Monthly Archives: September 2010
Understanding Angels! A Bible Perspective to the Reality of Angels! Part 1
(Ver 1.1) This is “Part 1” in a study series on the subject of “angels” found in the bible from cover to cover. People generally do not believe in things that they have never seen or that they do not have any proof of existence. It is very much like the subject of God who is a Spirit (Jn 4:24) and many people do not believe in Him either. However, the Word of God known as the Bible says a lot about these spiritual beings, we call angels, and it informs us that they definitely are real and that they do certainly exist. The rest of this lesson will cover things found in the Bible about angels that you should know. Who are they, what are they, where did they come from, when did they come into existence, what is their purpose and whatever else God leads us to discuss about them. I personally know people who claim to have seen angels and their descriptions of these creatures are not like the fat little baby angels you see in many picture books or art diagrams. These creatures are generally very strong, large and tall. Their strength is so much greater than the strongest man on the earth that there is no comparison that can be made. In this lesson we will discuss a lot of scriptures and many of them you might or might not already know. However, I will probably say some things that you probably have never heard or thought about before, so you should read the entire lesson series before you pass final judgment. So let’s look at the first occurrence of the Hebrew word “H4397” that is translated as word “angel” in the English KJV Bible. The Strong’s definition for this word is “messenger”. In the ancient Hebrew lexicon this word is defined as “one who walks for another”. That appears to define one of the primary roles of angels in simple terms. If we search the Bible, we will find that the first direct mention of this word is found in verse 7 of Genesis 16:
Gen 16:7 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.
The Hebrew word translated as “angel” is used 213 times in the O.T. so that is a lot of scriptures to read and learn from. But that is not all of the references that can be found in the Old Testament. This is because these beings go by many other names, titles, descriptions, symbols, etc. For example, the first time I noticed a reference for angels was in Genesis 1:16 as the mention of “stars”. This symbol for angels occurs especially in Revelation 12:4 where the tail of the dragon sweeps 1/3 of the stars from the heaven. Most wise Bible scholars agree these stars are references to angels.
There are at least two references to angels in Genesis 3. In verse 1, Satan is referred to as a symbolic “serpent”. Most should know this is the fallen angel Lucifer, but we will hpefully go into this more later. Then in verse 24 of Genesis 3, we find God placing “Cherubim” with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life. This is a speciality ranking order of that angels that appear to have a different assignment other than being a “messenger” class of God’s angelic creation. We will discover that God is a very organized creator. There will be angels of differing ranks and responsilbities.
All of this introduction information tells us that angels were widely active in the O.T. times and that these creatures are still implied to be active today based upon what we will find the book of Revelation described future. While not every occurrence is translated as “angel” of the Hebrew word, there are enough that are this way that I cannot mention them all.
As we learned, the word “angel” means “messenger” in the Hebrew; they are spiritual beings that are normally sent from God to deliver a message to man. So, an angel could be viewed as a “Word carrier”. You could also say a “Word courier” or someone who delivers God’s Words to the people on the earth. You could compare angels to an earthly company like “Fedex” who delivers messages around the world, but of course angels are much more than that as we will find out. It is interesting to note two things found in this verse. First is that God qualifies the word “angel” with “of the Lord”. Meaning there are other types of angels that are not “of the Lord”. We will discover more about this shortly, but note that God claims some angels to be His and others that are clearly not His. Later we will also see that within the organization of angels, there exist ranks, classes and orders.
The next thing that is interesting to see in this verse is the Hebrew Word translated as “found” in this verse. This word does not mean the angel had to search for Hagar to finally locater her. According to Strong’s this word means “to come forth”, “to appear” or “exist”. Did you know that you cannot normally see angels in the world, but that this does not mean they do not exist around us at all times? It is critical to note that this “angel of the Lord” came forth and appeared in the natural realm so that Hagar could see him and hear him with her physical eyes and ears.
What we will learn soon are that Angels are normally not visible, probably because they were created by God on a higher frequency of movement/vibration. All physical substance contains vibration frequencies. Some are more easily seen, and some are impossible to see with the unaided eye. But according to this verse and some other verses that we will look at later, God may cause or permit some angels to slow their spiritual frequency so that it allows them to become visible in the natural realm. This means that angels can be visible at times or be invisible at other times. How they do this, and it is accomplished, I have no idea?
There are many details in the Bible that we are not informed of directly and this is one of them. We have to assume that they have some power or ability that allows them to do this. You can read further in this chapter and also see that this angel of the Lord brings Hagar a message from God, and he informs her of what will happen to her and her son Ishmael in the future. God who sees the end from the beginning can tell you this information, but this is not the normal way that God does things most of the time; I believe that this is an exception to the way God does things.
So, we have just looked at the first direct reference in the Bible about angels, however this is not the first time they are mentioned in the Bible so we will back up in Genesis and read some new very important verses about angels. What you must realize when reading and studying the Bible, is that God calls the same things in the Bible by multiple names, titles, descriptions and each of these reveal new qualities or features of that person or object being referenced. So, let’s read a verse that reveals angels to us in a totally brand-new way:
Gen 6:1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
God starts this chapter by informing us that the children of Adam and Eve began to multiply upon the face of the earth. There were both males and females born to them and then these children married and had more children and thus continued the multiplication of the earth’s population. This is of course what God told Adam and Eve to do; to be fruitful and multiply, and to replenish the earth’s population. So, they were being obedient in this part of God’s commandments, I wonder why? Now we are going to get into the part about angels, for the preceding verse was put there to set up the next very important verse:
Gen 6:2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
In the next verse in the Bible, we learn some very valuable information about angels. I’ll start by giving you the time frame for this information. These verses are occurring within the first 1000 years of human history. Since Adam lived to be over 900 years old, he must have come close to witnessing the beginnings of what was taking place on the earth during these verses. The very next thing that you should recognize is that angels are called “sons of God”. We know that Jesus was the Son of God, but notice angels are also called “sons of God. It is the same designation of title, but in an entirely different context. However, we know Jesus was God, but angels were never God. We know in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 that Lucifer was a created being. We also learn Lucifer was “anointed” by the Spirit of God. This would appear to indicate angles to be very similar to humans.
Notice this fact that the Bible calls us (the church) “sons of God” also (1 Jo 3:2). Why is this? This is directly attributable because God is called our “Father”. In Hebrews 12:9 God is called the Father of spirits. Angels are definitely spirit beings and people are spirit beings also, so God qualifies to be Father of both.
The next important thing to recognize about angels is that they can manifest themselves physically in this world as we saw with Hagar. But Genesis 6 provides greater details. It appears that angels can appear in the same form apparently as human males on the earth with the same sexual reproductive equipment. Some try to explain that these “sons of Gods’ are not angels, but you can see that they are by other verses in the Bible. This term “sons of God” is used only a very few times in the O.T. Other than twice in Genesis 6, the term “sons of God” can be found only three times in the book of Job when Satan appears before God and the “sons of God” come with him. Most knowledgeable Bible scholars will agree that this reference to “sons of God” is speaking of angels also.
It is very apparent in this verse that angels have physical bodies as well as spiritual bodies. I still believe this is just one body that is able to transition to slower frequencies that are visible in the created natural realm. However, angels are clearly not mortal like sinful fallen humans. Even angels that have sinned like Lucifer travel from the earth realm to the heavenly realm daily (Rev 12:10) I believe from what I have read in the Bible that angels are spiritual beings that are capable of traveling between the earth and heaven where the throne of God is located at their own will. I also believe that these angels can manifest themselves in a physical form on this earth when given a divine assignment. But Genesis 6 is an example of unlawful angelic manifestation in the physical realm as we will learn soon.
So, this verse in Genesis 6 says the angels of God looked at the women on the earth and thought they were “beautiful” and they took them for their wives and as we continue reading this caused a perverted race of human and angelic beings to come to be in the earth. It is interesting to note that it does not sound like these women had much choice in this matter. To me it sounds like a victory of the spoils of war type of mentality that came upon the angels. They clearly thought they had a right to these women. Knowing the strength and power of angels we can understand why. Read this next verse:
Gen 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
So, this is a very hard saying indeed. One that is truly difficult to comprehend. The “sons of God” are said to “come in unto” the daughters of men. This is a very interesting concept being given to us by God. It is spoken of in the terms of Noah “entering into” the ark (Gen 6:19). This means God views the woman’s sexual organ as a door into her body. In fact, it is designed by God as a two-way door; a man or angel enters in, and babies come out. These exact same words are used in Genesis 16:2 when Sarah tells Abraham “go in unto my maid” so that I may have children of her”. We can clearly see that this is natural sex using God’s perspective. So, we know that the angels (the sons of God) had physical sex with women on the earth and they created a race of giants.
I wonder sometimes, if there are male angels which clearly there are, do female angels exist? That is a question that I do not know the direct answer to yet. I do not ever recall reading any description of an angel in the Bible that resembled a female. But the Bible says that there are an innumerable number of these creatures in heaven, so we do not know everything, do we?
From my Bible studies I have to conclude that there are female angels but the only proof that I have found so far, is that the Bible says Heaven existed first and it is called the “Heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb 12:22) and this city seems to be a pattern of the one that God created on the earth that I call the “earthly Jerusalem”. If the earthly Jerusalem has females, I can only conclude logically that this was a repeated pattern of the original heavenly city Jerusalem also. So, in my opinion there has to be female angels, but I do not yet have a direct Bible verse for that yet, so you do not have to accept it.
Gen 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
So where did all of these giants come from that were in the earth? They had to come from the sexual union of Adam’s daughters (female descendants) and the angels (sons of God). It is very apparent to me that this union between God’s new creation and the angels was an illegal sinful act and a perversion of creation, that God would have to do something about. I can see two potential reasons for this union by angelic beings with humans. It appears to be motivated by their hatred of God and humans, using their willful and intentional act of rebellion to try to destroy God’s new creation. Some can try to say that Satan and the angels were attempting to pervert the bloodline of man, and this is the only reason for what they did. It is very easy to assume or jump to the conclusion that they were in effect attempting to eliminate the pure blood line for Christ to come into the world. However, I’m not convinced that Satan or any of the angels knew Jesus (God in the flesh) was coming into the world at that time. Remember there were no Bibles written when all of this was taking place. Moses wrote about this many years later for the first time.
So ,their motivation for taking human women could have been just a conquest or sexual desire and the fact that they thought and believed that they could get away with it. Angels, Satan and demons are not “all knowing” beings and God has not yet prophesied the Messiah to come in writing at this point of human time. It is true that the plan of God was already in place before the foundation of our world. However, there is no written word, no recorded law of God, no divine prophets speaking the word in the earth other than Enoch, that I know of. We do know that there were a few statements of God being spoken directly t Satan, Adam and Eve about the seed of the woman bruising the head of the serpent. And that is certainly motivational information that Satan knew someone was coming, because what is the seed of the woman? So, unless Satan understood what God was saying about the seed of the woman, how would Satan know to start corrupting this bloodline? We can assume that Satan understood the words of God and that is why the angels did what they did to the women on the earth, but I have no verses to confirm either of these motivations at this time.
In this same chapter of Genesis is the beginning of the story of Noah. I do not believe that this was just a coincidence. I believe that Noah was chosen by God to preserve the bloodline and the seed of Adam. God decided that He must intervene into this perversion by wiping out the human race with a universal flood. God selects Noah and his 3 sons as those who would preserve the seed of Adam. Looking at the genealogy of Jesus given to us in Luke 3, God shows us that Jesus mother Mary lineage goes all the way back to Adam through Noah and Shem who have preserved God’s plan. In other words, there are no angels in the line that Jesus came from. So, what happened to the angels that sinned and took the women of the earth as their wives? We are actually given a clue to this event in the N.T. when Peter writes the following:
2Pe 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
God tells us that the angels who sinned were forcibly thrown into hell and bound with “chains of darkness”. It is interesting to note that this verse informs us something very important for you to understand. Angels, demons, and Satan have never been to hell, do not want to go to hell and are trying everything in their power to stay out of hell. Hell is not a good place that anyone that is halfway normal wants to be. Too many people think that Hell is Satan’s dominion or kingdom, but you can clearly read in Revelation that even Satan has to be forcibly thrown into this place. So, Satan and demons are not normal people, but they do not want to be in hell any more than I do. Think about it, Satan was used to walking streets of gold in heaven why would he want to go to hell? Did you notice that this verse said that these angels who sinned were cast into hell and chained so that they could not leave? Does that sound like they wanted to be there, it does not! The sin of the angels is not directly named in this verse found in 2nd Peter, but the next verse starts talking about Noah so we can clearly assume that the sin was having sex with the natural women on the earth when they clearly should not have in Genesis 6. It is not rocket science to read Genesis 6 and 2 Peter 2 and figure this out.
So here we have Genesis 6 the first occurrence or mention of angels in the Bible, or is it? You see I believe that the first mention of angels in the Bible is a symbolic occurrence way before this in the first chapter of Genesis. The first two chapters of Genesis is the account of the creation of our world. Within the first chapter of Genesis is a prophetic timeline of the entire history of mankind on the earth. If you do not understand that statement, you should read some of my other blogs on the subject. God uses symbolism in the first chapter from the things that are mentioned, and these things occur in a very specific ordered timeline that reveals a lot of great information to us. I believe the first reference to angels occurs in verse 16 of Genesis 1:
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Where are the angels you ask? That is the tricky part of the mysteries within the Bible; God has hidden significant information within verses that we do not understand until He reveals them to us. In this verse God speaks of three heavenly objects found in our sky. Did you notice I said “Heavenly”? Where is God’s throne? God’s throne is in “Heaven”. So, we have three natural symbols that convey spiritual beings and meanings. I will not discuss the sun or the moon in this lesson, if you need to know who these objects represent you should go read some of my other lessons. However, the “stars” are innumerable in our night sky. That is a key word that describes the angels in heaven.
Heb 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
God tells us in Hebrews that Heaven contains an innumerable number of angels. This means that God only knows the number of them, and we just do not have the time to count them all. In other words, the number of angels is not an infinite number; it is just a very big number. So here is the reason that I bring “stars” into today’s lesson. If you read later in the Bible in Revelation, you will see how important it is note:
Rev 12:4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
As you can clearly see the tail of the symbolic dragon who is revealed to be Satan causes a 1/3 part of the stars of heaven to fall to the earth. These are not real stars in our night sky; these are only symbolic stars that represent angels. In the Bible “stars” many times represents angels symbolically. This is definitely true in Genesis 1 and Revelation 12 and many other places also. In this verse of Revelation, it clearly tells us that the number of the angels is not an infinite number because a specific fraction 1/3 of them is fallen from heaven to the earth. If you can divide a number by 3 you have to know what that number is that is being reduced. Again, this is just basic logic and the laws of mathematics.
This has been a basic introduction to the subject of angels using the Bible. I have only speculated about one thing and that is I believe that there must be female angels but that I have not found a direct Bible verse to prove that. The other facts in this lesson definitely are scripture-based teachings found in the Bible. We have learned that there are many angels that exist, in fact more than we can count, however not as many as God can count. We have learned that some of these angels do not belong to God anymore. Those that are faithful to God are numbered in terms of 2/3 of the total population of angels. The other 1/3 of the angels we are told are cast down to the earth. We also learned from Peter’s writings that some angels have already been cast into hell for creating a perverted race of beings in an attempt to corrupt the seed of Adam. So we have seen two witnesses so far that say that angels can manifest themselves in physical forms in our world. That is a very important fact to keep in mind. Here is another witness to this fact:
Heb 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
I’ll end today’s lesson with this thought, God says for us to treat strangers like they could be a heavenly representative from God. It is very clear to me that God is saying you never know who you are entertaining and that they could potentially have a message for you from God. I base this on the fact that I believe that an angel’s number one assignment is to be a messenger of God since that is what the name “angel” means. We will discuss more scriptures about angels in my next lesson and hopefully see what else the Bible says that they can do. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading this series about angels, you can go to “Part 2“.
Understanding Hard Sayings in the Bible! Eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood!
(Ver 1.1) This is “Part 4” in a series of advanced Christian lessons on “Understanding Hard Sayings” found in the Bible. This lesson today is not a new subject for me to teach on, for I have covered parts of this topic of hard sayings in at least one other lesson. But, I want to back up today and introduce you to the general concept of “Hard Sayings” found in the Bible before I teach any more about them. The Bible contains many sayings that are very difficult for people to accept, so in many Christian churches they simply ignore them. You see I did not invent the term “Hard Sayings”, it came from a teaching that Jesus directly gave to His disciples and in doing this, Jesus taught us that the Bible contains many “Hard Sayings” within it. There are other Christian books and authors on the market that are available with this title about “Hard Sayings” in the Bible. I have not read them, but some of them must be good. What I want you to realize is today’s lessons came directly from God and the Bible and not from the teachings of another man. So what is a hard saying? A Hard Saying can be described as any words or verses that are very difficult to understand or to accept because of what is being taught or stated within them. Many times hard sayings in the Bible are natural controversial subjects which have a hidden spiritual message that is being conveyed. Jesus actually gives us the classic difficult or hard saying Himself in the Gospels and in doing so teaches us some very significant things about this subject that we should all learn. Here is what the disciples said about the lesson that Jesus gave to them:
Joh 6:60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
As you can see the disciples listening to the words of Jesus said that this teaching was very “hard sayings” to accept and they asked “who could hear them”. They are in effect saying the words of Jesus are very difficult to believe, comprehend, accept, grasp or even understand. What were these words that Jesus was teaching on that were called “hard sayings” by His followers? I mean if His followers had trouble accepting them, what about us? What made the words of Jesus so difficult to grasp for these inner circle of disciples? I guess we should start by reading what Jesus was teaching about that the disciples called “Hard Sayings”.
Joh 6:53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
These are truly very “Hard Sayings”. If you try to take these words literally you will attempt to say that Jesus was teaching cannibalism. However, one of the key elements to correct Bible interpretation is knowing when something is symbolic and when something should be taken literally. . This is something that is not always as easy as you would like it to be. Symbolism is a key element used throughout the Bible to conceal and reveal spiritual information to us His disciples. Jesus is speaking symbolically about spiritual things in this verse and we will need to explore several other Bible verses to get the correct interpretation to these symbols. But, this verse is the prime example of how the natural mind of man can get easily confused when reading the Bible. The Bible says this about the natural mind of man:
Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
What is a carnal mind? A carnal mind is one that thinks 100% naturally. To apply natural things to a spiritual book is said to be an enemy of God. I see blogs on the internet about Bible studies and they are clearly the enemies to God. They are applying human logic and reasoning to explain away the true spiritual meanings and that is a major problem. So the important lesson from this verse is for us not to think like men, but to renew our minds and change to think like God. God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thought are not our thoughts, but that does not mean we cannot come up to God’s way of thinking. It only means that we do not know how to do this until we learn it from God. God did not give us a book that we could not understand ever. He only wants us to change in order to see the real truth. This change involves a higher level of spiritual thought and hopefully you are growing in this area.
What we discover from Jesus’ statement are that two major components are being spoken of. These are the “Flesh” of Jesus and the “Blood” of Jesus. Then we are instructed to eat and drink these two elements. I purposely chose the word “elements” because many Christians know these are symbolic representations for our communion services where we take bread and wine and partake of the Lord’s body and blood. Christians do this as a symbolic representation of a greater spiritual truth that I will discuss in more depth today. Jesus actually taught us some very profound things while partaking of the “Passover” meal with His disciples. Jesus breaks the unleavened bread of Passover and says “this is my body” eat. Then Jesus takes the cup of the covenant and says this is my “blood” drink. Jesus in doing this was not saying this is my literal body and blood; he again was just using symbols to convey spiritual meanings.
In the Old Testament Psalms, it says “Taste and see that the Lord is Good” (Ps 34:8). So how do you taste anything naturally? In order to taste something you usually put that something in your mouth and then swallow it, if it is good or spit it out if it is bad. God appears to be using more symbolism in this verse of Psalms. We know that God is a Spirit (John 4:24). How do you then taste a Spirit and see if He is good? For that matter how does the real you, the spirit inside your body taste the Lord and see if He is good? That is exactly why Jesus uses these natural things to help you to understand the spiritual things that you have no experience with before you are saved. You have plenty of natural experience with eating if you are a healthy human being. Jesus chose to teach us using these natural things to give us a view into the spiritual things that we do not see. These things obviously have to be similar in characteristics even if they are totally different from comparing natural to spiritual things. God using His vast intelligence created natural things for us to get glimpses into spiritual things. So Jesus is saying in order for you to be healthy spiritually you must eat my flesh and drink my blood and in doing this you will have spiritual life. Our problem right now is we just don’t know what this means and that is where we are going now. I will explain the symbols given to us by Jesus to help you to understand these spiritual things.
What is the “body” of Jesus Christ made of? Where did the body of Jesus Christ come from? These are two key questions to discovering the true meaning of what Jesus was teaching when He taught us to eat His flesh. I will start this lesson with a description of the flesh of Jesus from the book of John:
Joh 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
You can very clearly see that God tells us that His Word became “Flesh” and walked among us. In fact, if you backup to verse one in this chapter, you find that it says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. You cannot separate God from His Word in this verse. God and His Word are “One” in the same. This is one of the reasons why it is impossible for God to lie. God is saying that He became Flesh by sending His Word to join or unite with the egg of the virgin woman Mary. God’s Word became the spiritual and natural Seed that became the flesh that was crucified on the cross. Do you remember when the angel told Mary that the Holy Spirit would “overshadow” her and that she would become pregnant? What was Mary’s response to the Words of God sent through an angel? She said “Be it unto me according to thy Word” (Luke 1:38). The angel tells Mary that God will “overshadow” her. This term means to supernaturally envelop. Mary could have said “I don’t believe that” and God would have been forced to find another woman. But, Mary says “It will be as you have spoken”. So the Words of God were accepted into the spirit of the woman Mary and she believed them and then the Holy Spirit came upon her to conceive the child Jesus. God sent His Word to a woman to become Flesh and this is why Jesus was speaking to the disciples that you must eat my flesh. The flesh of Jesus was the “Word of God” made manifest in this world. The Flesh of Jesus was the Word of God Visible to your natural eyes. This was what Jesus was trying to teach us using these natural symbols that exist in the world. Of course at this time when Jesus taught this, the disciples lacked the keys to the knowledge to understand this truth and therefore this was a “hard saying” for them to accept. We still have this problem in the body of Christ even today. We have many Christians who do not accept things because they do not understand them. For example, speaking in tongues is a prime example of this. Because some do not understand it they criticize it and even teach against it. That is a very foolish thing to do. God excuses your ignorance for a while then it may come time for judgment when you attack your brother. I would dare not teach against anything that I do not fully understand to the best of my ability. What I have hopefully shown you is that the Flesh of Jesus is the Word of God so let’s look at the blood of Jesus and what this represents.
Jesus was not teaching you that you should drink His actual blood; there are laws in the O.T. that say that you should not eat meat with the blood still in it. So Jesus has to be speaking figuratively or symbolically. So what is the “Blood of Jesus”? What does the Blood of Jesus represent symbolically? These are another two questions that are critical to understand if you want to understand what Jesus was teaching when He says to “drink His Blood”. We know from the Bible that it is the Blood of Christ that has paid the price for our sins (Heb 10, Rev 1:5). But, what made the blood of Jesus of sufficient value to accomplish this and not some innocent sinless animal like a real lamb? A real lamb has no sin and it certainly has blood. God told Israel in the Old Testament to sacrifice these animals as a type or a pattern for the real “Lamb of God” who was to come. Jesus Christ is called the “Lamb” several times in the N.T. (Rev 21:9, 21:14, 21:22, 21:23, 21:27 to name a few). Here is another verse that speaks about Jesus being the lamb of God:
1Pe 1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
This verse informs us that the Jesus was our sinless Lamb and that His blood was precious. What made Jesus’ blood precious? To be precious means to be very valuable. Anything that is very valuable costs a lot. The Blood of Jesus is said to be a “Mighty Cost Paid” for our sins. So what made the blood of Jesus more valuable than that of a natural lamb? Isn’t blood just blood? That is the million dollar question for the day and if you can answer that question you will understand many things about the Bible that are also hard to accept. Let’s look at a clue that God gives us to this answer in the O.T.:
Lev 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
So here is a clue to the answer to the million dollar question. God tells us that the “Life” of the flesh is in the “blood”. Without blood your flesh has no life. People know this fact fairly well in our world. If you are injured badly and bleed excessively, you will die. So no blood means no life. This of course is a very interesting paradox being given to us. It would appear that after Jesus was raised from the dead that His “blood” was no longer necessary for His continued bodily functions to operate and to exist; after all most of His blood spilled out onto the ground on the hill of Golgotha while hanging on the cross. Then after His resurrection Jesus told the Mary Magdeline not to touch Him (John 20:17) until He went to heaven to present His remaining blood before God’s real temple in heaven (Heb 9:12). After Jesus returned to earth from heaven it was OK, to touch Him, because He told Thomas to “touch me, a spirit does not have flesh and bone” (Luke 24:39). Notice that Jesus never mentions His blood again, why is that? So I do not know if the resurrected Spiritual Body of Jesus has blood in it today or not. It is an interesting question to consider. After Jesus was resurrected he ate food with His disciples, but yet could walk through walls and appear in a locked room. So what will our resurrected body be like? I can only guess it will be like Jesus’ body. I think that I got off the main subject so I’ll continue with what the Blood represents now.
The Life of the Flesh revelation that we just read about in Leviticus 17:11, we now know that the blood represents Life. We can now ask, whose Life was it in the body of Jesus Christ? We know from the Bible that it was “God’s” life that was in the body of Jesus (Heb 10:5). So when they crucified Jesus the man, they crucified God. God gave us His life in exchange to buy our lives. That was an awesome display of a loving God. No one else qualified to pay the price for our salvation. No one else had the sufficient sinless qualities. No one else could pay the price of such great value that was necessary for our redemption so God came Himself and did what we could not do. I do not know about you, but I am extremely thankful that He did this.
1Jn 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
The Bible is a highly complex book of spiritual information and putting it together correctly is one of our greatest challenges. If God who had no beginning or ending, could come to the earth and experience pain, suffering and death for our benefit then who are we to question was this necessary. If God did not think it was necessary He would have done something else. God experiences death for a reason and you should be smart enough to know that it was just not for our benefit alone, but also for His benefit. God is smart enough to multi-task like no one else that I have ever known. God can accomplish many things with one designed act of love and mercy. So if you want to think that God came only to die for your sins, you can think that and be wrong. Death is a legal separating force for covenants. Do you understand why God had to break covenant with Satan? First, you probably did not realize that God was in covenant with Satan, but this is a Bible fact if you look for it. I guess I’ll get back to my real subject today about flesh of God and the Blood of God. In 1 John 5:20, the True God is spoken of in conjunction with a direct connection to eternal life. One reason that God died was so that we could partake of His Eternal Life. Before God died on the cross, no man on the earth possessed God’s Eternal Life. I know that God took men in the O.T. on credit like Enoch and Elijah to heaven. But, even these men were looking forward to what God would accomplish in the future through Jesus Christ.
1Jn 5:12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
He that has the Son of God now has this eternal life of God. This is what Jesus was talking about when He said for us to drink his blood. Jesus was speaking of His blood as being the life of God that we should be able to spiritually drink and become a part of us internally in our spirits. What happens when you drink natural water? It becomes a part of your natural body. If you do not have water to drink you die physically. These are all symbolic representations of what happens to you in the spiritual realm when you drink the Blood of Jesus. So what is the Blood of Jesus? It was His Life, but what is that to us now on earth right now?
1Jn 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
I have already shown you scriptures that told us that the Body of Jesus was the Word of God. Now we see another revelation concerning the Blood of Jesus. If the life of the flesh is in the blood then you can substitute Life and Blood interchangeably and still be correct. It would appear to me that everything reverts back to God’s Word. If you want God’s Life you better study God’s Words and get them into your spirit. This was the key to the lesson that Jesus was teaching on when He said “eat my Flesh” and “drink my blood”. Spiritually speaking we would not be able to do this any other way but by eating and drinking the Word of God and the Word of Life. You may recall the Words of Jesus, when He said “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mat 4:4). Jesus is again giving us clues into the “hard sayings” that He was teaching in John. Jesus is comparing natural bread that we eat with our physical mouths to the spiritual bread from God. God’s spiritual bread is His Word and we can only eat this by getting God’s Word into our spirits. Jesus said by partaking of the spiritual food it will bring life to us. God’s words are that spiritual food that we need to eat and to drink in our spirits.
So if nothing else today I hope and pray that you learned two things. The Bible contains “Hard Sayings” that are difficult to grasp and accept on the surface only reading of the text. But, then you should have also learned that God has provided explanations in His Word to what these Hard Sayings mean. You have to study, you have to search the Bible for the key words and then you have to allow the Holy Spirit to direct you to the truth. In doing this you come much closer to knowing the truth as Jesus taught us in His Word.
Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
God Bless,
If you would like to continue reading in this series about “Understanding Hard Sayings” found in the Bible you may go to “Part 5“.
What you should know about the Truth in the Bible? How will you know it when you see it?
(Ver 1.5) This is Part 2 in a series of lessons on understanding truth in the Bible. If you have not read from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1” first. I have had way too many people try to tell me that the Bible is the truth, but yet none of these people can agree what it is that the Bible says. Isn’t that a problem to you? We have one group of people who profess only we know the truth ad another group who believes the opposite who say only they know the truth. This makes it very difficult for you to convince anyone that is not a Christian that the Bible is true and that they should become a Christian. Of course this is what Satan wants to happen and that is why he works so hard at confusing Christians and potential Christians. Truth is a very complex subject and an extremely advanced subject for any Bible study. Truth is such a complicated concept simply because there is no one but, God who knows it all. That leaves the rest of us in a state of varying degrees of ignorance and nobody likes to admit they are ignorant of anything. So as a result we have churches standing up in pride saying only we have all the truth and the rest of you are just a bunch of heretics.
There are many Christians who profess that the Bible contains God’s “Absolute Truth”. This is technically not a true statement if we base it upon a complete dictionary definition of the word “absolute”. The term absolute dictates both “complete” and “perfect” truth. But we should realize that God knows many other truths that were not yet recorded or made known to us. Instead of calling it absolute truth I would prefer to call it “ultimate” truth and I will try to explain this more clearly as I continue in the lesson. The Bible is clearly the only source for any ultimate spiritual Truth from God. Even if the Spirit of God speaks to someone a truth it will never contradict what He has given to us in the Bible already. I believe this and I preach it. I will also define the term “ultimate truth” as being truth that never changes or a truth that can not be overruled by the knowledge of any new truths. But the stated existence of even “Ultimate Truth” would also imply that there are other types of truths that are not at this level or truths that could be trumped by new knowledge. This would mean there could exist levels of potentially changing truths depending upon human perspective, understanding or even knowledge and you need to understand this. I believe that our perspective of truth changes even when God’s truth stays constant and that both of these occur at the same time. God’s truth will never change but our knowledge will change or at least it should.
Then there are those who look into the Bible and claim that every word in the plain textual natural meaning is the complete truth that needs to be known and they imply that that there is no other hidden spiritual truths within the plain text that can be found. Others say that everything written in the book is 100% the truth. But, I do not believe that is completely accurate according to what the Bible itself teaches us. Some people will automatically think that I am preaching some kind of heresy to say that the entire Bible is not 100% truth. But, they fail to understand the complexity of God’s Word so they make wrong assumptions and say things out of religious ignorance and I forgive them. You see I certainly do believe that the Bible is God’s inspired word and that it does contain the truth, but this truth is not all that easily visible on the surface only readings of the Bible that most Christians do. You see the Bible clearly describes to us numerous times that this book contains spiritual parables, proverbs, mysteries, secrets, puzzles, riddles, hidden wisdom, and many things that are not clearly self-evident without God showing us what they say and what they mean. That is why we have over 22,000 different Christian denominations in the world today and everybody thinks they know what is important.
So the first thing that you should learn about truth is that you do not know it. I guess I should qualify that statement and say you do not know it “all”, because you might know a very small part of it. I personally believe the amount of the truth that we all know combined when compared to God’s knowledge of the truth is like a thimble full of water being compared to all of the water in the oceans of the world. I mean come on, you do not know the number of hairs on top of your head and God knows the number of hairs on top of over 6 billion people in the world today. We all know just little bits and parts of the complete whole truth and too many times we think that we know way more than we do. According to the Bible, God is the infinite holder of all knowledge and all truth. But, the Bible also says that God’s ways are not our ways and that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts (Isa 55:9), and this is one of the human’s greatest problem and weakness. So if we know anything that is actually a part of God’s truth it is usually a result of God’s grace giving us insight and revelation into this information. Without God opening your understanding you will fail to see or know the truth. One of our biggest problems as human beings involves the fact that we are not God, but try to act like Him on many occasions. Do you understand that statement? Since only God knows everything, we are extremely limited to know only what He has revealed by His grace. Fortunately for us, God has revealed a lot of valuable information to us in His Word for us to know in these last days. But that still does not mean we know everything by far. Here are my foundational scriptures for today’s Bible lesson:
Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
In this statement by Jesus concerning us knowing the truth are some valuable clues of us understanding this subject of what truth is. First off it says or at least implies that you do not yet know all of the truth and I will talk more about that soon. The basis of this statement almost implies that we can never know all of the truth, but at the same time it seems to imply that we will at some given point in time come to know what the revealed truth is by God’s grace. It is almost a paradoxical puzzle being presented to us. According to this verse, in order to know the truth, we must continue in the Word of God. To continue in the word implies an ongoing or even a never ending process of learning, or so it would seem. But by continuing in the Word of God we are further implied to come to an end or reach a level that God called “Know the Truth”. Have you arrived at this level of “Know the Truth”? If you think you have you have probably been deceived. The reason that I say that is because this verse says that this “knowledge of the truth” will set you and I free? Are you free? What does it mean to be free? Free from what or who? Those are extremely good questions and more difficult to answer than you might think. According to Jesus and the Bible, you are not 100% free right now! Meaning you are limited or controlled by something that is holding you captive today. What is this speaking of? I personally believe it is our ignorance that is holding us captive and when we learn what God has hidden for us to learn we will then understand what we need to do to become free. I would venture to challenge you to do some Bible study and find out what you need to be freed from. The reason that I say that is that no one ever escapes to freedom from captivity who does not first know that they are captives. What I learn from this verse is that Jesus teaches us that there will come a time when we learn and understand enough that will cause us to be free from someone or something and we will be able to clearly see when this happens. So if you think that you are already free you do not know that you are a captive. If you think that you have arrived at this “know the truth” level what are still doing here in this world?
So I alluded to a statement that there were different types of truth in my introduction. I believe that there are many types of truth in the world and that this truth changes based upon two things that I will attempt to introduce you to today. For example, 150 years ago it was impossible for man to fly and that was the known truth. However, today people fly everyday all over the world and that is the new or changed known truth. What changed to make this new truth of flying available to everyone? Does anyone in the world today still believe we can’t fly? It was our knowledge that changed. The real truth never changed, the real truth was that man could always fly. It was just what we thought was the truth because of our ignorance or lack of information forced us to believe the wrong truth. However, 150 years ago it was true, but today that view is not true. Do you understand these things that I’m telling you? Since our knowledge has increased in this area we have learned that the laws of aerodynamics overrule the laws of gravity and this allows us to fly. 150 years ago we only understood gravity and this was only a small part of the truth and we based all of our beliefs of the truth upon our limited knowledge. We never invented aerodynamics, so the laws of aerodynamics are not new, we just didn’t understand them and how to use them 150 years ago. So it was our ignorance of these existing laws of truth that kept us from flying 150 years ago and nothing else. Do you understand this? This is actually very important information to see and to apply to what you learn and know from the Bible. This is a prime example of how studying the Bible is today and why some people believe this way and others believes the complete opposite. There is always an absolute truth, but based upon your current level of knowledge you may not understand it and therefore still don’t believe that people can fly. There are way too many Christians like this in the world today.
God is so much smarter than we are that He can write things in a book over 2000 years ago that we do not clearly understood and yet the words are right there in front of us this whole time. I have just demonstrated to you that knowledge matters to determine what the truth is. Another example that I could give you is that men and women in the world today are more like 4 year old children when compared to God’s infinite knowledge level. If a college professor came to teach a 4 year old child some advanced calculus would the 4 year old grasp any of it? This is another major problem with modern Christianity found in the world today. Their spiritual maturity level is not sufficiently increased so that God can teach them anything about what is the real truth. So I mentioned the fact that there are different types of truth in the world and I will talk briefly about that. There are changing truths, inter-related truths, dependent truths, independent truths and universal truths to name some that I have discovered while studying the Bible. I’ve already discussed the changing truth concept based upon our level of knowledge so let’s talk about another factor that helps us to determine truth.
Let’s take a look at the concept of gold. Gold has great value in our world and that is a truth based on the way we see it. But, the actual value of gold is not known because it is viewed as an ever changing commodity that is manipulated by the markets of the gold traders on the earth. So the true value of gold is an unknown quantity and probably impossible to determine in our world. Why, because the quantity of available gold is tightly controlled and the prices are artificially manipulated to be high. I would dare to say that God knows the true value of gold but unless God revealed this, it would be only our best guess. However, I have read in the Bible that God paves His streets in heaven with gold, so that would mean that since we paved our streets on the earth with asphalt that God views gold to be His asphalt. So God’s perspective on gold is entirely different than our perspective on gold and this is why the Bible is so entirely difficult to understand. Gold must be so abundant in heaven that it is used for paving roads and here on earth it is viewed as a rare commodity. So your view of the truth is totally dependent upon your knowledge level and then your perspective of the subject being studied. I just showed you an example of how God’s perspective on something is vastly different than ours, so let’s adjust to see things like God sees them. Knowledge and perspective are two things that are critical to understand when studying the Bible. My current level of knowledge of the Bible may be more or less than your current level knowledge of the Bible, but my perspective of the Bible can be more accurate if I choose to see things the way God sees them. I have known many people who knew the Bible much better than I did, but understood practically none of it because they had the wrong perspectives. They viewed things naturally instead of seeing with God’s spiritual perspective. Therefore, correct Bible interpretation is dependent upon your level of knowledge and your perspective of the verses being studied. What happens if you do not agree with my beliefs? Nothing, but this just proves that at least one of us is wrong and possibly both of us are wrong and only God is right based upon what I have just taught you. As we continue to study in the Word of God we should be converging to the top of a spiritual pyramid type organizational or knowledge chart. We should be coming closer together to the agreement of what is the truth and the knowledge of the truth, to reach the upper point that God called “know the truth” pinacle point.
In my last blog about heaven I talked about the city called Jerusalem in the Bible. Let me ask you a new question about this city. Since most people do not know that there are three different cities called Jerusalem in the Bible, how can one man teach about Jerusalem from the Bible when they do not know this information? Does it matter what we teach if we are void of some of the key facts on the subject? Does it change the real Bible truth because someone teaches something that they think is the truth, but is not? You see you might believe something with all of your heart and you might be totally wrong because you do not know a couple of key scriptures that will solve your ignorance problem. You see that is the problem facing every Bible teacher, our ignorance forces us to teach a subject based upon our current level of knowledge and our current perspective. But, the mistake some Bible teachers make is when they teach at the level that they know like it is the complete truth and everyone else is totally wrong. You see the Bible contains more than one truth and all of the truth must fit together correctly. The Bible also has numerous hidden truths and these must be revealed by God in order to understand other truths. You cannot ignore one truth to teach another truth, all though people do this all the time. I’ve used this example before; I have heard more than one preacher read how the church is the body of Christ in the Bible. I believe these verses whole heartedly, but then they jump to wrong conclusions and say that means we are not the bride of Christ. Their ignorance causes them to criticize those who teach things contrary to what they believe. They say that if Christ has a bride we have a bride since we are the body of Christ and that is very wrong. What these men of God lack is knowledge of how the church became the body of Christ and this would solve their problem and their view of the actual truth. To them what they teach is the truth or they would not be a Christian. However, ignorance and knowledge levels play a huge role in us knowing the real truth. This is the basis for the majority of all of the problems faced within the church today; those who do not know much teach like they know everything and they cause nothing but vast confusion.
What have we learned today? The primary thing should be that “absolute truth” doesn’t change. But, our view of the truth changes as we change based upon the two primary factors that I have taught you about today. As your knowledge increases of the Bible, your understanding of the Bible should also be increasing. If your understanding of the Bible is not increasing, then check up on your perspective on the subjects that you are studying in the Bible. Could it be that you are seeing things in the Bible from your perspective and not God’s perspective? You should be smart enough to be able to judge yourself and determine if you are doing the right things that I have just discussed. It is only by the church of God making the right adjustments that God can accomplish what He has planned for us. I am a firm believer that before Jesus returns for us that the church will become one unit in one accord, victorious overcomers over Satan our enemy. This I believe is the clue to Jesus statement of “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”. There must come a point in time when we know the truth, in order to experience this freedom that Jesus described. This is what I am working towards; this is my goal for you and me today. Continue learning the Bible and continue growing in the knowledge of Him who is faithful and true and I will be back with more of the knowledge of God in my next Blog.
The Most Important Things You Should Know About Heaven!
(Ver 2.0) Today is a new subject for me, even though I have taught on parts of this subject in other lessons. I believe that it is so important for people to clearly know about heaven; that I have decided to talk about it again using new terms and perspectives to give people another chance to grasp these concepts found in the Bible. Does God exist and if so where does He exist? This of course is an extremely complex subject for humans to comprehend since we are a naturally born people limited to the constraints found within a physical world and the Bible clearly says that God is a Spirit (John 4:24). So how do natural people come to understand spiritual things? Spiritual things are not the same as natural things. God lives outside of time constraints and space constraints. There are many people in the world who do not believe there is a God. They base these beliefs on the fact that they have never seen God, cannot see God, do not ever hear from God or have any other proof or evidence that He exists. They further expound that since God does not do anything to stop the evil in the world, He must not exist. Of course, the flip side of this extreme is another extreme of people believing that God is causing all of the evil in the world and therefore they do not want anything to do with Him either. But, all of this is purely by God’s design in order to give man a free and fair choice. God purposely hides Himself from our view, if He did not do this you would have no choice but to believe that He existed. All of that said, God has spoken to us directly in a written book form called the Holy Bible. I have studied this book for close to 25 years and have determined that there is no way that this book did not come from God directly. There is just too much complex information for it not to have a very intelligent designer and an author who could be no one but God. However, there are certainly many others in the world that view this book as a collection of fantasy and made up stories because they do not understand anything that is in it. This is again by God’s design; and it gives people who want to see the truth the opportunity to know Him and those who refuse the truth the right to go to hell. It is a very perplexing method of operation, yet I cannot question God’s ways since He is entirely smarter than I am. So today I want to discuss some very important things found in the Bible about Heaven, what it is, where it is and what do we need to know about it? We might talk about some of the characteristics of heaven like the existence of many mansions being there and how the streets are paved with gold and God’s throne is surrounded by angels, but I do not think these are the most important things to know about heaven so if we do talk about them, they will be later or in another follow-up lesson. I want to start with a verse found in the N.T.:
1Pe 3:22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.
Why is it necessary for all the angels and spiritual powers to be made subject to Jesus, the Son of God? That is a very interesting question to consider. The Bible certainly has some very difficult statements to try to explain and this is certainly one of them. I will state what I believe and say that if every spiritual force and angel was already subject to God, I do not believe it would have been necessary for God to put them under His Son Jesus. Wow, I just got off the subject for a quick side trip to get you to think about something you may have never thought of before. So let’s go back to the beginning of this verse and notice that the Bible says that Jesus has gone back into heaven and is now located at the right hand of God. This verse very clearly informs us that there is a real place called heaven and that Jesus is there right now. We know from reading the Gospels in verses like John 3:13 and 6:51 that Jesus said before He was came to the earth that He came from Heaven. So heaven is where Jesus came from and heaven is where He went back to after He died and rose from the dead. Since the Bible says in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses let every word be established, I will give you another witness to this fact that we just read:
Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus, again is very clearly described to be at the right of God at this moment in time. Where Jesus is now is also the location of the throne of God. A throne is always a place where a King rules His Kingdom. So heaven was the Kingdom of God, before Jesus came and died on the cross. However, God tells us that now the kingdom of God is within us (Luke 17:21). So it appears to me that God is said to be moving His Kingdom location and I will talk more about this later.
Heb 9:24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
The word “heaven” appears in the KJV Bible more than 550 times. However, it is not always in reference to the spiritual location of God’s throne. The word “heaven” can refer to at the minimum 3 different realms or dimensions and you must be smart enough to figure out which one God is talking about by the context of the verse being read. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:2 that he was caught up to the “3rd heaven” where he saw things that he could not verbally describe to us with human words. That makes heaven sound pretty awesome if you can’t even describe it. We can see in this verse in Hebrew 8:24 that Jesus is said to enter into a “Holy Place” not made by the hands of men. So God is now telling us about heaven as a spiritual place. This verse informs us that heaven has a temple that is the original pattern of the objects made on the earth by the hands of men in Jerusalem. This heavenly temple is called the “true temple” which would imply to me that the earthly temple in Jerusalem must be the “false temple”. But, I guess I won’t go there either today!
2Th 1:7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
As we have seen Jesus ascended into heaven after His resurrection and is now at the right hand of God. However, the Bible informs us very strongly that Jesus is coming back very soon. Not long from now this Jesus who went up to heaven will come back down the same way that He ascended, the angels told the disciples this in Acts 1:11. This verse in 2 Thessalonians tells us that when Jesus returns He will bring with Him many mighty angels. So we have just discovered a revelation that heaven is the home or a house that is full of the angels of God and that these spiritual entities are not insignificant beings. They clearly are said to be very mighty, meaning they are very strong. Here is another witness to this fact:
Heb 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
So heaven is not described to be a small place. This place also has a very specific name and is called the “Heavenly Jerusalem”. This spiritual place is described to have a mountain named “Zion”. This place is clearly described to be the “City of the Living God”. This does not sound small or insignificant either, especially since you cannot number the population of this city. This city “Heavenly Jerusalem” is said to be the home of an innumerable number of angels. This is the mighty spiritual force army that will return with Jesus when He comes back. It is also critical that you note the name of this spiritual city. This city is called the “Heavenly Jerusalem”. Did you know that heaven had a name? This is another reference to the “true” heaven that we just read about previously. Why does God have another city called Jerusalem? I guess I should ask, why did God name the earthly city Jerusalem the same as His heavenly city Jerusalem? You do understand that the heavenly city Jerusalem certainly existed before the earthly city came to be. Isn’t that an interesting question to consider? This spiritual city seems to be called the real or true city of God. This is what I believe, God created a covenant with Abraham to bring forth a natural nation called Israel who would build God an earthly city that would be a pattern of His spiritual city Jerusalem in heaven. I believe that God did this for several reasons and I will probably not be able to get into all of these today. But, one of the reasons I believe was to show us a city that was like another city that we can’t see. Why is there just one city in our entire world that has the focus of every eye on it? Why does this city “earthly Jerusalem” gain so much attention? It is because it is a pattern of the “heavenly Jerusalem”. Just as the earthly city Jerusalem has had numerous attack and people come against it, I believe the heavenly city of Jerusalem is being attacked. Just as the earthly city of Jerusalem is being forced to stop building and expanding, so the heavenly city of God was attacked in the same way by Satan and his army. The majority of the world governments are proposing that the earthly Jerusalem be divided. If you study the Bible, God is also being forced to divide His heavenly city. So let’s look at another witness to this heavenly city of God called Jerusalem:
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
Here is another verse of scripture in the Bible that describes Heaven as a place that is somewhere above. Again it specifically names this city and calls it “Jerusalem”, but this time it qualifies it by calling it the Jerusalem Above! So we automatically know that it is not the Jerusalem that is on the earth or the Jerusalem below. Heaven is again said to be a city called Jerusalem, where the throne of God resides with an innumerable number of angels. But, this verse in Galatians tells us another major clue to a puzzle we didn’t even know was a puzzle. This city is called the Mother of the church. You do not understand yet how important that statement is, unless you understand God’s spiritual family structure. What we have just learned, is that the Heavenly Jerusalem is called the “Mother” of all of those in the Church of Jesus Christ, so this means the heavenly Jerusalem is not the Church! Did you understand what I just said? I’ll show why this is important to note very soon. What is a mother? A mother is a woman who has had a child or children. Wow that is one of the most important things you can learn today, if you can grasp this concept. A city is a woman, a woman is a city. A spiritual city is a spiritual woman and she can have spiritual children. But, remember that this heavenly city Jerusalem was comprised of a spiritual nation of angels which included Satan. Uh oh? I just let you in on some more information that I’m not ready to discuss yet. Let’ me shift gears and talk about another woman briefly that is said to also come from heaven:
Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
First take note of what this verse says. A city came down from heaven and this city is called a woman, a bride and the wife for a husband who we will see later in this chapter to be the Lamb. This woman has the same name as the other two cities that we have already been looking at. This name is of course the “New Jerusalem”. Why is all of this that I am trying to teach you important to know? Because it helps you to know who you are in Christ and where you fit in God’s New Kingdom which I am attempting to reveal to you. In Revelation 21:2 we either have the same city Jerusalem or a new and different city called Jerusalem being described to us. From my current understanding of the Bible this is clearly a different city than the one that I just showed you in Hebrews and Galatians called the Heavenly Jerusalem and here is why I believe that. First off did you notice that this woman in Rev 21:2 comes down from heaven? Did heaven come down or did the city called New Jerusalem come down from heaven? Wow, you see heaven did not come down it is still there. What happens when a woman gives birth to a baby? Does the baby come down the birth canal and out to the waiting doctor? So we just read in Galatians 4 that this heavenly Jerusalem is our mother, meaning she gave spiritual birth to us. Let me ask you a basic question, do you have babies first or do you get married first? I guess I should ask which one should come first and not how it works in our world many times. If the heavenly Jerusalem is a woman who gave birth in Galatians 4, then she should not logically be the woman who is getting married in Revelation 21. Get it? You see the woman called Heavenly Jerusalem must already be married in order to have had children. This is not rocket science so you should be at least following my logic a little bit. If you continue to read Galatians 4 and see what it is describing to us, you will hopefully see that it is using the life story of Abraham as an allegory for a type of God. So let’s review the story of Abraham. As you may or may not recall, Abraham had two wives and two sons. One was from the much younger Egyptian slave girl Hagar and Galatians says this is a type of Jerusalem on the earth (Gal 4:25). The woman Hagar is called a “bondwoman” and she gives birth to a slave son who is not the heir with the promised son. Sarah who is not named directly in Galatians 4 is the type of the “Freewoman” and is called the Jerusalem that is above. This means that Sarah (the Heavenly Jerusalem) existed prior to Hagar (the Earthly Jerusalem) and they both now have children, but Hagar’s son came first and then Sarah’s son came after. We should know that Abraham represents God in this allegory since the Bible tells us that He was married to natural Israel (Jer 31:32). What you must see is that both of these cities called Jerusalem existed simultaneously and are called women who are in covenant with and married to God. Why is God telling us this information? It must be very important for us to see and to understand clearly. What you should notice in Galatians 4 is that God is quoting an Old Testament prophecy found in the book of Isaiah.
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
As you can see God is quoting Isaiah 54:1 in this verse. This verse tells us that there are two women, one a barren woman (Sarah) and one a married woman (Hagar). As we have seen God is using the allegory found in Genesis 16 of Sarah and Hagar to reveal this information to us in Galatians 4. Sarah the older barren woman as we have seen is the one that is said to now have more children than the bondwoman Hagar. So the Bible tells us that these are two covenants and you automatically jump to the wrong conclusion that this is the Old Covenant between God and Israel and the New Covenant between Jesus and the Church. However, that just doesn’t make any sense based upon the information we have just read about these women. The Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) existed prior to Israel’s covenant with God on Mt Sinai (Hagar). This city had to exist prior to Jesus coming to the earth, dying and establishing a New Covenant. Then in Galatians 4:26 it says very clearly that this “Heavenly Jerusalem” is the mother of the church and not the church. So whatever covenant this is referring to, it is definitely not the New Covenant between Jesus Christ and the church and it is also not the old covenant between God and Abraham in the Old Testament. So that complicates things tremendously since no one has ever taught on the fact that the Bible mentions three different covenants and not just two. You see, this third hidden covenant has to be God’s covenant with the angels in heaven that existed before Adam ever came along.
Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
So let’s go back to Revelation 21:2 and notice that God is describing a city coming down from above that is called the “New Jerusalem”. What does the term “New” mean? It means it is not the Old Jerusalem. Which one was the barren old Jerusalem (Sarah), it was the Heavenly Jerusalem that was above. Are you beginning to see and understand the concepts being given to us? God has problems with the “Heavenly Jerusalem” and the “Earthly Jerusalem” so He creates a “New Jerusalem” to replace them both. Let’s look at the verse that comes right before this one in Revelation 21:
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.
Again why replace the old heaven and the old earth with new ones if there are not problems with the old? What you do not realize is that God is a just God. He does everything in a decent legal ordered way. If God does not follow strict rules He would be no different than Satan the thief who comes to kill steal and destroy what you have. I have often asked myself and God this question, “If you found sin in Satan why didn’t you cast him into hell and get rid of him?” The only answer that I got back from God was that He could not legally do this and I do not have time to try to explain that statement in this lesson. You can go read some of my other blogs where I give you some clues to the answers to that question. But, it has something to do with this hidden third covenant that God had with the angels and I’ll leave it at that for today.
So getting back to Revelation 21:2; we can review that this verse is also describing a city called “New Jerusalem” who is also described as a woman who is to be married to the Lamb of God (Jesus Christ). A marriage is also a covenant defined to us in the Bible, so we know this is God’s New Covenant with US! So what have I taught you so far? We have three women, three covenants, three cities all named Jerusalem. One is called “Earthly Jerusalem”, another is called “Heavenly Jerusalem” and the last one is called “New Jerusalem” or “Holy Jerusalem”. This implies that the other two women were not the Holy Jerusalem of God and were definitely older than the “New” woman Jerusalem. Why is this important? Because God tells us that this city will come down from Heaven to be reestablished back here on the new earth. In this new city, God tells us that there will be no unrighteous people, no uncircumcised people and no ungodly people, only those that have been purchased by the blood of the Lamb. Finally there will be no Satan, no hurt, no harm, no thieves, no robbers, no murderers and no rapists, no one to do evil. There is where the Bible describes that we will spend eternity with God.
2Pe 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
So even as Peter wrote about looking forward to this “New” heaven and “New” earth so we should also look for the coming new city of God that dwells only righteousness.
Many people want to know, where is this heaven that now is located? We have clearly seen in the Bible that it exists and that Jesus is there right now at the right hand of the throne of God. This place is large and holds an innumerable number of angels. It also holds the spirits of all of those righteous people that have died on the earth. They are there as witnesses (Heb 12:1) that are rooting us on in our spiritual journey. The people in heaven do not see what we see on the earth. Spiritual people are oblivious to natural things. Natural things are not important to spiritual people anymore. So people in heaven do not know what kind of car you drive, what kind of house you live in or how much money that you have in the bank. They do not know if you are married or single, and they do not care. The angels and people in heaven are only concerned with your eternal destiny. Have you made Christ your Lord and will you spend eternity with us. Whenever a sinner comes to know Christ, the Bible says that heaven rejoices. So heaven knows about spiritual things.
So where is this Heavenly Jerusalem located? The Bible actually does not specifically tell us, primarily because we would not really understand its spiritual location. As you recall this Jerusalem was said to be “Above”. But, since we live on the earth which is a round ball, every direction you are standing on has an up direction. So is heaven all around us? We are actually given some clues in the Bible and I will end this lesson with the information about the location of heaven:
Psa 75:6 For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.
Psa 75:7 But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.
Many times God gives us direct information in Bible verses of specific things like God is a Spirit. However, other times God gives us indirect information and we learn from what is not given in the verse. This is the case here in Psalm 75:6. God tells us three directions that promotion does not come from. That only leaves one direction called “North” and that gives us an implied location for the direction of heaven. As you can see clearly God leaves this direction out of the statement and then in the following verse we have a contextual statement that God is the one that promotes one person and puts another person down. So I take these verses to indicate to us where we can find the location of heaven to be from God’s perspective. I assume this to mean you go to the North Pole of our planet and look straight up and this would represent the nearest proximity of the location of heaven.
Isa 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?
So we have another verse in Isaiah that seems to indicate the direction of the throne of God to be an implied North. If you can see that the North Pole could be considered the top of our planet, the earth is said to be the location of God’s footstool. So God is sitting on the throne up above us.
I have covered a lot of new information from the Bible about this place called Heaven and shown you many things for you to think about. These are some of the most important things that I have found about this place in the Bible. However, I believe that if you read Revelation 21 you can see that heaven is not our final eternal destination. It would appear that God is preparing a new heaven and a new earth that we will live within eternity on. The Bible says that our eyes have not foreseen the things that God has prepared for them that love Him (1 Co 2:9). So it sounds like a really awesome time in store for us. I don’t know why anyone would not want to go to this place?
Binary Systems in the Bible! God and Computer Concepts to Learn and Live By!
(Ver 1.2) This is now “Part 2” of the lesson series concerning modern computer concepts found in the Bible. In the first lesson I talked about how computers are rules based systems. Nothing exists by chance or by random within a computer by design. Every component of a computer system interacts with the other parts using strict rules and guidelines. What I have been doing is attempting to show how these same principle conform to God’s design of the Bible. Therefore I desire to teach computer concepts and show you how to apply them in your relationship with God and to increase your understanding of His Word. I believe that God understands computers far better than we do and I also believe that He knew that we would have computers in these last days before He comes back to the earth. I strongly believe that God created these amazing machines for us to learn with and to share the Gospel with others and that is why I take the time to write things that some of you may not fully understand if you are not a computer programmer also. I have learned that computer programmers have a different approach to Bible study, usually more logical because we are forced by our jobs to think this way. It is not necessarily a better way to think, but it is certainly very different. In my last computer related post I talked about “Rules Based Systems”. This is a vast complex subject that applies to the Bible and interpreting the Bible correctly in very direct ways. If you would like to read this lesson first before continuing with today’s lesson, you can go and start with “Part 1”.
In today’s lesson I want to discuss some very basic computer concepts and show how they also apply to the Bible. A computer in its simplest form is a binary machine. What may you ask is a binary machine? This is a machine that relies entirely on one of two numbers, either a 0 (zero) or a 1 (one). At the most rudimentary levels of every computer that is all there is; just two numbers. The computer is therefore solely dependent upon the simplest of all number systems the binary number system. You see the most rudimentary element of a computer is a single “bit” of information and this “bit” can either be off or on (zero or one). Computers of course are tremendously more complex by the sheer numbers of these “bits” that exist within a modern computer, but that is not my subject today. What I want to do is focus on Binary concepts in relationship to the Bible. The Bible is very much like a complex computer system. It is probably the most complex book that you will ever attempt to understand, but many of the concepts given in it can be reduced to a simple binary number system choice. Today I want you to focus on what is a Bible binary system? Here are some definitions of a “Binary System” from the internet:
- The number representation system, used in computers, with only two digits, 0 and 1
- A system of arithmetic used with computers, also called base 2, that is based on the digits 0 and 1.
- A system in which information can be expressed by combinations of the digits 0 and 1 (corresponding to “on” and “off” in computers).
Fortunately for most programmers today, we are not required to program a computer at the bit or binary machine level. If you have ever done this you know how complex it can be. We do not even use the computer machine’s language to program a computer anymore, because we have higher level languages that are translated to the machine level. While some of today’s computer languages can still manipulate information at the binary level, most do not normally do this. So why am I talking about binary systems in a Bible study Blog? That is probably the biggest question that you have right now. While not everything in the Bible can be simplified to a binary state, many things in the Bible can. For example, God says this:
Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
If you do not yet understand binary concepts, you probably just read over this verse and missed the basics that God is trying to get you to see. In this verse found in Deuteronomy God places before all people a choice. A choice involves making a selection between two or more things. In this case there are just two choices that can be selected and this is a binary decision. One choice is “Life” and the other is “Death”. This is a very basic binary concept; we could say that life is the number 1 (one) and death the number 0 (zero). This is the way all computers work. It is based upon a simple light switch on or off idea. You flip the switch on you get light, you turn the switch the other way and you get darkness. It is the most basic choice in life that you can make. Another binary concept found in this verse is “blessings” = 1 and curses = 0. So God suggests that we choose life and blessings and that sounds much better to me too. There are a number of binary concepts like this found throughout the Bible. Starting in Genesis 1, there is the mention of Light and Darkness. Light = 1 and Darkness = 0. Day and Night are the same concepts in different words. Here is the binary concept in this verse:
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
The Binary theme in God’s Word is used extensively throughout the Bible. You might also remember in Genesis 2 God put two trees in the Garden, one the Tree of Life and the other the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. What we can see from these trees is that they represent a choice. God says do not eat from one or you will die, which implies the other is good to eat from. These are very simple concepts given yet they have far reaching consequences based upon what you choose in this life as you can recognize from Adam’s poor choice to eat from the wrong tree. What I find interesting about God is that He never forces you to solve a complex riddle to be saved for example. God simply says here is my Son Jesus Christ sacrificed for your sins, make Him your Lord and believe I raised Him from the dead and live. Don’t believe and die and go to hell. These are the basis of a simple binary choice but with very, very severe consequences to making the wrong choice. A binary number can only be 0 or 1, off or on. So they are directly opposed opposites. You cannot be in both categories simultaneously. It is a universal truth that you are either in one or the other states of existence. It is a classic division of opposition. Zeros are always the opposites of Ones. Light is the complete opposite to darkness and you do not have both at once. Back when I was an Assembler programmer I used binary bits as flags to the state of something. If set to “off” the state would be false, “on” the state would be true. That is probably too much computer terminology for many of my readers, but it is useful to describe what God has presented us in the Bible. I pray that you understand the simplicity found in the Bible. Here is a list of some of the Binary States that I have found as common themes in the Bible:
|
Binary 0 |
Binary 1 |
| Evil | Good |
| Death | Life |
| Curses | Blessings |
| Night | Day |
| Darkness | Light |
| Lies | Truth |
| Unbelief | Faith |
| Flesh | Spirit |
| Sin | Righteousness |
| Kingdom of Satan | Kingdom of Heaven |
| Wide Path | Narrow Path |
| Captivity | Freedom |
That of course is not a complete list, just introductions to some things that you can clearly see are taught in the Bible that represents a clear binary choice from every man or woman. So I believe that the Bible is a highly complex book of information which also contains very simple binary choices being presented to everyone. You just don’t have to understand the whole Bible to become saved! It is more a simple choice or acceptance of some of the basic Bible information, called the Gospel. Too many Christians want to say that people are not saved because they do not believe exactly like we do. All that does is prove your ignorance of the Bible. You assume that you are God and that you know everything when you preach with this attitude and you are sadly mistaken. God will demonstrate your ignorance on judgment day if you are not very careful. Do not cause other Christians to stumble because they do not believe what you do. I try to teach this way, but I have had many religious spirited people attack me for what I say sometimes. I have decided not to post negative critical comments on my blog anymore. I read them, see if I can learn anything from them, and sometimes respond privately or in a follow-up post on my blog. It is very difficult to help people who criticize other people because they think that they know everything already. However, since they do not know everything that I know, or have experienced everything that I have experienced, they really should not try to judge me. You can learn from Moses and the children of Israel in the wilderness. What did they do right and what did they do wrong? God only met with Moses on the mountain top and the others were not in on the private conversations unless Moses shared them. The people one time gave up on God and Moses because Moses was gone too long for them. They started to build idols and worship other false gods. Why was this? Was it a lack of Patience? Was it a lack of knowledge? I mean it could have been several problems combined. They obviously mumbled and complained and probably criticized God and Moses while he was gone. What was the net result of all of their opposition? Most of them died in the wilderness and never saw the promise land. So what is different today with some Christians mumbling and complaining about other Christians today? What do you think the result will be for those who do this? Do you think it will be the same as the children of Israel in the wilderness? I guess I should get back on the subject that I’m supposed to be on.
Maybe I’ll wrap this up for today. I do not want to overwhelm you with new concepts. When I say that the Bible is like a large complex computer system most people will not understand my analogy. However, I know it is true. Within this complex spiritual book of information God has placed a series of simple Binary choices before all mankind. These are the basics of life; the simplest choices can make the greatest differences in our life. By choosing life, blessings, light, salvation and Jesus you have gone through a binary selection and made the right choice. It is a simple choice that turns you from one state to another and I pray that you choose wisely. God Bless you today as you learn to choose!
Are there Any Rules in Life to Follow? A Rules Based System To Life!
(Ver 1.3) This Part 1 in a series of lessons on modern computer concepts that are found in the Bible. If I learned anything from being a computer programmer for over 20 years, I learned that everything in this life has very strict rules or it is useless. In this life you do not get to do everything that you can do just because you can do them. You do not get to drive on any side of the street that you want to. You do not get to drive through any intersection as fast as you want to when you want to. You do not get to do many things because rules exist to keep you from hurting yourself and others. This is the basis of the majority of the problems in this world today. The problems of the world are caused by people who do stuff to other people just because they have the ability or power to do them. It comes from a self-centered ME mentality! The world is all about ME! What I need, what I want, what feels good to ME! People then use their attitudes of Me to take what they need or want from others without thinking about what they are doing to the ones that they are hurting. If everyone takes this attitude, then only the strongest survive to live. This attitude of ME is a self-centered absence of the feelings of the God kind of “LOVE” for anyone else. As long as people care more about themselves than they do about others, they will remain apart from the life of God. Today I want to talk about a computer programming concept called “Rules Based Systems” in relationship to what God and the Bible say about the concepts of them or the absence from them. Why are rules important to live by? Why do rules exist? The Bible is a highly complex book of spiritual information and it cannot be interpreted correctly without knowing God’s rules for interpretation. I’ll start by giving you a definition of this term from the internet:
rule-based systems are used as a way to store and manipulate knowledge to interpret information in a useful way.
I believe that God taught me about rules based systems as I learned computer programming. A rules based system is one that adheres to a strict set of laws in order to work correctly. When I first started learning computer programming in High School, I started with the Basic programming language. I also played with another early computer language called FORTRAN. Then I started working for a company and going to night school to learn mainframe programming. I learned Mainframe Assembler and COBOL and became an expert in both of these languages. This was of course way before there were any PC’s in the world. What I learned from programming languages, is that they have very strict rules that must be followed, or guess what they do not work. You create your program and then compile your program and get nothing but a long list of errors back. This is not fun, when this happens, but it happened a lot until I learned to follow the rules more closely. As I became more detailed oriented, I learned to pay attention to the little things that use to be where I made most of my mistakes. I would just automatically learn to look for them and try not to repeat them. I do not think that I ever got so good that I wrote a new program that complied cleanly the first time, but I did get much better. So why am I describing my work experience to you? Because it helps me more with Bible interpretation and understanding the Bible that you can imagine.
Did you notice two key words in the definition of what a rules based system was? The two key words are “knowledge” and the “interpretation” of the knowledge. A rules based system helps us to process vast amounts of information and then come up with the correct interpretations of that information. So what is the Bible? The Bible is the Spiritual knowledge of God written down in a book for us to read. However, the Bible is widely interpreted in many different ways resulting in contrasting and conflicting points of view. That is probably the major problem in the church today. Everybody has their own opinion to what the Bible means. Why is that? It is because of a complete disregard to the rules of Bible interpretation. Some people know one rule and they sometimes follow it and then sometimes they do not. They are very inconsistent. Other people know of no rules and they are all over the board with their interpretations. Only a few know more than one rule to Bible Interpretation and try to adhere to them consistently.
While I read and studied the Bible, I started to recognize patterns of a rules based system. Since God does not give us a list of the rules in any one place in the Bible, the correct understanding of the Bible must start with figuring out what are the rules that God has established for us to follow. You see I know that every computer language has their own individual set of rules to follow. However, I also learned that many of these rules cross languages and apply to other languages. Even though each language was uniquely defined, the application of the rules applied across the board. So in order to even begin to understand the Bible, you must first establish God’s rules for interpretation and not your rules. This is the first step of understanding God and the Bible.
Do you realize that God follows the rules that He has established? That is the beauties of God; He is a highly intelligent being. His ability is so far beyond our most powerful computer. I see the world around us and I recognize an intelligently designed world full of natural laws, systems and sub-systems. This is the basis of any large complex computer programming system also. Anything with an intelligent design has organization and rules. So why do people not recognize that the Bible is also an intelligently designed rules based system? Obviously they do not understand the importance of rules and following them. If you are a Christian you should be following rules in everything that you do. Following rules does not save you; it just helps you live the life that God intended for you on this earth. Christians who do not follow rules are no different than unsaved people who rob banks because they want money or rape women because it feels good to them. I know that is an extreme examples of bad Bible interpretations, but yet I feel that strongly about the subject. I do not mean to reduce rape and robbery to minor offenses, I hope you understand the point and forgive the analogy.
So what ire my main points today?
- Start by Recognizing that the Bible is a Rules Based System.
- Then find out what the rules are!
- Next follow the rules with all diligence!
When I was computer operator, on the top of our mainframe CPU, there was a big sign that said “THINK”. Wow, if more people would do that one word! To think before you act or speak is a widely ignored talent of many people in the world today. I have many blogs on the subject of Bible Interpretation, I hope you that you will go and read them and then learn to follow them. Life is a rules based system of existence. This is the intelligent design of God. If you learn the rules and follow them there will be great benefits to being a doer of the word of God and not just a hearer only. By learning the rules and following rules I believe that the Body of Christ will finally come into agreement to what the Bible says. So I challenge you today to apply what you’ve read today. By learning rules and living within their guidelines you make the Bible useful as God had intended it to be. You take the words of an intelligent God and you can finally begin to understand them. There is no greater benefit than knowing the real God.
If you would like to continue reading in this series you may go to “Part 2” now.
Psalm 1: Learning the Secrets to Success In Life!
(Ver 1.4) There are more subjects in the Bible to study than there is time to study them. Today I want to discuss the first chapter of Psalms. The book of Psalms is a series of thoughts from God written down by the prophets of God for his people. Moses is known to have written some of the Psalms, and David is known to have written some of the Psalms. The book is a vast wealth of information and has many very profound revelations and prophecies within it. The Book of Psalms is written like the other parts of the Bible, in a seemingly random pattern of unrelated thoughts, but yet Jesus said these are those that testify of me (John 5:39). So we should be able to see Jesus in every book of the Bible and practically every chapter. Today I’m going to go through a few thoughts on the first chapter of the Book of Psalms. This is not a long chapter so it will not take a long time for us to review it and see what God says to us:
Psa 1:1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
What does it mean to walk in the counsel of the ungodly? What is counsel? The word translated as counsel is a word that means “advice”. Advice are words of guidance or the suggestions on what you should do in life. There is no shortage of “free advice” on TV and the internet. However, for God’s people we are not supposed to get our advice on what we should do or where we should go or even what we should invest in from ungodly people. If you are looking to your unsaved friends, co-workers, newspapers, magazines or TV shows like Oprah for your counsel or guidance for your life you are being deceived. Then this verse says Christians should not stand in the way of sinners. That does not mean we are obstacles to them, it means don’t do what they do. Just as we do not follow the advice of people who are ignorant of God, we do not observe them and do what they do. Jesus put it this way, if the blind lead the blind, they will both fall into the ditch (Luke 6:39). This is just having basic good logic, common sense and is sound judgment to follow. God’s Word is the only truth that you will ever need to help you make every decision. Of course this gets more complex than that, but the Word of God is the foundation for building your life and there is nothing else that can replace it. If you base your decisions upon anything else you have already been deceived and you cannot blame God for what happens to you, even though many people still try to.
Psa 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
You see this verse says exactly what I just tried to say to you, but in a more direct way. The basis of your life is the Word of God. The Bible says “I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me” (Isa 26:3). Isn’t that saying the same thing that this verse in Psalms just said? How do you delight in the Law of the Lord? It tells you that you keep it in your mind both day and night. That is a mental exercise and a thought process that is easier said than done for most people. There are just too many distractions in life to fulfill this verse completely, or at least this is what many people think. Their mind has been cluttered with many worthless things that do not mean anything, nor do they have any redeeming value to them. These are the designed distractions of the enemy used to get your mind off God and His word. Why do you think there are so many mindless TV shows on today? They are intentionally designed distraction of the blind leading the blind. Reality TV has gotten so immoral that I refuse to waste my time with it. However, there are so many people watching these TV reality shows, it drives more of them to be created every year. This generation appears to be consumed with the trivial mindless words spoken from people who do not know God or even want to know Him. I was watching Jay Leno the other night and he had a Jay Walking on that had people from off of the street being asked basic questions on American History. Nobody could answer any of the basic American History questions, but everyone of them could answer and tell you who was on the TV show Jersey Shores. What a mindless generation we have allowed to be raised in this country.
Psa 1:3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
Here is why I like the Bible so much! It has verses like this in it and ignorant spiritually blind people do not have a clue what it means. If you have ever really read the Bible seriously you know that people are often times symbolically called trees in the Bible. For example, people are the symbolic trees of the field who clap their hands in Isaiah 55:12. As you can see in this verse, people are only prosperous in life if they have done the verses prior to this verse. Are you interested in being prosperous? Some of the secrets to prosperity are found right here in this chapter and that is why I am talking about them today. This verse is a parallel verse to one I always associate with it found in Revelation 22. We can read in Revelation 22 about the “tree of life” standing on either sides of the river flowing from the throne of God and we can see that these trees produce their 12 kinds of fruit every month forever. God is making a connection here and hopefully you can see it. The people in the church are the trees being described in this verse. We are to produce our spiritual fruit for God here and now in this life and forever throughout eternity. It is a never ending process of spiritual replication.
The last three verses in chapter one are in stark contrast to the “Trees Planted by the Waters”. The last three verses speak of the ungodly who do their own things, their own way and do not care for others. They are described to be “chaff”. This is found to be a descriptive term for that which you consume with fire. I do not like to think about people going to hell, but yet it clearly says in the Bible that people go there who do not want to follow God’s ways. So it comes down to a decision on every human on the planet and many of them do not understand the severe consequences of the choices they have made. I use to be one of those who rejected Christ and thought the church was stupid. Now I have learned that I was the one that was stupid and have been able to see finally that I have made the correct choice. More than likely I have told you nothing new today from this chapter study, but have only helped to remind you that if you are a Christian you also have made the right choice. God bless you today!
Myths about Jesus in the Gospels! PT 2 An Omnipotent Jesus vs. an Anointed Jesus?
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 2 in the series of advanced Bible Study lessons discovering the real Jesus of the Bible. These studies also spend time countering the myths of the false Jesus taught in many churches today. If you have not read the first lesson in the series I might suggest that you go and start with reading “Part 1“. There are a number of things taught about Jesus from the Bible that are clearly fabricated by Satan to discredit the real Jesus found in the Bible. In my last lesson on the real Jesus, I discussed a poor Jesus vs. a Jesus with money. I know I did not fully cover the subject, but I gave you some key scriptures that are very important to note when discussing the subject. I believe that Satan wants to portray the Jesus of the Bible as a homeless man who owned nothing and then he tries to use this image to imply that the followers of Jesus are never supposed to rise higher than their master the teacher. So if Jesus owned nothing Christians are supposed to own nothing and I do not follow that religious philosophy simply because that is not the Jesus of the Bible. I believe there are many scriptures in the Gospels that dispel the fact that Jesus owned nothing and I gave you many of these for your consideration. Please do not accept anything that I teach without you seeing it in the Bible. Verify everything that I say using your own Bible to confirm it. This is the only way that you are insured that someone is not deceiving you.
Today I want to attack another myth taught in many churches using the truth in the Bible. These churches teach that Jesus came to the earth as God in His full omnipotent Godhead power and they claim that He proved it by demonstrating to us countless miracles and supernatural signs like speaking to the wind and waves and walking on water to name a couple of prominent examples. I am going to start this discussion with a scripture that you probably do not associate as being important to this subject of Jesus’ omnipotence found in the book of Acts:
Act 10:38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.
So I will not debate that Jesus was God in the flesh, if you do not know this already you should go read and study your Bible to find this for yourself. I have written about it in other Bible lessons, if you want to go read them. This verse in Acts is very clear, yet totally ignored by those who profess an Omnipotent Jesus theology. Omnipotent means “all powerful” capable of doing anything in His full Godhead strength. Was this the Jesus of the Bible when he was born in a manger and grew to be a man? If it was why did God have to anoint Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and Power? This verse implies that if God had not anointed Jesus, he would not have been able to heal anyone. It clearly says that it is the spiritual anointing power that healed the people and not the man Jesus of Nazareth. If Jesus is God in the full manifestation of omnipotence there is no need for any anointing, is there? If you do not see this, you do not know how to read. It just isn’t that difficult to see.
Do you know what “Christ” means? Jesus is called the “Christ” in the Bible. This is the Greek word for a Hebrew word translated as “Messiah” in the Old Testament. Do you know what “Christ” means? What is the definition of the word “Christ”. This word “Christ” means “anointed”, to rub or smear with oil. When David was anointed to be King by Samuel he poured oil over David’s head (1 Sam 16:13). This was an outward symbolic representation for an internal spiritual process that was taking place. This is also what happened to Jesus. Do you remember when Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan by John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit in the form of Dove descended from heaven? (Mat 3:16) This was God anointing Jesus of Nazareth the man with the Spirit of God and Power that we just read about in Acts 10. So why was it necessary for God to descend from Heaven if the Spirit of God was already in the body of Jesus in full omnipotent power? I hope you are seeing the problem with the erroneous teaching of many ignorant people in the church. Let’s verify this belief based upon the words of Jesus himself:
Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
Here we have Jesus speaking to the people in the temple. Jesus opens the scroll and finds the place it is written about Him in Isaiah 61:1 and He begins to read. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”. In this verse Jesus is claiming using prophecy what we just observed in the Baptism of John. This claim was given that the Holy Spirit had descended upon him from the heavens in the form of a dove to rest. Jesus is very clearly stating that God has anointed him to do certain things and He begins to list these things that He is anointed by God to do. So if Jesus could do everything using full omnipotent deity power, Jesus must have lied and He did not need to read a verse about being anointed, does He? I thought God could do anything, especially an omnipotent God in full Godhead power. I hope you are beginning to see the falsity of what many try to teach you on the internet and in some churches. It is absolutely critical to see and understand the real Jesus so that you can understand the real you. God used this anointing power throughout the Old and New Testaments to give His power to men. God still anoints people to do things today in the world. But, my lesson is not about God’s anointing on us, it is about why it was necessary for God to anoint Jesus so let’s continue.
There are many things in the Bible that are difficult to explain with a single lesson because there are more than one inter-related subjects to also discuss or we do not understand what is being taught. In the Gospels we find that Jesus went around and healed many people but, what was the “determining factor” for why some got healed and some did not. First let me ask you did you know that Jesus did not heal everyone that was sick? I will prove this to you as I go. Was it God’s choice on who to heal and who to leave sick, lame and crippled or was there other factors involved that we do not yet understand? The Bible says very clearly that God does not show “favoritism”.
Lev 19:15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.
Act 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
Jas 2:9 But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
Does God ask people to do things that God does not do Himself? I don’t think so, if it is a sin to respect one person over and above another, then God commits sin if he heals one person and does not heal another. So we clearly have a problem, when reading the Gospels, since Jesus did not heal everyone. So there must be another factor that can explain this situation and not leave us confused. Do you recall when Jesus was walking in Mark 5 with one of the rulers of the synagogue named Jairus? Jesus was on the way to his house to heal his daughter and there was a very large crowd of people following Jesus and touching Him. In this chapter is an incredible story within a story. Why is everyone touching Jesus on every side? Was Jesus just a man with rock star status to them or were they all after the healing Power that Jesus told everyone that He was anointed with? You are going to have to make up your own mind why people are touching Jesus, because the Bible does not directly tell us. However, while everyone is touching Him and He is walking to the house of the sick girl, a woman with an issue of blood comes up and forces her way through the crowd and touches the hem of His garment. Jesus stops and turns and asks a very funny question for an omnipotent and omniscient God to ask, “Who touched me?”. Was this a blunder by Jesus or did He not know who it was that touched Him after all the disciples said “Master the crowd is touching you on every side”. In other words the disciples see people touching Jesus everywhere, but they did not understand what just happened and only Jesus and this one woman knew what just transpired. However it is clear that Jesus felt the power leave but did not know where the power went based upon the question.
So I am going to make a longer story a shorter story for the sake of time. The woman with the issue of blood feels the power of God go into her and heal her and Jesus feels the power of God go from Him and heal her, and yet Jesus does not know who it is that got healed. Why is this? It only make sense if you understand the Bible correctly, otherwise it is just a point of confusion. Jesus we have seen was anointed by God with the Holy Ghost and Power (Acts 10:38). Jesus told us that the Holy Ghost had anointed Him in Luke 4:18. We also saw the Holy Ghost descend upon Jesus like a dove in Matthew 3:16. So we have 3 witnesses that say that Jesus was anointed with the Spirit of God. So Jesus had the power of God clearly upon Him with the anointing. But what was it that caused one woman in the crowd of hundreds to receive this power while the others did not? That is a very important question to understand the answer to. Fortunately Jesus gives us the answer:
Mar 5:34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.
Jesus gives us the answer to the million dollar question of why this woman received her healing and the hundreds of others who touched Him did not. Jesus said that the determining factor was her “faith”. So now we have a new problem what is “faith” and why did she have it and the others did not. Since that is not my primary subject, I’m not going to get into that fully in this lesson today. What I want you to see is that yes Jesus had Anointed Power, but that this power was only accessed by one woman with her individual “faith”. So apparently it was not all up to sovereign God in what happens in the world, is it?
My primary subject today is the myths concerning Jesus’ deity power, so I’m going to continue with teaching on this line of thought and leave “faith” to another day. I told you earlier that Jesus did not heal everyone and we clearly saw an example of this with the crowds touching Him in Mark 5 with only one woman getting healed. So now I’m going to show you a much stronger witness to the fact that Jesus was not God in His omnipotent power on the earth. If you continue reading in the book of Mark you will find starting in chapter 6 verse 1 that Jesus is said to come into his own country. This is the home of Jesus, the place where He lives in a house like I showed you in the last lesson in this series. He enters into the synagogue and begins to teach the people and the people automatically begin to question, him saying where did He get this wisdom? You see all of these people saw Jesus grow up and watched Him from a time of a child and knew Him and his family intimately. Why is Jesus teaching the people? I think people who do not understand “faith” don’t understand that before healing comes, teaching comes first. Jesus would always teach the people from the Bible, that God has anointed Him to heal and if they believed it, they could be healed and if they did not believe it they could remain as they were.
Mar 6:4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
Jesus is the prophet in this verse that is without honor in his home city. The people were too intimately familiar with Jesus and His natural life to allow the new “anointing” to work. These people let the old natural Jesus influence who He was to them today. Little did they know that this was the Messiah spoken of in their Bible. These people let their ignorance rob them of the blessings of God. They did not know He was born in Bethlehem and they did not know His father was God. They just assumed they knew him and they made the wrong conclusions. This is one of the greatest danger that many people face today. I see this attitude in and out of church.
Mar 6:5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
The Bible does not say that Jesus would not do any mighty works there; it literally says it was impossible for Jesus to do any mighty supernatural healings in this setting. In other words, no blind people came again seeing, no crippled people walked again, no deaf people could hear, nothing occurred but Jesus laying His hands on a few minor sick people to be healed. So obviously the Omnipotent Jesus was on vacation during this chapter of the Gospels or people just ignore the real Jesus to make up their fictitious version of Him. You can clearly see that Jesus was not omnipotent in this verse or He would have been able to heal everyone regardless of what they believed.
Mar 6:6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.
When Jesus saw their unbelief He was amazed. So what is the opposite of “faith” that got the woman healed in the chapter before this one? You can see that the woman with the issue of blood believed what she heard and these people in the Jesus home town did not believe. That is probably the most important thing that I will teach today, but that is not my primary subject, so I will continue.
What I have demonstrated to you is a version of Jesus that the Bible depicts as being the real “Emanuel” God with Us! This was a man who was God, but clearly was not God in His full Godhead power. Do you understand that it would be impossible to kill the man Jesus if He was here in His full Godhead power? If Jesus was the omnipotent God in person on this planet no would have been able to crucify Him and no one would be saved today. It is very clear to me that God stripped Himself of His divine powers when He choose to manifest on the earth as a human being like you and I. I am going to end this lesson on this note about the resurrection of Jesus. Did you know that after Jesus was raised from the dead He never did any more supernatural signs or wonders here on the earth? Jesus walked the planet after being raised from the dead for nearly 40 days and never did one single supernatural act to prove His divine nature. I mean why didn’t Jesus appear to everyone that just crucified Him and say look I told you so? You see after Jesus was raised from the dead He was again the omnipotent God. But then He told His disciples “that all power in both heaven and in the earth had been given to him”(Mat 28:18). So why is it that people teach that Jesus already had all power before He was crucified if Jesus said it was given to Him after being raised from the dead? Can’t you read and see that Jesus said this power wasn’t fully given to Him until after He was raised from the dead? You cannot have it both ways! Jesus had to be a man with human limitations before the crucifixion and then the power was returned back to Him after His resurrection or you just have to ignore more parts of the Bible that do not agree with your ridiculous fantasy. If Jesus had all power before His crucifixion then there is nothing to give to Him after His resurrection and Jesus is a liar. Wow, I don’t know if you really understand the things I teach or not, but it would be great if you did! God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons about the Myths of Jesus in the church you may proceed to “Part 3“.
Myths about Jesus in the Gospels? A Rich Jesus vs. a Poor Jesus?
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 in a series of advanced Bible lessons on “Myths taught about Jesus” in the modern church. There are a number of things taught from the Bible that are clearly fabricated by the devil to discredit the identity and character of the real Jesus of the Bible. By portraying a fictional Jesus, Satan can keep the church from seeing, seeking and following the examples of the true Jesus. For example, it is widely preached and taught in many churches that Jesus was a very, very poor man and did not own anything of value. However, is this really what the Bible teaches us or is this just what Satan wants you to think so that he can keep you poor in the world today? What advantage does Satan gain by portraying a poor Jesus to the church? I believe that as long as Christians think Jesus was poor they will follow in his example to remain the same. Poor Christians are ineffective and unable to be a blessing to others and therefore very harmless to Satan or even to help the lost unsaved people under his control. Satan desires every Christian to take a vow of poverty to go and live in common dwelling community with others in the same way. In doing this they are unable to feed the poor or help preach the Gospel to the world on the outside. Poor nations are the same type of pattern in this world as poor Christians. This is very evident in the displayed wealth distribution of the nations as studied on the internet. Only the richer strong nations can be a factor to effect any positive change to any other nation that needs help. The poorest nations are the ones that are found the homeless, starving people that are begging for the other nations to come and help them. This is why Satan causes many churches to promote a false Mother Theresa type of sainthood thinking it to be the perfect model type of a real Christian. There are just too many churches that promote a vow of poverty philosophy and somehow believe that this self-imposed vow of suffering makes their people more pious or worthy of being saved. However, I’ve got bad news for you, if Mother Theresa would have had 5 billion dollars to help poor people she would have been much more effective and reached so many that she was never able to reach. Bill Gates helps more poor people than Mother Theresa will ever dream of. There is just no substitute for having money in this world to help and bless other people. Of course money without knowing God is completely worthless. I am not a prosperity preacher or teacher. I hardly mention money on my website and I never ask you to send me anything. Therefore, do not put me into a category of any other stereotyped Bible teacher. I simply like to look for what the Bible says and then teach that regardless of the message. If the Bible said that Jesus was poor then that is exactly what this lesson would be about. How about we just find out what God says in His Word and believe that. Can we just do that?
If you do not have any money or do not work to earn any money then you are living in poverty and usually called a beggar that is seeking and asking churches, charities, relatives, other people or the government for a free helping handout just to eat and to survive. Is that what Jesus did? Can you search the gospels and ever find Jesus begging from anyone? I mean try to find it and then tell me where it is. There are at the minimum two different ways to learn from the Bible. You can learn from what the Bible directly says or you can learn from what it does not directly say. If the Bible does not teach us that Jesus begged then why would you think that you should beg? This type of baseless poverty Jesus teaching would be very much like teaching since the Bible never teaches us that Jesus went to the bathroom, we must all not go to the bathroom and hold it to be like Him. No this is the challenge of resolving our ignorance to allow us to become realistic in our beliefs to see what the Bible actually says about how Jesus never begged for anything and then find out how that applies to us. So I want to take you through some scriptures in the Bible and show you some new perspectives on some things that should hopefully permit you to find and see the real Jesus of the Bible. You will soon find that this real Bible Jesus was not a poor man who owned nothing. Please let me show you in the Bible:
Mat 2:11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
There are many verses in the Bible that I could start with, but I’ll start with this one in Matthew about the men from the east coming to visit baby Jesus after He was born. If you read you will find that these men traveled a great distance because they had seen His star in the east and they followed it to where Jesus was. Most Christma manger scenes have Jesus being born in a stable in Bethlehem with the animals that were present and they have the wise men coming to the manger with their gifts. However, did you notice in this verse in Matthew 2:11 that these men came to see Jesus in a house? There was no manger in this verse or the context. Apparently from this information we can see that Jesus at the very least was a child who lived in a house with his mother and father. So far this is not a homeless and destitute poor Jesus that we have been taught, is it? Next did you notice what these men brought to Jesus? It says they brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. That does not sound like a poor Jesus either? So if men traveled a great distance to see a newborn king, would they have brought small insignificant trivial gifts or large extravagant gifts fit for a living king? What would impress the family? If you do not believe me try taking a wrothless gift to the queen of England and see how it is received. You are foolish not to believe a gift for a king has to be great. Therefore, I do not think that Jesus was either homeless or poor as a child growing up; I hope you can see what the Bible says also.
Let’s shift gears to the older Jesus and see what the Bible says about the men that Jesus chose to hang around with. One of the key men that Jesus personally selected was a man called Peter. Peter was a key figure and we can learn a lot about him in the Bible. Peter was married, a fisherman with his brother and he lived in and owned a house:
Mat 8:14 And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever.
So reading about Peter in the Bible we can clearly see that Peter was a businessman who made a living and had a job and thus was not homeless or a man of poverty. Jesus came into Peter’s house and healed his mother-in-law. So the house was large enough to accomodate more than just his wife. Jesus did not pick men who were homeless and poor to associate with, so why do people think Jesus was homeless and poor? Somehow it makes people feel good on the inside to think that Jesus had nothing, owned nothing to depended upon others for everything that He needed. This is exactly how Satan wants you to envision your Jesus so that you will never rise above the level of His poor example.
So do you think that Jesus ever owned a physical house and dwelling place? Some place where He lived for three years? An actual building called a home built with walls, windows, doors and a roof, in some city? If not then where would our Jesus live, sleep, eat or rest? Does He just sleep outdoors on the ground? Does He beg to sleep in other people’s houses? Maybe He just slept in someone’s barn. I do not know why people like to think that Jesus went from place to place sleeping under the stars for at least three years? Remeber that the ministry duration of Jesus was somewhere near three years of time. I cannot only assume that people read the Bible with dark goggles on so they do not have to see what is actually written there. They have created a Jesus in their minds and are quite content with keeping Jesus in their cramped little box of limitations. You would truly be amazed at what the Bible actually says if you would open your eyes and see it! Let me give you a verse found in Matthew to start with:
Mat 9:1 And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city.
What does it mean if Jesus crosses over in a boat in order to get to His “own city”? It sounds like that was Jesus’ hometown, doesn’t it? The term “own” is a possessive pronoun and this town was the town that Jesus lived in and possibly even owned a home in. If I called you on the phone and you were my friend and I said “I’m back in town”, you know from that statement that I was gone from town but that I have now returned back home. So did you know that Jesus had his own city to return to? Well I’m about to show you some additional verses that will help us confirm this reality:
Mar 2:1 And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house.
Capernaum was a seaside city on the north end of the Sea of Galilee, thus Jesus entered back into the city by boat as we just read about in Matthew. This verse in the book of Mark says there went out rumors spreading everywhere that Jesus was in the house. Uh oh? Further, notice that these rumors took several days to be spread, so Jesus has been in this house for at least that length of time. Whose house was this? Who did this house belong? That sounds pretty bad for the poor homeless Jesus proponents and teachers. If you knew I was gone out of town and drove by my house, could you tell when I got back home? More than likely you could! However, in Jesus’ day you could not just drive into town incognito unless you walked in, in the middle of the night when everyone else was asleep. So according to this verse Jesus comes to Capernaum in a boat and people see Him arrive and start spreading the word to all of their friends that “Jesus is home”. To be “In the house” you have to logically conclude that this was Jesus’ house that they are talking about, otherwise which house in a city of hundreds or even thousands of houses are they speaking of? You just cannot say that Jesus is in the house if you do not already know which one it is! So far this is just very basic simiple logic reached by observing what is stated in the Bible, it is not that difficult, but admittedly it can be easily explained away for those who refuse to see it.
Mar 2:2 And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them.
So technically speaking it does not say this house belongs to Jesus, but then again it does not say that it doesn’t either. If you read the context there is no mention of any owner and I believe that is very important to note. So we have to use our brains in order to figure out the truth. Jesus is in a house and a large number of people hear that Jesus is present to be found there and they just happened to show up automatically at just the right house. How do all of these people know which house if this is not Jesus’ house? Uh oh? Here we have another problem for those who want to believe in a poor homeless Jesus. No this verse says so many people showed up, that they could get anyone else in the house, so they had to stand outside the door to hear His words. Then there comes 4 more men carrying a lame friend to get Jesus to heal him. How did these 5 men know what house to come to and why were they there? When they arrived at the house they could easily look at the house and all of the people knowing, yes Jesus is in the house. I conclude formthis that they knew He was home again because we can soon see that they were going to do whatever it took to get their friend healed.
Mar 2:4 And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.
You see here is the major problem that I have discovered about this story in the Bible. If this was my house that I owned and Jesus was just visiting with me for a few days and four idiots come tearing a huge hole in my roof what would you have done to stop them from tearing up your house? Do you know there is no mention that anyone was upset that 4 guys just tore a big hole in the roof to lower their buddy down in? I find that omission totally fascinating to say the least. To me the lack of anyone complaining just confirms that Jesus the healer was in His own house and He did not mind when He saw these men’s faith to get their friend healed. That is the only logical explanation of how everybody knew where Jesus was and why no one cared when the house was broken into and modified with a huge new sky light large enough to lower a crippled man. Let’s read down now in the same chapter and see what else Jesus does in his home city.
Mar 2:14 And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him.
Jesus is said to be walking in His city again and finds a man named Levi and tells Levi to “follow me”. Right there let’s analyze that statement; if Jesus wanted to go to Levi’s house would Jesus have said “follow me”? To me Jesus would have said “let’s go to your house and I’ll follow you”. Things in the Bible need to make sense when we read them. The verses present us with limited factual information and we are required to read the facts and use the information to make a determination of what is stated. L’et’s read the following verse and see what is said next:
Mar 2:15 And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him.
Hopefully you can see my problem? Whose house is Jesus now eating in? Did Jesus lead Levi to Levi’s house expecting Levi to feed everyone? Or did Jesus take Levi to Jesus’ house and there they all sat and ate together. The phrase “his house” is one that must be directed at Jesus and not at Levi since Levi is never mentioned in this verse. But, you see we could easily take this verses either way and almost be right. However, only one way is right and the other was must be wrong. Two truths can never exist from one statement. Did you notice how many people were present? Did you notice all of the disciples and Jesus were present and we know Levi was also there if he followed Jesus and now we can read that publicans and sinners were also there. That really sounds like a big group and not a small house at all.
Mar 2:16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?
So poor Jesus proponents and teachers have more problems to try to explain away. I’ll start by asking you how did the Scribes and the Pharisees know where Jesus was eating? Are they following Jesus around? From my current understanding of Bible history the city of Capernaum was not a tiny 4 or 5 house community. It must have had a significant population with many families and houses in it. We can clearly see from this information that Jesus was eating in a house with a lot of people being present and while others simultaneously watching him and knowing where He was located. From what I have just read, I am convinced that Jesus was a man who owned a house in the city of Capernaum and that many people knew Him and exactly where He lived. This is really the only explanation that makes sense of how people kept finding Jesus in a big city. You of course have the option to remain ignorant and believe whatever you like.
Mar 6:4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
If you read the Bible like you want to believe that Jesus was homeless you have to ignore a lot of the Bible to establish that belief. In this verse Jesus is speaking and He says some very profound words. Jesus was the Prophet that He is talking about in this verse. Did you know that Jesus was a prophet? The prophet’s office was just one position that He held, but nevertheless that is one title that He called Himself. This Prophet was said to have no honor among the people who knew Him personally. These people were His neighbors and relatives who knew Him and knew where He lived. These were the people who recognized Him when He walks down the street. These were the people who can see when He enters into the house where He lives and they knew exactly which house it was. These were the people who look at Jesus as being a regular human like them. Because the do not know Him as the Son of God, they hold no place of honor for Him in their heart because He appears to be exactly as they were in every way. To be exactly like them meant that He works, He eats, He sleeps, He goes to the bathroom and He lives in a house just like they did. Do you understand these basic things? They do not see Jesus with a halo around His head and they do not see Jesus walking above the ground where He does not leave any footprints. Jesus was not surrounded with angels. His faced did not glow. Jesus looked normal, acted normal and lived normally. Jesus was a man in complete normalcy like everyone else in appearance. Furthermore Jesus himself just spoke some words and said that He owned a house. Did you notice that? The Greek word G3614 translated as “house” literally means a residence. The inclusion of a personal pronoun of “own” before the noun house (residence) conveys ownership responsibility and is directly associated to the speaker of the words and that was clearly Jesus.
Mat 12:46 While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.
Here is another very interesting verse that I found about Jesus. Jesus is in a house talking with some people and suddenly His mother and His half-brothers suddenly appear asking to talk to Him standing outside of the house. If this is not Jesus’ house where He lived, how do these close relatives know where to find Him? You can clearly see the difficulty that I have with people’s interpretation that says Jesus did not own a house. If His mothers and His brothers could come to exactly where He was and request a meeting, they had to know where to go. Jesus instead of going to speak to his natural family looked around the room and said those that do the will of my Father, you are my mother, my sister and and brother and then a couple of verses later you will read this:
Mat 13:1 The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.
Again, we have to conclude that Jesus owned this house that He keeps being associated with near the sea. If Jesus is seen exiting a house and sitting by the sea, we know this is Jesus’ house in Capernaum that He is seen leaving from. There are certainly many more verses like these that I could go through to show you that Jesus did own a house, but I will leave it at that. It really doesn’t matter if you show people two verses or forty verses, if they do not want to see the truth, they will always ignore whatever you give them. Let’s change the subjecvt from houses to moeny and see another perspective of Jesus.
I want you to think about this, did Jesus ever have any money? We know there was one case in the Bible that says when Jesus was forced to pay taxes that He told Peter to go to the sea and catch a fish and use that money in the fish’s mouth to pay the tax. So stories like that are used by people to promote a poor Jesus who did not carry money around with Him. But, did you know that the disciple Judas was said to be the treasurer for Jesus and the other disciples (John 13:29)? Do you need a treasurer if you have no money? In fact if you search and can read the Bible, you will find out that Judas was a thief and he was able to steal money from Jesus and the disciples without anyone else knowing it (John 12:6). Did you know if Jesus only had a little bit of money and Judas took a little bit of it out, it wouldn’t be easily missed? But, if Jesus had a whole bunch of money in the bag and Judas slowly took out a little here and a little bit there, it would never be missed by anyone? So to me using this story of Judas alone we discover that Jesus did carry large sums of money so a little bit is never missed. Let me show you another story in the Bible about this large sum of money that Jesus and the disciples carried around with them:
Mar 6:36 Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat.
We have an interesting story of many people following Jesus in the wilderness. In the Bible verse before this one it says that it is very late in the day and the disciples come to Jesus and ask Him to send the people away so that they can still make it home to get something to eat. However, Jesus had a different lesson to teach them and said this:
Mar 6:37 He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?
Jesus tells the disciples to get all of the people something to eat and since there were thousands of them, the disciples ask Him a very strange question for poor homelss men. If these disciples did not have in their possession 200 pennies to buy this bread they would have said let’s go take up a collection so that we can go buy them some bread. But, they did not say that did they? They asked Jesus, do you want us to go and spend 200 pennies to buy all of these people bread to eat? The Bible tells us that there were approximately 5000 men in this group and we know these men had wives and children so there could have been 15000 people there around Jesus. Let me ask you this question, what would it cost you if you took 15000 people to McDonald’s and bought them all a burger? It would take a whole bunch of money to feed that many people. So why would the poor disciples ask Jesus if He wanted them to go and buy food for all of them, if they did not already have the money to do it? You see that would really be a stupid question to ask wouldn’t it. The disciples were not stupid and they were not poor either so get over it and see what the Bible says about money. The disciples had enough money on them to feed everyone, but still there were no bread stores in the wilderness to buy this food, so Jesus goes with His original plan of multiplying the loaves and fishes of a boy’s lunch. The discipiles could have solved the problem in a natural way, but Jesus was teaching them a supernatural method of supply.
I’ll end today’s leson with one more example of how Jesus was not a poor man. When Jesus was crucified it tells us that there were some soldiers who divided up what Jesus was wearing. Since Jesus was hanging on the cross naked about to die, He would have no further need of any of the items and the guards saw a great opportunity to profit:
Joh 19:23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.
Jesus was wearing a seamless coat that was woven in one piece from top to bottom it says. You probably do not understand the significance to that statement. It means His coat was very valuable. This was the coat of a wealthy man, a king or someone of great status in the city or country. Not everyone possessed a coat such as this, because it took a lot of money to buy one. Evidently if Jesus was poor where did He obtain such a piece of clothing? Someone tried to tell me that this valuable robe was the garment placced upon him by Pilate, but if you go read closely that robe was not a gift but a temporary robe placed to mock Him (Mat 27:31). This royal mocking robe was removed after the mocking and it did not go to the cross. Thefore, the coat that the soldiers were gambling over had to have been owned by Jesus.
Joh 19:24 They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.
You see the soldiers recognized the value of the coat and said let’s not tear it up! Let us gamble for it so that one of us can use it like it is. For the soldiers to gamble for something that is worthless would be illogical or foolish; so they had to know that the coat was a very valuable item and something that they could not afford even with their salaries from the Roman Empire. This information about Jesus does not go along with the Mother Theresa type of poor Jesus that many people want to follow. There are many other Bible verses that I failed to mention, but I gave you enough references to get you to think and hopefully change your poverty mentality away from the poor Jesus to change it to the real Jesus. You see I do not believe that Jesus was Bill Gates or Warren Buffet while on the earth. However, I also do not believe that Jesus went about as a homeless man in absolute poverty either. You can see too many examples of Jesus beginning with His birth all the way to His death and never is it said that He was poor. Jesus is portrayed in the Bible as being more in the range of an upper middle class man and never a poor homeless man in the Bible. I hope that you can see it with your own eyes and definitely spend more time reading the Gospels for the real Jesus. Thanks for taking the time to read and study the Bible and if you have any questions or comments you are welcome to share them. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series about Myths of Jesus taught in the Church you may continue to “Part 2“.
Must Women Keep Silent in the Church?
(Ver 1.6) Some may have noticed that this website does not avoid controversy. I believe we need to learn everything possible about every subject and take on even the difficult or controversial Bible subjects that many like to ignore or abuse. The Bible has some very difficult things written in it and on the surface the subject of a woman teaching and preaching in the church, is certainly viewed as one example of those. Vast numbers of people with limited knowledge of the Bible, have long proclaimed their dominant doctrine over allowing women preachers and teachers, in the church. This is a very legalistic Old Covenant approach to understanding the rest of the Bible and the New Covenant age of Grace. Hopefully everyone understands the Bible is divided into two major divisions of covenant relationship. The Old Covenant is dominated by laws, commandments, rules, and words that were to be followed to the letter. But Jesus came to fulfill this law and He has accomplished this, and in implementing the New Covenant relationship with mankind, He has brought about a brand-new creation that never existed before. Please keep this truth in your mind as a foundation when studying this subject of women’s roles in the church, to avoid extreme legalism.
The Old Covenant legalism viewpoint and attitude is placing all women in only subservient roles that appear to be based upon prejudiced or biased legal opinions. What causes alleged Christian people to think this way? The answer to wrong extreme legal thinking and believing, is not knowing who we all are, “In Christ”.
We should all know and understand that in the Kingdom of God there is always order. God is not a God of chaos, disorder or rebellion. What we will find with diligent Bible study, is that many people that believe women must always be silent in the church forever, only read a very few select, and limited number of scriptures that they whole hardly embrace, proclaiming them as the final basis of all their beliefs on this important subject. This of course forces people to ignore vast numbers of other scriptures that do not align with their desired doctrinal outcome or definition of their beliefs. We must understand that the Bible is a book of more than one scripture, and one truth. One of the greatest errors in understanding the correct interpretation of any subject, is to not take a single truth and make it the only truth higher than all others.
In studying the Bible on any subject, it is very wise to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us into the fuller knowledge of His truth on any subject before we begin to read and study it. Then we must also ask the Holy Spirit to help us balance every verse on the subject, that He leads us to study. Finally ask the Holy Spirit to show us things that we have never seen before on this subject to grow our understanding of His truth.
If in our deep study of any Bible subject, if there is ever one scripture that He leads us to that we have never seen before, and this verse disagrees with our current beliefs, or one verse that we do not completely understand enough about the subject of women, then we must pray and ask again for the Holy Spirit to help us better understand what He wants us to know about that verse. It is only the Holy Spirit that can reveal something as truth, and He can resolve any and every conflict or controversy that we can encounter with other church members. God is the author of the book, and only He knows every verse, and every word and how they apply to the subject of women’s roles in the church.
Let us begin today by asking the Lord, have we ever studied the Bible on every scripture reference on the subject of women in the Bible? Then ask yourself and the Lord, “Do I totally understand every scripture in the Bible on the subject of women?” We should all believe and say that there is no way that any of us have studied and know everything about this complete subject enough to call our self an expert on the subject. The Bible is way too complex for anyone to say they know it all, except for God.
So how is it that there are some people in the church that can get up to teach and claim that women are not permitted to preach or teach in the church based upon their very limited knowledge on the subject? Please ask the question, who died and made these people higher than God to judge anyone else? Is not God the only person living that completely knows and understand the entire Bible to judge anyone? Be as wise as the man in Acts 5:39 “If this be of God, we cannot overthrow it, lest haply you be found to even fight against God”.
It would also be wise for these types of judging people to learn a lesson from the book of Job. God asked Job, “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words with no knowledge?” When people teach that a woman is incapable of teaching or preaching the Word of God, I believe that this implies that they believe women do not have the brains or mental capacity to know or understand the truth of the Word of God. It would also imply that they believe women cannot ever hear from God and therefore should not even be praying to God. In other words, it comes across that women are not able to go directly to God to listen for His leading because they should only go directly through their husbands or the other men in the church first to hear God’s voice. Is this how God operates?
What a potential arrogant, and superior attitude of pride that attitude could possibly represent! It should remind us of the church in the dark ages, when only a trained priest was believed to be capable of understanding the Bible. In these days no one else was even allowed to read the Bible. What controlling spirit in that time of the church age, were they dominated by? Do you remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees? In Luke 11:52, Jesus said “Woe unto you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You have not entered in yourself, and you have hindered those that were entering in”. Perhaps we need to also read Jeremiah 31:34 that is quoted in Hebrews 8:11. In this verse, God writes to the church, that “everyone” will know Him, from the least to the greatest”. This would certainly include women. Therefore, we all know that women hear from God as well as any man.
People can be too dogmatic when it comes to a deep Bible study discussion like this. Please do not be so engrained into a deep trench of traditional human beliefs, that you are dug in too deep to get yourself out of it. What we are going to do is go through some key Bible verses that are often ignored or purposefully overlooked to examine what else God says in regard to references of His usages of women in the Bible and His selected roles for them.
Have you ever had a Godly woman influence you? I can only personally speak a testimony about women that have influenced me. I will tell you that if it were not for good Christian women in the church, I would probably not be here today teaching the Word of God. I believe that it was only because of their direct prayers, help, involvement and their leadings from God in ministry that I am even here today to write this lesson. So, I appreciate whoever God uses and I refuse to put limitations on what God can do through anyone. Let’s focus upon the root scriptures of controversy first:
1Ti 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
So here we go with the first doctrinal classic verse, about shut up and just learn silently in the church, speech. However, perhaps we need to know some basic facts. The Greek word G1135, translated as “women” is predominately speaking to married wives in relationship to their husbands sitting under the teaching of the Lord’s Word together. This verse must be applied to this application first. With futher study we will discover that Paul is addressing a very specific cultural issue in this verse for the time of the early church. In that culture women sat on one side of the church and men on the other side of the church. This would cause a great number of issues during the church service causing disordered distraction to everyone present. Therefore, Paul wanted everyone to be silent while the Word was going forth.
If anyone is distracted, talking to others while the Word of God is being taught, is anyone learning anything? No, of course not! This was the situation in this letter. Paul was addressing a very specific problem of distraction in a very specific Church, and he was not establishing a broader New Covenant law that women can’t ever talk. If the problem was that it was the males were talking in church, then I believe Paul would have said, you talking and distracting men keep quiet and learn. Humans both male and female were designed by God with a mouth, a mind, and the ability to talk and communicate intelligently, so to say a woman can’t ever talk in church, is very ignorant and domineering.
So now this verse ends in the word “subjection” and this is not a bad word. It means you are “not in control” and you are “not the head”. Everyone on this planet is in subjection to someone or something. This word applies to men equally and as strong as to women. If you have ever been in the military, you understand “subjection”. You follow orders from the day you join to the day you leave. You are not there to do anything but to follow orders. The corporate business world is very similar, but some people do get paid to be creative and come up with new ideas. However, this does not mean they can do whatever they want, whenever they want and to whoever they want. They still have to be submissive to those that they are working for. To be submissive is a normal way of life; it promotes order and a chain of command for authority, and this further designates who has responsibility as well as accountability.
Even the CEO of a large public company is accountable to the stockholders. There is really no one on the earth that is in complete control of anything. Submission is not a negative thing, and it should never be used to force anyone to do anything that they do not want to do or keep them from doing what God calls and desires them to do. Learn from God’s example, the utmost highest Spiritual Being who came to the earth in the flesh and while He was here, He washed the feet of His disciples. Please don’t make yourself better than God. If you are not serving someone else, you have become deceived.
1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
So here we go with another “Thus saith the Lord”! Oh yea, it doesn’t say God said this, it says Paul said this using the personal pronoun “I’ and that knowledge could make these words mean something very different. Did you know that it is possible, that Paul could have a personal opinion or belief, that could be his own and potentially biased or even wrong? Was Paul God? Did Paul know everything? Remember in 1 Corinthians 13:12 that Paul wrote that he and all of the rest of us are currently only seeing things through a glass darkly, and he personally said, that we only know the truth in “part”. Wow, that is an amazing revelation to apply to each of us personally. We need not think too highly of our self, and we believe that we know and understand everything about any Bible subject.
I would like to give you something new to consider. Did Paul when He was writing his letters, know that his personal words written in letters to his believing friends in churches, that God usee him to establish, were going to be taught in the future as God’s Holy Word and even combined and compiled together into a new greater “New Testament” with other 7 other writers? I personally do not believe that Paul had any knowledge that his personal letters, that were written to his friends in a few churches would be compiled and bound into a new book called the New Testament. If Paul considered these letters to be the official Bible, why would he not have written this in these letters? Also, why are there so many personal references to names of his special friends? Why in 2 Timothy 4:13, does Paul write and ask for someone to bring him his Coat that he left in Troas. He also asks for some special books and parchments to be brought to him. I find these types of personal references, to show us that Paul did not understand that what he was writing was God’s inspired Word. That does not mean it is NOT God’s inspired word, it only means, it is possible that Paul did not know that it was.
If God would have told Paul directly that this was happening, Paul would not have been living by faith, or walking by faith. Paul very clearly said, “the just shall live by faith”, quoting an Old Testament verse. In Acts 17:11 when Paul was preaching, he called the church at Berea more noble because they showed the diligence to verify what he was saying by finding it in the Old Covenant Hebrew writings. This tells us, that Paul believed those written Hebrew words were to be considered God’s inspired scripture containing God’s Word. But it should also tell us that even Paul needed the Old Covenant writings to confirm what he was teaching to the churches. DO NOT misunderstand what is being said, Paul’s words are certainly inspired words, but not all of them are to be considered, “Thus saith the LORD”.
Let us look at some other translations of 1 Timothy 2:12. The Modern King James Version says, “I forbid a woman to teach”. Again this represents a personal opinionated choice of Paul. The New American Standard Bible says, “I do not allow a woman to teach”. No mention of God’s command here either. The American Standard Versions says, “I permit not a woman to teach”. These are all common translations that harmonize together. There is no contradiction between any of the translations that it was only Paul’s opinion being given to the church for that specific day and that specific culture.
Were Paul’s personal views and words shaped by his life’s experiences and the culture of the surrounding world influences? I believe they were just as our views have a basis of our own cultural surroundings and influences. Please do not misunderstand me. I have no doubt that these words were inspired by God to be written down, but I believe that does not mean God said them. If we believe that every word in the Bible is a commandment from God, then we need to understand the Bible a lot more. There are quotations given by Satan who we know is a liar. Therefore, these are not instructions to follow or obey. Then there are a lot of quotes from men like Job, that we should know that he was rebuked by God for saying.
There are literally too many examples to teach them all that are found in the Bible. But I will mention a great example to learn from found in 1 Corinthians 7:6-12. In these verses Paul was very clear to teach us how he literally flipped into writing about his own personal opinion on the subject of marriage and divorce. Uh oh, this is speaking of husbands and wives again like we were reading about in Timothy. Please go and read these verses carefully and observe how Paul said, “I say, not the LORD” and other times “not I, but the Lord says“. This is just one great example that we need to learn from, to show how we must rightly divide the Word of Truth, and how easy it could be to wrongly divide the Word of truth.
Before we continue any further, please go and read the surrounding contextual verses to see what they say and how they fit with women being silent. Notice in verse 9 of 1 Timothy 2, Paul writes that women should dress moderately. So far so good for a lot of church women, but for others even this Pauline suggestion is not followed. But then Paul writes that women should not be wearing gold or pearls. Uh, oh? What just happened, how many women are following these as commandments. All of the sudden we have a Burger King religion of have it our way, or only eat selective doctrines we like from a larger buffet containing some choices that we don’t like. We eat from the words we like and the words we don’t like we leave alone. But to give notice, there are no quotations of “Thus Saith the LORD” in these words either. But we can still learn things to apply to us from them all.
Let’s talk about the Bible cultural influences that could have been used to contribute to the meanings of the Words written on the pages. In ancient days, were women ever in charge of anything when Paul wrote this? You can find a few instances of women like Esther, Jezebel, and Cleopatra who were in the world realm of royal power to have some very significant influence, power and authority for God and the devil. But for the most part, it was a total male-controlled world. There are many religions in the world that still hold to this domineering male philosophy, and I like to watch what the devil does to people in the world to learn from how he wants to pervert things to oppose God’s ways. Satan’s ways are usually the opposite of God’s ways. Satan seems to either want to keep women totally ignorant in a slave type of relationship or exalt them to the top of the food chain and make them run everything independently of male partnership. It is either total submission like in countries of Afghanistan or Iran, or total women’s liberation and independence like in Europe and parts of America. I believe both are perverted wrongs of extremism and the truth of God must be somewhere balanced in the middle. What I would like to say is if Satan uses women for his perversion, who says it is not possible for God to use women for His glory, righteousness and Holy purposes? If God is doing anything that resembles what the devil is trying to do in the world to women, that should raise a concern in our spirit, for us to ask when did God and Satan begin to agree on anything?
Only a few Christian churches seem to have the correct perspective of a balanced approach of the truth being somewhere in the middle. So here is another problem, I have heard from many extreme preachers and teachers that these verses written to Timothy should be interpreted that all women must not teach but rather to sit and keep silent in the church. According to correct Bible interpretation rules I need another witness that says this is the law of truth and so far I have not found it. The Bible says in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses let every word be established and here we read one passage and people want to make it the rule of their doctrine and force everyone to adhere to it.
I searched through every N.T. verse that had any form of the word “teach” and this is the only verse that I found with the word woman used in this regard. I find that to be a major problem with some people’s interpretation. If anyone is trying to take one verse out of context and make it a rule of law, that does not work for me. So let’s look at some other verses in the Bible and see what God says about women and see if we can come up with a balanced approach to this subject. Let us turn to the book of Acts and see how the early church is described.
Act 2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
In this verse in Acts, Peter is quoting the Word of God from the Prophet Joel. Right there we learn that this means we will possess two direct witnesses to what this verse says. So we are clearly on a much safer and firmer ground for our interpretation. Do you understand that concept? It is so very important. According to this verse, God will in the last days pour out His Spirit upon “ALL FLESH”! This verse would certainly include both women as well as men as you can clearly see. This verse continues to say that both your sons and your daughters would “prophesy”. So, let’s stop right there and ask the question what does it mean to “prophesy”? Can you or I prophesy in silence? No clearly this verse involves women opening their mouth and making audible sounds that can be heard by anyone present.
What is the difference between teaching people with the spoken words from the Bible which were given by the Spirit of God and prophesying with the words potentially inspired by the Spirit of God in a church? Can you think of any differences? Isn’t prophesying the act of speaking words out loud to someone else so that they can hear them? Then what is the definition of teaching? Isn’t teaching speaking out loud words for other people to hear? It would be useless for a woman to prophesy without someone present to hear her. Uh oh? You can automatically and quickly see that this verse directly conflicts with Paul’s declared command to keep silent. You also have to remember that Paul did not really tell women to keep silent, he said to “learn in silence” and that is something completely different than to never say anything. Let us see another example in the book of Acts that brings further confirmation:
Act 21:9 And the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy.
These 4 daughters were the children of Phillip the evangelist. We are clearly told that they were able to prophesy to others. This clearly means speaking out loud in an audible voice that can be heard and even directed at the men that were there in the house. Did you know that the early church met in houses? They did not have any synagogues, temples or church buildings to meet at, so they met in houses. If the daughters of Phillip prophesied in the house they were probably doing it during a church service. So we have a huge issue with should a woman always keep silent in the church. Please allow me to ask again, what is the technical difference between teaching and prophesying? Is there a difference? Are not both spoken words directed at listeners? I will also say this, if you do not have women prophesying in your church services, you do not have a complete New Testament church. You have deviated from God’s original plan observed in the book of Acts in favor of your ideas of order. Let us now approach this subject from a new direction and see how God teaches us something new to consider.
Gal 3:26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
According to the Bible, God says that we are all His children. So, does God play favorites? Are the male children preferred above the female children? If you think that they are you are clearly in need of learning the truth. Let us keep reading:
Gal 3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
We can continue down this chapter and see that every Christian has been baptized into Christ and that makes us ALL one with Him equally. This is an all-inclusive statement that includes both males and females. Then notice what God says about us all:
Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
So here we go with another paradox and puzzle being presented. God says to us, that In Christ males and females are not different. But in the world, we can all clearly see that males and females are quite different, and even treated as such. This teaches us a new foundational difference, between Christians who are natural thinkers versus Christians who are carnal thinkers. We know in the world there are both males and females, but God claims in the spiritual dimension in Christ, we are all just members of one body. There is no difference within the Spirit realm from each other. I personally believe that men who teach male dominance usually are just very carnally minded individuals who look at external things and do not try to see things spiritually as God sees things.
If ignorant Bible teachers would just please read and study their Bible’s to see things within the Spirit and not in the flesh and how God sees them, they would discover that the church is called the “Bride of the Lamb”. Jesus is plainly revealed to be the Bridegroom of the church in the Spirit realm New Covenant (Luk 5:34-35). If you are a male preacher, does that bother you, to be called a spiritual woman bride of Christ? I think it does to many carnal naturally thinking people. But this means we (the church) are all collectively called one woman in the eyes of God. This is not something new. God did the exact same thing with the natural nation of Israel, calling Himself their husband, implying they were all His wife. So we are all in covenant and in subjection to our Head who is the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 5:24).
So how can Paul write that women should not teach in one place in the Bible and then write there is no difference between men and women in Christ in another place? If you do not understand the major conflict between these two contrasting and opposing statements, then you do not realize that we have a significant problem that God can only resolve.
Here is my opinion and I usually do not give you my opinion so you do not have to take anything to heart that I say next in this paragraph. I think from a natural perspective that men counseling women or women counseling men privately should never be done under any circumstance. There are just too many potential problems that could occur. I have seen the best married pastors get into physical affairs with women because of this natural physical and emotional attraction that God created within us. Women should counsel women, and men should counsel men. This just makes the most logical and common sense approach to me. So, I believe firmly that counseling between opposite sexed individuals in the privacy of an office type setting should never be done under any circumstances. By avoiding the appearance of evil, men and women will not fall into these types of traps that Satan can use against them. However, what people do in a public church service is not limited by these natural types of rules. That was my opinion and there is no extra charge for that. So let us see what else the Bible says about women:
Tit 2:3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
This verse is directed at mature women, but I was shocked at how it ended. To be a teacher of “good” things implies strongly that women have the ability and can teach. In fact, it clearly implies these women should be teachers. It further implies that these women have gained some wisdom that is worthy to be taught to others. Obviously, we have another verse that goes against the broad concept of a “keep silent” verse that some like to focus upon. So, we have another potential conflict of whether women should teach or women should never teach.
Tit 2:4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
Here we have the follow up to the previous verse and it clearly says that it is OK for women to teach other women. Now it is interesting that this verse directly contradicts again that a woman should keep silent that some try to teach as the only gospel truth. If a woman has the ability to teach another woman, then she must also have the ability to teach anyone (PERIOD)! Any teaching ability is a gifting from the Holy Spirit, and it represents a special anointing given to her from and by God.
I would like you to go back and read chapter 1 of Titus, because in this chapter it is talking about Bishops in the church. God and Paul are clearly talking about women teaching in a church setting and not in a private setting. So instead of denying women who are called of God the right to preach and teach, we should be smart enough to recognize when God is doing something and we should not fight against God. If God is not behind it, it will not matter who it is that is teaching or preaching because there will be no anointing from the Spirit of God and it will eventually fail. My Bible says that unless the Lord builds the house, those that build it labor in vain (Ps 127:1). So if God wants to use a woman, we better bow to the wisdom of God and keep our mouth closed while we learn. Please learn the lesson that people try to only apply to women, learn in silence and we might be amazed at what God says through a woman.
We could go through the Bible from the beginning to the end to find that women play an essential part of the design of God’s purpose for humans. God promises the first woman that it will be a woman and her seed that will bruise the head of Satan with her heel. Wow, that sounds significant. Then at the end of the Bible we find a “Wonder Woman” standing on the moon which is a symbolic representation for Satan with her heels on top. Wow, again! We are seeing that God chose to use a woman to do this job!
Then read through the rest of Bible in between Genesis and Revelation and you will find other women used by God for very significant purposes. To name a couple notice Esther. Without her fulfilling her purpose to become a Gentile king’s wife, there would probably be no nation of Israel. A woman was the center character used by God to accomplish this. Then without Ruth a Gentile Moabite who decided to have faith to leave her nation to join in covenant with her mother-in-law to move to Bethlehem, there may have not been a Grandmother to King David. Read the account about Deborah who was one of the Judges (rulers) during the book of Judges. These are just a few of the women that are noteworthy to from. But there are other noteworthy women of faith like Sarah. Sarah was directly mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11, the Hall of Faith of noteworthy examples of Old Covenant people.
CONCLUSION
Let us review our key verse again that causes many to stumble in the light of what we have just read from other parts of the Bible:
1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
Let me ask you again, how can a woman keep silent and still prophesy? She can’t! How can a woman teach other women in the church and still keep silent? She can’t! Did you know the word translated as “usurp authority over” is only in the entire Bible this one time in this verse and no other places? According to Strong’s it means “a worker” who acts of themselves. Do you know this is wrong for anyone to do regardless of gender? To act of yourself means to be self-appointed and self-sufficient. This means to promote yourself and raise your own ability to a level above where you should be. Men are guilty of this more than women are guilty of it. So I do not know of any verse in the Bible that says that a woman cannot be called by God, appointed by God, promoted by God and made to be a blessing to others in the church? Today, God has already raised up and promoted several women in the church with large ministries that are way beyond many of the ministries of men on the earth. So please, let us become wise and recognize God’s perspective of truth and please LORD, help me not to judge the message given by the gender of the person delivering the message. Help me LORD, to study what is taught and just see if what is said was what You said in your Word! Help me to learn to see people as You see people and I believe You will be able to cause Your servants to stand or fall.
I’ll end this Bible lesson with an important instruction that God gave to one man and you see if it is something that applies to you also today:
1Sa 16:7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
Please do not become legalistic and bound by laws of limitations that put God in a box that claims a woman is unable to be used by the Almighty. Thank you for reading, studying and leaving me a comment if you care to. I love you all and I pray for all my readers that He will give unto you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Amen.
Understanding the Book of Job? An overview of what it is and what it is not! Part 3
(Ver 2.1) This is Part 3 in a series of advanced Bible study lessons on understanding the book of Job. I have been attempting to give you some new perspectives on the meanings behind the book of Job by showing you how it fits into other verses found in the Bible. Only by using the Bible to interpret the Bible can we really see what God says in any other part of the Bible. If we attempt to interpret a verse, chapter or book in isolation, we are forced to rely on our own opinions and natural thoughts to figure out what it all means. But, I have noticed while studying the Bible that God was not stupid, He didn’t leave us in the dark with us trying to figure out what He said. However, I believe that we are required to search and dig deep in order to find out what His definitions and comments are on the subjects that we are studying. God says the natural man receives not the things written by the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14). So, if you do not understand the Bible, it is because you are either not saved or it is simply just the fact that you are thinking naturally. So if you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1” since I cannot repeat everything I teach in each lesson. What I have been trying to emphasize in these lessons is the fact that God is the originator of blessings and that Satan is the author of the curses encountered in this world. What I haven’t taught is why this transpires.
I will briefly make an attempt at a quick explanation of the origination of good and evil in the world before I continue with Job. When Adam was created, God placed Adam in the Garden with his wife and told Adam that he may freely eat from every tree except one. Everything created by God called “very good” by God’s own admission. There God did not create anything evil, bad or harmful and Adam knew only the goodness of God. There was one tree called symbolically the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that God say do not eat from. God told Adam that the day that he ate from this tree he would surely die. I personally know that this was a symbolic tree that represted a hidden spiritual reality because of what I have studied and found that the Bible says in other parts. In the past I did a couple of lessons on this subject and if you are interested you can read them by going to “Does Eating Fruit Kill You?”. I will not attempt to repeat these lessons here, but I will tell you that Adam made the wrong choice. Isn’t it funny how we keep coming back to people making choices in the world? If you recall I told you that Job made some wrong choices that opened the door for Satan to come in and attack him. These choices of Job involved wrong spoken words, wrong believing, fear, and no peace or rest. This attack of Job was a repeated pattern found from when Adam was given a choice by God and made the wrong selection to let Satan into this world. Adam’s choice resulted in him knowing the evil of Satan’s power. Adam already knew the blessings of God so this was nothing new. It was only Satan and evil that Adam gained or obtained by letting Satan into the world. So if God gave Adam a choice, he must also give every man the same choice after Adam. God does not control the choices of men. God gives each man the freewill to make their own selections. Job therefore had a choice between blessings and cursing. Job allowed Satan to continue working evil in his life. Both Adam and Job experienced the loss of children. I’m sure that both men regretted their decisions, but yet it was too late to take them back.
In the first two lessons on Job, I went through chapter 1, verses 1 through 19 on all of the bad things that happened in rapid succession to Job and his family. I also spent time in trying to reveal the actions that opened the door for Satan to attack Job. It is obvious to me that this was a staged planned attack by Satan to take away everything that God had blessed him with. So what was Job’s reaction? That is where we are going to start today?
Job 1:20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
Job goes into a state of mourning and anguish; after all he just lost all of his children. I do not know of any normal parent that loses their children that is not devastated. To tear your clothing is a sign of sorrow, to shave your head is sign of mourning but, then Job still worships God. This is one of the only good things that Job still does and it describes why he was blessed by God in the first place. What we will find by reading is that even after all that has happened to Job, he does not turn against his God. If you learn any lesson from Job you should learn this lesson, always stay on God’s side no matter what happens to you. If you blame God and start to curse God, you are just digging your hole much deeper. God did not kill Job’s kids, Satan did. You see in the Bible it says this about kids:
Psa 127:3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
What would it mean to be a reward? Children are clearly blessings from God. I told you earlier if God blesses you with children and then kills them to take them away, His house is divided. God would be both the author of the blessings and the author of the curses. How would you ever follow a God who was so crazy and inconsistent? I’m sorry but I could not. I also tried to teach you that the Bible says God is a constant and does not change. These verses prove that God is not the give of life and the destroyer of life simultaneously or God would have to change to do each. God is truly only a giver of life and the devil is the taker of that life, but only by the allowed access of man’s choices do either happen. So let’s see what Job was saying after all of this occurs to him and his family:
Job 1:21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
Here we have the famous classic Bible verse widely used at many funerals. This is clearly a misguided application of the words of a man in sorrow. If you just lost 10 kids, what would you be saying? I am probably going to get some ignorant Christians mad at me, but I am going to tell you that not everything you read in the Bible is true. These words of Job are truly in the Bible. These words of Job were truly spoken by Job. However, both of these facts together do not make his words the truth. Job was a man without a church, a man without a Bible, a man without a spiritual leader or a pastor and a man who tried to blindly follow his God the best that he knew how to do under these circumstances. It is true that Job had heard about God, but yet at this point in time no one knew that much about God. God had not yet given man any written words to read about Him and to learn from. The only words that Job could have had are the past experiences of Adam and the other descendants of Adam. So why would you think that anything that Job says came from directly from God? Did God come to Job and say I took your kids? I took your possessions? Did God say this or did Job say this? What people say out of their limited state of knowledge and ignorance can be what they believe whole heartedly to be the truth; however, does that ever make it the truth because they believe it to be the truth? Nowhere in this chapter does it ever say that God took anything from Job, only Job says this.
Here is where I should briefly discuss the fact that the Bible says that the Word of God was given by inspiration of the Holy Ghost (2 Tim 3:16). The Greek word in this verse literally means the Bible was God breathed. However, that does not mean everything in the Bible is true. It is like watching the evening news on TV, the newsman is speaking and telling you things and events that were reported to happen that day, but does that mean everything that he says is the truth because it is on the news? What if a news man quotes another man that says “I did not have sex with that intern”. Does that make it the truth because it was on the news? Obviously we learned that it does not. This is the way the Bible was also written. There are quotes in the Bible from men that were clearly ignorant or intentionally lying. For example, in Acts 5, there was a man named Anainias and his wife that fall down dead for lying to the Holy Ghost. Is what they said recorded in book of Acts the truth? Again, obviously not. I hope you can begin to see the struggle with reading the words of men in the Bible versus reading the words of God that were given to men. If the Bible says “Thus saith the Lord” you can count it being the truth. If the Bible says “thus saith Job” you are going to have great difficutly in convincing me this is the complete truth and I talk about this more in a minute.
Let’s talk briefly now about a hedge and the reason for a hedge to even exist. Chapter 1 of Job clearly says that God had placed a hedge of protection around Job. Therefore, who was God protecting Job from? There are only two reasons to build a fence. You do realize this yes? First, you only need a fence around your property if there are animals, enemies or things that can come in and steal from you or hurt you. Second, the only other reason to build a fence is to keep something in, like a prison. I personally believe that both of these were true based upon my knowledge of the Bible. I mean this is not rocket science; you just have to use your brain and think a little bit. So let’s talk more about the first reason on keeping someone out. Who is God guarding Job from? It has to be from Satan! Satan is a created spiritual being and he is capable of coming and going from the earth back and forth to the spiritual realm in heaven. Satan is free to come and go and Job is not. Job is definitely hedged into the earth’s natural and has never seen God or been to heaven. For that matter Job has never seen Satan either, so clearly there is a hedge that prevents this view. So what is a hedge by God’s definition? This is where it really starts to get more interesting. You see our definition is usually not’s God’s definition. This word hedge is only found 3 times in the whole O.T. This Hebrew word occurs twice in the book of Job and I personally believe this second usage of the word was the key to the definition:
Job 10:11 Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.
Let’s briefly discuss the context of this verse. Job is speaking and he is describing his body and God’s intelligent design of it. Notice what Job says, Job is telling us that he is clothed with a body and that this body of flesh and bones is a “fence” around him. The Hebrew word translated as “fence” is the exact same Hebrew word that was translated as “hedge’ in chapter 1. Wow, I find that fascinating. This is what we discover happening when Adam sinned. God clothed Adam with a coat of skin. Pay close attention to the fact that the body as described is not Job nor Adam, but rather they were actually the spirit that is covered by the body. Isn’t this the definition of a hedge? To keep something in or to keep something out? What is Satan? Satan is a created spirit being. Satan is not allowed by God’s law to come into the natural realm to tempt or test as I taught in the first lesson. I believe that this physical body is our hedge of protection from the evil beings in the spirit realm. It is also our physical bodies that keeps us present in this world. But, I do not have time to fully expand that thought today in this lesson. It was simply an introduction to get you to think about something new. Think about this also, when Satan attacked Job, what did he attack? Did not Satan attack Job in the physical realm and not Job in the spiritual realm? Could Satan have hurt Job spiritually speaking? It is impossible to kill or hurt a spirit being, so Job was incabple of being harmed spiritually. Therefore, I believe that Satan attacked God’s designed hedge or protection that surrounded Job and this was the man’s body and his natural surroundings that he possessed. It certainly changes your perspective dramatically when thinking in these terms and I hope you are seeing them.
So let’s get back to the words of Job and what he said in chaoter 1 about the Lord taking and the Lord giving and determine if that is the truth or just his words. Do you understand that there are many accounts of people speaking in the Bible and some of these people are clearly ignorant and do not know what they are talking about. There are also many clear accounts of people who intentionally lie in the Bible as I just talked about found in Acts 5. Jesus taught us that Satan is the father of lies and the words of Satan are found throughout the Bible. Based upon the shear presence of lies being recorded in the Bible, do you understand how this information makes correct Bible interpretation more difficult? If it does not say “Thus Saith the Lord God” or the Words of Jesus in Red Letters, then you are taking the words that are potentially words of an ignorant man or woman and exalting them to the status of God’s words. Having said all of that there are Prophets of God who do speak God’s words, but even they sometimes quote Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar or someone else who does not speak for God. Correctly interpreting the Bible is not as easy as you think and it takes brains, thought, logic and seeing who is speaking, who they are talking to and then finally noticing exactly what they say.
So let me ask you this, is Job a prophet? Is Job speaking for God? I’ve been to too many funerals given by preachers who think that these are the Words of God Himself, just because they are written in the Bible. These are tough questions to answer based upon just the small parts that we have read so far. But let’s go to the end of the book of Job and see what opinion God has of the spoken words of Job. After all it really shouldn’t matter what you or I think about the Words of Job, it should really only matter what God thinks about his spoken words:
Job 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
As you can clearly see God is about to speak directly to Job and say something very significant to him. You should pay very close attention to the next words that do come out of the mouth of God and then go back and apply these to what Job said in chapter 1 about God taking things away from him:
Job 38:2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
God basically tells Job you do not know what you are talking about, so why do you open your mouth and speak any of these words. According to God Job is speaking empty words from an empty head. Therefore, we can clearly see that Job is confirmed by God to be ignorant! God says Job has no knowledge to speak in the areas that he is attempting to speak in. So should Job be saying anything at all? Or should Job being doing what most Christians in the world should be doing and listen to God in order to learn. Instead of running their mouths on the internet, many people need to hear what God is saying and go get some knowledge before they try to speak anything. There are virtually many chapters of Job and most of these verses are just the empty words of ignorant men who should not be talking. Yet we have a vast number of preachers who want to quote Job’s words at funerals as if God had spoken them. That is just more demonstrations of ignorance in action. I hope that if you learned anything today you learned the lesson of what God thought of Job’s spoken words.
Job 1:22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
We finally see what the last verse in chapter 1 says, after all of Job’s accusations of God stealing his possessions and killing his kids God says that Job did not sin nor charge God foolishly. You see what people do or say out of ignorance is often overlooked by God. Especially in the case where there is no written laws of God to follow. Since Job had no Bible and was doing the best that he could to figure out what was the right things to do, God overlooked his accusations. Let’s see a verse that is applicable to what is stated in Job:
Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
Clearly God says where there is not law there is no punishment for sins. The law brings wrath and the law permits punishment, and this is true in the natural realm as well as the spiritual realm. You see there was a time when child pornography was legal, but was it right? Absolutely not, but yet because of the lack of laws, no one could be convicted of this crime. It was only after laws were passed that now people are punished. Because, Job lived during the time where there were no Mosaic laws of God written, there was no punishment that God could bring if He wanted to. So Job did not transgress God’s laws even if he did not do or say everything right.
The next time you go to a funeral and they start to tell you how God took somebody, or their children, I hope that you can at least see this was not true. God is not the thief who kills, steals and destroys. The only two times I saw God take anyone in the Bible, God did not have to kill them to do it. Enoch the Bible says was translated and poof he was gone. Elijah was caught up in a chariot of fire and Elisha saw it happen. So these are the only two times in the Bible that God is said to have taken anyone up beside the raised from the dead Jesus Christ. If you can see somebody go up in a chariot of fire, then you can claim that God took them, otherwise do not accuse God of doing something that He did not do. God does not have to kill anybody to take them to heaven; many people will find this out the hard way before too long when Jesus appears for the catching away of the church. Then the dead in Christ will arise first and those that remain will be translated as Enoch and suddenly all disappear from the planet. What a vast confusion this event will cause all over the world.
I guess I should briefly mention the subject of God’s judgment. There are times in the Bible, like Noah’s flood or Sodom and Gomorrah that God is forced to exercise judgment upon the earth. What happens when God exercises judgment? In both cases, Noah and Lot the righteous were spared and the others perished completely. So why do people want to apply God’s judgment to Job? If Job was an unrighteous man and fell into judgment, he would not have been around at the end of the book. Do not confuse judgment with attacks from Satan. Satan does not have to ask permission to attack you, all he has to do is watch for you to open the door and Satan has learned he is now free to do to you what he can get away with. In the book of Job you find that Satan is presenting himself with the other angels to learn what is valid and what is not valid for him to do. Why is Satan being so careful? You see you may recall that there are other references in the Bible to the “sons of God”. In Genesis 6, before the flood, the sons of God are again referenced. This time the “sons of God” see the daughters of men and see that they are physically beautiful. These angels have physical sex with the human females and create races of giants on the earth. This results in a polluted mixture of men and angels and God says this was an illegal perversion of God’s laws and design. This was clearly an example of the angels crossing over the hedge. You can see that by reading this verse in 2 Peter:
2Pe 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
If God threw some angels into hell (but not all of them), they must have violated some spiritual law or done something that was very perverted. Having sex with natural women would be an example of this type of perversion. The angels are obviously ignorant of what is permissible and what is not permissible for them to do. So believing that Satan is appearing before God in Job chapter 1 to accuse Job and to find out what is permissible makes perfect sense to me. Satan has certainly seen that some of his angels were already cast into darkness, locked up with spiritual chains. Do you understand that Satan must learn what is permissible and what is not? So I have gone long enough in this lesson for today and I have given you many new things to think about. I appreciate greatly your time in studying the Bible and if you have any comments or question about anything I have taught, please do not hesitate to leave me a comment. God Bless.
If you would like to continue to read in this series about Job, please go to “Part 4“.
Understanding the Book of Job? An overview of what it is and what it is not! Part 2
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 2 in a series of lessons on understanding the book of Job. The book of Job is a very tough book of the Bible to understand using just the reasoning found within your human mind. If you have not read this series from the beginning, I would highly recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1”. Too many Christians want to put themselves into the role of a Job because of all of the bad things that have happened to them and they find some peace or reason to help explain their situations in life. They use Job to help explain what is going on in their lives, because they think if God can test Job, then he must be testing me also. They want to see themselves as a Job being tested by God and this somehow makes them feel worthy of the bad things that have occurred. After all they think that God sent all of these evil things that were occurring in Job’s life to test him. That would be great if that was really what the Book of Job actually said, but that is just someone’s misinterpreted view of the book of Job and that does not make it the truth. Nevertheless, this view is widely taught this way and that is exactly the way Satan wants it to be taught. You see as long as you think that it is God sending you the curses of life you will have to accept them and just be patient until God changes His mind to bless you. You do understand the difference between blessings and curses? It is the difference between day and night and good and evil. Blessings are good and curses are evil. As you read the book of Job you need to figure out first who sends good things into your life and who sends the bad things to hurt you. If you think that God sends them all, you are sadly deceived and playing into the hands of Satan. Here is what my Bible says about God:
Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
So as you can see God is the sender of every Good and Perfect gift into your life. Then who sends the evil bad curses into your life, do they also come from heaven above? You see you cannot conclude that they do, because this verse also says God does not change. If there is not any shadow of turning in God, then God is not blessing you today and cursing you tomorrow. God is not having full confidence in you today and testing you tomorrow. This is so absolutely important for you to see and to understand. God already knows the future, he does not have to test you to know what you are going to do, He already knows. Whenever Christian think that God tests them, they automatically think that God is stupid and does not know the outcome. The Bible says that God makes known the end from the beginning, so he must already know the end. Do you get it?
The story of Job is a story of God’s blessings and Satan’s curses. If you confuse the two roles you are just going to be deceived. If you recall, we have already looked at the first 12 verses of the book of Job. Job was said to be an upright righteous man blessed of God with tremendous wealth. This is what God is guilty of doing for Job. Satan sees the hedge of protection that God has placed around Job and his family and Satan starts to look for ways into Job to force God into lowering the hedge of protection. I showed you that Satan is called the “accuser” of the people of God in Revelation 12. Suddenly Satan appears in heaven and starts the legal accusation process. God is a God who holds all power and all knowledge. God is an omnipotent God and only He sees the future. But just because God is all powerful, too many Christians want to think that God controls everything that happens in the world. This results in a “No Fault” Christian religion. In other words no matter what happens to me in life, it is not my fault. This makes it all God’s fault. People like to think that when good things happen to them it is God’s blessings, but when bad things happen to them that it is just God’s tests and trials. However, I showed you in Deuteronomy where God says I set before you life and death and blessings and curses, now you choose life. So it would appear that God places the choice for both life and blessings in the hands of men on the earth. But, here is Job’s problem, he didn’t have Deuteronomy to read and he certainly didn’t have the book of Revelation to read. Job is flying in the game of life blindly, by the seat of his pants trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. This is Job’s greatest weakness, his ignorance. In Hosea 4:6 the Bible tells us clearly why God’s people are destroyed and it declares that it is for their lack of knowledge. If only Job had possessed the correct knowledge Satan would not have been able to make inroads into his life. This is what I am attempting to teach you about so that you do not fall into the same mistakes as Job. There is a popular quote that says those that fail to learn the past are destined to repeat it. Are you learning anything from God and Job yet? We are about to see that ignorance is what it is that is controlling what is happening to Job. So let’s continue our Bible study of this valuable book:
Job 1:13 And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:
This verse reveals that the children of Job have not changed their ways. They are still party animals and are in the process of having fun and fulfilling their fleshly desires. Here we find out that these are not young kids, for the eldest has a house of his own. At the least the eldest doesn’t live with dad Job anymore and it could be that every kid had their own house.
Job 1:14 And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them:
What we are beginning to see is the power of Satan being made manifest that God describes to us in verse 12. It is funny how a messenger is spared in each case to come tell Job of the bad news. It is also interesting to note that before one messenger stops speaking another shows up with more bad news. So you can see the rapid progression of simultaneous events. Let’s continue reading and see what happens:
Job 1:15 And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
Do you see how Satan works? Satan does not come into this world and steal your stuff from you personally. Satan uses people in this world to steal your stuff from you. This is the only legal course that Satan can take. The Bible says there has no temptation overtaken you except that which is common to man (1 Cor 10:13). The words “common to man” means “in the natural course of things”. In other words it is illegal for Satan to tempt you supernaturally. But, the Greek word translated as “temptation” also means “to test”. Job is being tested, but it is certainly not God that is doing it. The Bible says in James 1:13, “Let no man say when he is tested that I am tested of God, for God cannot be tested with evil and neither does God test any man”. I changed the words that were translated as “tempted” to “tested” because that is what the word means in the Strong’s. Look it up for yourself, if you do not believe me. Prove all things and then hold fast to those that are true. The story of Job is definitely the testing of Job and how Job survives it using his patience and the grace of God. But, James says God does not test men, so God clearly had nothing to do with the tests of Job. Do you understand this? If you do we can continue, if you do not you should go back and reread James a couple of hundred times until you get it.
Job 1:16 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
It seems that the messengers just keep coming and bringing more and more bad news. God gets blamed for something in this verse that He did not do. This still happens today. People call earthquakes and hurricanes acts of God. These clearly destroy things and kill people and take away human life. Is this the God that you serve? It is not the God that I serve. My Bible says that God is Love! Love does not bless you today and take it all away tomorrow. That doesn’t make any sense for our God to do that. One of the most important verses in the Bible is John 10:10 and it clearly describes God’s role and Satan’s role in the world.
Joh 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
This verse sound like a major problem for the God is testing us theory. What is the major difference being described to us in this verse? Who is the speaker and who is he speaking about? Jesus (God in the flesh) is speaking here to us personally and He said I came that you might have life and that life more abundantly. Now using this information if you try to say that God sends hurricanes on the earth when someone dies; then somebody lied when they wrote the Bible. Do you think that Jesus lied or was He just confused about His role with the Father God? God the Son came to Give us Life; but God the Father sends storms that will kill you. Would this mean that God’s house is divided? Is God opposed to Himself? Which one is God doing, giving life or killing you? What did Jesus say about a house divided? If God gives life to people and kills people this is a Dr Jekyll and a Mr Hyde type of God and that is clearly a problem to me. You better go and study your Bible a lot more before you accuse God of sending storms to kill people.
Job 1:17 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
Again we see another example of how Satan can influence people to come and attack you, steal from you and do you harm. So here we get to some of the most devastating news:
Job 1:18 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:
Job 1:19 And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
A strong wind from the wilderness; what is that? That sounds like a tornado if you ask me. I do not know of any stronger wind on this planet than one of these forces of nature. Can Satan cause one of these to occur? It would appear from reading this story that he can. The force of the wind was directed at the house of the eldest brother, was this a coincidence? It cannot be a coincidence given the sequence of events that have just transpired in rapid succession. The odds for all of these events occurring to Job in that short of time are astronomically impossible. You talk about bad luck; it seems that Job has just hit the bad luck lottery. Here we are just 19 verses into Job and most of his possessions are taken, his children killed and this all in the matter of minutes.
I am going to stop with chapter 1 and 2 and skip ahead in the book of Job to show why this is occurring and what Job did to open the door for Satan to do it to him. You see if you begin to understand things in the Bible, you can apply what you learn in other places to help you better understand places like Job. What we will do is see if Job gives us any clues to what choices he made in order to choose the curses instead of the blessings. What we are going to do is look for what Job did and not focus on what you think God did or did not do. So let’s skip forward and read the last 3 verse of chapter 3 and learn what Job says about what just happened:
Job 3:24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.
Job 3:25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
Job 3:26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.
Amazingly enough there are some critical clues in these three verses. These verses taken in light of other verses in the Bible clearly demonstrate where Job missed it and allowed Satan to have access to his life and his family. Let’s see what he says.
Verse 24 speaks of Job’s” roarings like water”, what is that? What happens when a lion roars? It is making vocal sounds. Well this is a clue that Job was running his mouth too much. What is water a symbol of in the Bible? The N.T. tells us that we are made clean by the washing of the water of the word (Eph 5:26). So water must represent God’s spoken words in this verse. God speaks words that can make us clean, so what kind of words does the enemy Satan speak? I believe these are words that make us dirty. So what kind of words are you speaking?
Pro 18:4 The words of a man’s mouth are as deep waters, and the wellspring of wisdom as a flowing brook.
So Words are Water! I do not have time to teach you everything that the Bible says about words in this lesson but you can go read my other lessons on this subject. In James God tells us that our mouths are like water from fountains and asks can a fountain bring forth fresh water and salt water at the same time? No it cannot, but it can either bring forth only fresh water or it can also bring forth the fresh mixed with the bitter undrinkable salt water. It would appear to me to be a choice to which one that you allow your mouth to bring forth. I will tell you very plainly that I believe your spoken words are Satan’s number one access into your life. If you say the wrong things, you open the door for Satan to waltz right in and use his power to steal, kill and destroy you. You in effect give him orders that allow his work to be accomplished. It is like a spiritual permission slip that is granted to him. Let me help to prove what I just said using the Bible to back it up:
Pro 6:2 Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.
Proverbs teaches us some very powerful lessons on the words that we speak. This is one of the most powerful lessons to learn found in this verse. God clearly tells us that we are “snared” or “taken” captive by the words of our mouth. To be “snared” or “taken” captive means to be imprisoned, enslaved, or to be trapped into something or somewhere that you do not want to be. Do you understand this? It is like falling into a pit and you did know was there. So is Job facing a situation that he did not want to be in? Of course he is, Job has been trapped or tricked into a series of things that were clearly not what he desired to happen to him. What happens to Job is based upon Job’s spoken words first and foremost, but that is not the entire problem revealed to us. Let’s look at the next verse in chapter 3.
In verse 25 of chapter 3, Job says that the thing that I feared the most has come upon me. That which I was greatly afraid of has over taken me. People, who do not understand faith in the Bible, do not know what Job has just told us. The Bible in the N.T. tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). So why is faith so important to God? And then what is faith so that we can please God? Again I cannot teach you the answers to either of these questions fully in this blog. It would take way too long. I can only begin to tell you what faith is not in this blog. Faith is not fear. Faith is not being afraid. In fact fear is the opposite of faith. If you would like to read about “Understanding Bible Faith” then you can go to this series of lessons that will better explain why Job failed. Fear opens up the door for Satan to cause what you are afraid of to come to pass in your life. Faith opens the door for God to bless you and fear opens the door for Satan to curse you. This is how the whole Bible works and it is a common theme from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.
Finally in Job verse 26 of chapter 3 we see more of the problem being described to us. To be in faith means to be in peace, but yet Job was in fear so he was definitely not peaceful and resting. The Bible says that to those who have believed they have entered into rest (Heb 4:3). When you have faith in God you can rest that he will do what He has promised. This is also having peace in your spirit. Job did not have this, so Job was open to the attack of Satan. Job was constantly in fear and was worried about his children and offered sacrifices to help his children and Job did this continually provring he was not in faith believing that it was working. This is not peace or rest, it is works based and the Bible says that no man is ever justified by his works.
Did you know that in any court of this land, you cannot go in and plead ignorance? Ignorance is never a valid reason for committing a crime. I’m sorry judge I didn’t know driving 140 was illegal. So it is with God’s spiritual laws. Just because you do not understand faith, spoken words, peace and rest does not mean you can get away with not doing them. You can clearly see that Job’s problem was at least 3 fold. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut; he was in fear for his family and finally he did not have any confidence in God’s ability so he could not rest. These are just Bible basics that God has hidden in the Word of God so that we can find them. We can also clearly see why God said everything that he possesses is in your power. It was Job’s own words and actions that open the door for Satan to come in. I would strongly suggest if you do not know much about faith and spoken words that you go study these two subjects extensively. If you can understand these, then you can clearly see how Job let Satan into his life. Then you can apply the lessons of Job to understand this is also how you let Satan have access to your life. So it is a vitally important subject to learn. I have gone too long in this lesson, so I’ll end it right here. I pray that you will continue reading in the next lesson so that we can learn some more from the book of Job. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading this series you can continue with “Part 3“.
Understanding the Book of Job! An overview of what it is and what it is not! Part 1
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 of a series about understanding the Book of Job. The book of Job is a highly controversial book of mostly confusing information. The book of Job has been widely given the theme of patience and we see this mentioned in the New Testament book of James. This reference in James is the only time Job is mentioned by name in the N.T. The name Job is mentioned only 54 times and mostly just in the book of Job. However, the name does occur in Genesis 46 and Ezekiel 14. The book of Job is primarily about the afflictions of Job. However, the initiator of the problems in Job’s life and the cause of the problems are widely misinterpreted. The book of Job is often quoted at funerals and this is another misapplication of the scriptures and I will probably get into these verses later. The first two chapters reveal the afflictions occurring to this righteous man and then starts the words of Job in chapter 3 in an apparent conversation with some of his friends that have come to tell him what to do and this continues for many chapters. The discourse between Job and his friends go back and forth and finally end when God comes into the conversation with some new information that shuts everyone up. The last chapter of Job ends with God’s blessings on him being restored more than he ever had before. Most Bible scholars agree that Job is probably the oldest book of the Bible. The timeframe of Job is probably somewhere between Noah and Moses since it does not refer to Israel, the Old Testament law or any reference to God’s covenant with Abraham. The author of Job is probably the man Job himself, but we do not know this for sure. There are several verses found in Job that reveal things to us that confirm that it belongs in the Bible and that it is the inspired information from the Spirit of God. So I will not attempt to do a verse by verse study of the entire book, there is just too much unknown information found in this book to do this. I will attempt to teach some key verses that I have seen and I will try to use other verses in the Bible to help us to interpret what we find in Job correctly. Always remember that the Bible interprets itself. Let’s start with verse 1:
Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
The first verse informs us where Job lived and what his nature and character was in the eyes of God. God calls the man Job a complete man, in other words a righteous man. He was humble and feared God and resisted evil. This is the type of man that God can stand behind as we will find out shortly.
Job 1:2 And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.
The man Job was married as we will also find out and he had 10 children. In the next verse we will see that the blessing of God were upon him.
Job 1:3 His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.
According to this verse Job was the greatest of all of the men of the east. This is strictly in terms of wealth and the blessings of God on his life. This is also a hidden hint to the reasons of things to come. If God’s blessing are on someone, he will get the attention of everyeone else physcially and spiritually speaking. When Satan sees the blessings of God upon Job, Job became a target. In verse 4 of Job 1, you can see that Job had problems with his children. They like to party, eat, drink and be merry. They were into having fun more than they were into work and doing right. This caused Job vast concern of what would happen to his children. This is the introduction to what Job worried about the most.
Job 1:5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.
So Job does some things that I find very interesting. His kids have stopped their partying and Job is offering burnt offering for the number of his children to the Lord. Where does Job get the idea for this? I honestly do not know. As far as I know there is no law, no priests and there was no precedence for doing what he is doing. Is Job a priest of God? I do not know? We know from the N.T. that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (Heb 9:22). So Job was doing the right things, but where did he get this information? Plus was it doing any good since it was his children that were sinning and not him? This verse ends with the statement that Job did this continually so we assume that his kids were continually in a party mode. There is another scripture in the N.T. that I believe should be applied to this information we are given, and it goes like this “God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap” (Gal 6:7). What were Job’s children sowing? Will they reap what they sow regardless of what their father does? I believe God says they will.
Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
So here we go with another introduction to some highly confusing information. The book of Job seems to change dramatic focus from the earth to a place in heaven. The “sons of God” are the angels of God and this would include all angels, the good and the bad. This verse says Satan came with them like he is not included in the group of “sons of God”, but I totally disagree with that interpretation and I believe that Satan was their leader and the most high angel. You can see this by reading verses in Ezekiel 28:14 that describe Satan as the anointed cherub and the covering cherub. Then in Isaiah 14:12, Satan is called Lucifer, the son of the morning. Morning is the “Early Light” and since God is Light we can see that Lucifer is called an early son of God.
Job 1:7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
We are now told that Satan has come from the earth, so we know that he is not on the earth while he is holding this conversation with God. We also learn that Satan is not omnipresent. He must walk across the earth and go from place to place. We therefore know that Satan is not everywhere on the earth at once. However, we do not know how many angels that Satan has under his control on the earth so there may be many angels tormenting people simultaneously and not just Satan doing everything. However, many angels there are, the Bible says in Revelation 12 that 1/3 of them are fallen with Satan. There is also another reality given to us found in the N.T. that helps to explain what is happing to Job. In 1 Peter 5:8 God informs us that Satan is our adversary and he goes about as a roaring lion seeking who he may devour. Is this not exactly describing what is happening here in Job? Satan had just come from walking the earth and he came across Job. He is obviously the adversary of Job that God has hedged out. But, he is seeking to devour Job as we will see as we continue to read in this chapter. We learn from reading 1 Peter 5:8 that Satan is not able to devour everyone if he is seeking ways to do this. This indicates that Satan is not omnipotent and neither does he have direct access to anyone unless certain conditions are met to allow him to come in. Keep 1 Peter 5:8 in your mind as we continue to read about Job:
Job 1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
Why do you think that God brings up Job? I believe it is because God knows what you are thinking. God knows why Satan is there. Job is a spiritually righteous blessed man of God; there is none like him on the earth. In the eyes of God this is why Satan was there to contend for this man.
Job 1:9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
Satan starts to ask God questions about Job. Why does Satan ask this question? Does Job fear God for no reason or for nothing as he said to God? This sounds like a complaint or accusation to me.
Job 1:10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
Now we begin to see the problem that Satan has and why he is there to see God. Satan is questioning God’s authority to place a hedge of protection around Job and his family. You can clearly see what God is being accused of, the fact that God has blessed Job and given him great wealth and placed a spiritual wall of protection around him so that Satan could not touch him. What gives Satan the right to do this? That is an excellent question to consider, we know that Job’s children are living in sin in a constant state of partying. Job is continually offering sacrifices for his children who do not want sacrifices to be made or at least it appears that they do not care if they are made. The children of Job are not repentant or sorry for what they are doing, they are just being wild crazy rich kids who can get away with whatever they want, or so they think. We know that Satan is called the accuser of the brethren in the Revelation 12:10. This verse in Revelation says that Satan accuses the people of God on the earth both day and night. To accuse is a legal term that means “to charge with an offense”. You do understand that God is the ultimate supreme Judge of the Universe? Satan is the “Plaintiff” that brings accusations against righteous people before the Judge. So why does Satan do this? So these righteous people can be found guilty of violating the spiritual laws that God has established in the spiritual realm. Do you understand this? Satan is looking for a way into your life, he watches your every move, your every action, your every reaction and your every word to see what he can accuse you of doing that violates God’s laws. This is how it works until Revelation 12 comes around and Satan is cast down and he is no longer welcome to come into the heavenly realm to accuse us anymore.
Job 1:11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
So here is where it starts to get even more difficult to understand and to interpret correctly. Satan tells God to stretch His hand and touch all that he has and Job will curse God to His face. So is God the curser or was God the one that blessed Job? If you recall from reading earlier we know that God was the one that blessed Job and made him exceedingly wealthy. It was God who had placed the hedge of protection around him and his family so what would happen if God changes and does the opposite like Satan just said for God to do? If God does what Satan just said, then God becomes a liar. That is pretty strong words, but that is what the Bibles says:
Mal 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not;
According to the Bible, God is a constant never changing force of good. If God would have blessed Job and suddenly bent to the pressure from Satan to change and curse Job then God is guilty of changing. Do you understand that this is impossible? The Bible describes God as being Light. Do you know that the speed of light is a constant? The speed of light does not diminish or change it always stays the same. The distances of stars in our universe are measured in the terms of light years. A light year is the distance that light travels in the course of a year’s time. This is a constant value or we have a major problem on our hands. If you do not understand laws of physics and science about light and the speed of light, just fix your mind on God. If God blessed someone today and tomorrow takes it all away, then God changed and now God is a liar. That is a major problem with most people’s Bible interpretations, they interpret a book of the Bible like Job in a vacuum and ignore the rest of the Bible and this is not a valid interpretation. Here is another challenge for you to consider from something that God said in the book of Deuteronomy:
Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
If God sets before us life or death, blessing or cursing and says to us to choose between the two, whose fault is it which one we get? Uh oh? That is a problem isn’t it? It would appear that if Job got curses instead of blessings, then he made the wrong choices to cause them to occur. Do you understand this?
Job 1:12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
So we now have God giving permission, or so many people think it says. This however, is not what this verse says. Nowhere in this verse does it say you have won your case, I give you permission. People just read this into the statement because that is what they want to see that it says. All God said was “Behold” and that means look, open your eyes and see. Do you understand that? That is not a statement of permission; it is a directive for Satan to see what has already happened. You cannot behold something that is not already there. I mean God can see into the future, but Satan cannot. If Satan is told to see something it has to be something that he can already see. This is clearly not rocket science, so surely you can comprehend the simple words of the Bible. Then God tells Satan that all that Job has is in his power. Again this is not I give you the power; this is a simple statement that says you already have the power. There is such a huge difference between those two perspectives. The only thing God does is limit what Satan can do and this was not to touch Job. So God was guilty of still trying to protect his righteous man Job. God never gives Satan permission to do anything. God simply said you already have the right to do what Job has chosen.
So who is the author of destruction? Who causes death and tornadoes? We will find out in our next lesson about the story of Job. I hope that you will join me as I continue with this series of very different Bible lessons. Thanks for your time and your comments. God Bless.
If you would like to continue reading in this series you can go to “Part 2“.
Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of the Church in the Bible
(Ver 2.2) This is my list of the Names, Titles, Descriptions, Types and Symbols for the Church of Jesus Christ. If you are a Christian, this document helps to describe who you are and your place in the Kingdom of God. This is a living document of references to God. It will change and be updated as I find additional scriptures. A Name is a direct reference to the Church. A Title is a given direct identifying appellation signifying status or function. A Description is something that represents something in words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a spiritual individual not named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes characteristics or features of a spiritual being you cannot see.
If you have found others that I may have not included yet, please share them in a comment. Thank you and God bless you in advance.
words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a pattern of the spiritual individual not directly named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes the characteristics or features of a spiritual being that you cannot see or understand without first understanding the symbol. If you know of other references not named, please share them with me in a comment. Thank you.
|
Name, Title, Symbol, Type for the Church |
Description |
Scripture Reference |
|
12 Tribes |
New Covenant People in Jesus originating in His 12 Apostles, the fulfilment of Jacob’s 12 sons. |
James 1:1; |
|
Abraham’s Seed |
Those with Abraham’s type of Faith |
Gal 3:29; |
|
Babes |
Newborn (born again) Children of God |
Mat 11:25; Luke 10:21; |
|
Beloved |
The Bride of Christ |
Rom 9:25; 2 Ths 2:13; |
|
Blessed of My Father |
The Sheep of God’s Pasture |
Mat 25:34; |
|
Body, His |
Those married in Covenant to Christ |
Eph 1:23; Col 1:24; |
|
Body, the |
Those who are in Christ |
Eph 5:23; |
|
Body of Christ |
She Who is Joined and one with Christ |
Rom 7:4; 1 Cor 10:16, 12:27; Eph 4:12; Col 2:17 |
|
Born Again |
Those who are new Children of the Spirit |
John 3:3-6; 1 Pet 1:23; |
|
Born of God |
Children of the Spirit |
1 John 3:9, 4:7, 5:1, 4, 18; |
|
Born of Him |
Born Again of the Spirit |
1 John 2:29; |
|
Bride |
Married to Jesus |
John 3:29; Rev 21:2, 9; |
|
Bridechamber, Children of the |
Those married in covenant to the bridegroom (Jesus) |
Mat 9:15; |
|
Brother |
Sibling of eldest brother Jesus Christ |
Mat 10:50; Rom 8:29; Heb 2:11, 17; |
|
Called, the |
Those chosen by God |
Rom 1:6, 8:30, 9:24; 1 Cor 1:24; |
|
Candlestick |
Lights in the dark World |
Rev 1:20; |
|
Chosen |
Those people that have embraced the Calling of God to follow Jesus |
Jam 2:5; |
|
Chosen Generation |
Highly Favored People |
1 Pet 2:9; |
|
Children |
Sons and daughters of God |
Rom 8:17; |
|
Children, Dear |
Those dearly Loved by God |
Eph 5:1; |
|
Children of Abraham |
A Spiritual family type of Israel |
Gal 3:7; |
|
Children of God |
Born of the Spirit |
Mat 5:9; Rom 8:16, 21; Gal 3:26; 1 Jn 3:10; |
|
Children of Israel |
Spiritual Nation of God’s people |
Exo 19:6; Hos 2:23; |
|
Children of Light |
God is Light, those who are His children |
Luk 16:8; John 12:36; Eph 5:8; 1 Th 5:5; |
|
Children of the Day |
Those walking in the Light of God |
1 Th 5:5; |
|
Children of the Free Woman |
A type of the promised child born to Sarah, those who are reborn from the spiritual woman Jerusalem Above |
Gal 4:31; |
|
Children of the Living God |
Those Born of the Spirit |
Rom 9:26; |
|
Children of the Kingdom |
Those Who Belong to God’s Kingdom |
Mat 13:38; |
|
Children of the Promise |
Children of God’s Spoken Word |
Rom 9:8, Gal 4:28; |
|
Chosen |
Those Favored by God |
Eph 1:4; 2 Ths 2:13; |
|
Christ |
Those with God’s Anointing and Jesus in their Hearts |
2 Cor 6:15; |
|
Christian |
A Believer in Christ |
Acts 26:28; 1 Pet 4:16; |
|
Christians |
Followers of Christ |
Act 11:26; |
|
Church, Glorious |
Noble and Honorable |
Eph 5:27; |
|
Church, My |
Those Who Belong to God |
Mat 16:18; |
|
Church of Christ |
Those who Belong to Jesus |
Rom 16:16; |
|
Church of God |
Called Out by God |
Act 20:28; 1 Cor 1:2, 10:32; 2 Cor 1:1; |
|
Church of the Firstborn |
Those gathered in and with Christ Jesus the Firstborn from the dead |
Heb 12:23; |
|
Circumcised Heart |
God’s children that have been circumcised by the hand of the Spirit |
Rom 2:29; Php 3:3; Col 2:11; |
|
City |
The home of God within His people |
Mat 5:14; Rev 21:23; |
|
City, Faithful |
She who will be a faithful wife to God’s Covenant |
Isa 1:26; |
|
City of My God |
Where God Resides; |
Rev 3:12; |
|
City of Righteousness |
Those abiding with God who is their righteousness |
Isa 1:26; |
|
City of the Lord |
Those of the New Jerusalem |
Isa 60:14 |
|
City Not Forsaken, A |
Those pursued by God |
Isa 62:12; |
|
Daughter of Jerusalem |
The Church who is reborn by the Spirit of God, His Word and the woman Heavenly Jerusalem |
Mic 4:8; Zep 3:14; Zec 9:9; Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22; |
|
Daughter of Zion |
She who is Born of God |
Isa 52:2, 62:11; Mat 21:5; Heb 12:22; |
|
Disciple |
The Student of God |
Mat 10:24-25; |
|
Ekklesia (Church) |
A Calling Out |
Mat 18:17; Act 2:47; Rev 22:16; |
|
Elect, The |
Those Chosen of God |
Mat 24:31; |
|
Faithful Brethren in Christ |
Those married to Christ |
Col 1:2; |
|
Fellow Citizens |
Residents of the City of God |
Eph 2:10; |
|
Fellow Heirs |
Joint heirs together of God’s Kingdom |
Eph 3:6; |
|
Fellow Servant |
Working Together in Unison |
Rev 22:9; |
|
Field, His |
God’s Garden |
Mat 13:24; |
|
Flock of God |
Those in God’s Pasture |
1 Pet 5:2; |
|
Followers |
Those that that imitate the Godly examples of others |
1 Cor 11:1; |
|
Followers of God |
Led By the Spirit |
Eph 5:1; |
|
Friends |
Jesus Laid Down His Life for Us |
Jn 15:13-14; |
|
General Assembly |
Universal Congregation |
Heb12:23; |
|
Glory and Honor of the Nations |
Where God Resides |
Rev 21:26 |
|
Good Soldier of Jesus Christ |
Those in God’s Army |
2 Tim 2 :3; |
|
Great City |
She Who is Mighty and Strong |
Rev 21:10; |
|
Ground, Good |
The Good Soil of the Kingdom of God |
Mat 13:23; |
|
Habitation of God |
The New Jerusalem God’s City of Living Stones |
Eph 2:22; |
|
Heir(s) |
He Who Inherits |
Rom 8:17; Gal 3:29; Gal 4:1; Tit 3:7; 1 Pet 3:7; |
|
Heirs according to the Promise |
Those who inherit |
Gal 3:29 |
|
Heirs of God |
Those Who Inherit |
Rom 8:17; Gal 4:7; |
|
Heirs of Promise |
Those who inherit by an oath |
Heb 6:17; |
|
Heirs of Salvation |
Those that inherit the Kingdom of God |
Heb 1:14; |
|
Heirs of the Kingdom |
Those that inherit the Kingdom of God |
Jam 2:5; |
|
Holy City |
He has made her clean and ready |
Isa 52:1; Rev 21”2; |
|
Holy Jerusalem |
Blameless City of Jehovah |
Revn 21:10; |
|
Holy Nation |
Blameless People |
Exo 19:6; 1 Pet 2:9; |
|
House, Christ’s |
The Dwelling of Christ Jesus |
Heb 3:6; |
|
Household of Faith |
Those in the Family of God by Faith |
Gal 6:10; |
|
Household of God |
Those in the Family of God |
Eph 2:19; |
|
Household, His |
Those in the Family of God |
Mat 10:25; |
|
House of God |
Where the Spirit of God Lives |
1 Tim 3:15; |
|
House of Israel |
The Spiritual Israel in Covenant with Jesus |
Eze 34:30; Heb 8:8 |
|
House of Judah |
The Spiritual Jews in Covenant with Jesus |
Heb 8:8 |
|
In Christ |
Those abiding in Jesus Christ |
Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 1:2, 3:1 15:22; 2 Cor 1:21, 2:14, 3:14, 5:17; Gal 3:28; Eph 2:6, 2:10, 2:13, 3:6; 2 Tim 3:15; |
|
Isaac |
The church called a type of the son of promise being in Christ |
Gal 4:28; |
|
Israel |
God’s people saved by Grace |
Rom 11:26; |
|
Jerusalem |
City Redeemed of the Lord |
Isa 52:2, 9; Dan 9:25; |
|
Jew |
Spiritual type of natural Israel; Circumcised of the Heart |
Rom 2:29; |
|
Joined Unto the Lord |
The Bride of Christ |
1 Cor 6:17; |
|
Joint-Heirs with Christ |
Those who Inherit |
Rom 8:17; |
|
Just, the |
Those Who are Blameless |
Mat 13:49; |
|
Kingdom of Priests |
Spiritual People |
Exo 19:6; |
|
Kings |
God’s Royalty |
Rev 1:6; |
|
Kings of the Earth |
Rulers of the Earth |
Rev 1:5, 21:24 |
|
Lamb’s Wife, the |
Married to Jesus |
Rev 21:2, 9; |
|
Light |
Those of the Day |
2 Cor 6:14; Eph 5:8; Php 2:15; |
|
Light of the World |
Those that Teach the Truth and demonstrate the Love of God |
Mat 5:14; |
|
Living Stone |
The New Jerusalem of God |
1 Peter 2:5 |
|
Members of Christ |
The Body of Christ |
1 Cor 6:1; |
|
More than Conquerors |
The church in Christ Jesus |
Rom 8:37; |
|
Mother |
Spiritual Mother of God |
Mat 12:50; Gal 4:19; Rev 12:1; |
|
Nation, A |
Those of Spiritual Israel |
Isa 55:5; |
|
Nations of Them Which are Saved |
The Redeemed of the Lord from every nation |
Rev 21:24; |
|
New Creature |
Those Born of the Spirit |
2 Cor 5:17; |
|
New Jerusalem |
The Lamb’s Wife |
Rev 3:12, 21:2; |
|
One |
One consisting of many in Christ |
Gal 3:28; Eph 1:10; |
|
One Body |
One With Christ by Marriage Covenant; |
1 Cor 10:17, 12:12; |
|
One Bread |
One With Christ by Covenant |
1 Cor 10:17; |
|
Partakers of His Promise |
Participants of the union with the Holy Spirit. |
Eph 3:6; |
|
Peculiar People |
Purchased Possession |
Tit 2:15; 1 Pet 2:9; |
|
People, A |
God’s Spiritual People |
Heb 8:10 |
|
People, Holy |
Those made blameless |
Isa 62:12; |
|
People, My |
Spiritual Nation of Israel |
Hos 2:23; Rom 9:25; |
|
People Israel, My |
Children Born of the Sprit |
Mat 2:6; |
|
Pillar in the Temple of My God |
Living Stone |
Rev 3:12; |
|
Precious Fruit of the Earth |
That Which is to Be Harvested |
Jam 5:7; |
|
Priests |
Those who bring the sacrifice of Praise to God |
Rev 1:6; |
|
Priesthood, Holy |
Those who bring the sacrifice of Praise to God |
1 Pet 2:5; |
|
Purchased (Possession) |
Those Bought with the Blood |
Act 20:28; |
|
Rachael |
The type of the Bride of God’s Week of Work |
Gen 29:18 |
|
Ransomed of the Lord |
Those Bought with the Blood of Jesus |
Isaiah 35:10; |
|
Redeemed of the Lord |
Those Purchased from the World of Darkness |
Psa 107:2; Isa 51:11; 62:12; |
|
Righteous, the |
Those Justified by God |
Mat 13:43; 1 Pet 3:12; |
|
Righteousness |
Those Justified by God |
2 Cor 6:14; |
|
Righteousness, Servants of |
Those who Serve God’s Purpose |
Rom 6:18; |
|
Royal Priesthood |
New Covenant Kings and Priests that praise and worship God |
1 Pet 2:9; |
|
Ruth |
A Type of the Bride of Christ |
Ruth |
|
Saints |
Sacred, Pure, Blameless |
Rom 1:7, 15:25, 16:15; 1 Cor 1:2, 16:1, 15; 2 Cor 1:1, 13:13; Eph 1:1, 2:19, 3:18, 4:12, 6:18; Php 4:22; Col 1:2; 1 Th 3:13; |
|
Saints In Christ Jesus |
Those blameless in Christ |
Php 1:1; |
|
Saints in Light |
Those blameless in God |
Col 1:12; |
|
Salt of the Earth |
Those who flavor and preserve |
Mat 5:12; |
|
Same Body, the |
Joined members of the same body |
Eph 3:6; |
|
Saved |
Those redeemed from Satan’s kingdom |
Rom 8:24; 1 Cor 15:2; 2 Cor 2:15; |
|
Seed, Abraham’s |
Those of spiritual Father Abraham |
Gal 3:29; |
|
Seed, Good |
Those planted by God |
Mat 13:38; |
|
Seed, the |
Those of the Promise of Abraham |
Rom 9:8; |
|
Servant |
Those in service to God |
Mat 10:24; |
|
Sheep |
Those in God’s Flock sorted at the right Hand of God |
Mat 25:33; Heb 13:20; 1 Pet 2:25; |
|
Sheep, My |
Those people dedicated to follow the Good Shepherd |
Jn 10:14; Jn 21:16 |
|
Sister |
The Sibling of Christ |
Mat 12:50; |
|
Sister Spouse |
Sister Married to Christ |
Song 4:9-10, 12; 5:1 |
|
Sons of God |
Those Born of the Spirit |
Jn 1:12, Rom 8:14, 8:19; Gal 4:6; Php 2:15; 1 John 3:1-2; |
|
Sons of the Living God |
Born of the Spirit |
Hos 1:10; |
|
Sought Out |
Those pursued by God |
Isa 62:12 |
|
Spiritual House |
The New Jerusalem God’s dwelling place |
1 Pet 2:5; |
|
Spouse |
The Bride of the Son of God Jesus |
Song 4:8, 11; |
|
Sweet Savor |
Pleasant aroma of Praise to God |
2 Cor 2:15; |
|
Tabernacle, the |
God’s Eternal Temple |
Rev 21:3; |
|
Temple of God, the |
God’s Dwelling Place |
1 Cor 3:16; |
|
Temple of the Holy Ghost, the |
God’s Holy Living City |
1 Cor 3:19; |
|
They which are written in the Lambs Book of Life |
The Church |
Rev 21:27; |
|
Tree, Good |
Those who produce Fruit of the Spirit |
Mat 7:17-18; |
|
Tree of the Field |
Those that bear fruit for God |
Eze 34:27; |
|
True Worshipper |
Those people in the Spirit |
Jn 4:23; |
|
Twelve Tribes, the |
The Spiritual Israel of God |
Jam 1:1; |
|
Vessels |
Those of the House in Honor |
2 Tim 2:20; |
|
Vessels of Mercy |
A saved human |
Rom 9:23; |
|
Way, the |
Believers walking and following the Good Shepherd in the narrow path of eternal life |
Gen 3:24; Mat 3:3; Mat 7:14; Act 9:2, Act 16:17; |
|
Wheat, the |
That which is planted by God for Harvest |
Mat 13:30; |
|
Wife |
The Church aka the Bride of Jesus |
Eph 5:25, 5:31-32; |
|
Woman, A |
The Bride of Christ |
Rev 12:1 |
|
Workman, A |
God’s faithful servants |
2 Tim 2:15; |
|
Zion, the |
Those of the New Jerusalem |
Isa 60:14; |
If you would like to read other reference documents about Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols here are some others that are available:
Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Jerusalem in the Bible
(ver 2.0) This is Part 4 in a series of reference documents revealing the multiple Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Spiritual Individuals in the Bible. This lesson will focus only on the subject verses describing Jerusalem found in the Bible. This is a living document of references to Jerusalem and it will change and be updated as I am led to additional scriptures. A Name is a direct reference to the individual. A Title is a given direct identifying appellation signifying status or function. A Description is something that represents the individual in expressive words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a pattern of the spiritual individual not directly named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes the characteristics or features of a spiritual being that you cannot see or understand without first understanding the symbol.
Jerusalem is a central subject of the Bible and the capital of Israel located in the Middle East today. Jerusalem is also a major city revealed in end time prophecy. This city has captured the attention of the entire world. Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible directly around 767 times and indirectly many other times. However, it is very important for you to know that there is more than one city named Jerusalem in the Bible. In fact there are 3 separate and distinct cities all with this exact name. Knowing this information complicates correct Bible interpretation significantly. You must be wise enough to know which Jerusalem God is talking about when you see the name “Jerusalem” by itself. You may be asking yourself what are these three cities named Jerusalem and I will give you a quick lesson on them:
- The Jerusalem that now is as revealed in Galatians 4:25 and in multiple other verses and the primary subject of this document.
- The Jerusalem Above revealed in Galatians 4:26 and is called the Heavenly Jerusalem in Hebrews 12:22.
- The New Jerusalem revealed as the Lamb’s wife in Revelation 3:12 and 21:2.
From these references you should be able to recognize the existence of three cities named Jerusalem. This document will primarily focus on the one reference of the Jerusalem on the earth that now is. If you have seen other verses that I have not found yet for Jerusalem, please share them with me in a comment. Thank you.
|
Name, Title, Symbol, Type for Jerusalem |
Description |
Scripture Reference |
| Abomination | Disgusting Idol Worshipper | Ezekiel 9:4; Ezekiel 16:2, 36, 51, 58; Ezekiel 22:2, 23:36; 33:29; Malachi 2:11; Revelation 17:4-5 |
| Adulteress | Unfaithful Wife | Jeremiah 3:1; Jeremiah 5:7; Ezekiel 16:32; Ezekiel 23:45; Hosea 3:1 |
| Afflicted | Depressed Woman | Isaiah 51:21 |
| Aholibah | My Tent is In Her; Whore | Ezekiel 23:4 |
| Ariel | The Symbolic Name of Jerusalem | Isaiah 29:1-7 |
| Babylon | The Whore | 1 Peter 5:13 |
| Bad City | Wicked City | Ezra 4:12 |
| Birthed in Land of Canaan | Where She was born | Eze 16:3; |
| Bloody City | Those that Kill the Prophets | Ezekiel 22:2, 24:6,9; Nahum 3:1 |
| Bond Woman | Spiritual Hagar Egyptian Slave | Galatian 4:24-25, 30-31 |
| Burdensome Stone | Load Carrier | Zec 12:3; |
| Castle of Zion | The Net or Snare of Zion | 1 Chron 11:5; |
| City | Inhabited by the Children of Israel | Judges 1:8; 2 Kings 23:27; Psalm 122:3; Zec 14:2; Jeremiah 26:9 |
| City, Chosen | Highly Favored of Jehovah | 1 Kings 11:36; 1 Kings 14:21; 2 Kings 23:27; 2 Chron 12:13 |
| City of a Stranger | Home of the Jebusites | Judges 19:12 |
| City of David | David the Great King’s City | 1 Kings 8:1; 2 Kings 9:28; 2 Kings 14:20’ 2 Kings 23:27; 1 Chron 11:5; 2 Chron 5:2; 2 Chron 21:20; Isaiah 22:9; |
| City, Faithful | She who is faithful to God | Isaiah 1:26; |
| City of Righteousness | The inhabitants have God’s righteousness | Isaiah 1:26; |
| City of the Great King | City of David | Matthew 5:35; |
| City of the Jebusites | Inhabited by the trodden | Judges 19:11; 1 Chron 11:4; |
| City Where David Dwelt | The City of David the King | Isaiah 29:1; |
| City Which Is Called By Thy Name | Married to Jehovah | Daniel 9:18; |
| City Which Killed Jesus our Lord | Those Who the shed Blood of God is On their Hands | Mat 16:21; Rev 11:8; |
| Covent Breakers | Those Who Broke Covent with God | Eze 16:59; Romans 1:31; |
| Curse, A | City which is cursed | Jeremiah 26:6; |
| Daughter | Female born of a woman | Ezekiel 23:2; |
| Daughter of an Amortie | Her Father was a Canaanitish Mountain Tribe; | Ezekiel 16:3, 45; |
| Daughter of a Hittite | Her Mother was a terrorist; Fear and Terror | Ezekiel 16:3, 45; |
| Desolate | Waste Land | Jeremiah 26:8 |
| Desolate City | Jerusalem laid waste | Eze 26:19 |
| Desolation | Waste Land | Zep 2:15; |
| Divorced Woman | She that was Put Away | Isaiah 50:1; Jeremiah 3:8; Hosea 2:2 |
| Dross | Backsliders; Those who draw back; Refuse of the furnace | Ezekiel 22:18-19; |
| Drunken | She Who is Drunk | Isaiah 51:21: Jeremiah 13:13; Ezekiel 23:33; |
| Egypt | Spiritual Name for Jerusalem; Where she played the Whore in Her youth | Hosea 11:1; Revelation 11:8 |
| Evil | Moral Wickedness | Jeremiah 25:5 |
| Evil Figs | The Spoiled Fruit | Jeremiah 24:8; |
| Family Know of God | She who was married to Jehovah | Amos 3:2; |
| Faithful City | She who was faithful in Marriage | Isaiah 1:21; |
| Filthiness | Not Gold; uncleanness | Ezekiel 16:36; Ezekiel 22:15; Zephan 3:1; Revelation 17:4 |
| Filthy | Disobedient and Rebellious | Zep 3:1; |
| Fornicator | Lover of Idols | 2 Chronicles 21:11; Ezekiel 16:15; |
| Fuel to the Fire | She which is consumed by the Lord | Ezekiel 21:32; |
| Gomorrah | Spiritual name of Jerusalem; | Isaiah 1:9-10; Jeremiah 23:14; |
| Great City | She which was Great | Jeremiah 22:8; Revelation 11:8; Revelation 17:18; |
| Hagar | The Egyptian Bond Woman; slave girl | Galatian 4:24-25 |
| Harlot | The unfaithful woman | Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 3:1: Ezekiel 16:15; Ezekiel 16:35, 41; Ezekiel 23:19;Ezekiel 23:44; Hosea 2:5; Hosea 4:15; |
| Harlot, Well-favored | Beautiful Adulteress | Nahum 3:4; |
| Heifer | Female Cow | Hosea 10:11 |
| Her with My Name | The Name of Jehovah shall be on her | 1 Kings 11:36; 1 Kings 14:21; 2 Kings 23:27; 2 Chron 12:13; Jeremiah 25:29 |
| Holy City | Sacred | Neh 11:1 |
| Imperious Whorish Woman | Vixen Adulteress | Ezekiel 16:30 |
| Israel After the Flesh | Natural Nation of Israel | 1 Cor 6:18; |
| Jebus | Aboriginal Name of Jerusalem; Trodden | Judges 19:10; 1 Chr 11:4; |
| Jebusi | Trodden inhabitants of Jerusalem | Joshua 18:28 |
| Jebusite | Trodden Amorites | Joshua 15:8; |
| Jerusalem Which Now Is | Earthly Jerusalem | Galatians 4:25 |
| Jeshurun | Symbolic Name of Israel | Deu 32:15, 33:5, 33:26; Isa 44:2; |
| Jews | Those of Judah | Romans 2:17; |
| Jezebel | A type of the False Religion of Adultery and Idols | Revelation 2:20; |
| Killer of the Prophets | Murderer of Those Who Are Sent To You | Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34 |
| Lewd Woman | The Adulteress Wife | Ezekiel 23:44; |
| Married Wife | She who has a husband | Isaiah 54:1 |
| Mistress of Witchcrafts | She who is deceived by Magic | Nahum 3:4 |
| Mocking to All Nations | She who is ridiculed; | Ezekiel 22:4; |
| Mother | She who has born Children | Isaiah 50:1; Hosea 2:5; Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34; Galatian 4:25 |
| Mother of Harlots | Her Children are like her | Revelation 17:5 |
| Mother’s Daughter | The female child; like mother like daughter | Ezekiel 16:45; |
| Mt Sinai | Where the Law Given to Moses | Galatians 4:24-25; |
| Mystery Babylon the Great | The Whore | Revelation 17:5 |
| Oppressing City | The City who is proud and violent | Zep 3:1; |
| Oppression, Wholly | She who has unjust gain; deceitfully obtained | Jeremiah 6:6; |
| Polluted | Trodden Down | Ezekiel 16:6; Zep 3:1 |
| Rahab | The Harlot, spiritual type of Jerusalem | Psalm 89:10; Isaiah 51:9 |
| Rebellious House | She who is disobedient and has become an enemy | Ezekiel 17:1, 24:3; |
| Rejoicing City | Joyous City | Zep 2:15; |
| Reproach to the Heathen | Disgrace to the Gentiles; | Ezekiel 22:4; |
| Salem | Peaceful the pattern and roots of Jerusalem | Genesis 14:18; |
| Seed of Evildoers | Fruit of Ungodliness | Isaiah 1:4; |
| Shalem | Early Name of Jerusalem | Gen 33:18; |
| Sinful Kingdom | A people to be destroyed | Amos 9:8; |
| Sinful Nation | A people led astray | Isaiah 1:4; |
| Sister | Woman with Siblings | Ezekiel 16:46; |
| Sister of Judah | The sister | Jeremiah 3:1; |
| Sister of thy Sisters | Sin runs in the family | Ezekiel 16:45; |
| Slayer of Innocent Blood | The City that Killed Jesus | Jeremiah 26:15; |
| Smitten | To Strike Down | Ezekiel 33:21; |
| Sodom | Spiritual Name for Jerusalem; | Isaiah 1:9-10; Jeremiah 23:14; Ezekiel 16:46-49; Revelation 11:8 |
| Thy Mother’s Daughter | Daughter of a Hittite (terror) | Eze 16:45 |
| Uncleanness | Religious filth | Ezekiel 36:17; |
| Where Our Lord Was Crucified | Jesus was hung on the cross there | Rev 11:8 |
| Whore | Adulteress Idol Worshipper | Ezekiel 16:33-34 |
| Whore, Great | Adulteress Idol Worshipper | Revelation 17:1; |
| Wife | She who is married to Jehovah | Jeremiah 3:20, 31:32; Ezekiel 16:8; Ezekiel 16:32; |
| Woman | The Great City | Ezekiel 23:44; Revelation 17:18 |
| Woman, Removed | Unclean Woman | Ezekiel 36:17; |
| Woman Who Breaks Wedlock | The Unfaithful wife of Jehovah | Ezekiel 16:38; |
If you would like to read other reference documents about Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols here are some others that are available:
Spiritual Visions! Real or Fantasy?
(Ver 1.5) This is now Part 2 of a series of important Bible lessons on the subjects of spiritual truths and realities. I had a reader try to tell me that the story in the Bible about Moses and Elijah appearing with Jesus on the mountain top was a vision that Peter, James and John experienced and therefore in a vision anything is possible. The entire context of his message comment was an attempt to explain away the reality of the existence of spiritual beings after their physical/natural death. These types of people are simply very ignorant and deceived by the devil into believing lies. They do not want to believe that people are spiritual beings that exist after death because they would rather believe that they go into a state of unconscious sleep until judgment day comes and God awakens them. They are attempting to justify their deception of the false “soul sleep” theology by explaining away what the Bible actually says on the subject either directly or indirectly. This is a common ploy of deception used by Satan, either ignore those things in the Bible that do not conform or fit with your version of the truth, or attempt to explain them away using your limited intellectual knowledge and human reasoning. There arises a great problem with this type of wrong thinking. We can easily find verses that contradict a soul sleep belief. People, without understanding what they are saying believe that my God was and is a willing participant to visions with lies of deception being embedded within them. They said that God can give people a vision of anything, like fairies, monsters, fantasies, imaginary figures or whatever simply because He likes to teach us something and it would be OK and acceptable for God to behave this way since He is clearly the sovereign God. All of his comment was a response to my explanation of “Is there Life after Death for Seeing Spirits” lesson that was recently written on that important subject. If you have not read this lesson you should go back and start with that lesson first, because I will not repeat any of it here. Because these people want to believe you go to sleep when you die, they try to explain away Moses and Elijah appearance with Jesus as a vision fantasy. Today’s lesson is on the subject of visions and it is directed at those who want to know the truth.
INTRODUCTION TO SPIRITUAL VISIONS
So today’s lesson is about the subject of spiritual visions and what they are! God will further discuss today in this lesson the purpose that His vision are given to people. We will learn today that there is more than one kind of spiritual vision. We will also discover that there are other types of a vision possible for other purposes. We will research and discover the truth using the Bible and ignoring the words of deceivers. According to the “deceived individual” a vision is simply an apparition or a fantasy of Biblical and Godly proportions where anything goes. So according to this person, God can communicate with people saying anything He wants to and even lie to them using a vision not found within reality. However, my Bible says that “It is impossible for God to lie” (Heb 6:18). In Titus 1:2 it says God cannot lie. Therefore according to written scripture there is absolutely no way that a vision from God can be a party to a lie or untruth in any way or form. Because people do not want to know the truth, they make up excuses to explain away the truth and they present them to fools who buy into them like they were eating candy. What a crazy mixed up world that we live in. It is just way too easy for Satan to deceive some people (Rev 12:9).
So what is a spiritual vision? In order to understand something we need to define it first. A vision occurs when a natural man is given a view into the spiritual realm either past, present or future. A vision is not a normal human experience. A vision is most definitely a gift from God by His sovereign choice that allows natural people to see unseen spiritual things, places, events, angels and people. However, these spiritual things are never fabrications or fantasies because they are more real than the natural things that we can see all around us. God who is a Spirit (John 4:24), created the natural world as a pattern after the spiritual world that He already lived in. It was the Supreme God of the spirit world that created this natural world.
2Co 4:18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
The things that we perceive with our five natural senses are called the “Temporary” things of this world. This verse then contrasts the temporary things with the greater eternal things. What are eternal things? They are not natural things so they have to be supernatural things. These are spirits and the world that they live within. These are the eternal things and beings that God is comparing to natural seen things. Because people cannot see, feel taste, hear or smell the spiritual realm normally they do not believe that it exists. But, this is by God’s design and purpose not to allow man to know that he is a spirit being living in a temporary natural body, until after they are either saved or dead. Even after a person becomes a Christian they can still be a very “Carnal” Christian and still be flesh dominated.
Heaven is a very real spiritual location and place and existed way before the earth and the natural universe existed. What I am going to do today is to use the Bible to show you God’s usage of visions and see what we can learn from them. By standing firmly only on the Word of God and understanding what it says, is our only hope for not being deceived like some of these people that try to write me crazy responses, like they were trying to help me not to be deceived. I have learned better than to ignore God’s truth in order to follow a lie, I know who my God is and I know what His Word says, so I’m going to stand with Him and ignore the opinions of people.
THE FIRST VISION
The very first mention of a “vision” in the Bible comes in the Book of Genesis. This account is God speaking to Abram. If God is the one giving this vision then we know that God is communicating truth to Abram and these are not the words of any fantasy or fairy tale. Abram is able to perceive and understand the spoken words of God and here is this first mention of a vision in the Bible:
Gen 15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
So obviously God is lying to Abram and just telling him something He wants to trick him with. If you are spiritually blind this is what you might believe. If that is what you choose to believe then you might need to go read somebody else’s blog. What we can clearly see is that God holds a conversation with Abram in this chapter and informs him of what will happen in his life on earth and in the future to come. If you read the whole chapter you can clearly see that God gives Abram a covenant and reveals what will happen to his seed. These are spoken prophetic Words from God and not lies. There are no lies written here in this chapter because these are all of the true facts that will soon happen to Abram. God is not participating in a fantasy with Abram. It is very critical to note and learn the reason for the vision being given was for God to speak to a natural man named Abram. God did this by opening his spiritual eyes to see and hear something coming from the greater spiritual realm. God speaking to natural men with visions will become an established pattern of truth as we continue in this lesson. Please note that there is no other reasons given for the vision, do you understand this? Let’s look at another mention of “visions” in the KJV O.T. Bible.
ANOTHER CONFIRMATION FOR VISIONS
I am going to move to the book of Old Testament book of Numbers next. Here we should see God’s usage of visions and the further confirmation reason for their application usage. Remember in the Bible that God says let every word of truth be established in the mouths of two or three witnesses and that is exactly what I will do. Let’s read Numbers chapter 12 and verse 6:
Num 12:6 And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.
God clearly informs us of how He uses visions to communicate to His servants the prophets. The prophets of God would receive spiritual information directly from God Almighty in the form of both visions and dreams. Again we see the only reason for God giving a vision to a human man is for God to speak to them. This means it has to be the truth, if it is coming from God. So I brought up dreams because this verse mentioned that God also uses them to communicate with people on the earth. I do not believe that every human vision or dream can only originate only from God, after all there are other spiritual beings that are alive and well on this planet. I have heard people say in church that they saw someone who they thought was Jesus and he appeared to them, but what he said to them tried to make them do something that the Bible did not say or confirm. So that type of vision could be the possible deception of the enemy Satan. The Bible says that even Satan can transform himself into an “angel of light” in order to try to deceive us (2 Cor 11:14). The only reason why Satan would transform himself is to be seen in a visual form. This clearly implies a vision into the spiritual realm. Therefore, if you do not know what the Bible says, you are an easy prey for this type of deception. I will tell you this plainly that God will never tell you anything in a vision that is contrary or opposed to the written Holy Word of God.
As you can clearly see in the above verse in Numbers 12:6, God uses visions to make Himself and His words known to people. So is God going to trick you with a false vision? Is God going to deceive you with a lying vision? Or is God going to speak ONLY the truth in a vision? What would make God known to us? I believe that only the truth is what comes from a vision from God for Him to make Himself known to us. So if Peter, James and John had a vision of Moses and Elijah speaking to Jesus was it fictional or real? I believe it has to be more real than anything we experience on the earth. The spiritual realm is not fictional, if it is, then God is a fictional character and I know much better than that. One of the key points to deception is to discredit the truth. Satan uses this ploy very often by inferring that God is the one that lies to people and that he is the one speaking the truth! This was his deception to Eve and he hasn’t come up with anything new for you either.
TYPES OF VISIONS
There are more than one type of vision in the Bible and in fact there are at least two types of visions that I have found in the Bible. One type of vision I will call an “Open” vision and the other type of vision I will call a “Closed” vision. Let me briefly show you the difference between these types of visions using the Bible. For example in the book of Job God says the following.
Job 33:14 For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.
Spiritually unaware men have a great difficulty in hearing the voice of the Spirit of God. Either their minds are cluttered with busy natural stuff or their mouths are opened too wide and speaking with empty words instead of listening for God. In either case, God does not interrupt your life and your agenda because He wants to say something to you. God is a Gentleman who does not rudely butt in on what you are doing and interrupt you. If you think He does, you are wrong. In Job this verse tells us that men and women have a great difficulty in perceiving the spoken Words of God. God can be speaking to you and you never even understand that it was God. One solution to this problem is God’s usage of dreams also called night visions while you are sleeping. This is an example of a closed spiritual night vision:
Job 33:15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;
As you can clearly see in this verse, God is saying that I will come to you in the night while your body rests and sleeps, because you did not hear me during the day when you were awake and busy. When you are in a deep sleep, your mind is usually very quite, you are not busy moving or talking and you can more easily hear what the Spirit of God wants to speak to you. Why is this possible? It is only possible because your spirit inside our sleeping natural body never sleeps. Just because your body sleeps does not mean the real unseen you ever sleeps. Only deceived people believe that spirits can sleep. While your body is asleep and your mind is not preoccupied, your spirit can hear directly from God in a night vision or a dream.
Job 33:16 Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,
God says that He is able to open the ears of the man in the night sleep so that he is able to hear the instructions from God. This is an example in the Bible of a closed spiritual vision. There is a key word given to us in this verse, and it is “opened”. This does not mean that the man was deaf and was unable to hear physically. It is only talking about the spiritual ears of the man being opened so that he can hear with his spirit. This type of vision is usually very personal and it is God speaking directly to your spirit for normally your benefit only. I guess it is important to note that even in a closed vision of the night, God must open something in order for you to hear it or see it.
So let’s contrast the difference between closed visions and an open vision. An open vision would be one that was in the likeness of the one experienced by Peter, James and John when they all saw Jesus speaking to Moses and Elijah on the mountain top. They were not sleeping, they were fully awake and they could clearly all see into the spiritual realm of reality concurrently something that they would have missed otherwise. If there was a third party watching this experience they would have seen Peter, James and John in a trance like state with their eyes fully wide open. But, these external observers would not have been able to perceive the presence of either Elijah or Moses unless God opens their eyes to see them. Let’s look at an example of this in the O.T.:
Num 24:4 He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
An open vision is usually one that occurs with your natural eyes wide open. When this type of vision occurs to you the people around you usually do not see what God is showing you in the spiritual realm, they only see you in a trance like state of existence. You are usually the only one that perceives the message from God sent from the Spiritual Realm. This is a method of God that allows you to see into the real spiritual world and it definitely is not a fantasy event of any type.
There are just many examples in the Bible of this type of vision and I will only give you one more example in today’s lesson. I just cannot go through every mention of the word in the Bible, it would take too long. The next story that I want to touch on is the story of Elisha in the O.T. book of 2 Kings. In this story the servant of Elisha comes to him and tells him some really bad disturbing news, he thinks. He tells Elisha that they are surrounded by the enemy and on the verge of their death. However, Elisha did not fret with this news or get worried in the least little bit. Why was this? What made Elisha able to see the situation differently than his servant? Remember that Elisha was God’s prophet and what did we read in Numbers about God speaking to His prophets? All Elisha did was this:
2Ki 6:17 And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
Open the eyes of my servant so that he can see that there are more for us than there are against us. To open your eyes, does not mean your physical eyes were closed or blinded, his physical eyes were seeing fine the natural things that they were faced with. What Elisha was requesting for God to do was to open his spiritual eyes to let him see into the spiritual realm in order to see that there were flaming chariots of fire all around them. This was an example of an open spiritual vision of view into a real set of angels of God riding in chariots of fire. These angels were not “make believe” and these angels were not fantasy; they were simply seen only in the real spiritual realm and this the truth from God. So people, who want to believe lies, can go and explain away these real spiritual things in the Bible with their human reasoning for other spiritually ignorant people to devour.
CONCLUSION – FALSE VISIONS
I’ll wrap this lesson up for today with one final verse to consider. We have learned there are at least two types of visions, one open and one closed. We have observed that God’s visions are only given because God wants to speak truth to a natural man about things that he may not have been able to perceive otherwise. Now I want to briefly address a part of the subject that I alluded to earlier about false visions from other spiritual beings.
Jer 14:14 Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false visionand divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.
God clearly tells us that He does not give anyone “False” visions so that they can preach lies to the people of God. Did you understand what God just said? Do you understand why and how this applies directly to the vision that Peter, James and John had? If the vision of Moses and Elijah was not real and the truth then it was a fabricated lie and must be called a false vision. This would be a deception that God says that He is not participating in. This verse clearly teaches us that God gives people only visions of truth and spiritual reality. God will not give anyone a fantasy vision, a fairy tale vision or an imaginary vision of fiction. That would make God a liar and this is not my God and never will be.
People who want to believe lies will ignore vital scriptures in the Bible that conflict with their erroneous beliefs. These scriptures were placed there by God to teach us the truth and every scripture on the subject of visions must be balanced with the other scriptures on the subject. This is basic correct Bible interpretation. Only when we allow the Bible to interpret itself can we come close to actually understanding the truth. The next time anyone gives you a verse and tries to tell you that it is not a real vision from God of truth you should respond with the Bible.
It is very interesting to note, do you know that it does not matter what you believe? It does not matter if you are right or if you are wrong? Wow, I probably just blew someone’s mind saying that. I guess I should rephrase those statements, because it does matter if what you believe is the truth for your salvation. But, what I meant to say was your version of the truth does not change the reality of the actual God given and intended truth. God is not going to change to fit and conform with your personal beliefs. God is not going to change His truth to align with your version of the truth. God is a constant, never changing, eternal God that only projects the truth in His word to those who want to see it. To those who are not interested in God’s truth, they are permitted to be deceived and follow their own misconceptions. This is the only way that God can give everyone a free will and a right to make a fair choice in this life.
I had another confused reader try to ask me, why can’t there be multiple choices available to the afterlife? In other words he seemed to think that people are all so different in this current world, so therefore God will allow them all to be different in the world to come. While people will not be identically cloned robots in the afterlife and they will be completely unique we must understand that an anything goes moral mentality and the freedom to commit sin, will not be a direct part of God’s future plan. This type of thinking was the erroneous philosophy of an all-inclusive religion of tolerance and acceptance called “Universal Salvation” where everyone will be in heaven even if they never made Jesus their Lord here on this planet. I have other Bible lessons that address this so I will not repeat them here. But these are false lies of Satan also that will send people to hell because they think they do not have to repent and get saved. There will be no evil in the afterlife for those that are saved because there will be no tempter to test us. Satan will be cast into the lake of fire and will not be able to tempt anyone. God help us all to see the truth.
If I were you I would become hungry and thirsty to know the real truth. Only by being open minded and examining the Bible closely to verify everything that you believe is true, can you ever be assured that you have not been deceived. If you are not willing to change when the truth is presented to you then you are in trouble. Pray and ask God to show you the truth, He is the teacher and will confirm to you the truth. Base your faith only on the Bible and not on anything that a man teaches. Thank you for taking the time to read and study the Bible and I hope this lesson will help someone to understand spiritual visions. God Bless!
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