and others He has rejected. I mean on the surface it really looks like this is what it could be saying. However, if you think about it more closely you will see that interpretation is a house of cards. You see why would God call “Many” and only choose a “Few”? If God was only going to select a very few, you would think that God would already know who was going to be selected and not bother calling those that would not be selected! Don’t you think that makes logical sense? Why even call them if they are not being selected? That would make God a teaser and a tempter. Hang some bait out in front of someone and then yanking it away right before they get to it. Sorry, you were not selected! Is that your God? That is not my God, so either we have different Gods or one of us is deceived! However, there are other hard sayings found in the Bible that are equally hard to accept on the surface and here is one of them:
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
This is a difficult verse on the surface. How can God choose one son over another? You could take this as a predestination act of God, if you wanted to. The verse before this one says that while the children were still innocent and were even still in the womb, that God said the “elder shall serve the younger”. What people do not realize is there is a major difference between “predestination” and “foreknowledge”. There is a major difference between causing something to happen and knowing what will happen. God clearly tells us that He makes known the end from the beginning. Is this because God has predestined the end, or is this because God lives outside of the dimension of time and can forsee the end results. I personally believe that God can see the end and this is what He reports, especially when it comes to the knowledge of what people will do like Jacob and Esau. God already knew the character traits of each child and what they would do and what they would not do. However, “predestination” would dictate that God predetermined what each child was purposed for and preselected one and rejected the other. In other words in the “predestination” theology man plays no role in who God selects. I talked about God being the great puppet master in the sky, pulling everyone’s strings making them do this or that depending on what God wants done at that time. This is a common religious philosophy that is widely taught in some churches. These people subscribe to a “no fault” religion. They believe whatever happens to them in life, it is just not their fault! They did not do anything to cause it and they could do nothing to stop it! That is very ignorant to believe like that, but many people do it any way! After all it relieves them of any responsibility or accountability for what they do.
So why would God choose Jacob and not Esau? If you recall Esau ended up selling his birthright. Jacob probably did some unethical tricks to get his father’s blessing but nonetheless Jacob has became the rightful heir to his father’s name and fortune. You also have to realize that Jacob and Esau and this story is a spiritual foreshadowing of events to come. This story has parallels in the natural that are patterns and types of what God was going to do in the spiritual realm. Jacob is a type of Jesus Christ. I believe Esau is a type of Adam, Jesus Christ’s older brother. But, I know I do not have time to teach this and I probably already opened a can of worms that is causing some readers to draw back, so I’ll stop there for now. What we must realize is that Jacob was selected by God, because of what Esau had decided and the actions that he had chosen. People play a role in what God does through people more than most people realize. What people want and desire, what people think, what people say and do all play a key role in whether God is able to use them. If you want to live in sin and be mightily used by God, guess what, God is not going to hesitate to look for someone else. You are the determining factor to whether God is able to use you!
So why would God hate one son and love another? What does God hate? Let’s look in the Bible for the answer to that important question:
Deu 16:22 Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the LORD thy God hateth.
It would appear that God hates it when people serve false gods and idols. Hate is a very strong word. If God hates something it must be very bad. Do you think that Esau could have been involved with another god or idol? Do you know that it is exactly possible, here is another verse that speaks about Esau found in the New Testament:
Heb 12:16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
This verse in Hebrews is interesting, isn’t it? The verse is talking about “fornicators”. In the Greek this word means “male prostitutes”. Because Esau compramised his integrity and sold his birth right God selected Jacob. You should use your Bible search program and go through and study the verses you can find out about “Esau” for there are many references in the Bible to him. He is a natural type of something in the spiritual realm that God hates. But, also look for verses that refer to “Edom” for this is the nation of children that came from Esau and see what God says about them. It is a fascinating study. Maybe after you read all of these verses you can begin to see why I believe that Esau represents Adam and Satan.
So let’s move on to some verses found in the Bible that directly challenges the theory of “predestination”. These verses will cause a conflict that must be resolved in order to correctly interpret the Bible. I’ll start with one in Proverbs:
Pro 24:23 These things also belong to the wise. It is not good to have respect of persons in judgment.
You see on the surface you ask, why is this verse related to our subject and that is why the Bible is so difficult to understand for many. They just don’t put the pieces of the puzzle together correctly so they end up confused and wrong. This verse ends in a statement that a judge should be fair to everyone. If a judge gave one man a 10 year sentence and let another man off for no time for the exact same crime, would that be fair to the one that got 10 years? Does God have mercy on some people like this and others He does not let off the hook and throws them into hell? Isn’t God the Supreme Judge of the Universe? So does God judge differently than you should? Why do you think that God came to the earth in the flesh in the first place? I believe it was to set an example that we should follow. So we should be attempting to become just like God? I believe that we are. So if God tells us to judge without respect to persons, God is already this way! Do you get it?
Act 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
So God tells us what Peter the Apostle discovered. Peter says that God shows no “respect of person”. This Greek word has the following definition from the Strong’s:
From G4381; to favor an individual, that is, show partiality: – have respect to persons.
This Greek word is pretty clear in its definition. To be partial to someone means you look favorably towards them. It means you place a higher preference or priority upon one than the other. It means you esteem some and look down upon others. This is the Bible definition to having “respect of persons”. It is clear that this is not an attitude that we should possess towards anyone. But, that doesn’t mean we should accept everyone as they are either. If you do, you will have to let your pedophile teachers, teach your Sunday school classes and that would be crazy wouldn’t it?
Rom 2:11 For there is no respect of persons with God.
Unless you are spiritually blind you cannot read a verse like this and still believe in the philosophy of “predestination”. This verse clearly says that God does not show favoritism towards anyone. God does not play favorites. God does not grant favors to anyone. God is fair and treats everyone the same or God is being unfair. You of course can ask a lot of questions and refuse to believe that this applies to God, but you would be failing to see what God is saying in the Bible and that is a huge mistake. So God has said for us to be fair towards everyone, because I am fair to everyone. So what is the determining factor of why God chooses one and not the other? As we saw with Jacob and Esau, it had more to do with what they did and not so much with God forcing the decision. Here is another interesting verse that is certainly relevant to our subject of “predestination”.
Luk 10:42 But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
Jesus is at Mary and Martha’s house teaching and Martha comes to Jesus and complains that her sister is not helping fix the food for everyone. What was God’s response to this question? Did God say, “Mary I have chosen her and not you, I have done all of this for a purpose and a plan that you do not understand”? You see that would be a true “predestination” theologian’s viewpoint. Fortunately for us God did not say this. But, God says “Mary has chosen to hear the good things and I will not take it from her”. It appears that Martha could have chosen the same thing that Mary chose and asked Jesus to feed them when they all got hungry, but she didn’t do that. Jesus seemed to think that Mary’s choice was better than Martha’s choice, can’t you see the difference? Did what Mary choose to do affect her personally and the results that she got? Did what Martha choose to do affect her personally and the results that she got? The answer to both of these quesdtions is, YES! The decisions people make are directly involved in God’s ability to use them and that determines what they get. People have more to do with what God does, than they can possibly imagine.
Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Apparently God wants to come in and have dinner with you! If God wants in the door, do you think that God is not powerful enough to come in? Why would the omnipotent God be standing on the outside knocking if He really just wanted to come in to eat with you? The answer to that question is because God is a Divince Gentleman. God will not force anyone into anything. They must choose to open the door to let Him in. Do you see how ignorant people can get with their invented religious ideas that God is in control of everything that happens to a man, to his house and him opening the door to let God in? If God was in complete control He wouldn’t be knocking and waiting for someone to let Him in would He? God is God and He is all powerful, but He does not violate your freewill choice. God will not force you to open the door to your heart and let Him in. You have the responsibility to open the door and invite Him in. If you do not do this, God is a perfect gentleman and will not kick the door down like a thief or a robber.
Let me end this blog with this new and different perspective to the subject of predestination. Many times people do not think when they read the Bible so here is something new to consider. If God only chooses some why does this Bible verse say what it says?
Psa 69:28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.
You see you can very easily read a verse like this and completely miss what it says and think that it does not apply to anyone or anything. However, Jesus thought it was important enough and says this about it:
Rev 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
So what does this have to do with predestination? It is because you do not see, that you do not understand. This verse says everyone’s name was written down in the “Lambs book of Life“, but that some of these names have now been blotted out. In other words, God expected everyone to be saved, but obviously there are many who did not accept the free gift. You see God did not write your name in the “book of life” after you got saved. The Lamb’s book of life had every name of every human that was supposed to be here on this planet already enter into it. We can therefore conclude that God wanted everyone to be saved and those that overcame are the only ones that their names now remain in the book. So if God predestined anything or anyone, God predestined everyone to succeed and to be saved, but some chose to reject God’s plan and do their own thing. The word “Blot Out” means that the name was already there and removed or covered over using “God’s Whiteout”. People who are young do not understand the concept of “whiteout”, but those who are older do, before computers were around people would type pages manually and have to cover mistakes up with a white liquid paper product. I think you can still buy this product, but I doubt if it is very widely used for anything. This is however, the concept given to us in Word of God. God writes every name in the Lamb’s book of life and then depending upon their actions and decisions, God is forced to remove their name, if they so choose. It is truly amazing what the Bible says when you can see it! God Bless you and may you be blessed with the knowledge of Him that freely gives us all things!
If you would like to continue to read about this subject you can go to “Part 3“.
Does God Cause Some People’s Hearts to Be Hard? What About Pharaoh?
(Ver 1.4) This is the Part 1 in an important series of Bible lessons addressing the primary subject of Extreme Predestination. Many times people read things into the Bible missing what God actually says to make their own independent wrong assumptions. Ignoring all of the words written on one subject they simultaneously jump to the wrong conclusions based upon selective reading. Today’s Bible lesson will be a prime example of this type of error in wrong Bible interpreation. Reading the Bible in isolation and not allowing God to interpret the Bible is one of the most dangerous approaches to take in Bible interpretation. The Bible will always explain the Bible, but we are required to search the Bible in order to find these explanations. The explations are not going to come to you and fall into your lap. I once talked to a man who had graduated from an unnamed theological seminary, who claimed that God causes some people to be saved while choosing for other people not to be saved. This belief is very much the classic manmade “predestination” mentality or philosophy. His reasoning was based upon a combination of the known omnipotence of God, the sovereignty of God and several other beliefs that he attempted to use to explain why things appear to be as if God controls what occurs in the world. Because God is omnipotent and sovereign, his claim was nothing happened unless God authorizes it or commited it. He was very pleased to show me scriptures in Exodus that appear to say that God purposely hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that God could do some spectacular plagues and signs to demonstrate His great power. It is funny how religious minds work and think sometimes. They think they are right, but when you actually study it out you can find something completely different in the Bible. Many times the simple basic things written on the surface of the Bible give way to more elaborate complex spiritual meanings, that can be taken completely different than the surface reading. So this seminary graduate chose to believe something on the surface and did not look any deeper to find out if that was really what the Bible actually said. We as Christians, must weigh every scripture using other scriptures that are relevant to the subject. We must use the Bible to interpret the Bible correctly, because only God knows what it all means and not us! Today I will attempt to give you the rest of the story and help you to see the difference. Here are a couple of the scriptures that my confused seminary brother in Christ used to say that God had hardened Pharaoh’s heart:
Exo 4:21 And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.
Exo 10:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him:
The Bible is written in a style that it can literally be interpreted in many different ways simultaneously depending upon the readers point of view or perspective. From a single verse, 12 different people can read it and get 12 different individual interpretations. This however, does not prove that any of them are right. God purposely selected this method and style of writing the Bible so that mankind would have a choice in what they believe. However, this does not mean every interpretation is correct, just because God allows you to jump to these wrong conclusions. You see in Exodus 4:21 and Exodus 10:1, that God is speaking to Moses directly and God tells him what to do and then tells Moses what will happen as a result of what Moses does. Religious people like to think that God’s will is the only will that is ever accomplished on the earth. If God wants something done a certain way, then God’s will automatically overrides everyone else’s will and God gets His way. That reasoning does not make any sense to me and I haven’t been able to find any Bible verses that directly back that theory. You see that theory would make God the giant puppet master in the sky who pulls everyone’s strings to make them do exactly what He wants, when He wants it done. That does not match the character or nature of God revealed to us in the Bible. This does not match other scriptures that say God has given man choices and decisions to make. If God was calling all of the shots, why would God say “Today I have set before you life and death, therefore choose life”. Bible verses like these tell me that man has a choice and God makes a recommendation which one we should choose, but is not forcing you or I into making this right decision. Therefore, we have a conflict presented to us in the Word of God. Is God a good God, like the Bible says or is He an evil God to some and to others He treats differently. Has God given mankind a choice in the result of their lives and their destiny or has God predestined some to hell and others to heaven? Were angels given the ability to make right or wrong choices? Does God really control everything that happens in the world, good, bad or indifferent? Does it matter what I do today? Can my choices change the results that I get? Will what I do affect anyone else’s results? What is the character of God like? Does God require man to do something that He can do differently and God calls it OK for Him, but sin for man? You have to ask yourself these important questions. These are hard questions and I cannot attempt to answer all of these in this one blog.
I have to admit, that reading just those two verses that I gave you in Exodus, that it really appears that God purposely caused Pharaoh’s heart to become hard, so that He could do some great signs. I mean you can very easily take it this way if you want to, by ignoring the rest of the Bible. However, the Bible is One Book by One Author, who has intentionally revealed Himself in a very tricky way by spreading out little clues about himself from cover to cover. We are required to find these clues first and then to use these clues to interpret the other verses in the Bible using this information. Our interpretation of a single part of the Bible needs to be in harmony with all of the other verses found in the Bible on the subject. One verse cannot contradict or conflict with another. If you think it does, then you are wrong and do not understand what it says correctly! God is always consistent and constant in His character, and His treatment of all people.
Often times people confuse foreknowledge with predestination. Just because God knows your reaction to some event that happens in your life, does not mean that God caused it to happen that way. So when God tells Moses of Pharaoh’s reaction to what Moses was going to do, why didn’t Moses stop and ask God what else can we do that will actually work and let the people go? Don’t you think that Moses could have changed God’s mind and His approach to something that would have actually worked, if there was anything that was going to work? Well the problem is still the question did God intentionally harden the heart of Pharaoh in order to accomplish His greater plan for Israel? I think we need to start this study by defining what it means to be “hard hearted”. Isn’t that what we are talking about? If God made Pharaoh’s heart hard, how did God do this and what transpired or changed in Pharaoh when this occurred? Did God do something in Pharaoh that caused him to react how he did? Was there a specific something that changed within Pharaoh that forced this reaction? Instead of trying to get a definition of “hard hearted” from the dictionary, let’s see if God gives us a definition in the Bible:
Mar 8:17 And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? perceive ye not yet, neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened?
Here is a classic definition of being hard hearted directly from God. Jesus is speaking to the disciples about them having no bread. He ends the verse with a four part question that ends with “did you harden your heart”? So why did God ask this question, if God was hardening their hearts? Didn’t God already know if He was intentionally hardening their hearts for some purpose? Isn’t Jesus Christ God in the flesh? I hope you can begin to see how foolish people can be by believing in “predestination”. Here we have God in the flesh asking if “they” had hardened their own hearts by doing what? Part 1 of the question was by “reasoning”. This is a mental operation of an advanced feature of the human capability. You can train a monkey to do something that gives you a specified result, like play a song on a piano, but they will never be able to reason for themselves in order to come up with the notes to a song! If you think differently, you are wrong! Humans have the capability to “think”, to “reason”, to “consider”, to “dispute”, and to “muse”. These are all logical methods of coming to a conclusion and then they also have the ability to discuss their thought process of why they came to this answer. A monkey can do this only in an extremely limited capacity. Keep in mind that “reasoning” ability is based upon knowledge. People are only able to come to conclusions based upon what they know about the subject. The more they know, usually a better decision can result.
So apparently “being hard hearted” involves your mind, your thoughts and your reasoning capability, based upon your previous knowledge. Then Jesus asks parts 2 and 3 of the question, “didn’t you perceive what I said?”, “and didn’t you understand it?” The first word to “perceive” is a very interesting word. It means “to exercise the mind”. It means to “think”. It also means to “observe”. All of these things are mental operations of the human mind. Now the next word translated as “understand” means “to put together”. It also means “to become wise”. It also means “to comprehend”. These are also all mental operations of the human mind. So what was one of the determining factors to why the disciples hearts were hardened according to Jesus and God? It was because they did not understand or see what was being said. They used their minds to reason the wrong things and come to the wrong conclusions based upon the knowledge that they had up to this point. So was this God’s fault or the disciple’s fault? Who caused their hearts to be harden? Was it the words that Jesus spoke or the their own lack of sufficient knowledge and inability to understand what he said that caused their hardness of heart? This is a very important lesson to learn, because it applies to most Christians in the world today. Jesus could ask the same question to most people who write blogs on the internet and even to many who sit in the pews of our churches. I’ll go even further and say Jesus could ask most preachers who graduated from seminary, what are you thinking?
Mar 16:14 Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.
Here is another determining factor in the definition of “hardness of heart” given to us by God. Jesus met with the 11 disciples after He was risen from the dead and He more or less rebuked them for their “unbelief”. Jesus appeared to some and not others and some went and then told the others, but at least some of the others did not believe what was told to them. Jesus called this being “hard hearted”. This is also a key factor to what we find wrong in our churches today, and it speaks to why people do what they do. They either believe what is being taught or they do not! Those who believe are said to be “tender hearted” and those who do not believe are said to be “hard hearted”. Of course we do not believe anything just because someone says it, we have to be smart enough to verify it in the Bible, but that is a different lesson. So what we have learned is that people have a choice in what they believe, don’t they? By making right choices in what we believe we become more “tender hearted”, by making wrong choices in what we believe we become more “hard hearted”. I hope you are grasping these concepts, they do apply to you right now.
Heb 3:13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
So this is now factor three in the definition of becoming “hard hearted”. In, this verse in Hebrews God says to us, that the deceitfulness of “sin” is a key factor to becoming hard hearted. Sin involves missing the intended mark of righteousness and holiness. We are all guilty of this and some more than others. However, it is a determining factor of who is said to be “hard hearted”. Now I do not think that I covered this subject completely, but I have given you several key factors to the definition of becoming “hard hearted”. So let’s review what we have learned as to what causes people to be hard hearted:
- The Ignorance of People Who Do Not Know Any Better!
- Inability to Perceive, Hear, Observe, See Spiritually
- Inability to Comprehend, Understand Mentally
- Distractions of Temptation and Sin Physically
The result of these factors will culminate into:
- Wrong Thinking
- Wrong Reasoning
- Wrong Believing
- Wrong Conclusions
- Wrong Assumptions
- Wrong Actions
So do any of these factors play a role in the life of Pharaoh? If you do not think so, you would be wrong again! God gives us basic clues and definitions throughout the Bible and we must apply them correctly, so here I go. Did what Pharaoh learn as a child make any determination how he would react as an adult? Would being the leader of one the most advanced nations on earth with untold power and riches factor into how Pharaoh would react? Does the fact that Pharaoh and his people worshipped false idols and imaginary gods play any factor into how Pharaoh would react? You know there are just so many different factors to consider that go into this decision process that Pharaoh had, that I cannot come up with them all. But, when Moses appeared to Pharaoh and said “The Jehovah God” has sent me! What would have been your reaction if you were Pharaoh? This was not one of Pharaoh’s gods? Who is this God? That is what I would have thought! What was Pharaoh thinking while Moses asked for the children of Israel to be freed? Here the ruler of Egypt who possessed around 2 million slaves, was being asked to let them go for free and what do you think he thought about a request like that? Do you see how these factors that we just learned of becoming hard hearted from the New Testament apply to what happened in Pharaoh’s heart? Pharaoh did not believe Moses! Moses did not come in the name of any of Pharaoh’s gods! So when the true God says something to someone who doesn’t believe He exists, what is their reaction suppose to be? I hope that you are beginning to see how complex the world and the Bible is.
Let’s continue through the Bible in Exodus and see what else God says about Pharaoh’s heart being hardened:
Exo 8:15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.
This verse is a little different than the first two that I gave you from Exodus. This time it says Pharaoh was the one that hardened his own heart. Moses had been commanded by God what to do and say before Pharaoh. During this time, Pharaoh’s magicians would counter the acts of God with their own similar tricks. Pharaoh saw these great signs of God as just being a magic potion of a sorcerer, which he could also cause to be produced using his own magicians. Whatever, God did, the magicians of Pharaoh countermanded them with their own spectacular results. So far God hasn’t done anything that was spectacular enough for Pharaoh to be impressed with. Pharaoh did not believe in the God of Israel, so there lies the root of Pharaoh’s greatest failure in judgment.
Exo 8:32 And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go.
Here we have another verse that clearly says Pharaoh was responsible for hardening his own heart. Do we have a contradiction in scriptures or just a simple misunderstanding of what it all means? Can God harden people’s hearts simply by them not believing in Him? Will what people think about what is said to them, affect what they choose to believe? Did God harden his heart or did Pharaoh harden his own heart? Can you see how both of these statements are true at the same time? God hardened the heart of Pharaoh and Pharaoh hardened his own heart are two perspectives of the same event. What if Moses had come in the name of the god “Apollo”? Would the reaction of Pharaoh had been different? I do not think so. So you cannot say that it was God’s fault for hardening Pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh didn’t believe in “Apollo” any more than He did “Jehovah”. All Pharaoh knew was this was not his god so he was closing his mind to what else was being told to him. Christians do this in churches every day. A new teacher comes to town and says something that doesn’t fit what they think and they shut down and do not hear the rest. It didn’t matter if it was directly from God and the truth, it was just not what they wanted to hear so they ignored it. I know this happens with the things that I write on my blogs. Many read it, but do not believe it, understand it or accept it so they shut their minds down and ignore it all.
1Sa 6:6 Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed?
In this verse we again see a comparison being made between the people of Israel and the people of Egypt ruled by Pharaoh. We can see very clearly that each of these people are responsible personally for hardening their own hearts. There is no contradiction to the scriptures and there is no predestination reality with God. God knows the decisions you will make, but you are still responsible for them, not God.
Eze 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Do you know this scripture is talking about you? If you are a Christian, you have this new heart available to you right now! Did you notice that God said I will take out your “Stony” heart? Isn’t a “stony” heart a formerly hard hearted person? This again can be taken incorrectly, as something that God is solely responsible for making happen. Some people still think like God is the spiritual surgeon who does a spiritual heart transplant surgical procedure in every believer! But, that would not be a good interpretation of this verse based upon what we have learned. God says I will replace your stony heart with a soft tender heart of flesh. Are these symbolic references? Yes they are! Is God responsible for this happening in you? Yes and No! You still have a part to play in the procedure. God never overrides your will and makes you do anything. God never takes anything away from you that you do not want taken away. God never gives you anything that you do not want to have. This is the character and nature of the God and Man relationship. However, without God doing anything we would all be hopelessly hard hearted. So it is a partnership between us receiving what God has freely given to us by faith. Here is an analogy that helped me tremendously when I studied this subject about the hearts of mankind. I heard a preacher teach this so I cannot take credit for it, but, I will share it with you, so that I can help you to see it also.
Jesus Christ is called Light. Jesus Christ is called the Sun of Righteousness. Jesus Christ is compared symbolically to the natural sun in our sky. The church is said to be in the “Day” and not in the “Night” or the darkness anymore. Darkness represents the domain of Satan and evil. So the church walks in the Light of God and Jesus Christ has risen in our hearts to give us this new glorious light. So what can we learn from this symbolic representation? Does the sun shine on everyone equally? Or does the natural sun in our sky shine only on the righteous and good people in the world? Of course the sun shines on everyone the same. What causes the same light to shine on everyone equally the same with no bias or prejudice towards anyone? Is this the nature and character of God exemplified in a natural part of creation? Are the hidden qualities of God being clearly shown to us by looking at the sun in our sky? Does God treat everyone the same? My Bible says God shows no respect of persons, so God must be fairly treating everyone the same. God has given the same Bible to everyone that contains His words of hope! Yet some believe it and some do not, is this God’s fault? Did God make one person hard towards the Gospel and another He made receptive and tender? Why does the same natural sun in the sky, both melts wax and hardens clay simultaneously? Is it the sun’s fault that these two objects react differently? It is the same heat and light source upon both objects isn’t it? But, the reaction to this light ray is completely different based upon the type of object absorbing or being bombarded by the light. Can people choose to be hard or tender to the Light of the Word of God in the same way? Do people have a choice in what they do, what they hear, is what they think important, what about what they say and how they react? Of course people have these choice everyday and that is exactly why some people harden their own hearts and refuse to hear the truth and others are receptive and open and learn the truth. The same Sun shines on everyone, but not everyone chooses to react the same to this constant light source. You must choose to be wax and refuse to be the clay or you will become harden in your heart toward God also.
This is precisely the situation of Pharaoh in Exodus. God said something that Pharaoh did not want to hear. God said something that Pharaoh did not consider important. God said something that Pharaoh did not think was relevant to him or his situation. God said something that Pharaoh did not believe. So, God knew that no matter what he said, Pharaoh was not going to let the Israel people go. Pharaoh wanted them for their labor and their lives of service for his own good. Pharaoh let power and influence determine his outcome and the result ended very bad for them. If you did not know it, Egypt is a type of the world. Pharaoh is a type of Satan. Moses is a type of Jesus, the deliverer and the children of Israel a type of the Church. These are all types that represents patterns of things that were to come in the spiritual realm in the New Covenant of God. Our spiritual Deliver is Christ Jesus who has freed us from the captivity of sin and Satan. You have to decide right now are you a child of Egypt or a child of Israel and choose to become hard or tender toward what God is telling you right now.
There are many other things to learn from these lessons of Pharaoh, but I have gone too long in this blog. I pray that you received something that was a positive benefit in your spiritual walk with God. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series about the subject of “Predestination” you may go now to “Part 2“.