Category Archives: Bible Study

It Was a Blessed 2025 – Christmas Celebration

(Ver 1.0) This has always been a very special time of year. Sure, I get a lot of criticism from people who say they are Christians and for some reason do not want to take time to focus on a time when much of the world celebrates one of the most joyous events in human history. Most informed people know it is not the actual date (Dec 25) of the birth of Jesus, yet this was a day chosen by someone to celebrate and since no one was there to see it, why not join in on the joy and stop the fighting?

It is high time to stop the fighting in the church over things that are not an issue unless someone wants to make it one. Until there is Biblical evidence proving the actual specific day, I will be happy to celebrate the birth of God giving us the most valuable Gift named Jesus with or without you. And, yes, I know the name Jesus is an English transliteration of a Greek name that is a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew name. Yet Jesus Himself is not stupid and He knows I speak English and when I speak about Him, I have no fear of condemnation from Him because He Loves us All and is more tolerant towards us, than many critics know.

Isa 9:6  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Joh 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

This time of year, I like to think of Isaiah 9:6 and John 3:16 and remember them as God’s Ultimate Gift Giving Declarations of Infinite Love. Because God chose to personally come into the world we live in, in the form of human flesh, He qualified Himself to be our Spotless Lamb sacrifice. God became a baby male child to be born in the city of David, called Bethlehem, even though this was not the city where His physical parents lived. Because God put it in the heart of the government to take a census of their people, Joseph and Mary were commanded to be in Bethlehem at the precise time that was prophesied for Messiah to appear on earth. What an amazing God He is to align everything to watch over His Words to perform them for His preplanned and designed time of Gift giving.

It should completely amaze us all that God would plan such a display of Love even before there was a time when one human had sinned that needed His salvation. This too in another amazing Love characteristic of our God. This teaches us God is an ultimate Supply for every need we may be having right now, whether it be spiritually, emotionally, mentally, or physically. Anyone that displays this kind of capacity of Love after humans have acted so hateful towards Him is too wonderful for us to imagine how truly Good God Is!

These are just a few of so many reasons why I am thankful for a God that saved me ~2000 years ago before I heard about it to receive it. I am also very thankful to have be trusted enough to be called to teach His Amazing Holy Words of the Good News salvation that is available to us all for free. I am finally thankful for people like you whom God loves that take the time to read and study the Bible with me.

So, join me to take the Love of God to the world that could die and go to hell without someone like us to share the Good News birth of Jesus and why He appeared in the form of a helpless baby. This took amazing humility for God to come into the world naked and die on a cross for us naked. Can you imagine God doing this for people that were mocking and cursing him? Yet He cried, “Father forgive them, they do not know what they do”. What amazing Love this was. And this Love is still available for anyone to experience today. If you have never done this before, please select the link below and see how you can begin this marvelous journey to know the God that Loved You First.

God Bless you and keep you safe as we end the year 2025 AD, and are about to enter into another new Year. We are living within times when it can be so easy to get our eyes off of Jesus. But remaining focused upon Jesus and looking for His soon return, while we spread His Words of Love fearlessly, is what I hope you will continue to do with me. I Love You All! More Bible lessons are coming soon, God willing. Please pray for us as we continue to pray for you. If you have a specific prayer request, leave it in a comment and we will always be happy to lift you and join with you in agreement for receiving God’s wisdom for victory over every situation the enemy attempts to bring. Remember 1 John 4:4, “Ye are of God little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He that is within you, than he that is in the world”. Praise God!

Share what God has done for you in 2025 and encourage others.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Understanding the Book of Revelation Introduction Part 1 – Revelation Traditional Views

Rev 1:1  The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

Ver 1,0) The book of Revelation appears to be, by far, the most controversial and hotly debated and argued book of the entire Bible especially in these last days in which we are living now in 2025. There is a growing number of Bible teachers and pastors that are attempting to teach this book of the Bible because of the obvious seasons we are living. From the informed spiritual mind there has never been an hour in which humans have lived where things that were written 2000+ years ago could be happening all around us sooner than we think. But there are also too many pastors and teachers that ignore the book of Revelation because of its complexity, symbolism, controversy, and the wide variety of opinions of what things say and mean.

Today’s Bible lesson will be a general introduction to the Book of Revelation’s popular views. We will cover a very high-level overview of the traditional views that have been taught about this book in many of the Christian churches during the church age.

Currently there are at least 5 traditional views and a few other modern views. And all of these views can, and do have multiple variations of each of their teachings. In other words, there is more confusion than there is agreement. Why are there so many conflicting views and positions on scriptural texts that have never changed?  It is impossible for all of these opinions to be completely true.  Remember in 1 Corinthians 14:33, God declares, “He is not the author of confusion but rather “Peace” in all churches”. Therefore, when we find fighting and divisions within the church about scripture or any other matter, this is always authored by Satan.

Since this website has always been a seeker of finding God’s Truth as God intended us to know, we will be cooperating with God to be led by His Holy Spirit to discover His Truth on the subject of Revelation. And to reject and resist all of the devil’s deceptions that are trying to distract us away from knowing it. And yes, you heard right, there is one standard of Truth that is from God and all the rest of that are based upon human opinions are literal distractions sent from Satan to keep us from knowing the truth.

Thankfully, we are not searching for Truth independently. If we are born again by the Spirit of God, continually filled with His Spirit and submitted to Him being led by His Spirit, and continually learning His Word, we are not alone and easily deceived. Jesus when He ascended after His resurrection, left us the ultimate personal Spirit helper. He is the one Spirit we must have, to be kept from deception. Fortunately, being born-again we invited His Spirit to come in to be joined with our spirit. Now, we just need to mature spiritually to grow to hear, recognize, obey and follow His voice. He is with us, in us and for us. And if God is for us, who can be against us. We are going to trust Him to lead us into All Truth. Thank you, Lord Jesus!

In this series we will trust the Spirit of God to give us the direction to find all the keys needed to unlock the hidden mysteries of the Book. Understanding the details of the book, how they fit together, His purposes for why He wrote this book and why there is a promised blessing for reading it are some of these keys. These keys to right information will begin to lay the foundation of some of the simple important truths for us in the church to know for receiving the deeper truths later in the series.

Please let’s s be very clear. No one but God knows and understands the entire Bible. This includes the book of Revelation. Anyone teaching anything in the Bible like they are God’s expert on that subject is full of PRIDE and that is someone God resists. God gives Grace to the Humble. If we believe we know and understand the entire Bible we are deceived. If we are not willing to hear or listen to a message (from the Word of God) we are being led and influenced by the wrong spirit. So let me be blunt and to the point. I don’t know and understand the entire Bible or even the book of Revelation. But neither do you. I will endeavor to the best of my ability to with His help to teach this series using only the things He reveals to me and not speculate on what it might mean like I hear others try to teach.

Perhaps you have heard pastors and teachers who try to do a verse-by-verse series on the entire Bible or the book of Revelation. This is a warning sign of PRIDE and Overconfidence. Everyone I have ever heard teach this way overextends themselves to sound like they know what they are talking about when in actuality they know so little and are misleading people into potential deception and possible destruction.

I’ll let you in on a secret from my experiences with my Omniscient Lord and Savior Jesus. I have learned, “the more I learn from what He teaches me, the more I realize that I do not know, and still need to learn”. I have discovered that it is impossible to exhaust the complete Knowledge and Goodness of God.

Therefore, please make an attitude adjustment before continuing. If you believe you know everything about Revelation or the Bible you are potentially in the wrong place. I’m not going to fight you, argue with you or try to change you. I don’t have the time to argue and debate a billion plus people. No one does. That would be an example of an antichrist attitude and spirit of someone who is trying to force their agenda and beliefs.

I will only attempt to share the truths that I believe the Lord has shown to me, is showing and will continue to show to me. And I will also attempt to do it in Love as He also does to me. These Revelation teachings may not be in order or ever be verse by verse. However, they will be, I believe, where the Holy Spirit wants us to go to know exactly what we need to know right now to understand the entire book better later as we spiritually mature and are able to receive it and apply it.

I will say today’s introductory lesson on Revelation will probably be different than most of the rest of the lessons to come. Later it may be rare if anything is taught because it was learned from another Bible teacher. However, today will address the wide variety of things taught in the church about the book of Revelation. But please note that there are too many beliefs and variations for us to spend all of our time to examine in detail all of them.

It is not wise to be focused on things the Holy Spirit did not inspire. Satan’s strategy is to overwhelm humans and Christians with so many lies so that some of them take root in our hearts to be believed. This is exactly why there are so many beliefs being taught about Revelation.

Christians must verify with scriptures and the witness of the Holy Spirit whether anything they hear or read is true or not. Most deception is not going to require you to search scripture for yourself. But this website recommends strongly that you verify everything. We would require it if we could. However, because we love you as God does, He does not force us to believe His word and we cannot do that either.

If the Holy Spirit does not bear witness within me that anything is the truth, it will not be presented as truth in this series. It still may be presented, but only for you to know what others think is the truth. This too is never an approach of a deceiver. A deceiver cannot place their beliefs up against God’s Truth because it will always expose the weaknesses of other beliefs. And if and when it is mentioned in this series it will only be present to help others not fall for a deception being taught as truth.

Like I said before, I freely admit honestly that that I am NOT GOD, and I do not know and understand the entire book of Revelation or the Bible, right now. I have never heard another teacher say that because it casts doubts upon anything else they say. But I still believe humility and honesty admits they don’t yet know everything. I have never met or heard or read a human that does know and understand the entire Bible. The only one I know that does is God. But I DO trust Him always to show us what we need to know right now. This is called walking and living by faith. If we knew everything, we would not need Him, or our faith, and that does not please Him (Hebrews 11:6).

Church Teachings on Revelation

There are too many problems in current church teachings on the book of Revelation to mention them all. But hopefully with the Lord’s help we will cover the most problematic ones. To begin the section let’s list the most popular views of Revelation currently being taught by the theologically trained Seminaries and Teachers. Here are the most popular traditional interpretative views on the book of Revelation:

  • Preterist View
  • Historicist View
  • Futurist (Premillennial) View
  • Idealist (Spiritual/Amillennial) View
  • Postmillennial View (often overlaps with partial Preterism or Idealism

First, notice the technical and theological labels given to each view. These are all non-Biblical Labels designed and given by scholars in Seminaries and Schools of Theology to Categorize, Identify and Reference any particular view or subject found in the Bible. While these are great identifiers for use in conversations and for use in determining a specific or general position or view, it may also be used to shun disparage, restrict, or even attack a view as evil.

Labels are used and abused constantly in politics as deception and as weapons. For example, one party calls a person within another party, a Nazi or Racist whether they are one or not, and this is always an attempt by the name caller to make themselves to appear better than they actually are. Another popular tactic and strategy occur when a politician mislabels an evil act like abortion as a good name like “women’s healthcare” when we all know in actuality that it is a death by dismemberment of a developing living child.

Therefore, Labels have both positive good or negative evil purposes. Also, there is another major problem in many teachings in the Bible with usage of Labels. For example, the word Trinity a triune quality of God used in Churches almost everywhere is not found in the Bible. However, is this a sound doctrinal belief based upon scriptures? Of course it is.

But many people will take the identifying Label “Rapture” describing a scriptural event of the Father sending His Son to receive His bride as a false doctrine just because the word Rapture (a Label) does not occur in the Bible. Therefore, Labels have potential positive and negative implications.

For example, I recently had a pastor inform he was for the most part a “Futurist” concerning the Book of Revelation. This was taken positively because this view appears to be the most accurate scripturally speaking. However, we must not assume because two people identify as the same category of belief, that there cannot remain dramatic conflicts between them in the details. Let’s go through the general beliefs categories:

Preterist View

A Preterist View is based upon a teaching that all or most of Revelation was fulfilled around 70AD, with the Roman Empire’s destruction of the temple and Jerusalem. This view is popular in some reformed churches like some Presbyterian and Anglican.

Did you notice how many labels there were in that last description? Did you realize this is a designed strategy of Satan? Satan’s strategy is to deceive and divide the church so that we fight each other, rather than come against him. These are the very negative reasons why categorical labels exist. Remember Jesus prayed in John 17:11, “Make them one, as we are one”. However, here are a few major problems with this belief.

Most Bible scholars believe the book of Revelation was written 25 years after the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem. This would make the book of Revelation a Historical reflection and not a prophetical book. This realty does not align with literal interpretation of the words presented to us in the book. You see the book of Revelation says more than once it is a prophecy. This would make John a Liar and a Deceiver since the destruction of Jerusalem happened 25 years before he wrote the book and he wrote it was a prophecy.

This Preterist view and belief doesn’t harmonize with other Biblical End Time prophecies of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Jesus in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, etc.

Historist View

The Historist Core View believes Revelation is a symbolic overview of Church History from the 1st Century to the Second Coming. In the Protestant Historist View the papacy is often identified as the antichrist/beast.

Key proponents of this view were Reformation-era figures like Luther, Calvin, Knox and later Adventists like White. Some Puritans and is still common in the Seventh Day Adventists to name a few groups. Here are some of the major reasons why this view like Preterist View is significantly disconnected from a God intended understanding.

  • This view violates the law of no prophecy is of any private interpretation according 2 Peter 1:20. This law teaches us the Bible interprets itself. The omniscient God is able to reveal the meanings of prophecy for himself, independent of human reasoning and contribution. This God source supply of interpretation determines and ensures God will get all of the glory for the fulfilling the words and not any human.

Futurist (Premillenial) View

This perspective of Revelation espouses chapters 4 through 22 are all future events and have yet to be fulfilled. This belief has generally labeled the chapters from 6 to 18 as the 7 Year Tribulation but it is also labeled by the Old Testament term as Daniel’s 70th Week. It is this final 7year week of Daniel that God divides into two 3.5 year periods with an event called the Abomination of Desolation. During this period of time this belief believes in the literal rise of a Satan empowered Antichrist human figure that will fight and resist God by deceiving people, forcing a mark placed on people using wars, plagues and famines with great wrath because he knows his time is very short. Then after Jesus returns to the earth with the church to defeat all the enemies and lock them below the earth, we will reign with him for 1000 years. After this is Judgment and a new heaven and a new earth.

This belief is largely held and taught by the majority of Evangelical, Pentecostal, Baptist, and non-denominational churches. Most of these believe in a pre-tribulation rapture event, God’s separate dealings with the church in an age of Grace being separate from God’s dealings with natural Israel and the remaining finale 7 years (70th week of Daniel) of Judgment, and a very literal timeline of events. Key modern proponents of this belief are David Jeremiah, Hilton Sutton, Perry Stone, Jimmy Evans, Rick Renner, Greg Laurie, Les Feldick, John McArthur, and literally too many others to name them all.

The major argument against this belief comes primarily from people who are not believers in the existence of God created different Dispensations (periods of time) of God’s dealings with humanity. For example, how God dealt with humans pre-sin versus post-sin, pre-law versus post-law, pre-Christ (Birth) versus post-Christ (resurrection). These people for some reason do not place enough significance upon major works of God and the effects that they brought upon humanity.

Idealist (Spiritual/Amillenial) View

This belief system of opinion treats the book of Revelation as completely symbolic disparaging any literal interpretation of events or any application to prophetic future timings. It takes the millennial reign of Christ in Revelation 20 as happening now with Christ in Heaven ruling through the church on earth.

Major proponents of this belief are Augustine, William Hendrickson, G.K. Beale, Sam Storms, and is common in Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, mainline Protestant (Lutheran, Presbyterian) and many reformed amillennialists.

  • The greatest opponents to this belief is its ignoring of direct statements of the book being a future prophecy in violation of Revelation 1:3 and 22:7.
  • This interpretation is also in violation of 2 Peter 1:20 stating no prophecy can be of any private interpretations. If further takes the symbolic aspects of part of Revelation to an extremism position of error by making the entire book symbolic.
  • Are there any verses that confirms the definitions of their symbols?
  • Are there any verses that that repeat in the Bible to confirms the interpretation?

Post Millennial View

This view often overlaps in part with Preterism and Idealism. The belief espouses the Gospel will gradually triumph leading to a “golden age” of the Christian Church dominance before Christ’s return. This belief states the millennium is just a long period of peace caused by the church. This belief like the Preterist think the judgment events of Revelation were largely fulfilled in the first century 70 AD or some are just symbolic happenings in the church age.

This belief’s key proponents are Jonathan Edward’s, B.B. Warfield, Loraine Boetner, Doug Wilson, and some other modern thoenomists. It was common in some reformed thomonic and Presbyterian circles but has become less common today. Here are some of the potential problems with this view.

  • This view appears to interpret Revelation independent from the common related prophecy in Daniel, Ezekiel, etc. including the Words of Jesus in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21.
  • This interpretation appears to ignore all the verses quoted from the Old Testament that establishes direct connections.
  • This belief appears to suggest an almost independence from God in human flesh form. This doctrine appears to have the elements that humans in their flesh will triumph over spirits.

Conclusions

As we can clearly see there are many major conflicting views of Revelation with only a few overlapping common beliefs. Christian religious theologians have given most views a name for topic and subject reference and identification. By giving each view a Name, it has made it far easier to teach differences between views. This approach of subject classification allows one particular view to be separated from all other views by use of different names.

Are you seeing why there are names given to Bible subjects? But a name given to any subject also has both positive and negative connotations. For example, when a wife is married, traditionally and publicly speaking she received the name of her husband and this symbolically represented the two becoming one flesh as stated in Genesis 2:24 and Ephesians 5:31-32. This is a prime example of positive renaming effect to become the same unified partners.

But there are also the negative aspects of newly given subject names. By giving a new name to your interpretation to a general subject like understanding “Revelation”, you could be dividing yourself away from God’s Truth. We can learn this from the labels and names Preterist, Historist, Futurist, Idealist, etc. Once someone identifies as one of these labels, they have shunned themselves from every other labeled view. What am I saying? I refuse to label, limit and restrict myself to any one label other than to be called a Christ Follower and a Seeker and Teacher of TRUTH.

Does that mean my positional view does not closely align with anyone else that studies and teaches the Bible? Of course not! But they might also be different! My Bible clearly says “Those that are led by the Spirit, they are the son’s of God”. This simply means those that are NOT led by the Spirit are NOT sons and daughters of God. If we are living independently from God’s Spiritual guidance we are following after someone else. Therefore, find out what God calls you, names you as and identifies to be and confess that only.

Renaming things is a very popular strategy of Satan to divide Christian, we could call it the divide and conquer strategy. You see Jesus began the church in Acts 2:46 as one body of unified believers. I personally believe this is how she will end. This belief is based primarily upon the prayer Jesus made to the Father in John 17:21-22. In this prayer Jesus asks for the church to be made One! This is the motivating factor why the Church is so divided and against each other through Satan’s massive efforts to deceive. Just FYI there are few Christians, if any in the church today that are not potentially deceived in some area or subject in the Bible. This is simply based upon ignorance of scripture. No one but God knows and understands every word, scripture, chapter and book.

We could spend years analyzing the teachings of each Revelation View. In this study we would want to learn how each view hits or misses what God intended to say and what He wanted us to know from what was said. We would need to compare and balance with all of scripture and not just those words in Revelation.

Does that sound like a plan that redeems the best use of our time? I don’t believe it does. I do not ever study theological study books, commentaries or any other religious biased and human reasoning interpreted writings, unless I need to. If I get a question from a reader using terms, names and descriptions having religious terminology I am willing to address them at the same level, but only as the Lord desires and leads. My personal study time is almost always 100% only in the Bible. Then I trust the Holy Spirit in me to lead me to all the verses I need to teach the subject under review.

Because this lesson series is intended to address a self-proclaimed Futurist Viewpoint from a minister it will contain certain points of scripture that will counter their new belief. This unnamed minister who had not long ago shifted from teaching a pre-Tribulation Rapture View now moving to a pre-Wrath modern theory Rapture view. This view is nothing but a mid-tribulation viewpoint changed with the shifting and re-labeling of periods within in the book of revelation that have never existed or been taught before. They only now believed this new view due to reading an unnamed book written on the subject that was written first in 1990. This minister said they studied it out and could not find anything in scripture to refute it. However, I read it over and can see so many problems with it, that it amazes me why they can’t?

Next, we will be moving to some new foundational subjects that are absolutely essential in understanding the Book of Revelation.  We only focus upon the topics that I believe the Holy Spirit is directing us to go and in the order that I believe He desires them to be taught.

I pray this series will be of interest because I believe you will not be disappointed in studying this subject. Revelation is still the only book that I know of that promises a blessing to everyone that reads and/or hears it taught. This blessing has become so real in my study of the book for the past years and especially more pronounced in the last months since June 2025.

Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us. You are always a blessing to us whether you like, share or comment or not. God Loves you, Jesus Loves you and we Love you! Be blessed, share the Love of God to all that you encounter because Jesus Christ is coming very soon.

What does the Holy Spirit say to you about these beliefs? Which one are you at peace with? And Why? Please share what you think and use scriptures. The remainder of the lessons in this series will be heavily weighted with essential scriptures to help us understand the truth.

Please keep reading and I will do my best to keep the lessons shorter and to the point. For example, todays lesson on the Introduction is less than 5000 words. Very manageable for those that are of limited time constraints.

Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us. You are always a blessing to us whether you like, share or comment or not. God Loves you, Jesus Loves you and we Love you! Be blessed, share the Love of God to all that you encounter because Jesus Christ is coming very soon.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Understanding Spiritual Gifts Part 3 – The Gift of Faith

(Ver 1.0) This is “Part 3” in a study series concerning God’s Spiritual Gifts. This series was initiated to answer a reader’s question on the subject of describing and understanding the 9 “Spiritual Gifts” found and defined to us primarily in 1 Corinthians 12. But in order to understand this subject we discovered in the introduction that we all have the basic need to obtain the knowledge of the fundamentals of the subject first. If you have not already studied this first and second lessons, it is strongly recommended that you please go back to “Part 1” before continuing with today’s lesson. Those concepts will largely not be repeated in this lesson.

Also, in the previous lessons we went over a quick overview of just some of the major Spiritual Gifts that were given to us (humanity or the church) by God. Therefore, if you have not read “Part 2” it is highly recommended, at least go back there before you continue with today’s lesson on the subject of the very specific gift of what God called the “Spiritual Gift of Faith”.

You may notice that we may not teach every subject in the order that the Lord listed them in the Bible. Rather we will endeavor to be led by the Spirit to teach each subject as we believe we are led. Therefore, this is our reason for learning about the “Gift of Faith” today, rather than taking them in the order as listed in 1 Corinthians 12.

Since I assume everyone has now read the first two lessons, my belief is that you should recall that we have already found a list of 15 spiritual gifts given to humanity and the church by the Spirit. Hopefully, you also remember the Greatest Spiritual Gift of God was Jesus Christ, the Spiritual Word of God made flesh (John 1:1-14, John 3:16). And this gift offers the Gift of Salvation to all of humanity. We will find out soon that not many spiritual gifts are offered to unsaved people. Receiving Jesus is a prerequisite to receiving other gifts given by the Holy Spirit.

Next, we reviewed the list of 9 Spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. These gifts were named as the 1) Word of Wisdom, 2) Word of Knowledge, 3) Faith, 4) Healing, 5) Working of Miracles, 6) Prophecy, 7) Discerning of Spirits, 8) Divers Tongues, and 9) Interpretation of Tongues. We also should have learned that all of these 9 gifts given by the Holy Spirit, were intended to be used through His anointed people in their ministry works, to either get the unsaved saved; or to build-up and edify the church body.

We can see this evidence very clearly in Acts 2 when God poured out His Spirit on the 120 men and women in the upper room in Jerusalem. This occurred 50 days after the feast of first-fruits where Jesus was raised from the dead, after being slain as the Passover Lamb for all humanity. However, the gifts of the Spirit weren’t first given to the church anywhere that I have seen, until the time of another major feast of Israel called “Pentecost” when all of the Jewish people were supposed to be in Jerusalem. And there were many people there in Jerusalem on this day traveling from other surrounding nations. Many of these people spoke other languages and they heard those in the upper room that were first filled with the Holy Spirit speak directly in one of God’s 9 gifts called “divers tongues”. Each of these visiting people from these nearby nations heard the upper room people speaking in their native languages while glorifying God. As a result of this manifestation of just one of the great 9 gifts sent from God, He got the attention of over 3000 and because of this amazing sign, these believed God and got saved. Read about it in Acts 2. It was real, and it actually happened this way.

I will stop here and point out that many people that say they are Christians that live now in the current times of last days churches have “ceased” believing that the gifts of God are still in effect and are being used by God now. Some of labeled these types of Christians as “Cessationists”. They simply believe the gifts were poured out to the Apostles in the beginning of the church age because they needed it for the church to get established until the Bible was written and published. After the Bible was made available, these gifts were not needed, according to their beliefs. But this belief does not match the Word of God nor the personal experiences of many. There are still many people today who do believe in them and operate in these gifts as the Lord leads.

Then in 1 Corinthians 12:28 we further discovered where God listed 5 new spiritual gifts that were joined to 3 gifts in common with the previous 9. These were 1) Apostles, 2) Prophets, 3) Teachers, 4) Miracles, 5) Gifts of Healings 6) Helps 7) Governments and 8) Diversities of Tongues. As was stated there are 3 overlapping gifts in this new list of 8 Spiritual Gifts only raising our total spiritual gifts so far, to 15 = (1 + 9 + (8 – 3)). The fact that the two lists contain duplications, simply helps us join the two lists together and unite them to learn there are definitely more than 9 spiritual gifts.

Instead of exploring the Bible for additional spiritual gifts (and there are others) we are going to focus today on the single subject of the Spiritual Ministry “Gift of Faith”.

Understanding Supernatural FAITH as a Spiritual Ministry Gift
that is Different than Other Types of Faith

One very important thing that must be understood about the list of the 9 Spiritual Gifts found in 1 Corinthians 12, is about the subject of the “Gift of Faith”. God through Paul specifically lists “Faith” in this list as the third spiritual gift. But this is the exact same Greek word pistis (G4102) used in other Bible verses like Galatians 5:22 and Ephesians 2:8 that says, “The Fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy Peace, Long suffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith”, and “By Grace are you saved through Faith”. Uh oh? Here we find two different types of faiths than the spiritual Gift of Faith and yet many preachers think they are all the same because of the same word being used.

This would be like us saying we all have the exact same identical “Blood” and ignoring the basic truth that there are several types of Blood. For example, in the human blood types there is 1) A Positive, 2) A Negative, 3) B Positive, 4) B Negative, 5) AB Positive, 6) AB Negative, 7) O Positive and 8) O Negative. Yet all of these are called “Blood”. Just as medical professionals cannot mix up blood types, so also preachers cannot or must not mix up Faith Types.

So there is a major conflict rising again about the subject of “Faith” types that must be rightly divided to resolve the mystery in the church that not all faith is the same. Remember, we can read Faith is the third gift in the list of 9 and it is surrounded by the gifts of 1) the Word of Knowledge and 2) the Word of Wisdom are listed before it, and then 4) the Gift of Healing and 5) the Gift of Miracles followed after it. What does that tell us and what questions should come to our minds? First question is that “How can this gift of “Faith” be the same type of Faith that is necessary to receive salvation as is clearly stated in Ephesians 2:8?

Also, how can the “Gift of Faith” be the same type of faith that is produced from a seed that grows roots and a vine with branches to produce a “fruit” called “Faith”? This too is a major problem and cannot be the same type of “faith” as the other two that were previously mentioned.

Do you see the problem? If God gives us the faith to be saved as a gift, why isn’t everyone saved? Or are they? It should be very obvious that everyone on earth is not saved because we can see too much evil, too many differing beliefs in who they worship as their god, and too many people who don’t even believe or claim that there is a God? Therefore, we know the “Gift” of faith is NOT for salvation to go to heaven when we die.

However, this word “Faith” is the exact same Greek word (G1402 pistis) that is found in over 200 verses.  God is definitely connecting all 243 verses containing the Greek word G1402 together like the subject of “Blood”. But does that mean because they are connected, they are all the same type of “Faith” used for the same purpose and applying to the same application?  No, it does not!      

What we are about to discover is that there are various types of faith and applying the “Gift of Faith” to be the same as all other types of faith like the “Salvation Faith” only causes spiritual conflict and confusion. Any time there is an apparent conflict that occurs in scripture, it does not reveal God made a mistake, it only reveals that we do not understand the subjects being discussed yet. Here is just a short list of the types of “Faith” that come from the Greek word G4102:

  1. Carnal/Natural Human Faith (2 Thessalonians 3:2). Every human “lives” by Faith but this type of faith is based upon only the 5 senses type of learned faith, and a Christian’s faith is only based upon God’s Words (2 Corinthians 5:7).
  2. Saving Faith (Ephesians 2:8) The Faith that comes from hearing the Word of God to be saved according to Romans 10:17.
  3. Fruit of Faith (Galatians 5:22). Spiritual fruit of faithfulness to continue to serve God and remain faithful to His Spirit only as our husband, thus not committing adultery with devils (2 Corinthians 6:15).
  4. Gift of Faith (1 Corinthians 12:9). This is our subject faith type and it is only given by God for ministering to others, it is not for personal use that I have seen in operation or read in the Bible.

Let’s first begin by stating the obvious that the spiritual “Gift of Faith” is different from the “Saving Faith” needed to be saved as well as the type of spiritual fruit Faith to remain faithful to God. And is certainly not related to the natural human faith we are all physically born with. Why is this?

We can understand this if we see how all 9 Spiritual Gifts in this list are only given to saved Christians for the Holy Spirit’s usage of ministering to others people as we should have learned in 1 Corinthians 12:7. In this verse God reveals that these 9 gifts are given by the Holy Spirit to “profit and benefit” the church body as a whole and these are not used to minister to the individual Christian for self-help. The one that is being used by God to help someone else is because God has sovereignly manifested as a Gift to be given to another person that God desires to bless for future service in His Kingdom.

For example, I believe Peter was used by the Holy Spirit with potentially a combination of gifts. These were, possibly the “Gift of Faith” and/or the gift of the “Working of Miracles”. We can find this account of the ministry of the Holy Spirit through Peter in Acts chapter 3. Here Peter is at the temple gate called Beautiful and he sees a lame man who is begging and he has been in this condition since birth. These types of situations certainly cause the mercy of God to be extended to certain people. Remember God knows the hearts of every person and God sees their potential future and will help them to fulfill the plan He has for their lives out of compassion and mercy. But we must know this will not usually be offered again. This is normally a one-time gift, because God expects all Christians to grow their own faith to receive for any future needs.

Peter told this man to look on us and said to him “silver and gold have I none, but such as I HAVE, I give to you”. Apparently, Peter acknowledges that it is not him alone that is about to heal the man. To “have something” implies that this “something” has been previously given to him and it is logical to think it came from the Holy Spirit because he was just Baptized with the Spirit in the previous Chapter.

Then Peter claimed this man was healed by “Faith” in the name of Jesus in Acts 3:16. In this verse Peter tells the Jewish people that this lame man had been healed by the name of Jesus and “faith” in His name. But it is the last part of this verse that helps us to believe this was the direct operation of God’s gift of Faith.

In the last part of Acts 3:16 Peter says, “Yea, the faith that is by Him (Jesus) has “given” this perfect soundness in the presence of you all”. Do you see how this could be describing “a gift” that is being “given” by Jesus through Peter to a lame man in the presence of a lot of other Jewish people to help them all believe in Jesus? This is how the Holy Spirit operates many times as He desires because He knows the best choices in every situation.

He can give one gift by supernatural choice to bless one lame man, and this causes many others to believe in Jesus through Peter’s gift of Faith or the working of miracles.  If you notice in this story a lot of people believed in Jesus after seeing this miracle (Acts 4:4). Almost everyone with the exception of the majority of the Jewish religious temple leaders believed in Jesus and the church grew by thousands because of one gift of a miracle.

By God gifting a lame man to walk who was lame from birth, is an undeniable supernatural miracle and anyone who had come into the temple had seen this man for years and years begging. This means this man’s gift of healing through a disciple of God caused the church to grow significantly because many people could hear the Gospel about Jesus Christ to receive “Saving Faith”.

So, in Acts 2 and in Acts 3 after the Holy Spirit was given on Pentecost, there were signs and wonders being operated through the church and as a result many thousands of people in Jerusalem were saved. There are certainly other examples in the Bible but we only touched upon 2 barely, to get you acquainted with this subject of the gift of “Faith” being completely different than the Fruit of Faith, the Saving Faith and the normal carnal faith unsaved people constantly live by.

Remember God says in Romans 1:17 “The just shall live by Faith”. If we had to wait for God to manifest a gift of Faith to live everyday we would all be in serious trouble. This is just further confirmation that the faith we live by daily is not the same as the “Gift of Faith” that God gives to minister to help others. I hope this gave you a good foundation for doing further study on this subject on your own. Or if you have specific questions, you are free to leave them in a comment.

Conclusion

So, we have seen how the Gift of Faith is not the same as other types of “Faith”. The Gift of Faith is given to God’s servants as He sovereignly chooses. Man operates in this gift by “Faith” because only God knows what will happen and how it will happen.  This is a clear cooperative arrangement between covenant partners for the betterment and growth of the church. Never forget that the Bible describes God has “longsuffering”, this means He has supernatural patience waiting in kind and compassionate love for His people to agree with Him and work with Him.

Not everyone operates in the gifts of the spirit especially in a church service. Most likely it will be the “Pastor” or an “Evangelist” that operates in many of the spiritual gifts as the “Lord Wills”. But it does not help the one that is being used in cooperation with God’s will. The servants (you and I) are never above their Master (Jesus Christ). Jesus is the “Head” of the church and He is the one guiding us and we are supposed to be His followers listening for and expecting His voice to guide us.

The Word of God in 1 Corinthians 14:1 says for us to “Follow after Love, and desire Spiritual gifts”, but then God says to us “rather to prophesy”. We can clearly see a mixture of spiritual fruits and gifts of the Spirit. But it should be obvious the Love of God and our spiritual fruit is not in the list of the 9 spiritual gifts. This further confirms the faith in fruits is not the faith in gifts!

Hope and pray this was a blessing to you. Whether you agree or disagree I love you and want “Peace’ to rule our hearts and minds. Let’s all do what we just read in 1 Corinthians 14:1 and “Follow after LOVE”. If you have ever had God use you in the gift of Faith, it would be a pleasure to hear your experience to encourage others.

Thank you for taking the time to read and study this Bible lesson. Please be a Berean Bible student and go and study every subject taught for your own self edification. Prove all things by the scripture whether they be so or not. God bless you and until next time, know Jesus is coming Soon!

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Understanding Spiritual Gifts Part 2 – Intro to Spiritual Gifts

(Ver 1.0) This is “Part 2” in a study series concerning God’s Spiritual Gifts. This series was initiated to answer a reader’s question on the subject of describing and understanding the 9 “Spiritual Gifts” found and defined to us primarily in 1 Corinthians 12. But in order to understand this subject we discovered in the introduction we all have the basic need to obtain the fundamentals of the subject first. If you have not already studied this lesson, it is strongly recommended that you please go to “Part 1” first before continuing with today’s lesson. Those concepts will largely not be repeated in this lesson. Thank you.

In the first introduction lesson on Gifts natural or spiritual, we discovered God’s ultimate gift given to all of humanity was Jesus Christ. The key verse was John 3:16 which everyone should know by now. However, today we will begin to understand what kind of other spiritual gifts that God has given to humans and why? Normally many Christians only focus upon studying 1 Corinthians 12 to learn about 9 spiritual gifts that God gave to His church body. These 9 gifts are listed in the order of their mention as follows:

  1. The Word of Wisdom (1 Cor 12:8)
  2. The Word of Knowledge (1 Cor 12:8)
  3. Faith (1 Cor 12:9)
  4. The Gift of Healing (1 Cor 12:9)
  5. The Working of Miracles (1 Cor 12:10)
  6. Prophecy (1 Cor 12:10)
  7. The Discerning of Spirits (1 Cor 12:10)
  8. Divers Kinds of Tongues (1 Cor 12:10)
  9. Interpretation of Tongues (1 Cor 12:10)

This is an incredibly misunderstood and abused list of spiritual gifts. Many times, Bible teachers take only certain verses out of context to prove their erroneous doctrines and this list is used by many for several different hidden motivated reasons to direct us away from us desiring to receive or participate in these gifts. This my friend is deception of our enemy working through people appearing as clergy, preachers, pastors or teachers. And most of these people do not even know they are deceived or are preaching the doctrines of devils (1 Tim 4:1). This is exactly why each believer in Christ is responsible to know the Bible for themselves. We are ALL instructed to be “Berean” types of readers and hearers of the Bible and verify everything we read or have heard with our own personal Bible studies (Acts 17:11).

However, just know that most of these reasons of these teachers leading sheep astray, are either ignorant on Bible topics because they have brought into their denominational doctrines or seminary based human reasonings, and do not knowingly understand what they were taught that was being demonically inspired to bring confusion into the body of Christ. Remember, the Works of Almighty God are always intended bring Truth and to Unify the Body (1 Cor 12:7). God’s purpose is always to edify and Build-up the church body (1 Cor 14:3-4, 1 Ths 5:11).

God be willing, we will plan to go into each of these 9 gifts in more detail in the future, but for now we should focus on some of the key points made by the Holy Spirit found in the contextual verses. These points must not be overlooked, misunderstood or even ignored. These are listed as follows:

  1. God does not want us to be ignorant of any Spiritual things like His Gifts (1 Cor 12:1).
  2. People not knowing about Spiritual things are easily led astray by devils into worshipping natural things like idols (1 Cor 12:2).
  3. There are many Spiritual Gifts, but they all come from the same True and Living God (1 Cor 12:5).
  4. There are many different timings and effects (purposes) of the operation of these Spiritual Gifts but God is operating them all as He pleases since He knows who needs help even when we don’t (1 Cor 12:6).
  5. But when the Spirit of God chooses to manifest these Spiritual Gifts to someone, they are given to profit (benefit) the one who it is directed to, as well as everyone that is present in the church (1 Cor 12:7).
  6. Not everyone has these gifts operating through them. In fact, it would be very rare for just one person to be used by God in the operation of all 9 Spiritual Gifts, by God’s design and purpose (1 Cor 12:30). Even Jesus Christ appears to not operate in all 9 gifts of the Spirit. We will plan to examine this later as God wills.
  7. These 9 gifts are manifested only as the Spirit of God wills (1 Cor 12:11). This simply means no human can stand up and turn on these gifts and operate in them as they will, independent of His leading.
  8. God instructs the church body to “covet” earnestly the best spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12:31). This show us that it is up to the individual believer if they want to participate or not in every spiritual gift. We can logically deduce this by seeing it is up to the believer in the gifts, to desire to want to be used in them. It also strongly teaches that not all gifts are of same purpose or value as the other spiritual gifts. There are definitely some gifts that are better than others, but the gift needed by God to minister to someone at any given moment is still the best for that situation.

It is also very interesting to see how God connects Spiritual Gifts to the church being the body of Christ in diverse roles and purposes, having the same Spirit, but all having great need of each of the other body parts. Think about this analogy in the description of a human’s body. For example, some of the most least visible organs and parts of the body are typically some of the most essential. These are taken for granted by many people up until they fail or get attacked and causes their entire life to change.

Ever think of the pancreas, lungs, stomach or colon? These are all unseen body parts yet essential for corporate life of the body. Ever think about these body parts? Probably not, unless they fail to operate. This is what God is teaching in the middle part of the chapter.

Therefore we are learning how one highly visible and gifted person in the body of Christ must not look at themselves as being better or more important than some other unseen part of the Body of Christ. No part of the body is less important to God’s operation in the earth. This causes us to make sure we remain humble in every role of the body of Christ and utilizing each and every gift.

Finally, at the end of chapter 12 God lists some new spiritual gifts and intentionally joins them to the chapters’ previous 9 gifts. That simply means there are a potentially lot more spiritual gifts given to humans in the church than those first listed 9 spiritual gifts. We should have learned this concept in the opening introduction where Jesus was described to be the ultimate spiritual Gift. Let’s list these gifts found at the end of the chapter in 1 Corinthians 12:28:

  1. Apostles
  2. Prophets
  3. Teachers
  4. Miracles
  5. Gifts of Healings
  6. Helps
  7. Government
  8. Diversities of Tongues

Notice the overlapping new gifts with the previous gifts of the Spirit. The new 5 gifts appear as 1) Apostles, 2) Prophets, 3) Teachers, 6) Helps, and 7) Government. These were combined with the previous gifts 4) Miracles, 5) Gifts of Healings and 8) Diversities of Tongues. This is your first clue that God is telling us that there are potentially many more gifts that have yet to be included in the total number of the complete list. So far, we have 14 total spiritual gifts found. No let us join this list with the obvious verses containing Apostles, Prophets and Teachers. We can find this in Ephesians 4:11;

  1. Apostles
  2. Prophets
  3. Evangelists
  4. Pastors
  5. Teachers

This list is often called the 5-fold ministry gifts. But notice the overlap again between the previous gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12 and here in Ephesians 4. What we can see immediately in Ephesians 4:11 is the statement saying, “He Gave”. This simply means God is confirming to us that these are spiritually gifted people and these gifts came from Him. We can call these “anointings” which just so happens to be the Greek word “Christos” which is normally translated as “Christ” but literally means “anointed one”.

The subject of the anointing of God, might be something new to many Christians. However, this describes the Spirit of God enabling the Gifts of God. An anointing from God is simply a portion of the Spirit of God that rests upon an individual to enable them to do things by faith, supernaturally that they normally would “not” be able to accomplish in their own individual abilities. I firmly believe that every Christian is anointed to do something for God.

I am a good example of someone having an anointing. Without the Spirit of God, I am not a normal type of person that likes to teach, especially before a large crowd. Yet God’s ability through His anointing supersedes my personal abilities, and this causes Him to get the Glory for everything I do to bless His people. I do not take the credit for anything that is taught by me. I am not that smart to be able to understand the Bible in-depth like is published here.

Therefore, know and learn from this lesson that God has gifted everyone and each Christian must find out what they were called to do and how He gifted them to fulfill it. Then seek Him and unite with Him in unity to cooperate in Faith to work with God to cause it to come to pass. Just because someone is anointed does not mean it will automatically happen. We all must take a step of faith and move in the direction that He is leading us to go, step by step!

Jesus God’s Gift and Gifted Anointed Servant

Here is another shocker for many Christians. The Bible clearly teaches us that Jesus Christ was anointed by God for His 3 and half year ministry time here on the earth. Jesus proves this in Luke 4:18 when He was reading from the book of Isaiah. He began to read the words in the scroll which said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me…” (Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4:18) and this is followed by a key list of items that Jesus was anointed by His Father God to accomplish on earth. Also, in Acts 10:38 God further confirms this truth by saying “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and Power, who went about doing good, healing all those oppressed by the devil”. Wow, what amazing information of Truth.

It might also be important for you to see when God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit. We can find this in Matthew 3:13-16. In this passage, Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized of him in water. After John baptizes him in the water and while Jesus is coming up out of the water, the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus and abides. This was the anointing of the man Jesus of Nazareth. This is when Jesus begins His supernatural ministry on the earth performing countless miracles. But we should ask ourselves, why was it necessary for the Son of God who was the Almighty God in the flesh to be baptized and anointed?

Why didn’t Jesus the omnipotent God just heal everyone and do everything the same way He did when He created the world? Here is the short answer why God chose to anoint the man Jesus rather than to operate in His deity power. Philippians chapter 2 confirms God laid aside His Supernatural Omnipotent powers to be made like men. He did this to legally counter the devil’s works on the earth. Satan had exalted himself by his pride and God chose to humble himself and die on a cross to save us concurrently destroying the evil works of the devil.

Another part of this answer, is that Jesus chose to become a natural human laying aside His deity power in order to set an example for how humans are supposed to live and operate in this life. Do you remember what Jesus told the disciples in Acts 1:8? He told them to wait in Jerusalem so that they would receive “Power” when the Holy Spirit came upon them. This simply means the disciples were being anointed with the same Spirit power that Jesus had and this is still available for us today! This brings us to another Key Spiritual Gift from God.

Gal 3:14  That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith

Notice this verse does not directly mention a gift, but if you recall from lesson one a gift is always offered by the giver and it must be subserquently received (taken) by the recipient. This verse shows us that the Holy Spirit was a promised “Gift” that must be received by humans. Therefore, we are finding another reference to a Spiritual Gift from God. God’s Holy Spirit is the same Spirit that indwells and joins with our human spirit at the new birth which Jesus called being “Born-Again” in John 3.

But now we are seeing new work of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ (Anointed One) to anoint each of the members in His church body. This is what Jesus told the disciples to receive on the day of Pentecost in the upper room in Acts 2. This experience occurs after the new spiritual birthing process and God’s purpose is to empower us to become witnesses to other humans that have not been born-again.

Conclusion

We have just barely begun to cover an introduction to Spiritual Gifts that come from God. These are all more awesome that you can imagine. Each Spiritual Gift has a specific purpose and usage to give God glory and to edify His church body. Hopefully, you are enjoying this series. If you have time, please like, comment and ask any question that you may have about Spiritual Gifts.

God Bless you exceedingly and abundantly above all you can ask or think. Because most of us don’t have much of a clue what God has prepared for them that “Love” Him. I can’t wait to find out! Always remember Jesus Christ is coming sooner than most people think. It could be today! Are you ready to meet Him in the air?

If you would like to continue study in the series, please go to “Part 3“.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Understanding Spiritual Gifts Part 1 – Introduction to Gifts

(Ver 1.1) This is “Part 1” in a study series concerning God’s Spiritual Gifts. This series was initiated to answer a reader’s question on the subject of describing and understanding the 9 “Spiritual Gifts” found and defined to us primarily in 1 Corinthians 12. But in order to understand this subject, there are potentially many people who need to begin with understanding the basic supporting subject verses that help build the foundation for the deeper advanced topics of “spiritual gifts”. What we learn from Jesus in John 3:12 is that He said very plainly, “if I tell you of natural (earthly) things and you do not believe, how then can I tell you of the spiritual?”

This is just elementary fundamentals of all education. Everyone needs to learn the basic numbers and mathematical operations like addition and subtraction before we attempt algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus and etc. Jesus taught us a fundamental concept that natural things reveal far greater unseen spiritual things. There are parallels between them both, and learning the basics of the natural leads us to better understand the spiritual. This is what today’s introduction will attempt to cover in a quick overview format.

God’s Spiritual Gifts maybe an easily misunderstood and complex Bible Subject to study for some. But, like any Bible subject, it can be oversimplified or exaggerated and many subject elements can be ignored because spiritual realities are not clearly understood by flesh dominated people. However, we will desire to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading and first step through the foundational Bible verses to help us establish the groundwork of truth about this subject. If you are ready, let us begin.

Understanding Gift Giving

This section will be designed for only a very few, but even advanced students may find benefits in refreshing their memory on the basics. Basic gifting can be observed from four “points-of-view”. First, there is the view from the gift giver perspective. Second, there is the opposite side of the receiver of the gift perspective. Third, there is the view from an external earthly observer perspective. Finally, but not the least there is the divine view of the entire gift process. We will soon discover that these perspectives are true for a natural gift as well as a spiritual gift that is given. Let’s see a Bible example of each.

  1. Matthew 6:1-3 – Jesus teaches us that when we are giving alms to the Lord, we are not to be doing it to be seen by observers on the earth. Therefore, some spiritual gifts are meant to be secret without observers. In this example, we have God the receiver, a human the giver and by intentional design of God no other observers. This type of gift of God is normally something physical/natural.
  2. Hebrews 13:15 – This verse of scripture describes a spiritual gift of praise that a human offers up to God. Logically, this would be done in private prayer time. But it could occur corporately in a church gathering also. Either way, the intention is not to have human observers focused upon you the giver, to praise you. Everyone should be focused only upon the receiver, God. Because our Heavenly Father is a giver, humans were designed by God to be imitators of Him (Eph 5:1).

We just saw a couple of quick Bible examples of gifts from humans given to God, one that is natural like an offering of natural finances given to God and the other was an offering of spiritual “praise” to God. Therefore, gifts given to God can be either natural or spiritual. We will find out later that God’s gifts that He gives to humans can also be natural or spiritual.

But for now, let us see another example of a man giving a gift to God but this time it is certainly being done through another natural man. In Genesis 14 we find where Abram had just won a huge victory recovering everything that was stolen by an enemy. This enemy captured Abram’s nephew Lot and all of the valuable plunder of Sodom.  Abram was returning home after victory with a huge blessing and he met the king of Sodom, Melchizedek. Abram and Melchizedek had a covenant meal with bread and wine like Jesus did at the last supper with His disciples. Then Abram paid to Melchizedek a tithe (Tenth) of all of the spoils. This is the first mention of the actual amount called a tithe. But it happened over 430 years before the Law is given to Moses. That should be interesting to some.

However, we find another typology of Jesus in this story because Melchizedek was a type of Jesus. Melchizedek acts as a mediator priest of God like Jesus does in the New Covenant. We can read about these multiple places, Psalm 110:4, Hebrews 5:6, and Hebrews 6:20.

Now let us shift our focus to normal human-to-human gift giving of natural object examples found in the Bible. One of the first accounts of natural gift giving is also found in Genesis and it takes place when Abraham sends his senior servant to get a wife for his son Isaac. Isaac had just been offered as a sacrifice to God when a substitute ram was found to be caught in a nearby thicket. This substitutionary sacrifice was a type and shadow of the coming sacrifice of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God in the New Covenant. You can read about this display of God’s grace within typology in Genesis 22.

But in Genesis 24 is where we find the journey of Abraham’s servant to bring back a wife for Isaac from amongst Abraham’s relatives. We will notice in this story that it is all done in faith. There is a distinct parallel to Isaac being the figure of Jesus Christ and the future bride Rebekah being a type of the church. The servant appears to be a type of the Holy Spirit and God’s works through the Spirit to give the church gifts.

What we will notice in Genesis 24:10 is that the senior servant of Abraham loads 10 camels to take with him on his journey to fetch the bride of Isaac. It might be interesting to assume one camel was where the servant rode on his journey and the other 9 carried all of the gifts for the bride and her family. Thus, some may easily see that there could be a parallel here to the 9 gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12 mentioned as gifts given to the church bride of Christ by the Holy Spirit.

In the chapter of Genesis 24, we find that the first gifts given were physical and natural and were to the future bride Rebekkah. The servant gave her 2 golden bracelets and a golden earring in verse 22. We will notice that the gifts on the camels that were brought from Abraham were intended to demonstrate his wealth and his generosity which are admirable character traits of Christians today.

However, it is noteworthy to know that it was the custom of those Bible days that gifts were intended to satisfy the virgin bride’s dowry. A dowry is just another word for a gift that is being offered. The bride still had a choice to accept the marriage proposal and go back with the servant to her bridegroom Isaac or she could also say no and stay with her family. Nevertheless, there was still a transfer of wealth being given to help motivate the bride’s positive decision. After all she has never met Isaac personally and she will be accepting to marry him in total blind-faith based upon the words of a servant. We may get more depth into this typology later in the series.

What we have seen is example of natural gifts that are given to a bride and her family by a third-party mediator who is the gift giver on the behalf of the father Abraham for his son Isaac. You may be aware already that many marriages were arranged by the fathers. The spiritual parallels that are given here to God the Father sending the Holy Spirit to humanity to offer gifts for a Son’s marriage covenant proposal to the church bride is very profound. This is because we are also saved by God’s Grace through our faith (Ephesians 2:8) and it is the Holy Spirit that gives us many gifts.

Understanding Gifts in the Bible

It might also be helpful to some, to define what a gift normally is according to the Bible. Hopefully, everyone has received a natural gift from someone at some time in their life. This is certainly a very common thing to do for most normal people. But there are some that are so self-centered that they have only thought of themselves. If you have never given to someone or received a physical gift from anyone in your life, please be brave enough to share this in the comments. No one has to give their names in the unless they want to. However, this information may help us and others to pray if prayer seems appropriate for a situation.

On the other side of this it might be nice if you are able to share an experience about a natural gift that was given to you once that made you feel very special and loved. If you care to share this experience in the comments, please do so. Please share how this gift changed your life for the better. These kinds of experiences can demonstrate great God qualities of His gifts and how they should make us feel every day.

For the basics, a natural gift is usually a physical object. But it can also be a special time spent with someone or even kind words of encouragement. A gift is usually a nice and desirable object or action. For an extremely busy father or mother, maybe the most valuable gift you can give to your child is your personal time. In these cases, money is usually not what a child desires.

However, for others, any object that will potentially make someone excited, joyous and happy is a great gift. This is because the giver has placed time and thought into picking and obtaining the gift to fit their recipient. Any good gift should be an object tailored specifically for a single individual’s needs or wants. Or a gift could be just a general item like flowers or chocolate that almost anyone would enjoy but these general gifts usually show there could have been less thought that was given.

Any good gift should always be given unconditionally. No gift should be offered as a bribe or to achieve some ulterior motive or desire of the giver. A true gift is not a business transaction. There is no financial return from the recipient(s). If a giver of money or other types of gifts receives a physical favor for pleasure, this is not someone giving a gift, it is more like prostitution where a person sells their body in exchange for being given financial benefits. This is a business transaction and not real Bible gift giving experience.

Like we saw in the last section about Abraham the father sending a servant with gifts to find a bride for his son Isaac, all of this was motivated by “LOVE” and was not business. Business would go anywhere to obtain a desire, but the servant was specifically only sent to one place for near relatives of Abraham. Nothing was given to buy love for his son. These gifts were all demonstrations of a father’s love in his heart for his son and his well-being to find a wife for him to love and for this bride to have the right husband so that she can show her love back. God’s gifts are always based upon “LOVE” (John 3:16) and our gifts should be the same.

Also, notice that any real and good Bible gift to a friend or even to God should never cost the giver nothing. Bible gifts must not be worthless nor should they be a previous gift that was given to the giver without charge. A real Christians is not a thrifty re-gifter of items that were given to them that they just don’t like, just don’t need or want. If you notice in the Bible God does not give away junk, trash or worthless items and neither should anyone else if they desire to be like God (Ephesians 5:1).

Some may want to disagree with me on this topic and say that last paragraph was just wrong or too strong. Therefore, let us go through some Bible verses and examples. The first verse, that informs us of God’s character to give His best is John 3:16. This verse says, “For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son”. As you should know that was the ultimate gift of the sacrifice of the life of God the Son. This was the most valuable gift God has ever given to and for humanity.

Next, notice what James 1:17 says to us about God’s gifts, “Every good and perfect gift comes down from above”. This clearly invokes only quality gifts of minimum value of “Good” and maximized value of “Perfect” come from God. This means God is not going to give anyone, “OK gifts”, just “fair”, or even “needs repair” gifts. Any “Gift” has to be at least judged to be “Good” having no bad qualities or flaws. Let’s examine some other Bible verses on the subject of gifts.

Let’s analyze the offerings of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. Here we have an example of two givers of differing valued gifts being given to God. Abel gave the first and the best of his lambs. But it appears that Cain only gave to God what seems to be the leftovers. God rebukes Cain for his offering but accepts Abel’s. It appears God also gives value to receiving the best that a human has to give. This giving your best is display of the greatest God kind of “Love”. These are just a few examples, but we will do one more.

In 2 Samuel 24:24 King David, is offering sacrifices to God. Another king wants to give David the gits that he offers to God. But David refuses these gifts and tells the other king, “I will not give to the LORD that which costs me nothing”. Do you see the concepts being taught? These are very important gift giving and receiving concepts. The giver should always give what is best and the receiver should always expect and value the best gift that was given.

From this topic we should always begin by understanding that there are always at least two participants in the giving of a “gift”. These are usually first, one or more people that acts as the “giver” and then second, there are at least one, or more persons that must receive or take hold of the gift.

Introduction to Spiritual Gifts

We already read about James 1:17 where the Bible declares God to be the giver of every good and perfect spiritual gift from heaven. This verse firmly establishes God as the Good Gift Giver. Satan the archenemy of God is not a “giver” of good. According to John 10:10 Satan the thief is the one that steals from us the potential gifts that were given to us from God. Therefore, we have just identified two spiritual opposites. One is an evil taker and the other a very awesome Spirit that loves us tremendously. Evil gives death and Good gives life only.

Are giving and receiving spiritual gifts different from giving and receiving natural gifts? Who is the giver of spiritual gifts, what are they, when were/are they given, how do they come and why are they given and how are they received? Finally, it might be good to ask, are spiritual gifts automatic, guaranteed, or can they be lost or not received?

2Pe 1:3  According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

What we are learning is that God is the loving, all-powerful, all-knowing, and the ever-present Spirit who has already given to us “every good and perfect” spiritual gift (James 1:17) and everything that pertains to “life”. Therefore, we are confirming that God is a Spirit and the giver of only good spiritual and natural gifts. In fact we can further verify this by reading the first two chapters of Genesis.

In Genesis 1 God creates everything in our present world system including man and woman at the end of the 6th day and everything God saw was “Very Good”. This just further confirms that God only gives high quality gifts. In fact everything God created before man was placed on earth for man to already partake. There was already air, water, food, health, strength and everything they needed for life. Do you think this is not true for us now in the New Covenant?

God Our Ultimate Gift Giver Example

We have already seen James 1:17 where God is declared the spiritual giver of every good and perfect gift. These good gifts only come from Him that is in heaven. Sure, He uses people many times. But we wouldn’t have anything good if it was not for God’s sovereign working hands all up in our business. 

We have almost all heard someone say how they earned their way and worked for everything that they have. These people give God no contribution to their success. But this is a narrow-minded attitude based upon deception of the enemy. Where did the air you breath come from? Where did the ground you stand upon come from? Where did the mind you think with come from? We could go on and on listing all of the things that God has given to you, to help you get where you are today? Your next heart beat is only because God created it to work this way.

What we must begin to realize is that without God’s contribution to us all and providing us everything we have need of no one would be here. It is time to change our attitude of “I did it my way” to “thank you Lord for being so gracious and kind to me”. “Thank you, Lord for all the things that you have given to me”. “Thank you, Lord for all of things you have done that I don’t know or understand how you did them”. “Open the eyes of my heart to know and to see everything you have done and given to me”. “I pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen”.  Now we can begin to list just a few important spiritual gifts that were given to us. We will begin with the most significant for our eternal existence location.

Joh 3:16  For God (the Gift Giver) so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son (the Gift), that whosoever believeth (recipients) in him (the Gift) should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Here is our first foundational Bible verse of Truth for this lesson series. It comes from the book of John and it is Jesus the Son of God (the Gift) speaking to us about himself (the Gift) and His spiritual Father God (the Gift Giver). This verse also identifies the recipient of the “Gift” which is “us” who believe.

The verse begins with an amazing declaration and the basic motivational reason for giving anyone a gift, and it is called “LOVE”. God is described to be “LOVE” as is plainly stated in 1 John 4:7-8. John 3:16 is very clear to state that God gave His only begotten Son Jesus as a gift to the lost dead world to offer them the ability to receive eternal life. This is by far the greatest gift that God has ever offered to any human and like every other spiritual gift given to us by God (while each is a great blessing), none will do us any good unless the primary gift of Jesus is received first.

Let us continue our lesson with the simplest basics. What is a gift? One basic definition of a “gift” is something that is given freely and voluntarily without any expected monetary exchange or payment to be received in return. In other words, there is no expectation, requirement or qualification placed upon the recipient to deserve the gift being offered by the “Giver”. This is certainly a great description of John 3:16, since there is nothing, we can do to earn, purchase or buy this extraordinary free offered gift.

One of the basic concepts of giving others a God like “gift” is for us to give someone something that is highly useful, valuable, beneficial and desirable by those that are meant to receive it. For example, giving a teenager a broken smart phone that does not work would be quickly disappointing, resentful, offensive and even hated. This type of gift would be most likely quickly rejected. But handing them a new smart phone in the box with all the provider services paid for, would change their life significantly and their attitude should be one of great joy, thankfulness and excitement. Therefore, giving worthless gifts are not ideal for God or for anyone else either.

Jesus certainly qualifies as the most valuable gift that could have ever been given to us. Why is this? This is simply because Jesus was God personally manifested in the flesh. He willingly humbled Himself to be a part of His limited creation to become a human. However, it was this sacrifice that opened the only way for us out of a certain eternity in hell. Without this plan of God, there would be no hope for any of us.

But by receiving this gift, we will discover the path we were traveling upon was leading us to perish in eternal destruction because the receiving of this gift of Jesus Christ provides us with “eternal life” which is defined by Jesus as the gift of “knowing God and His Son Jesus personally” in John 17:3. Believe it or not this is the most important gift available. Most humans do not realize they can know God personally and speak to Him like a friend and a good Father. It is this ignorance that allows Satan to deceive them into believing God is their mean and evil judge.

To summarize, a gift is valuable and desirable and must be appreciated by the receiver as the same. The gift must be offered freely. The gift must also be taken or received by the recipient to complete the transfer. These are all steps of both natural gifts and spiritual gifts as we should soon discover. Let us go over the subject of the Greatest Gift Giver next. We should already know that this is God based upon our John 3:16 foundational verse.

God (the Gift Giver) is a Spirit

To many flesh and blood humans it can be very difficult to imagine the concept of unseen spiritual beings. Because of the pains and pleasures created by God in our physical bodies, many humans are widely dominated and led by what they physically feel, see, hear, smell, or taste. Until a person meets and receives the gift of Jesus by inviting His Holy Spirit to reveal Himself to them and come into their heart to be their Lord and Savior they will never really begin to know or understand the True Spirit of God.

From the natural womb, most humans are completely unaware of spiritual matters and beings. There are even many self-called Christians that do not fully believe in spiritual beings like God, angels, demons and Satan. However, denial of their existence does not affect their reality in the least. In fact, Satan and his evil spirits are out to convince many humans they do not exist. The truth is that God is a Spirit. Further we are going to find our God is the “Father” of other created spirits (Hebrews 12:9).

Also, we must come to the realization that all humans are spirit beings with a never-ending spiritual existence. Each human has been created as a living man or a woman by God’s sovereign design in physical mortal bodies, with each possessing their own individual soul (mind, will and emotions) according to 1 Thessalonians 5:23. The devil, demons and angels are also primarily spirit beings. But angels have spiritual bodies which house their created spirit and soul also containing a mind, a will and emotions just like humans. The only differences between human bodies and angel bodies are that humans are weaker mortals awaiting a resurrection and angelic bodies are much stronger and were created perfect (Eze 28:15) and immortal (Mat 22:30, Mark 12:25).

John 4:24 – God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

This is a very essential statement that came from the mouth of Jesus Christ who was God in the flesh. Remember Jesus just said God is a Spirit. But further know that Jesus is the manifested form of God in human flesh form. God did this to live among us as one of us (John 1:1-14). He further accomplished this, in order to reveal the unseen Father of Spirits (Hebrews 12:9) and to show us the True unseen God personally (Colossians 1:15). But most important He came to die for us to save us from destruction that we observed previously in John 3:16. This verse in John 4:24 confirms God to be a Spirit as well as it indicates humans are also spirit beings if we can worship God in “spirit and in truth”.

It is very good to trust all of the words written in the New Testament in Red Ink (Words Spoken from the Mouth of Jesus) as the highest levels truths found in the Bible. No other statements made by another inspired writer will cancel any word that was spoken by the personal God manifested as the Son of God, Jesus. This belief is based upon sound scriptures that were spoken by Jesus Himself:

  1. Notice how frequently Jesus’ spoken words trump the Old Covenant writings of many of the inspired prophet’s words. Jesus would say new things which never contradicted the Old Covenant writings, but would rather bring new and greater spiritual meanings of applications to mostly naturally thought concepts. For example, in John 6:32 Jesus speaks of Moses giving them bread from heaven and claims this was not the true bread, then He refers to Himself to be the “true bread”. Then in Matthew 5:27-28 Jesus quotes one commandment saying “You have heard thou shall not commit adultery” and then trumps this commandment with “But I say, whosoever looks at a woman and lusts in his heart, has committed adultery already”.
  2. Jesus clearly identifies Himself as the manifested “Father” in John 14:9, “He that has seen me, has seen the Father”. This is a Bible essential concept to know and understand who Jesus was and where His words came from.
  3. Jesus said in John 8:32 and John 12:49, that he only spoke what His Father taught Him to say. Compare this statement to the prophet Isaiah who wrote of Jesus and what he said about his personal words. Isaiah spoke to God saying, “I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). Every human on the earth spoke some words that were not inspired by God to say, with the exception of Jesus. Therefore, His Words are the highest examples of truth.

What we are learning is a simple concept that is too often ignored.  Jesus Christ is both the fulfillment of the Old Covenant within God’s first Old Creation (Genesis 1:1) as well as the established chief foundation cornerstone of God’s New Covenant in His final New Creation (2 Cor 5:17). This work is God’s guarantee of permanent and legal separation from sin and Satan (Rev 12:7-8, Rev 20:10).

Without Jesus Christ there was no hope for humanity to be saved from a certain second death and separation from God (Rev 2:11, Rev 21:8). Yet we have preachers and teachers today that discount many of the words in the Gospels as not applying to the church as if what was spoken can be ignored. For example, I have heard preachers teach the Christian choice of unforgiveness is a non-factor for their human salvation. Yet in Mark 11:25 we find Jesus saying, “When you stand praying, forgive others if you have anything against them, that your Father which is in heaven may forgive you of your sins”.

We are exposing and dealing with a difficult and controversial subject that needs careful consideration and evaluations as well as correct scriptural balance. Do these words of God mean what they say and say what they mean? If we do not forgive a human of evil done against us, are we going to heaven anyway as a forgiven sinner? Not according to this verse in Mark 11:25 and others like it. Jesus appears to be placing an extraordinary condition upon us for completing our salvation.

Do you recall what Jesus said in Luke 6:46? In this verse Jesus said very plainly “Why call ye me Lord, Lord and do not do the things that I say?”. And then Jesus follows this with an explanation of a parable about those the do the Words of Jesus and those that do not. The one that does the words will withstand in the storms of life, but those that do not will be destroyed. This sounds a lot like a heaven or hell instruction. In fact, in Mark 7:23 Jesus makes it even more plain and told those that called him Lord and did not do what he said, “to depart from me I never knew you”. How much stronger can anyone be? Are any of these words to be ignored even after being saved by calling Jesus Lord and believing in His resurrection from the dead (Rom 10:9-10)? I don’t believe that would be wise to tempt God by ignoring.

This is by no means related to works as obeying the Law of Moses. These are words of Jesus’ Christ our Lord and Savior and He said them to unsaved people before implementing the New Covenant after His resurrection, by I believe these words are still Supreme so that we must forgive other to continue to be forgiven to receive or completed salvation. It cannot be any clearer of a statement. I probably offended a lot of people with that statement that believe in Extreme Grace and Eternal Security no matter what we do or how we live.

We could list a lot of other verses that help confirm salvation is a process that must be “Held-Fast” and is not a one-time gift that can never be taken for granted, underappreciated or even thrown away by the human recipient’s choice. You must realize that every natural gift explains spiritual gifts. If someone gave you a luxurious piece of jewelry, do you have the opportunity to reject it after receiving it? Sure, you do! The spiritual gift of Salvation is no different. A saved Christian believer can change their minds by believing Satan’s deception and turn back into unbelief, departing from their relationship with Jesus (Hebrews 3:12).

You may think we have swayed from our subject of “Spiritual Gifts” from God? But we have not!  Remember we learned previously about God’s main “Gift” offered was Jesus in John 3:16. Take a look at another verse to help us better understand God’s offered gifts:

Ephesians 2:8 – For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

This is another potential controversial verse for many preachers. There is multiple noun subjects combined together and many do not know how to interpret these words accurately. First what is the main subject of the verse? Guess what the main subject being discussed in this verse and the context is human “Salvation”. Everything else is explaining the sovereign method of salvation that was chosen by God to accomplish our salvation.

How was salvation accomplished? It was of course by Jesus Christ the main subject of the entire Bible. Remember our foundational series verse of John 3:16, what did God say? Jesus said in this verse, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life”. Wow. Ephesians 2:8 and John 3:16 fit together like a hand in a well fitted glove. They are both about a “GIFT”. What was the gift? The “GIFT” was salvation “IN” Jesus Christ.

Aren’t we learning about the subject of “Spiritual Gifts” given to us from God and by God? How then was this Gift of Salvation made available? The Bible teaches us that it was given by God’s sovereign choice of His Son’s death on a cross and this was one of the greatest displays of God’s Grace and Power that I know of according to Ephesians 1:19. Ephesians 1:19 is also connected to our other verses Ephesians 2:8 and John 3:16. Therefore, the Gift of salvation is one of God’s greatest sovereign works and it is given by God to humans “ONLY” as a “GIFT”. Humans CAN NOT EARN IT, WORK FOR IT, or EVER DESERVE IT!!! But WE STILL MUST and ARE REQUIRED BY GOD to 1) VALUE it, 2) DESIRE it and 3) RECEIVE it!!!

In other words, there are “NO GIFTS from GOD” that are ever forced upon any created spiritual being. What then was the “sovereign part and role of mankind” that was needed to receive this awesome “SPIRITUAL GIFT of SALVATION”? The answer to this question is clearly stated in all three of our verses. We must “BELIEVE” (John 3:16, Ephesians 1:19) which is the same as us choosing to have “FAITH” in Ephesians 2:8. “FAITH” is always a human “spiritual” choice that is made by us to believe. But we are required specifically to only believe by hearing God’s Words being spoken (Romans 10:17). This is directly opposed to hearing and believing Satan’s words that are designed to keep us blinding from knowing the truth.

Therefore, “faith” and “believing” in God’s Words being combined with “speaking” them in agreement is the human spiritual hand of choice that reaches out to God’s hand presenting us the “GIFT of SALVATION” being offered freely to everyone. This is exactly how we take hold of every other Spiritual Gift that we will encounter in this series. This is God’s sovereign design, not mine, not yours, nor anyone else’s.

Conclusion

We have seen in our foundational verse found in John 3:16 that God’s types of spiritual gifts are probably much different than our gift giving ideas. Hopefully you can quote this verse by memory. “For God so loved the world, HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life”. In this verse we found “LOVE” is the dominating directly named “Gift” motivation. But there is also other motivation factors involved that were not directly stated in this Gift of Jesus Christ’s death.

For example, “Compassion”. The sacrifice of Jesus (the Son of God) was offered because no other human could save themselves. Everyone was tainted with the corruption of “Sin” from their father “the first Adam”. This is why God came to the earth as another “Adam” having a pure sinless blood from above. It was this blood being sacrificed that was able to “Save Us” by paying the penalty of our sins by becoming our sins (1 Peter 2:23).

It was this great exchange of Righteousness becoming Sin that offered to us the ability to exchange our Sin for His Righteousness as His “FREE GIFT”. As you can see this was not a normal human idea for the great “Ultimate Gift”. This is because most humans don’t know there is an existence after physical death and where they are going to go after this occurs upon the earth. However, God knew the outcome of Adam’s terrible choice to covenant with Satan and turn over the earth to his rulership (Matthew 4:8-9, Mathhew 25:41). This is exactly why God planned for this Gift long before the sin of the first Adam.

Rev 13:8  And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world

Therefore, let’s end this introduction about spiritual gifts with one major Old Testament example of God’s ultimate sacrifice gift system for our salvation to obtain a bride for his son. In this story found in Genesis 22-24, we will discover some major parallels by God’s inspiration to what was accomplished in giving His Son Jesus Christ.

Beginning in Genesis 22 is what some call, “the Trial of Abraham” or “the Isaac Offering”. In this chapter God commands Abraham to do a very hard thing after he waited over 20 years for the promised son named Isaac (who came from his wife Sarah). We will find very quickly in this chapter where God commands Abraham to offer Isaac up as a sacrifice to Him (Genesis 22:2).

Hebrews 11:18-19 shows us the conflict that Abraham was dealing with. God had sworn to Abraham that his promised “seed” (through the son named Isaac) would come a nation of people that could not be numbered like the stars in the night sky (Genesis 15:5). Since God had just told Abraham to kill this son, Abraham had to resolve in his mind how this promise of God was still going to happen. And Hebrews 11:19 informs us that Abraham determined this by believing God would need to raise Isaac back from the dead. I believe because Abraham obeyed God, this gave God the legal right to offer up His only begotten Son Jesus and Hebrews 11:19 further confirms that Isaac was a “figure” or “pattern” of Jesus to come.

This is true because of the parallels that are found in this chapter and what happened to Jesus in the Gospels. Let’s just go over a high-level review of this chapter. When we study this chapter, we will discover that Abraham is instructed to take his son on a multi-day journey to a mountain to be sacrificed.

Abraham and Isaac along with two servants traveled for 3 days to see the place they were sent by God to go. Here they finally saw it from a distance, that was still afar way off. This implies it would take another day to arrive at the appointed mountaintop (Genesis 22:4). Now Abraham and Isaac leave the servants behind and Isaac carries the wood for the sacrifice. On the way Isaac being observant asks his father, “here is the wood and the fire, where is the lamb for the burnt offering”? Wow, there are already so many parallels happening.

For example, we have the father named Abraham (who is a type of God the Father) taking his son named Isaac (a type of Jesus Christ) to a hilltop to be sacrificed. Most Bible scholars tend to agree this was the same hill that Jesus died upon almost 2000 years later. You see Abraham and Isaac took 4 days to reach the time of sacrifice. So did God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.

We know this because, according to God in 2 Peter 3:8, “One day with the Lord is as 1000 years and 1000 years is one day”. When did Jesus appear on the earth to die? It was exactly 4000 years or 4 days after Adam sinned. This is the first major clue given to us of the parallels.

The next factual comparison occurs by both Isaac carrying wood and Jesus carrying wood to the top of this mountain. One was Isaac carrying it for a burnt offering of himself and the other was also a sacrificial burnt offering of Jesus carrying a cross for the penalty payment of the sin of the entire world.

Next both men Isaac and Jesus were to be pierced with sharp iron objects. Abraham had a knife to kill his son Isaac and the Roman soldiers had nail spikes to pierce the Son of God Jesus to hang him on the wooden cross. But wait there is so much more to learn in this typology.

Abraham’s answer to his son Isaac’s question about where is the lamb, said, “Son God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering”. Wow! What a profession of faith. Remember what God told the servants when leaving them behind. Abraham told them “I and the boy will go yonder and worship and will return”. Both of these are incredible statements of faith that everything was going to be fine for his son Isaac and he would return even if God would need to raise him from the dead (Heb 11:19).

When Abraham was raising the knife to kill his son, an angel sent from God stopped him. It was quickly discovered that there was a ram that was caught in a thicket that was nearby Abraham. This ram would become their sacrifice instead of Isaac. Do you see the symbolic work of God that parallels Jesus as the Son of God was going to be the sin replacement sacrifice payment for all humanity?

You see a natural ram is a “father” of a natural “lamb”.  This identifies the parallel symbols of God the Father (Ram) becoming a human son (Jesus the Lamb) to die on a cross as our substitute Passover lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7). As we can clearly see in Genesis 22, God did provide a substitutionary sacrifice to save the life of Isaac. Isaac in this example still represents Jesus but it also included all of humanity that would become saved by believing in God’s gift described in John 3:16. And the Ram represent God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. That took the place of humanity by becoming a human to provide a way of salvation through a spotless lamb sacrifice (1 Peter 1:19).

Now notice in Genesis 22 after verse 9 there is no other mention of Isaac by name until we get to Genesis 24:4. Why is this significant? This is because it gives us another symbolic parallel to the New Covenant man that was raised from the dead. Of course we are talking about Jesus.

If you read Genesis 22:13 after Abraham sees the Ram, and was offered up to God instead of Isaac. Abraham slays the ram and then names that place “Jehovah Jireh” meaning “The Lord Provides”. This is where God speaks out loud again and begins to speak of Abraham’s “Seed” instead of Isaac the natural seed. We know this is about Jesus because in verse 18 God says “In thy “Seed” shall all the nations be blessed”. Believe it our not we see in Galatians 3:8 where God reveals that this was the Gospel being preached to Abraham and in Galatians 3:16 is a master key that unlocks the hidden parallels of Genesis 22 thru 24 being lessons pointing us to Jesus.

Gal 3:16  Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ

In Genesis 3:16 Paul writes and clarifies Genesis 22:17-18 for us saying, “God saith not, ‘seed’ as many, but “seed’ as singular which is Jesus Christ”. Wow, this is essential to understanding the parallels given in these stories of Isaac and Jesus. God is speaking of a natural “seed” named Isaac by name up until the Ram is sacrificed and then primarily the focus shifts to the spiritual “Seed” Jesus and the natural seed has disappeared from mention.

This writing style teaches us multiple things. First, there is a substitutionary sacrifice taking place by a human that is God the natural son a physical seed of Abraham. Second the next “Seed” that is emphasized in Genesis 22:17-18 is the “resurrected” Son of God, who also becomes the “firstborn” Son of God from the “dead” (Col 1:18). It is this resurrected from the dead physical and spiritual man that is now eternally alive as a combined God/Man.

This union occurred through the joining of God’s spiritual Seed (the Word) of God (Jesus) and He was united with the physical egg of Mary who was a natural seed of Abraham (Heb 2:16). And this man after paying our sin penalty became a completely new spiritual “Seed” that is the beginning of a brand-new spiritual God family (Hebrews 3:6) and a new creation (2 Cor 5:17), which were all a plan of God.

Finally, comes the part of the lesson we were waiting for. You see we do see the concept of a natural gift substitutionary sacrifice Ram that is given by God to take the place of the physical “seed” Isaac. This is a very clear reference to a gift that points us to Jesus, God’s ultimate gift, who is both a physical and spiritual substitutionary sacrifice Lamb to remove the penalty of two deaths that were passed upon all humans by the sin of the first Adam.

Because the first man Adam sinned a natural physical death came upon every human. But simultaneously a second spiritual death also automatically fell on every human. Since it is impossible for “spirits” to die, God redefines death to mean eternal separation from Him. This is clearly taught to us in Revelation 21:8 where God lists multiple sinner types that will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone for eternity and these people will never get the opportunity to know the True and Living God that Loved them.

No, it is not the sin of humans that sends people to hell! Rather it is the rejection of the free gift of believing in Jesus Christ to be saved that will send many to hell. This is a very sad reality, but still true. Therefore, spiritual gifts of God can be rejected but this is not because they were not given and offered.

We have just further confirmed the concept parallels between natural and spiritual gifts being identical. The things created and done in the natural were written so that we could learn about what was being done in the spiritual realm.

What should we have learned today? Good Spiritual Gifts:

  1. Are Offered by God and all come from Him only,
  2. Are Always Beneficial for all Humans,
  3. Are Designed for Every Human
  4. Are Intended to be received by ALL People that Value and Desire the Gift
  5. Are Never forced upon anyone
  6. Are therefore, optional to everyone
  7. Are Possibly Lost, Stolen or can be Rejected even after Receiving the Gift

We hope and pray this lesson was a blessing to you. And it helped to change your thinking to align with the basic Bible concepts of Gifts, whether natural or spiritual. If you have any concerns, questions or comments please feel free to leave them on this site. Thank you and may God continue to richly bless you with the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the Knowledge of Him (Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior). Never forget Jesus is Lord, and He is coming very soon, are you ready?

If you would like to continue reading in this series, please go to “Part 2“.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Faith Exam Part 2 – No Faith, Lacking Faith or Real Working Faith

(Ver 1.0) This is Part 2 in the Bible study series concerning God’s New Covenant commandment to examine ourselves, whether we be in the Faith, prove your own selves (2 Corinthians 13:5). If you have not read the Introduction to this subject, it is strongly recommended that you begin your study with “Part 1” first. From reading our series foundational scripture verse, we learned that “we must examine ourselves, to see if we be in the faith”. This command proves concretely that there are potentially many Christians that believe they are in faith, when they are apparently not in the real type of working Faith, Jesus is looking for when He returns. Otherwise, why else would we need to do a self “Faith” exam? Never forget that this verse was written to saved “Christians” and not to the lost unbelieving world that obviously does not yet even have a faith level to become saved from going to hell. What we have been learning is that God’s true “Faith” ranges from zero (none) to great faith and in varying measures, levels and degrees everywhere in between. But also, we find that there is a feigned or fake type of faith that we see in the Bible.

A fake faith is often a person who says and believe that they have faith yet they know nothing about this subject of faith to determine if their belief is true.  Just because someone says they have faith does not mean it is a true faith that works and receives from God. Perhaps you have asked, “Sister so-and-so had faith but they died, why?”. I don’t know the answers to that question for everyone, but I do know that it was never God that failed and this only leaves the cause of failure upon some aspect found in the natural realm.

Do you remember being in school and learning a subject like math, grammar, science, history, etc.? We would all listen to the teacher’s lecture and then read and study the course textbook. We might all think that we really heard, knew and understood fully what was taught to us about the subject. But when it came down to it, it was the teacher’s exam that proved whether we learned the subject or not. If we have never taken a class on the subject of true Bible “Faith”, why would anyone of us assume we have a real faith? No subject is learned without study (2 Tim 2:15).

If we were given a “Faith” test today, what grade level based upon the standard of our God would be passing? Do you believe you are passing? It might be surprising to know that God’s level of passing is 100% perfect. Uh oh? That sounds like we are all failing, and from the human view point we can never be good enough. But God made a greater way for us than trusting n our own efforts to save us. God’s 100% requirement was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And if we get into Him by faith, we are able to take advantage of His works.

However, there is more to it than this human Grace viewpoint of us having real working Faith. You see, what we need to know is that we may have super great faith in one area of our life, but almost zero faith in another essential life area. This is why taking God’s faith exam is not just a one-time Satan test that if we pass the test, he will never test or try our faith again in any other area of life.

Do you remember Satan’s temptation trail of Jesus found in Matthew 4? Didn’t Satan test Jesus three times in 3 different areas of human life. The first temptation was on the physical human needs for things like essential food. The second temptation involved a test for God’s protection by being asked to jump from the top of the temple and trust the angels to save him. The third temptation was clearly a spiritual test to get Jesus to worship him and in exchange Satan would give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world.

In ever “faith” test Jesus overcame the devil by quoting scriptures. The answer to every human test in life is the same for us. Therefore, if you do not know scripture and are able to quote it when tested in every area of life it is ordinarily too late to begin to build your faith in that area to win. Jesus never told the devil, wait a minute while I look up that verse. No, He simply quoted it from His heart and that is a true saving faith example.

So, we are learning the devil is persistent. In fact, in the temptation of Jesus, the Bible says Satan left Jesus only to return at a more opportune time. Satan was coming back to test Jesus again. This is the example that Christ set for us to follow in the area of true saving faith for every part of our life.

Today there might be some doubts about our salvation, tomorrow the temptation could come by some sickness, the next day there could be some major financial crisis, and then maybe a test that comes upon our family. There will be many tests and having real faith for each one is not just recommended but we will find it is essential.

What we will soon discover is that living by faith (Hab 2:4), walking by faith (2 Cor 5:7), fighting the good fight of faith (1 Tim 6:12) and overcoming the world by faith (1 Jn 5:4) is a daily requirement. This should help us to understand why a “self-Faith” exam is probably a “best-practice” to try to do every day. It really won’t take as much time as you may think once you know what to ask yourself.

Faith Self-Exam – Real Versus Fake?

Today we are going to further investigate one essential aspect of the subject of Faith. In performing any self-exam to determine if we have God’s defined “True Faith”, we should begin with the basic question “Am I in real Faith” or a “fake pretend Faith” for my situation facing me now? We can begin this exam by asking ourselves some basic faith-based questions? These are our questions.

  1. “Have I asked God what to do in this situation?”
  2. “Did I ask the all-knowing God to teach and show me how to overcome in this situation?”
  3. “Did I ask God for scriptures to help me in my problem?”
  4. “Have I heard His answer?” Yes, continue, No, wait!
  5. “Have I learned, memorized and meditated upon these scriptures so that I can stand firm in confidence upon them?”.
  6. “Now do I have peace in my heart?”
  7. “Or am I in fear about anything?”
  8. “Or am I worried or anxious about anything?”

Can we name at least two or three key verses and scripture references where God promised or revealed what we are believing and asking Him for? Did we claim these verses as His will for us (me)? If we can’t name the verses and quote them from our heart, we are probably not in faith. If we have a hard time thinking of the verses or saying the verses automatically, we are probably not in faith (Rom 10:8). Real Bible Faith is always built upon a firm foundation of the knowledge of God’s written or spoken Word (Rom 10:17) that pertains to Him meeting our relational, physical, mental, emotional or financial challenge of need which we are faced with currently in this world.

For example, if we are feeling very weak, tired and unable to do what is needed to be emotionally, physically or mentally accomplished today, we can stand upon Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. If we need physical healing, we can claim 1 Peter 2:24, “By whose stripes I was healed”. If we feel like we are losing our mind or our memory we can claim 1 John 2:20 which says “But we have an unction (anointing) from the Holy One and we know all things”. Or if we have been tormented by a great fear, God promises us “I have not given you a spirit of fear”, but rather I gave you “power, love and a sound mind” in 2 Timothy 1:7. These are just sample verses. It is best to be led by the Spirit of God to find the verses that apply to our personal situations.

What we are learning is that there are thousands of scriptural promises found in the Bible and God has claimed that “Every Promise is Yes and Amen” to Christians (2 Cor 1:20). But this implies we need to take fast hold to our promise not letting them slip and go from our hearts, in order to cause them to come to pass.

In other words, God’s promises are not always, easily, or automatically obtained just falling on us without a spiritual fight. These are only taken by “Faith” and “Faith” is only possible when we know exactly what God has said on the subject that we are facing. Remember we have spiritual enemies that are against us and these giants are trying to stop us from possessing the promise land.

Besides the many Christians that believe they are in faith but can’t name one Bible verse by heart, there are other problems that can cause faith failures. If you recall in Part 1, we learned about a kind of faith called “feigned” or “fake”. It was mentioned in 2 Timothy 1:5 when Paul was writing about “unfeigned” faith which represents God’s “Real Faith”. The Real Faith is the opposite of “fake” or “pretend” faith.

This verse clearly taught us about the existences of these two kinds of faith. Paul must have run into the “fake” faith before if he was praising some others for their “real faith”. Hopefully, you recall this but if not, please review “Part 1” because it usually takes the average person at least 7 or 8 times of hearing something to build it into their heart.

This subject today maybe a potentially controversial topic and it has probably caused heated debates between several differing Christian groups and denominations. However, we will attempt to only remain in a fair and balanced view of the scriptures and ignore human traditions. It would be very wise if everyone would take their own Bible to read along with the verses and use these to confirm or reject this topic based upon what the Holy Spirit speaks from His Word while reading.

No Faith or Lacking Faith
 as Contrasted with Real Faith

As we can read from the lesson title, our main subject is about three measures of faith we will call “No Faith”, “lacking Faith” or “Real Faith”. These conclusions are based upon the words spoken by Jesus in Luke 8:25 when He asked His disciples, “Where is your faith?”  This same event in a raging storm is written in Matthew 8:26 where Jesus is recorded to say, “Why are you so fearful, you of little faith”. Either expression indicates a faith level that was lacking the desired effectiveness amount that Jesus anticipated for His close following disciples to possess already.

These two statements of Jesus represent God’s expectation for all humans is not to live in fear or doubt and to choose to remain in faith despite the observable circumstances. Remember these statements were made before the disciples were born again and yet Jesus still expected them to believe what He said and act like what He said was true, which it was. This substantially teaches us that being born-again is not necessary to possess faith. In fact, it is having real faith that causes us to be born-again.

What this further teaches is that all humans have the potential to have real faith for salvation even before they are saved. This is actually confirmed in Romans 10:9-10. These verses claim “If we believe God has raised Jesus from the dead, and we confess Him as Lord, we will be saved”. So “Faith” is a requirement to become saved and this implies it is a further requirement to remain saved, especially since the New Testament commands us “To Walk and Live by Faith” (2 Cor 5:7, Rom 1:17).

Another key to understanding “real faith” is that believing for your salvation to become “born-again” was the most incredibly important step in your believing God journey. As we know now, our spiritual new birth required our contributing and participating “real faith” (Eph 2:8) to receive God’s Grace gift of salvation. This salvation consisted of His working great power to save those that believed (Jn 3:16) when He raised Christ from the dead (Eph 1:19-20). We can also conclude from this information that real faith or even faked faith can still exist in anyone regardless of being saved or yet unsaved.

With this in mind we can recall the Old Covenant nation of natural Israel. These people were written as examples for the church to learn from according to 1 Corinthians 10:11. Then we find two contrasting examples of people with faith and those without in this same nation. For example, Hebrews 11 provides us a long list of names that were illustrations of “Real Faith’ samples for us to follow. But in Hebrews 4:2 there were people in the wilderness that heard the Word of God but did not mix any real faith with God’s words to release His power. All of these people never received the promises of God. Wow! Which group are we in? This is our part to decide in the faith exam for today’s lesson.

A Modern-Day Extreme Grace Messages to Avoid

These statements cause some extreme Grace teachers to raise their eyebrows in shock. Some of these types of people will quickly turn this lesson off as a false teaching, without even reading everything that is revealed from the Bible. This extreme Grace belief is being taught by several grace teachers that believe when a human is born again, they were given God’s gift of faith to believe and therefore have obtained all of the fruits of the Spirit as a gift from God.

According to these teachers, they believe the fruits of the spirit included the completed “full” and “mature” fruits of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (Gal 5:21-22). But is this true? If it is then it appears that God can be accused of “favoritism” by giving those that will be saved the “beliefs” needed to be saved. This strongly implies that all of the people that are already in hell, were not given this faith to be saved. This is a belief that is parallel with extreme “election”.

Hopefully, you can see this cannot be a true belief, since it contradicts with 2 Peter 3:9 which says, “God is not willing any should perish” and John 3:16 that teaches us “whosoever believes will be saved”. This belief reverses human involvement in their salvation and any participation of “a human’s freewill choice to believe”. This belief also completely ignores the statement made by Jesus claiming when He is lifted up on the cross, He will draw “all men” to be saved according to John 12:32.

Notice the KJV translators placed the word “faith” in their list of spiritual fruits and too many teachers believe that this spiritual fruit is the same as our “faith” or our choice to believe during salvation (Eph 3:8). According to all of the scriptures that we should know on this subject of faith, does this make sense? Or are there contradictory verses that disagree and claim they are different types or categories of “faith”?

Remember what Jesus said to us in John 3:12. In this verse Jesus said, if I tell you of earthly things and you do not believe, how then can I tell you of spiritual things?” Jesus has just connected the truth that naturally created things are parallels into understanding spiritual things. God confirms this belief in Romans 1:21 when He declares the “unseen spiritual things concerning the Spirit of God are clearly seen in the things that were created, even His eternal power and Godhead”. That was a simple paraphrase, but the essence of the message is solid. We are learning and confirming “naturally created things” are windows into understanding unseen greater spiritual realities. In other words, understanding the created natural fruit processes are essential to understanding any and all spiritual fruit developments.

There is so much, so quickly ignored about the simple facts of what natural fruit is, how natural “fruit” grows and matures, where natural fruit comes from and finally how this information applies to discussing spiritual fruits. According to the Law of Moses in Genesis, all created natural fruit comes from fruit bearing trees that bring forth their fruit in season. Moses further describes these fruit trees saying, “they yield fruit whose seed is within itself”. This is a basic law of “seed time and harvest” (Gen 8:22) where everything God created reproduces after its own kind.

But notice how fruit is described to occur. God spoke in Genesis 1:11, “Let the earth bring forth trees yielding “fruit”. Do you see the natural process of seed planting, tree growth and finally fruit production?”  The fruit was not automatically fully on the tree. In fact, there was no created tree, only a planted “seed” of God’s Word spoken to the soil. The growing and sprouting tree had to increase from God’s seed to maturity in order to produce eatable fruit. If you understand this process fruit normally begins as a flowering type of bud, and then little by little it grows into maturity over the course of time before it can be eaten. This is why God created fruit trees long before He created the man to eat from them. Remember what we are learning is that spiritual fruit growth is almost identical to physical fruit production. Jesus taught us this concept in John 3:12 saying understanding earthly things helps us to understand unseen spiritual things like fruit.

Therefore, these extreme Grace teachers, teach since the “fruit” of “faith” is part of the new creation requirement for salvation and of being born again, they conclude too quickly that we must also already have all of the “faith” that we will ever need. This thinking is usually based upon beliefs in certain scriptures like these:

2 Peter 1:3 – According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: 

2 Corinthians 5:17 – Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new

Galatians 5:22 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith

Romans 12:3 –  For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith

These are just a few scriptures that are being misapplied to the subject of faith to attempt to make them say things that they do not actually say. We will be covering a lot of other scriptures besides those that we have mentioned about “fake faith”, along with the verses of “no faith” and “little faith” verses that we have already seen and are being ignored like Jesus and Paul did not know what they were talking about.

And these belief conclusions do not balance with countless other scriptures that must be ignored or explained away. However, many teach from scriptures like these, that when we are born-again of the Word and the Spirit of God, we have become new creations and we are now “wholly complete” in our human spirits. We can all see this clearly from 2 Corinthians 5:17 where God says, “all the old things have passed away, and everything has become new” but don’t forget this only applies to those “in Christ”.

Praise the Lord we can all agree so far. But this is where things are beginning to be taken to an extreme position of potential great error. Some of these ministers teach that “faith” is a fruit of the Spirit of God and therefore, we have all the faith in our spirit that will ever need since we are now one “spirit” with God according to 1 Corinthians 6:17. We hopefully can agree upon the verse being referenced is true, but are some jumping to conclusions without the supporting evidence?

Also notice that some might be able to use the verse in 2 Peter 1:3 to help confirm this belief because God has written to us that He has already given to us “all things that pertain to life and godliness”. This appears on the surface when taken out of context to confirm the belief that we already have all the faith ever needed for everything in life we encounter. But is this belief really true?

Then some may take Romans 12:3 that also appears in the KJV Bible translation to say God has given to “every man” THE measure of faith. Some may begin to be more convinced that this automatic faith possession is actually true, and that all Christians already have all “the” faith they need?  

Notice teachers who teach this belief many times use our “faith” used to believe for receiving our salvation, mental or physical healing, natural or spiritual aid to be the same type of “faith” as used in Galatians 5:22-23 as if “salvation faith” in Christ was the same as one of the 9 fruits of the Spirit. That is absolutely not true! Why?

It is because the “fruits of the spirit” are all human choices we make daily. For example, having the fruit of “Love” while it is found in our spirit internally because God’s Love has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit as revealed in Romans 5:5, is not the same as us choosing to demonstrate it externally as seen “fruit” that is shown to the lost world? How many Christians demonstrate the wrong reactions when confronted by evil people that is far from “Love”.

This is called the conflict between the “flesh” and the “spirit”. God speaks of this conflict extensively in Romans 8. Every Christian is dealing with these opposing choices each and everyday and we all can easily slip to choose incorrectly. Therefore, having a fruit of Joy is not inward, it is being joyous outwardly even when the world is throwing evil at us. So, it is the same as saying we have “Peace” inwardly then when chaos comes to try to destroy us, we suddenly in turmoil unable to have the ability to remain calm. We must learn to develop outward fruits like showing and being “peaceful” and this is a spiritual growth process.

The same is true for our primary subject of “examining our faith”. Saying we have “Faith” is not the same as being “faithful” to God, His Word and each other. No, saving “faith” is an internal experience from God’s Word (Seed) being planted in our spirit. Real Faith only comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). This is not the same as showing God that we will be externally faithful to Him in your external actions, choices, words, and lifestyles. Therefore, the fruit of Faithfulness is not internal “Faith” no matter what anyone tries to teach you. We must have true and living “Faith” to receive anything from God which has been given to us by His Grace. How then do we get this faith? Is it automatic like some teach? Have you “heard” every verse taught and found in the Bible? If the answer is no, you do not have all the faith that you could have.

Please let us quickly learn how to study the Bible. The Greek word translated as “Faith” occurs in around 244 verses of the New Testament. Did these Bible teachers that teach some of these verses mean that we already have all the necessary faith, look to see what else is written about the subject of Faith? All the verses must be balanced together correctly. We will hopefully get into this later in more detail.

But let us consider just one verse that contradicts for this part of the lesson. If these isolated verses on “Faith” were really truly interpreted for their application faith exists completely after the new birth, then why would God command us to examine ourself to see if we be in the faith? Remember this is the key verse in 2 Corinthians 13:4 for this series. Can we all agree this verse alone is a clear contradiction to their teaching?

To be told specifically to do our own self-examination of our faith to make the determination, “if I have the Faith that is necessary”, would cause God to look stupid in the light that people now say God has already given us “All Faith”? But also, do not forget that “IF” God has already given to all Christians “the Measure of Faith” that He requires, why would Jesus say in Luke 18:8, “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man returns, will He find faith?” Jesus is God in the flesh and He can’t and won’t contradict Himself! Otherwise, God becomes a “liar” like Satan.

It appears that there are too many Bible teachers embracing “selective scripture theologies built in isolation of other scriptures on the subject”. This is a very dangerous way to study and teach the Bible. By taking specific verses ignoring contextual content and related verses anyone can try to make the Bible say anything they like.

It is very easy to think one verse says something it does not say and then go and twist other verses to conform with the wrong belief. This occurs when we teach only the verses that fits our belief narratives while ignoring the many other Bible verses that potentially have direct content that proves their beliefs not to be actual balanced truth. When these teachers become locked into their beliefs and are unwilling to see other Bible verses on the subject of “faith” they become practically impossible to reach or teach. Perhaps you have heard some refer to them as “Concrete Believers”, meaning their beliefs are thoroughly mixed up and firmly set.

People who follow these kinds of Bible teachers must not be good “Berean Bible” students as God called the “more noble” people found in Acts 17:11. In this verse Paul was speaking of two types of people. One type in Thessalonica who were not very receptive to the teachings of Paul, and others like those in Berea that were considerably more opened minded to hear the new Words being taught. But then they did their own study in the Law to confirm if they were true.  Today, please let us all make the decision to become a true “Berean” open minded type of follower of Christ.

Faith in the Parable of the Sower

One of the most important parables ever taught from the mouth of Jesus is called the “Parable of the Sower” by many. But the main focus of the parable seems to be the “Seed” which is the Word of God. Since we are focused upon the subject of “Real Faith” and we should now know that this only comes from “Hearing the Word of God” (Rom 10:17), we should easily understand this parable is designed to teach us about “real faith” that only appears in 1 out of 4 types of human heart. Therefore, we know the other 3 soil types of the human heart were no faith or lacking faith that did not allow God’s Word to take root and produce “fruit” in their spirit. In other words, only 1 type of soil called good ground produced positive ending fruit and then sometimes only 30-fold, another time only 60-fold, and yet another 100-fold. Do you see the connection to varying degrees of human faith to receive?

In this parable Jesus said plainly, if you do not know this parable how will you know any other parable. Jesus places such important emphasis on this teaching that He claims us understanding the “Parable of the Sower” correctly is the key that unlocks all other parables and even other subjects of the Bible:

Mark 4:13 – And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?

Mark 4:14 – The sower soweth the word.

We need to know that Jesus was the original “Sower” in this parable. The “seed” that was being “sown” by Jesus is the “Word of God”. This makes God’s Words spiritual seeds that produce “New Life” when correctly received. This is because the “soils” in this parable are human hearts. But notice that this “Sower” (Jesus) in this parable never forced God’s “Seeds” (Words) into any human heart. In fact, Jesus the “Seed Sower” never even plows, cleans or prepares one heart soil type. He is simply sharing the Words of God to everyone equally and fairly.

This clearly implies it is the human’s responsibility to prepare, guard and protect their own heart’s soil. For example, the soil type 1 called the “Way Side” heart, has been trodden down so hard that the seed cannot enter it. This causes the “Seed” to be easily stolen by “birds of the air” a clear type of satanic spirits (Ephesians 2:2).

What we are learning in this beginning parable is that humans have been given personal responsibility to guard God’s Garden (the human heart). God commanded the first Adam to “Dress” and “Keep” the Garden (Genesis 2:15). The Hebrew word translated as “Dress” means to “work”, “till”, “prepare” the soil. The Hebrew word translated as “Keep” means to “Hedge”, “Guard”, and “Protect” the Garden soil. This was God’s unremovable human responsibility concerning our heart, mind and soul.

What does this Garden soil preparation and guarding from enemies have to do with our “Faith Exam”? Much more than many know right now. We will apply this concept to our self-examination of our faith, because “true” God like faith is of the heart.

Romans 10:8 – But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

As we can read “Paul” preached the “Word” (Seed) of faith concept that Jesus was teaching us in the Parable of the Sower. Paul was quoting Deuteronomy 30:14 insuring what was being taught now in the New Covenant had firms roots already established from the Old Covenant to build upon.

However, notice that there is a connection being reaffirmed between the hearts of humans and their mouths. God is building upon how a human heart is “Born-Again” through the entrance of God’s incorruptible “Seed” spoken by the mouth of humans. Paul speaks again of this process in 1 Corinthians 3:6 saying, “I have planted and Apollos watered, but God gave the increase”.

What we are being introduced to, is an important fact of Truth. According to Romans 10:17, “Faith comes by Hearing, and Hearing by the Word of God”. Hearing God’s Word either by someone else’s mouth or your own mouth is how we obtain faith. But did you notice the Bible is a huge book? Have you ever heard the entire Bible taught at one time? The answer is probably, no! This means there is still new amounts and levels of “faith” that can be obtained by hearing a new subject which has never been heard before. Do you see this? There is practically a never-ending supply of new “Faith” producing “Seeds” available to plant and water in our heart.

Real Faith is Measurable

There are many that may be confused by the term “Faith is Measurable”. What we must understand is that everything in the natural garden is measurable. This is the area of the soil, the amounts of seed planted, the amounts of crops expected based upon the seed planted per section, etc. This simply means spiritual things are all measurable also. Some may not believe this but this is what the created things of God teach us applying them to understand their spiritual counterparts. We can easily see that this is what the Bible says over and over using various measurement descriptions. Let us list a few of them on the subject of “Faith” to help us see it:

  1. Hebrews 11:6 – But without faith it is impossible to please God. Without is a clear measure indicator of zero faith. It is like never having heard the Gospel of Jesus ever.
  2. John 20:27 – “Be not faithless but believing”. Here Jesus is rebuking Thomas for having heard about the resurrection, but choosing not to believe it. This is clear rebellion and defiance since Thomas had heard Jesus said He would be raised up after three days. This is completely different than not being told the good news yet the net result was still “a zero faith” level.
  3. Matthew 8:26 – “Why are you so fearful, ye of little faith”. Here Jesus rebukes the disciples for thinking they were about to drown in a storm. Jesus had already told them, “Let us go to the other side” and Jesus went to sleep. Therefore, we see how the spiritual force of “fear” nullifies or reduces one’s faith level to become weak.
  4. Matthew 14:3 – “Oh thou of little faith, why did you doubt?” Here Peter gets out of a boat to walk on water and is almost to Jesus when he looked at the wind and the waves and began to sink. This clearly teaches us that when we begin to doubt what God said, our uncertainties reduce or remove our confident faith. This type of information strongly suggests that a human “faith” level could vary greatly from day to day based upon new circumstances or changing thoughts and focuses that are attempting to cause new “fear”. It could even involve new words heard that are counter to what the Jesus or His Word has spoken to us. We find this is believing the evil report rather than the “good” report of the Lord.
  5. Matthew 9:22 – Jesus speaking to a woman who had touched the hem of His garment and received her healing said, “Daughter, be of good comfort; your faith has made you whole”. This is an important story. This woman snuck up and received her healing without asking Jesus’ permission. She simply touched His garment and was healed. Jesus turns and asks “Who touched me” proving it was her level of working “faith” that produced the miracle to receive His power. You can read more details in Mark 5 about this same account. This woman appears to be in the middle ground of “Faith” measurements. She definitely did not have little faith. She could have been stoned in her condition yet was fearless to touch Jesus.
  6. Matthew 8:10 – “I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel”. We jumped to the “Great Faith” level of measurement. Here a gentile under authority told Jesus He did not have to come to his house, but speak the word only and his servant would be healed.

There are many other examples like these in the Bible but this is a good introduction to our faith is measurable subject. Please notice again the last verse Matthew 8:10. Again we see a clear reference that Jesus is looking for certain levels of faith. This is another confirmation that when Jesus returns to the earth, He is still looking for qualifying levels and measurements of “Faith”.

Perhaps this measurement concept will make more sense to many in the light of our previous subject of the Sower, the Word Seeds and the hearts being God’s Garden designed to produce “fruit” unto salvation (Romans 6:22, Romans 7:4). Have you ever planted a physical garden using “seeds”? If you haven’t, you should. The concepts of farming, planting, watering, protecting, guarding, and eventually harvesting are essential to the spiritual concepts of “Faith” and “Salvation”.

When preparing a natural garden, it involves plowing work which involves a blade that cuts through the soil.  This work includes removing all the rocks and stones. Plowing further removes all of the weeds and other growths that will try to take away life from any new seeds that are about to be planted. Plowing removes any hardened packed soil softening the ground to allow new seed to enter easily into the soil. From this information we can further see there are measurable levels of work that can be observed in the gardening process.

Let us see how these physical tasks can apply to preparing a spiritual heart for receiving God’s Word? We will only list a few today:

  1. We must develop a plan on how we are going to handle the devil’s thoughts that are going to try to distract us away from hearing the Word. This may be the first time or even after the fact to cause us to forget what we have heard spoken by a “Seed Planter” (teacher) sowing the Seed/Word of God. Satan will give everyone first person thoughts like, “I don’t believe this trash”. Or “I should would like to be home watching sports rather than sitting in church”. Or, “I am so hungry, I can’t wait to get to that restaurant”. Or after believing the word, “I didn’t really get saved”, “I must be crazy to believe this stuff”, etc. Anything that comes into our mind that tries to get us to turn back or away from the Word comes from evil spirits in the world. By preparing an attitude to focus and not to get distracted will cause the word a better chance at remaining strong to grow. Make a plan to value the Word of God and make it our daily priority!
  2. Remember to listen again and again to review the Word of God that we have heard and do this frequently. This represents the process of watering the seeds that were planted into our hearts. This is an essential part of sowing and reaping a fruitful outcome. The continual watering of the “Seed” will cause the roots to grow deep and strong and will be very difficult to be removed by Satan’s deception tricks.
  3. What are the things in life that are rooted into our lives that are consuming our focus away from pursuing the Words of God? These could be good or bad habits, addictions, desires like (seeking fortune, fame, drugs, food, alcohol, exercise); all of these are types of consuming desires that could represent some of the “evil weeds” that will work to choke out all the positive growth of God’s New Life Seed.
  4. What are some of the stubborn hard-hearted parts of our attitudes, values, or priorities that could be there to distract us from applying our time and attention to focus on the Word of God?
  5. Are we prepared to lose all of our worldly friends and family relatives who are not interested in the Words of God? The world will be coming after their friends to begin to try to influence all of our free-time we have decided to spend in God’s Word. When we refuse to act and be like them, then suddenly these old friends turn into enemies. These former friends and former friendly relatives will bring pressure upon a new Christian many to sway a them back into slavery and bondage of darkness.
  6. How are we going to handle the pressures from these friends and relatives when they persecute us and call us stupid for loving the Word of God? We must remain in “Love” to hopefully help them see how God has changed us. Being nice to the unsaved world and refusing to do what they do, speaks loud enough. If they walk away from us, then we continue to pray for them.

Conclusion – Do I Have Real Growing and Working Faith?

In conclusion let us ask the key question of God’s Faith Exam. Am I in real faith? To determine this we may need to review God’s created process of natural “Seed” planting, growing and harvesting steps to help us determine if we have begun the spiritual process of obtaining real faith needed to develop fruitful results. We have already seen how the amount of “fruit” produced is variable from zero to 30-fold, 60-fold to 100-fold. This means literally the words that were planted and watered could have varied tremendously from zero to 100% of the Words available to sow. Not to mention the time we spent to prepare the ground, keep and guard it from being destroyed or eaten up by our enemy.

The soil of course is our spiritual “heart. This is the garden of God and it must be prepared. Preparation involves cleaning, clearing including hard places to be made soft, and then weeded areas to be removed. Weeds are the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of fortune, fame and all the other distraction designed by the enemy to choke out and keep our faith from bring forth fruit.

This does not mean that we are saved by our works, but our attitudes, focuses, participation and choices greatly affect the success or the failure of God’s Word to work and bring us the increase. All of this is analogous of an open minded, broken, soft, humble human heart void of all pride in our spirit. We must be tender and even openly desiring to hear the Word of God at every opportunity. A humble open person is eagerly craving and willing to receive the Word of God “Seed” as if it was the most very valuable item available. If someone is bored with reading the Word of God, they are hard-hearted and have no seed entering to produce faith that will produce saving fruits, because there is no Word planted in their heart.

Even after soil preparation and receiving the incredible Seed in the heart ground, it may look or feel like nothing is working or changing for a long time. This is when a lot of people are easily deceived by Satan into believing his lie that God’s words don’t work. But this is just a major part of the process that is working only in the unseen supernatural spiritual “Faith” realm. Natural seeds must develop roots long before you see any fruits. So, it is also in the spiritual dimension.

Thank you for reading, liking and sharing these Bible lessons with others. The Word of God will work if we do not let it go out of our heart. In John 15:7 Jesus says we must abide in Him and His Words abide in us…”. This simply means the word is alive in our heart and remains watered. If there is ever a spiritual drought of not receiving the Word of God, for whatever reasons, the lack of watering will cause the roots, plants and fruits to whither dry up and die. That is not a positive outcome of any beginning faith amount.

God Bless you and keep you and never forget, Jesus is returning very soon!

Bible Basics – Understanding the Origin of the English Name of Jesus

(Ver 1.0) This lesson is a part of the Bible Basics series. There have been multiple questions asked about some of the basic concepts of Christianity surrounding the origin of the name of Jesus. Today’s questions involve the origin of the English Name of Jesus found in over 90% of the English Translations of the Bible. Therefore, this lesson will not be focused on the theological details of His identity, life, ministry or even for His purpose of visitation on the earth in the flesh. But rather today’s lesson will focus upon the historical reasons why the vast majority of Christians reading and writing English language, have chosen to call the Holy Son of God, by the name “Jesus”. To do this we are going to have to go through a brief history lesson on language translations and some of the basic rules and reasons for the choices made in the treatment of names and how these differ from other word translations.

Here are the two main readers’ questions that will be attempted to be addressed and answered today:

  1. How and where did the English name Jesus originate and when was it chosen to be the decided given name of the Son of God?
  2. The other question that arises is why does the name Jesus begin with the letter “J” when this alphabet letter never existed until around the times of the invention of the printing press?

The second question might be curious to many. But this is now a modern reason taught to some people why they should not trust the English Bible or believe in the name of Jesus. After reading this lesson fully, it should become obvious that this new ruse is just another trick of Satan to try to discredit the English language, the English Bible, God’s truth and the need for a Savior named Jesus.

Introduction to Languages and Translations

Today, in our present world, it is estimated that there are approximately 195 sovereign nations as of 03/2025. Within these nations are contained the world’s population of approximately 8.2 billion people. This world population speaks over 7000 different languages. However, most of these languages are spoken by less than 10% of the world’s population. This means around 80-90% of the world’s population speak the other 10-20% of the most widely used languages. First, we will list the top 5 world languages in use today:

  1. English – Known and Used by 1.5 billion people.
  2. Mandrin Chinese – Known and Used by 1.1 billion people.
  3. Hindi – Known and used by 610 million people.
  4. Spanish – Known and used by 485 million people.
  5. French – Known and used by 310 million people.

Now let us pay attention to our subject of the origin of the English name of Jesus. Originally the Holy Bible was primarily written and recorded in 2 primary languages, which are Hebrew and Greek and neither of these languages are heavily used in the world today. The Hebrew language may be known by approximately 10 million people and the Greek language by as many as 13 million people. Therefore, neither of these come close to the 5 most popular known and spoken world languages. This makes the original language study of the Bible very difficult for almost every human especially without smart phones, tablets or computers.

Now for a review of Bible translations. In the English language there are over 200 versions of the Bible. Of these 200+ English versions about 190 have chosen the name of our Lord and Savior to be “Jesus” called the “Christ”. He is also called “Jesus of Nazareth” on occasion as well as other symbolic terms like the “Lamb of God”. These 190 English versions of the Bible are the vast majority of the historical and modern texts, and it is easily determined that these consistently use the name “Jesus” for the “Son of God” for us to read and speak in the English language.

Now for a consideration of other choices within those not of the 190 that use the name Jesus. The name “Yeshua” appears in some Messianic English translations of the Bible, like the “TLV”, “CJB” and “NJV”. The name “Yahshua” or “Yahushua” are found in Sacred Name versions of the Bible. These name variations attempt to preserve the name of Messiah to better connect with the Hebrew roots of the Word of God. However, anything that is good and truthful can be taken to an extreme and thus it becomes legalistic laws of bondage and even unbalanced error and deception. Once any truth of one name is exaggerated to exclude all other language name, it has failed to reflect the love of God found in John 3:16.  To claim that there is only one name and it must be the Hebrew name, no longer reflects the merciful nature of God’s character, who desires and appreciates a personal relationship in every language, even with the English language people. God’s love and desire to save every human is absolutely true for all languages of the world. God died to save the speakers of all 7000+ languages of the world. God is by far more interested in seeking our love for Him, rather than He is to force every human to pronounce His name correctly or incorrectly. Love was and still is God’s motivation for saving us.

Does this make sense? To an eternal God, a 100-year-old human is still like an infant compared to His infinite knowledge and understanding. If my natural son at 1 to 2 years old only called me “Da” instead “Father”, I would love it and respond to him immediately. So, for a Christian to suddenly become legalistic and claim everyone must be perfect in how we pronounce His Hebrew name in order to be saved, this is a trick to exclude a lot of people in the world who don’t speak Hebrew. God still looks at the heart of humans much more than their perfection in linguistics and dialects.

Let’s quickly consider why “perfectionism” is a potential sin. When someone demands their version of the name of God, this could be because of “pride” and how they believe they are right and everyone else is wrong, claiming others are in error and are all going to hell. However, “pride” goes before destruction and the one making the demand to say the name of God one way and not any other way clearly demonstrates their own ignorance of God. It is absolutely impossible for human to pronounce the name of God correctly because, no one is God but God! He is the only one that knows exactly how His name should be said and pronounced in every language of the world. The rest of us are too ignorant to make ourselves equal to God and make these decisions.

Let’s stop and analyze the English word “God”. Is this word in the original Hebrew or Greek texts of the Bible? No, it is not! Therefore, the name “God” is an English translation from the original Hebrew word “Elohiym” and the Greek word “Theos”. Since the English name “God” does not appear in the original text, why should anyone insist that the name “Jesus” doesn’t exist and we can’t call Him by this name either? This makes no logical sense to many of us.

This is also very true for the names “Jehovah” and “Yahweh”. This Hebrew word is often translated as “LORD”. Is either of these Hebrew names “LORD”? Of course not! These are just two pronunciations of the Hebrew word spelled “Yod” + “Hey” + “Vav” + “Hey”. However, there are camps of people in the world who have taken up Holy wars against each other through fighting about which name is correct and which is wrong! How childish is this? Where is your love, patience, kindness, and compassion? If we are fighting to be correct when we have no clear mandate from God to enforce this unknown name’s pronunciation, there are probably many in this fight that are in a state of sinful pride and it is time for us all to grow up spiritually and put away our childish behavior (1 Cor 13:11).

Therefore, of the approximately 200+ English known translations, only a small handful—perhaps 5 to 10—consistently use alternative names like “Yeshua” or “Yahshua” in place of “Jesus.” These are niche translations, often aimed at specific audiences (e.g., Messianic Jews or Hebrew Roots adherents), and these represent less than 5% of the total available English translations. The overwhelming majority of scholars stick with the name of “Jesus” due to its established usage in English-speaking Christian tradition, dating back to the Latin Vulgate and early English Bibles like the Tyndale (1526) and Geneva (1560).

Introduction to the Origin of the English Name of Jesus

We need to address how English Bible translations decided to handle the name of our Messiah, which has traditionally been rendered as “Jesus” in the English New Testament. To accomplish this, we need to know that the Bible’s original languages were Hebrew for the Old Testament (with some Aramaic) and Greek for the New Testament. These two main languages provide the basis for all translations into any other legitimate language translation. No sincere translation of the Bible can or should come from any other source than these original texts.

For example, if someone attempts to take an English Bible translation and further translate it into another language like French, the resulting French translation will only magnify the English translation errors and shortcomings from the original Hebrew and Greek inspired languages. All translations would be moving through a doubled process of meaning transition. This no doubt would increase the level of confusion.

This multi-step translation game would be like having 20 people sitting around in a circle with each knowing two different languages. But none of the participants knowing the exact same two languages as their predecessor. All common languages would be sitting next to each other with each taking from the previous person who had a language in common. The person to the left of the next, would be sharing the story to the person on their right having one common language.  Say the first person would know only Hebrew and Latin and would initiate the telling of a Hebrew story while translating the story on the fly from Hebrew to Latin for the person to their right hand who only spoke Latin and English.

Then that Latin speaking person would translate the original Hebrew story converted to Latin into English for a person who only knew English and French. They in turn would retranslate the original Hebrew story from their native language English into French for the next person to their right whose native language was French and secondary language was Spanish. Now the French speaker would retranslate the original Hebrew story that was already been translated from Latin, into English, and then into French and now into Spanish for the next person in the circle. Can you begin to see the level of confusion that is being introduced from each translation. By the time the story returns back to the original speaker, no doubt it would be unrecognizable.

According to the Bible, God informs us that the original texts written in Hebrew and Greek were the inspired (God breathed) words of God (2 Timothy 3:16). Everything beyond these words may or may not be an anointed rendition of what God originally spoke. Therefore, there is a highly likely chance that some translator mistakes or bias were introduced to the next translation.

Therefore, every translation potentially introduces layers of subtle error. It would be like a Pilot that took off in their plane from New York to cross the Atlantic to reach Paris. If this pilot was only off by 1 degree by the time he crossed the Atlantic this plane would be nowhere close to Paris. This is why while reading the English Translation or other language translation it is extremely wise to study the original Hebrew and Greek Texts to confirm what is written in your language matches as close to possible to what is written in the original languages. It is recommended if you are a serious Bible student that you find “literal” as possible translations to study from. Some that are considered the best are the KJV Bible, the NASB Bible, and the Young’s Literal Version.

However, this is the first major challenge for anyone that does not read, write and speak both Hebrew and Greek. These people are at the mercy of knowledgeable translators that knew and understood two languages enough to believe they were able to say what God said and meant as precisely as they could. While simultaneously not placing any of their personal biases into their work to distort what God wrote originally.

Let’s begin to analyze the original name of Jesus. The Messiah’s name we call Jesus in English was written in th original Hebrew as typically “Yeshua” (ישוע), a shortened form of “Yehoshua” (יהושע), meaning “Yahweh saves” or “salvation”. In the Greek New Testament, this Messianic name has been transliterated as “Iēsous” (Ἰησοῦς), which is then transliterated into English as “Jesus.” The Hebrew concept of Messiah was changed to the English title “Christ”, however this comes from the Greek language “Christos” (Χριστός). None of these resemble the original Hebrew word “Mashiach” (משיח), meaning “anointed one” transliterated as “Messiah”.

However, we can find both three different languages in the New Testament for the original Hebrew word Messiah. For example, notice this verse.

Jhn_1:41  He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.

Notice the writer of Matthew presents both the Hebrew word for Messiah and the Greek word for Messiah in the same sentence stating he is making the translation for the reader. This proves the New Testaments written in Greek was written by men that knew both languages and could translate them quickly as they were writing. It also teaches you something very important about how a Hebrew word and the equivalent Greek word can result in two completely different English words. The Greek word was translated into English as “Christ” and the Hebrew word was translated into Greek and then into English as “Messias”.

As you can clearly see there is a growing problem of translation of the Bible’s names, titles, terms, etc. from one language to any other language that is needed to share the Gospel. For example, when an original Hebrew name is moving into a new language it is normally transliterated into this language by the translators who are attempting to preserve the spirit of the original name using new individual letter sounds which are joined together to form a new word of similar pronunciation. Name transitions from one language to another was never done using an attempt to preserve the meaning and definition of each name word. Every Hebrew name is a word that has meaning.

Some Hebrew names are even compounds of two or more other Hebrew words forming a new name and new word meaning. For example, the name “Israel” literally means “He will Rule as God”. The “EL” being the shortened name of God and the other word meaning “He will rule”. However, this is only true for the Hebrew name yiśrâ’êl. The English transliterated name “Israel” has no word definition because it is only a translator’s attempt to approximate the sound of the Hebrew name in English. Let us give you another quick example of the name of “God”:

Mat 27:46  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

While Jesus was hanging on the cross, He cries out to His Heavenly Father to say in English My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me? But it is written clearly that He spoke this in Hebrew and the closely pronounced words were “Eli, Eli, lama, sabachthani?”.

The term “Eli” is the Hebrew word H430 the shortened name of God we just looked at. The added “i” upon the end of “El” is the Hebrew letter “Yod” and which means “my” as a Hebrew suffix. All of these Hebrew words were brought into the Greek language alphabet letters and then finally written in Greek and both of these have been translated into English. Do you see the complexity of how three languages are interacting and how the third language English further adds a new layer of potential complexity to the translator’s efforts?

Therefore, it is essential to know all names were transformed from one language to another using “transliteration” attempting to preserve the name’s sound characteristics and never “translation” attempting to preserve the name’s definition or meanings. Please see how there are several Hebrew names that were taken from the Old Testament, then again into the Greek New Testament and finally into the English KJV translation:

HebrewGreekEnglishReference
Yesha’Yah (Isaiah KJV O.T.)Hesaias EsaiasEsaiasMat 8:17
Yonah (Jonah KJV O.T.)IonasJonasMat 12:40
Yerimeyah (Jeremiah KJV O.T.)HieremiasJeremiasMat 16:14
Yehudah (Judah KJV O.T.)IoudasJudasMat 1:2

Hopefully, this chart demonstrates how only a few name examples are dramatically changed going through translations. Remember this is just a short list of names that are listed in three languages differently. But it also demonstrates how one Hebrew name appears differently in English after moving through just one language translation, versus the English New Testament enduring two language translations. This is simply because the Hebrew names were translated first into Greek from Hebrew, and then finally from Greek into English.

Another major challenge that occurs in transliteration is that the original ancient Hebrew texts contained no vowels. The other major challenge with the Hebrew language is that it is based upon an alphabet that was comprised of only 22 letter characters. These 22-letter based Hebrew alphabet names were then needed to be moved into all other human languages by changing them into much different alphabets with different numbers of alphabet letters and sometimes very different sounds for each letter.

Do you see the challenge to come up with a perfect name to name transition? English has 26 letters today and Hebrew was only 22. The Russian language has 33 letters. For example, the Russian Orthodoxy uses Иисус (Iisus) consistently in religious texts for the name of Jesus. What we are learning is that the name of Jesus can vary greatly within any of the almost 7000 human languages upon the earth. Does this mean any of them are the wrong name and God will not hear them? Absolutely not! God is not willing that any perish, and He is much more loving and compassionate than people are.

Just for emphasis, let’s continue to review this transliteration challenge. With so many vastly differing numbers of letters in each alphabet and each of these letters containing differing sounds than the language being translated, it should be easy to see there are no perfect translations from language to language. For example, the Hebrew alphabet has certain letters that have no equivalent sounding letters in other languages. Hebrew has some “guttural” sounds that are ignored in most English translated transitions. This makes these original sounds to being converted into “a close as possible” matching transition for new language name spellings. Please note, that the ancient original Hebrew language alphabet has been modernized and now has added vowel markers that have been added to existing new styled letters, yet there are still no actual vowel letters that have been added.

Brief Language History Abraham 2000 BC to Jesus Birth 4 BC to Death 30 AD

We can make the logical assumption that Abraham spoke an older variation of the Hebrew language. Abraham begat a son named Isaac and Isaac begat a son named Jacob who was later renamed to Israel by an angel. Then Jacob begat the 12 sons from 4 women who initiated the 12 tribes of the natural nation of Israel. But for now, we will primarily focus upon Israel’s son named Joseph. Joseph was sold by his jealous brothers into slavery, and they carried him to be a slave in Egypt.

To make a long story short, Joseph had the favor of God upon him and Joseph was blessed to become the 2nd in command in the nation of Egypt. A famine came upon the region for 7 years. Joseph’s other brothers got hungry and came to Egypt to buy food and Joseph recognized them. Joseph’s father and brothers and their families move to Egypt merging their culture with that of Egypt.

But after time many died off and the new pharaoh did not know Joseph and how he saved them from a certain death by starvation. All the descendants of Jacob which were only approximately 70 in the beginning journey to Egypt had multiplied to millions in 400 years and the people cried out to God for salvation from Egyptian bondage.

Therefore, God raised up a deliverer named Moses to set the people of Israel free. This man Moses also became a part of the house of Pharaoh and had great authority and had even learned their culture and language. What we are witnessing is how one nation can be conquered by being taken into another nation and how suddenly two or more languages can co-exist simultaneously within one nation. This means names certainly had to be clearly identifiable in both languages to the same person to be accurately understood by the hearer for them to know who was being spoken of. Moses with God’s help and guidance eventually got the children of Israel free from Pharaoh but then they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before entering into the promised land.

In the next 1500 years from Moses to Jesus, the natural nation of Israel was carried away by other nations into more captivity. Two of the largest nations that had a major influence upon the nation of Israel were the conquering Babylonian kingdom, and the Medo-Persian Kingdoms. Both brought their culture and language into co-existence with the Hebrew people of Israel and their Hebrew language. Please understand that the languages did not merge, but rather the people just spoke two or more languages. The Hebrew language was mostly separated for religious observance and the other nation’s language was utilized for government and commerce activity. Now let us move closer to the time of Jesus.

It was approximately 323 BC when the ruler Alexandar the Great from Greece finished his world conquests. As a result of these conquests the Greek culture influence came upon every conquered nation with many of them being almost fully assimilated into the Greek language, cultural and religious ways. However, the leaders of Israel always maintained their original text laws, psalms and prophets in Hebrew. However, the Greek language became a major world dominated language much like English is today. If you wanted to do business, you better learn to speak Greek.

However, the Greek influence to the Hebrew speaking people did have an effect. Around 250-200 BC, the original Hebrew Torah was translated into Greek as the “Septuagint”. This appears to be the first translation of the original Hebrew inspired texts. This certainly displays the influence of the Greek language upon the entire world. It is very possible that even some Jewish Synagogues read from this Greek translation. However, the Hebrew was still the major documented language for strictest practicing Jews, like the Pharisees. We know this because after Jesus was resurrected, He spoke to the Pharisee Saul on the road to Damascus in Hebrew and Saul understood and spoke back to him. We also know Saul became the Apostle Paul and he wrote 2/3 of the New Testament in Greek. Therefore, Paul knew at least 2 languages fluently.

Now let us get to the life of Jesus. At his birth, there were many local languages found in the Mediterranean regions of southern Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa around the time of Jesus’ life on the earth. Most will already know that the English language did not exist at the time of Jesus’ Walk on earth. However, as mentioned before prior to Jesus the Mediterranean region was swiftly conquered by the Greek army led by Alexander the Great. From this vast conquest, the Greek language became the dominant culture and language for both conversation and business, much like English is today in the modern world.

But then came a new kingdom that was different than them all. This system of government originated from Rome, Italy. And with the rise of the Roman named Augustus, he spread the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean regions. Rome became the dominant government system in the world beginning at approximately 27 BC. Which was approximately 23 years before the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem.

The Roman Government and Military spoke predominantly “Latin” to conduct their business. Therefore, in the Mediterranean region there were usually at least three languages spoken simultaneously. These were known and spoken by many groups of people. For example, around the Jewish region of Jerusalem the natural language was of course Hebrew or Aramaic which are very similar.

But financial business and even some religious activity around Jerusalem was conducted in the Greek language which we know came from the previous occupation of the armies of Alexandar the Great. But while Jesus was alive during the Roman Empire occupation of Jerusalem, it was useful to also learn, know and speak “Latin”. This means at minimum it was not unusual for people in Jerusalem to know and speak at least 3 languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin.

This is why both Luke and John write in the New Testament Gospels that the sign placed above the head of Jesus while hanging on the cross, said, “JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JEWS”. And it was ordered by the Roman ruler Pilate to be written in the Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages. Can you imagine how the name of Jesus was written in 3 different languages on one sign? This proves the original name of Jesus was being translated into multiple languages about 2000 years ago. These three alphabets are so dissimilar, yet the same name of Jesus was written in all three languages on one sign, according to John 19:19-20.

Yes, we are beginning to learn how languages affect the communication of massive numbers of people in the world. Since the universal language of business was performed in Greek during the days of Jesus, the name Jesus had to be written in it. Even the language of the New Testament was chosen to be written in the Greek language. This was done because the Jewish people of Israel largely rejected the Gospel and Jesus as their Messiah and much of the remaining world spoke Greek, it makes sense to reach as many people as possible with the Gospel and other scriptural writings done in Greek.

When the Apostle Paul and many of the other disciples went out into all the world to preach the Gospel, most of the world still spoke Greek. Therefore, the New Testament was written in Greek, being designed to reach the most gentile people in the world. These are amazing things to think about. This means each writer of the New Testament needed to speak Hebrew and Greek simultaneously. Although there was a Greek translation produced called the Septuagint. This version was read in many Jewish synagogues. However, around the region of Judea the Hebrew text was predominately found.

There is a very interesting parallel happening today to the time when Jesus was beginning the early church. Just as Alexander the Great conquered much of the world to bring a common language to the business of world trade, so also this same pattern occurs in the rise of the British empire. One common saying about the British empire, was that the sun never sets on them. This was because they took the English language to every inhabited continent. Just as Alexandar the Great, conquered much of the world, the British also spread their culture, influence and common language throughout the world approximately 400 years ago. At the height of the British influence, they controlled almost ¼ of the world’s land. Therefore, God seems to have taken advantage of another common language used primarily for world trade and business, to again use it to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for an end-time great harvest of souls. If you are not aware, the USA exports the most Christian media and materials to the rest of the world.

Now for the final subject of this part of the lesson. The English language and the alphabet are derived primarily from Rome’s old Latin language. However, we know that there are also other word influences from other languages. This means some of the primary roots of the English were encoded on the “sign” that was hung above the head of Jesus on the cross. This indicates God had already designed the future word for Jesus’ name to be included at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion.

The Hebrew Name of Jesus Transitions into English

We have briefly touched upon this in the previous section of the lesson. Therefore, we already know the original name of “Jesus” is from the Hebrew Old Testament and can be seen in our English Bible as the name “Joshua”. If we tried to pronounce it from the original Hebrew it would come close to sounding like “yehôshûa‛”. As you can clearly see that has no “J” sound. A closer sound might be the used as the letter “Y” as it is listed.

In the modern English Bible translations these two names “Jesus” in the New Testament and “Joshua” in the Old Testament are identical in the original Hebrew. But the names have been sounded differently because of the technique called “Transliteration” that we have already been introduced. Transliteration ignores the name’s original Hebrew meanings. It rather focuses upon the sounds of the letters within the name and the combined arranged sounds of the letters joined together. Here is another important language fact. The original ancient Hebrew language had no vowels. Today English has the vowels “AEIOU” and sometimes “Y”. But the omission of vowels causes significant challenges to gaining true pronunciation

The other significant challenge occurs because the Hebrew language only has 22 alphabet letters, and the English alphabet has 26 letters. Therefore, perfect transliteration of sounds is nearly impossible. However, it is amazing to see that many English alphabet letters have similar designs to the ancient Hebrew letters. For example, the designs of the English letters “A”, “J”, “L”, “M”, “O”, “T”, “Y” are very close to ancient Hebrew pictograph letters.

The Greek alphabet transliteration of names from Hebrew has had very similar challenges as the Hebrew to English transliteration. We previously learned that the Hebrew name of Jesus was transliterated into Greek as “Iēsous” (Ἰησοῦς). As you will notice the original Hebrew “Y” (Yod) was changed to the Greek letter “I” (Iota). This was the choice of translators who knew both languages.

Now notice that the English name Jesus in the original Hebrew was transliterated as “Joshua” in the Old Testament from the original Hebrew text. However, the name Joshua never appears in the New Testament anywhere in the KJV Bible. This is true even though he is mentioned at least twice in the New Testament as “Jesus” instead of “Joshua”. Why is this? This is because all of the names of Joshua in the Old Testament were transliterated into Greek “Iēsous” (Ἰησοῦς) and from this name it was further transliterated into the English named “Jesus”. This further proves that the name Jesus and Joshua were identical names. If both names were transliterated from the original Hebrew they would have been named “Joshua’. This makes it a little difficult to determine who the Bible is speaking of in every verse. This is why many times the name “Jesus of Nazareth” is mentioned as the name of our Savior in the New Testament.

As you can see our transliteration process of moving between two languages confirms our problem of translating from Hebrew to Latin, to English to Spanish that we were using as an example earlier in the lesson. The more translations a language is taken through, the more corrupted it becomes from the original writings. Names would completely change. However, the positive with the name Jesus being different in the New Testament than Joshua in the Old Testament causes verses to be more rapidly identifiable to whom it is referring to. For example, let us look at some verse examples where there appears potential confustion:

Zec 3:1  And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.

This is an Old Testament Hebrew verse about someone named Joshua. This name was transliterated from Hebrew, and it appears from this name it could be the Joshua from the book of Joshua who led the children of Israel into the promised land. However, it is impossible for this name to be associated into the contextual description. This verse can only be referring to the New Covenant High Priest named Jesus in the New Testament. It is the only fitting explanation that aligns scripturally. Then;

Act 7:45  Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David; 

This verse can only be speaking of Joshua who led the children of Israel into the promised land, yet it was translated as Jesus because of the establish rules of transliteration. Yes, these are documented mistakes even in the KJV Bible of shortcomings produced by using transliteration. Yet even these errors do not phase God. English speaking Christians could call Jesus any of these names, Joshua, Jesus, Iēsous, Yehoshua, etc. and God is smart enough to know you are talking to Him. Thank God for His Love and Mercy.

Understanding the History of Adding the Letter “J” to English

The letter “J” was not part of the original English alphabet, which was derived from the 21-letter original Latin alphabet. The letter J was added to both the English and the Latin alphabets later along with U and W. The letter “J” introduction came relatively late in the history of the English language, and its development was a gradual process.

When Was “J” Added?

The letter “J” began to emerge as a distinct character in the English alphabet around the Middle Ages, with its use becoming more standardized in the 16th and 17th centuries. Here’s a brief timeline:

  • Roman Times (Pre-5th Century): The Latin alphabet, from which English evolved, originally had no “J.” The letter “I” served dual purposes, representing both the vowel sound /i/ (as in “bit”) and the consonant sound /j/ (as in “yes”). For example, in Roman inscriptions, “Julius” was written as “IVLIVS.”
  • Middle Ages (5th–15th Centuries): As Latin evolved into various Romance languages (like French, Italian, and Spanish), scribes began to distinguish between the vowel “I” and the consonant “J” sound. They sometimes elongated the tail of the “I” into a hooked shape when it appeared at the beginning of a word or represented the /j/ sound, especially in medieval manuscripts. This was more of a stylistic variation than a formal letter at first.
  • Renaissance and Printing Press (15th–16th Centuries): The distinction became more pronounced with the advent of the printing press in the mid-15th century. By the 1500s, typographers and scholars, particularly in France and Italy, began treating “J” as a separate letter from “I.” For instance, the Italian grammarian Gian Giorgio Trissino is credited with formally distinguishing “I” and “J” in 1524, though this was for Italian rather than English.
  • English Adoption (17th Century): In English, the use of “J” became widespread only in the 1600s. Early English texts, including some editions of the King James Bible (1611), still used “I” in place of “J” (e.g., “Iesus” for “Jesus”). By the mid-17th century, however, “J” was fully established as a distinct letter in the English alphabet, thanks to the influence of printing standards and the need for clarity in spelling.

Why Was “J” Added?

The addition of “J” to the English alphabet was driven by both phonetic clarity and linguistic transition:

  1. Phonetic Distinction: The sound /j/ (a voiced palatal approximant, as in “yes” or “judge”) needed a unique symbol to differentiate it from the vowel /i/. In Old English and Middle English, the “I” was overburdened with multiple roles, which caused confusion in reading and writing, especially as pronunciation shifted.
  2. Influence of Other Languages: English borrowed heavily from Norman French after the Norman Conquest (1066), and French already used “J” (derived from Latin “I”) for the /ʒ/ sound (as in “measure”) or /dʒ/ (as in “judge”). As English adopted words like “joy,” “justice,” and “judge” from French, the letter “J” became a natural fit for these sounds.
  3. Standardization in Writing and Printing: The rise of the printing press in Europe demanded consistency in typography. Printers adopted “J” to align with continental conventions and to make texts more legible and standardized across languages.

Fun Fact

Even after “J” was introduced, it was often the last letter added to alphabet lists. Early English alphabets ran from A to Z without “J,” “U,” or “W” being fully distinct (as “U” and “V” were also conflated in Latin). By the 17th century, the modern 26-letter English alphabet, including “J,” was solidified.

Conclusion

Yes, “J” was added to the English alphabet around the 16th–17th centuries, transitioning it from the original letter “I” which had at least two distinct sounds to meet the needs of word pronunciation. The English letter “J” borrowed from development of other languages, and the push for standardized writing. It’s a relatively young letter in the grand scheme of alphabetic history! But this does not make it an invalid letter. Nor does its usage disqualify any name derived from its usage. If you are at peace in your heart to call Jesus by this name, as I, use it and call Him Jesus. I have found repeatedly He hears, answers and responds every time I use His name in prayer to the Father.

As a further confirmation of the name of Jesus recognition within the spiritual realm, I have found casting out devils and binding spirits when using the name of Jesus has as much power as when the name of Jesus was used by Peter in Acts 3 with the lame man at the temple gate. Spirits are not stupid either. They recognize the “Power of the name of Jesus”. Check out these verses:

Php 2:9  Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 

Php 2:10  That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 

Php 2:11  And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

Do you see why Satan wants to place doubts in your mind to whether the name of Jesus is legit or not? We are in a spiritual battle with spiritual enemies that try to deceive all humans into believing a lie. Because I speak English and I call Him Jesus, these spirits want me to doubt and question, am I right, and is this name really working? I guarantee it is working for me, because I can read my Bible and choose to believe it is His name for English speakers. Guess what you should know! God and Satan both know English. But it is not just knowing that His name is Jesus in English that causes its power to work. There is another factor called “Faith” which means we must believe and not doubt. Check this verse out:

Act 3:16  And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

We are not sure whether Peter used the Hebrew, Greek or Latin name of Jesus when healing this lame man. But it really does not matter. All we know is the Bible is written in Greek so we can logically conclude that he used the Greek name, but he could be speaking Hebrew standing in front of a Jewish synagogue. What we can learn from this is that either way the name of Jesus worked because he had faith in the name that he chose to speak.

If you do not yet understand or have doubts, it is time to pray and seek God. Your future does depend upon your choices. If you believe Jesus is not God manifested in flesh to die for your sins, and you only know the English language, who then can you trust in to be saved? This is the same Bible that saved me and literally millions of other humans on the earth, including my mother, my father, and many other relatives. This is the same name taught in over 1.6 million English-speaking churches on the planet.

Remember there are at least 2.5 to 2.6 billion Christian believers in the world today. The majority of these people use the English language because of British and United States English speaking missionaries. It is ridiculous to believe we are all wrong with our choice of teaching in the name of Jesus, believing in the name of Jesus, praying to the Father in the name of Jesus, and casting out devils using the name of Jesus. Critics have come too late for me. I am already convinced 1000% and nothing anyone else can say will ever change my “Faith” in His Name.

Act 2:21  And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Rom 10:13  For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

These are two verses that promise us, if we call on the name of the Lord, we will be saved. Who is your “Lord”? If you are only an English speaker and you do not believe it is Jesus you might be in trouble. How do I know Jesus is LORD? There are many verses that reveal this but here is one of the best:

Rom 10:9  That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

This verse leaves no doubt that Jesus is Lord and we must confess Jesus to be our personal Lord in order to receive “salvation” and “be saved”.

Now if you are not a native English speaker and know English as a minor second language, then get a Bible in your native language. Find out His name in that language and call on Him and He will save you, if you believe in your heart and do not doubt. Like was said earlier, God is omniscient meaning “All Knowing”. He can speak every known and unknown human language.

Thank you for taking the time to read and share the Word of God with the world. The time is becoming shorter with every passing day to the time Jesus will return to the earth. If we are not ready to meet Him when He comes to take us up, then it will be too late to get ready. Now is the time of salvation, this is your opportunity to receive Him by faith into your heart. Jesus loves you so very much. Please do not delay and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior.

Faith Exam Part 1 – Introduction

(Ver 1.1) This is Part 1 in a new Bible series about “Examining Our Faith”. However, this series is also a continuation of a former foundational study called “Understanding Bible Faith”. If you have not read this series, it might be good to begin there first. Faith is still one of the most important subjects found in the entire Bible. Many will say brother, that was a very bold statement about it being one of the most important Bible subjects, and others may say it was very overstated. Yet the more we learn about this subject, the greater the importance of having real living faith becomes. What is real Living Faith? Did you know that a Christian could have “dead” faith (James 2:20)?

Our subject matter today is exploring and expanding two aspects of the subject of “Faith”. First, what are the essential elements of real working and living faith? This would include asking about the adjoining necessary spiritual qualities of real “Faith”. Or asking what are the spiritual inter-dependencies of “Faith” that are required to overcome the evil spiritual force opposition that are attempting to stop our faith from working. Second, we will be asking the question and addressing the real “Faith” exam answers, “Do I have these qualities and the Kind of working and living Faith that is Pleasing to God”?

What is an Exam? An exam is what any student (disciple) takes in training to ensure their level of knowledge on any subject is sufficient for the task. Since our subject is “Faith”, the exam test today in this series will be a self-examination of our knowledge about real faith. What we think that we know about this subject is not really our issue. It is only the things that we do not know that are being used against us, allowing us to be defeated by our enemy. Do you know how we overcome this enemy?

1John 5:4 – For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

How do we overcome this world? It is only through real working and living “Faith”. This type of “Faith” is the foundation for every spiritual victory over each battle we are faced with. We already saw in James 2:20 that faith can be dead. Therefore, dead faith implies passive, non-living and non-working faith. If we go read 1 Timothy 1:5 and 2 Timothy 1:5 we can find Paul writing of a “Unfeigned” Faith. This Greek word translated as “Unfeigned” simply means not a “Pretend” Faith. This clearly implies that there are faith pretenders. Therefore, we are finding too many types of “Faith” being mentioned that are not the True kind of Faith that pleases God. These types are clearly non-working types.

Luke 18:8 – I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth

Do you remember this verse that Jesus said to us in Luke 18:8; “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth”. This statement should cause every Christian serious concern. We should all begin to ask; do I have the real living and working Bible God kind of faith that Jesus is looking for? Does my faith meet the Bible specific kind of faith necessary to please God? Is my faith working? Is my faith living?

Real living Faith appears to be more important to God than most know or realize. After all, remember that God says very clearly in Hebrews 11:6, “without Faith it is impossible to please God”. That makes having correct “Faith” sound incredibly essential. Yet so many people are completely clueless that there could be a correct faith, lacking faith or even a faith of complete error which is dead?

You see there is a great unknown to many Christians. Everyone in the world is living by “faith” to someone or something. However, many people are worshipping a devil, demons, or false religions. Many are worshipping the god of “atheism” believing there is no true God to give an account to. The number of possible false and misleading beliefs cannot be listed in any lesson.

It is essential to know upfront that it is only those that have heard the true Gospel of Jesus Christ and have believed in it as the Truth calling Jesus their Lord and Savior who have any hope of seeing Him and not going to hell. That statement will potentially offend a lot of people that have been deceived, but hopefully it will also awaken many others to the Truth. There is only One True and Living God and He made the heavens and the earth and everything on it, including all of us.

It is only the Words of God written in the Bible that can be the basis of True and Living Faith. In other words, if we do not have a foundation built upon known scriptures, we cannot have full faith for each specific situation or circumstance we are facing in life, including salvation, being made whole, God meeting our needs, our relationships, and receiving all of God’s provided fundamentals of life.

Let us pray and ask God to bless each reader as we read and study His awesome Word. “Our Lord God, we come to Your Throne of Grace, in the name of your dear Son Jesus Christ, to pray for your divine guidance in the writing of these lessons, and for all that will be led by You to read them. Let there be a connection in the Spirit and we request that you bear witness with Your Holy Spirit teaching us what is truthful. Open our spiritual eyes within our hearts to be receptive. We give the Holy Spirit full permission to do whatever is necessary to cause us to know Him and His voice to lead us into “all truth” according to John 16:13. But also help each one of us to be a more noble disciple of Christ according to Acts 17:11, to prove with our own daily Bible study time, what is being taught here is verifiable by what is written in Your Word. Thank you in advance for hearing, answering and speaking in our heart whatever we need to hear from you today before You return very soon. We ask these things in Jesus’ name expecting to receive, Amen”. Let’s begin.

Faith Exam – Series Introduction

In today’s world, it should be very easy to see that we are growing increasingly nearer to the time of Christ’s return to catch away the church. Of course, this would mean we knew what the Bible said about the end times. If we knew Bible eschatology, we would understand these descriptions are happening all around us and directly in front of our eyes, whether anyone else knows the Bible or not. Do you believe that your faith could play a factor in us being taken up when Jesus comes back for His bride?

Please answer this question. Did our faith play a role in being saved? Would we have been saved automatically without hearing the Gospel that gives us the opportunity to have saving faith? Some people believe this, but this is not true according to Romans chapter 10 and Ephesians chapter 2. What we learn from Bible study is that our faith participation was our determining factor for receiving salvation from God.

Therefore, the number one reason for understanding the real God Bible type of Faith, is that it is impossible to be saved without it according to John 3;16 which everyone should have memorized. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever ‘believes’ in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life”. According to God, our “faith” and “believing”, is our only exit out of hell. This fact alone makes “faith” an essential topic to understand.

Does the fact that Jesus said He is looking for “faith” when He returns, bother you? It probably should. We have already seen examples in the opening that there are different kinds of faith on Earth, and some are not positive types. And that every human on earth was designed by God to live by faith? This means every human is living by some type of faith in some kind of belief of who they are, where they came from and where they will go in the future after their death.

Therefore, how do we know if we have the correct knowledge of the kind of faith that Jesus is specifically coming back to find? Jesus makes it sound like there is only an exact type of faith that qualifies with what He is searching for! Not caring about knowing, not wanting to know, not having the time to learn, or thinking we already know are all tricks of the devil to keep us ignorant. Ignorance gives the devil an advantage over us, and that causes us to have the wrong faith. In a game of spiritual tennis with the devil, any ignorance even partial is “advantage” Satan. We learn this from Hosea 4:6 that says, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (ignorance)”.

Do you remember that Jesus taught us that straight was the gate and narrow was the way to eternal life (Matthew 7:14)? And that Jesus said, wide was the gate and broad was the way that leads people to eternal destruction, and many are they that will go in (Matthew 7:13)? In Matthew Jesus is describing two paths of “faith” and “believing” based upon individual knowledge. Many who are deceived and ignorant to believe lies, are blindly following their blind leaders and peers to their destruction. But the wiser ones on the narrow path have heard the truth of Jesus and have chosen to begin to walk in His Truth.

Perhaps we can get some clues to find out if we are in the correct path of faith in this foundational subject verse:

2 Corinthians 13:5 – Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? 

As we can clearly see, this verse is speaking of an examination of our “Faith” that we do ourselves. This is where we must begin to learn the right questions, to determine what we know or what we do not yet know to correctly evaluate our personal type and level of faith. This means we are not going around as Holy Ghost “Faith” inspectors of others. No, God wants us to only test ourselves. It is impossible for anyone but God to test others righteously.

Here is a verse of immense importance that is in harmony with the beginning foundational verse of Luke 18:8. Never forget that Jesus was teaching us in Luke 18:8, of Him looking for a very specific and focused type of “faith” when He comes back to the earth. These verses of Luke 18:8 and 2 Corinthians 13:5, appear to represent two statements of agreement concerning a potentially determining factor which strongly indicates that those people that have His type of faith will be the only ones that will be taken, and all the others will be left.

Drawing this conclusion is very spiritual and logical since every human is living by some type of faith or belief which can be divided into two binary choices. These choices are 1) us hearing and believing the Truth of God’s Word, so that we become born again and are translated out of the darkness of this world into a spiritual place called “In Him”. Or we are 2) living by default “in the certain death” sentence of the first Adam (Genesis 2:17). This certain default remains if we choose to continue to live in ignorance of God’s truth. The first Adam only gives us a death walk in the wide path option believing Satan’s opposing lies. This option is us placing our faith in anything else other than God’s Truth. And this choice results in us not being “In Him” (Jesus Christ the Last Adam) who is Life (1 Corinthians 15:45).

By keeping our Faith “In Him” (Jesus), keeps us on the narrow path. And by continuing to study the Bible we will remain His disciple (John 8:31).  This love of the Word of God is the correct path that will ensure and lead us to our full Freedom (John 8:32).

Do you see how entering Christ’s Salvation is the beginning of our walk on Jesus’ “Narrow Pathway” Journey?  If we can see this, then we should be able to understand that this highway is not a single one-time entrance ramp containing no opportunities for U-turns or exits from it. This would be the loss of all our human free-will choices after salvation. Sure, our journey begins “once” by accepting Jesus as Lord, but then Jesus must continue to be our Lord throughout our life on earth.

This is why the Bible says, “We Walk by Faith and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Walking by Faith clearly indicates that our Salvation is a step-by-step Faith journey on a pathway with a God determined destination! However, like any highway or pathway, the walker still has the option of turning back or exiting off. That is not God’s desire, but Satan the deceiver entices many to divert away from God’s plan.

Also, Romans 1:17 clearly says “the Just shall Live by Faith”, meaning having no faith, or incorrect or incomplete faith is certainly walking on a path of “death”. Wow! These verses provide us an emphasis on a correct living “Faith” walk of life and proves that having correct living faith is essential. Thus, the reason why we are learning more today about Faith.

There are still too many Christians that still believe in a doctrine of “sovereign election”. This doctrine teaches that since a Christian was saved by God’s choice, there is nothing that any of us saved ones need do, to remain saved. Yet, all these other verses we are reading and studying strongly indicate otherwise. Let’s get back to our verse in 2 Corinthians and let’s read it again:

2 Corinthians 13:5 – Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? 

Notice how that in this verse of 2nd Corinthians, God commands that we in the church, each “Examine” ourselves individually to determine if we are “In” the “Faith”. Doesn’t this sound like another reference to a very specific type and level of faith that God is expecting us to grow into and obtain?

Remember God is speaking of us performing an Exam. Then do not forget that an exam is something that everyone as an educated human has gone through at a school or higher learning institution many times. Also do not forget an exam’s purpose is to determine if what was taught to us was learned by us, comprehended and put into practical application. Therefore, an exam represents a knowledge test. Therefore, a Faith examination is still a determination and evaluation of our knowledge of God’s Word. But guess what, in this verse God tells us to do the exam of our own level of “faith” knowledge. Therefore, we need to know what real living faith is, to examine if we have it and all the elements that are quired to allow it to work.

If God personally places us into His type of saving faith by His sovereign choice, would it not be completely unnecessary for any human to perform a self-examination to see if we were there or not? Can we agree? Therefore, there is a potential problem and conflict rising with the sovereign God belief in “Election” without “Faith”.

Now, check out the word “Reprobate” to find the importance of what is being stated. This Greek word G96 is a compound Greek word comprised of the G1 “Alpha” letter as a negative prefix which negates and reverses whatever is being connected. The primary Greek word being connected to, is G1384. G1384 is defined as someone being “approved”. What does that mean? One synonym of “approved” can be “accepted”. Wow!

If someone can be accepted, they also can be rejected. Who is doing the accepting and who is doing the rejecting? It appears that the judge is God. We know this because Jesus said in Luke 21:36, “Watch you therefore, and pray that you may be ‘accounted’ worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man”. “Watch” means for us to be alert and aware. Pray can means to have a conversation with God and ask for His help if you believe your faith is weak. But the main point is for us to see that God is placing the responsibility on us to determine if we are worthy to escape the coming tribulation.

Therefore, whose choice is it, for the person to be accepted or rejected? Is this God’s sovereign choice also? Who has made each of accepted or rejected? If it is God, why then is the believer in Jesus told to examine themselves to determine which state of existence and category they are currently in? There are only two possibilities given to choose from. Could it be the human’s responsibility to determine which category they want to be in and then to do everything they can to achieve that level of being accepted? Or can humans choose to do nothing about testing their faith and remain possibly rejected?

I sincerely believe it is a human’s choice and responsibility to determine where we stand in our faith knowledge. After all this belief agrees with 2 Timothy 2:15 which says, “Study to show yourself approved unto God”. Isn’t this verse clear about increasing our knowledge of God’s Word and by correct study, and this will help us stay on the right path to be approved by God?

Do you see where God is leading us? God is giving the human through the personal examination of their “faith” type and level a time to make this determination of their future eternal existence while they are physically alive here on this planet. This means that each person is responsible for doing their own self-examination test. This self-exam will determine their type of faith to insure they will be approved by God, or if they are lacking in correct faith. Or this test could result in the opposite answer of being rejected and show the need for repentance and improvement in certain areas to move them from rejected to accepted. Do you see the value of self-examination?

There are other areas in the Bible that confirm this belief. For example, do you remember what God said in 1 Corinthians 11:31? This verse says, “Judge yourself and you will not be judged”. This is a view of another command to do another self-examination, so that we have no need for a heavenly external examination and judgement by our God. Uh oh? It appears God has given humans a great participatory responsibility to contribute to their own salvation process and eternal destination. Therefore, let us move back to our main study subject of doing a “Faith” self-exam.

The only logical results of the faith test in 2 Corinthians are first the right answer, which is “my faith” is “present” and is “deemed acceptable” according to standards taught in the Word of God. However, the second answer that is not where we want to be, according to the placing of the G1 Alpha as the prefix, which reverses the state of being judged “acceptable”, and changes the evaluation to mean I tested my type of faith and I judged it to be deemed “worthless” or lacking in something that meets the level of God’s “acceptable” which potentially causes me to be rejectable.

Uh oh? This is more serious than we can imagine. Why would the Apostle Paul be writing a church containing previously saved Christians and telling them to test their faith; to determine its value from acceptable to worthless? This appears to say there could be many varying levels of a person’s faith beginning at not being saved having no faith, then rising to a newborn child’s unusable type of faith, and then potentially increasing and growing to a level called “acceptable” like God’s minimum standard that will keep us saved! Let us look at another verse that appears to confirm what we are being taught:

2 Thessalonians 1:3 – We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth

Notice how Paul is commending these people in the church of the Thessalonians. These people are being praised for the “growth” of their “faith” and their “love”. Wow! We should all be looking for this type of praise from God. Do you know what this means? This means these people are feeding and exercising their faith and love muscles and they are becoming stronger and more spiritually dominate in their walk in life towards others. This means what is on the inside in the spirit is growing and is coming to the outside to be seen as “fruit” in the natural realm.

Can we see that there are also implied growth levels above and below the level of what God called the “acceptable” level? Those that increase beyond acceptable are clearly of such value that these types of Christians are certainly viewed by Christ as more than the minimum type of faith that He is planning and designing to find? It should be very clear that levels of “Faith” can “Grow”. This means that “Faith” levels can also potentially “Decrease”. Let’s compare this statement of acceptable with another verse found in Romans 12:2:

Romans 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Please pay attention to the fact that God lists what appears to be three levels of His “will” being performed in someone’s life. Some preachers and teachers try to say these are not levels but rather they are just three synonymous descriptions of God’s will. This type of thinking appears to be established on the extreme position of God’s sovereignty and His will always being done in full to everyone, all the time. But this leads us to error and conflicts with other verses in the Bible that teach us God’s will is not being done unless we pray and ask for it. If you don’t believe this, look at the prayer Jesus taught the disciples to pray in Matthew 6:9-10

Let us examine quickly the definitions of the three Greek words that are in question to what they represent. The Greek word G18 was translated as “Good”. The word “Good” is certainly a very positive word and it can be viewed easily as the opposite of “bad” and “evil”. But notice how a good quality item could be potentially very far from a “perfect” quality level as in a “flawless” diamond. Would you rather buy a pretty good diamond or a flawless diamond?

We can clearly see in Genesis 1 that the term “Good” can have varying degrees of measure. The Hebrew word translated as “Good” occurs 7 times in Genesis 1 and the 7th time it occurs it is adjusted with the modifier “Very” causing an implied greater or higher quality emphasis of a basic “Good” level of quality and value.

Also, pay attention to the term “Perfect” as compared to “Good”. In Ezekiel 28:15 God described the creation of Lucifer. In this verse God says, “You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created”. This Hebrew word H8539 translated as perfect, is defined “entire, without blemish, complete, full”. This description appears to describe Lucifer more like a “flawless diamond” and Adam like a “very good quality diamond”. If you agree or disagree, there is a difference being stated, otherwise why didn’t God describe Adam’s ways to be “perfect” also?

From these descriptions, we should be able to clearly see Lucifer’s level of perfection was not how God created our present world system it being described as only “very good”. This clearly teaches us “Good” has a potential range of measurable values which is less than perfection.

Next look at the term “Acceptable”. This is the Greek word G2101. Strong defines this word as something meaning “a thing that is fully agreeable or acceptable”. This definition alone implies there are levels of acceptance that are below this standard. For example, partially acceptable does not meet the fully acceptable level.

Consider the bartering of a sale of an item. The seller has a goal of the level that is acceptable to sell an item at to meet their desired value of the item. But the buyer has a different view of what is acceptable for them to pay for the item. As you can see there is usually a compromise upon each party to achieve the sale. Thus, further teaching the levels of “acceptable” for each person has a varying range.

It should be obvious that what is acceptable to God could be totally different than what is considered acceptable to every human. In fact, what is acceptable to one human can be radically different than what is acceptable to another.

For example, take the subject of abortion. Abortion is completely unacceptable to God. But to humans the range of acceptability can vary from it being completely unacceptable like God, then moving to it being acceptable in special cases. Then human attitudes can continue downward to the level of abortion being acceptable anytime, even after birth which at any level of acceptability, these types of humans’ “acceptable” are totally evil to God. Therefore, someone’s view of what is acceptable can vary in levels that are clearly measurable. But by what standards? We must use the Word of God to determine our definition of what is acceptable to Him.

Finally, analyze the Greek word G5046. This word was translated as “Perfect” in our verse. This word clearly defines an item’s type as one of the highest standards of measurement available. The Thayer dictionary defines the Greek word as “a level of completeness that lacks nothing to be considered fully accomplished”. In other words, this appears to be the “full” will of God being performed by someone without omitting any detail.

From what is easily observable by the Greek word definitions of the words “Good”, “Acceptable”, and “Perfect”, is that they are not describing the same levels of an item. What we are confirming is that God’s type of “Faith” measuring has multiple levels that can be measured. Therefore, in 2 Corinthians 13:5, where we are commanded to examine our faith to not be judged reprobates, it appears that God has set a minimum standard of “acceptable” for what He is returning to find on the earth.

However, remember what God writes to the church in Hebrews 12:2, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith”. This appears to suggest that God is helping us to grow our faith. In other words, it is with God’s help that our faith begins and continues to grow. This means we are in a partnership with God, and we must cooperate with Him to continue to grow our faith. This means that God will “NOT” cause or force our faith level to grow without our participation.

Hopefully, you have learned in the Understanding Bible Faith series that faith is like a muscle. When a baby is born into this world, this child has all the muscles that are necessary to function but only with great assistance from a mature adult. However, we also understand, these muscles are not yet developed to be strong enough and coordinated enough to feed themselves, walk, or much less crawl, thus the need for a mother and a father to help sustain physical growth in the beginning of a baby’s faith training and education.

No, it takes weeks and months of feeding, growth and movement to develop an acceptable level of maturity to function like a human. I believe this is very similar to how a new Christian is born into the church body of Christ. They have “faith”, but it must be fed and exercised to cause growing and mature levels of acceptability.

Conclusion

We have just begun this series by establishing with scripture that we are required to have faith. But not just any kind of faith. Jesus has clearly implied that when He returns to the earth, “Faith” will be what He is looking for. This further implies that this is just not any kind of “Faith”. But based upon other scriptures God’s return to the earth is looking for a “Faith” in the works of the Son of God who is Jesus Christ.

Then we spent a lot of time looking at another verse in 2 Corinthians 8 that appears to command every individual church member to examine their faith to determine if it is an acceptable type of faith that God approves of. What we will hopefully find as we continue this study are the co-dependent qualities that must be joined with our faith to produce a type of faith that is working and alive. For example, we earlier say a type of “Faith” called “Dead” that is certainly not what God is looking to find.

We also found references to a “Fake” or “Pretend” type of “Faith”. This also is not a type of “Faith” that God is looking for. But we did find a type of “Faith” called “Growing” that was being praised. This seems to be the type of Faith that “a Christian” chooses to walk with God by Faith called the narrow “Path”, the correct path that leads us to eternal life.

The remainder of this series will deal with information about the qualities of “Faith” that are absolutely necessary for “Faith” to be acceptable, working and living “Faith”. I hope and pray that you are interested in this topic and can see how important it truly is.

Thank you for your valuable time. God’s Word is so amazing that all our time could be spent studying it. It is certainly that valuable, or it should be. God Bless you as we all continue to increase in the Knowledge of God’s Word.

If you would like to continue your study in the series, please go to “Part 2“.

Serpent Witchcraft – Part 7 –God Confirmation and Prophetic Update

(Ver 1.0) This is “Part 7”, a wrap up of information in the series of lesson called “Serpent Witchcraft”. This series came from a study of the book of Revelation concerning how the Bible describes the end-times as many have been observing it happen before our eyes for the last 100 years. This series has been researched and published specifically looking to find Bible answers related to the end-time attack of Satan to kill, steal and destroy (John 10:10) through a release of a global virus “plandemic”. We all should understand that God is omniscient, and nothing takes Him by surprise. Therefore, in this series we have trusted the all-knowing Holy Spirit to lead us to understand if this biological weapon release was mentioned in the Bible. If you have read this series previously, you know we have found a lot of hidden clues in the book of Revelation about this subject.

If you have not read this series of lessons, there must be a warning given in the front. This subject like many other spiritual Bible lessons is potentially highly controversial and could be troubling to those that have not been enlightened to see spiritual truths. Any human saved or unsaved, without their spiritual eyes being opened, the unlearned carnal mind normally resists and fights against new information discovered in the Bible. This is given to only help and to prepare your to expect to potentially see things that you have never seen with an open mind. If you have not been informed, it is probably because most of this information is still being censored by so-called fact checkers, big tech search engines, internet social media, and the normal propaganda news media outlets.

If you have not read this series from the beginning, you could be potentially greatly enlightened by starting your study from “Part 1”. However, this lesson might be a good introduction to get you interested in what was written in the Bible about these subjects. I personally believe our omniscient God wrote a significant amount of information and clues by the direction of Holy Spirit through the prophet John. Most of us know that John wrote the book of Revelation. These discovered revelations appear to be directly related to this subject of the corona (crown) virus and the world’s response to treat it. Much of the book of Revelation is becoming much clearer as we approach the fulfillment of the words, because we can clearly see the technologies that have recently become so apparent.

Also, please note that some of today’s lesson will deal with the spiritual influences within the natural realm, including Satan’s involvement in politics to take over the world. There are too many Christians that believe a Bible teacher should never deal with a subject like politics. Unfortunately, John the Baptist, Jesus and many others in the Bible did not feel this way. God sent prophet after prophet to confront kings and kingdoms. Do you remember Jonah being sent to Ninevah?

God has always been heavily involved in our world politics. At least He does what is legally righteous to do. For example, remember Nimrod in Genesis 10 who began a mighty world kingdom which unified the world to defy God by building a tower called Babel? Didn’t God get involved in this plan? What makes anyone believe God is not working to do the same today, with our cooperation and participation?

Doesn’t God say in James 4:7 to “Submit yourself to God”? But it does not end there! God continues to command for us to “Resist the devil”. This literally informs Christian to get involved with what the devil is doing in politics. “Doing nothing”, “changes nothing” and evil prevails. Does this bother you? Do you believe you may be disobeying God’s Word for not voting and not being involved in politics? You should be greatly concerned if you do not hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in these matters. Can you answer yes to two questions with confidence, 1) do you hear from God and 2) do you believe you hear Him correctly in even little details in life? I guarantee that He is trying to communicate with everyone individually in all of these matters. He definitely loves us that much. But there is no human that I know other than Jesus, that has perfectly heard His voice perfectly in every situation of life from birth to now. So, nothing here is condemning anyone?

Take for example, the covid jabs that were forced upon the world. Did everyone ask God if they should participate? Does everyone feel confident they heard from God and made the right choice to participate or not to participate? We all have missed hearing God correctly at some time or the other, haven’t we? We also all know someone that was very ill from covid, and we even know some that died. Therefore, this knowledge could have produced a massive fear campaign which used by Satan to get people to take the jab. Did everyone have peace when taking the jab or not taking it?

As for my house, I felt very strongly in the decision of not participating in the jab. There were just too many red flags that were raised from the messages and tactics driving the narrative. There was never any real “peace” when others were taking the jabs. As a result of this we lost ministry opportunities directly because of this choice. This was simply because of the fear message of the government and the media that caused many doors of human contact to close. This was clearly a demonically inspired new plan.

However, there were so many that were forced to take the jabs or lose their jobs! Do you know anyone that just willingly complied without seeking God? Many of these have regretted this choice but that is not a condemnation upon anyone personally. There was a massive amount of pressure coming from Satan’s workers in the world to force everyone to take it. I wondered a lot why this was, what does Satan potentially gain from forcing people to take the jabs. And this preconditioning of the mind to take a forced jab is very much like taking Satan’s mark. This is exactly what will happen again soon in the tribulation found in the book of Revelation with the mark of the beast.

If you believe you heard from God to participate with 100% accuracy, then He is responsible for removing any potential harm that could have occurred from taking them. If you are wavering now and have experienced any adverse effects from taking them then God is still God and can help with whatever concerns, you are experiencing. This is of course only written for those that are still alive after taking them.

Are there any consequences for disobeying God’s commandments for Christians? Do you remember when Jesus said very plainly, “Why call me Lord, Lord and do not what I say?” That my friend is a warning with dire consequences for disobedience, believe it or not!

We have already touched on a lot of potentially controversial subjects so far. How are you feeling about these? Are there any words that have been upsetting or offensive to you? If you do not feel that you are spiritually mature enough when discovering a new viewpoint found in the Bible, to react in the love of Christ, it might be highly advisable to go read other websites that only teach what you may be familiar with.

Thank you for judging and preparing yourself in advance for potentially controversial and unexpected references and subjects that you may not have fully understood in the Bible or was happening in our world by Satan’s design. Please be advised that there will potentially be many more references in this lesson that may be offensive. Also notice that like before in mentioning the “jab” there will be other references that are figuratively encoded to hopefully keep some search engines from removing them from search results.

For the sake of walking in love, we will not be naming names in this lesson, but we will be comparing certain new facts to other parallel historical events and Bible accounts. Finally, we will also not be calling anyone a name such as Hitler or Stalin. This type of “name-calling” language is not walking in love to share the truth and will only cause greater divisions.

INTRODUCTION

Todays’ topic deals specifically with the exegesis of Biblical eschatological subjects found within scriptures written from Genesis to Revelation. Our focused view has been on God’s foreknown facts that are revealed about what the world went through beginning in late 2019. This satanic “plandemic” took the world by sudden storm, bringing the entire world into a state of chaotic fear. The lies that have been allegedly spread through this time since then are becoming openly known and published through the growing number of platforms that are still committed to provide us the basic rights of our “free speech”.

In this series we have been going through the study of prophecy in the Bible. This is commonly called eschatology, which focuses on the “last things” or “end times”, including events like the Second Coming of Christ. This branch of study examines various prophetic texts found in both the Old and New Testaments. But we are primarily focused upon a virus that was allegedly intentionally released for a purpose of evil.

If you have not noticed, in the world today, many of those that are living in darkness have grown increasingly darker in nature and behavior. Lies are being openly spoken everywhere as if no one cares to know the truth. But it appears these lies were and still are cleverly designed to indoctrinate people into moving away from what is Godly, good and truthful. This causes it to be easy to conclude these lies are originating from the spirits controlled by Satan, the father of lies (John 8:44). But thank God, He is still God and is not done with any of us yet!

I cannot speak for anyone but myself concerning what I believe the Lord has shown us about a lot of things that were a part of an evil plot of Satan that was released around 2019 upon the entire world. This is exactly why it was called “covid19”.

Many understand the Bible says in Isaiah 46:10 that God knew all about the end of the world from its beginning. One of the many reasons that I love the Word of God is the fact that God writes about the end long before it happens. And He can do this because it can teach us that only He is God. Also, it teaches us that these things, along with others that are written in the Bible will be happening just like He foresaw (John 13:19).

Today’s lesson will begin with a quick review and then we will go over a new update of what has been recently discovered by scientific research concerning the forcefully mandated jabs. These new facts will help confirm how the Word of God is amazingly true, and how this Bible study series was very accurate in how God’s word was reported to apply to Covid as “Serpent Witchcraft”. All the information discovered about Covid in the book of Revelation will not be repeated in this lesson. But first, we will do a quick review of some of the main points that we discovered in Revelation.

General Overview of Serpent Witchcraft

Every serious Bible student understands how Satan is called the spiritual enemy of everything good, and especially of God who is the source of everything good (James 1:7). The name “Satan” literally means “adversary”.  This series is about how this evil spiritual being, produced a strategic attack of Covid at the precise timed event of an election for President in 2020. It has become very clear from the uncovered evidence how this plan for an enhanced Covid virus was allegedly intentionally released by a lab. It can also be logically concluded that this was planned by Satan as a clever design to remove one man out of the White House from a second term. Further we all should know that this nation that released this evil, has a representation of the symbol of a Great Red Dragon. Another amazing coincidence is that we should all know that this same symbol, is a symbolic name used by the Holy Spirit to identify this adversarial enemy of God, named Satan in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2.

Next remember that this enemy named Satan who was called the Great Red Dragon is additionally revealed to be the symbolic deceiver named the “serpent” in the same verses. This is the same “serpent” that is mentioned in the title of this lesson. The first mention of this deceiving serpent was in Genesis 3:1, and he is only clearly identified in Revelation 12:9 and Revelation 20:2.

Now recall what a natural serpent is. A serpent is a venomous and potentially sneaky and deadly reptile attacking people unexpectantly and silently. Also, a poisonous serpent’s main way of attack is through their mouth biting and injecting their poison. This is an amazing description of what we lived through with covid. A serpent’s bite is a figurative representation of a far greater spiritual poisoning. But in 2019-2020 it was both 1) spiritual poisoning, as well as 2) a hidden physical poisoning.

Romans 3:13 - Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips

What is spiritual poisoning? We receive the answer by understanding Romans 3:13. This verse describes the mouths of spiritual beings that speak deceiving words (seeds) that produce the fruit of death. We find from the words of Jesus in John 8:44, that it is Satan’s inspired words that are plainly the source of every lie. These evil words are designed to corrupt our minds and deceive us (2 Corinthians 11:3).

Therefore, we know that there are types of words that clearly represent a language of deceit and lies leading to death. And by antithesis there must also be a language of truth leading to life. Jesus claimed His words to be Spirit Words of Life in John 6:63. God defined the death words to be the same as the figurative poisoning of asps (another synonymous name for serpents) in Romans 3:13. Remember, we saw this death producing example first in Genesis 3. But we have seen this again recently in the words of evil people that were clear lies during covid. These words deceived a lot of people.

God purposefully foresaw the symbol of this evil spiritual being, and it was especially wise of God to describe Satan as a serpent, knowing how he would manifest himself in the last days. Then remember how the jab medical instrument that was forced on the American people and the rest of the world resembles a serpent’s fang by like design. Then recall that many of these jabs were designed as two injections, the same as the mouth of a serpent’s bite. We are about to discover there is more to the story than just a similar design of an under the skin injection.

Also recall, that these verses identifying the serpent in Revelation further reveal Satan to be the deceiver of the whole world. To be labeled a deceiver, simply means Satan convinces people to believe a lie as if it were the truth. This strongly describes what has happened to the entire world population during Covid and all of this was prophesied to happen in the book of Revelation.

Hopefully, you remember the previous lessons spoke of a rider of a white horse that was written about in Revelation chapter 6. It was amazing how this information describes a peaceful world conquest like we observed almost happened in 2019-2020 with Covid. Almost every human on the planet suddenly was locked down with house arrest and most willfully complied with. Then when the serpent’s “tooth” jabs were released, there was a massive, forced compliance to cause everyone to peacefully take their marks without question or lose your jobs and not earn money to eat or feed your family. The evil of this time was then very dominant with most attempts at truth being silenced (canceled). This cancellation of truth is continuing to this day silently in many cases. However, we see God raising up new social media sites that have allowed free speech and truth to be spoken.

Doesn’t this sound like the description of the beast in Revelation chapter 13? Do you recall everyone will be forced to take the “mark” of the beast. And then we learned this beast was the same word describing the viper that bit the Apostle Paul that everyone watched to see if he died after taking the serpent’s poison injection? If this is not a parallel to what we saw happening in Covid, surely it has become much more real now to everyone than ever before. If you don’t know this, please keep reading to find out more about what is happening, the news media has not been telling anyone the truth.

Next, please recall that the first horse in Revelation 6 that was being ridden wore a “white coat” and this rider is said to be riding this powerful horse to conquer the world peacefully. Remember the symbolic horse can represent power as well as the color white for “peace”. Both are qualities of what took place beginning in later 2019.

Horses are very powerful beasts. For example, many measure the power of the gasoline engine of an auto in “horsepower”. Therefore, we find an image of a leader riding and controlling a powerful white coated beast that will be used to conquer the world in Revelation 6.

Who in our world today has significant power and is famous for wearing “white coats”? Today almost all doctors, physicians, pharmacists, lab technicians and nurses wear white coverings and coats. Who is in control of these types of workers? Can they do just anything they want like a wild horse? No this is not how it works. These are all being controlled by government powers. They are certainly under the power of the government in the USA, through agencies called NIH, CDC, FDA, etc.

Remember also that the color white, is a symbol of purity, honesty, righteousness, and integrity like a bride’s wedding dress. Would anyone normally expect a bride to suddenly take out a gun and shoot the groom during the middle of the wedding ceremony? I hope not.  

Therefore, this symbol of a white horse under the control of a power, seems to indicate a world conquest will come through some methods of unexpected great deception. Could such a conquest be like what we observed in 2019, which began as a sudden virus release which almost instantly spread throughout the entire world? And could this alleged virus release only cause everyone to seek answers from a white coated medical industry being controlled by powerful governments?

Can you see how this message of covid was the cause of almost everyone believing that they needed an immediate solution for a savior? Who better to provide this rapid solution than through the peaceful looking and formerly trusted medical and pharmaceutical companies that provided the solutions for these new health problems and looming death causes.

Also recall how these big pharma groups and medical professionals wielded such great power of life and death decisions, but especially during the plandemic. Almost all these white coated people that help bring about the solutions played a significant role in administering “serpent fang” jabs. And these white coated large pharmaceutical manufacturers made billions of dollars. What did they put in these fang-based shots, that the rider of the white horse wanted to put in everyone to conquer the world, leaving him with an empty “bow” with nothing else to shoot? I believe we should all want to find out.

Now recall what else Revelation 13 said. In this chapter we found a beast and a false prophet that forced everyone to take a “mark” in order to buy or sell! Doesn’t this also fit the pattern of the forced serpent “fang mark”? Didn’t the government leadership force everyone to take an arrow shot that left a mark? Didn’t they also say if you don’t do this, you will not be able to work? If you can’t work, can you buy anything to feed your family? That is extraordinary pressure to take the “mark”, if you ask me.

No, I do not believe it was the mark of the beast, but it certainly was a rehearsal to reveal who is going to easily take the mark and who is not going to be fooled, for the real mark that will be coming soon for those left on the earth. Many Christians fell for this plan at first, but some became led by the Spirit of God and reopened their churches despite government threats, lawfare and pressures. These pastors that kept their doors open are literally heroes and we should celebrate their ability to hear from God and then their bravery to resist the devil in our government.

So far, we have reaffirmed who the “serpent” is, as being Satan using the Bible. But we may need to better understand God’s choice that He selected to use to identify Lucifer as a symbolic “serpent”. What does this word mean?

Next, we need to make sure everyone understands what “witchcraft” is, in the Bible. Hopefully you read the other lessons and know that the English word translated as “witchcraft” in Galatians 5:20, comes from the Greek word “G5331”. This word G5331 is transliterated as “Pharmakeia” and has the meaning “medication” as in Pharmacy. But it also means “magic” as in casting a spell.

From this Greek word we get words like “pharmaceutical”, “pharmacy”, “pharmacist”, etc. What we have learned is that while medicine can be useful and helpful for many, it can also be turned to become nefarious and very evil, and this is what I believed occurred in the Covid attack of 2020. It was white coated individuals in labs and in doctor offices that created and help distribute an alleged poison that has killed more people than most have heard about.

God’s Exposure in the News &
Updates on Covid Serpent Witchcraft

Over the course of time, it has become more evident how much pressure the President of the USA was under throughout his term beginning in 2017, but especially in 2019 and 2020 when an alleged bioweapon was released on the world. It has become inconceivable the demonic opposition that this man faced leading the USA.

This evil spiritual opposition included “deep state” bureaucrats, elected congressmen and women, many in the US Senate, impeachments, opposition of almost all the news media and Hollywood celebrities, and at the end, almost all the social media platforms, and then finally an alleged intentional release of a bioweapon called C19.

Facing such challenging spiritual giants, God needed a strong and fearless David like character to stand against them and now to take them down. This was who God raised up again in the 2024 election.  

In 2019, the 45th President was potentially misled by the leaders of the CDC, FDA, and NIH and was pressured by the media to cooperate with their plan. This plan was certainly inspired by Satan for the rapid creation and distribution of new pharmaceutical jabs that we cannot truly call vaccines. This is because these jabs were unlike anything ever given to humans.

These jabs were never fully human tested mRNA injections, and they now appear to have been allegedly designed with the intended purpose for more evil than good. When a SARS vaccine was first tested on ferrets in 2004 it was scrapped as dangerous because all the animals died. That trial had to be well known by all the future vaccine developers.

It now appears obvious that the government’s initiative labeled “Warp Speed” was exactly what the devil wanted everyone to believe as their ideal solution and savior from the C19 death. This was clearly a deception just like we find in Revelation 13 with the mark of the beast. This mark was exactly the same, it promised the ability to temporarily eat to live but then only resulted in guaranteed “death”.

But if these created jabs were so good and safe, why were they paying people to take them at the first release? This was done especially in the lower income parts of the nation. Then why was the government forcing people to take them or lose their job later in the roll-out? Why were all US military forced to take the jab or be removed from service? All this sounds now a lot like an antichrist one world takeover preparation that is described in Revelation.

The world is rapidly discovering that these “shot jabs” were allegedly heavily laced with poisonous mRNA types of particles which were allegedly designed to eventually cause a delayed “death” upon many individuals that were forced to take them. But allegedly this would occur randomly by design, and slowly as to not be associated easily with the serpent’s bite.

Many are now discovering that these deaths were caused by massive heart attacks, blood clots, strokes, and now we are even seeing something called “turbo cancers” that suddenly appear. All these have caused many rapid and sudden deaths without any known family history or other known cause. These have been allegedly identified to have only come after taking the “jabs”.

Haven’t you seen the videos on the internet posted in 2021, 2022, and 2023, about news anchors collapsing suddenly with something that looks like an unexpected stroke or heart attack? These occurred while they were live on their broadcast. Why is there such a large number for these years of these types of episodes? Why are the causes not being truly reported?

Didn’t you see the videos of healthy young athletes in 2021, 2022, 2023 collapsing on their sports fields while competing, running or playing to win? We can be almost 100% confident that all these people were required to take the vaccine or not participate. These were football players, soccer players, tennis players, and other sports.

Haven’t you heard of the parents walking into their young boys’ rooms to wake them up in the morning just to find them dead of potentially cardiac arrest? Many of these people claimed that these kids had recently had the vaccines. This had even occurred with toddlers as young as a year and a half who were given the jabs without their consent. Haven’t you heard internet news and video posts about EMS workers that were alarmed to see the rise in calls for kids having strokes and cardiac arrests?

Haven’t you seen some moms and their daughters on video testifying about not being able to walk or speak after taking the jabs? Their descriptions of their lives that had been changed from normal youth activities to now being in a state of crippling and debilitating existence was devastating.

Haven’t you heard and seen about the videos and documentaries that were made to report the experiences of morticians in the United States and what they were finding while embalming those experiencing sudden and unexpected deaths? Most of these people found extreme blood clotting throughout the entire body after these people had allegedly taken the jabs.

What about my uncle who was a healthy senior citizen that played golf and walked for exercise, suddenly having a stroke after taking the jab? What about my healthy daughter-in-law that had suddenly had a miscarriage after taking the jab? You cannot tell me all these examples, and there are literally many thousands that you can find, were not made to allegedly do these things intentionally. There are many stories like these on the internet that can still be found.

Haven’t heard about any of these things? It is probably because you watch the mass media alleged fake news. These people have allegedly covered up these stories because of the massive amounts of money they receive from Big Pharma as ad revenue. No one can deny this is taking place because just watch the news and see how many drug commercials are played versus all others.

We have discovered now by proven researchers and test trials that there were several other proven existing medications that were effective in treating and preventing the symptoms of Covid. Most of these existing drugs helped to successfully keep many from death from covid19. However, these appear now to have been allegedly covered up by the heads of NIH, FDA, and CDC, possibly for alleged personal gain and greed. These people allegedly killed a lot of people by removing known treatments that worked, and these could have potentially saved so many lives.

Perhaps you can recall one very effective Covid fighting drug was labeled by NIH, FDA, CDC and the news media as horse medicine. However, this drug has been around since the 1970’s and its creator achieved a Nobel peace honor for its creation. Yes, it has also been used for animals, but it is plainly commonly used for humans because of its unique qualities and safety. It is deemed safer than most common pain relievers and it is now a proven safe drug for fighting Covid. This has now even been acknowledged by the admission of the government offices previously mentioned.

Another common safe drug was also proved effective but could not be prescribed by doctors because of the failure of the government to approve it for usage of treating Covid. All the alleged silencing and the alleged mis-directions away from using existing drug treatments appear to be a work around for a legal problem for the rapid production and application of this new untested drug they called a vaccine.

If there were any drugs that worked to treat the virus condition, then an “Emergency Use” authorization of an untested new vaccine would have been completely unlawful. Therefore, government agencies have allegedly removed working treatments and approved other drugs with low to no effectiveness to possibly allegedly kill more people to make the emergency push of an extremely profitable yet unproven solution the only solution and a lot of people allegedly got richer from it.

Remember we have previously seen this evil prophesied in Revelation 9:21. This verse, as you may hopefully recall speaks of evils committed by certain nefarious people who refused to repent. These evils are listed in Revelation 9:21 as committing “murders” followed by their commitment of “sorceries”. Therefore, we find a direct connection of “murders” with “witchcraft” our key subject in this series.

The term “murders” is self-explanatory. Murder is simply the intentional death of a human such as Cain slaying his brother Abel, and then telling God “Am I my brother’s keeper”? There appears to not be enough people today that are concerned with their brother either.

The “term” for sorceries, needs more explanation to be understood clearly how it applies to the corona virus. But hopefully you will understand sorcery is a form of witchcraft. What did Revelation 9:21 say? It said, “They did not repent of their murders and their sorceries”. This means these two words are connected by God’s design. It strongly implies that the murders were committed by whatever the “sorceries” are representative of.

Therefore, let us look at this Greek word again. The Greek word translated as “sorceries” is “pharmakeia”. Remember it is this word that we get English words like “Pharmacy”, “Pharmacist”, “Pharmaceutical”, etc. These modern words are all directly connected to the people in the industry responsible for mass producing and distributing the government mandated “jabs”. It is exactly this industry that wears the white coats that we looked at earlier. It is exactly this industry that allegedly got significantly richer during this alleged created crisis.

Wow! I believe this is exactly what we saw happening during Covid. People were being told to stay at home until they couldn’t breathe anymore and then go on ventilators in hospitals and most of these people died without the proper treatments of proven drugs. This literally sounds like major crimes against humanity.

Now we find that there are alleged excessive deaths from the forced jabs. If these deaths were accurately reported and tabulated the jabs would have been stopped immediately. This is because it is allegedly highly likely that more people have now died from taking the jabs to protect them, than from the allegedly intentional released plague.

Many in Congress have now discovered that it was the head of the US NIH that had allegedly secretly kept the creation of the gain of function Corona virus away from public knowledge. It was allegedly originally created in a government funded university lab in North Carolina, but when a previous president publicly shut the program down, it was allegedly moved secretly out of the country to Wuhan China.

The USA government allegedly secretly funded this research, and it appears that it was allegedly also intentionally leaked by the lab in China. This appears to have occurred at just the precise time to allegedly intentionally disrupt the US election and economy. It accomplished this by producing fear for shutting down most normal commerce and basic standards of living and voting. However, there were certain business exceptions for the alleged benefit of certain rich and powerful corporations that were deemed “necessary” to stay open.

Further, we know all gyms, small businesses and especially churches were labeled unnecessary. Access into medical facilities like hospitals became extremely narrow for entrance into. Many necessary surgeries and treatments were canceled. Other facilities like nursing homes were in total lockdown with no ability of relatives and families to see their loved ones. Also do not forget that all children could not go to school and had to be locked down at home allegedly causing emotional stress and trauma and many teen suicides. All of this was unnecessary evil beyond our comprehension.

But remember liquor stores and abortion clinics were all labeled as necessary. These were all very strong and clear indicators of who was really behind Covid and the shutting down of these selected entities and churches was Satan. God would never close the Gospel from being preached. God is the one that commanded us to “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel” (Mark 16:15). Therefore, we know with 100% confidence that the serpent was the one at work during Covid.

Let us now get into the main part of what has been discovered lately concerning this “Serpent Witchcraft” forced agenda. There has been extensive research from Labs and doctors that have been able to test the ingredients being placed into the covid jab. One of the most significant things that has been identified are ingredients from over 30 different types of snake (serpent) venoms. Wow! This has been confirmed and you can even read about it on the CDC website.

Why is this so significant? This allegedly was done to be a silent and slow killer. Just as injecting literal snake venom into a human body can kill people with clotting, so is placing spike protein snake venom producers into a mandated jab which can also allegedly kill with clotting. Let us stop and review some known history to help us better understand what has happened.

Snake antivenom was first developed in 1895 by French scientist Albert Calmette, who produced it by inoculating horses with the venom of the Spectacled Cobra at the Pasteur Institute in Lille, France. This marked the beginning of the production of snake antivenom. Antivenom was developed to counter the effects of snake bites.

Antivenom itself does not directly cause heart attacks or strokes; however, it is used to treat the effects of snake venom, which can lead to such conditions. Snake venoms can cause “blood-clotting problems” and “low blood pressure leading to shock,” which may increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes if not treated promptly.

If you have been awake and paying attention, you may have noticed what has happened to a lot of people in the world after taking the corona jab. While not everyone has been affected by this, many have suffered heart attacks and strokes shortly after receiving the jab.

For example, as I stated earlier, I know personally that my uncle had a significant stroke shortly after taking the jab. We should have all seen the videos of star athletes suddenly and unexpectantly collapsing on the field either in soccer or football games after receiving the jabs. These are just a few examples. There are many other reports available online. Search for it yourself.

Another easy to find news article on the internet comes out of the University of Arizona. Science labs here have discovered that even in many covid 19 deaths there is an enzyme that only comes from snake venom that was a very significant factor in their deaths. The fact that snake venom has the great potential for harm and can cause heart problems like myocarditis and other issues appears to be connected to the corona virus and its alleged remedy the mRNA jabs.

What we have learned so far is that God knew what He was writing in the book of Revelation warning us about a “White Coated” horse with a controlling rider that had a “bow”, but nothing left in his quiver to shoot. With this act this rider almost peacefully conquered the entire world. It appears that God is claiming there will be coming a pandemic that will cause great fear enough to cause everyone to willingly submit to whatever the rider is saying. He will be speaking confidently and convincingly, and he will easily conquer the whole world with his fear message for everyone to take his mark from “shot” arrows in their arms. But in these arrows and from their tips will pierce the skin of many humans to bring about the introduction of poison.

Just as it was a brilliant way to conquer the world in 2020, so again it appears it could be the same strategy in the future again during the tribulation. There are still many bio-labs creating more bioweapons. And when they are released, only God knows for sure.

This is potentially one of the next parallel reasons of the second red horse being released to bring wars and we can see this now with wars going on between Russia and the Ukraine and Israel and several surrounding nations.  Allegedly the US was giving a lot of money to labs in Ukraine to develop new bioweapons and Russia would not put up with this, just as the US would not put up with Russia’s nuclear weapons being placed in Cuba in the early 1960’s by President John F Kennedy.

However, the US has been pushing their buttons to cause a potential new World War 3 between NATO and Russia with at least 3 nations providing Ukraine with intercontinental ballistic missiles. In retaliation Russia has threatened to hit back with nuclear weapons. This is exactly what the devil wants to happen. The US and Russia are both the major last hold outs to join the united new world order of government.

It is also very important to understand that the US Congress recently released a C19 report. It was well over 500 pages in length and has a lot of significant information confirming much of what has not been reported by the news media. Most of the truthful information that is available on C19 can be found on “X” and “Rumble”. There is limited information available on “Fakebook” and “Untrue” (codes), if the content providers carefully chose their words and spoke in coded forms. Otherwise Fakebook and Untrue have still continue to censor most of these truths.

Conclusion

A lot of Christians are deceived to believe whatever happens anywhere in the world; this is God’s will. In their thinking if anything good or evil happens then it is all God’s will for it to happen. But this is a lie! What kind of God would that be? It would not be a never changing God who is righteous, Holy and just. It would rather describe a God that changes from day to day, from evil to some and good to others. This kind of God would clearly make Malachi 3:6 a lie.

Our God is Love. He is only Light and in Him there is no darkness. Our God is Righteous only. Therefore, God gave His creation, including angels and humans the ability and the right to choose to serve Him or the right to disobey Him. God never forces any angel or any human behavior unless they are legally judged to be full of their evil. God will allow and permit everyone their own right of choice to love Him or hate Him. This simply means God allows what humans allow.

Yes, God is sovereign, but being sovereign does not mean everything happens the exact way God desired it to go. If God made everything happen exactly the way He wanted, you and I would not be able to do almost anything that we wanted to do. Don’t believe me? Then you don’t know God very well and how Holy He is, and how unholy humans choose to be.

Here is just a short list of verses where humans made their own independent choices:

  1. Genesis 3:11 – God speaking to Adam, “Have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat?
  2. Genesis 4:7 – God speaking to Cain, “If you do well, shall you not be accepted”.
  3. Deuteronomy 30:19 – God speaking to Israel, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore CHOOSE life that you and your seed might live”.
  4. Luke 10:42 – Jesus speaking to Martha, “But one thing is needful: and MARY HAS CHOSEN that good part, which shall not be taken away from her”. 
  5. Luke 6:46 – Jesus speaking of future human judgment, “Not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; BUT HE THAT DOES THE WILL OF MY FATHER which is in heaven”. 

These are only 5 examples of humans making independent choices and there are many more that can be found. All these facts of Truth confirm God sovereignly gave the right for all His created beings to make their own independent choices. But when humans do it without consulting God, He is not their Lord and if He is not their Lord, then He is probably not their Savior either. If God allows this choice to happen, this means he must also allow evil to take place.

What we have learned from past Bible study is that God is infinitely powerful (Omnipotent) and all wise (Omniscient), and this simply means every evil independent angelic choice or human choice while they are permitted and not God’s will, these also cannot stop God’s ultimate will from being accomplished. This is because God knows how to work around them all very easily to accomplish His will. God is so much smarter than anyone He has created that our foolish choices only affect us and not His plan. Did you understand what was just said? It was very important so please read it a few times again and again to make sure it is understood, you will be glad you did.

However, the evil choices of angels and humans might change how and when God’s ultimate plan, will be fulfilled and accomplished. For example, God says very plainly in Isaiah 14:15 speaking to Lucifer aka Satan and the serpent, “thou shall be brought down to hell, the sides of the pit”. Yet God and humans are still waiting for His sovereignly spoken “will” to occur and it has been over 6000 years at a minimum of waiting that has passed.

What we must conclude from our Study of the Bible, is that God did not commit murder by releasing the Covid Virus upon humanity. We further must conclude that Covid was not God’s will, because God did not create it, man did. This further identifies God’s willingness to allow humans to make stupid and evil choices to hurt each other.

But here is the other side of the nature of God that we have not discussed in this lesson. God knew it was coming and could have warned us about it, and He could have told us what to do about it if we were spiritual enough to ask for His help and then listen and obey Him.

In fact, He did all these things for those that were seeking Him. There were modern prophets that were told the plandemic was coming. God also gave all humans His Word to fight against this plague. Remember, Psalm 91 says “Because he has made the Lord His refuge and the Most Hight his habitation, there will no evil befall you, neither will there be any plague come near your dwelling”.

Psalm 91 was a chapter, that I was led to memorize and quote out loud every day during Covid, and still do much of the time. All of God’s promises are “Yes” and “Amen” to Christians according to 2 Corinthians 1:20. God protected many people by faith in Psalm 91. Praise the Lord.

As far as taking the “jab” or not, that was everyone’s individual choice. If you refused you may have lost your job, but that would be better than death, or a stroke or the many other things that this shot has allegedly been doing. Hopefully, you prayed and asked God whether you should take it. I cannot speak for you, but I believe the Lord advised me, not to participate. There was just no peace in my heart to allow this substance in my body. Especially after what I believe the Holy Spirit led us to discover in the book of Revelation.

It has always been very concerning how this shot was forced on people and even very young children without any formal consent. In other words no one reported accurately what was in the jabs and what were their true abilities to help or what were their true risks to harm or kill. This was one of the first red flags that should have concerned us all.

This Bible lesson can easily be labeled as misinformation or disinformation by the big tech, mass news media or governmental agencies. Yet some of the facts of this article are published on several internet websites.

If you have any trouble searching and finding information on the internet to confirm what is happening, please use wisdom on how to search to obtain the information. For example, never use “Google”, “Bing”, and “Yahoo”. These have many filters of AI censorship built into their platforms. Just like “Youtube” (UnTrue) and “Facebook” (Fakebook). These tools will shadow ban a lot of truth tellers not allowing their information to be easily found.

Therefore, the current tools that will provide fair information access to all sides will be “DuckDuckGo”, “X”, and “Rumble”. You should be able to search anywhere and find true research and facts, yet even in DuckDuckGo, we find a search result of a lot of propaganda. These sources are “fact checkers” which can be proven not to be telling the truth with research. Other search results claim the soundness and safeness of the jabs. But if you get on “X” and search for “vaccine adverse effects” and see how many people are talking about this.

Also search for the term “Died Suddenly” and see what people are reporting. If you are experiencing trouble finding good links to truthful information, you are free to leave a comment and ask for some. For example, notice how hard it is to search and find results for certain key word searches. “Died Suddenly” is just one example. When you search for this phrase, there are a ton of sites called “Fact Check” that come up first explaining away why things that are stated on a few hard-to-find websites are being called false and misinformation. Notice how many sites come up that oppose connections of Covid with snake venom or also notice that there are a lot of website connections with snake venom being used as a solution for Covid.  These are all designed misinformation sites that lead you away from finding the truth. Satan is very clever this way.

This was a different Bible study than the normal on this site. Yet this series was designed to inform people of how this information was foreknown by God and was written about in the Word of God almost 2000 years ago. If you were enlightened, it worked. If you were offended, it was not received in the Spirit of Love in which it was given.

There is a lot of information coming out and will continue to come out in the next few years about the subject of past serpent witchcraft jabs. Please become informed. There are many voices speaking the truth, in the midst of the overwhelming lies. Thank you for taking the time to read here. God loves you! We Love you! And we will pray for you no matter what you have experienced from this information and whatever you need from God. Thank you and God Bless you.

2024 Election – Submit and Cooperate with God and Resist Satan

(Ver 1.0) This is one of the most important Bible lessons you will possibly ever read after becoming a Christian. Why do I say this? It is because of the end-times that we are living within. If you are unable to read this entire lesson due to time constraints, I would strongly suggest that you at least watch this video. I recently watched this video, and it was so well stated with truth that I felt like sharing it with everyone that has subscribed here. It is from a pastor named Josh Howerton from “Lakepointe Church”. I do not know this man, nor have I listened to anything else that he teaches. But this video is right on target with what needs to be taught in every church immediately.

For those that can read the rest of this lesson thank you for your faithfulness. Today, we must know today that Satan is a real spiritual being with amazing powers to deceive the entire world (Rev 12:9) and even Christians as we can read from the mouth of Jesus in this verse:

Matthew 24:24 – because false messiahs and false prophets will appear and display great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect

This could be the news everywhere in America and the world, if anyone told the truth. The news media are the false prophets for the godless plan of Baal and Satan’s evil agenda. There are too many people in the world today that believe they are God, when some day soon they will discover they were only deceived by the god of this world.

This verse does not say that it is NOT possible to deceive the elect, as some might like it to say. If this is what Jesus wanted to say, he would have said, “It is impossible for the elect to be deceived”. Since He did not say it that way, He is saying there are ways for Christians to be deceived.

What then determines if a Christian can be deceived? It is their personal choices to whom they are listening to. Jesus warned us very clearly, “Take Heed what You Hear” (Matthew 4:24). Why is it important to not listen to evil voices telling lies? Jesus explained this war of words in Mark 4:13-20. This parable is called the Parable of the Sower, but it is more clearly identifiable to be about God’s Words versus Satan’s words that are two kinds of opposing seeds. These two types of seeds are competing for domination of the same soil, called the human heart.

If it was only a power match-up, there are no words more powerful than God’s words (Hebrews 4:12). But that is not what is happening in the world today. The Bible was removed from schools by Satan’s design in 1963. Therefore, most of the lost world are being dominated by only voices of evil influence in too many schools by too many evil deceived teachers. When a person hears only evil, they are easily misled to believe lies.

If you believe that you are a Christian and yet you are listening to the satanic controlled mass news media, you might want to pay close attention to this lesson. If you are believing the propaganda that the news is telling you today, you could be an example of a deceived or possibly a former Christian that has been led astray away from hearing the voice of your “Great Shepherd Jesus Christ”. Please don’t be an easily misled sheep and follow any voice that you hear, especially those voices that are attempting to indoctrinate you with lies:

1 John 4:1 – Dear friends, stop believing every spirit. Instead, test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

If a Christian could never be deceived to follow a wrong message from an evil spirit, would God have needed to write verses like this in your Bible? Please, wake up! Don’t believe anything anyone teaches if there are no Bible verses given as the foundation of Truth. Test every spirit, God says and see who the source is.

All words come from spirits and there are only two dominant influencing spirits. The first and only spirit that Christians should be listening for, is the voice of the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit that is one with our spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17). God normally speaks with us Spirit to spirit (Romans 8:14). However, there is another spirit in the world that is named Satan who has a very large number of evil spirits that are constantly trying to mislead real Christians back into their former darkness and confusion.

Words are “seeds” that have great power to speak a release of either “truth and life”, or these seeds can be released to mislead us into “lies and death”. God’s words are designed to lead us into eternal life and His narrow path to heaven. But Satan’s words are clearly designed to bring you into believing lies for the wide path leading to hell. The Holy Spirit is the only source of Absolute Truth (John 14:17), and Satan is the inspiring source of all deception and lies (John 8:44, Revelation 12:9). It depends upon which spirit and voice that we choose to yield ourselves, determines which words will take root in driving us in the direction of their spoken words:

Job 26:4 – To whom have you uttered words? And whose spirit came from you? (NKJV)

One thing that many of us have learned from living on this planet for many years, is that whatever the devil does or says, is not the truth. It has been rare to find the voice of God’s Holy Spirit anywhere on mass media news. Therefore, whatever they are telling you, the opposite is usually closer to the truth than the trained parrot propaganda that is coming out of their lips.

Another parable that focuses upon this issue is found in Matthew 13:24-30. This parable is often referred to as “the parable of the weeds” or it is also called “the parable of the wheat and tares”. In this example, Jesus clearly teaches us there are only two planters of seeds in the human heart. The Good crop came from God and produces wheat. But the enemy seeds came from Satan, and these produced only worthless weeds called tares that were cast into hell to be burned eternally.

Since words are seeds, they are planted into your heart after hearing them. The more you hear them the more they can take root and choke out the other antithesis seeds. It is impossible to not hear satanic seed words today. But it is possible for us to choose to turn them off and not listen to them constantly so that they do not take root. This is how Christians can become hopelessly lost from God forever, if they only focus on what Satan is deviously saying, teaching, or just outright attempting to get you to believe his lies. This has been happening in the world for many years and Christians need to stand up and counter this tactic with the “Truth” of God.

One thing that I have noticed today in living life in the USA, is to watch and observe what Satan is saying and doing. By learning his tactics, we can better know what to do in cooperation with God to counter every evil plan. Uh oh? That is a new concept to many Christians. Too many people that say they are Christians do not know what the Word of God says. For example, they do not understand that they have an enemy that is attempting to deceive them, their family, their children, their spouses, their friends and co-workers. And these types of Christians can also not be aware that they will be held responsible for not fighting against this enemy plan by telling people how not to be deceived.

James 4:7 – Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

We have an enemy that is trying to deceive us and silence us from sharing the truth. God is more powerful certainly, but do not underestimate your enemy’s abilities to trick, lie and deceive. This literally means we submit daily to God’s Spirit and His Word, and we do what He instructs us to do. Remember the Word of God and the Spirit of God will always agree. Then while doing what God says, we also completely “resist” everything that the devil is trying to do to steal, kill and destroy us (John 10:10). This simply means we choose to work with God and against Satan daily.

So, what is Satan doing that we need to “resist”?  First, for a short history lesson about politics and the church. When the nation was founded, one of the greatest foundations for creating the United States was God and the Bible. Many people moved to America to establish and obtain a place of religious liberty. Meaning they did not want a state driven religion. This concept has been twisted to mean they wanted total separation of the church from the state government. But that is far from the truth.

America’s foundations upon the Judeo-Christian values were and are still built into all the foundational documents of the nation. The founding fathers of the USA were a majority of men who were Christians. They intended this not to be run by men that were not Christians, but those that were true Christians. These were the leaders they intended to be elected to govern us. However, Satan has other plans to shift us away from this and one key example occurred long before the 1960’s.

Congress of the USA began to implement laws requiring tax-exempt organizations like churches and non-profits to come under a federal government requirement to be tracked as a 501-C-3.  This legal process began in the early teens of the 1900’s. This law was further enhanced and expanded in 1943. And then again in 1954 when it became more in line with the modern tax codes and requirements.  

These laws migrated all US churches under the control of the federal government by claiming it was giving them tax-exempt status. That sounded good but this is the way Satan uses a government’s works to deceive. Every law is named to be a positive benefit but has a hidden agenda for evil control.

The legal right to be called a tax-exempt organization was what a church was from the beginning. In fact, there were no federal taxes at all when the USA was established. Wow! It was also a tax rebellion against England that gave the people of America the further drive to form their own nation. America was being taxed with no representation within the English government.

What these laws were really designed for was to track every financial transaction movement of every donation. It also gave the government a list of who is donating to a church and how much. This sounds like a good way for the antichrist to gather up and execute all the Christians in the tribulation.

Here is another key hidden feature of becoming a registered tax-exempt organization. All churches were forced to become silent about everything that is political by an amendment to the 1954 law. This amendment was introduced by a man named Lyndon Baines Johnson. LBJ would become the 36th President of the USA after the 35th President named John F Kennedy was unexpectantly assassinated in Dallas Texas in 1963. This sounds a little too close to what is happening to the 45th President now. I suggest you do some research and find out why.

Ever since 1954, Church pastors were suddenly required to shut-up and not speak about political candidates or who to vote for, and if they did, these churches could lose their tax-exempt status. This was clearly demonically inspired to “SILENCE THE CHURCH”.

Churches have placed too much trust in their government that they were doing things for their good and not for evil. This silencing of the church has caused only the devil to have a voice in politics and we can see the evidence of this by the vast increased levels of corruption that have been occurring in the USA since then. But this is also a global problem because the antichrist desires to rule the entire world, but the USA is one of the last strongholds of Christianity. The founding fathers of the USA were surely turning over in their graves when this was enacted and no church that I know of pushed back on these evil laws.

By understanding that Satan desires Christians to passively submit to his agenda of evil, should cause us to not remain silent any longer. We are all on the verge of losing all our rights of freedoms. This election is possibly the last one that a Christian may be able to ever participate in. This is based upon the current administration’s labeling of Christian conservatives to be domestic terrorists.

With the current weaponization of the Dept of Justice against their political opponents and the church, we are depending upon and trusting in God to intervene and save us. He is certainly working to do this, but today we need to understand that He needs our cooperation to cause it to happen. What do we do? Let us begin a list:

  1. AS A TRUE CHRISTIN NEVER DO NOTHING!
  2. Pray! Ask God for His will to be accomplished and not Satan’s plan. Ask God to turn Satan’s evil workers against themselves so that their power will be broken and to bring all their plans to steal the elections to nothing (Psalm 37).
  3. Remain in Faith, Believe God is going to save the Nation and will judge righteously not allowing the righteous to be destroyed with the wicked.
  4. Bind the evil spirits and their voices that are attempting to dominate the news narratives.
  5. Become a voice of opposition against evil.
  6. Post the truth on social media and if they remove you for stating the truth, so be it. Move to another platform that promotes free speech like “X” and “Rumble” to name only two.
  7. Register to vote.
  8. Think Righteously! Believe Righteously! Speak Righteously! Vote Righteously!
  9. Realize “Jesus” is not running for any office, but that does not mean Christians do not vote if someone is not perfect like Jesus.
  10. Read the political platforms of both parties running. Compare them to the Bible. Then notice that it was only the DNC that celebrated the murder of innocent babies and that is enough reason alone not to vote for and these candidates. But the other reason was the removal of God from their platform.
  11. Christians must Go and Vote for the closest candidate that will model what the Truth in the Bible instructs us to do and how to live. There is by far only one political party and candidate for President that comes close to modeling Biblical values, and his initials are DJT.
  12. Please understand that #45 DJT helped Christians values more than any other president in the last 100 years. He strongly aligned himself to help Israel. He moved the USA Embassy to Jerusalem when all others feared and failed. He appointed more conservative judges to the supreme court that helped remove a national mandate of the murder of babies. He also initiated the building of a wall to stop illegal drug entry and kept a legal migration policy, stopping terrorists from entering our nation.

God’s Sovereignty Alone Versus God
and Human Cooperation

Proverbs 29:2 – When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.

Too many Christians have the false opinion that God sovereignly selects all the nations’ rulers. But this is NOT TRUE. We know this from reading the Bible. Notice what God wrote about political rulers in Proverbs 29. This verse clearly teaches us that God many times has nothing to do with elections. If God chose to sovereignly elect one corrupt evil ruler one time, and another righteous ruler another time, this makes our God inconsistent and unpredictable. Therefore, there are other factors that must be taken into our reasoning.

For example, begin with the first sinner. No that was not Adam and Eve. The very first sinner was the highest angelic being named Lucifer, who was created perfect originally without sin. However, 1 John 3:8 informs us Satan sinned from the beginning of creation. Therefore, if God created Lucifer perfect without sin at first and then Lucifer rebelled and sin according to Ezekiel 28:15. Did God sovereignly change His mind? Or does God sovereignly cause Satan to sin after first sovereignly creating him perfect? If He does, then God is evil or good depending upon possibly His mood on any given day.

You see we are finding that created angels as well as created humans were made to have a “freewill” choice. It is this sovereign design element of created beings that requires God’s creation to cooperate willingly with His desires. Therefore, we learn quickly that God needs humans to vote with His choices to get them to happen. Don’t believe this? Let us examine the Bible to confirm it.

For example, God did not want the first king of Israel, King Saul. God had a government system of judges, and the people of Israel demanded God to given them a king like the other nations of the world. Uh oh! God told the prophet to give them what they wanted and anoint King Saul. But this was not the will of God nor the plan of God to do this. This is one example of many that are possible. For the sake of time, we will only view one other verse on this sovereignty of God issue:

Hosea 8:4 – They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off. 

Looking at the last part of this verse first, we understand that God had implemented commandments and laws against idolatry. Therefore, the will of God was for Israel to only serve and love Him. But Israel continually set idols in the place of the True God. This clearly teaches that God’s will is not consistently done upon the earth, doesn’t it?

We find the great confirmation in the beginning of the verse that God’s sovereign will for kings and other rulers are not always His choices either. Hosea 8:4 clearly says, “They have set up kings but not by me”. I don’t know how much clearer God can be with His words. Therefore, if people can set up kings without God’s input of His choices in the Old Covenant, it is the same today.

In the 2020 election it was very clear that corrupt elections took place in several key states to push the election away from DJT #45. This is because he was so feared and hated. But it is interesting before he ran for President in 2016 and won, he was loved by everyone that suddenly turned on him. That speaks volumes of information to me, as well as it should to you. Remember we learn from what the devil does and speaks. And if Hollywood, the music entertainment industry at large, and even politicians all spoke good things about DJT before running for office. What then changed after being elected? All these groups were and still are mostly influenced controlled by Satan. This must tell us that God is for this man and Satan is not. Wow!

The United States of America was founded as a republic, and not as a democracy. In a democracy the majority of votes causes the rule of government to shift from good to evil or evil to good even by a one vote advantage. But in the republic system, there is a more fair and balanced approach to government. In the USA, the people of the nation are the ones with the power to govern and not one king or dictator. In this system, the voters select the leaders that best represent them and their values. In this type of government God requires Good People to vote for His will to be accomplished. If Good People do not vote for God values, we let Satan win and we become complacent in evil.

I have voted in every election for President since 1976. I also choose to vote for every state election in off years. I have recently changed to vote in every election, even the very small local elections which are normally shifted away from all major elections. These kinds of tactics help to cause smaller turnouts of voters. This makes them more easily to be shifted to an evil agenda.

Millions of Christians did not vote in the last many elections. These people have been deceived to believe their votes don’t matter, God will do whatever God wants done. But we have proven by the Bible that this is not how it works. God requires His people to seek Him and hear His voice in every matter of life, especially elections. God needs your vote! He is not going to stuff the ballot boxes with false and fake votes like Satan did and wants to do.

We are coming to the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ to take us out of this evil. But while we are here, we are still demanded to resist Satan’s plans and to even overcome them. If every Christians voted for “Righteous Rule” it would be impossible for Satan to place his choices into power to keep the church “Silent”.

Conclusion

Do you want more people to be saved and not go to hell? If the church is silenced permanently, it will make the USA become like China with only underground churches. When these people are caught, they are imprisoned. Many of them are also killed.  If you don’t believe this can happen in the USA, you are deceived already.

This lesson was a short encouragement to cooperate with God and to work with His plan and purpose to resist the devil. The church was taken by total surprise in 2020 with the release of a toxic man-made bioweapon to cause churches to shut down and elections to be run differently. Satan has an agenda to do this again. Satan believes he can win, and he thinks this because Christians have been easily deceived to cooperate with his plans. It is time for this to change now!

Thank you for reading the Bible lessons on this website. Please like and share with everyone you know. Share the video sermon link of Pastor Howerton. It is through correct knowledge of the truth that builds a Christian’s faith where we gain access to more of God’s Grace provisions (2 Peter 1:2). God Bless you and strengthen you with the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the Knowledge of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:17)

Understanding Bible Shalom Peace Part 2 – Victory Comes by Staying in Peace

(Ver 1.0) This is Part 2 of the Bible study series about the Almighty God of “Peace”, and His amazing Works always performed in the ways of Shalom “Peace”. This lesson is the second in the series and if you have not started reading this series from the beginning, it is strongly recommended that you begin with “Part 1”. Today we will continue learning God’s “Peace” concepts found within His Kingdom government. But this lesson will move us further to connect us with God’s works of Peace being received through the unity of Peace in humans.

In this lesson we will be learning how “Peace” is a dominant connecting God force which accesses and possesses His Power. This means by us choosing to live our life in His kind of Shalom “Peace”, it places us in agreement with His ways. With us choosing to be in union with “Love” and “Peace” in our spirit and soulish thoughts, carnal actions and spiritual words, the world can easily see that we are different and real Christians.

This is because a true God kind of internal “peace” can work outward in an external display of “Peace”. This real “Peace” is so different than anything those in the world call “peace” who are living in fear, hatred, and worry. Most Christians are going through the same things they are but have a different attitude because we have a God of Peace on our side.

Living in God’s “Peace” also appears to open doors of opportunity for hearing from God more quickly and easily, to help us know what to do in every situation. This daily chosen lifestyle of “Peace” replaces any “fear” and thus aligning us with the ability for receiving God’s great gifts of Grace. As we remain in “Peace” we connect with His power to help us. This is the reason why Satan is doing everything possible to destabilize our lives, our families, the church, our governments, our planet and our relationships with God and each other. If you are ready to learn more about this essential subject, let us begin.

Staying in the Peace of God that Wins Over All Enemies

It is essential to learn that over the course of Bible recorded history, there has not always remained a total state of Godlike “peace” in heaven nor on the earth. For example, if everyone lived in the “Peace” of God with each other and with God, we would never have any problems. We started learning these truths in lesson 1. Please remember what we learned in Part 1 where God spoke about a spiritual warfare taking place and a soon coming victory:

Romans 16:20 – And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

Please notice, this verse begins with the added emphasis of God being “Peace” and ends with the mention of His “Grace”. Why do you think God is emphasizing His lifestyle of “Peace” and His gifts of “Grace” in this verse? Why isn’t God mentioning any other of His qualities like His “omniscience”, “omnipresence”, omnipotence, etc. that are more aligned with winning a war? Please tell me if you understand that crushing someone’s head under your feet is a figurative expression for conquering an enemy? Could it be that living a life in “Peace” is the way to “victory”? I believe it is.

But to the natural mind and normal human ways of thinking, this verse appears to be a contradiction. We have a God of Peace who is at war with an evil spirit named “Satan”. But we learn here that He will use us in the church to crush His enemy’s head under our feet for our victory. God implies this is how an Omnipotent God operates in “Peace”. This is both strange and amazing news for us.

First, it is amazing God trusts us this much to take on this responsibility. But then we know because God says He will be the one doing the crushing of Satan under our feet, that this guarantees us His power to accomplish it. So how do we cooperate with this crushing? Let us focus on another set of spiritual warfare verses to learn more about these concepts of Peace and Grace during spiritual battle.

Ephesians 6:10 – Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. 

Ephesians 6:11 – Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 

Ephesians 6:12 – For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 

Ephesians 6:13 – Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand

Ephesians 6:14 – Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; 

Ephesians 6:15 – And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace

Ephesians 6:16 – Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. 

Ephesians 6:17 – And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: 

We do not have the time to teach all these verses in this lesson. But we can clearly read and notice that God is writing to us about a spiritual warfare that we are in. God clearly says it is not with flesh and blood, meaning we are not fighting against humans in the flesh. Uh oh! Not every Christians believes what God just said here in verse 12.

But God makes it more clear by listing 6 classes of spiritual weaponry that will certainly cause Satan to be crushed under our feet as we saw will happen soon in Romans 16:20. Satan is certainly one of these and possibly is the chief ruler called a “principality”. We are not going to teach this in full either, because we want to learn how we fight and how we win in accordance with utilizing our subject of Shalom “Peace”.

From reading these verses, it looks like “Victory” over Satan is obtained by us wearing “All” the armor of God that was mentioned in Ephesians 6:14-17. But notice that one of the key pieces of armor listed, covers our feet and this is what God mentions that He will use to crush the head of Satan.

This sounds important. What are our “feet” supposed to “wear” or be “covered” with? Isn’t it amazing that on our “feet” we are instructed to put on the shoes of the gospel of “Peace” (Ephesians 6:15). God has just connected Himself (the God of Peace) to our “feet” with the common emphasis of “Peace”. Could this be how we win over Satan? It appears that the “Peace” of God in unity with our lifestyle of “Peace” is a key determining factor for allowing God to use our “Feet” to crush Satan’s head (Genesis 3:15). Let us now discover what this means to God.

Joshua 1:3 – Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.

In the Old Covenant, God placed another amazing emphasis upon our human feet. God speaking to Joshua told him, that wherever he set his foot, God will cause him to tread down his enemies. Notice that this is another unity agreement of two in “Peace” with each other. There is the Spirit of the God of Peace, coming into partnership with a human that must also remain in peace. The human Joshua had to hear the voice of God to get direction and then be willing to obey God without fear.

Then these two that are in a covenant partnership both choosing to work in peaceful harmony with each other determine the victory. This is truly because 1 John 4:4 says, “you have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world”. This literally means that Joshua if he and Israel obeyed and did not fall into the trap of the sin of fear, would win every battle, over every enemy. Therefore, we need to learn what God is speaking of in these real statements of “Peace” shoes, walking and treading down our enemies.

Colossians 2:6 – As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him

Wow! Notice this verse is about “walking” in Christ. Is Christ not, called the Prince of Peace in Isaiah 9:6? Do you think this has anything to do with our feet having on the shoes of the Gospel of “Peace” and walking on our enemy? Of course it does!

How did you receive Christ? According to Ephesians 2:8 we received the salvation of Christ Jesus by another partnership of peace being first, God’s Grace and second our faith. Didn’t this agreement of grace and faith place us “In Christ?” According to Galatians 3:27 and other verses it did. How did this occur? One of the key steps was that we had to hear the “Gospel of Peace” and believe it (Romans 10:14)!

This is another key example of us regaining our “Peace” with God. We could never receive Salvation if God was angry with us and saw us as evil and unrighteous. Fortunately for us, this is not the case. According to Romans 5:10 we were reconciled to God by the death of Jesus Christ, and we were saved by His resurrected “Life”. To be reconciled teaches us there has been given a gift of perfect “Peace” now between God and humans.

Do you see that it was God’s reestablishment of “Peace” in Christ that even gave us any opportunity to be saved? God had to solve the human problem of “sin” corruption that kept us far apart from His perfect “Holiness”. God accomplished this in Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection from the dead.

Because man is unable to keep God’s standard of holiness and perfection, God chose to become a man to accomplish this requirement for us. God made Jesus our mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), and because He kept the law and was sinless (Hebrews 4:15), we are given His gifts of righteousness and peace to legally restore our access back into God’s full grace (Hebrews 4:16). These works of God in Christ made available to us, His Grace, authority and power to rule and reign in this life over our enemy! We know all of this by reading Romans 5:17:

Romans 5:17 – For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.

Here is an amazing verse that is ignored by too many Christians. God has done more for us than many realize. This verse clearly states we “reign” now in this current world, which was dominated by Satan, our enemy. To reign in life is clearly the action of God to make us a kingdom of God representative here on earth. This means we need to begin to believe it and act like it. Let’s learn more about this now.

Let us return to further analyze Colossians 2:6 again. What does it mean to walk in Christ?  We have touched on this when we read God’s commandment to Joshua. Remember this commandment involved a partnership between God who knows exactly what to do to win, telling those that could not win without God’s help, exactly what was needed for them to do to achieve their legal victory. This means they walked by “Faith”, having confidence and trust in God that what He said to do would cause theme to overcome their enemies.

For example, go back and pay attention to what happened to Joshua in chapter 5 before the fall of Jericho.

Jos 5:13  And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries

Jos 5:14  And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant

Jos 5:15  And the captain of the LORD’S host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so

What we are observing is more key verses about “feet”. This pattern was also repeated in Exodus 3:5 when God told Moses to remove his shoes because the ground was holy. God’s holiness and our feet are directly connected or perhaps we should say they were formerly opposed to each other. Of course, we are speaking in figurative expressions with spiritual meanings as God also is doing numerous times in the Bible.

It appears like God when speaking to natural humans and then telling them to remove their natural shoes, is a symbolic representation for a far greater spiritual truth. What we are about to discover is that what we are wearing on our feet symbolically defines the direction of our travel and shows our heart’s motivations. For example, do you recall what John the Baptist said about the “feet” and “shoes” of Jesus?

Mark 1:7 – And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.

Here is an amazing statement. John speaking about Jesus said, “I am not worthy, to stoop down to unloose the latchet of His shoes”. John clearly declares that Jesus will be coming after him, as a far superior man. John further implies Jesus will have an immensely greater purpose for being here on the earth than he. John is implying the existence of God in the man Jesus, and His lifestyle, His works, His character, His assigned role and objective targets were of such immense value that there were no changes, or modifications to His behavior, that were needed to be performed.

John has made a prophetic comparison between who he is and who Jesus is, and this comparison involved their “feet” and “shoes” which is symbolic of the steps that they will travel on the earth, and what they will accomplish. Finally, compare the words spoken about Jesus, to the words Jesus spoke about John. In Luke 7:28 Jesus said, “I say unto you, among those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist”. If the greatest Old Covenant prophet named John was not able to take the shoes of Jesus off his feet, who could this man Jesus be, except the Creator God?

Here is another key description of “feet”, but this time it is Jesus that is washing the disciples’ feet. Please read these verses carefully and pay attention to what is being spoken, in the light of what we are learning about feet and shoes. Notice how many times feet and things about the feet are mentioned in these verses:

John 13:4 – He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. 

John 13:5 – After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded

John 13:6 – Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet

John 13:7 – Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter

John 13:8 – Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me

John 13:9 – Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. 

John 13:10 – Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. 

John 13:11 – For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean

John 13:12 – So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you

John 13:13 – Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. 

John 13:14 – If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet

John 13:15 – For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you

John 13:16 – Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. 

John 13:17 – If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. 

John 13:18 – I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me

John 13:19 – Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he. 

John 13:20 – Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me

The earthly ministry of Jesus was accomplished by largely traveling by “foot” from place to place. In this region of the world the roads were mostly dirt, and the “feet” of the travelers would be significantly made dirty with the loose dust, dirt, mud, etc. Therefore, it was customary and courteous of every house you entered for the servants of the homeowner to wash your feet. But notice that Jesus takes on the servant’s role and washes every foot of the twelve disciples. This is truly an amazing thing for the Spirit of God, the Creator of the universe to become a physical part of His physical creation and then to wash their feet, who does this?

This event demonstrates a great act of humility for God. But it also demonstrates one of His primary purposes for coming to the earth by figuratively informing them, that He was here to change their ways of life. Can you see the symbolism being communicated in this lesson? When we walk through our life choices with clean feet intentions, we are not setting our minds on committing evil. Look at these verses to help confirm this:

Proverbs 4:25 – Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee

Proverbs 4:26 – Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established

Proverbs 4:27 – Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil

There are numerous verses in the Bible like these. They all speak of human feet and the ways that they are pointed in to do evil or to do good. These are symbolic representations for us walking in love and peace towards others or walking in selfish self-serving intentions to do everything we can, including evil to others to enrich ourselves. These are the two paths of life that Jesus was speaking of in Matthew 7:12-14. Jesus is symbolically washing the disciples’ feet to teach them that He will direct them into a new living way, if they choose to follow Him.

Do you recognize the incredible “Peaceful” works of God that are being performed by God in person, to establish us back into His ways of “Peace”? God has made a personal visit on the earth, and said to them, “I will make your feet clean removing your sins, and I will guide you in a new way of life, by my Holy Spirit. If you go through the description again of the verses we just read in John, you should be able to see some of the symbolism being utilized. For example,

  1. Every disciple uncovered their bare feet by removing their shoes. This is symbolizing Christians taking off the old carnal selfish ways of the first man Adam.
  2. Then Jesus stoops down to each disciple, just as John said he was not worthy to do. Jesus doing this to each man individually teaches us Jesus was a sinless man/God who is worthy and able to do something wonderful for us. It also teaches us to be humble enough to serve those that do not deserve kindness.
  3. Then Jesus washed every sinful man’s foot one at a time. This signifies two things. First, the forgiveness of all past sins. Second, the removal of all future man’s sinful thoughts, spoken words, actions, intentions, desires and ways. Jesus accomplishes the first by the power of His shed blood (Colossians 1:14). Then Jesus accomplishes the second by the cleansing of their minds through the washing of the water of the Word of God (Ephesians 5:26, Romans 12:2).
  4. The entire symbolic process of what Jesus has done for us all in washing the disciples’ feet, is to change our death destiny direction following Satan who is leading the world into the wide “Path” to their destruction (Matthew 7:13). This is us taking off our old shoes (ways). Then Jesus must clean our dirty feet (ways to) sin to turn us around by our repentance and giving us a new desire to change directions. This is accomplished by us putting on the new man shoes (ways to walk righteously) that were representative of the “Gospel of Peace”. All of this places us upon His narrow new path that us being led by His Holy Spirit into everlasting life, salvation and righteousness in “Peace” with God.

That was a very fast overview of the major points. We just do not have the time to teach everything that is possible to say about this process God provided to turn us around in a completely new, different, and better way to live.

We are still missing a lot of definitions to the symbolism that is being taught to us by God. Remember, to remove our old man nature shoes is an expression describing us leaving behind our previous natural ways of thinking and acting. God is trying to teach us in all of this that our human ways of achieving victory over an enemy (Satan) is not His ways.

This is simply because our normal way of achieving victory over a human problem is us trying to eliminate a flesh enemy causing the problem. But this is not what God did with Satan, at all. The immediate removal of Satan, we will soon find would have been a completely illegal, unjust and unrighteous act of God, and would have violated God’s character traits of “Love” and “Peace”.

But it is still important to remember according to Romans 16:20, God’s spiritual warfare is completely focused upon the full defeat of the spirit enemy named Satan which He prophesied would occur in Genesis 3:15. Also do not forget that He was going to accomplish this through creating enmity between a spiritual woman and Satan. Hopefully, you understand that we are quickly learning who this woman represents, is the Church (Eklesia). But God is going to achieve this victory over His enemy by asking us firmly to change our ways and to cooperate with His powerful Holy Spirit inside us to accomplish this great victory. Let us look at what Jesus said about His walk with the Father to help us understand the example that He set for us to accomplish this.

John 5:19 – Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

This is an amazing verse. This verse reveals to us that Jesus even though He was God in the flesh, He was not in His omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent qualities. In fact, Philippians 2 teaches us that God set aside His deity powers to live (walk) life like a human. In doing this Jesus lived an example for us to follow and pursue after. Remember, Jesus said “I am the good shepherd” in John 10. This means as the “sheep” of God, who we are, we must follow His leading.

This is exactly what John 5:19 says Jesus did with His Father. Jesus declares to us that he was in cooperation and chose to remain in agreement only with His father’s words of instruction. This was Jesus living in Peace with His Father. And this is the exact pattern we can read about in Joshua 5 and 6 in the victory over Jericho. Just as God instructed Joshua to symbolically set aside his natural ways of the flesh, Jesus chose to do likewise to follow the Spirit of Peace. Hopefully, you already know Joshua in Hebrew is the same name Jesus in Greek. God did this to establish two examples to teach His ways, for us to follow.

Romans 8:6 – For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Wow! Here we go finding and discovering our life ways of God. We are to imitate the examples of Jesus’ ways, and we are instructed to take off the old unholy shoes worn by our previous old human self-centered ways of life. God is teaching us that we are to change out our ways of life by taking off the old man’s (Adam’s) ways and putting on the new man’s (Jesus’) ways of life. God is teaching us the ways to overcome our enemy Satan. When we do this, we will overcome Satan every time.

1 John 5:4 – For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

As you can “see” God has again promised the church a victory over Satan by exercising our faith in His Word of Instructions. God wrote us this book so that we might know and understand who He is and how He works always in “Peace”. By us following these new transformed ways we will win over our enemy Satan, because we have God’s help doing it through us. Praise the Lord!

Conclusion

God’s kind of real Shalom “Peace” is not the absence of all conflicts. Real Shalom Peace is the internal spiritual calmness and confidence in Jesus Christ, so that no matter what the enemy is trying to bring against you or do to you, you know God is with you and will cause you to win (1 Corinthians 15:57). Walking and living in real Peace, is also not avoiding your enemy. God did not choose to ignore Lucifer after sin was found in him, but how He planned to win through operating in “Peace” is much different than the “way” we would think He should have done it.

Living in “Peace” does not mean that God is doing nothing. In fact, as soon as Lucifer rebelled, God began to speak words that initiated His plan of victory (Isaiah 14:15). As we continue through this series of lessons, we will be seeing how God reveals to us His ways of speaking with authority causes Him to win over His enemy Satan. These are the ways of Shalom “Peace” in action. This also means what He says, and when He says it, matters greatly. We are discovering that the ways of “Peace” demonstrated by God are how He works even during major conflicts, and this is why He desires to teach us to do the same.

Amos 3:3 – Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

Here we find the main point of the lesson. If God is a God of Peace, which He is, and we are told to be imitators of God in Ephesians 5:1, this teaches us that we are supposed to walk like God walks, talk like God talks and live like God lives. And we are now seeing that all of these ways are done in Shalom “Peace”. By choosing to think and act like God, we are aligning our feet in the same direction as God desires us to travel with Him in. If we turn our feet off of the path (way) even a little bit, we are beginning to drift further and further off course from knowing God, hearing from God, and this causes us to be open to our enemies’ attack.

Yes, God says if 1 lost sheep wanders away, He would leave the 99 to find this lost one (Luke 15:4). But anytime we begin to stray we potentially open ourselves up to evil and this could allow Satan an opportunity to end our life. You see in Psalm 23 David wrote about walking with the good shepherd through the valley of the shadow of “death”. In this the sheep says, “I will fear no evil because you are with me, and your rod and your staff comfort me”. But notice this sheep has not left the shepherd while death surrounded them. What we are learning in these last days, is that we better stay close to our Shepherd, Jesus Christ always. We do this by “walking” in the same direction as He is leading. This means we are in “Peace” together and are not focused upon the evil that surrounds us being united with Him.

Are you beginning to see how God’s power is received and accessed through us abiding in His ways of Shalom “Peace”, which is found only by us choosing to remain in His presence?  God operating in us and through us, leading us and instructing us, and Him helping us to change our ways of living brings us victory! Do you see how victory is achieved by us also walking by “faith” and not by human sense knowledge like our natural “sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7)? By us choosing to live in His kind of “Peace” we can more easily hear from God faster and more accurately. This is because we are tuned to the right frequency of “Love” and “Peace”.

God is broadcasting His direction and instruction on the channel of Love and Peace, and if we are not tuned to hear this channel we will probably be in tune with “fear”, “worry” and “doubt” being broadcast all around us from Satan. God has the advantage because if you are saved, He lives in our spirit inside our body. But even saved humans can too easily drift in our minds to focus only upon the flesh circumstances where Satan influences, rather than to remain n “Peace” thinking on the Spirit of God inside.

The promise God gave to the church in Romans 16:20 guarantees us the victory over God’s enemy. This was our key lesson verse today which introduced the subject of Satan as our enemy that will be defeated by God using our “feet”. We know this enemy Satan is the ancient serpent that caused sin to enter and reign in our current world (Genesis 3:15). This is your first indicator today, that God’s ways of “Peace” are not our normal human ways (Isaiah 55:8).

We learn in Romans 12:2 that we can begin the process to becoming transformed out of our old worldly “ways” (path) into God’s new spiritual “ways” (pathway) of life, by simply “renewing” our minds. This means we do what God told Joshua in Joshua 1:8, “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written there in and then you shall make your way prosperous, and you will have good success”. This is another way of saying God will cause us to “WIN”, if we do exactly what He said to do.

Luke 21:26 – Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. 

This statement was given by Jesus in Luke 21:26 warning us of the end times that we are living within, now. There are many descriptions of things that will cause “fear”. Satan will be hard at work trying to move every human into the pathway of “Fear”. Perhaps you have heard one statement from politicians that says, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”, and thus they are continually trying to create a crisis to control the agenda and lifestyles of humans.

“Fear” is the opposite force of “Peace” and “Faith”. According to God’s Word in 1 John 4:18, only God’s real “Love” will cast out all fears that will be trying to come against us to make us fall into this trap. This is why we have emphasized God’s powers of “Love” and “Peace” ruling in our heart today. They go hand in hand to lead us into victory.

Uh oh? There appears that there are a lot of Christians “not” walking in “Peace” today. It looks like they have forgotten to put “Peace” on their feet as they are walking through this world. Any fear, any worry, any doubt, any anxiety, etc. are all indicators that we are not wearing our shoes of “Peace”. How can we reduce our fears to zero and increase our “Peace” to the maximum? God reveals this in a verse written by Peter:

2 Peter 1:2 – Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

God reveals to us that we can greatly increase our “Peace” simply by greatly increasing our knowledge of Him. This means the more we learn, study, focus upon, and commit to memory His Word will cause us to live, walk and operate in His Shalom Peace Ways. This is confirmed in Isaiah 26 where God says:

Isaiah 26:3 – Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

This verse just said, “I will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed (focused) on me”. If we are constantly reading and thinking on God’s Words, He increases our awareness of His presence. His presence awareness is what helps us to remain in “Peace” through any storm.

Did you notice the words “perfect peace” in Isaiah 26:3? What is “Perfect Peace”? This phrase is formed by doubling the Hebrew word H7965 transliterated as “Shalom” meaning “Peace”. Translators could have said, “I will keep him in peace, peace, whose mind is stayed on me”. Or they could have said, “I will keep him in great double peace whose mind is stayed upon me”. But I believe what God is saying is, “If your mind and thoughts inside remain focused on me, your internal spirit will be in total Peace. This total peace will cause God to work in our external circumstances to bring them back and return them into Peace also.

This may sound strange to some, but God hears your thoughts. I believe Satan cannot hear your thoughts, but God repeatedly demonstrates in the Bible that He knows every thought. This means if we are worrying, we have just left the “pathway” of “Peace”. And “worry” is just one kind of negative thought that can defeat us.

This is amazing if we can see it and apply it into our lives. When we choose to remain at “rest”, and in “Peace” within our spirit, God’s Spirit of Peace can speak His Words to us and through us to nullify the enemy’s chaos around us. Do you recall the situation where “Jesus” was sleeping in the boat as the disciples were going to the other side of the sea? A huge storm came upon them. But was Jesus ever worried? Jesus didn’t even wake up from His sleep. This is an example from God how we should just let “Peace” rule no matter what.

But the disciples jumped into the spiritual boat of “Fear” and believed they were about to die. They awakened Jesus and accused Him of not caring! Wow! Did you know when you live in “Peace” some people will think you are crazy and could be someone that cares nothing about what is happening in the world?  What did Jesus do after they had awakened Him? He looked at the wind and rebuked it and then said to the “waves”, “Peace Be Still”. Wow Again!

This just made the disciples more “fearful” with them saying, “Who is this man, that even the wind and the waves, obey Him?”  This was said directly after Jesus had just rebuked them saying, “Why are you so fearful, how is it that you have no faith” (Mark 4:40)? Jesus just confirmed that none of His disciples were internally in their spirit in agreement with Him. This also confirmed because the disciples were in “fear” they were not in “Faith” or “Peace”.

Uh oh? Jesus just said if we had just believed what He said and also remembered the power of His words, we could have remained in “Peace” and overcame the storm. He also implied that this could be done by speaking a command in “Faith” to the wind to stop, just as He demonstrated to us (Mark 4:40).

Jesus just taught us a valuable lesson of God’s “Peace” at work. Jesus had such great internal spiritual “Peace”, even a huge natural storm had no effect on Him. But this lesson also showed the negative effects of having no “Peace” and walking in fear. It is very clear to me that Jesus was wearing His spiritual shoes of “Peace” in the chaotic circumstances caused by Satan to kill them. And this situation was defeated by Jesus’ Walk in “Peace” through exercising His “Faith” by speaking “Words” (2 Corinthians 4:13). Let’s examine another New Covenant example, this time after Jesus was raised from the dead, to prove the church was supposed to follow Jesus’ example.

Do you remember when “Paul” was arrested and was being taken to Rome to be tried by Caesar in Acts 27? The ship that Paul was on encountered another huge storm. Everyone on the ship was also in “fear” of certain death like the disciples were. In Acts 27:23, Paul informs the fearful that he had a message from an angel sent by the LORD. God sent this angel to tell Paul there would be no loss of life. But before this Jesus personally appeared to Paul and said to him, “As you testified in Jerusalem, so you must bear witness in Rome” (Acts 23:11. Therefore, Paul had it from the mouth of God, he was going to make it to Rome.

When you hear God speak, what should happen? We should believe whatever He says. This hearing should cause believing and we should have “faith” (Romans 10:17). This was the same for the disciples when Jesus said, “Let us go to the other side”. Jesus did not say, “Let us try to make it”, or “If we are lucky, we will get to the other side”. What Jesus said, set and guaranteed the outcome before it happened.

Also, Jesus had great confidence that no storm was going to kill Him, because He knew God said He would be hung on a cross. Therefore, knowing and believing the Words of God, causes the other attempts of Satan to become laughable. This was the same for “Paul” and he had great confidence in God’s words and knew he would make it to Rome, even if the ship did not.

As we should remember from Acts 27, the ship sank and they lost all the cargo, but all the ship’s men made it to shore. However, on the island of Malta, Paul was building a fire and picked up a pile of sticks that had a deadly viper in it. This beast bit Paul and everyone was expecting Paul to drop dead almost immediately. Did you notice the “fear” in everyone else? But Paul just shook the beast off in the fire and acted like it was nothing. How could Paul do all of this?

It is because Paul was in “Peace” on the inside in his spirit because he was believing God. It really did not matter what the external circumstances of this world were trying to do to him to kill him. Paul was walking by faith not knowing what was going to happen next, but He knew what God said to him would happen. This caused him to stay in Shalom “Peace”. Is this amazing news, or what?

Can you see how this fits what God said through Peter? “Grace and Peace be multiplied to you through the Knowledge of God”. You can only get grace and peace by listening to the Word of God which allows you the choice to believe. But then notice that Jesus taught us in Mark 4 about the “Sowing of the Word of God?” Jesus said, “some seed fell on wayside soil and the birds of the air came and devoured it”. Birds represent the devil and demons.

How does Satan steal the Word of God out of the hearts of people? One tactic for this theft was performed easily because these were people who did not hear correctly to understand God’s words. Remember all thoughts are words in the spirit realm. They can come from God, Satan, or your human desires. Therefore, managing our thoughts closely is very essential for staying in “Peace”.

Another Satan tactic is to just blind the human mind with other distracting thoughts to keep a person from understanding what was said. This can be done with rapid fire thoughts keeping them from thinking about the Truth that they are hearing. A distracting thought could be any kind of subtle thought of deception, a distraction coming from the darkness of this world.

Think about this, how many times have you been reading the Bible and suddenly get a thought about doing something else that you need to do, like fix your hair, clean the house, exercise, call somebody, etc. What about a sudden desire for sweets, salty snacks, or other food you crave? Do these feelings ever come upon you and suddenly you must have them? These are all clever subtle tactics to keep your mind occupied away from receiving the Truth. But Satan needs other tactics if someone really understands what Jesus said to them after these words are understood enough to cause joy to rise in their spirits.

As you have seen there was three examples, that we just went through and two of these were “storms” and the third was a physical attack of Satan (a viper, serpent). This could also be like a physical fatal illness like cancer. This could just be a physical hidden poison secretly being given to you in your medicine or shot. No matter what the plan of the enemy, it can be nullified if you remain in “Peace” and “Trust” God to cause His Word to come to pass in your life.

What has God spoken to you? If you know for sure it was God, write them on big pieces of paper and place them all over your house or wherever you live. Keep them as the focus of your heart, and these Words will help you remain in Peace.

This is why we are studying this subject today. This is why we are increasing our knowledge of the God kind of Peace. This knowledge “will” cause our “Peace” levels to drive out the fears that the enemy is trying to get us to buy into. It is very interesting to know that God’s letters written to the church almost always begins with a greeting that contains the connected word “Grace” and “Peace”.  Check out this example:

Romans 1:7 – To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ

We can easily see the source of all “Grace” and “Peace” in our lives comes only from knowing God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  We should know that God says in Romans 5:1, that we have Peace with Him because of His works accomplished in Jesus Christ’s by His shed blood. This teaches us that God has reconciled us back into a right relationship with Him and this knowledge alone should increase our “Peace” when talking with Him, to receive all His Grace.

How is Your Peace Today?

Today is the anniversary of 9/11. Perhaps you remember where you were this day? Perhaps you watched it on television happening as I did. This is a very sobering real moment in history that should make anyone think, and ask the question what if? What if it was you in the planes that crashed killing everyone instantly? What if it was you above the flames in the towers? Would you have jumped? What would you be thinking in your fall to your death? Do you ever think about death?

Do you have any feelings of uncertainty? Do you know what would happen if you died today? Where would you spend eternity? Maybe you do not believe in life after death. Are you sure? How can you ever be certain? Have you died before? Have you seen the other side? Can you guarantee there is no God? Is there any certainty that hell does not exist? Can you prove it? If you do not know the answers to these questions, there is no way that you have any “Peace” with dying. Wait, till death suddenly stares you in the face, and then ask these questions very quickly. Unfortunately, death does not always give you time to ask these questions.

However, if you believe Jesus is God and He died for you and did not stay dead but rose again to be alive forevermore, and then you have never received Jesus as your Lord, you know that you have no real Peace.  If desire to give your life to Him and allow Him to come into your heart, He is offering you this opportunity by calling you to come out of the world so that He can give you His Spirit of supernatural Peace. Click the link below to go to the link and give your life to Christ, so that He can give you His eternal “Peace”. This “Peace” can keep you no matter what you are currently facing in this life.

Thank you for reading and studying the Bible here with us. We love you and care enough to spend the time to help you learn about God and His risen from the dead Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Until next time, be blessed and remain in Peace, the devil will have other plans to try to get into fear sooner than you may think. But you will overcome them by walking in “Peace”.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Be the Peaceful in the Light Versus Chaotic and Evil in the Darkness

(Ver 1.0) For your information this is NOT a political post for Trump. It is only a statement of Biblical values and truth about what happened to us all on July 13, 2024. I was not planning to post anything this soon, but what we have just witnessed is too enormous to ignore. We have just witnessed a huge evil take place that some prophets are calling the “Shots Heard Round the World” to awaken everyone. This is a very sad time in America. At least one father and firefighter lost his life protecting his family. Please join us in praying for this family’s loss. Two other gentlemen were critically wounded but are still living and we must join together to pray for them and speak life to them.

Jesus said, “They are blind leaders that lead the blind. And when the blind lead the blind they both fall into the ditch” (Mat 15:14). The blind are those that have not yet seen or choose to turn from the light of Jesus Christ. They remain in darkness, and we have many of these leaders in Washington D.C. that are provoking violence with their words.

We are living in this massive time of darkness that has been attempting to overrun us to rule the entire world prematurely. The antichrist desired and planned a surprise attack to be implemented in 2020 to stop the reelection of one man that they fear to be the president of the United States. This man is too rich and cannot be bought or controlled with money gifts and bribes. If you don’t like the truth and are offended with the truth that is being laid down, you are welcome to leave this website and never return. No matter what your choices are; I WILL NOT STOP TELLING THE TRUTH! I DO NOT DO THIS WEBSITE TO BE POPULAR. It is past time for the church to wake up from worldly and religious brainwashing and from pastors that are trying to appease everyone with a watered-down message to satisfy the itching ears of their people.

Recently we witnessed one of the devil’s plans to create even greater darkness and overwhelming chaos than what many could have imagined. There was an assassination attempt on the 45th President of the United States through a coordinated and planned evil work of darkness. The news media which has been consumed with greed, has refused to tell the truth about it, but these groups have turned into government propaganda tools to deceive people. However, the truth is still being posted on the internet anyway. God has raised up and established new internet platforms that are growing to help replace the massive tech-giants that are operating in the same cancel cultured darkness of the godless being used to silence the truth.

God protected the #45 man in such a way that proved it could have only been divine intervention.  The bullets the were intended to kill #45 came within millimeters of being successful. They grazed his ear and blood could clearly be seen. The shooter was only about 150 yards away. It is virtually impossible to miss a stationary target at that distance. Yet we watched one of the greatest miracles to save him.

If you think you are a real Christian and do not discern good from evil, or truth from lies you may be deceived into potentially thinking you are more than you really are. Deception in this world is boiling over the top. Many have bought it for so long they could be never returning to God. This work of Satan proves the existence of evil and chaos. It is not from God who is still the God of Peace.

The church of the Lord Jesus Christ must stop being passive and allowing evil to control them. If you don’t pray, it is time to pray and thank God for helping us and for saving #45. If you have been praying, thank you. But do you believe God heard and answered you? If yes, it might be time to stop asking and just thank Him that this United States of America is protected, favored, blessed and is experiencing a great awakening of revival, and especially thank Him your name is written down in the Lamb’s book of Life.

But praying is not your only responsibility as a True Christ follower. Jesus Christ said “All authority in heaven and in earth was given to Him” after being raised from the dead (Mat 28:18). Jesus immediately transferred and assigned His authority to His church on the earth. He also taught us in Matthew 16:19, whatever we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever we loose on the earth, will be loosed in heaven.

We are in a spiritual war in the spiritual realm. The spirits of darkness have been ignored too long. The church let them take Bibles out of our schools and this resulted in massive confusion only. This was enormous spiritual power that too many Christians believe they do not have access to anymore. Yet, Jesus will never change His mind. He gave it, now use it against the spirits influencing people in the world that have been controlled by darkness too long.

Share Jesus with someone today. Jesus loves all those that are deceived. Many have seen the Light during “Covid”, and many others are now seeing the “Light” during this election, because of the massive overreach of evil against one man. They have overplayed their hand, and this evil is causing too many people to awaken from their sleep. Those in the darkness are becoming even more desperate than ever before. It would not be surprising to see what they have planned before the election in November.

Continue to pray and believe. God is doing more than you know or realize. The prayers are causing things to turn for God’s good. If we join in prayers of faith united in purpose and in one accord, there is no darkness that can overcome us, because “Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world” (1 Jn 4:4). Take the verse in Revelation 12:11 and claim we overcome evil with the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our testimony”. Finally, stand together on Isaiah 54:17, “No weapon that is formed against us will prosper. Every tongue that rises in judgment against us we condemn. This is our inheritance in the LORD and our righteousness is of the LORD”.

Everyone is either on God’s side or Satan’s side. There are no other choices to choose from. By default, you are on the side of darkness and Satan will use you this way in your silence. If you are on God’s side you will open your mouth and spiritually “fight” (but with yours words of prayer and authority in Peace and Love) as #45 said after standing up after taking cover.

Hopefully you have read the end of the book (Bible), and you have seen God wins and Satan is thrown into the pit forever. But before the end, the God of Peace will use us (His church body) to bruise the head of the serpent under our feet according to Romans 16:20.

Thank you for taking the time to read this short message of warning and encouragement. Remember, one can put 1000 to flight and 2 can exponentially put 10,000 to flight, but only if we join together united in the Spirit of Christ as one body. Please stop fighting your brothers and sisters and fight the real enemy. Satan enjoys creating your doctrinal fights so you will ignore what he is coming to do to you. It is past time for Christians to put aside name calling between us. It is time to walk in LOVE and FORGIVENESS and let “PEACE” rule in our hearts. Amen

Remember we love you, God Loves you and Jesus is our LORD and Savior! Please leave us a comment or a like saying you are praying with us for our nation during this critical time before Jesus returns.

Understanding Bible Shalom Peace Part 1 – Introduction

(Ver 1.0) This is Part 1 of a new Bible study series about the Almighty God of “Peace” and His Amazing Works of “Peace” performed in His Kingdom of “Righteousness”, and “Peace” and “Joy” in the Holy Ghost (Rom 14:17). This series will attempt to answer the basic questions that every human should have on this subject of peace. This series also will provide a perspective of peace and the reasoning for peace that many have never seen in the Bible. Finally, we will further explore 1) the origin or source of all true “Peace”, 2) the present “now” condition and existence of peace or lack thereof, and 3) the future ending of “Peace” on earth and in heaven.

I will warn you that some of this information could be offensive to new Christians and Christians that have never studied the deep spiritual subjects of God. This subject study is intended for mature Christians that are Spirit-filled and have studied the Bible intensely for at least 10 years or more. I hesitated to put a number on this, because Christians mature at differing speeds just like natural children. Judge yourself and make up your mind before you continue.

Please do not fight over trivial things. We can disagree on spellings and pronunciations without calling anyone out as being false or wrong. Only God is justified to seek absolute perfection from anyone. But, if anything offends you, or if you run across something you never heard before and it sounds like “heresy”, please take the time to study it out more closely before you rush to judgment and ignore what I believe the Lord God wanted to teach today. You are also very welcome to ask questions and leave comments if there are areas that were not clearly stated or easily misunderstood. Please leave any positive contribution on any included “Peace” subject matter. Let “Peace” be the dominate motivation in commenting on the subject of “Peace”. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you to make constructive criticisms. These are accepted if they are spoken in ways motivated by “Love” and not “strife” or “hate”. Name calling, vile words, and speaking evil about anyone or anything is un-Christ-like and is never allowed to be published on this website. Peace and Love are two of the key driving motivations of this Bible teaching website. Thank you.

Here are some of the basic questions that people have that will hopefully all be addressed in this series.

  1. Who or what is the spiritual enemy of man and God? Is there a real enemy named Satan?
  2. Why isn’t Satan in hell right now for every evil he has committed in heaven and on the earth?
  3. If God is good, why does He allow evil?
  4. How does the Bible explain and balance the existence of a God of Love and Peace who is also sovereign and omnipotent with the existence of evil?
  5. What does God define His type of “Peace” as?
  6. How does God’s definition of “Peace” differ from the world’s type of “Peace”?
  7. Does the World have any real “Peace”?
  8. Did the Kingdom of Heaven live in perfect “Peace” before the cross?
  9. Does the Kingdom of Heaven contain perfect “Peace” after the cross?
  10. Has Heaven ever experienced total “Peace”?
  11. Has the Earth ever experienced total “Peace”?
  12. If God is the God of “Peace”, why is there so much evil, chaos, death and destruction taking place in our world, even to Christians?
  13. We can all see that there are natural wars taking place, but is there also spiritual warfare taking place today?
  14. How can spiritual warfare exist with spiritual “Peace”?
  15. Does God have a plan to restore “Peace”, stability and unity back to the universe?
  16. Will there ever be any real “Peace” that I can see and experience on earth?
  17. Why does my heart feel so restless and empty, making me feel like I’m existing in a state of fear and confusion about my future?

Here is a list of subjects that will be introduced today in this first lesson of the series:

  1. Introduction to the God of Peace and His Ways of Peace
  2. Introduction to God’s Definition of the True Shalom type of Peace
  3. God’s Hidden Meaning of Shalom Peace
  4. Conclusion

Finally, it is noteworthy that this lesson was shortened for those with limited time to study.

Introduction to the “God of Peace”
and His Ways of Peace

Most Christians have heard the truths given to us in the Old Testament concerning the seven covenant names of God. If you have not, these are names of God that describe the truest characteristics of His Holy personality involving the people that are in covenant relationship with Him. These names are as follows:

  1. Jehovah Jireh – LORD, My Provider
  2. Jehovah Nissi – LORD, My Victory Banner
  3. Jehovah Rapha – LORD, My Healer
  4. Jehovah Tsidkenu – LORD, My Righteousness
  5. Jehovah Raah – LORD, My Shepherd
  6. Jehovah Sabaoth – LORD of Hosts
  7. Jehovah Shalom – LORD, My Peace

These are all very strong positive names and each of them describe one key attribute that reveals God’s truest strengths. But the one that we are studying today is the LORD my Peace. God has named Himself “YHWH Shalom” (Peace). This teaches us that true “Peace” is one of the key forces motivating God’s thoughts, plans, motives, desires, and actions. Therefore, the primary way to understand God correctly is to read about what real “Peace” represents.

Amazingly many Christians have learned to see the true God through the attributes revealed clearly to us in the Gospel accounts of Jesus. Remember Jesus was the YHWH God walking the face of the earth in flesh (Jn 1:1-14, Jn 14:7). This physical appearance of God is the most accurate representation of who God truly is. Jesus exemplified the qualities of “Love” and “Peace” amazingly well.

In fact, Jesus using Biblical typology is referred to as the King of Righteousness and the King of Peace seven times in the Bible because God calls Him a priest made in the order of Melchisedec.  This is a critical part of our lesson series to remember. Only Jesus can and will remain our eternal High Priest and our eternal King of Peace forever. It is also interesting to note that Melchisedec was the king of Salem meaning “Peace” (Gen 14:18). This city is the early name of the same city named “Jerusalem” that Jesus is said to rule over. Jerusalem also means a city that was “Founded Peaceful”.

However, we need to focus on all the names of God that were just given. All these names must be balanced together equally. There appears to be a controversy with the name “LORD of Hosts” being united with the other peaceful names, but there are no contradictions. The LORD of Hosts means; God is the LORD over armies.

If God is described to be named Jehovah Shalom (Peace), what does an omnipotent God of “Peace” need with an army of war? How could the same LORD of Peace that compassionately heals people to bring life, be a LORD over a strong force of power that can bring death? This is not that complicated. Having a powerful force of great strength helps a kingdom, nation or government to keep the peace and avoid wars when used correctly. However, there is also another truth that cannot be ignored. We are about to discover that God has an enemy (Psalm 55).

Rom 16:20  And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. 

In at least 5 verses in the New Testament, God is described as the “God of Peace” which is parallel to the name Jehovah Shalom. These verses identify “Peace” to remain one of God’s major qualities of His character in the New Covenant. Notice that we again see a potential contradiction between the God of “Peace” and a “bruising” someone under the feet of someone else in Romans 16:20.

To “bruise someone under the feet” is a figurative description of conquering an enemy for their defeat (1 Kings 5:3). This typically is done in a war and that is the opposite of “peace”. Thus, God identifying Himself as “Peace” in a violent action like war appears to contradict. But there is still no conflict. Mostly we just do not understand what is being taught.

The name Satan comes from the Hebrew word H7854 meaning God’s adversary, opponent, and enemy. This helps us to understand one of God’s primary peaceful goals is to defeat His enemy named Satan. Remember that this verse in Romans 16:20, was written a long time after the death of Jesus on a cross. This teaches us further that there is still a spiritual war taking place and it appears God’s strategy will be the feet of the church that will be used to finally conquer Satan. Looking around us in the world, you must admit that Satan is still alive and well. This is based upon all the evil that has been greatly taking place openly right in front of us.

We are being introduced to the fact that God has an enemy that is fighting against Him. Satan is trying his best to cause his dark and evil kingdom to rule over all, including the God that created him (Lk 4:5-6). That is not wise at all. But this explains a lot about God’s key “Peace” quality and why it is also necessary for Him to have armies to keep His peace.

There are several spiritual wars in the Bible, but we will only focus on two major spiritual battles that need to be quickly mentioned to help confirm what is being taught. One is written about real past spiritual warfare, and the other is a prophesied future coming spiritual warfare and both are described as incredible power struggles of good versus evil.  

The first example to understand was a major spiritual warfare given by Daniel as he is praying in chapter 10. This war begins when Daniel prays asking for an answer for Israel. God sends him the answer by way of an angel. The answering angel was sent on the first day that Daniel prayed, but there was a spiritual war taking place that delayed the answer for 21 days from arriving. The answering angel also has to send for Michael a chief heavenly angelic authority to help him get through the evil opposition. That is an amazing example of spiritual warfare.

But there is another very significant future spiritual war that occurs between angelic armies that is written about in Revelation chapter 12. This war occurs when Satan brings 1/3 of the angels against Michael and his angels. Go read this account and you will discover very quickly that this future war is when Satan will be forever cast down from heaven and all evil angels will not be allowed to reenter. This is very important to see and understand, but we will address it more later in the series.

We will soon be learning in this series how the God of Peace is working in His ways of never changing love and peace which must also be balanced with His power, strength and righteous judgments. All of this together is accomplishing His desire to re-establish everlasting “Peace”. Simultaneously God is also “legally” and “righteously” eliminating all His enemies and their evil works along with their unrighteous influences.

Let us continue to focus upon what God is saying in Romans 16:20. This verse says God will use the “feet” of the church of Jesus Christ, to bruise Satan. Let us define who the church is first. The church is symbolically referred to as the “Building” (1 Peter 2:5), the “Body” (1 Cor 12:27) and the “Bride” of Christ. We will only be addressing the woman identity labeled as a “Bride” in this introduction. We will begin to find this truth in 1 Corinthians 16:17 where God writes “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”. That is marriage covenant terminology that was first written as law concerning the first man and his wife in Genesis 2:24.

Gen 2:24  Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

Genesis 2:24 is requoted in Ephesians 5:31 again, but this time it is directly referring to a great hidden mystery that God is speaking of it being Christ and His church bride in Ephesians 5:32.

Eph 5:31  For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

Eph 5:32  This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

It is very important to know that the first created Adam in Genesis chapters 1 to 4, was a planned pattern by God for the “Last Adam” (Jesus) (1 Cor 15:45). Romans 5:12-14 is the primary confirmation that declares the “Last Adam” (Jesus) to be a “figure” (type, pattern) of the first Adam. This simply means what God did to take a flesh bride out of the first Adam, has been repeated in the Last Adam to take out a spiritual bride. We will continue to talk about this in the series as we learn more about the ways the Living God of Peace works.

Then previously in Ephesians 5:25-27 God speaks of husbands and wives in direct relationship to Jesus being the husband that loves his church and is making her ready by the cleansing power of the Word of God in verse 26. And in Ephesians 5:27 this clean bride is being “presented” to himself as the glorious church (bride). This is all wedding terminology between the church bride and the Son of God.

Too many preachers of the Word of God today are ignorant prideful males, and they feel anyone calling them a bride is profane and demeaning. Therefore, they explain away the verses in the Bible that speak of these truths in spiritual terms. Do you know that in the Bible God says in Galatians 3:28, that “In Christ, there is neither male nor female?”. Yet they fight you for calling them bride.

Did you know God called the nation of Israel His virgin bride wife (Isa 62:5)? Please go read Jeremiah 31:32 where God speaking of Israel as His wife, said I was a husband to you”. People must learn the truth, not because I said it, but because God said it. In the spiritual realm of existence God’s covenants are marriages with a people of males and females. They all corporately are His bride, and He is always their Husband the Head of the Family. This is the way it is and will always be, whether you like it or not!

This knowledge identifies the church to be the New Covenant woman bride that is being used by God to bruise the head of Satan in Romans 16:20 and it further directly connects us to Genesis 3:15. There are many other lessons that explain this in more details on this website, if you are unfamiliar with who you are to God as the church. Please just understand that the Church of Jesus Christ is considered a symbolic spiritual woman and bride.

Next, let us define who Satan is. We must understand that Satan is the “head” ruler of the kingdom of darkness in this world (Acts 26:18, Col 1:13). Let us look at some other key identifying characteristics of this enemy. In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Satan is called the “god of this world”. This lower-case “g” “god” is the exact same Greek word translated as capital “G” “God” as referring to our Creator. Therefore, Satan is not a nobody or a powerless being. Then notice in Ephesians 2:2 Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air that works in children of disobedience”. Therefore, Satan is considered at minimum a “prince” of a kingdom. Jesus himself claimed Satan has a kingdom in Luke 11:18.

If you are a serious Bible student, Romans 16:20 should begin to fit into the pattern that was written about in Genesis 3:15. With a little study we should be able to see how Romans 16:20 is a parallel prophecy of the verse found in Genesis 3:15. If you recall, this verse was God speaking to the “serpent” saying, “I will put enmity between you and the woman”. Notice the emphasized hatred and implied war is between a serpent and a woman.  Then God mentions head and feet saying, “your head (the serpent) will be bruised under foot”. God does not identify which woman is being spoken of in Genesis 3:15, but He has now identified her in Romans 16:20, to be the church bride of Christ.

Most are going to criticize this teaching because almost every Bible teacher has taught this verse is about a “seed” and that connect that to be the Lord Jesus Christ. They further claim this brusising took place on the cross. But yet we can’t find a verse that claims what they teach mentioning Jesus to be the “Seed of the woman from Genesis 3:15”, or about His feet standing on the serpent.

Instead, we find verses like Luke 10:19 which is Jesus speaking to the church saying, “I give unto you authority to tread on serpents, scorpions and all the power of the enemy”. This was Jesus speaking to leaders of the church and it applies to us today also since we are in the same church body as they were.

We also see that Psalm 110:1 is quoted at least 5 times in the New Covenant claiming it was written about Jesus. This verse is the LORD (YHWH) God speaking to His Son saying, “Sit here at my righthand, until I make your enemies your footstool”. Wow, these verses go along with Romans 16:20 exactly. Jesus is currently seated in heaven at the right hand of God, and God said He would use the feet of the Bride of Christ to bruise the head of Satan (the serpent)”.

Notice, God does not inform us, who the “serpent” is in Genesis 3:1. But thankfully, God defines the name of the serpent to be Satan in Revelation 12:9 which is another key chapter about a woman standing with her “feet” on a very key object. This woman is standing on the moon. This object is defined to be the ruler of the night and darkness in Psalm 136:9. These are all God’s clues about the same bruising and the same woman being spoken of using direct or symbolic representations to identify her.

Now we have seen all the key connecting information that is necessary to interpret these verses correctly. Satan is defined to be the Genesis 3:15 “serpent” in Revelation 12. Then in Romans 16:20 we have a woman called the church who will be used by God to bruise Satan the serpent under her feet, and this has yet to occur and must happen very soon. Since this had not happened when Paul wrote this letter, we can deduce this is a prophecy of an event that must happen in a future context. Then you must realize that this time of bruising occurs before the rapture. Now is the time when the rapture could occur and therefore, the serpent’s head will be bruised before the bridegroom comes and gets His bride. Did you know this is why Satan hates this teaching and wants to silence it?

Do you see the connections being made here? We have three verses about a woman who is at war with Satan. In every situation we have her “feet” standing on the head of the ruler of darkness who is Satan. These are all verses that predict a victorious church and defeated enemy Satan. This is not an accident. There are many other lessons that teach this in more detail. These will not be repeated here. This is just being included because these are the wise choices of an almighty and omnipotent God of Peace, who is working to bring about a lasting eternal “Peace” over His enemy.

God chooses to use a foolish looking woman who appears weak to Satan, and she has been identified to be the church. Remember the first woman who was the wife of the first Adam was deceived (2 Cor 11:3). This wife was tricked by the serpent. But the church, the wife of the Last Adam will not be tricked. The natural wife who was the mother of all natural humans, is not the same as the “spiritual wife”.

For she represents the wife of Jesus Christ whose Spirit now lives in us and He has become joined with our human spirit, causing us to be much more powerful than we appear on the outside sometimes to our enemy (1 Jn 4:4). The Omnipotent God of Peace loves to use foolish things to confound the wise (1 Cor 1:27).

We should all know that God has surprised His enemy Satan by defeating him while hanging on a cross. During this event, He died, and His side was pierced by a sword allowing blood and water to flow out of His body (Jn 19:34). This was the spiritual birth of the church which is like the taking of the woman out of the first Adam (Gen 2:21-22). But this woman would be used by God to fulfill a prophecy with the crushing of the head of the serpent under her feet. Remember this woman is what God calls a weaker vessel (1 Pet 3:7).

You see if God in His omnipotent power defeats Satan, God could potentially appear to look evil, after all He is the one that speaks and the sun, moon, and stars just appear (Psalm 33:6). God’s power is so much greater than Satan, it is not a fair fight. This is not the way of God seen in His True Light. Do not forget that even Jesus (God in the flesh) stripped Himself of His deity power to become a humble servant man that died on a cross (Php 2:7-8). That is clearly not what Satan expected to happen and this is the man that God calls the Last Adam. This man of peace was the God of Peace that became like the first Adam, but He chose to keep the hundreds of Laws and Commandments of God to be without sin (Heb 4:15), while the first man Adam having only 1 commandment chose to revolt.

Are we beginning to see how God’s ways are not our ways (Isa 55:8)? What would we do if we were omnipotent, and someone became our enemy trying to steal our kingdom and glory? Humans would probably just kill them instantly in a fit of rage. But that does not sound like the True God, when we see Him correctly. If you believe that it does, you may not really know God as well as you should. Look at this verse of confirmation:

1Co 1:18  For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

Finally, how is the God of Peace whose ways are not our normal human ways, using the church bride to defeat His enemy Satan? If you recall in Ephesians 6, God lists His armor for us to put on in this spiritual warfare that the church is involved within. God lists multiple pieces of spiritual armor including a belt, a breastplate, a helmet, a shield and a sword.

However, notice that one of the weakest sounding parts of the armor were the “shoes” that are supposed to be protecting the church woman’s feet. The church’s feet are supposed to be shod with the “Gospel of Peace”. Now put this together with what we just read in 1 Corinthians 1:18. God’s Gospel of Peace preaching the cross is completely foolish to everyone that is perishing. Is Satan going to perish? If we read the back of the book, we will quickly discover that he is.

Therefore, what some may consider weak and foolish is where God has placed His great power. Wow! That sounds like the God of Peace has guaranteed our victory, through wrapping our feet with the powerful Gospel of Peace, doesn’t it?

The church should be preaching this Gospel good news unashamedly and more today than ever. Do you remember what Paul said in Romans 1:16? Here Paul wrote “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, for the Jew first, and also unto the Greek”. This proves again the Power of God is found within foolish good words of peace. The time is growing very short for the end of the church age of God’s divine Grace. Yet we have His promises that we will overcome and He (the God of Peace) lives in us to guarantee our victory.

Introduction to God’s Definition
of the True Shalom Type of Peace

To begin to understand the subject of “Peace” we must learn to see the subject through the eyes of God and ignore human traditions. The English word “peace” occurs over 400 times in the KJV Bible. Within the New Testament the word “peace” is found over 100 times. The key Greek words translated as “peace” in the New Testament are G2270, G1514, G1515, G1516, G1517, G1518, G4601, G4623, and G5392. The Greek language as you should be aware is a much more descriptive detailed language than English and usually has several Words to describe the same subject. Each Greek word expresses details and types of “peace” which are usually applicable to only one version or feature of “peace”. For example, Jesus is called a “Peace Maker” using the Word G1517 through the blood of the cross (Col 1:20). This literally means there was a problem between God’s created humans that were under bondage of sin and Satan and their Creator God. This sin problem was solved by the bloody death of Jesus hanging on a cross approximately 2000 years ago (Col 1:20).

Then there is another verse that Jesus said about the church when He was calling us out to also be peacemakers (G1518). Jesus personally, promised the church that we would be blessed if we choose to become peacemakers like Him. Here is what Matthew 5:9 said, “Blessed are the peacemakers because they will be called children of God”. To become a child of God is the only way to be saved. Therefore, to follow and pursue after making peace with all men should be one of our greatest priorities (Heb 12:14).

In the Old Testament Hebrew language, the translated English word “peace” occurs over 300 times, originating from the Hebrew words H1826, H2790, H7965, H7999, H8002, and a few others. But we will be focused today upon H7965 (Shalom) for this study. The Hebrew word H7965 “Shalom” occurs over 230 times in the Old Testament, and it was predominately translated as “peace”.

Let us first review the definitions of the English word “peace” before digging into the Greek and Hebrew words. In the English language Peace as a noun is defined as:

  1. A state of tranquility or quiet silence
  2. The absence of war with enemies
  3. An agreement or treaty to end hostilities
  4. Freedom from quarrels and disagreement; harmony in personal relationships
  5. Concord and friendship between governments

These are just a few of the basic concepts of what peace represents in the English understanding of the word. Let us go over a few of the basic concepts found in the New Testament Greek word. We look first at the Greek word G1515. This word is defined as:

  1. To join (unite, bring together) in a state of peace implying harmony and agreement
  2. To be “One” meaning there are no divisions or disagreements
  3. “Prosperity” the implied result of living in peace with no conflicts implying safety and freedom from evil and conflicts including thefts
  4. “Quietness” the implied result of no war, strife, argument, disagreement, fighting, wars, destruction, chaos
  5. “Rest” the implied result of living in peace with others without the need to be on constant guard or watch for an attack
  6. Peace is also implied as a state of mental and physical “Health”, which is free from any oppression of thoughts, such as worries, fears, doubts or being physically ill, sick, weak, etc.

This Greek word G1515 parallels a lot of the English meanings that we saw before in the English definitions. But it has added a few new important details to the views found in the concepts of the God kind of “Peace” verses a human narrowed focus of peace. Let us transition to the Hebrew next to find a few potentially new aspects of “Peace” to God’s definition.

The Hebrew word H7965 transliterated as “Shalom” is by far more than a simplistic idea of just being “quiet” or “still” as in a calm and peaceful day, or sea. Looking at the Strong’s definition we find what this word literally means:

  1. “To be safe”, implied from enemy attacks, weapons, captivity, danger, accidents, harm, thefts, destructions, etc.
  2. “To be well”, implied to be whole, complete, free from mental or physical illness or disease, etc.
  3. “To be happy”, implied to be emotionally stable, secure, free from worry, and fears
  4. “To be prosperous”, implied to be more than blessed enough to bless others, free from lack, want or poverty
  5. and “To be in health”, implied to be in a physical or mental, condition of fitness and strength, having freedom from weakness, lack, where there is nothing missing, and nothing broken, and to abide in possession of God’s perfect human design originally made in His image and likeness.

This definition parallels and states more clearly what was found in the Greek word G1515 definitions. Therefore, to God the concept of “peace” concretely includes “spiritual” applications, physical applications, calm mental and emotional thoughts free from worry, stress, and fear, as well as living prosperously without any lack or want. All these qualities describe the original spiritual conditions and characteristics of God and His purposed original design for humans that were made “in” His image and after His likeness (Gen 1:26). This state of original “peace” between God and man has been restored now through Jesus who has blessed us who believe in Him and have placed our confident trust in Him.

From these definitions of the word “Peace” we can derive what it is not, and this will help us quickly determine if we are “In Peace” or “Out of Peace”. Here is a short list of what is NOT PEACE:

  1. Evils
  2. Destruction
  3. Chaos
  4. Divided against enemies
  5. War, Aggression, Hostility, Strife and Fighting
  6. Death, Demise
  7. Illness, Sicknesses, Diseased, Weak, Fatigued or Feeling Poorly
  8. Loss, Shortage, Poverty, Lack, Famines
  9. Struggles, Tensions, Strains, Tiredness
  10. Pressures, Worries, Fears, Concerns
  11. Having the need to focus and deal with Lies, Deceptions, Tricks, Traps, Snares

What we will soon discover is that God’s kind of “Peace” that was built upon unity, harmony and being one in spirit, was fully established at the beginning of His original works of creation in Genesis 1:1. This type of ultimate peace is not what we are observing now. What we can see happening in the world today is the continuation of pure evil and chaos that entered by the sin of the first Adam. God warned Adam that he would lose his peace when He said, “The day you eat, you will surely die”, speaking of the tree of the knowledge of “Good” and “Evil”.  However, God’s type of unified harmony became reestablished for those that were entering into the church in Acts 2 and onward.

God’s new creation being re-born in Christ Jesus was the beginning of living internally in spiritual “Peace”, but it will only be completely reestablished at the end of God’s current creation. This completed and “restored” Peace can only be released and experienced fully after all “evil” influence has ceased, and this primarily was written about in the book of Revelation chapters 21 and 22.

During our present condition and time of existence of internal spiritual peace, we are experiencing very limited external peace in the world. While we are living in internal peace, it is being joined with what looks like massive chaos and evil. What we must conclude is that God’s enemy Satan is working very hard to disrupt God’s plan to eliminate all evil. All evil will be eliminated with God’s finalization of a New Creation resulting in a New Heaven and a New Earth.

But these center times that have been occurring in between the beginning of the first creation and its ending, there has been a time where we can see there have been selected opportunities for everyone to live in some external peace, but it has never lasted. We can clearly look at our present world system and find various levels of evil, enemies, wars, chaos in our personal lives, in our work, in our families, in our friends, in our governments, etc.  Therefore, final realization within the New Creation will receive a return of the God kind of Peace and it “will” have at the minimum these qualities:

  1. Safety,
  2. Goodness,
  3. Love,
  4. Unity,
  5. Harmony,
  6. Freedom,
  7. Prosperity,
  8. Blessings,
  9. Health,
  10. Life Eternal,

We have only touched on “peace” as defined by God. Hopefully, you gained a basic knowledge that God’s true peace is all-inclusive providing us spiritual peace with Him as gift, and complete freedom from all evil influence eventually in the future.

The Hidden Meaning of Shalom Peace

There is a hidden meaning of the word Shalom, found in the ancient Hebrew alphabet spelling. These pictograph letters selected and used by God to spell the word Shalom, are the 1) Shin, the 2) Lamed and the 3) Mem. These three letters were selected and designed by God with His purposed plan to restore “peace” within His Kingdom forever. Remember this word spells the word “PEACE” and it was joined with His name “LORD” (YHWH) to declare who He was and what He will do in Jesus Christ.

If you have been studying the series of lesson about Jesus being found in every letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet, you should be convinced when Jesus said I am the Alpha and the Omega in Revelation. This applies to Him claiming He was every letter in the alphabet. Since Jesus was Jewish, He spoke Hebrew and said the words Alef and Tav to another Hebrew man named John who wrote the book of Revelation in Greek for most of the lost world to read. Therefore, John was inspired by the Spirit of God to write the first and last letters spoken by Jesus as the Alpha and Omega. This is based upon pure logic, common sense and also example of when Jesus spoke to Saul on the road to Damascus. Jesus clearly spoke to Saul in Hebrew also (Acts 21:40).

This revelation strongly suggested that since Jesus was the beginning of the alphabet and the ending of the alphabet, He could logically be found in every other alphabet letter also. This means, the Shin, the Lamed and the Mem are letters about Jesus and placing them together provides us a hidden message about what God is doing through Jesus to re-establish “Peace”.

The first letter “Shin” is a picture of the two top front teeth of a man. Remember, Jesus was God in the form of a man (Jn 1:1-14). This letter as the two front teeth represents an instrument that cuts or divides because it is very sharp. This too describes Jesus’ work on the earth in the flesh. Do you remember what Jesus said in Matthew 10:34?

Mat 10:34  Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 

We can clearly see Jesus claiming to have come into the world in the flesh not to bring peace, but rather a sword. Swords cut, swords are for war, swords divide, and this is what the Shin represents in this word. Think about the two front teeth taking a bite of corn on the cob. They cut the corn off the cob, and then allow those pieces to enter the mouth, be chewed to pieces and swallowed. This is exactly what God is planning to figuratively do to Satan.

The next middle letter of the word Shalom is the Lamed. This letter is a picture of a Shepherd’s staff. It represents a Shepherd’s authority and power. Normally this letter represents Jesus, but we are going to find out by the next letter, it has a different application to the work of Jesus.

Finally, the last Hebrew letter in Shalom is “Mem”. This letter’s pictograph represents large waves of water. It represents moving liquids like water and blood primarily. But when water movement increases significantly it brings violence, destruction and death and these are works of Satan who is an extreme worker of evil (Jn 10:10). Therefore, the letter Mem can represent someone that produces “Chaos” and the disruption of “Peace”. We confirm this to be Satan by reading Revelation 12:15, “And the serpent cast out of his mouth, water (Mem) as a flood…”. This paints the picture of the Mem speaking words that are creating massive chaos. But it confirms exactly what is happening in opposition to peace.

Wow! Let us place the meanings of these three letters together to discover the hidden message concerning the works of Jesus Christ to restore “Peace”. Remember God is the God of “Peace” and think about what this meaning has to do with God’s works in creation.

Placing the letters of Shalom together we arrive at the meaning of the joined Shin, Lamed and Mem all together as God saying:

Shin        =     “He will destroy and divide

Lamed     =     the Authority

Mem        =      of he (Satan) that causes Chaos, death and destruction”

This will be the focus of the rest of this lesson series. We will be exploring the Bible to verify that this is exactly what God is still doing in our world today and it will soon come to an end and Satan knows this now and is fighting extremely hard to cause the plan of God to be slowed or to be stopped. But we all know this is a futile effort, because we have read the back of the book already, and have believed that it shall be even as the Lord has spoken.

Conclusion

We have only touched the surface to see a very small part of the Who, What, When, Where and Why of the subject of “Peace”. We were introduced to the basic Bible concepts of “Peace” as defined in the Word of God. We were also introduced to the meaning of the word Shalom hidden in the ancient Hebrew alphabet spelling. This word as we saw meant “He will DESTROY the AUTHORITY of the one that made CHAOS”. The “He” that will Destroy (Shin) is Jesus, the authority (Lamed) that makes chaos (Mem) in heaven and on the earth is Satan.

We further learned one of the names of God is Jehovah (YHWH) Shalom (Peace). We should have seen this name confirms Jesus to be the one that will destroy the authority of chaos, by us beholding (Hey) His hands (Yod) having been pierced by nails (Vav). Remember the name LORD YHWH is spelled Yod + Hey + Vav + Hey meaning Behold the Hands, Behold the Nails and this spells Jehovah. All of this was written about in Zecheriah 12:10.

God is the one that is eternal, all powerful, all knowing, all seeing, and who by His chosen name He purposes to dwell in a constant and never changing level of the highest order of “Peace”. This means He does no evil. God is also not the author of any confusion (chaos) but rather “Peace” according to 1 Corinthians 14:33). This verse in 1st Corinthians is a profound confirmation to what this series is teaching.

We will in this series be learning more about God’s characteristics of “Peace”.  We will further see how God’s original works of creation was done in ultimate peace and perfection. But we will then learn where and when Chaos and Evil occurred. We will be answering some important questions about why is evil still in existence and appears to be doing a massive amount of preparation and rehearsal for a coming world government that will be led by the highest evil ruler, Satan in the form of the antichrist.

Nevertheless, we will learn that Satan does not win, and God’s ultimate “Peace” will prevail in Jesus. Jesus is prophesied to be the “Prince of Peace” in Isaiah 9:6. This shows us that this is what we all should have great expectations of seeing and experiencing soon. We will be studying all this and much more in future lessons.

Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with Agapegeek. We appreciate your faithfulness and encourage you to verify everything that is written. Do not believe anything without the Holy Spirit’s confirmation internally, along with Him confirming what the verses say using the ruling force and power of the Holy Spirit’s “Peace” in your heart. Continue to abide in the Peace of God that passes all understanding (Php 4:7).

May God of Peace continue to be with you and richly Bless you All!

If you would like to continue your study in this series on the subject of Shalom Peace, please click “Part 2“.

What are the Best Sources for Learning Truth – How Do We Find and Know “If” it is God’s Absolute Truth Vs Satan’s Lies or Human Reasoning?

(Ver 1.0) This is an answer to two questions received recently about where the best resources are found for learning, knowing, and understanding what truth is. Do we need to go to a Bible school or seminary to find truth? Are there great printed books or are there great resource materials on the internet for knowing the truth. Are these materials and resources available for a cost or are there also some that are free?

We should all know going to any book, printed material, school, seminary, college, etc. costs money. If money is no object, there are several resources that could be recommended.  However, since the invention and rise of the internet in the 1990’s, called the information highway by some, the amounts of data that has been accumulated and is being made available is astronomically increasing at a staggering rate exponentially and most of this good information is free.  Praise the Lord!

There are some exceptions, but most of the information on the internet is free and that is great. However, the problem rises very soon for us to be able to discern correctly which resource is legitimate truth and which ones are designed to mislead you, program you, or even to eventually deceive and destroy your faith and belief in the True and Living God. With the new rise of Artificial Intelligence within Applications and Websites, this is also a potential troubling concern for some people to realize and ask a basic question about, who is trying to control what you see and know and why are they limiting the information and spread of free speech.

These are some of the things we will address from a Biblical World View perspective. Yes, we are firm believers that the Bible is the source of ALL Ultimate Unchangeable Truth because it came out of the mouth of God to be written down for us to learn TRUTH. If this belief offends you, you are potentially in the right place to learn how to know for sure if what you believe is true or not.

What is Truth?

What is Truth? Is it different for everyone? Does Truth change? Or is it just our knowledge that changes our perception of “Truth”. Or is there an “Absolute Truth” that will never change? If there is “Absolute Truth” where is it found? Let us start with one definition of truth. 

Truth is defined by some as “reality”. Truth is also defined by some to be “the state of things as they are”. Others define truth to be “facts”.

While all of that is good, it is all very subjective depending on what your basic groundwork of “fact” and “truth” is. If you are grounded upon the Bible, you are on a firm foundation. If you base your “fact checking” on the government, media, or internet, you are potentially being misled into believing “lies” to be “truth”.

Joh 17:17  Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

According to Jesus, God’s Word is the resource for Truth. Who can argue with God?

Do You Hunger and Thirst for God’s Truth?

Psa 107:9  For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.

Mat 5:6  Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 

One of the key factors for learning truth is for us to possess a very strong hunger and thirst (internal desire) to seek and search for it. It would be like someone that was lost in the Sahara Desert and was dying of thirst. They would be in desperate search for this liquid substance to live. This is the attitude we must possess for learning God’s truth. Only His Words can give us spiritual eternal “life” (Jn 6:63). But to give diligent search for water is not passive, it requires work to search to find it:

Mat 7:7  Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

Mat 7:8  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Today TRUTH is not being presented everywhere you see and hear things. This hungry desire is based upon what Jesus said in Matthew 7:7-8. Here Jesus said we are required to do 3 things, 1) Ask, 2) Seek, and 3) Knock and it will be given, found, and opened to us (applying to many things, but certainly including knowing the truth). You may have heard of “Fake News” recently and this exists everywhere, and this revelation implies strongly that there should be a search for “Real News”. This applies to TRUTH also. There is “Fake Information” being presented as “TRUTH” everywhere also.

For the past 35 years I have been consumed with obtaining, knowing, and understanding all of God’s truth that I am able to receive.  In doing so I have discovered and confirmed without any doubt this book called the Bible is the most amazing, intelligently designed, and wisely written book ever. It could have only originated from a very powerful supernatural being living outside of time and who was able to view and personally influence the over 40 men that recorded the letters and words written on every page. This means God All Knowing and God Almighty. No other source is even remotely possible. 

This book called the Bible is also the all-time bestselling book in human history. The words have been translated into more languages than we are able to learn or know completely. This means this book has the potential power to radically save more than 8 billion people on the planet.  This also means the Gospel is going forth into all the world and Jesus could be returning any second.

How can I make this claim that the Bible is so amazingly designed? I was a computer software engineer for many years.  Working in this environment, God taught me at least three things through this incredible experience. These are 1) the reality of every intelligent design only comes from an intelligent designer, 2) there is a critical need to give attention to every detail found in the design, even the most minor ones, and 3) there are requirements, laws, and rules to maintain order, so that any information and data can be created, understood and for it to be made useful.

For example, any language that will be written must have a basic alphabet. Each alphabet letter has specific rules of design, including shape, size, sounds, etc. These are just fundamental rules to create an understandable book. If you have been reading this website long you are discovering the great order and meaning of the Ancient Hebrew alphabet letters having very significant prophetical meanings about the Lord Jesus Christ.

First, just like a complex software system did not create itself, neither did 40+ non-collaborating men create 66 books within over 1500 years of spread-out time span, and this just happen by accident.  Neither could all these men have created a book that harmonizes and reveals the most amazing information that is possible without an unexplainable outside influence. This just could not happen by chance. When discovered this created book could have only come from God who created everything. This is why Satan, and his world hates this book and have been doing everything possible to eliminate it from being spread and taught. No other book has been so extraordinarily band from nations, schools, cities, governments, etc.   

Second, when you begin to pay attention to every detail of the Bible you begin to realize the extreme intelligence of the designer.  For example, in a computer software language that is used to create written programs and applications, they all have rules and details of structure. Every detail in the Bible’s design matters, exactly like every detail in a software design.

For example, a very old computer language called COBOL, created English like statements. For example, “ADD CURRENT-INPUT-VALUE TO TOTAL.” is a very readable English computer statement based upon simple readable and understandable rules. To be used by a computer it must be “compiled” into machine language to convert what we can easily read into what the designer of the machine’s rules can process. Uh oh? This sounds like the Bible significantly.  Do you remember these statements in the Bible:

Isa 55:8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 

Rom 8:6  For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 

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 we observe in the Bible are two conflicting rule systems. God’s thoughts and ways are so much higher than a human. We can also see our natural thinking ways are an enemy to how the Spirit of God sees everything. God’s Laws and yes, God operates under self-imposed rules, limitations, constraints of behavior and moral character that a natural unsaved human does not normally conform to. For example, Numbers 23:19 says “God is not a man that He should lie”. This means humans potentially lie continually, where as God will never do this.

Therefore, understand that there are differences of rules, and laws found in the Spiritual design of the Bible that need to be learned with the help of God the Author, for us to begin to understand what was written.  Missing one spiritual rule, is like missing one specific “period” in one certain statement of the computer COBOL language that could cause the entire intended meaning to change. Therefore, like COBOL teaches us that every single letter and punctuation brought meaning to the designer’s design, so it is with the Bible.

Every computer system has imperfections and weaknesses. These are called “bugs” in computerese. But the Bible was written by God to give man the right of freewill choice. This designed choice gives unsaved humans the illusion of flaws causing those to not understand it, but to those who want to know the truth, the details are made known to us by God personally living inside of us to open our ability to understand. This alone proves it is the most amazing book ever.

The Bible is a book written from the level of an omniscient being speaking to people who know nothing in comparison. Yet we can grow in the knowledge of its content and meaning with His help through our very diligent study. This is why most people don’t have a clue what this book says or means, because it is written by the most intelligent Spirit, and we are all barely like 2-year-old children in comparison.

The third reality I learned from the experience with computers and with studying the Bible, is the requirement to understand there are rules behind everything that is written to make any of it understandable, useful, and working in our life. Think of a box of alphabet letters like the game Scrabble pieces. If you shook them out and scattered them on a board in random order, what words would you spell. In most likelihood, none. Therefore, to create understandable and meaningful words we must follow the rules of the language, and this requires intelligent design. So, it is with the Bible.

Just like an ignorant 2-year-old would not understand a complex software system written in Java, so the Bible is the same for someone that does not want to know God.

The Bible students that asked the questions and left the comments are like many others today that have the drive, hunger, passion, and desire to grow to know God’s actual truth. In comparison, there was another recent commenter that said the Bible studies on this website were not read entirely because they are too long.  This could be an example of someone that could be partially committed to learning God’s Word, because of being too distracted by the cares of this world.  To find the truth, Jesus said very clearly that we must “continue” in the Word, until we know the truth. This means no one but God fully knows the truth, and we must continue without stopping, making it our priority.

What I have noticed about successful Bible study are that people that were fully committed to know and hear from God spent whatever time was necessary to hear from God, because it was that valuable and necessary to them. Personal time spent has a much more valuable return on investment, than all the money that could be spent for materials. 

For example, check out in Matthew 15 when Jesus was teaching nearly 10,000 people. He stood there teaching them for almost three days and they were so hungry for the Words that He shared with them that they no doubt slept on the ground and had not eaten in three days.  And then notice how this spiritual hunger example, compares with someone that does not want to spend a couple of hours to read or listen to one Bible lesson. Who is hungry? Are you that hungry that if Jesus was speaking outside of your city, you would walk out to hear him teach for 3 days? Who has this deep desire to know God and His truth.  If you had any comprehension how many hours were spent hearing from God to write these lessons, and how much time it saved you from doing the same, a couple of hours is nothing to possibly learn one new thing that you have potentially never seen or heard before.

What are Good Bible Knowledge Sources?

What are some good sources for learning God’s knowledgeable viewpoint of His truth?  Where and how do I gain the knowledge of God’s Truth.  Number one is from the personal reading and studying of the Bible which is the source of all truth. But second is to be led by the Spirit because it is God who authored the entire book. And never forget that He is the Spirit of Truth (Jn 14:17) who leads us into all Truth (Jn 16;13). Without His help we will never find the truth because the human carnal mind alone is just like a two-year-old that is just incapable of seeing and understanding spiritual truth. Thank God, He gave us a helper named the Holy Spirit.  

Before I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit like occurred in Acts 2, I understood nothing that was written in the Bible.  After receiving this experience, He was the ultimate factor that changed me forever and He is our greatest asset to knowing the real Truth, because He is the Spirit of Truth that wrote the book (John 14:7).  

However, the revelation knowledge of the Word was not automatic just by being born again, and then receiving the Holy Spirit baptism. The Holy Spirit led me to ask for it, and this was what began an insatiable hunger and thirst for the greatest quest for knowing Him and everything that He has revealed for us to know about Him.

What happened one morning while I was praying in the Spirit. I found myself suddenly asking God for no reason to give me revelation knowledge of His word. Many months later I discovered this prayer was written in the Bible as a prayer that Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus. In Ephesians 1:16-23. I highly recommend everyone pray this prayer for themselves. Ask the Lord to give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.

After praying this prayer, I noticed while reading and studying the Bible, the words, phrases, and verses that I read would suddenly just come alive to my spirit and leap off the page. I began to see things, know things, and understand things that I had never seen or heard before. It brought such joy, amazement and wonder that it is truly indescribable.

Notice what I said. The same exact words on the page did not change, it was me that God was changing through living inside me and helping me to understand what they meant to Him.  Remember God says His thoughts and ways of thinking are much higher than any lost unlearned and ignorant human.

The next greatest source for obtains the Truth of the Bible is by reading and listening to God’s called humans that are anointed by His Holy Spirit to be teachers of His Word.  I have listened to hundreds of different teachers and have learned something great from them all.  

I am one of those many teachers. I will never claim to be the most important one or the only one that you should learn from.  I am not the all-knowing God. No human knows it all like our God. God purposefully does not give all revelation to anyone.

Bible teachers are like natural doctors and physicians. They are often gifted in certain specialties while others are like general practitioners that try to help everyone grow stronger in the basic knowledge of the truth.   

Remember that no one except God knows 100% of the truth.  Therefore, when we are learning the Bible, we want to judge what a teacher says using two sources of guaranteed Truth.  These are the Bible and the Holy Spirit author that lives inside of us. That is IF you have made Him your Lord and asked Him to come live in your heart.

My favorite non-Bible quote is by Will Rogers. He said, “We are all ignorant, only about different things.”  Keep this in mind when learning from every Bible teacher, including me.   Never accept everything said to be Truth.  But also, never reject anything they say because you have never heard it or don’t believe it is not the Truth.

Prove with your own individual study if it agrees with what you can see the Bible says and what the Holy Spirit inside witnesses to you about what is being taught. He knows whether you do or not.  Become a Berean Bible student like Acts 17:11. They were open-minded and ever willing to learn something new. But they also confirmed what was taught with their own Bible study.  One Bible teacher said be as wise as old cows, eat the good straw and spit out the sticks.  Using this wisdom will allow you to learn from anyone that is truly anointed by God.

Using Modern Bible Study Tools

I have used the eSword Bible study software for almost 35 years.  Is it the best tool?  Probably not. But I chose it because I believe this is where the Holy Spirit led me.  Is it perfect? Nothing is perfect but God. I have found several eSword flaws, bugs, and things that need to be fixed.   This is true for all imperfect human created tools. Yet it had this advantage for myself and for those that studied the Bible with me.  It was free.  

Because it was given away for free, this matched my belief of spreading the Gospel.  There should never be any charges for teaching God’s word according to Matthew 10:8 and 1 Corinthians 9:18. Giving away the Bible and the Gospel for free makes it available to anyone rich or poor.

My current favorite version of eSword now is the Apple version.  Unfortunately it cost about twenty dollars when I purchased it.  I don’t know why the change from free other than the fact Apple charges software developers to use their OS platform whereas Microsoft was free.

The Apple version of eSword is easy to use and it has easy access to an ancient Hebrew language lexicon which is not currently available on the Windows version.  

As far as which Bible I study and write using, you can easily see the KJV Bible is my first and primary study version.  This because of two reasons. The first is that the KJV Bible is free. The second is that it is highly accurate once you learn the old English style of language. It being free eliminates copyright conflicts for publishing.  

There are other Bible versions that I use but only a couple that I will pay for.  One is the NASB and the other is the Amplified.  I like the free Young’s literal version also, but there are many other free Bibles available on eSword. 

Studying the original languages of the written Bible is absolutely essential.  Translators have made many human errors.  We must understand which word was inspired by God, what it means and how it is used in the entire Bible.  But also know God’s definitions of His chosen words overrule human definitions. Lexicons like Strong and Thayer can have mistakes and human traditions imbedded within them.

Here is the basic overview of things needed to find truth:

  1. Being born again by the Spirit of God through hearing His Word, accepting it, believing it, and confessing Jesus as your Lord. Having Faith is the key to receiving from God in every step listed here.
  2. Being filled with the Holy Spirit the author of the Bible who will lead us into all truth.
  3. Asking God to reveal His truth.
  4. Get a good Bible study tool like eSword on Apple.
  5. Having a great hunger and desire to know the truth. This should be the drive for every search.
  6. Having great patience when learning the truth. Like a child going to kindergarten to understand simple basics, know that there is much more that you do not know than you do know. Real deep Truth builds upon layers of other basic truth.
  7. Make it a habitual desire everyday to spend time with God in His word.
  8. In all Bible study have faith to ask God to lead you to what you need to know today that will help you prepare for tomorrow. Then open your Bible believing He is doing it.
  9. Listen and learn from many called, anointed teachers of the Bible. But be led by the Spirit which one and when.
  10. Have an open mind to receive things in the Word you never heard before.  But verify what is taught using your own study and witness of peace given by the Holy Spirit.
  11. Know that all Bible teachers are not God and are ignorant of differing subjects.
  12. Know also that Bible teachers are gifted by God to know certain subjects very well.  Therefore, we can learn great revelation from many of them even when we don’t agree with everything that is taught.  Ask God what you need to know and then be led by Him where you need to go to find the answers.

Bible Schools

Investing money into yourself to attend a great Bible school can save you a lot of time, because of the already designed plan to learn step-by-step. However, like any individual pastor or teacher that we can learn from, understand every Bible school also carries, potential bias of extreme truths.  In other words some Bible schools emphasize “Grace”, and others “Faith”, and others can teach only specific basic truths of salvation only.

Balance is the key to understanding God’s Truth. What you may need to know today, could be missed by one Bible school. Therefore, be led by the Spirit of God. He knows what you should do, where it should be done and when to do it.

Therefore, while I could recommend Bible schools, it best that I do not cause my opinion to sway your decision apart from the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

Conclusion

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.

Jesus gives us our final insight today on the most reliable source of “Truth”.  First, notice Jesus is speaking with “Believers” in Him. This means they have heard the message about Jesus and believed it to be “True”.  This fact brings about our first division to learning truth. Those that believe not in Jesus will never know the “Truth”.

Next Jesus further reduces the number that will know truth by qualifying that it will only be those that “continue” in His Word. This makes it very clear that “believers” can be deceived and not ever fully know the truth if they “DO NOT CONTINUE IN HIS WORD”. This is sounding a lot like the “Narrow” path that Jesus said led to life (Mat 7:14) and the wide path that led only to eternal damnation (Mat 7:13). Jesus made it very clear that there will only be a few that walk the way of seeking after life.  But there will be many that go to their own chosen way of destruction.

Now notice how verse 31 ended. Jesus said if you continue in my word then you will be my disciples indeed. The Greek word G230 translated as “indeed” of this verse is predominately translated as “truth”. This verse could have read “If you continue in my word, then you will be my disciples truly. This would be in opposition to “be my disciples falsely”. Do you see the severe consequences for not studying the Bible? This means the Bible is the only authority of “absolute truth”.  Do you see how our priority needs to change to become hungrier for the Word of God?

You should have learned today that I prefer “free” Bibles, “free” teachings, and “free” resources of truth. Paul confirms this belief in 1 Corinthians 9:18 when he said it would be an abuse of his power to charge for what he taught. This means go on the internet and search for subjects that the Holy Spirit is laying on your heart to learn. Take the time to read or listen to studies that offer an internal Spirit witness confirmation that this is someone that God has led you to learn from. Then trust that “peace” to continue to study more of their lessons and determine if they still bring you that same joy and peace. If they do this is the Holy Spirit agreeing that you are in the right place.

Remember what else Paul said about where he obtained his knowledge of the truth:

Gal 1:12  For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Notice that Paul who wrote 2/3 of the New Testament, claims he received almost everything directly from spending time with the Author of the Bible. Paul claims this knowledge of the truth did not come from any human, including the apostles. But obtaining this knowledge took Paul years to acquire and you can learn it much quicker by just reading the books that he wrote inspired by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. So, it is also today. God still anoints teachers, preachers, evangelists, etc.

Ask and then trust the Holy Spirit to lead you to the resources that are freely available today. There are too many available that can help save you hundreds of hours of isolated study. God has given “revelation” to so many on so many differing subjects. Many are available for free.

Thank you for taking the time to read this lesson. But also thank you for being led here first to find it. If this has been a blessing to you, share it with others. God Bless you and help you to hunger and thirst for the absolute truth of the Word of God.

Is the Rapture of the Church a Reality in the Bible – Part 8 Jesus is Coming Soon

(Ver 1.0) There are many scoffers and rebukers of this Bible truth. Satan wants every Christian to not believe and have faith in the sudden and surprising return of Jesus Christ to catch away His bride. If you are a skeptic of this soon-coming reality it would be wise for you to go and read this series from the beginning. There are too many confirmations within typology and patterns given to us in the Bible for us NOT TO BELIEVE in this blessed hope (Tit 2:13).  If you have not read the entire series, please go to “Part 1” now.

Many Christians that criticize the “harpazo” catching away theological position found in the Bible. They instead accuse other Christians that believe in this reality, people who believe in “escapism” theology. Meaning we should never feel like we should be persecuted.  Yes, we are guaranteed “persecution” as promised by Jesus (Jn 15:20). However, we are NOT ever promised to go through the wrath of God according to Romans 5:9. God will never punish the righteous with the wicked as Abraham so pointed out speaking to God in Genesis 18:25. Jesus addressed this escapism condemnation by speaking to believers this statement:

Luk 21:36  Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. 

If you are Christ’s bride, called the church (ekklesia), then we are supposed to pray to God to be counted “worthy” to escape this world’s evils and this will happen when the “catching away” suddenly takes us up by sudden surprise a divine display of His great power.

Obtaining Faith for the Rapture

Today is Super Bowl Sunday in the USA. Wouldn’t this be a great surprise for the world to have Jesus catch away the church during the Super Bowl. Who would be looking for Him to come today? Who would go up in a rapture if they were not expecting to go? Many people believe everything happens in life automatically if it is the will of God. But is this what we are observing happening in the world today?

If 2 Peter 3:9 says “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance, does this mean everyone is guaranteed salvation? Absolutely not! There are thousands and millions of people going to hell every day and every month. If you believe rapture is not for you, and it happens, do you believe you would go? It would be shocking if this would happen according to the Bible. Jesus said very clearly “According to your faith, be it unto you.”

What we begin to learn from God in the flesh, is not everything that God desires to do is automatically becomes a reality to every human. God desires to save everyone, but everyone must receive the free gift. This logic requires us to also believe in a “rapture” event also. Think about it!

There are many people that believe in “Pre-Trib”, there are many others, that believe in “Mid-Trib”, there are others that believe in “Post-Trib” and finally, there are others that believe in in a No-Catching-Away. Could everyone be getting exactly what they believe? Could there be three catching away events? Could there be come that are not caught up at all? If you begin to view the Bible from this perspective, you might be surprised this would confirm why there are such conflicting views with each having scriptures to confirm their belief. Because everyone can view the same verses and select the one that they believe is truth ruling out all other verses.

Php 3:20  For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

The Greek word G553 is a word that means “To Expect Fully”. This very clearly teaches us that expectant “Faith” is our duty in awaiting our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ to appear in the clouds to take us up. Remember the angels in Acts 1, said “This Jesus that you have see go up will return in like manner”. This will be the rapture event when He stands in the clouds calling us up to meet Him as our bridegroom that calls out to His bride to bring us into the 7-year wedding feast in Heaven. This will be taking place while the wrath of God is being poured out upon the earth. Let us look at another rapture verse with the same Greek word G553:

Rom 8:23  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

This is a very interesting verse that is often overlooked as being related to rapture.  However, notice the Greek word translated as “waiting”. This is the same word to fully expect. What are we fully expecting to happen? We are waiting for the “redemption” of our bodies! When does this take place? It happens when we are caught up in a nano-second of time to meet Him in the air as described in 1 Corinthians 15:52 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

Only the Lord Jesus Christ has a fully redeemed and resurrected body in heaven right now. Everyone else already in heaven is awaiting this redemption and it will occur first. But then the redemption of the living people on the earth will immediately take place after the dead in Christ bodies go up first.

However, there is a requirement to believe in this happening just as believing to be saved is also a requirement. Believing must be fully joined and persuaded in our hearts with pregnant expectations of His coming as we are seeing in scriptures. We obtain faith for the promises of God from His word (Rom 10:17). Read these rapture verses out loud and get them into your heart. This will cause you to become ready.

Conclusion

I recently witnessed someone have a heart-attack with 99% blockage. If they had not been at the right place at the right time with access to help, they would be dead right now. Are you ready to meet Jesus? Are you expecting that He could appear any second? Is your mind on Him or on football? Today could be the day of His return, and yet who is ready? Who is looking for Him while they are partying and drinking their beers? God have mercy on us all and let us begin call out to God that we be made worthy to escape this coming tribulation. God make us ready to meet you. We love you and long for your return, but we also desire all our family and friends to also be ready. Even so Lord Jesus, come quickly.

If you have never received Jesus Christ as you personal Lord and Savior there is a link at the end of this post. This will be the most important decision of you life to begin your journey of salvation. Remember God loves you so much that He sent you here to read a way to know Him forever. Jesus died to make a way out of the darkness into His marvelous Light and today is the day of salvation, now is the time to accept Him before the time for all of humanity closes the door.

We love you all, Jesus Loves you all. Thank you for reading and praying for us. God will Bless us all.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Blessing of Christmas Joy and Peace — 2023

(Ver 1.0) It is amazing to think about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. The primary focus of this entire website is “LOVE” = “AGAPE” (G26). This is not the normal human type of selfish love, but rather it describes the God kind of Love defined to us 1 Corinthians 13. Human love is a feeling of loving someone because of what they can do for me. But God says in John 3:16 that He loved the unlovely sinful world enough to come to the earth in person to give His only naturally born Son, to die for us, so that we might be saved and not perish. Praise the LORD!

That should be the kind of giving Love that we choose to display for everyone that we encounter. It has been a great blessing to provide God’s messages of LOVE for over 14 years. The LOVE of God and His Word is the sole motivation for sharing with you what He gives freely to us all (Mat 10:8). Hopefully, you feel the same way.

While this month is not the actual time of season when Jesus was born, it is the time chosen to unitedly celebrate the event. Yes, it has become devil influenced and commercialized for corporate profit. The true meaning is being slowly minimalized with an emphasis of a man in a red suit coming down a chimney. Also, instead of telling people “Merry Christmas”, the politically correct greeting has been redirected by many people to only say, “Happy Holidays”. Nevertheless, a Christian can still choose to be a light to the world by remaining bold enough to hold fast to our confession of “HAVE A MERRY & BLESSED CHRISTMAS”. Please say it in love with a smile and if someone becomes offended, you are not to blame (Jn 15:18).

Many times, we have received the most negative comments about acknowledging and celebrating Jesus, on what they call a pagan day.  But we can choose to disagree without being mean and hateful to each other. Halloween is clearly demonic; Christmas is not a day where we dress as witches and goblins. No one should believe in Santa Clause or celebrate pagan traditions. But celebrating Jesus should be the number one focus for every Christian. Because God gave us the greatest gift, we are expressing His love to bless others with our gifts to them. Why does anyone have a problem with that? Do they dislike the giving, the receiving, or just the fact that it potentially costs money?

Ask God to open the door for you to share what this day is really about to someone else on this day. Share the “Gospel” that God chose to be born in a manager in Bethlehem as a male child (Mat 2:6). Tell them He was born of a virgin woman (Isa 7:14), and this will be miraculous unlike any other human entrance into the world. Tell them His Father was God in Heaven that created the heaven and the earth through Him (Eph 3:9). Tell them He died for the all-inclusive penalty for the sins of all humans by shedding His blood on a “Tav” cross (1 Jn 1:7). He did this as the greatest exchange in history. With Him becoming sin for us, so that we could become righteous to God (1 Pet 2:24). Thank you, Jesus!

What a blessing it is to have our names written in His “Lamb’s” book of Life (Luke 10:20)! What a blessing it is to have His Spirit living inside of us to help us, guide us and teach us everything that we need to know for every season of our lives (Jn 16:13). What a blessing it is to pray to Him every day and then listen to hear what He has to say back to us through His written Word and by the voice of His Spirit (Jn 10:3).

So, today you are being presented with a choice. A decision point within the short space of time of your existence in a temporary reality. You may choose to agree to celebrate with us in love because of Who He is, and What He did for us, and Everything this gift gave to us, or you may just choose to gripe, complain, about a post that is flawed with imperfect dates, and methods like you would prefer to choose. Or you could be apathetic and just do nothing.

But maybe some of you should consider another choice. Think back in time on what God has spoken to you to do in the past. Do the most significant something that He has always wanted you to do that was spoken to you many years ago when you heard but didn’t obey. Maybe it was fear that kept you from beginning the call? Maybe you believed you were not gifted, or smart enough to fulfill the call like Moses felt (Exo 4:10)? However, give God a chance and believe He will provide what you need to fulfill His plan, after you begin it by taking the first step. Wow! That is a Word for someone.

The time of the coming of Jesus is very, very short! Therefore, let us get busy in church serving others, preaching, and teaching the Word of God to anyone that will listen, going into the world to reach the lost before it is too late. Stop looking to correct everyone else because they don’t agree with you precisely to the letter of the law. Just teach what you know and believe to be the truth. Jesus did not tell you to go into all the world searching for false teachers and attack them. But rather Jesus commanded everyone to go into all the world and preach the Good News! Everyone that chooses to obey Him and give their lives, will and bodies to Him for His control, will be saved, and everyone that chooses not to believe will be damning themselves to an eternity in a lake of fire (Rev 21:8).

Here is one of our main emphases today again, Jesus Christ is coming back so much sooner than you know! What if it was in the next minute, after you finished reading this post and decided you still have time to get saved, so I’ll just wait.  Maybe you are saying to yourself, I am just having too much fun right now. But suddenly when you least expected it, Jesus appears in the heavens, and millions of people vanish instantly from the face of the planet. There will be some deceivers that will tell you, they were taken by aliens to cleanse the world of all the evil people and now the true humans were left here to save the planet from the coming “climate change” destruction of the planet. But it will be too late to then be saved from the most horrific time of human history called the Great Tribulation (Mat 24:21). Now is the best time to give your live to Jesus while the Holy Spirit is still speaking to your heart (Heb 4:7). There is a link to click below about knowing how to begin the walk with Jesus. Please click this link and leave a comment on it after you prayed the prayer. Thank you! It will be the best decision of your life, and we will meet again in heaven to share this experience with each other.

Conclusion

Isa 9:6  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 

We are celebrating a baby child that was God in the flesh. What a powerful display of God’s humility to make Himself one of His creations to save us! This is the ultimate display of Love that anyone could possibly do for someone. God said, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!” (Rom 5:8). And Jesus also said, “No great Love has anyone, then He that lays down His life for His friends” (Jn 15:13).

My God has already richly blessed us all, with every spiritual blessing (Eph 1:3) and in doing this He gave to us everything that pertains to life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3). Remember if you have anything Good it is because God was the source of the gift (James 1:17). That makes this celebration a great time to “Give Thanks to God” for all His blessings. God has been faithful to us all and He will remain faithful (Heb 13:5), until He comes and takes us up, very soon (Rev 22:12).

Leave us a blessing today or share your prayer request so that all the readers will be able to pray and agree with you and with us at Agapegeek. Jesus loves you, and we love you more than we can express in words. Someday we will meet in heaven and have a lot to talk about knowing everything that Jesus has done for each of us. Praise the LORD Jesus!

This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. Have a very blessed and Merry Christmas. Amen!

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Understanding the Sovereignty of God – Part 3 – Balancing Love’s Sovereign Power in Action

(Ver 1.0) This is “Part 3” in one of the most essential to understand subjects found in the Bible. Our subject series is about the “sovereignty” of God. This should be one of the first studies to be taught to every new believer because it reveals one of the major qualities of God being God. Every reader so far should agree with this belief that God is Sovereign to begin our study. This means not one of us had any say in anything that was created, how it works, or why it is here. We are all simply created beings existing for God’s sovereign purpose and will. If you would like to read this series from the beginning, please go to “Part 1“.

This subject should also be important to mature believers because it has often been taught in the past embedded with many traditions of human reason and philosophy. As you should now know our subject is about God’s eternal and omnipotent “Sovereignty”. But how we define the word sovereignty and apply this word to God and His creation makes all the difference to knowing the truth. For example, look at the words of Jesus speaking indirectly about this subject:

Mat 22:29  Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God

Apparently from this verse we learn that humans can possibly not understand the Words found in the Bible, yes, or no? Next, we can learn that any teacher of the Bible can also be in error, yes, or no? Jesus was speaking with the Jewish leaders that dramatically had two opposing views of this subject of resurrection.  The subject context of this statement of Jesus concerns the resurrection of the dead and what happens to a wife that had multiple husbands.

We know from basic common sense, that the subject of “resurrection” from the dead is a sovereign choice of God. No human chose this to exist, nor can any angel contribute to cause it not to exist. No, this is a prime example of God’s will and purpose to create concepts called “death” first but then also “resurrection” from the dead second. Both were God’s design, and His, alone.

Remember that there were two major doctrines of belief in Matthew 22. One is from the Sadducees that was asking the questions, these believed there was not going to be a resurrection. However, the Pharisee’s believed in the resurrection. Therefore, we learn doctrinal division is a common tactic of Satan, to attempt the divide the beliefs of those that God intended for unity of knowing His truth.

Jesus obviously rebukes these educated trained people saying to them, you neither understand the scriptures nor the power of God. The Greek word G1411 (dunamis) literally means supernatural power and this reference is applied to God the author of the Bible. In fact, it was God in the flesh that was speaking with them. Jesus directly confirms humans are fallible, capable of being in error. This is true of every modern Bible teacher that can be heard, including Agapegeek. This is exactly why we better do a lot of study with the help of the Author to guide us into what He really meant for us to learn. Nevertheless, doctrinal differences on sovereignty exist, and thus the reason for this lesson is to help resolve or at least reduce some of the reasons for divisions. Let us quickly analyze some of these differences.

Sovereignty has been defined by some to mean “God can do anything He likes, whenever He likes, and to whoever He likes”. But that is an extreme definition that potentially violates God’s revealed character which could produce wrong beliefs and deception. This type of belief attributes all evil to be part of God’s all-knowing plan. This brings some to believe Satan does not exist and has never done anything without God’s direction or permission.

However, a truer definition of the word “sovereign” should be viewed as “God has the highest and greatest level of authority and power, and there is none that is above Him”. This definition does not mean He is able to do anything at any time, even if He has the dunamis omnipotent power to do it. We know this because God says in Hebrew 6:18 that it is impossible for Him to lie. This simply means if God said something, it is this way and it will not change. And this teaches us God can never violate His spoken or written Words which have placed certain limitation upon what God is able to legally do and speak by His own sovereign choice.

Therefore, we must not study God’s “sovereignty” in isolation of all other related verses or by simply using only selected obvious or favorite scriptures.  All studies on any subject must balance every verse on the subject, and then combine these with the many other verses that reveal limitations to sovereignty like those that show the true nature and character of God as being, 1) Love, 2) Light, 3) Holy, 4) Righteous, 5) Patient, 6) Merciful, etc. We learned this principle in the first lesson of the series, but for added emphasis to its importance let us quickly review another list of God’s revealed unchanging character traits.

God is Sovereign
&
God is LOVE!

1Jn 4:8  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1Jn 4:16  And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

1 John 4:8 & 16 are very revealing verses, that identifies God to be LOVE! God declares that his truest and highest identifying characteristic is that He not only shows us love but He is LOVE! The Greek word G2076 translated as “is”, means “to be”. It is a very similar word to the Old Testament revelation spoken to Moses when God said, “say I AM sent you” (Exo 3:14). The Hebrew word H1961 translated as “I AM” is most often translated as “be”. In other words, God is declaring to “Be” LOVE, not just to choose to show love occasionally like humans do. Therefore, God is the Highest example of LOVE that exists. Wow! This sound important and this characteristic must be balanced with God’s true identity of being “sovereign”.

Within the 1 John 4 context, God states that if we desire to dwell in God (Love), and desire for God (Love) to dwell in us, then we must not only love God, but we must primarily love our fellow brothers and sisters, and this human choice qualifies us to be one with God. Wow, that is huge! It implies that if we are not walking in love with those that we can see in the flesh, how is it even possible for us to say we love God that we cannot see (1 John 4:20). Yet we see Christians today lying to each other, accusing each other, hating each other, etc. Yet they still claim to be a Christian, but we saw this contradicts God’s Word and this makes them hypocrites that are putting on an act for men but may be very surprised when Jesus returns.

The Greek word that God claims to be as “Love”, is G26 and this is the word “Agape” pronounced ag-ah’-pay meaning this is the type of God’s love. This type of love is not the human type or anywhere close to what humans call love. This is why this Agape love is infinitely higher and a superior type of “love” that dominates His every sovereign thought and action.  Since God has sovereignly chosen to be Love, He must correspondingly also sovereignly choose not to do anything evil, mean, or unfair to anyone. This simply describes another sovereign characteristic called “Self-Control”. This means even though He has the power and ability to kill you immediately when you do evil, He will not do it because it would be unjust and not according to His chosen nature and character.

We could easily debate the definition of love. This is because how we view love is normally very biased and perverted compared to God’s definition of love. Humans say they love their cat or dog. Humans say they love eating types of food or drinking some drinks. Humans say they even love their friends and relatives. Most spouses claim they love their husband or wife, until things get bad and then they suddenly leave them without warning. No human love like these stated above, represents God’s kind of spiritual love. Therefore, it is very fortunate for us that God gives us His definition of His type of love in 1 Corinthians 13. Let’s analyze this and compare what you have heard from other preachers teach you about God’s love and His sovereignty.

1Co 13:4  Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance.

1Co 13:5  Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense.

1Co 13:6  Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong.

1Co 13:7  Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.

1Co 13:8  Love never stops loving. (TPT)

These verses are taken out of “The Passion Translation”. But they are comparable with the KJV, NASB, the Amplified Bible or any other literal translation based on the original Greek text. These are extremely challenging statements. But this should be used for a direct comparison to how we love each other. Are you able to do this list of items to everyone that you know no matter how they act or what they do or say to you or about you? Does this list confirm the great job of love we can see in your words and actions despite how they treated you?

How do these described features and qualities of God’s type of LOVE exemplify or balance with your definition of God’s sovereignty? Then imagine how God reacts when humans treat Him unlovingly, or even blasphemously with their words and actions. Do you believe God will react to evil done to Him, the same as you would when evil is done to you. Romans 5:8 says, “God shows His love for us, (proving it) in while we were yet sinners (not loving to him or others) He died for us”. That means God does good things even when no one deserves it. That is the God kind of Sovereignty and Love.

Let us stop and ask, can you see Jesus’ example of love shown to us, in these descriptions? Go back and reread the Gospels and notice how everything that He did was “LOVE” based. Whether he was healing sick people, raising dead people, or dying on a cross, “LOVE” dominated every action and WORD spoken. Then recall Jesus said, “When you have seen me, you have seen the Father”. This speaks volumes, to describe God’s sovereign acts and the motivations behind them. Whatever, God sovereignly chooses to do to you, or for you, He will base His motivations on LOVE designed for our “good” (Jer 29:11).

Do you recall how the risen from the dead Jesus reacted to the evil acts of Saul of Tarsus killing Christians? Jesus took it very personally what Saul was doing to His saved body of believers (Acts 9). These are controversial thoughts to think. God permitted Saul to do evil to His people, but met with him suddenly to do what?

Jesus’ reaction was with LOVE, instead of fierce hatred, or anger. This was clearly not the normal human reaction. What would you do to someone that killed one of your children? Jesus’ heart was not to kill him and send him to hell, but rather to save Saul and change Him to Paul who wrote 2/3 of the New Testament. Wow! That was the real God’s kind of LOVE!

Many will quickly argue and say, “what about when this evil that happened to me, or my wife, or my husband, or my child, or whoever”. Why did they die, why did they get sick, hurt, and need to suffer? But did God really do evil to any of these people? Never forget there is an evil being that is a master at getting people to blame God for what he is doing to them.

Yet, this belief that God does not commit evil, raises a new question. If God did not commit the evils, He certainly permitted it all to happen as we just saw looking at Saul of Tarsus. However, don’t forget that there are too many other reasons why God “must” allow evil to happen based upon what He has said.

The number one reason for evil on the earth came when God sovereignly gave Adam the right to make his own sovereign choice to choose between life and death (Gen 2:17). Adam did this by choosing to know evil instead of rejecting it (Gen 3). It was this single rebellious action of Adam that caused evil (Satan) to enter the world (2 Cor 4:4) and gave him the sovereign right to rule our world. This single act by Adam (Rom 5:12), set everything else negative in motion in our world.

This evil continued to grow until God sovereignly chose to begin to intervene personally to judge sin (Gen 6:7). These works of God began the process of salvation. They continued until they were fully made available at the entrance of God in the flesh in the form of a man named Jesus (Mat 1:21), who came into the world to redeem man and to reverse his curse of death and hell, and to take back their keys (Rev 1:18).

Here is a major clue to knowing God in the truest way. Did you ever see Jesus kill anyone? Did you ever see Jesus make anyone sick or give them cancer? Did you ever see Jesus kill someone’s husband or wife or child? The answer to all these questions is “no”! In fact, we see Jesus doing the opposite of all these evils, healing them, and raising them from the dead. Therefore, God the Father and the Holy Spirit, have never done this either. None of these describe a loving God that is patient and kind. This literally, means God is not pre-selecting some to go to hell either, because this violates the definition of “LOVE”. Get it?

Common Sovereignty Beliefs – Review

We are moving towards balancing two subjects: love and sovereignty. Evey unbalanced Bible study and teaching on these subjects create highly controversial beliefs and they have initiated great theological wars. Brothers and sisters in Christ that should be walking in love towards each other have suddenly become hated enemies.

Each side of the debate claim victory because each believes they have the complete understanding of the subject and all others in disagreement are deceived. That is not a Christ centered resolution based upon His “LOVE” and it is not a right way to deal with any subject disagreements. Hopefully we will find a better way to study the Bible today based upon God’s kind of “Love” (Agape) in this lesson. Let us review a few of the common beliefs on God’s sovereignty next.

There are many that believe God is in ultimate extreme control of every minor detail in the universe and nothing happens without His sovereign involvement and approval. This is an extreme form of the doctrine of “determinism”. This simply states, God determines the outcome of everything, and this is also associated with the doctrine of extreme “pre-determinism” meaning nothing has ever happened without God pre-determining the outcome of every circumstance and situation. This belief clearly implies God has determined all good events as well as planned and implemented every evil event.

It further pushes the belief that there are no other factors of influence that can affect any result or ending, much less begin anything new or even help anything to develop good or evil. In other words, God is like the ultimate puppet master and only He pulls all the strings to cause anything to happen. In other words, you had no say in what time you woke up this morning, or even what you ate today. This means humans have no freewill. However, is this really what the Bible says?

There is also another position of belief for some. This belief is called “pantheism”. “Pantheism” is a belief that the created universe “is God”. Therefore, if everything created is “God”, then whatever is happening in the “God” universe whether good or evil, is also the will of God and the plan of God.

All these positions are extremes that must ignore significant scriptures in the Bible that teach us these beliefs cannot be remotely or entirely true. Therefore, what we must stop, and state plainly is that each belief type of determinism, pre-determinism and pantheism has some individual elements of truth. But none have the complete truth. To make a single or isolated truth, the only truth, is simply the exaltation of a human standing upon “isolationism” based upon the individual choice of extremism, that must ignore all contradictory truths or the attempt to balance them together to resolve conflicts. “Determinism”, “pre-determinism” and “Pantheism” are just a sampling of a “one sided” theological debate containing a position of extremism and error.

However, the other side of human belief is the extreme position that either there is no God, or God is not controlling anything just as if He does not exist. This could be called the beliefs of “non-existence” that preaches the religion of “humanism” and “evolutional creation” of life originating from non-living substances over massive time elements. We commonly call these types of beliefs “atheism” or “agnosticism”.

Then there is the belief that God is like a clock maker that created the universe as a self-winding mechanism, and He has no need to operate it but may just check on it occasionally. These types of believers represent humans that think of a God that exists, but he is not caring enough to be involved in His creation. This is a belief of “non-intervention” in all the affairs of angelic and human beings. These thoughts are called “deism”, a belief in a god but not one that is Love.  It has roots in paganism, idolatry and has transitioned through variations of many gods of Greek mythology, many Roman mythological gods, and Hinduism a belief in millions of gods, etc.

This is where we must agree, only God knows all the scriptures on every subject, what they all mean, and how they are balanced correctly. Therefore, “Agapegeek” would never claim to be the expert on any Bible subject compared to God’s infinite knowledge. Every human is learning and teaching based upon our individual ignorance. This is why we should extend to each other some mercy. You may have seen verses that others have not seen and vice versa.  But “Thank God” for Him living on the inside of us to help us all understand and agree, and He will guide us into all truth as Jesus promised that He would do in John 16:13.

Today we will be exploring God’s Wisdom and human foolishness but within the context of some verses that are not normally applied to the subject of God’s “sovereignty”. We would all be amazed if we search the Bible on this subject to discover that we will find the sovereignty of God being indirectly stated almost everywhere in scripture. This is why we are going to be studying chapter 15 of the book of Acts and a lot of readers will scratch their heads at first trying to figure out why we are here to learn about a “sovereign” God and how He works with humans in salvation.

Acts 15 – The Early Church
Salvation Conflict and Resolution
By God’s Sovereign Design

We are learning a very essential Bible subject that creates great theological conflicts in the body of Christ. Some believe they were “elected” to be a saved Christian by God’s sovereign selection and they personally had nothing to do with their salvation, implying there is nothing they can ever do to lose their salvation. This is a more common belief than you may think. Too many that have this belief are easily offended if there is ever someone that offers a differing thought found in the Bible. 

But guess what? This pattern of disunity happened in the early church, when there were some saved legalistic believers that said every one of the Gentiles needed to get circumcised to be saved. These legalistic Pharisee type of believers had Old Covenant scriptures written by Moses that appeared to support their belief and teachings very strongly. Remember at this time of conflict there was no major compilation of New Testament writings to review or resolve theological debates.

But it is obvious that these men believed they were saved because they were circumcised believers and this position plainly disagrees with the “once saved always saved” beliefs, as well as the sovereignly selected belief. They clearly placed human decisions and fulfillments of Old Testament “law” as their position of stance for being saved. That is very interesting!

However, there was also another group of bold men in the church that included the Apostle Peter, and the Apostle Paul both who were circumcised along with others that stood against the position for the need of circumcision to be saved. We are going to read through some of these verses about this controversy to see how it was resolved.

We will also notice in these verses that there are scriptures that are indirectly describing God’s sovereign will and His works that are being exercised in combination with the cooperative and agreeable sovereign will of humans. Remember what Amos 3:3 says about this relationship saying, “How can two, walk together, except they be agreed”. These types of verses, confirm the sovereign partnership between God and humans.

Let us just read through these verses and learn what God says about His “sovereignty” working with humans not to control us, but rather to allow us to willingly choose to work with His sovereign plan as united partners. We will soon notice that God is not forcing anyone to do anything. He is simply in His infinite characteristic of love, has offered and provided solutions for every problem of human conflict before it ever occurred. These solutions are based upon His “omniscient” foreknowledge. We will be reading from the beginning of chapter 15 of Acts about the Jerusalem Council that took place to resolve a church conflict of how to be saved:

Act 15:1  And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.

Notice the problem. The root of the problem occurs when saved individuals from Judaea were teaching the requirement for a “flesh” circumcision to be spiritually saved. This is based upon them following the customs found within the law of Moses, for every male to be circumcised as an 8-day old child.  For these men that argued this for others to be saved, had this done to them a long time before they were a believer in Jesus.

Remember babies that are incapable of making this choice are forced by these Customs of Moses to be circumcised 8 days after being born. Jesus was circumcised this way in Luke 2:21. As you can see the baby has no voice in participating. This is identical to the fact that the child had no say whether to be naturally born into the world or not. Is this the way the new birth occurs in the New Covenant? Hopefully, you will be able to see that the New Covenant circumcision that takes place for Christians is not a forced event as we continue (Rom 2:29).

Some believe salvation is based upon the extreme doctrine of election where only some are selected to be Christians and all others have been pre-chosen to go to hell without any personal involvement in hearing the Gospel, believing the Words of Salvation, or confessing Jesus as Lord. This is a belief based upon “determinism” as stated previously. This belief, as we have seen, violates too many other verses that we cannot ignore. For example, in Acts 2:21 God says, “Whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be saved”. This clearly places human salvation within the court of human responsibility. Also remember in a previous lesson, we learned of the Parable of the Wedding Feast for the King’s Son. There was clearly an invitation given to everyone to determine who wanted to come to the wedding or not.

Act 15:2  When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.

Act 15:3  And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren.

As we can read Paul and Barnabas were not supporters of the legalistic doctrine of circumcision to be saved. So far this is a good argument for the belief in “election” only salvation, where humans are saved only if God chooses them. But notice verse 3 places a challenge to those that believe in a sovereign God choice of salvation only.

Why is verse 3 a problem for election theology? It is because Paul went to everyone and everywhere so that he could “preach” the Gospel to them all. This means everyone that heard him preach was given the personal invitation to come to the wedding of Jesus. And, if they believed and turned away from their previous idol worship to come into relationship with the God that created them, they would be saved by their own personal choice.

Furthermore, notice how verse 3 ends. There are a lot of people in the church that are overjoyed to hear about more Gentiles being saved. Uh oh? This means they were previously not saved but became saved by what God who loved them all, was doing through Paul to get them saved. It is totally amazing to see how God sovereignly uses people to get other people saved. This is a great clue that this type of work to preach was God’s sovereign choice for the method to how salvation comes to people. It conforms precisely with the parable analogy of “servants” of the sovereign King being sent out to “invite” people to his son’s wedding. There was never a sovereign King mandate or command that required anyone to attend. Each had to accept the invitation, but many refused and gave excuses.

Act 15:4  And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them.

Notice in verse 4 we must all acknowledge that it was God that was working through Paul and Barnabas to cause these salvations. Yet we still cannot deny they person that heard their Gospel message was still required to belief it to be saved. The same is true for Saul who became Paul. He always had the right to refuse to obey what Jesus told him to do, this too would have been a foolish decision.

Act 15:5  But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses

Act 15:6  And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter.

Acts 15:5-6 is a review of the problem. Again, there were certain men of the sect of Pharisees which were saved that began to teach Gentiles they must keep the law of Moses to be saved. But we now know from reading the books of Romans and Galatians, that no man can be justified by keeping the law. These books were not written at this time of meeting to deal with this matter. The church leadership during this dispute was actually a very good example of how churches today should be acting. The number one perspective to learn from in dealing with doctrinal issues, is to notice these men were attempting to be led by the Holy Spirit and were acting out of love to discuss matters in a civil and orderly manner. However, there were deep discussions with contentious times as we can read in the next verse:

Act 15:7  And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe

This is where we see the will of God and His sovereign plan already in progress. Please read this verse over again slowly and pay attention to every word. First notice, a dispute is taking place. This is no different than today between those that see “election” to mean they were selected, and others were not. This is like those that were fighting for the Gentiles to be circumcised to be saved. These were opposed to those that were present to argue a different view of scriptures, like we are doing today.

 Then notice that after a time of argumentative discourse, Peter rose to speak and what He says is very significant and essential to understanding the truth solution to the dispute. Please do not forget that Peter walked with Jesus personally in the flesh for 3 ½ years. Then recall Peter was a circumcised Jewish male like the Pharisee sect. Therefore, Peter should have been on the side of circumcision like the others for it.

However, God knowing this dispute would arise in the church already spoke to Peter in a vision about clean (Jews in circumcision) and unclean (Gentiles in uncircumcision) beasts. God in this vision told Peter to kill and eat from all the animals explaining to Peter, “do not call unclean any man” (Acts 10:28). What we are seeing is Peter dealing with Old Covenant issues of the law. It was unlawful for him to go into a gentile’s house, yet God has sent him to Cornelius to get his family saved within the New Covenant and this is very significant. It confirms that keeping the law was not necessary for salvation to occur.

Peter continues to preach the Gospel to Cornelius and the Holy Ghost falls upon his house and they all received God’s Spirit the same as occurred on Pentecost to Jewish people. This utterly shocks Peter because God had sent him intentionally to an uncircumcised man’s house using supernatural events including the voice of the Holy Spirit, visions and even angels. In this light there could be no doubt what the God in heaven was teaching Peter and the church. God is very clearly saying what Paul wrote about in Galatians 5:6:

Gal 5:6  For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.

We should be able to see that it was neither keeping the law that saved anyone, nor by not keeping the law that prevented anyone from being saved. This simply meant that people are saved by “faith” alone in Jesus Christ alone. This was exactly the message being taught by God in the church to help them resolve this controversial subject and difference of opinions to what and how people are saved.

All of this applies to our lesson of the sovereignty of God. Because it is God that sovereignly chose the method of salvation through faith so that no human could glory in their flesh to how they were saved. Therefore, to even say “I was saved because God sovereignly chose me”, causes someone to look prideful that our creator God loved them more than someone else that was not chosen, and this would violate God’s law of not showing partiality to anyone. Let us continue to look at what else Peter said, and God inspired to be written:

Act 15:8  And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us

Act 15:9  And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith

Here is another quality of God being described. God is being stated to be “omniscient” meaning He knows everything that can be known. Therefore, He clearly knows the heart of every human down to each thought they think about Him and His freely offered His saving gift of the preached Gospel (Rom 1:16) which brings salvation when it is specifically chosen to be believed by humans. This clearly demonstrates it is the sovereign choice of each human to believe or not to believe to be saved.

It is this quality of “omniscience” that can be synonymously called God’s “foreknowledge” since God exists outside of the limitation of time. It is this quality of being “all knowing” that could easily be misapplied to give the appearance that God has chosen some and rejected others to be saved. After all God did nothing to stop someone from rejecting Him, right? However never forget what God did in Christ to save all of us (Jn 3:16)! God sovereignly worked and planned to save every human, by becoming one of us to personally be nailed on a cross and shed the blood that was necessary to relieve us from our sins.

Therefore, we must see that humans have been sovereignly given the “freewill” right to make their own independent daily choices. These choices must be made in their hearts and minds to walk and live by faith as believing in Jesus or reject the Incarnate Word of God and be damned. Now let us view the next verses which represent another human comparison between two sovereign choices on the way they choose to think, live, and act.

Act 15:10  Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear

Act 15:11  But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they

Act 15:12  Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them. 

Act 15:13  And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: 

Act 15:14  Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name

Act 15:15  And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, 

Act 15:16  After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: 

Act 15:17  That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things

Act 15:18  Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world

Act 15:19  Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:

We are not going to go through every verse in this passage for the sake of time.

But remember God’s key subject in this chapter is about the internal church’s fight on doctrinal issues concerning how to be saved. Is human salvation:

  1. only God’s sovereign choice, or is it,
  2. man’s sovereign choice, or could it be,
  3. both choices working and cooperating in agreement together?

From studying the Bible attempting to balance all known verses on this subject equally, it appears searching with the help of the Holy Spirit leads us to the answer of option 3. Never forget the parable of the “Wedding Invitation for the King’s son” (Mat 22:2). All were invited to come but only those that chose to come and were prepared were “selected”. This is the same place Jesus said, “Many are called, but few chosen”. Therefore, the Gentiles choosing to “Turn” to God are exactly like those that came to the King’s feast.

In Acts 15, this is a dispute between two groups of saved Christians about their personal “salvation” as Jews being circumcised and those that were Gentiles not having been circumcised, and if either of these external choices mattered to their salvation. The basic battle came down was salvation by “faith only” or by “faith combined with external humans works to keep the law of Moses” to be saved. So, we are learning about conditional or unconditional “salvation”. Are there conditions placed by God upon humans to receive His invitation to salvation? And worse yet, some believe God has already determined who will be saved by only His sovereign choice, regardless of the human participation, cooperation, or agreement? In other words, some believe in a “forced salvation” for the lucky and for the unlucky others “forced damnation”. Clearly this should be a problematic belief based upon learning what the Bible really says.

The book of Acts chapter 15 answers the early church’s dispute about whether to circumcise or not to circumcise. And it is a key clue to resolving our modern fight on “election”.  We should see this same battle pattern is taking place between those that believe in “divine sovereign election” without any human participation of belief or faith, opposing another view that believes in a “salvation” offered by God’s sovereign Grace to everyone, but salvation is only completed through the “human freewill choosing to believe and have faith in Jesus” to become saved. Both the Acts 15 debate and the modern “election” debate are very similar subjects having practically identical answers. Let us look at some of the verses that we just saw.

We can see in verse 14 of Acts 15, that Simon Peter helped them in the church to resolve their salvation conflict by reminding the elders how the sovereign work of God had sent him to Cornelius’ house a Gentile. Don’t forget that Peter was sent there to preach the Gospel so that they could hear, believe, and be saved. Also remember that Peter broke the law of Moses by entering Cornelius’ house as God had instructed him to do. Wow, God tells Peter to break the Mosaic Law to save Cornelius? Is this the right God? Or is there some Christians that are just confused?

What if Cornelius had chosen to not believe the message of Peter? The answer is plain, he would not have been saved and the Holy Spirit would not have fallen upon this Gentile house. However, God supernaturally gave the Jewish man Peter a vision to help him offer the invitation to Gentiles. But before this God had previously sent an angel to Cornelius, instructing him to send for Peter. This certainly was God extending great Grace and mercy to get the process initiated for Gentiles to take the invitation.

After God did all of this by His design, God had already simultaneously answered the questions that Gentiles were not required to get circumcised to be saved, neither was keeping all the law of Moses necessary for saved Jewish men to preach the Gospel invitation. Both acts only required obedience in “faith”.

It is highly recommended that you read the books of Romans and Galatians to see how Paul compares the Old and New Covenants. He goes into detail about Christians that are required to walk and live by Faith. He counters this New Covenant lifestyle, comparing them with people that are still trying to live by the Law. He at one point calls these people to be foolish.

Conclusion

1Co 13:13  And now belief, expectation, and love remain – these three. But the greatest of these is love. 

We will end this lesson with the conclusion that LOVE plays a huge role in the salvation of everyone. God is LOVE and God is sovereign, and both must be balanced together. It is very clearly stated in John 3:16, that because God loved everyone in the world, He sent Jesus Christ to die so that if anyone believed, they would not perish. It is very obvious that the most popular verse known from the Bible reveals God’s Love and human choices to accept His invitation. I don’t know about you personally, but I am now and will always be eternally grateful to God for saving me. Thank you, Jesus!

Hope and pray that every reader has already made that personal choice to believe in Jesus and ask Him to be your LORD! But if not, please click the link below to go to a page that will help you choose to believe. God bless you all during this time of our celebration of the birth of Christ into the world. If it was not for what God’s Love sovereignly chose to do, we would all be going to hell.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Understanding the Sovereignty of God – Part 2 – Who is the Sovereign Elect of God

(Ver 1.0) This is Part 2 in the series of lessons teaching us about the amazingly revealed subject of the “sovereignty of God”. If you have not read “Part 1“, it is highly recommended that you go back and start with this introduction. Too many Christians have manmade traditions or reduced doctrinal views of what “sovereignty” represents when teaching about the application of this word to God. Some of the popular mindsets that have been dominating a lot of these religious thoughts on sovereignty, align with the following types of Christian beliefs and confessions:

  1. You just never know what God will do next?
  2. Sometimes God heals some of us and other times He makes us sick to humble us, teach us, or to get some glory for Himself to help save others.
  3. God can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, to whoever He wants because He is God.
  4. God will open the doors to what I should do, be, or go into, and shut the doors that I should not do, be, or go, into.
  5. If God wants me to have it, He will give it to me!
  6. If God wants me saved, He will save me!
  7. If God wants me healed, He will heal me!
  8. If God wants to bless me, He will bless me!
  9. Lord, if it be your will for my friend, my family, my child, etc., to be healed, delivered, or saved, we ask for your will to be done.
  10. God loves me so much; He won’t let anything bad happen to me…
  11. If God made me this way (poor, sick, gay, crippled, blind, lame, etc.), therefore He loves me and wants me this way.
  12. If God allowed evil to happen to me, He has a purpose for it.
  13. God took my child to heaven because he wanted another angel.

These are just some of the examples of wrong ways people think about God and His sovereignty trying to explain why bad things happened to them. People take a part of the total known or unknown sound doctrine of balanced sovereignty and then only magnify a small section of it to an extreme position that leaves everything that happens to us in the world totally up to God’s will and power. When this happens, God can easily be held responsible for every evil work that anyone, including Satan or any evil person does or makes happen.

In other words, people believe that God causes, commits, or permits all the liars of the world, in politics and of governments to happen, and they must all be doing their evils by the will and purpose of God. This would include mass murderers and genocide in the world blaming it all on God’s will. This would include all the starvation occurring in the world is also God’s will. This would include all terrorism is God’s will, and we could fill up a book with other examples of evil to blame them all on a loving God? This just does not match the revealed character and nature of God in the Bible.

Today, we will only address one part of the subject of sovereignty that is taught in a lot of Christian churches. We are delivering this specific topic only because we believe the Lord desires us to respond to a comment that was received asking a question from the previous lesson. This questioned sovereign position holds the belief of Sovereign Election of certain chosen individuals to receive salvation by His Divine selection only.

This belief of course, strongly implies that all others not selected by God were “chosen” to live on earth, die and go to hell by God’s sovereign design and right of choice. This extreme belief disqualifies the view of any human freedoms to choose whether to be saved or to be lost. This position places all responsibility for salvation only upon God who they claim has sovereignly chosen them. There are also other variations of this belief, but all of these must attempt to explain the other Bible verses that appear to conflict or contradict with this doctrine. We will see several of these conflicting verses in this lesson, and then attempt to balance them all together equally.

If you are aware of another variation of your belief to how this God choice of being Elect is defined, feel free to share it in a comment. But please only comment after reading the entire lesson first, so that we can compare all your Bible verses with the Word of God that will be shared here today. Also, if you are unable to leave a comment containing a belief with Bible verses, please do not bother sharing any personal opinions, they will not be given any value or time to be responded to.

For those readers that have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of your spirit to be saved, what does the Spirit of God say inside to you about this belief so far? Does the Spirit of God inside you give you any witnessed assurance that this belief is correct? Or does He cause you to feel that there is just something not right about God electing to make your choice for you, without your participation to go to hell? The Holy Spirit is the only guide to all truth that we can depend upon. Therefore, stop here and now and ask Him these questions, and let us see what He says to you and then let the Spirit inside’s judgement be your guide with what will be taught today to see if there is any agreement.

There will be no disagreement from Agapegeek, that there are certainly scriptures in the New and Old Testament that seem to imply this belief of “Election” is on the surface accurate. But with deeper study, it just might change our opinions and views to show us that it can be understood to mean something completely different and even to an opposite position. This does not mean anyone ignores the verses taught on election or disagrees with their inclusion in the Bible. It only means once balanced correctly, the interpretations of these verses can be shifted to see something amazingly missed before.

Our primary goal today is to find the truth! We are only desiring to see God’s view on this subject of sovereignty. Therefore, we promise the Holy Spirit to approach the subject with an open-minded position of rest, to be led by the Spirit of God, to go wherever He desires to go and show us whatever He sovereignly chooses to teach us, and we will choose to receive it with a thankful heart and mind.

Could this position of God sovereignly choosing some for salvation and other for hell’s separation, be another example of someone taking a partial truth and exalting it beyond its scope of application to be the only truth, excluding all other truths? Remember this practice of one truth independence can usually lead us into error. This is too often caused when we do not balance all scriptures equally together. Let us dig into this subject to discover if there is something that we may have omitted or missed. Here is a list of the sections that will be covered in our lesson:

  1. Election Confirmed
  2. God’s Wedding Invitation
  3. Jesus the Only One Chosen?
  4. How and When was the Church Chosen?
  5. Resolving Scripture Conflicts for Being Called “Elect”
  6. Conclusion

Election Confirmed!

Let us quickly go over a few of the key verses on the doctrine of “election”. We will begin with the red-letter words of Jesus speaking in prophetical terms about the end of the world that is beginning to happen now.

Mat 24:24  For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect

It is obvious that Jesus is calling a potential person or a group or “set” of “like people” by qualifying and defining them using the term “elect”. This Greek word translated as “elect” is G1588, and it is defined by Strong as “select”, “favorite”, or “elect”. But it is also important to know that this single Greek word is translated as “elect” 16 times and “chosen” 7 times. Therefore, if we are only looking for verses that were translated as “elect” we will miss those that were translated as “chosen”.

This verse and God’s usage of the Greek word becomes our initial confirmation with the potential for somethings we could call “sovereign election”. It is important to note that the Greek word G1588 translated as “elect”, occurs 3 times in chapter 24 of Matthew. Therefore, this chapter seems to have an especially important emphasis on this subject. Here are the other verses in Matthew 24:

Mat 24:22  And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened

Mat 24:31  And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other

What we are observing is a new challenge to define being called “elect”. Most “elect” doctrines of being chosen for salvation, claim they were chosen by God and there is nothing they or anyone else could do, or anything that could happen on earth to not be saved. This means God’s sovereign election stands strong and unchanging, because He is God and He gets His way.

But notice verse 22 of Matthew 24. There is a timing of significant events that occur on the earth, where God describes the time must be shortened, or no one in the flesh was going to be saved. Therefore, God is speaking of elect people as those being saved, with the exception that it is not guaranteed salvation based upon something we are not told yet.

Now let us go back to verse 22, to see something that the translators may have missed in their KJV interpretation. The KJV translators must have believed in a form of the doctrine of guaranteed election, because of the way the verse was translated, and because they added specific italicized words that appear to support guaranteed election. But these italicized words do not occur in the verse. Here is what Dr Robert Young translated the verse to say in his very literal translation:

Mat 24:24  For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect(KJV)

Mat 24:24 for there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and they shall give great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, also the chosen. (YLT)

There are three major differences between these two translations. First, the omission of the italicized words; “it were”, before the word “possible” in the “Young’s Literal Translation”. The changing of the word “very” to “also” as it should be in the “Young’s Literal Translation”. The revision of the word “elect”, to the word “chosen” in the “Young’s Literal Translation”. All these changes help us to see some things much more clearly.

For example, what we are observing is how in these verses of Matthew, whoever these elect ones are, they could possibly be deceived as others were “also” deceived in verse 24 by the false Christ. And in verse 22 these “elect” ones, may not be saved unless God shortens the time of tribulation. What we are observing is a major discrepancy to viewing these “elect” to have a guaranteed salvation.

Therefore, many Christians must be assuming from these three verses in Matthew that these are speaking about the guaranteed pre-selected Christian church as being called the “elect” by Jesus. Yet that belief is even contradicted by what Jesus said in the entre statement, so which is it? Are they guaranteed saved or are they potentially saved based upon not being deceived by the false Christ and time being shorten for their sake to be saved?

What should be cautionary is that many times in the Bible, God uses the exact same word to refer to multiple like related beings. If you did not know yet, these “Elect” could be angels (1 Timothy 5:21), Israel (Isaiah 45:4), the church (1 Peter 2:9), or Jesus Christ (Luke 23:35, 1 Peter 2:6). Therefore, to be a wise Acts 17:11 type of Berean Bible student, we better do a lot more homework to study what is God really talking about.

As you can see this topic of study has suddenly become more complicated than most have thought. We have just been introduced to the potential of multiple identities as a condition to be determined for being called the “Elect”. Also, we have just observed two qualifying conditions that must be met to be in this group called the “elect”. Therefore, to assume each verse is about any single group or identity, is an assumption and must rather be proven with facts of scripture truth to reveal their identity.

However, we have identified and confirmed that Jesus spoke of someone as being the “Elect” that “if possible” could be deceived. And in another verse, He said “those days should be shortened, or no flesh would be saved, but for the elect’s sake, those days will be shortened”. Nevertheless, in the last verse with this Greek word we find the angels gathering the elect (chosen) ones off the earth. Therefore, there is someone that is called by this title.

Let us move to the next section to help us narrow down what this calling of someone as “Elect” means. Because God’s definition of the word will overrule man’s definitions 100% of the time.

God’s Wedding Invitation

Jesus teaches us a parable that could radically shift our focus on what being called “Elect” could be defined as. This parable is an amazing part of our study subject “sovereignty” even if you do not see it automatically at first. Let us please read carefully the story given by Jesus (God’s Son).

Mat 22:2  The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son

Mat 22:3  And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come

Mat 22:4  Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage

Mat 22:5  But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: 

Mat 22:6  And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. 

Mat 22:7  But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city

Mat 22:8  Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy

Mat 22:9  Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage

Mat 22:10  So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests

Mat 22:11  And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: 

Mat 22:12  And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. 

Mat 22:13  Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

Mat 22:14  For many are called, but few are chosen

We will notice in verse 2 that Jesus is speaking about the “Kingdom of heaven”. This simply means these coming statements are about God’s sovereign government within the spiritual realm of existence apart from the earth. But then Jesus reveals this hidden spiritual reality is said to be “like” a normal story of a king that could have lived upon the natural earth. Parables always use natural parallels to teach unseen spiritual concepts so we can understand it.

Then Jesus gets started revealing the spiritual kingdom is like a “certain king” and this is a reference to God the Father in heaven that sits on His sovereign Kingdom throne. Therefore, we have the “Most High” as the Sovereign ruler that chooses to have a Son, and then arranges a marriage for His Son. This certainly matches our subject of God as “Sovereign”.

This should be obvious to who the son represents. This can only be Jesus that was God’s Son, who was born of the natural woman named Mary in Bethlehem. Isaiah 9:6 says, “Unto us a child is born, and a son is given” and this was written about the coming Messiah named Jesus (Yeshua).

The next key word in the parable to understand is “marriage”. This is a radically misunderstood concept for a lot of Christians, not knowing how to define this word.

In the eyes of God, a covenant is a marriage and God defines this to us in the Old Testament in Isaiah 54:5, Jeremiah 31:32 and Malachi 2:14, to only name three verses. Therefore, if a covenant of God is a marriage in His eyes, the marriage of this parable’s son is Jesus’s New Covenant, to His bride (Mat 9:15).

Guess who the bride is. If you said the church is the bride, you are correct (Eph 5:32, 2 Cor 11:2). So far, we have defined the parable subjects of the king as the Sovereign God the Father in heaven, and the son as the Lord Jesus Christ the bridegroom. How then does His church bride fit into this parable of a sovereignly arranged marriage by the Father God in Heaven?

In this parable, those that are the servants going out to spread the king’s invitations are symbolic for those that have already believed on the Lord Jesus and are working for God as His Kingdom servants to spread the Gospel (Rom 1:1). These servants represent the bride. They are working for God to get more into the wedding. These believing ones, are going out all over the world (Mk 16:15) preaching to those that are not yet saved. The invitations being given out represent the words of the Gospel of the kingdom (Mat 4:23, Rom 1:15-16), which is the good news of the free gifts of forgiveness, healing, deliverance, and salvation.  

Those that are being invited to the wedding, represents all the people that are in the world that have not heard the Gospel. Notice in Matthew 22:5, that many of these receiving the invitation make light of it and offer excuses like they did in Acts 2:13 and Acts 24:25 to name two examples of this type of world’s behavior.

Then next notice how Jesus says in Matthew 22:6 that others in the world will take more extreme hate filled positions against the Gospel good news, to even beat and kill God’s servants (Acts 5:40-41, Acts 7:51-57, Acts 8:1). God very clearly in this parable says these people that rejected His invitation would be destroyed and their city burned down, and this literally occurs for the first time in 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem.

In Matthew 22:8 Jesus said, those that were invited were not deemed worthy to receive the gift of the invitation to the wedding, so the king sends out his servants again in Matthew 22:10 telling them to go out into the highways and invite everyone. This again is the great commission of the church to go into the entire gentile world to preach the Gospel to everyone that is living on the earth. This is the heart of God to save all that are receptive to the invitation.

Hopefully, you do understand this parable better now being a representation of spreading the Gospel and how this works. If not, we can read about the process in detail in Romans 10:

Rom 10:13  For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved

Rom 10:14  How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher

Rom 10:15  And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things

Please pay very close attention to the words selected by God. The first key word is “whosoever”. This represents everyone in the entire world, not just a few people that some Christians believe are the “elect” of the kingdom. This is very clearly our first confirmation that the Parable about being invited to come to the king’s son’s wedding feast is for everyone. But the choice to come is personally left completely in the hands of each one that heard the invitation to decide whether they would value the invitation, to choose to come to the wedding.

Romans 10 is a list of personal choices. None of these personal choices are the forced will of the Sovereign God. Please go and read the entire chapter. The first 4 verses are written about many people that were in the natural nation of Israel that corresponded to people that killed the kings’ servant men in the Matthew 22 parable about being invited to a wedding feast, by those that were sent to them preaching the Gospel.

But then in Romans 10:5, Paul begins to write the message of salvation is for “all”, by God’s sovereign choice to send forth the Gospel to the entire lost world and “only” those that “believe” and “confess” Jesus as Lord in Romans 10:9-10 will be saved. Wow, this is what Jesus was speaking about in the Parable. The invitations are spoken to everyone they encounter, and they must believe the good news message by faith and get dressed and go to the king’s palace for the feast (Rev 19:9).

We get the confirmation again in Romans 10:11-12 that this invitation to believe in Jesus is open to everyone in the world. Paul writes very clearly that it is to both the Jewish and the Gentile nations. This is amazing information about God’s sovereign choices and His gift of invitation is always given to anyone that will choose to come. But how do we balance this with the original “Elect” verses? That is a good question. We begin to understand the answer in Matthew 22:14, the last statement of the Parable of the wedding feast invitation:

Mat 22:14  For many are called, but few are chosen.

This is our key linked verse about the sovereign election of God. First, notice the Greek word G2822, that is translated as the word “called”. This word is defined and can be translated as “invited”. Therefore, to call someone to attend is an invitation. Next, notice the Greek word that was translated as “chosen” is the exact same word G1588 that was translated as the “elect”. Change the words “called” to “invited” and the word “chosen” to “elect” and reread it. “For many are invited, but few (choose to become) “chosen”. The italicized words are legally added because this is exactly what was taught to us in the parable. The entire parable is about those that choose to receive the wedding invitation, and it is them making this choice that causes them to be called “elect” (chosen).

Now let us shift to a totally new perspective that has been almost ignored by countless ministers.

Jesus the Only One Chosen by God

This is where we are going to potentially lose more readers. But this is what the Bible teaches us when we see it. If you do not understand the subject of “covenants” this is probably why you do not understand the title of this section. A covenant is between two parties or individuals. Any covenant is a lasting bond of unity exactly as a marriage was designed to be by God in Genesis 2.

However, a marriage like God’s covenants were completely dependent upon the weakest link in the bound contract. It only takes one party of the contract to break the covenant and if there is any imperfection in one, the covenant can be easily broken. This is what happened to the natural nation of Israel for 1500+ years. They were the weakest link in their covenant with God. They repeatedly went and worshipped other idols instead of the true and living God. God called this infidelity becoming a “whore” and God divorced these people in Jeremiah 3:1-8.

However, with God, He has no imperfections and is the strongest covenant partner possible. Israel in the Old Covenant was in a contract with God almighty, but they continually broke it making them the weakest link. This is why the New Covenant was not established between God and the church directly. Instead, our Father God sent His Son named Jesus to become a human and because He was equally God, He could become the God to man mediator.

Because the New Covenant was between God the Father, and God the Son who are both manifestations of God, they will never break this New Creation covenant that was first revealed to us in Genesis 15. Therefore, this covenant is eternally bonded between two ever living beings capable of not sinning to break it and it will never end (Heb 13:20).

If you go and read this story in Genesis 15, you will find Abram taking 5 animals and splitting three of them into two pieces and he places the bodies on the ground. Abram goes to sleep and sees a “smoking furnace” and “burning torch” walking through the covenant pieces. These two symbols represent God (the all-Consuming Fire Heb 12:29) and His Son, Jesus Christ (the Light of the World, John 9:5).

This information about Jesus being the one that is in covenant with God as the human representative, is very important. This makes Jesus the only one that was “chosen” as God’s “elect”, simply because He would remain faithful even when humans fail to remain faithful. We need to establish these assertions with more scriptures that claim Jesus is the only One God has chosen to be in direct covenant with Him. We will begin with Psalms first:

Psa 89:19  Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people

If you read the next verse, God is directly speaking of David, but by God’s repeated usages of double references between the natural and the spiritual realms, this verse is also speaking of Jesus. Remember Jesus is called the Son of David multiple times.

What God is saying is that He chose David to be King, and the future Son of David, named Jesus to sit upon his throne forever and ever in the future. Let us look at another verse that also points to the coming Messiah:

Isa 42:1  Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

God calls the future Messiah, His “elect”. This is very amazing. But was this fulfilled in Jesus? We can discover this is what the Jewish people were expecting reading in Matthew:

Mat 12:17  That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying

Mat 12:18  Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles

God writing through Matthew, claims these Isaiah patterns of Messiah were all fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, again calling Him the “chosen”. If you can see this, why are you calling yourself the chosen and elect one of God? Can both of you be the chosen one and the Messiah? The answer to that question is “Yes” and “No” but we will need to learn more. But we will look at one more verse about Jesus being the chosen one:

Luk 23:35  And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

This is a verse written about the time Jesus was hanging on a cross and all the people were watching and mocking Him. These people wanted Him to prove that He was the Messiah by coming down off the cross. But Jesus told them very clearly, no sign will be given you, except the sign of Jonah. As Jonah was in the belly for 3 days and nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for 3 days and 3 nights (Mat 12:40, Mat 16:4).

Do you see how these statements are moving in parallel to the prophecy of the wedding invitation parable? Yes, the parable is a prophecy about what is happening to Jesus. These Jewish leaders hated Jesus so very much, that they incited a riot mob to demand His death, but this was the plan of God all along.

The main point from Luke 23:35, proves that the Jewish population was expecting the “Chosen one of God, called Messiah” to appear, and Jesus did not match their expectations because of their ignorance of the scriptures. Most were seeing a “conquering Messiah”, while ignoring the “suffering Messiah” in Isaiah 53. Finally, we are going to talk about the church next and all the references that call us “elect”, “chosen”, etc.

How and When was the Church Chosen?

We have observed verses in the Bible that place the titles of “chosen” and “elect” upon Christians, and this is a great hidden mystery to the how and when we were given these names. How did the church achieve this title, if God’s Son Jesus was the one that He prophesied would be chosen? The answer is not that complicated, but it may be resisted because some have never heard of it before. Let us look at scriptures that reveal how we made a choice that qualified us to be chosen by God:

2Th 2:13  But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:

As we can plainly see, the church was “chosen” from the very beginning. The beginning of what? Is this the beginning of time, creation, the world, the church, or what? In Ephesians 1:4 we find where God has chosen the church before the foundation of the world. Therefore, this is long before humans existed and could go back to the beginning of time, and creation. So, we have established the “when” this plan to elect us was established.

Now for the “How” question. We have previously mentioned this reason of “how” it was planned to be accomplished for us to obtain being called His “elect”. But now we are seeing it from a God perspective teaching us how we became chosen even before we were created. Please recall the “wedding invitation” parable of Jesus because this is being restated and expanded here in this verse written to the church.

God writing by the hand of Paul to the church says very clearly, we have been “chosen” to (receive) salvation because God sanctified us (made pure) by His Spirit, and this occurred because we chose to believe God’s words (invitation) which was the (Gospel) truth. Wow! This is just further confirmation that what we did to receive and believe caused God to cleanse our sins and define us as His “chosen”. But this is further confirmed in the next verse that follows:

2Th 2:14  Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here is just more of the confirming process of what we just read about in verse 13. Remember this was God’s sovereignly chosen process for our salvation, that was planned even before the world began. Did you notice the word “called”? Paul says very clearly that God “called” (literally invited) us by our choice to hear the Gospel. This is the same parallel that we have been observing from the parable of the “wedding invitation”.

God has again connected the facts of Romans 10 with the parable of the wedding invitation to how we have been chosen to be called God’s “elect”. To be called God’s “elect” was designed by Him for us to first qualify to be called this by any human hearing the preached good news Gospel and to believe it. Yes, there is more to it than just that over simplified statement, but that is the basis for all salvation. Let us investigate this a little further to confirm it is true:

Eph 1:4  According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

This is a new way to say the same things that we have already learned. But specifically notice the new revelation that is being offered to us to help explain what is happening when we choose to believe the Gospel of Christ. This very plainly states that Christians were “chosen” only because we were placed “In Him” and this Him, is Christ Jesus. But remember who Him is again? He is the “chosen” one that God could depend upon to keep His eternal covenant. This is why we need to be placed “In Him” spiritually, to insure we never break the covenant by sinning.

Again, God says this was His designed plan of salvation before humans were even created. We must get a hold of what is being taught to us and what God has done to us and for us.

2Co 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (creation): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

This is one of the many (over 150) verses that claim we as believers have been placed “in Christ” by God’s sovereign choice after we choose to believe. Based upon the number of verses that describe this reality, this appears to be a major accomplishment to achieve our “salvation”.

Why was being placed “In Christ” so essential to God’s plan of salvation? This is important for at least two reasons. The first reason is that we were all “In Adam” when he rebelled and sold us into Satan’s kingdom of darkness. Because we were “In Adam” when he sinned, we all sinned, and we were all given the same “death” penalty (1 Cor 15:22).

But by believing in Jesus through faith we were saved out of the darkness of death to be placed “in” the living kingdom of God’s dear Son called Light (Col 1:13). Wow, now reread 2 Corinthians 5:17 to see the new light that is shining upon us being placed in Christ. According to this verse God has caused us to become a brand new, and a never existed before creation that has also made us a completely new person “In Christ”.

It is this sovereign new creation, that places us “In Him” by faith, that is the chief part of God separating Himself and us from the evil influence of Lucifer/Satan and all his angels that have sinned. Let us consider a verse that maybe some have not understood before now:

Joh 10:9  I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

Notice what Jesus is saying here. He is claiming to be a “door” for someone that is going somewhere. In John 10:7 we find that He is saying that He is the door for the “sheep” and being a “sheep” is a symbol for the saved Christians. What is Jesus saying them? Could it be that to be saved, you better enter in this door named Jesus? Could this be another way of saying that by us choosing to “enter” Christ the door, we will be saved by being “in CHRIST”? I believe it is. There are too many verses that confirm what we are learning, but we will end this section with this one:

Rom 16:13  Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine.

As you can see Paul writing about a random saved man in the church name Rufus, confirms again that anyone in the church is also chosen by God in the same way of choosing to enter the door of salvation named Jesus Christ. Because we that are saved, have chosen to get out of (exit) the first Adam and enter into the Christ by faith, we were all chosen and have become His elect “in Christ”. We accomplished this, not because we were God’s individual choice that was chosen for our personal salvation, but rather it was because we chose Him by believing the invitation of the Gospel, then we were placed “In Him” who was “the Chosen”. Wow! Praise the Lord!

Resolving Scripture Conflicts for Being Called “Elect”

There are countless scriptures in the New Covenant writings that conflict with a “sovereign God election” theological position where only a few people will be saved by a God only sovereign choice. If there were only 2 or 3, that would be enough to raise serious concerns that somebody was in error. But because there are literally dozens of verses, that is too many to ignore. We will only select a few to help limit the size of this lesson.

There must be a balanced approach to interpreting every scripture that God inspired to be written to ensure any confidence that we have found His intended truth. Remember according to God in 2 Peter 1:20, there is no private interpretation of the Bible that is allowed. This simply teaches us that the Bible will always interpret itself.

Also, it is impossible for God to lie, therefore, if we find any apparent contradictions in scripture, we are in need to hear from God to find how to resolve the conflicts using His Word as the only solution source. To do this we will apply what we have learned in the other sections to find out how they resolve the dispute with the “Sovereign God” only salvation belief.

It is only this interpretation of scripture about a human acceptance and belief in a divine invitation, that balances with all the other verses of the Bible on this subject of being called “elect” to represent our union with God’s plan of “salvation”. This was sovereignly chosen for us to believe in what He has done, to be placed in Christ, His chosen one. Here are just a few verses that would directly contradict with only a select few humans being chosen to be saved and all others in the world rejected to go to hell by God’s will:

Joh 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

This is the most popular verse in the entire Bible, and more Christian can quote this verse than any of the others. Yet this verse contradicts with the sovereign God only choice of human salvation. God says very plainly that He loved the entire human race in the world and wanted to save them all. But again, we see the problem it is only for those that “believe” the invitation of the Gospel that will not perish. Belief is a sovereign human choice. This again confirms that only that choose to believe that become the “elect”. Check out this verse:

2Pe 3:9  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

First, notice that God is called “long-suffering”, this is a divine characteristic of God. It strongly suggests that God is still waiting for humans to “come” to not perish. This places the responsibility for humans not perishing upon those that choose to repent, and not God.

Also, notice that this verse says, God is not willing that any should perish. Why then if God is sovereign, isn’t everyone saved? If God is waiting for some to repent, this means, they were not first chosen either. If we believe that it is God’s will that he has “chosen” some to go to hell, this makes this verse totally false. It is a major conflict of too many scriptures to believe in only a select few that are chosen by God for salvation, and God is not the one that is confused and needs to change His Word. Therefore, it can only be some Christians that have not seen God’s truth that need to change.

1Ti 4:10  For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.

God is very clear in this verse that it was His desired intention to save “All humans”. But then God clarifies that it is only those that “believed” the Gospel invitation that will be saved. This is only what fits the parable of the Wedding Invitation. In this parable, the king’s servants went out to invite “everyone”. But it was only those that chose to receive the invitation that went into the wedding feast for the king’s son. Remember many were “called”, but few chose to attend to be called the “elect”.

Rom 10:13  For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

There are too many verses to include them all that say the same thing. This verse claims “whoever” calls on the name of the LORD will be saved. So, either God is forcing someone chosen to call upon Him, or humans have the choice to call and if they do, they will be saved and chosen of God as His “elect” being placed “in Christ”.

Conclusion

Thank you for taking the time to read and study the Bible here with us. We are a fast-growing family of believers that are hungry to know and learn the truth. If you are struggling to believe this lesson over your teachings of your denominational doctrines, it is strongly suggested for you to study the subject of “Human Freewill”. Go through the Bible and look for verses where God gave humans’ choices. Notice the first human choice sovereignly given, was to Adam eating from two selected trees. One choice brought Adam life, and the other choice brought Adam death. Adam disobeyed God and chose death, and we all died because of it.

There are so many verses that represent choices being sovereignly given by God to humans in the Bible that they should overwhelm you and help overcome your sovereign only belief that God is forcing all human decisions. There is a great need to balance the sovereign God given human freedoms to choose, with His desire to save everyone, and potentially your belief that He only selected some to be called His “elect”.

What we should have learned today, is that God gave us choices to make. He has sent His servants and His Son to make a way of salvation out of the automatic penalty of death and hell. We accept this way out of the world, by hearing about His Good News (Gospel) invitation to come to the wedding of His Son. Here is another example of God’s two choices being offered:

Deu 30:15  See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
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:

God has placed a binary choice before every human of two possibilities and outcomes. One is a human choice for life and good by accepting His invitation, and the other is a choice for death and evil by rejecting His invitation. Could it be any simpler? You can live by believing and saying the right words.

Pro 18:21  Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

Yes, this verse is true and is literal. There is nothing misleading in the verse. It is plainly stated and is accurate to the infinite degree. Please don’t ignore it anymore. Memorize it and think about it every chance you get. Then apply it to your life. By us believing the Gospel we can do what God has invited us to do and be saved from our death to live eternally “with Him”, “In Him” and “Him in us” as part of His creation strategic plan of salvation:

Rom 10:8  But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

Rom 10:9  That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Rom 10:10  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

These are not difficult instructions for beginning your journey of salvation if you have never done this. If you do this for the first time, please leave a comment and this will help place you on the path with the Lord as your lead Shepherd to help you and guide you each and every day. Jesus is the Good Shepherd (Jn 10:14) and He said, “if you confess me, before men, I will confess you before my Father” (Mat 10:32). This is why it is important to leave a comment before the world, to read.

What we have learned is that God has sovereignly chosen the method of salvation, but not the ones that were to be selected. Yes, God is all knowing, all seeing, and understands the end from the beginning. Therefore, He knows who will be saved and who will not. But this does not mean that He chose them to be that way. God has sent out His servants with a wedding invitation to the entire world. Therefore, every human must make their own choices to attend. If you are too busy for Him, you may regret this decision, eternally. However, God wants a bride that wants Him as much as He wants you, not one that is forced to be with Him.

Thank you and again, and we will pray for you all. Jesus could be coming back any day now. Hopefully you are all prepared and ready to meet Him. When this coming occurs this will be when the bridegroom Jesus, comes and gets all of those that accepted the invitation to the “wedding feast” and have made themselves ready by putting on His wedding garment of the “Robe of Righteousness”. This will take place in heaven for seven years. Ready or not it will happen much sooner than you think. God Bless you.

If you would like to read the next lesson, select “Part 3“.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Bible Answers: Understanding Spirits – What is Spirit Life and Spirit Death – Do Babies in the Womb that Die Go to Heaven?

(Ver 1.1) This is a Bible response to some awesome reader questions, concerning spiritual life and death. This may be one of the most important Bible lessons you can find on this website. There are too many Christians that are unlearned in spiritual basic truths. It is interesting that there has been growing number of unsaved people in the world that know more than a lot of Christians about spirits, but primarily the evil spirit Satan. There has been a growing worship of evil spirits, but my God is greater than all of these.

Christians today, need to know and understand that they are a “spirit” first and a human body “last”. This helps us identify and change our priority of focus. We also need to know our enemy is a “spirit” also and this helps us know how to deal with Satan. But most importantly we need to know about the Greatest and Most High Spirit that is God who created us all and trust Him to help us get through all of life’s unplanned events. Therefore, the reason for this Bible lesson.

A certain reader asks some very deep and relevant questions concerning the meaning of spiritual life and death. Here were the basic questions:

  1. Where does the human spirit come from?
  2. Is there “spirit life” in a human, and if so,
  3. When does spirit life begin?
  4. Is there “spirit death” and, what is it?
  5. and if spirit death exists, when did or does it occur?

From these questions about spirit life and death, we can also derive some other fundamental implied questions that many Christians are asking about today. There are countless numbers of women and men today that have known or personally experienced the death of an unborn child. Whether this was the intentional murder of the child through abortion, or an unintended miscarriage or other unexpected birth complication, we are going to answer these and other questions using only the Bible, which is the Word of God (Mat 4:4), also called the Word of Truth (2 Cor 6:7). Here are the applicable questions that come from the reader’s questions that will also be answered today:

  1. “Does a child that died in the womb, have a spirit?”
  2. “Was a child that died in the womb or out of the womb spiritually alive?”
  3. “Does a child’s spirit that died naturally or was killed intentionally, go to heaven or to hell, or just cease to exist?”

These are all great and thoughtful questions. It must be stated first that I do not desire to give my thoughts, or opinions on anything of this extreme importance, if possible. I will try to avoid sharing my thoughts because my opinions are as worthless as anyone else’s. However, I will share what the Spirit of God has taught me about this subject today based upon the Word of God.

I will also share with everyone at least one key God life experience. This relevant experience is the fact that my wife had a miscarriage over 30 years ago. This was a traumatic unexpected experience for us both. This occurred at a time when I had felt like the LORD had said He would give us another child. My wife had a difficult and drawn-out time of not getting pregnant. But it finally came to pass, and we both felt happy that God had answered.

However, an unexpected miscarriage was a shocking and saddening surprise. There is not much anyone can do once the conceived baby passes and is lost. This pregnancy had ended. It took years of Bible study and listening to the Holy Spirit to try to figure out what had happened and if we would ever see this child again.

It was only in the last few years that God gave me a dream about this loss. I saw a vision of this child in heaven. I saw it was a little girl. From this dream we can have confidence that children that die prematurely can be assured to be seen again in heaven.

However, this night vision while it was a great reassuring comfort, is not sufficient evidence and still must be further confirmed by what God has already taught us from His Word. Therefore, today we will use the Word of God to be assured and confident that unborn children go to heaven, and not by us just experiencing a night vision only. If you are ready to learn what the Word of God says on this essential subject concerning understanding spirits, and their life and death, let us open our Bibles and study.

Introduction to Spirit Basics

We will begin learning the spiritual basics with the straightforward question, “Are spirits eternal”? We will begin to understand this answer by first observing God’s revealed Spirit characteristics:

Joh 4:24  God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

The most fundamental truth about God is found in this verse of John. Here it is revealed that God is a “Spirit”. This establishes the foundation for knowing all other truths about God. This means God before creating the natural universe in Genesis 1:1, existed only in an unseen Spirit form and dimension.

But this verse also establishes that humans must worship God in spirit and in truth. This is your first clue that humans have a spirit, but it also reveals a lot of humans are not aware enough to know about their own spirit. Now let us look at the revealed nature of God’s Spirit:

Psa 90:2  Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God

This is a very plainly stated verse that God existed before the universe was created and will still be God after it. Therefore, God is clearly described to have existed from everlasting to everlasting, claiming God Spirit is an eternal Spirit. This is very logical to understand because time was not created until Genesis 1:1 also. But we will look at another verse to confirm His eternal existence:

1Ti 1:17  Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

We have now observed references from both the Hebrew Old Covenant and the Greek New Covenant that the Spirit of God is eternal. This means God’s Spirit will never cease to exist. It also implies that God’s Spirit has no beginning nor any ending. Therefore, we learn it is impossible for God’s Spirit to cease to exist, die a death, or to be destroyed.

Hence, we have established a basic truth about the Creator God of the heaven and the earth being an everlasting Spirit, without beginning and without end. But this is different apparently from all other spirits that are mentioned in the Bible. This is because the Bible reveals to us that humans and angels have a single point of origination that causes their existence.

Whether we call this a spirit birth (Jn 3:3), or a spirit creation event (Deu 4:32), or some other term, these types of spirit beginnings certainly happened. We will now continue with the “first man” named Adam and when and where his spirit came from.

Gen 2:7  And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Let us establish a few other essential spirit basics on this subject from Genesis. The Eternal Spirit of God formed the physical body of Adam from the dirt of the ground. Then as we can observe in Genesis 2, God breathed into the nostrils the “breath” of life and the man became a living soul (Gen 2:7). From these stated truths we learn the body of man was made and formed from pre-existing created red “clay” soil before there was a spirit or life present in the body.

God says very specifically that man’s body was “formed” from this previously created earth substance. The Hebrew word H3335 translated as “formed” describes the work of a “potter” that is squeezing wet clay to make Adam’s human form. This means this work of God was extremely personal and hands on. It also demonstrates divine artistic design and composition.

Even modern science can find and name the basic dirt-like characteristics of the human body. Just some of the significant elements found in the human body are elements like “oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorous”. But there are also found trace elements of minerals like iron, iodine, zinc, fluoride, selenium, copper, chromium, etc. All these elements and minerals can be found in basic earth composition. Yet none of it is “alive” in and of themselves alone. Uh oh!

Therefore, after completion of forming Adam’s body from dirt, he only had a lifeless human shell that had no spirit or any ability to live. We know from reading James 2:7, “that the human body without the spirit is dead”. Therefore, the body of Adam was a lifeless corpse until God breathed into him a spirit that came from God’s breath (Spirit)!

This Hebrew word H5397 translated as “breathed” is a word that comes from a root word meaning “to blow” as exhaling a strong wind of air. This is difficult for some to comprehend since God is not a man (Num 23:19) that has natural lungs to exhale from. Also, as we have seen He is clearly described to be only a Spirit in John 4:24. Therefore, we can easily conclude that Adam’s “life” source and his internal “spirit” came from the eternal Spirit of God.

In fact, Adam’s blood also came from this breathing out of the Spirit of God. How do we know Adam’s blood came from God? We can know this for several reasons, but we will begin by knowing that it was necessary for the “Blood of God” in the body of Jesus, hanging on a cross, that was required to pay for the sins of humans.

God says in Hebrews that it was impossible for the blood of created bulls and goats to pay the debt of man’s sins (Heb 10:4). This verse proves that sinless created animal blood was not sufficient payment for the debt of human sin. This literally means man’s blood was of a much higher value than all other created beings and can only point us to Adam’s blood having come from God.

This fact makes the redemption of humans a very costly purchase price as we can read in 1 Peter 1:19. This verse says that our redemption required the precious blood of Jesus to buy us back, indicating the loss that was given away when the first Adam sinned, was of such great value to God, that it was enough for Him to die personally for us to get us back. This fact demonstrates God’s immense love for His created human children.

The second reason we know Adam’s blood was from God is found in Leviticus 17:11. In this verse of the Law, God reveals the life of the flesh is in the “blood”. Therefore, if Adam had no life before God breathed into his nostrils a spirit, he also had no blood, or he would have been alive already, like all other created animals. You do understand that no other created animals have a spirit? Not a fish, not a bird, and no other land mammal has a spirit. Nothing was made in the likeness and image of God except for “man” (Genesis 1:26). This simply means Adam was not created like animals and that both the “spirit” and the “blood” had to enter Adam’s body for scripture to be truthful.

The third reason is the name that God gave to “Adam”. This name is comprised of three Hebrew alphabet letters. The first is the letter “Alef” and in the ancient Hebrew lettering is an image of an ox, a strong symbol of God. The next two Hebrews letters is the combined “Dalet” + “Mem”. These two letters spell the Hebrew word we translate as “blood”. Therefore, combining these meanings, we have the hidden message from God that Adam means “God’s blood”. Wow! That is amazing!

What we have just discovered is that Adam’s spirit originated as a gift from God. Without God there would have been no life in the formed body of the man. Therefore, what kind of life did Adam have in his spirit after creation? It had to be God’s sinless Spirit that held His nature of eternal life, the man being made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26). God is also perfect in purity and holiness (1 Pet 1:16), and this was also transferred to Adam by God’s Spirit breath. This was God’s original design for man and as we know after Adam “sinned” this caused a new problem for God to solve.

We have quickly established the human beginning of the first man was God giving Adam, His own life, spirit, and blood. But let us now look at some verses concerning an angelic beginning point next:

Eze 28:12  Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

Eze 28:13  Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

Eze 28:14  Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

Eze 28:15  Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

These are an essential set of verses to learn and know. They are written by a prophet of God, that viewed some long past ancient events that transpired before humans were created. These verses are speaking of only one angel in particular named “Lucifer” who is further described in Isaiah 14. This description reveals this being was angelic in nature, being called an anointed “Cherub” in verse 14. This being was certainly created as revealed in verses 13 and 15. We have discovered angels were created. This information teaches us clearly that angels were not in the eternal everlasting past, like God’s Spirit was. But rather that they were also created beings with a very specific beginning point, like the first man Adam. We have confirmed that Adam had a spirit, so now let us confirm angels are also spirit beings:

Heb 1:13  But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?

Heb 1:14  Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

This verse teaches us that angels were created by God to have “spirits” and that they were designed by God to minister to those that are heirs of salvation. Therefore, these angelic beings have spirits. But what about a physical body like the created man? Are they bodiless or do they have an everlasting physical body housing their spirit? If they have a body, are they everlasting or are they mortal, like man?

This would take a lot to answer these questions completely. But please understand that angels do have physical bodies. We know this because of several stories found in the Bible. For example, please see what Psalms 78:24-25 says. In this verse God claims the manna that He sent down from heaven for the children of Israel to eat in the wilderness was made from heavenly corn that God called angel food. If humans and angels can eat the same bread, this shows us that they are both designed with very similar body types. Therefore, there are important similarities and differences to the bodies of angels and humans and they both were designed as internal “spirit” containers.

Hopefully we will confirm whether these created human and angelic “spirits” have an ending point soon. But for now, the assumption appears to teach us that man and angel spirits have no ending of their spiritual life/existence since their spirits came from God the Eternal Creator Father of spirits (Heb 12:9).

Let us now shift to a very important new subject within our main subject of “spirits”, called “sin” and find its effect upon angels and humans. We will begin with the subject of angel spirits first because they existed before human spirits. If you did not know this fact, it is revealed to us in Job 38:7. In this verse God reveals when the earth and heaven was created, “the morning star sang (Lucifer) and the sons of God (angels) all shouted for joy”. Notice what God writes to us about Lucifer in the account of Ezekiel:

Eze 28:15  Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

This verse reveals when Lucifer was created (began to spiritually exist and be alive in a body), he was absolutely created as perfect and without flaws. But then God writes “iniquity” was found and this was a major problem for God, causing God to speak some very profound prophecies.

Eze 28:16  By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

This is an amazing verse of information concerning Lucifer the created anointed cherub. Notice this verse further names him to be a “sinner” that is filled with violence. But God then begins to reveal His plans for this angel. God says, “I will cast you out as profane out of the “mountain” of God. First understand “mountains are significant symbols for governments, like God’s Heavenly Kingdom”. Therefore, God is prophesying the future removal of Satan (Lucifer turned into God’s adversary named Satan) to be cast down and out from the Kingdom of God.

This is your first clue to the concept of spirit “separation”. This would be defined as God removing a sinner from His Holy presence. Whenever God says He will cast Lucifer out, indicates that this means this will be a coming event, and that it did not happen instantly when Lucifer sinned. This also strongly implies to us that Lucifer has a right to be in God’s presence for him to be forcibly cast out. Why would God allow Lucifer to stay in His presence? Here is one potential good reason:

Eze 28:13  Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created

Here we find Lucifer being described to be covered with stones. These 9 stones mentioned can be found on the High Priest’s breastplate that Moses made for God’s earthly tabernacle. This strongly implies Lucifer was the High Priest of the Heavenly temple. If you did not know there was a heavenly temple, please take the time to read the book of Hebrews. God plainly states that Moses’ temple was patterned after the heavenly one.

Just this information alone implies a lot. First there is never a mention of Satan ever being “destroyed” as in our definition of obliterated never to exist. The Hebrew word in Ezekiel 28:16 that is translated as “destroy” is “H6” and this word simply means to be “separated from”. In fact, this Hebrew word is spelled “Alef” + “Beyt” + “Dalet” and placing the ancient Hebrew letter meanings together appear to say to us “God’s House has a “Door”. This door in God’s house swings two ways. One way is for an “Entrance” and the other way is for an “Exit”. Guess which way Satan is headed for in the end?

Isa 14:12  How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

Isa 14:13  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

Isa 14:14  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Isa 14:15  Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

Wow! We are seeing the prophecy that was written over 2500 years ago about the soon coming prophesied “end of Satan”. However, pay attention there is no prophesied death ending (as in cease to exist) speaking of this created angel. God is rather only speaking of Lucifer about to “be separated” from the Kingdom of God. When we say “soon” this is potentially a point of confusion because God teaches us this ultimate end won’t happen for at least another 1000+ years. Read about it in Revelation 20:

Rev 20:2  And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

Rev 20:3  And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

Rev 20:7  And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

Rev 20:10  And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

As we can observe from these selected verses the “spirit” named “Lucifer”, “Satan”, “the serpent”, “the Dragon”, and “the devil” is eventually and totally going to be separated from the “Kingdom of God” forever and ever. This verse 10 confirms angelic spirits live forever, without any way for God to kill them. Thus, spirits once created, live forever!

This is our first clue to finding the definition to what “spiritual death” is to God. What we are learning is that angel spirits that have sinned will be permanently separated from all other spirits being thrown into a “pit” as God said would happen in Isaiah 14.

Please take notice that according to scripture there are at least 1/3 of the angels that have followed Satan. These are rebellious, evil, and appear unrepentant. Therefore, God needed a way to separate Himself being Holy and Pure. This strongly indicates that there is no salvation for the sins of angels probably because they had and have no “blood”.

Remember Adam was created with “blood” intentionally by God’s planned design and purpose. There is no mention of angels having blood in the Bible that we know of. We also know after Jesus was “resurrected” from the dead, His eternal physical body housed His Spirit which returned His physical life, and this body only had flesh and bone (Lk 24:39) and was absent of blood becoming like the angels (Mat 22:30).

Yet please notice in the Bible that there is also no immediate separation from God mentioned for their vast sins. We could explain why this is in great detail, but it would take too much detailed information for this lesson. However, we need to mention a few things to prove this to help us understand that even fallen angels can approach God’s presence even until today. We know this first because we can read the book of Job:

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.

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 have already seen where the “sons of God” sang for joy when the world was created in Job 38:7. Therefore these beings called the “sons of God” are the created angels. This knowledge helps to understand Job 1:6 much clearer.

Job 1:6 says there was a “day” when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD. The LORD is a governmental authority title for God as the Supreme Judge. Notice that Satan is in this massive presence of angels also and the LORD directs all His words to Satan. This again strongly indicates that Lucifer is the chief or head priest of the heavenly group of living beings.

This is amazing information. Please recall that Lucifer has already committed sins, rebelled against God, and has 1/3 of the angels under his authority. This means all these heavenly angels are in the presence of God as a preplanned event and that after sin, there was no casting down of any of them because they are moving back and forth from the earth as Satan mentions in verse 7 and we can read about in Genesis 28:12 where God describes a ladder that allows movement from heaven to earth.

But let us look at the time after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It is a fact that Jesus defeated Satan when He was crucified and was raised from the dead. But I have heard a lot of preachers claim that this means Satan no longer has access to go back to heaven for any reason. But this teaching violates and contradicts other verses that teach us differently:

Rev 12:7  And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

Rev 12:8  And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

Rev 12:9  And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Rev 12:10  And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

These are some of the most important verses you can learn about Satan’s soon coming demise and ejection from heaven. These verses have NOT occurred and will not occur until after the rapture. In Revelation 4:1 the voice from heaven told John to come up here, so that he could be shown things that would happen here after. This confirms this chapter 12 happens after chapter 4 and it is happening during the 7-year tribulation.

The first thing in Revelation 12:7 we find a spiritual war taking place between Michael and his angels, and Satan and his angels. Satan is unable to prevail in this war and he and all his angels are cast down. Sound familiar? This is the prophesied removal of Satan being cast down from heaven and the Kingdom of God and in verse 8, God says very clearly “Now was their place and position in heaven ended”.

Verse 10 confirms this by saying “Now has come salvation, and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ”. Wow, that is an amazing statement about the final defeat of Satan. Do you remember reading in Hebrews 1:13 where God says to Jesus, “sit at my right hand until I make your enemies, your footstool”. Apparently, Jesus while defeating Satan, is still awaiting a coming time while seated in heaven for every enemy to be placed “underfoot”. Guess when this occurs. We are reading about it right now in Revelation 12!

But the main reason we are here is because of how verse 10 ends. This is the final confirmation that Satan has access today in heaven. This ending verse clearly states, “for the accuser of our brethren, is cast down, which accused them before our God, day and night”. This is a literal statement about a spirit being named Lucifer going to heaven to accuse Christian brothers and sisters on a 24-hour basis. This heavenly visitation continues until he is cast down permanently.

Therefore, we have observed a lot essential Bible truths about angel spirits from just these few verses.

  1. Angels are created “spirit” beings having a physical body.
  2. Angelic bodies have no blood, are not mortal and do not die.
  3. Angels and humans can eat the same food.
  4. The angelic spirit also does not die or cease to exist.
  5. Sin had no immediate consequence for removal of angels from heaven. We see this from Satan appearing before God in Job 1, and we see this again in Revelation 12 when Satan is finally cast down to the earth after accusing Christians day and night before God for at least 2000 years.
  6. There is coming a single appointed time of separation from God for all sinful angelic beings.

We have only touched on this subject but have established the basic facts on angel spirits. Therefore, let us analyze the sin effect and consequences upon Adam and all humans next.

What happened when Adam sinned? Let us first go to Genesis 2 and notice what caused Adam to sin and why there were any consequences at all:

Gen 2:16  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die

God has just given man a “law” from a spoken commandment to not eat from a tree called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. If this “law” of commandment is broken, God says in the same day you eat you will die. Uh oh! What kind of death is God speaking of? Hopefully, you do understand that there are “two” kinds of death mentioned in the Bible.

But before we go to this part of our lesson, let us discover, what God says happens to the “spirits” of men and women that experience natural death on the earth? Do they cease to exist? Or do they remain eternal like the Spirit of God and angels. We will learn this answer from reading a real story that Jesus taught us about spiritual life after physical death.

Luk 16:19  There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

Luk 16:20  And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,

Luk 16:21  And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

Luk 16:22  And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;

Luk 16:23  And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

Luk 16:24  And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

Luk 16:25  But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

Luk 16:26  And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Luk 16:27  Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:

Luk 16:28  For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

Luk 16:29  Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

Luk 16:30  And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

Luk 16:31  And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Please do not show your ignorance and be foolish to leave us a comment that this is a “parable” and does not teach us anything about life after death. That is a deception and a lie from Satan to believe that. This is a literal real story of three men that lived upon the earth and died a natural death.

Two of these men have real names. Remember that Jesus never said this was a parable, and if He uses real names in a story and if it is not truthful, this makes Jesus a liar and God does not lie! Therefore, this story literally happened and is a warning to everyone to what could happen to them.

As you can see, the story is about a real man who was a beggar named Lazarus who sat outside another unnamed real rich man’s house. This beggar was in very poor health and appears to be completely disregarded and ignored by the rich man living well inside the house.

Lazarus died and his body was buried, but his spirit departs the earth to go down into an underground area which is called “Abraham’s bosom”. “Abraham” appears to be chief resident in charge in this area before Jesus died on the cross. There are good Bible reasons in Romans 4 and Galatians 3 to name two references that give us clues to why Abraham is of such importance to God and even us, now after Christ died.

However, notice the facts about the rich man after he died physically on the earth. His spirit also descended the surface of the earth, but he was not in Abraham’s realm of temporary existence. He makes the direct claim that he was in a place of fire and torment and even desired for Abraham to send Lazarus to dip his finger into a drop of water to cool his tongue.
Wow, if this story does not scare you into turning your life over to Jesus, there are no other ones in the Bible that are as graphic and plain. What we clearly discover from this real story is that “human” spirits live forever. But there are two direct after-life possibilities of eternal existence. One is a spiritual life after our natural death in an eternal torture in fire, and the other is an eternal life in a place Jesus called “paradise” to the thief that was hanging next to Him on the cross (Lk 23:43).

Also please notice that Abraham claims these two after-life realms of existence, are completely “divided” apart from each other and there is no traveling between them available. This is exactly what we saw was happening in the story of Lucifer and his destined dwelling in a pit. The pit is not the location of the Kingdom of God. These are just some of the basics of human spiritual existence. Let us review:

  1. The human spirit has a spirit origination point.
  2. Despite what some people try to teach, the human spirit is not “reincarnated” from a prior existence.
  3. From God’s description of the first man Adam, this human spirit origination appears to come from God’s Spirit
  4. Also, we have found that human spirits, like angels, have no ending point where they cease to exist or die.

There are many verses that teach us that spirits do not cease consciousness or existence. For example, Paul when speaking of his soon physical death, claimed for him to be absent from his body, is to be present with the risen from the dead eternal Lord Jesus in heaven (2 Corinthians 5:8).

However, we have also seen where human spirits that are alive forever, have two potential destination points for eternal existence after physical death. This appears to be divided into one group figuratively called the “sheep” versus the other opposite group called the “goats” (Mat 25:33).

We have not yet confirmed anything that is called “spiritual death” so far in this lesson. We have only established something called “spiritual separation” after natural death. But this is going to get a lot more interesting as we continue to learn what the Bible says. Let us go and explore the subject of the human spirit’s origination next. This should be very interesting.

Where do Spirits Come From?

This is probably one of the more difficult questions to answer. But God does give us clues in the Bible to help us understand enough to draw a sound conclusion. For example, the Bible strongly indicates by omission, that before the creation of angels and humans, there were no other spirits that were admitted existing, at least that we can find easily in the text. This fact alone points us to God as the source of all “spirits”. Therefore, the first clue given to us by God is that he chooses to write “no clue” about the existence of any other spirits. But there are also other relevant clues.

Clue number two, we can clearly read about the creation of the first man and see plainly that Adam’s spirit originated from the “breath” of God being blown into him. This is another direct reference that spirits come from God’s Spirit. Therefore, we have two witnesses that teach us the source of spirits can only be God. If you can find any contradictory verses that claim otherwise, please feel free to share them and we will look at their truth and application to our subject.

Next, we can read a New Testament verse that also indicates God to be the source of spirits. Let us turn to the book of Hebrews and read this:

Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live

As you should be able to see and understand, this verse is a contrasting comparison between two father types. The first father mentioned concerns “fathers of our flesh”. This of course the male that contributed the sperm to form a child in the female womb. This father is a totally natural reference, but it is amazing what it says and does not say.

For example, this verse does not give the sperm contributor any involvement in the baby’s spirit existence. In fact, it completely refutes the baby’s spirit coming from the natural father based upon a comparison to God who is a Spirit (John 4:23) and He is being called the “Father of spirits”.  This statement implies “ALL” spirits come from God the Father of spirits.

Therefore, we have two types of “fathers”, one is physical, and the other is spiritual. We can also take note of words that Jesus spoke in John 3:6 when speaking with a natural man about a new birth that has been prophesied. In this verse Jesus said, “That which is born of flesh, is flesh and that which is born of spirit, is spirit”. While this statement does not attribute the spirit origination being from God, it clearly says a spirit can only create a spirit. That sounds important and this confirms that since God was the only known Spirit to exist before any creation takes place, He is the only Father that can point us to their existence. This also helps us understand why angels are called the ‘sons of God” in the Old Testament.

These concepts are confirmed in another reference found in 1 Corinthians:

1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

This is a potential new controversy. The Greek word translated as “soul” in verse 45 has a larger scope definition than just a “spirit”. From this Greek word G5590 (psuche) we get the English word “psyche” having the synonyms “spirit”, “soul”, “mind”, “ego”, “essence”, etc. This Greek word has its roots in a word meaning to “blow”, and this simply means exhaling of breath, or to breathe. Therefore, the word “G5590”, figuratively means to have “life” and this goes along with Genesis 2:7, “Adam became a living soul after the breath of God entered the formed earth made body”.

Ok, we are going to quickly give an overview of the triune nature of man for the ever-increasing numbers of new readers and subscribers. Every human is a spirit, has a soul, and lives in a body (1 Ths 5:23). If there is breath in this body, there is physical life and there is access for the unseen internal spirit to communicate with God and the created world simultaneously. If the spirit leaves the physical body, the body is dead and natural communication with physical people ceases and that is not a good situation for those that have not given their lives to God to believe in His Son Jesus Christ. We will get into this more soon because this is what God is calling “spiritual death” as in the process of separation.

What we are learning is the first Adam was a human body created from dirt, and then a spirit was given to him by God, and this caused the combined spirit, soul, and body to be a natural living human able to communicate in two realms. We can see this very clearly in Genesis 2 and 3 when Adam is speaking with and listening to God’s spirit voice, and later he also hears his wife’s natural voice, confirming two realms of communications were taking place simultaneously.

This has only been a quick overview of this part of the subject of where spirits come from. But from all these clues given to us, God appears to be the only viable and powerful enough source to create all spirits, whether human or angelic. This would be a good time to mention that there are no new angels being created that we can easily find in the Bible.  But we know humans are having new babies every day. Therefore, there are still potential new spirits being created today. Let us move into this part of the lesson next and speak about babies that have spirits.

Baby Human Spirits

We need to go and find specific verses concerning naturally born babies on the earth that came out of the loins of the first created man Adam. Here are the basic questions that need answers:

  1. Where do human baby spirits come from?
  2. When is their spirit present? a. before birth or b. after birth?
  3. Are baby spirits alive or dead (separated from God)?
  4. If the Baby physically died before birth, do they go to heaven or hell?
  5. If the Baby physically died after birth, do they go to heaven or hell?

These are a lot of great questions. Does God answer them? The answer is “Yes”. God anticipated every question a human could conceive and places the answers somewhere for us to find in His Word. Are you ready? We will address the questions next.

When is the Spirit Present in a Conceived Baby?

This is a very important part of this topic that Satan does not want you to know about. Satan using cooperating humans living in the darkness of this world, has dehumanized conceptions in the womb, calling them just a blob of tissue and flesh. They have placed upon a real child, the degrading term of calling them just a generic “fetus”. This term causes a desensitized removal of thought that they are a child with an identity and personality that can be named, and that they have no “life” that can be killed.

This plan of Satan facilitates an access way for removing an unwanted pregnancy and makes the decision easier to agree with. This attempts to remove human guilt or regret for eliminating the created growing child and permits a reduction of shame and any temporary pain of conscience. This is where they have killed millions of children in the world convincing people this is not a child, but is this the TRUTH?

This is absolutely, not the TRUTH, and God speaks to this issue over and over and over in His Word. Even modern science is afraid of the TRUTH getting out. They have 3-dimensional sonograms today that show all the details of the new human and their life, a heart that beats, movements of torso, head, arms and legs, feelings, expressions, reactions to sound and pain, and sucking their thumbs and many other things that can be seen easily with modern technology.

Another modern science development has photographed the process of conception and fertilization. This is a truly amazing photo and video to observe. When the “sperm” cell encounters and enters the female egg, there is a significant flash of “light”. Scientists are trying to explain this as only a release of “zinc”, but according to scripture God is Light (1 John 1:4) and this is just a way to explain away God’s involvement in conception and the human spirit creation event at the time of conception.

From a Bible perspective, God is trying to communicate with us that this small light explosion that is clearly visible, appears to be God bringing into the single combined cell a “spirit” that obviously must come from Him (Light). This video is available on the internet when you search “spark of light fertilization”. It is easy to find, and you can judge for yourself.

Let us stop and think about the evidence of just DNA. The mother contributes half of the DNA necessary to conceive. The father of the child contributes the other half of DNA, including the sex determining chromosome either “X” or “Y”. Separated they have no ability to produce a child, but joined together they produce a single cell that is completely alive, and it begins to double itself, over and over until in a very short time, the exponentially increasing number of cells have formed a full featured child. This combined DNA of the egg and the sperm are “Life” and it is alive. Any educated scientist if they found this cell on “Mars” would claim we have found life on Mars. Why is this not considered the same here on earth?

After going through the physical evidence, let us move to the highest authority called the Word of God. God will either contradict the natural claims or agree with them. I believe True Science and the True Word of God Understanding will Always Agree! Let us find out what the Bible says on this subject:

Gen 25:21  And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.

Gen 25:22  And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.

Gen 25:23  And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

Here we have the real story of a promised son of “Abraham” named “Isaac”, who married a wife named “Rebekah”. She was barren and unable to conceive a seed. But Issac seeks the Lord, and she becomes pregnant. Uh oh, what happens next is amazing. Rebekah is pregnant with twins. There are two sons, and they are fighting against each other within her womb already. She also seeks the Lord to find out what is happening to these two womb children inside her.

In verse 23, the LORD God says to her, “Two nations are in your womb”. Let us stop immediately and analyze this statement. God has already placed an identity upon them and said each will create a different nation of people. What would have happened if Rebekah had aborted them? There would be no two nations, and no Jesus Christ since He was in one of the children to be named Jacob.

All this discussion is based upon foreknowledge. We can see that God even knows who will be born first and second, and that the elder firstborn son will serve the younger son that will be named Jacob. God obviously knows all children in the womb, believe it or not. God obviously has a plan for all children in the womb. This literally teaches us that these developing children have a spirit, and a planned life, long before birth.

This story of two brothers in a womb simultaneously teaches they are aware of each other. This is true, because they are already fighting each other, and this war makes their mother very physically aware of what is happening. Therefore, these are confirmed to be living humans that have at least some limited awareness and consciousness. They were not blobs of lifeless flesh. Any woman that has endured pregnancy has experienced this life movement inside. They can kick fairly strong, and this can be irritating, but it proves they are living. If they are living this also means they have a spirit, because the body of Adam had no life or movement until after God places a spirit inside the body.

Let us look at another example:

Jer 1:5  Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

This is one of those amazing hidden verses because a lot of people do not read the Old Covenant prophets. Here in the book of Jeremiah God makes a declaration about the man Jeremiah. God says very plainly that before Jeremiah was even conceived in his mother’s womb God already had a purpose and plan for his life. This is called “foreknowledge” and it is recorded in multiple verses of the Bible. But then notice what else God says.

The next statement is about Jeremiah in the womb. Remember this is a human male that is a descendant of the original human sinner Adam. Therefore, this man should be dead to God according to a lot of preacher beliefs and teachings. Yet God says I have already “sanctified” you while you were in your mother’s womb. This sounds a lot like the twins we just read about again, with God knowing them personally before they were born. This demonstrates God’s awareness and personal involvement in every child that has been conceived.

The Hebrew word H6942 that is translated as “sanctified” is defined as “to pronounce or observe as clean”. This is an amazing concept if you think about it. This is giving us the appearance that God is viewing humans a lot differently than religious minded humans view them. God literally, “knew” this future man, “chose” this future man, and made him “clean” long before he exited the womb of a woman. If God did this only for Jeremiah, He would be a respecter of persons, and the Bibles says God is not this way (Rom 2:11). Let us look at another human conception and birth about another prophet:

Luk 1:13  But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. 

Luk 1:14  And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth

Luk 1:15  For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb

Luk 1:16  And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God

Luk 1:17  And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord

God sent an angel to a man named Zacharias that ministered as a priest before the Lord. This meant this man was from the tribe of Levi that allowed him to be in the presence of the LORD in the tabernacle. The angel sent from God gives Zacharias a lot of information that only God could provide based upon “foreknowledge”.

The angel tells him that His wife will conceive, so it will be a natural conception and a natural birth process of 9 months of development. It is also amazing that God knows it will be male, since the father determines this by which “sperm cell” reaches the egg, either an “X” or a “Y” Chromosome will determine the sex of the child. Yet God knows exactly which one will arrive.

Now here is where it really gets interesting. The angel informs Zacharias that the developing male child will be “filled with the Holy Ghost” even while in the womb. Wow, if that is not amazing, what is? God is going to fill a developing baby’s body with His own Holy Spirit to be in full fellowship with the already present John’s spirit even before birth. This information shocks people who say abortions are just a lifeless blob of tissue and flesh. God does not view it this way at all and knows the child and their destined plan and purpose for existence long before they are born. Wake up! Let us read further down in this chapter to see what else is happening to the child John while in the womb:

Luk 1:39  And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda

Luk 1:40  And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth

Luk 1:41  And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: 

Here is another example of the internal womb “life” of a “living” human body that is alive being connected to a living human spirit. Remember what we learned from the story of Adam. There was no life, no movement, no ability to respond or communicate if there was no “spirit” in the natural body. Uh oh?

When Mary, the future mother of Messiah comes to visit her cousin Elisabeth the baby John “leaps” inside of her when sensing the presence of Messiah. This action of a child in the womb proves human life is present and a human spirit must be inside the flesh. These children in the womb can do things, sense things, and know things, much more than you can possibly imagine, and this is exactly why the devil wants to kill them all.

We have fully confirmed based upon scriptural and scientific evidence that developing babies in the womb have life and a spirit. One popular movie called “Unplanned” documented the life of a woman that previously worked at abortion clinics. This woman was asked to help a physician perform a procedure on a woman. She was tasked at holding the sonogram paddles in place so the doctor could see how to dismember the developing child to kill it.

This woman saw the reaction of the baby at each doctor attempt to pull off its legs, arms, and head. The baby could feel the pain and even moved around to try to keep it from happening. This alone proves there is life and a fighting spirit awareness in these developing children. Please do not allow this to continue taking place.

Is a Womb Baby’s Spirit Alive or Dead?

We have already seen strong evidence in the last section that babies have a spirit, and that they can be known by God and even can be filled with the Holy Spirit before birth. These types of interactions lead us to conclude that human baby spirits are alive unto God like the first Adam was before and after sin. Uh oh! What did I say? Please put down your stones until you learn what else the Bible says, first.

We have also already seen some key answers to know about the spirits of babies in the womb entering at the initial fertilization union of the two joining cells that were designed by God to become one new flesh and spirit life. This strongly implies that these babies in the womb are also fully alive and able to fellowship with God as in the case of John the Baptist in the womb of Elisabeth.

Therefore, we are entering some potential new grounds for beliefs that could certainly be controversial or even contradictory with the world, but also with many churches, pastors, and teachers of the Word of God.

In this section we are going to explore some additional scriptures about children that may rock the religious boat and mind of many Christians, especially those that tolerate or are completely passive for allowing abortions to occur.

This is our first clue that God still creates every human spirit at conception. As the reader questioned, if God gives the spirit, then it must be still made in His image (Gen 1:26). This is exactly a very true fact found in scriptures. We are about to go through some new verses that maybe you have never focused upon to see some things that will potentially change your ways of thinking about what some claim is a dead spirit as defined to be completely separated from God by the sin of the first Adam.

In 2 Samuel 12, we find the story of Bathsheba and David who had an affair and she got pregnant from it. We will not focus on all the sins that David committed during this episode. But rather we will only focus on the child that was produced and what David told us about him.

We know when this child of Bathsheba was born, David was told by a prophet that he would die because of the sins of David. David fasted and prayed hoping for mercy from God, but the child still died. After the child’s death, David said the following:

2Sa 12:23  But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.

As you can see, David is speaking of two realms of human existence. One is the natural body life of the child and the other is the after-natural-life experience of a continuing eternal spirit life. David could clearly see that the body of the dead child was still present with him, but now the spirit had departed from the body. This was the opposite of Adam’s body being formed dead and then the spirit entering to give life. In this example, the baby was born with a spirit that left the body causing the body to be dead.

David said some amazing things in this experience that is essential to see and understand about human spirits. David says, “I cannot bring him back to me (here in the natural realm), but I will still go to him (in the spirit realm when I die)”. Also note that David is not talking about him or his child going to hell here in this statement, believe it or not.

Despite Davids’ obvious imperfections, let us help to establish his righteousness. In the book of Acts, David is called a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22). If you read the Psalms that were written by David, you can find a lot of his repentance and beliefs is an eternal salvation based upon God’s righteousness. We can also see in Psalm 23, that David called God His LORD and Shepherd. Jesus Christ is also called the “Seed of David”, meaning Messiah and we find Jesus comes to the earth being called the Son of David (Mat 21:9). God had a very special relationship with David, and it looks guaranteed in scripture that David will be in Heaven when we get there.

Therefore, we can understand when David is saying “I cannot bring him back”, he is speaking of bringing his son’s spirit back from a place where righteous people are all presently gathered. Let us confirm the reality that unborn babies and even children not of the age of accountability will be taken to heaven if they die a physical death. We will only look at one statement that Paul wrote about himself.

Rom 7:9  For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

If you read the context, you will find Paul writing about the Law. In fact, in verses 1 through 8 Paul is speaking about the binding of the law to people that are under the law and have knowledge of the law. Paul also writes about how “death” separates the human from their bondage from the “law of sin through death”.

Paul makes it very clear in verse 7 of this chapter that he would not have known sin if he had not known the law. Continuing, he says he would not know that “lust” was sinful without first knowing God said “Thou shalt not covet”. Wow, this is more amazing information than you can possibly understand without God enlightening it to your spirit. Your carnal mind is not going to be able to understand this without God’s Spirit helping.

However, this chapter applies to children, and even unborn children. God is saying without the knowledge of “law”, there is not an impartation of guilt, and therefore no sin can be held against a child. Every child in the womb has an almost zero % chance of knowing what is good or evil, right or wrong. This is because they cannot speak or understand these types of complex concepts without maturity and training.

This is why Paul writes in verse 9, “I was alive once without (the knowledge of) the law”. Once Paul grew to the age of accountability, which is normally for Jews at the age of 12, they are considered able to judge right from wrong. But this is because they have all memorized the Torah before this age occurs. It is this knowledge that makes a child accountable for their sins. Once this occurs, they must choose Jesus as Lord to be saved. If this salvation decision is not reached when natural death occurs, the child/adult departs to go to hell.

This is why my wife and I’s miscarried daughter, was seen in a vision being in heaven. This is also why every aborted baby from the womb goes to heaven also. Any death of an unaccountable child will be a transportation into the presence of God automatically. This is because God is loving, just, and must judge righteously about every human the same. If you are still struggling with this information, let us confirm it again with a new set of verses spoken by Jesus:

Mat 24:15  When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) 

Mat 24:16  Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: 

Mat 24:17  Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: 

Mat 24:18  Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. 

Mat 24:19  And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days

These are verses about the rapture of the church to be taken out of the earth by a very sudden departure. These verses are written with warnings to those that have missed the rapture. But will only focus upon verse 19, because this is one about our subject of children and accountability.

In this verse Jesus said, “Woe to those (women) that are “with” child (pregnant), and to those (women) that have breast-feeding children in those days. Why does Jesus warn women about this time? It is not very complicated. This is because these two groups of children in the womb and those born below the age of accountability “WILL be taken up in the rapture”. This again is fair, just, and righteous judgements from God to save them from a certain death. Those humans that were left on earth after the disappearance of children and ready to go Christians, are warned to run away quickly without even taking any food or clothes with them. This means something is about to happen that is at any moment certain destruction.

Wow! Hopefully, this information is convincing you about the truth, that children have spirits, and they are not “dead” or separated from God until they obtain an age that they can know and make a conscious intentional decision to accept or reject Jesus.

This information also brings to question special needs children. What would happen to an autistic child that is not all there mentally? Could they seriously be held accountable to understand everything about what is right or wrong? Many do not believe so. This sounds like an opportunity for a loving God to demonstrate great mercy and compassion. I believe this is God’s heart. You can choose for yourself what you would like to believe.

We have just discovered in two sections the following scriptural facts of truth:

  1. Babies have a spirit at conception.
  2. God knows the baby, plans their destiny and purpose.
  3. God can even speak with the baby in the womb.
  4. All of this means a child’s spirit is viewed as innocent in the eyes of God.
  5. Therefore, baby spirits go to heaven if a death occurs before the age of accountability and sin awareness takes place to give the child the fair right of choice.

This was good news for those that have lost a child. If you have chosen to believe in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection and you will confess Him as your Lord (Rom 10:9-10), you will be saved to go to heaven and see your child again standing with Jesus’s loving arms around them. Let us shift to the last and another essential subject of how to define “spiritual death”.

Is there Spiritual Death?
What is “Spiritual Death” and
When Does it Occur?

Here is another popular misconception that is preached all over the church. People are widely taught that Adam spiritually died immediately after sinning. But everyone must still acknowledge that Adam lived 930 years until physical death occurred. But when does the Bible say his spirit died? Or does it say? We might be surprised what the Bible says about this subject.

In fact, this belief of spiritual death as it is taught by many pastors and Bible teachers, just does not balance with the rest of scripture when we take the time to study. Remember Paul wrote to us and said, “Study to show yourself approved, a workman, that does not need to be ashamed” (2 Tim 2:15). Therefore, we need to study this subject for ourselves, using a deeper understanding of “all” scriptures on the subject. We will begin this section on spiritual death by using verses that Jesus taught us on the existence of the “spiritually dead”.

Mat 8:21  And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. 

Mat 8:22  But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

This is a short but radical conversation between Jesus and a disciple. A certain disciple came to Jesus and asked Him, “Allow me to go bury my father”. Therefore, we have a man that has just died a natural death and his natural son has a desire to bury him, and Jesus’ reaction is more than significant.

Please let us use some spiritual common sense and see that Jesus is speaking of two different states of humans. Or more precisely two types of “death” and the “dead”. The first death type being referred to by the disciple is only “natural” death which is common to all humans after the sin of Adam (Romans 5:12). But the second type of death must be a spiritually viewed type of death because Jesus said let these types of natural people bury their own physically dead.

Jesus is implying to this disciple that he is not a spiritually dead man, therefore, Jesus was telling Him to continue to follow Him. Uh oh! Remember Jesus is speaking to a man that was not yet born again, because Jesus had not died and been resurrected. This means neither were born-again. Not the “dead” that would bury their “dead” (physically) nor the disciple that is following Jesus could be saved. Therefore, Jesus’ definitions of what a living man is, and what a dead man is, is completely different than what we have thought or heard taught before.

What was the difference between these two people types? The disciple that was following Jesus was in face-to-face personal relationship with God in the flesh, and all those not present were not known by God and did not know or speak with God. Could this be what Jesus is referring to? Does a relationship with God make the difference whether we are called living or dead to God?

This is where new controversy begins, that not too many people have ever been taught. What made this disciple spiritually alive, and other humans spiritually dead is something that we need to learn. How can we understand this based upon the fact that we have already seen clear evidence that “spirits” do not ever die or cease to exist?

Remember, we learned this concept from a story Jesus gave to the disciple about a rich man and beggar named Lazarus. In this story, both men died physically and then their spirits were carried away departing to an under the surface of the earth existence in two separated and eternally divided realms of after natural life existence. Do you remember this?

This story is essential to understanding how to differentiate those people who are spiritually alive and dead on the face of the earth while they were both physically alive simultaneously. Then knowing what happens after their natural death where their spirits departed the earth and are then divided apart from each other under the earth. Of course, this was taking place before Jesus was crucified and resurrected from the dead. This means in this story there was not, an access door named Jesus who would facilitate the human access to the Father in heaven.
This is only the beginning to help us understand what is taking place. What we are seeing, are these facts:

  1. Human spirits never die or cease to exist.
  2. However, Jesus labels some living humans on the earth as “dead” even while naturally breathing air in the flesh.
  3. According to scripture these people called dead did not have a relationship with God, speaking with Him and listening to His voice for directions.
  4. Jesus further implies there were some naturally living people on the earth that were already alive in their spirit and we have seen this more than once before in this lesson. These types of people appear to be those in intimate contact with the living God.
  5. From the story of the rich man, he was designated as “unrighteous” type of spiritually dead on the earth that continues to be separated in a lake of fire called the “tormenting” realm. According to Abraham he, must not have read and studied the Torah. Therefore, he did not know God intimately.
  6. But simultaneously the poor beggar named Lazarus is designated by implication to be “righteous” after natural death that departs to be with Abraham in the side of existence called the “comforting” realm. No doubt Lazarus had a lot of time to pray and ask God for help and assistance. There had to be some relationship with God for him to be in the righteous side of the natural dead humans.

That is a lot of new information but let us stop and go back to the beginning and work our way back up to this point of reference with Jesus walking the face of the earth in the flesh.

Please take the time to read Genesis 1, 2, and 3 again. These are all essential basics to understanding life and death both from the spiritual and natural parallel views. Take note in Genesis 1:26 God says, “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness”. Therefore, God is a speaking Spirit that is capable of the highest level of intelligent conversation and speech.

The first mention of God speaking to Adam occurs in Genesis 1:28-29. In these verses God “blessed” them by speaking the first words to them saying “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth”. Then God gives them dominion (authority) over all the works of God’s hands. This is all pre-sin conversations, and there is no mention of Adam responding. There is a presumption that implies that he heard and listened. This is first indicator that God and His man Adam had fellowship and relationship. This appears to be the plan of God for all His humans, and not just the first two.

Man was created in the same pattern of God, with the same features, characteristic, and capabilities as their Creator God. This means man was also a speaking spirit made on a slightly lower order than God (Psalms 8:4-5). Then we find in Genesis 2:15-17 God places the created man Adam in the garden that the Lord has made. Here God commands the man saying it is good to eat from every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not surely eat, for in the day you do, you shall surely die”.

Therefore, we have God being seen in the garden and again we see He is talking with Adam and giving Him one law to not eat from one tree that will cause him to die. Notice there is no mention of two deaths. Also notice God does not define death and what that means. Adam had never seen death before; how could he understand what this was? But he obviously asked no questions causing the presumption that he must have understood enough to not ask any questions.

Next in Genesis 2:19 we find God bringing to Adam every beast and bird for him to give a name. God says whatever the man calls them, that will be their name. This proves Adam knows and understands a language, has an intelligent and capable mind to understand and remember what he is doing. Clearly Adam understood the commandment that God had spoken. All of this confirms there was a relationship with Adam before sin entered the world. This according to the words we saw from Jesus meant Adam was not spiritually dead.

Next in Genesis 3:1, we find the introduction to another spirit being other than, God, Adam, and Eve. God describes this being as a symbolic “serpent” which is defined in Revelation 12 to be a representation for Satan. It is this serpent that tempts Eve and deceives her into partaking of the tree that God commanded them not to eat from. Next, we find Adam taking of the same tree being with her during the entire event. Therefore, sin has just entered the world and death by sin. Yet no one is dead. I wonder why? Did God lie or did we just misunderstand? I vote we misunderstood.

Next, we find God coming to the earth again to walk and talk with His creation in Genesis 3:8. Don’t forget who we are dealing with. God is the Creator of the heaven and the earth (omnipotent). He knows everything (omniscient). He sees everything (omnipresent). Therefore, there is nothing God does not see or already knows what has happened. But we find God the Highest and most Holy Spirit in the presence of 3 spirits that have all committed differing sins.

Do you see a problem here? How is it when preachers say that Adam died immediately in the spirit realm, that God is found in the presence of these dead sinners to be even asking questions to each of them and speaking with them all? This reality is a major problem to defining man or Satan as being spirits that were separated from God immediately after they sinned. We have already seen that Satan will not be cast into hell until at least another 1000 years from now at a specific appointed time. Does this concept of an appointed time for Satan’s spiritual death also apply to men? The answer is Yes! Let us continue to learn.

Here is what the Holy Spirit said to me this morning. God said, “Do you remember that I am the Good Shepherd?” What does a good shepherd do to save one lost sheep? He leaves the 99 and goes to find the lost sheep (Lk 15:4). Uh oh! Do you see that the first Adam was now a lost sheep that has chosen by reason of fear to depart from the presence of God and hide himself, covering his nakedness?

When God came down to the garden to talk with His lost sheep God knew exactly what had happened. God could not forgive the sin because Adam had the “blood” of God and there was not a sinless blood that could be offered to eliminate this sin permanently. However, God already had a plan knowing Adam would fail, He preplanned a Son of Adam who was also the Son of God, that could take away with His sinless blood every human sin from Adam downward.

Remember Jesus claimed to be this “God Good Shepherd” in the flesh (John 10:11). He was God (John 1:1-14), and the High Priest of God (Heb 2:17), the Temple of God (John 2:19), and the Sacrificial Lamb of God (John 1:36) in one combined package. Remember the parable of the lost sheep is found in Luke 15:4. And Jesus said He was only sent by God to the lost sheep of Israel in Matthew 15:24.

So, we have a major problem developing with the definition of spiritual death as being an immediate separation from God caused by human or angelic sin. We can find this problem continuing throughout the entire Old Testament. We find God speaking with human after human that is supposedly been separated from God by spiritual death. For example, the next time after Adam, we find God speaking to Cain after killing his brother Abel. Again, we find God dealing intimately with a lost sheep sinner man one on one. Let us look at another man that was truly amazing:

Gen 5:21  And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: 

Gen 5:22  And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 
Gen 5:23  And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:

Gen 5:24  And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

Enoch is one of the most amazing men in the Old Testament. He only has a select number of verses, but these words contradict the belief of immediate separation from God after sin is present. Notice God writes that Enoch walked with Him for 300 years.

This sounds a lot like Adam with God walking in the garden to fellowship. It should be becoming clear that man was created to have fellowship with God, and this continued even after sin.

Therefore, there is no separation from God if man is willing to communicate with God as we are discovering. It appears man is considered alive to God, if they speak to Him and walk with Him following His directions being in relationship with Him.
But here is the most amazing fact about Enoch. Genesis 5:24 says, that Enoch walked with God so closely that God just took him from planet earth in a rapture like event. This means Enoch’s spirit, soul and body were all removed from the earth simultaneously. This fact alone refutes the belief that all humans were eternally lost and separated from God.

What made Enoch so special to God. We are given to clues to this relationship God to man, man to God relationship. Let us look at the first to realize what causes God to be able to fellowship with some sinners and not others.

Heb 11:5  By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

This verse is found in the Hebrews 11 “Hall of Faith”. This literally means Enoch pleased God by walking with God in faith. We know this because the next verse after this one says, “But without faith it is impossible to please God, because he that comes to God, must believe that He is (exists) and that He is a rewarder to those that diligently seek Him”. This is the major reason why Enoch was raptured off the planet long before Jesus ever died to save anyone. This is the most significant reason we have that contradicts why humans are not dead spiritually until the appointed time that we have not yet learned. The only other N.T. reference to Enoch is found in Jude:

Jud 1:14  And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

Here we have another amazing statement that Enoch prophesied about the LORD coming with ten thousand of his saints. This proves Enoch walked with God so closely that God gave him future prophetic visions of Jesus coming back to the earth in the 2nd Advent. These examples, show why God was so pleased with a man that He took him without seeing natural death.

There are countless other O.T. opportunities to view God speaking with human sinners that supposedly had dead spirits. There is Noah in Genesis 6:8-13. There is God speaking to Abraham in Genesis 12-17 and beyond. We find God speaking with Jacob in Genesis 35:1. We find God speaking with Moses in Exodus 3:14.  In Numbers 22:12 we find God speaking with “Balaam”.  We find God speaking directly to Solomon in 1 Kings 3:11.

There are other examples of God speaking with David, Joshua, and many other prophets, priests, and kings. These are all problems for defining man to have a dead spirit that is implied to be separated and unable to hear from God! Let us observe one modern definition for their modern view of spiritual death:

Spiritual death: is the separation of the soul from God. In Genesis 2:17 God tells Adam that in the day he eats of the forbidden fruit he will “surely die”. Adam does fall, but his physical death does not occur immediately; Therefore, God must have had another type of death in mind – spiritual death.

This was a very classic and traditional attempt from human reasoning to define what spiritual death is. This definition uses human thinking and terms with complete disregard for God’s definitions and thoughts. Therefore, we need to refocus what was written, what was said, and what happened to a new God definition and viewpoint for spiritual death to remove the carnal human reasoning factors that can only produce error. Here is the verse as spoken by God to Adam:

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Here is a new way to view this verse that eliminates the erroneous explanation for why Adam did not die the moment he partook of the deadly poisonous fruit. The key word that is being defined wrongly is “day”. This is because to a human we live every 24 hours as one day. This is not how God is defining or applying this word H3117 that was translated as “day”. There are literally several different ways this “word” is used in the Bible. Here is a list of some of them:

  1. A Day = The Sunny Hot 12 Hours of a Day from Sunrise to Sunset, and the opposite would be Night! (Genesis 1:5, called Light Day)
  2. A Day = 24 Hours of Time from One Sunset to the Next Sunset including evening (night) and morning (light) (Genesis 1:5, the First Day).
  3. A Day = Meaning a Single Connected Period of Time describing an event, as in “the Day of the Lord” when God created the heaven and the earth (Gen 2:4).

These are just three examples of the definition of a “day”. But there are others, and the key one that we need to learn from to apply is found in Psalms:

Psa 90:4  For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

The Hebrew word translated as “yesterday”, is the same Hebrew word H3117 that is found in Genesis 2:17 used to describe “the Day you eat”. Notice what this verse in Psalm 90:4 says, “A thousand years in your sight, is a day”.

The Hebrew word translated as “sight” is H5869 (Ayin) and this word is normally translated as “eyes”. Therefore, we are getting a new God defined perspective to how He views and sees what a “Day” represents. Instead of us trying to define a “day” to be 12 hours, 24 hours, or the time of an event, let us see if this God view works out better.

Gen 5:5  And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. 

God writes and informs us that all of Adam’s days that were lived was 930 years. It is interesting how God used the same Hebrew Word H3117 this time translated as “days” in a count of years lived. Let us take out the “plural” form from the verse and say it using the literal “Day” translation:

Gen 5:5  And all the day that Adam lived was nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

That is amazing when you see it. God has just written to us and said, of the “Day” (1000 Years, Ps 90:4) that God had spoken of in Genesis 2:17, Adam only lived 930 years. Now let us go back and see how this fit in to the words spoken in Genesis 2:17:

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day (1000 years) that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (930 years).

Here is another nugget of meat to chew on. If we take 1000 years as 1 Day and subtract 930 years of total Adam lifespan, we get the remainder of 70 years. Therefore, 70 years is the remainder of God’s Day definition that Adam live short of fulfilling one day of God’s existence limit for sin. In other words, Adam living short of 1000 years matches God’s Word of warning. It appears that God was speaking of only natural death, so far.

Did you realize that in Psalm 90:4 God used the word Ayin which is the spelled out Hebrew word for the Hebrew letter “Ayin”. This letter and word both mean “eye”. But the Ayin alphabet letter, also has a gematria value of “70”. We are confirming how it was God’s view of a day that was used to define what He spoke when He told Adam when he would die. This Day of death for sinning was within a 1000-year timed maximum God calls 1 Day. God foresaw this happening and now we have eliminated the confusion of the need to define what a spiritual death represents to God also using our own human reasoning.

Therefore, we are still in need of knowing what spiritual death more fully represents to God’s view, omitting our opinions. Do you recall that we found there was an exact time of separation of Satan from God? We found this in Revelation 20. If spiritual death is a separation from God, there appears to be an appointed time when this event begins and then it continues to occur without a course of reversal. Therefore, true spiritual death appears to be a separation from God but only from a timed beginning with a never-ending separation experience apart from God. If this was true for Satan, could it also apply to humans? It appears so, based upon what we learned from reading Luke 16 with the death of the rich man and Lazarus. Let us look at a new scripture that helps us understand this better:

Heb 9:27  And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Notice what God says and reveals to us in this verse. This verse plainly states, “man is guaranteed once to die, and after this comes the judgment”. Wow, this sounds important. Please never forget, that God is LOVE (1 Jn 4:8)! Also, we must remember that God is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

Can you see where God is taking us? Remember earlier what the Lord said about “Him being the good shepherd that would leave the 99 saved sheep to go out and find the single lost one”. We are discovering that all humans even, those that commit sins like Adam, or differently than Adam have an opportunity for relationship with God. This would include humans submitting to God, as well as fellowshipping with Him. This as we saw in 2 Peter also involves human repentance for sins.

In other words, God has not closed the door for any human to know Him. He desires us all to be saved. He seeks us out and looks for ways to get our attention to cause us to come to Him and want relationship. This was true from Adam to Jesus, and is still true for the church from Jesus, the Last Adam to the end of this age. Those in the O.T. were given opportunity to gain righteous relationship with God and be saved on credit, waiting for the blood payment of all sin by Jesus on the cross. But us after the death, burial and resurrection, can just hear about Jesus, and turn to believe in Him and confess Him as Lord and we are brought in completely by Faith in His works. Let us end this section with God’s definition of “spiritual death”:

Rev 2:11  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

Here Jesus is speaking to the church a warning. Jesus is very clear that those in the church that overcome, shall not be hurt of the second death. Therefore, there is a second death that occurs after the first natural and physical death.

Rev 20:14  And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

Here is God’s definition of “spiritual death”. It occurs when people and angels are cast into the lake of fire in the heart of the earth. The rich man that died in Luke 16 was thrown there and is still there now. He asked Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers on the earth so they would not come to this place where he was. But Abraham said, they have the Word of God to read so they may not go there. Uh oh? This appears to say reading and studying God’s Words are a part of having a relationship with God.

Here are some basic rules to help us learn the truth to what spiritual death represents.

  1. Spirits do not ever die or cease to exist. Therefore, once a spirit comes into existence, they are alive for ever.
  2. Spirits of humans can choose to walk with God and live being in relationship with Him causes spiritual life.
  3. A human spirit if it is in a human body can be in relationship with God to be saved.
  4. A human spirit in a human body, without any relationship with God is considered dead already.
  5. It is only the spirit that leaves the body of a human without remaining in relationship with God that will be apart from God eternally in the Lake of Fire, called the 2nd death.

Conclusion

Thank you very much for taking the time to read and study the Bible with us. We love you all more than words can describe. The hundreds, and thousands of hours spent here to provide these Bible study lessons is our complete pleasure to share with the body of Christ as well as anyone else that is willing to read.

Hopefully you have learned a lot today, that you never saw before in the Bible. This subject was significantly shortened because of the amount of information that is given to us by God on these subjects. This subject of Jesus coming to the earth to give us spiritual and physical life to saved us from the everlasting spiritual death separation demonstrates His infinite love. Thank you, Jesus! Hopefully you have learned that every human spirit is spiritually “alive” and capable of being saved as long as they are abiding in their mortal body. Any human on earth has the ability to cry out to the LORD and He will answer them. This can become the beginning of your relationship with God.

Do you remember the parable that Jesus taught on the “Prodigal Son”? In this story of Luke 15, Jesus taught about a young son that left his father’s house after demanding his inheritance. This son went out into the world and had a party with all the money until it was gone. Then the desperate son while feeding pigs, came to himself and deceived to repent and return to his father. The father saw him returning a very far distance off and ran to him and kissed him.

In Luke 15:24, the father in this story told by Jesus confirms what being dead represents. While the son was apart from his father, there was no relationship together between them. The father calls this a son who is dead. But it was when the son returned that the father threw a party to welcome his son back into relationship to the family. This is very profound. I taught us death (spiritually) is being separated from Father God. We choose to do this of our own will. Therefore, to return to father is also our choice. This helps us significantly to understand what spirit life is and what spirit death is. by God’s definition.

If you have had an abortion or have lost a child, they are alive and waiting for you in heaven. They are not mad at you. They actually love you very much. There is hope for an eternal reunion in heaven. If you have not forgiven yourself, God loves you so much that He sent someone to write you a letter to help you get through this life. God has already paid for all sins, but we must humble ourselves and go to Him and receive His forgiveness. It is a free gift, just ask and take it by faith. If you have not ever accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, to make a relationship with Him, this is a perfect time to do so. Please go to the link at the bottom and click on it to find out how to be saved from hell.

God bless and keep you all, the day of the Lord’s return is closer than ever. Get ready for His return, and stay ready, it could be today!

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Understanding the Sovereignty of God Part 1 – Introduction

(Ver 1.1) This will be “Part 1” in a series, concerning one of the essential subjects in Understanding God’s “Sovereignty”. This is a Bible Basic topic that is needed to be understood so that we as Christians know what is happening to us and why. But this lesson will attempt to teach new Christians and continuing disciples of Jesus that desire to know God’s Word of Truth, the basic concepts of balancing God’s “sovereignty”, with His revealed, integrity, nature, and character written in His Holy Word.

Today’s lesson is specifically and entirely focused on introducing the controversial and massively misunderstood subject of God’s “Sovereignty”. The Bible has a substantial amount of information on this subject. We can find examples of God’s sovereignty from Genesis to Revelation. But many times, people take these concepts as the only truth, ignoring all other truths.

There are numerous beliefs to what this word “sovereignty” means, and many range from one extreme of error even continuing to the opposite realm of extreme error. In today’s lesson will learn a little bit of what God’s sovereignty represents, but mainly focus a lot on what God’s sovereignty is not. Here are two major extreme areas of certain error:

  1. The first extreme area of error is that God is absolutely “sovereign” and is in control of everything that happens in the world down to the smallest detail. This belief states God plans even evil to achieve an ending good result for the goal to win the final game. It is like sacrificing your pawn in chess as a necessary evil, to later gain a more significant advantage over your enemy. This is commonly based upon the Book of Job and an incorrect interpretation of what is revealed to be happening.
  2. The opposite extreme of error is an atheistic viewpoint that there is no God that is helping or doing anything to stop evil and therefore everything that happens is an accidental fate, or chance. Many call this Murphy’s Law, being based upon the humanistic “bad luck” theory of existence. This belief conforms to “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong” or even saying, “Whatever, will be, will be”, both not involving the existence of a God that created us, loved us, and wants to help us.

Both extremes are ignorant realms of belief that were intentionally designed by Satan, to potentially lead humans to their demise (Hosea 4:6). Too many Christian minds have been vastly influenced to be deceived into believing corrupted meanings of God’s definition of this word “sovereign”. These tricks of deception can cause some people, even the real saved Christians to believe that everything that happens to us in the world, whether it be something good, or evil, it must be a “sovereign” work of God’s powerful, forceful, and controlling hand. But is that what the Bible teaches us when we want to see God’s actual rightly divided and balanced TRUTH?

In this lesson we will be looking at a lot of Bible verses that may not normally be taught on this subject of the Sovereignty of God. Some of these things we will be looking for our answers to how we address the difficult questions asked by too many people in the church and in the world. For example:

  1. Is God only good? Or is God only evil? Or is God both?
  2. Is God’s Will Always Done?
    • If “no”, why not?
    • If “yes”, does anyone else have the free will to choose anything? Does God override the will of others?
  3. Does God intentionally use evil to achieve and ending that is “good”?
  4. Does God use evil to correct or train His creation?
  5. If God is “good” and “sovereign”, why does He permit “evil”?
  6. If Satan is the source of evil, why didn’t God throw him into hell instantly the moment evil was discovered?
  7. Why does God warn us about people who call good evil and evil good, if His will is always done?

These are all great questions, and you may have others that need to be addressed. If this is true, please leave them in a comment.

Always know that there is a real God, who created everything, He is a God who is very concerned with saving people out of going to hell. This is a major fact of scripture. After all, for our God to come to the earth to become an intimate part of His own creation to personally die on a cross to shed His blood to save us, was the ultimate display of Love from anyone! We can also see that the choice to become a human to die is one of the greatest examples of the “sovereignty” of God. But even this choice must be balanced with the motivation of God’s “Love”, as being one of the primary reasons for this divine sovereign choice. Let us begin to go through the Bible to study this subject, to find if God is to blame for all “evil”.

Here are the topics that will be covered today:

  1. Our Most Basic Question. Is God Sovereign?
  2. Knowing and Balancing All of God’s Divine Characteristics
  3. What God’s Sovereignty Is Not
  4. Rightly Dividing God’s Word. Balancing Sovereignty in the Bible.
  5. Human Ways are Not God’s Ways
  6. Another Deception: Is Lucifer the Sovereign God’s Servant
  7. Conclusion

Our Most Basic Question
Is God Sovereign?

No one should ever claim that GOD is not Sovereign. If this is done, this is the first indicator of deception taking place. For example, teaching evolution without the inclusion of God’s intelligent design and hands on involvement is a major extreme lie. Nothing comes into intelligent order as our universe is, without the involvement of a far superior designer.

Therefore, when God created the entire perceivable universe without obtaining our permission or advice to how it should be made, as we know He did (Ps 33:6), this clearly demonstrates His highest ability to do anything that He pleases.

Then for us to know that He adds humans one by one onto the earth today, in certain locations born to very specific parents without asking permission of any of us that are here, this again signifies the sovereign nature of God. We can clearly see that God did not ask any human if they wanted to participate in His creation, to be born into this combination of a good and very evil world.

Not even the first created human that God called Adam, was a willing participant (Gen 2:7). Nor was Adam’s wife called Eve, asked if she wanted to become the mother of all the living on the earth (Gen 2:18). Neither Adam nor Eve participated in how they were created. No human has ever been asked about their opinion if they desired to participate within creation or that they should have a say in God’s callings, giftings and talents that were given to each of us (1 Cor 2:11).

No human was asked how tall they wanted to be. No human was asked what color hair, what shade of skin, what eye color, what sexual gender, etc. These are all visible signposts of God’s sovereign works. These can be easily found everywhere, and in everyone.

Let us go back before humans were created and enquire were any of the angels asked about their participation before they were created to serve God? Were any of the angels of God asked what role they would play in the Kingdom of Heaven? Were they also created without asking for their approval to cooperate or obey their Creator? If you can find a verse in the Bible that says God needed to check with anyone before they were created, please share it with everyone.

All these facts demonstrate that God is sovereign, and He has far superior abilities and knowledge over any of us. Therefore, if everything came from Him, this logically makes Him greater than everything else that was made by His hands.

This would be analogous to a human creating a rocket ship. The created ship would be of no ability to create itself without the maker’s involvement. Therefore, the created rocket ship would be subject to its sovereign human creator because it had no say for its existence or purpose to be created without the creator’s participation to design it.

But there might be some difficulty or challenge for us to be in complete unity and agreement when we are trying to define the word “sovereign” in the created human relationship with our creator God. This is because humans are not inanimate objects like a rocket ship that is void of emotions, memories, mental reasoning abilities, freewill choice rights, strength, power, etc. Humans were created far differently than a rocket ship that is only capable of an artificial intellect.

Humans were made in the “image” and “likeness” of their creator God (Gen 1:26). This means humans are more like God than any other part of His creation. A human is not a monkey, nor a whale, nor a cow, nor a bird, nor an insect, etc., nor like any of those that cannot comprehend, understand, create, speak, love, or believe. Humans were even created on a higher level than angels (Ps 8:4-5). In these verses the word translated as “angels” should have been “God” (Elohim).

God made us to be and to act exactly like Him (Ephesians 5:1). Therefore, whatever God is, we were made to be of the same class and pattern of similarity with Him but on a slightly lower order (Psalm 8:5).

Knowing and Balancing
All of God’s Divine Characteristics

To define and understand God’s “sovereignty”, we must also know that God possesses other major qualities that are as strong and/or equal as being sovereign. Every one of His God revealed qualities must be balanced together with each of the other qualities. In other words, one God quality is not going to conflict, contradict or oppose any other of God’s personality characteristics. Here is a quick list of some of the major reveal characteristics describing God. He is:

  1. Holy
  2. Eternal
  3. Immutable
  4. Omnipotent
  5. Omnipresent
  6. Omniscient
  7. God is LOVE
  8. Reigns as Sovereign

This list represents the basis of absolute “truth” concerning God’s unchanging personality and characteristics. Each of these qualities could be a separate lesson series. Therefore, they will only be mentioned in a very short introduction of each sub-topic of our main subject of “sovereignty”.

First notice that God is said to be “Holy”. This is an essential topic to know about God. Revelation 4:8 describes 4 created beings that surround the throne of God and day and night, they cry “Holy, Holy, Holy” to the “Lord God Almighty”. This verse also says they are crying “to Him that was, is, and is to come”. This verse is amazing because it mentions 3 of God’s qualities at the same time. Did you see them? These were Him being “Holy”, Him being “Almighty”, and Him being “Eternal”.

Notice that these creatures are declaring with the emphasis of saying it three times, God is exceptionally Holy. Holiness appears to be one of God’s most awesome qualities of needed focus and emphasis. Therefore, this word and description can never be omitted when discussing any other divine characteristic like the concept of what is “sovereignty”.

To be “Holy” must include at the minimum, that God is “Pure”, “Sinless” (Morally Blameless), and it certainly implies that God is of the Highest order of “Perfection” apart from “sin”. This simply means God would never desire to do evil, be evil, or be judged as evil. He is clearly so “Pure” that there is no possibility of evil intents or desires to be in Him.

Next, God is eternal with no beginning and no end (Ps 90:2). Placing this together with God’s Holiness that teaches us there is no existence of “sin” or “evil” in Him, in the past, present, or future. This is more important than you know when defining the word “sovereign”. This simply means there are possible “evil” sovereign rulers that people try to imagine God to be like, and this is impossible based upon His Supreme Holiness.

Next, most agree that God is not shifting, variable or ever changing, and this is called being “immutable” (Mal 3:6, James 1:17). This quality of being unchangeable, combined with God’s quality of Holiness means we can depend upon and trust in what God promises us. If God promised us anything in His Word, it is a violation of divine moral character for God to change His mind. This makes it impossible for God to break a promise unlike humans. We confirm this by reading Hebrews 6:18 where it is clearly stated that it is “Impossible for God to Lie”.

Therefore, we just learned another “limitation” to what it means to be “sovereign” when applied to “God”. We have discovered that God will never “Change”, “Sin” or “Lie” even if He could, because it would violate His true unchanging character and moral values.

Next, God is said to be “omnipotent”, meaning He has supreme power (Col 1:16, Ps 19:1-4, Heb 1:3). This simply teaches that with ultimate power, God is certainly capable of doing anything. Again, this supreme power must be confined to the self-imposed limitations that God has placed upon Himself by His sovereign will. This reveals another quality that God possesses. It is called “self-control”. This means God has enough power to not get angry and say and do things that He would regret later.

Next, most agree that God is “omnipresent”, meaning there is no place where we can be, that He is not already there.  Proverbs 15:3 says, “God’s eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good”. This simply means there is no location whether the created natural realm or the spiritual eternal realm, where God is not, which brings us to the next quality omniscient.

The next quality is about God being called “omniscient”. This word means there is nothing that God does not already know (Ps 139:1-6). This means, He sees all, hears all, knows all and is the only one that can always judge righteously in all matters. This literally means that God knows all the internal thoughts and intents of the human mind and heart, even if they are not spoken. Wow!

Next, let us consider what 1 John 4:8 teaches us. In this verse of scripture, God claims Himself to be LOVE. This does not say He has Love; it is more direct to be used as a noun and not a verb. Love as a verb denotes a potential emotional state of varying degrees and potential to shift to the opposite extreme of “hate”. But this would contradict with the immutability of God.

Therefore, every other characteristic of God must be defined in relationship to what Love is as defined by God. We can learn this type of divine love by reading 1 Corinthians 13:1-8. These verses describe a supernatural experience of a type of LOVE that few if any humans have fully attained. This type of LOVE is always patient, always kind and that causes most people to fall short immediately.

This type of LOVE only thinks good God thoughts towards every human, again what human has attained to this? But word descriptions like this give us a picture of a much different type of God than most know or understand. Therefore, we must apply all these words in this verse to our definition of the concept of God’s sovereignty.

Finally, God is considered “sovereign”. Meaning He does not answer to any higher authority. But as we have discovered God has implemented self-imposed limitations upon His desires, thoughts, choices, and actions, that will reduce the scope of God’s choices that He is willing to make. Let us talk about this subject more next.

What God’s Sovereignty Is Not

We are about to discover one variation of a wrong type of sovereignty that is being cast upon God to violate His character and nature that we have just learned. Remember whatever our understanding of “sovereignty” is, it cannot corrupt God’s Good character or standards of moral values.

What does it mean to you, for God to be sovereign? How exactly would you define this word? Does this word mean to you that God is making everything that happens to you whether good or evil to happen? Does God’s sovereignty mean that He is making the angels do everything that they do? Does God’s sovereignty mean that He is controlling every moment of your day, your thoughts, your actions, what you say, what you eat, when you sleep, etc., and that He has made you to be an unwilling participant to not be able to choose anything for yourself?

We could not agree with that type of definition of “sovereignty” in any way. That would make God the creator, a maker of mechanical angels and humans that were only made to be game pieces in a complex game for God to sovereignly move around and control. This would further cause us to believe that we were only made to be like mindless robots, and God was the string-pulling puppet master and our programmer, controlling us all through methods of divine robotic programming.

However, this is what many preachers preach. We have heard preachers say something like, “God has everything under control”. This phrase can be heard on many popular Christian television networks and ministry teachings. But is this a true statement as it is believed? Does God have complete control over the thoughts, motives and acts of every human, angel, devil, or demon within His creation? If He does, then God has a severe problem for us to understand His true nature, characteristics, and moral values based upon what we see all His creation doing to each other.

If God has everything under His full powerful control, and He causes everything on the earth that people claim to happen, our God comes across to us as looking to have a shifting an ever-changing set of values based upon favoritism to be good to some and evil to others. Wouldn’t this cause our God to appear to be double minded or to have a schizophrenic personality? The word schizophrenic comes from two Greek words meaning “split” and “mind”. This sounds like the word “double-minded” we have read about in the Bible.

Would God tell us to not be double-minded (James 1:8) and it would be fine for Him to be this way? If this is correct, then this belief contradicts with being made in His image. No scripture when correctly interpreted is in contradiction with any other.  James 1:8 informs us that a human that is double minded is unstable in all their ways. Then take what God says in James 2:1 and learn that if we have any respect of one person over another, we are committing sin.

Apply what God says to us (His creation made in His image) back to Himself as our Creator. Being made in His image and after His likeness, it is logical to conclude that as He is, we should be the same. Therefore, God must not be double minded or show favoritism, since this is what He instructs us to do. If God is double minded, He also would be unstable, unreliable, and we could not depend upon anything that He would ever say or do. If God has one respect for one person over any other, He too would be guilty of the sin that He told us not to do.

Therefore, to kill some people and then to save others clearly is both double minded and a respect of some people over others. This is very troubling to see that this is how some people believe God is. Consequently, if being made in His image, we are instructed to be single minded and no respecter of persons, that must be how God is also.

But this wrong definition of sovereignty to mean controlling everything, is exactly what people claim God is doing, without realizing it, when they say God creates earthquakes, tornados, cyclones, tsunamis, floods, rockslides, avalanches, etc., that can potentially kill thousands of people instantly. What about plane crashes, automobile wrecks, buses going off a bridge into a river, boats being capsized by a storm, trains that derailed, wildfires started by a man or lightning, terrorist bombs, etc. What about wars between nations where there are many deaths of the populations?

If God is creating situations to kill people today, after He personally came to the earth 2000 years ago, to save all these people (Jn 3:16) that are claimed to have died by an act of God, this is the type of behavior of a split personality like a Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of God. This type of God would cause us all to ask, “Whose personality will manifest today?” If you do not know the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde it is based upon a fictional story about a single man that takes the appearance as being two kinds of men. One appeared evil and the other was good.

Are we not living in the church age of divine Grace and favor? Most educated Bible scholars agree that we are in the “Dispensation of Grace”. If so, can we trust in and depend upon a loving and caring covenant God to continue in this covenant until the end? Or do we need to fear the hand of God to kill us and throw us into hell suddenly and unexpectantly because we have had a bad day or have made a mistake and lack His perfection? Or maybe we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, where an evil was happening? Were these God’s doings?

In insurance policies and on news programs, they claim many types of natural disasters are “Acts of God” implying sovereign control and intentions. In church funerals some claim that a premature death of a child was for God’s unknown purpose and plan, and it was known by God’s will and purpose to be for good, and it will work out all for our good also eventually. Therefore, God gets the blame for killing innocent children.

Too many preachers claim God’s ways are mysterious and beyond our ability to comprehend so that we are unable to know or understand why our spouse died young. But they claim after we die and go to heaven, we will suddenly be able to understand it. Other preachers just say, “it was just their time to go”. These types of statements imply to us that every death that has occurred on our planet was a “God” designed, planned, and timed event.

We have only begun to see that none of these types of works should be found in the definition of God’s sovereignty. We are only beginning to see what a one sided and perverted definition of “sovereignty” is. Now let us begin to learn what the Bible says about how to rightly divide God’s word.

Rightly Dividing God’s Word
Balancing Sovereignty in the Bible

We have just briefly discussed one area of extreme “sovereignty” where God is accused of doing every evil type of work against His creation. But “Extremism” is just one potential way to bring error into understanding God’s Word. There is a second major popular source for “error” and “misunderstanding” of the Bible called “exalting one truth to be the only truth” of scripture.

Do you know how many truths are given to us by God in the Bible? There are more truths given to us by God than we can know or understand completely. This knowledge teaches us that what we know about a subject is far less than what we need to learn about the subject. It is pride to believe that any of us are experts on any subject. Only God understands it all.

What does it mean to “exalt” one truth. This simply occurs when a person takes a single verse of scripture to be the only truth, in exclusion to every other verse of scripture truth. This practice of “making a truth” the highest “truth”, promotes one limited amount of truth to be the only truth that is needed to understand the subject fully. But this is a major cause of wrong interpretations and understandings.

God’s book of truth is comprised of limitless threads of precisely chosen words containing specifically selected alphabet letters where each word is very exactly placed in what many people would describe as being in random order. But that belief of randomness is wrong. Every single letter, word, sentence, paragraph, and book has infinite wisdom hidden in its design. This book was written by the “All Knowing” God. He knows exactly why every word was chosen and why it was placed at its location in the Bible.

But we still know that any Bible subject can be found anywhere in the Bible, from the beginning to the end. Any word and subject can be defined, explained, and commented upon by God anywhere else in the Bible He chooses. God can describe ending future events in the first chapter of Genesis. God can describe pre-creation events before humans, in Ezekiel and Isiah or anywhere else He selects. Therefore, not everything in the Bible is in “chronological” order. In fact, most things are not in exact timed order.

Also, God can teach a subject, by providing just a living example of it, without ever mentioning the subject being described or taught. For example, Hebrews chapter 11 is what many call the “Hall of Faith”. In this chapter God describes that each of these mentioned people exhibited significant levels of faith yet reading the stories in the Old Testament in isolation, you would never know this was one of the key subjects being taught.

But one of the most essential elements of understanding scriptures is to understand they are “ALL” about Jesus Christ in some way, even if it is hidden from plain view (Jn 5:39, Rev 1:8). These are just some of the examples of God’s “sovereignty” to how He chooses to lay out truth in the Bible. Not everything is obviously stated, God has sovereignly chosen to hide many truths (Prov 25:2).

This simply means when we look at one verse of scripture, in one book of the Bible, and we are not seeing the other threads on the same subject we are omitting some potentially valuable information to understand our desired subject.

However, each thread of truth overlaps other threads of truth to bring even more revelations of truth connections. Always remember that the ultimate big picture of the Bible will reveal and lead us to Jesus, including every alphabet letter, word, sentence, scripture, chapter, and book, will only guide us to the masterfully designed big-picture image of the knowledge of Jesus (Eph 1:17).

The Bible is like an intricate woven fabric of Truths with many of them placed in what appears to be random order of diversely scattered patterns. God can even in one single verse cause an overlap of multiple threads of truth subjects to be discussed and revealed. These threads can tell a natural story on the surface and a hidden prophetical spiritual story in the same words. This is why we need the Author of the Bible to live in us, to help us and guide us into what He wants to teach us about any given subject.

2Ti 2:15  Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth

Why is it necessary for us to rightly “divide” God’s Word? This is a great question. It first teaches us that there are many potential ways to wrongly divide it. We can hear many conflicting viewpoints on scriptures concerning the subject of “sovereignty”, but we must realize that only God’s viewpoint will prevail if we accept it.

Does this mean this lesson on sovereignty is the only right one? Absolutely not, every Bible teacher is ignorant of the complete truth that only God knows. This lesson while not perfect will present how God has revealed the subject to one teacher. You are required to study to show yourself approved as we have just read, to verify everything that is taught here is what God shows you to also be true (Acts 17:11).

We have just explored some basics about one extreme position of authority, that many believe is in error, including us. This belief system discounts human responsibility and participation in the plan of God for our lives. There are too many people that are blaming God for something bad that has happened to them, and we are about to further see in this section that it was not God that was doing it. Let us begin to analyze how to rightly divide the subject of God’s sovereignty.

Are words spoken by people blaming God for evil, truthful? Does any of these types of words that are blaming God for evils and deaths, help us to be comforted in our times of grief? No, they do not. This is because they are not based upon the fuller balanced truth. These types of beliefs and descriptions of God committing evil to kill children, men, women, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, etc., conflict with the real Bible when discovered, rightly divided, balanced, and understood. Look at this Bible verse to learn a set of necessary new subjects that will help us begin to understand God’s truth on “sovereignty”:

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.

Uh oh! The concept of “sovereignty” or being “sovereign” is never mentioned in this verse. Therefore, what does it have to do with our subject? This is just one example of how a subject can be hidden within words that never mention a study subject directly.

What we should first know is that this verse came from words spoken by Jesus Christ while on the earth. Therefore, this is the sovereign God manifested in the flesh who is speaking. Knowing this fact alone, it must have something to do with our subject even if it is not directly stated.

Let us begin by asking a basic question. If God is completely sovereign and His will is always done, why is there a thief on God’s created earth who is stealing, killing, and destroying His creation and his created people?  Why doesn’t God do something about this part of His creation while He is encountering him in person?

Based upon what some people believe about God they are claiming God is either the thief or He must be allowing the evil one to do these evil works. Is this “thief”, God’s manifested evil sided personality and mind? If so, this means He is committing evil. But did you ever see Jesus commit any evil acts while on the earth? Jesus very plainly stated, “When you have seen me, you have seen my Father”. Therefore, whatever Jesus did on the earth is a revelation of the true nature of God. Consequently, this teaches us that God is not doing evil from heaven to anyone.

Or is God who is described to be abundant in goodness just allowing evil to occur? If He is allowing evil to exist, why? Does this mean the omnipotent and omniscient God who certainly had the power, ability, and the knowledge to stop all evil has chosen intentionally to ignore evil and just allow it to go uncontrolled?

We also know that God is not this thief because Jesus (God in the flesh) is comparing Himself in John 10:10 to be the life giver, and this is described in direct contrast and opposition to this thief that kills. Therefore, they must be two separate “living beings”, one that is God/Good, and one that is the devil/evil.

It is interesting to see even the words are connected to show what each are. One adds another “o” to “God” to reveal Him as “good”, and the other removes the letter “d” from “devil” to reveal him as evil. Therefore, God “adds”, and the devil “subtracts” and takes away. This is very profound to see. If you apply this knowledge to understanding the book of “Job”, you will figure out who to blame for what.

We must also logically conclude that since God has not fully dealt with this being that is the source of all evil, there must be some reasons why God has not ended this wicked one’s involvement from human life completely. In fact, if you study this out in the Bible, this devil will not be permanently removed until over 1000 years from now. There will be a 1000-year period that he will be confined in the pit, but God releases him for a short time after this to deceive people again (Rev 20:7-8). Wow, there is something going on here that too many Christians are completely ignorant of.

We may get into these reasons later, but the basis of the answer is based upon God’s character that we learned about earlier. God is also the “Righteous Judge” of all His creation, and whatever He does must not violate His standards of “Holiness” or “Righteousness” (Gen 18:25, 2 Pet 2:23). Since many do not understand what this is, they assume incorrectly that God can do anything, anytime, in any way He desires. But as we have seen God has placed self-imposed restrictions based upon His nature and character that limit His “sovereign” involvement.

Let us look at another verse to confirm what we are learning in John 10:10:

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.

We also can know from reading here in Acts 10:38 that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Ghost and power so that He could go around doing “Good” to heal all those that were oppressed of the “devil”. This verse is the same contrast given to us in John 10:10 comparing two works of opposition. The one true God is described to be “good”, and the “other” created spirit called the devil is contrasted to be “evil”.

Acts 10:38 further confirms that Jesus the Son of God is “good”. Jesus did good because His heavenly Father anointed Him, with His own Holy Spirit who must also be the source for all “good” (James 1:17). This additionally teaches us a new overlapping truth to why Jesus was not able to do sovereign works as God on the earth. It would not be necessary for Jesus to be anointed if God was manifested in His Son Jesus in His full deity powers, and abilities on the earth.

We learn from reading the book of Philippians that God chose to be manifested on the earth as the man Jesus in the normal likeness of other humans. He was able to do supernatural wonders on the earth only because He was anointed by God to perform these miraculous signs (Acts 10:38).

Philippians 2:7 declares an essential truth to us, about this sovereign God decision. God in Heaven sovereignly chose to become a human on the earth and specifically selected to remove Himself from manifesting His Sovereign powers and abilities while here. He did this to specifically live a life like us, to show us what we would be capable of doing with His anointing upon us.

This was certainly a “Sovereign” right of God to do this, wasn’t it? Please do not try to tell anyone that the “sovereign” God can’t do this if He chooses to do so? No one was asked by God for their permission. No one was consulted about it being ok. Therefore, to try to say that God can’t or won’t do this would violate many people’s definition of what it is to be sovereign, or it would make the Bible a book of fiction to contradict Philippians 2:7. According to many, God can do anything he chooses at any time He chooses, right? If not, God is not sovereign.

What some of us have just discovered is that there are two opposing spiritual forces of; 1) God who is good, and 2) the devil that is evil. No Satan is not a match for the Creator God, but he appears to not know this. Nevertheless, Satan is here on the earth and Paul called him the “god of this world” even after Jesus died (2 Cor 4:4). We can then see that we have a lower case “g” “god” that is opposing the “upper Case “G” “God”. But technically there were no capital letters in the Greek language and the same Greek word G2316, is describing them both.

Therefore, we need to learn more about why the “god” Satan is legally here on the earth, and why God reveals to us that He can’t or won’t do anything about him until a certain time in the soon coming future. Most do not understand how God has sovereignly designed the concept of “time” to work. We may be able to touch on this more later. But for now, let us move to another way people incorrectly define God’s Sovereignty.

Human Ways are Not God’s Ways

God has chosen to sovereignly do some things that appear very foolish to the religiously wise of the earth. 1 Corinthians 1:27 plainly states that, “God has chosen the foolish things of our world in order to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of our world, to confound those that think they are mighty”.

Remember that Acts 10:38 additionally confirmed that Satan, aka the devil was the one and only source of the evil works that made all people on earth to be sick and diseased, which must have been intended to potentially kill these people. But Jesus came into the world to reverse this evil by healing them and restoring them to a life of health (Jn 10:10). But look at this verse and what God reveals about His ways that can appear “foolish” to some.

Isa 55:8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

Notice what God says about the differences between created humans and their creator God. He very plainly says that His thoughts and ways of thinking are not like our natural human ways. Neither are our ways of doing things close to how God chooses to do things. This simply means if we are applying our biased thoughts to the definition of His “sovereign” acts, we are probably very wrong.

We can see many examples, of God doing things in ways that are not normal according to how a human would do them. For God to offer His righteousness, salvation, grace, and mercy to us for free when we have not earned it, causes the religious mind to bend.  Religion wants to earn their salvation, deliverance, and healing, but this would give humans a right to brag and be proud (Eph 2:8-9). God is not going to allow that to happen.

This was only a reminder to not think carnally when attempting to understand how to define “sovereign”. God’s idea of being “sovereign” is very far from a religious mindset. If we attempt to define God’s sovereignty to be like human examples, using human governments standards or religious definitions, we are far from His perfection.

Another Deception: Is Lucifer the Sovereign God’s Servant
who Obeys
Consistently?

There have been some Christians that have believed a slightly differing variation of potential deception. These mostly claim that the John 10:10 “thief”, and the “oppressor” of Acts 10:38, is the devil (aka Lucifer and Satan), but they believe that the devil only performs works “for” God as He sovereignly commands. This type of belief the acts were God initiated and Satan is performing works of evil because of God’s purpose and plan.

Others further believe that Satan desires to do evil to everyone but can only do these evil things to God’s creation, after he can obtain God’s directive, or permission to kill, steal and destroy humans. This type of belief is another variation of extreme “sovereign” control of God over everything that occurs in creation but shifts part of the blame to it being Satan’s desire to ask for permission and God’s agreement that it would work out something for good for His usage also.

However, this type of belief violates the basic laws of correct interpretation of all balanced truth. It has elements of partial truth that are being mixed with untruths, resulting in a drink of potential poisonous belief. Remember that we have already seen verses in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 that described the beginning of Lucifer. It is revealed plainly that Lucifer revolted by His own freewill choices to cause pride and sin to be formed inside of him. He was created with neither of these characteristics.

Now, let us just use some basic common sense to begin to understand how this belief is false. For example, no thief on earth would ever ask anyone for their permission to steal or rob from anyone. That just violates the known operandi of a thief. Thieves are lawless by nature and will ignore sovereign governments. They are normally self-centered and motivated by greed. They have no value system for the care of other’s lives or property. They love to work under the cover of darkness and God is only light (1 Jn 1:5).

Can you find a verse in the Bible that informs us about Satan asking for permission to revolt against the Kingdom of God? Can you find a verse of scripture in the Bible where God caused the sinful revolt of Satan against Him? This is the downfall of too many people’s belief about what it means that God is “sovereign”. People are ignoring the sovereign design of God to create beings that have their own “freewill” to make independent choices apart from His sovereign will and desires. Don’t believe this? Look at this verse:

Joh 4:23  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

What does it mean to “seek”? This word represents an act of “searching” for something desired. Do we ignore this definition and word choice because God is sovereign and always makes happen what He wants to happen, when He wants it to happen? This logically does not make sense and directly contradicts this truth of the scripture.

This verse in John 4:23 is very clearly stating that God is looking for people (who have a freewill choice), to decide to come after Him with their whole heart (spirit). This is the heart’s desire of our Creator. At the time when Jesus spoke this, there were obviously few to none of these types of people on the earth. In fact, Jesus confirmed this when saying, “This people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their heart (spirit) is far from me.” (Mat 15:8). We can very clearly see that God wants people that want Him and is not forcing us to do what He desires us to do. Let us look at another verse in the New Testament concerning the subject of human responsibility:

1Pe 5:8  Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

God is warning Christians of providing the devil a point of “access” like an unlocking or the “opening of a door”. This is exactly what 1 Peter 5:8 warns us about. In this verse God says, “Be sober and vigilant, for your adversary the devil, goes about seeking whom he may devour”. The fact that God warns Christians to be sober (not drunk) and awake (not asleep), indicates that we could be living today in a state of unawareness God calls “darkness”, that opens the door for Satan to gain an advantage over us (2 Cor 2:11).

Can we agree that 1 Peter 5:8 is about humans being awake because the devil who rules the darkness is trying to destroy us? Remember normal natural people only sleep in darkness. God appears to be alerting us (the saved spiritually awakened) not to fall back into Satan’s territory of evil within the kingdom of darkness. The Lord is saying that when we leave the Kingdom of God, to drift back into Satan’s domain, we are very easy to be devoured.

Col 1:12  Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:

Col 1:13  Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

See what God confirms to Christians saying, God has made us able to become saints in the light. This is God’s New Covenant Kingdom in Jesus Christ. We can clearly see this in verse 13 where God says, He has sovereignly delivered us from the authority of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.

Now we are learning something very essential for us to know. There are two spiritual kingdoms of authority upon the earth. We can see them described in these two verses of Colossians. There is the Kingdom of the dear Son of God which is called “Light” exclusively. Versus the kingdom of evil that has only those that are spiritually asleep or drunk in darkness.

Kingdom of Light heirs are the saved saints, that God has sovereignly translated and moved out of the authority of darkness (Rom 13;12). These are the believers in Jesus. Are you in God’s Kingdom of Light and Day (1 Ths 5:5)? If you are, remain there! Submit yourself to God daily and resist the devil and the devil will flee from you (Jas 4:7).

Did you notice in the last paragraph we had God’s sovereign choices to how we were saved taking place? But did you also notice there was an implied human participation to us being saved? This necessitates us balancing several scriptural truths to obtain a higher truth understanding. We saw this in a previous verse of John 4:23 where God desired true worshippers but needed humans to have the same desire for Him.

There is a very significant sovereign God side to human salvation, but He does not force us to be saved. This means humans are required to choose what they “hear”, and “believe”. We either believe in God and His Word, or we reject it and are lost (Mk 16:16).

But we know that once we choose to believe and receive His sovereign gift of Salvation, this clearly means God (Light) is not our enemy and is not working with or controlling Satan (darkness) to direct him how he is to come against us. Remember what God reveals about Himself in 1 John 1:5. Here God says, “God is Light, and Him is No darkness!”. This clearly states Light (God) does not associate or cooperate with darkness (evil).

Ask yourself, why would God warn His people in the kingdom of light, if He is the one that is sending this enemy of darkness to teach us a lesson? No, this verse 1 Peter 5:8, clearly reveals our adversary the devil, is not sent from God! Therefore, Satan is not working for God. And there can be “no” covenant, cooperation, or agreement between them.

These verses concretely confirm God is not in total “sovereign” control of humans or the devil, or the events that occur on the earth. We have freewill choices that must be made in obedience to determine our outcome of being devoured or not. God has very clearly written to Christians; to “Fight” (1 Tim 6:12), to “Resist” (Jas 4:7), to “Overcome” (Rev 21:7), to “Reign” (Rom 5:17), “Hold Fast” (1 Ths 5:21) and many other commands. Do you see how God is assigning humans responsibility to be saved? In other words, God still desires humans that want to know Him.

Wouldn’t this make sense that the sovereign God has made a sovereign choice to delegate authority and responsibilities to His creation, and if we choose to not do them, He won’t? God would not warn the people about the devil coming before He sent the devil. If He had sent the devil, we would be watching out for God to devour us.

Those that believe Satan works for God to do His evil, attempts to cause us to accept that Satan does this to fulfill God’s hidden evil purpose on the earth to achieve some kind of divinely designed ending “good”. This belief asserts that God created this “thief” and “oppressor” deliberately for His greater unknowable intentional plan and purpose to achieve a culmination of something positive.

It also teaches us another potential lie, that God’s plan of creation for a perfect Lucifer was only a ruse for the intended real plan to cause Lucifer to sin. But is this logical? Does this type of logic adhere to the known character of a good God? Would any human ever make all perfect new auto parts to first destroy them before they then attempt to build a new better car? This would be an example of someone doing something needlessly destructive so that they can construct a better car rather than using parts that were completely flawless to begin with.

What we are needed to ask, is 99% truth mixed with another element of 1% harmful substance, ok to swallow and believe as the whole truth? Not if the 1% is completely deadly poisonous being enough to kill you. A 100 % T-bone steak is what a canine would love to devour. But insert into it or dust it with poisonous strychnine and it is still enticing enough to deceive because it appears good, but ultimately it can be deadly. This is why we need to do our best to seek and know only what God determines is truth, and not a message of poison from any human or devil.

We have already seen where God made angels and humans in a state of “perfection” and “very good”, and it was their bad choices that caused them to fall (fail). Therefore, this logic of using evil to achieve good sounds like a deceptive trick of this thief named Satan to shift the responsibility off himself to help steal the truth away from us to blame God for doing evil. Can you see this?

CONCLUSION

Why do people love the extreme sovereign God false message? When someone believes this way, (that God is causing all the evil in the world with occasional times of goodness), it completely absolves them and makes them not responsible for any participation to do what God has told them to do. Therefore, when the will of God is not done in their life, they can say it is not my fault, God must have had a hidden reason for the apparent evil to occur. However, that is a deception, and not the truth. Their belief that they will not be held responsible because of their ignorance, non-participation and full cooperation for obedience is the plan of the devil to possibly send them to hell. It also causes people to never fight against the devil and allows Satan another victory.

It is Satan’s plan to cause people to believe God is to blame for all the evil in the world. This belief shifts the truthful focus for all anger to be redirected away from him. Have you ever met people in the world like this? One man says, “I hate God, for killing my son”. Another lady says, “Why God did you allow me to be beaten up so badly?” Others say, “Why didn’t God stop that from happening to us?” These are classic thought types given to people by Satan. His words are usually “first person” accusation, like it is the person themselves having the thought about God. This is truly a tricky way to deceive people by playing on their emotions to cause them to have a thought to blame God. But they are so very effective thought strategies that come to place the blame upon God or His people, or anyone that is not their spiritual enemy that was working to cause it to happen.

If you have ever felt this way, hopefully you understand the reason why now. Realizing this was a deception from Satan, is one of the first steps to healing and reconciling with God. By repenting before God, a mind renewal occurs and this changing of thought then opens the door for God to help bring about more healing and help to you.

So why do bad things happen to good people? Who says there are any good people? In Matthew 19:16-17, Jesus is confronted with a rich man saying, “Good Master what must I do to have eternal life?”. But Jesus responded to Him saying, “Why do you call me good? There is none good but one, that is God!”  Jesus just taught us that every human is far from God’s perfection of good. Therefore, we all deserve to die and go to hell. But conversely Jesus also said very plainly that only God is fully and completely “Good”.

When we choose to blame God for evil, we are doing so because we are very ignorant to know who God really is. Remember Jesus also said, “When you have seen me, you have seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). We can never see Jesus ever doing anything but good to people because He was anointed with the Holy Ghost and power (Acts 10:38). Therefore, Jesus never killed anyone. Jesus never made anyone sick, weak, or ill. Jesus never made anyone poor. Jesus didn’t even condemn anyone for being a sinner. Jesus simply offered forgiveness, healing, and blessings to everyone that was willing to receive it.

If Jesus manifested the presence of God in heaven upon the earth as it says He did in Colossians 2:9, then humans for the first time were able to see the actual true character and nature of God personally face to face. This true nature of God was hated by Satan and the religious people of that day. Yet Jesus still offered to them “forgiveness” saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. What an amazing display of LOVE!

If you do not know God’s love personally, and the Son of God who was sent into the world to make God known, it is a great time to believe in Him and ask Him to be the LORD of your life. There is a link at the bottom of this page to receiving and beginning the salvation process. This will open up a new way for living and knowing God. You will be able to talk to Him personally, and He is more than happy to talk to his new child and help you to grow in spiritual maturity. Please do not let this opportunity pass you by. For those that are not in the Kingdom of God, there is no guarantee of any tomorrow. This could be your last invitation, please do not take it for granted.

Thank you for reading and studying this Bible Essential subject of knowing and understanding the “sovereignty” of God. It is very important to know that after we are saved, God desires us to grow up to be led by His Holy Spirit that is living on the inside of our human body (Rom 8:14). He has come to live inside of us for us to know that He will always be near to us to help us (Heb 13:5-6). Satan may try to attack you a fresh again, and again, but God is our ever-present help to always cause us to “overcome” our spiritual enemy (1 Jn 4:4).

Hopefully this has been a blessing to you and clarified some things taught to us in the Bible. We learned that:

  1. “God is Only Good” (Mat 19:17).
  2. “Satan” is only Evil and is a thief that has come to only kill, steal, and destroy people (Jn 10:10).
  3. God is Sovereign (Ps 115:3).
  4. However, God has sovereignly chosen to place character limitations upon Himself to restrict what and how He can do things.
  5. Angels and humans were created good but were also sovereignly given a freewill by God’s sovereign design, to disobey and to choose to become evil (Eze 28:15, Gen 3:11).

Thank you again for taking the time to study God’s Word. May God continue to richly bless you, knowing that He adds no sorrow with any of His abundant blessings (Prov 10:22). The Lord be willing there will be more lessons coming soon. There is just so very much to learn from God’s Word. Thank you for sharing these lessons with those that you know that will be blessed by them as the Holy Spirit leads you. Thank you again for being led by the Holy Spirit to study with us.

If you would like to continue reading and studying in this series, please go to “Part 2“.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

What is Communion/Eucharist – What does it mean to Drink my Blood and Eat my Flesh?

(Ver 1.0) This Bible lesson is a response to a comment that was received recently from someone that caused us concern about what the content of the message contained. It was felt that this comment should not be handled privately but should be made into a public Bible lesson. This lesson will not be a long study, but it is still an essential truth about who our God is and what He has sovereignly chosen to do and to be. This lesson may not be for everyone. But hopefully it will be a blessing to some that may have the same question in their mind about the loving and infinitely good God that created us all.

However, this is a WARNING UPFRONT to caution readers that this Bible lesson may be offensive to some. It may not be considered politically correct which none of the Bible truly is. It is God’s Word that brings us Light, and this is highly offensive to those that love the darkness (Jn 3:19). But this lesson will be given in a spirit of Love, speaking the truth intended to only bring a gentle healing (Eph 4:15). To those that desire to know the True God and see His truth, this lesson should be easy to receive. Potentially others could be offended.

We will divide this lesson into the following sections:

  1. Introduction
  2. What Happened to the physical body of Jesus?
  3. Knowing there is Spiritual Realm and Natural Realm
  4. Can God Lie?
  5. Absolute Truths Come from the Mouth of God
  6. Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

Our commenter was responding to a lesson on what Jesus taught us in John 6 about we must drink His blood and eat His flesh to receive eternal life. There was a significant amount of discourse in this comment given on the subject of “the differences between literal and figurative” expressions spoken by God and by Jesus while in the flesh on the earth.

It was obvious our commenter took the words of Jesus to be literal and they claimed that this is how the Holy Spirit entered into them by them literally eating and drinking the physical body and blood of Jesus Christ. But what does their definition of “literally” eating His flesh and drinking His blood, mean to them?

Was this 1) a literal cutting from the flesh of the body of Jesus Christ piece by piece as Jesus’s words implied in John 6? Or was this just 2) a “figurative” sampling of man-made bread and wine that is representative of the actual reality of flesh and blood, as some believe in a ceremony called “Communion”? Or there are even some that believe 3) these naturally created human elements of bread and wine, when ingested in a religious ceremony called a Eucharist, become the literal flesh and blood of Jesus by some miraculous wonder. That is a tough lesson and is far more complex to be fully taught completely today. But we will go through some of the key thoughts today to try to understand how to view this subject from the eyes of God.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE
PHYSICAL BLOOD AND BODY OF JESUS?

What happened to the literal physical naturally born body of Jesus? We know He was nailed to a cross (Jn 19:18), after being beaten by Roman soldiers (Jn 19:1). He hung on the cross approximately 6 hours (Mat 27:45) and died after His spirit left His body (Jn 19:30). The physical body was then buried in a tomb and sealed with guards standing outside for three days (Jn 19:38-42). On the third day the LORD Jesus was raised up from the dead and his physical natural physical body was glorified by God to be changed into an eternal resurrected body.

However, there are important facts to take note of. We know from John 20:17 that the resurrected body of Jesus and His Spirit, was on His way to see His Father in heaven when He saw a woman that was at the tomb. He told her not to touch Him because He had not yet ascended to His Father (Jn 20:17). In Hebrews 7:27 we learn another fact that Jesus was being made a High Priest for all of humanity on this first trip to heaven. We further learn that He was going up to offer up His blood to His Father in heaven, for it to be poured out in the Heavenly Most Holy Tabernacle (Heb 9:12) as the onetime payment for all sin.

Finally, notice what happened after Jesus returned from the Heaven Spirit realm back to the earth realm of natural humans. He appears to the disciples behind closed doors without opening one door. He looks at them and says “Behold, my hands and my feet and see that it is me”. This clearly means that His resurrected body still had the marks from the nails while hanging on the cross. Then He said, “See a spirit has not flesh and bone as you see I have” (Lk 24:39).

Pay close attention to see that Jesus never claims to have any blood in His body after His post-resurrection trip to heaven. This would be a problem for a literal interpretation of eating His flesh and drinking His blood after being raised from the dead. From Bible evidence there does not appear to be any blood in His resurrected body.

Plus, there is the Bible fact that Jesus did not ever offer His resurrected body as food to anyone to be saved after His resurrection. After all He did appear to humans for 40 days in the flesh and we can only find Jesus eating natural food with humans and never His flesh (Jn 21:12-14, Lk 21:41-43). Therefore, we are beginning to have some major problems with the commenter’s reasonings and interpretations of scriptures in John 6.

Finally, please notice that the physically resurrected body of Jesus went up to heaven in fulness being completely intact in Acts 1:9. The disciples witnessed this fact and the angel that was with them said to them “You men of Galilee, why are you staring up into heaven?” in Acts 1:11. Then the angel said to them, “this same Jesus which was taken up, shall return in like manner”. This simply means the literal physical resurrected body of Jesus went up with Him and will also return fully intact upon his return.

Therefore, the statements by Jesus to eat His flesh and to drink His blood appear to mean something completely different than a literal interpretation.

KNOWING THERRE IS A SPIRIT REALM
AND A NATURAL REALM

Therefore, we need to find the true interpretation of eating flesh and drinking blood. From the comment that was the implied meaning to the commenter. But is that what God said or meant? Does it really matter if we think what was written, meant something that God did not really say? Do remember what God said in Isaiah?

Isa 55:9  For as the heavens (the spirit realm) are higher than the earth (the natural realm), so are my ways (Spirit) higher than your ways (natural), and my thoughts (Spirit) than your thoughts (natural).

Wow! Isaiah wrote a very significant amount of truth for us to learn from. Within parentheses were added the God concept that is revealed in other parts of the Bible. It is absolutely essential for Bible students to interpret the Bible using the other words found within the Bible, and this will help eliminate the problem being addressed with the reader’s comment and analysis of what was spoken.

What was God saying in Isaiah 55:9? Our God who is the highest and greatest intelligent being ever, is explaining how His Spirit eyes sees things differently and His omniscient mind thinks things from a higher perspective of ultimate truth, than the limited human natural eyes and carnal human mind reasoning. The Apostle Paul emphasizes this problem in this verse:

1Co 3:1  And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

Do you see the Isaiah 55 connection? Paul could have said “Brothers, I could not speak unto you using “heavenly” words, ideas, concepts, and descriptions, because for now you are far too “earthly” focused. This is the exact same concept that Jesus spoke of in John 3:

Joh 3:12  If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

Do you see the same principles being taught by Jesus in this statement? Jesus is saying the same thing that Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:1. And this John 3 statement was certainly based upon what is exactly stated in Isaiah 55 about God’s spiritual ways being way above the comprehension of childlike naturally thinking people. Jesus is literally saying “I am speaking to you using natural things, to point you to the far higher and greater spiritual dimension that you are unable to comprehend.

It is very easy to see how there could be a lot of confusion surrounding these words spoken by Jesus in John 6 about eating flesh and drinking blood until you see that Jesus is attempting to teach the greater spiritual truths using easier parallel God created natural realities. What we are being introduced to is an awesome concept for learning the truth in the Bible.

One God given rule of correct scripture interpretation is found in these statements above. Humans before being born-again are wholly natural thinking people. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:14, that the natural thinking man can never receive the things of the Spirit of God. Paul continues by saying, for these spiritual things are “foolishness” to the earthly thinking human. Finally, Paul reveals, Spirit Words from God are only discerned from spiritual minded humans. Do you see the problem being presented? This was a sovereign God design of hiding spiritual information from people who are not really committed to know the God that is speaking.

We were designed by God to only be able to fully view the spiritual truths hidden in scriptures correctly, only after being spiritually born-again (Jn 3:7), from God’s higher Spirit perspective and viewpoint. We can only do this by renewing our minds with His truths and rising above the natural realm of normal human thinking. This can only come from spiritual growth by reading His Words and being led by the Holy Spirit to see what they mean (1 Pet 2:2). Next, as a part of this study, we are going to focus upon one part of the comment to answer an important question.

DOES GOD LIE?

The commenter is unknown to us and everyone else, we will “in the spirit of love”, not identify the commenter. We also will not provide the entire comment and only address the most shocking points that insult, slander, and defame the character of God who made us all.

Here is the opening of the longer comment that was submitted:

The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.
Jesus is not subject to OT laws like not eating flesh with the blood in it.
He made them. He can break them. He is God after all.

Suppose. Suppose God wanted us to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood. Would that be okay with you? Or would he need special permission?

Wow, these are very sad, hurtful, and offensive allegations, accusations and statements about the revealed character and nature of God who describes Himself to be “Love” in 1 John 4:8. Is it possible for God who is LOVE, to break His own commandments and laws? What is the character and nature of true “LOVE”? In other words, does the Creator God command His created man to do something that He would not do?  Does God give us a commandment and then make exceptions in certain cases for Himself to do otherwise? Is any of this fair and just? The commenter’s reasonings teach that God could be completely immoral and disobey whatever he told us to do simply because He is God. Is that the kind of God you know?

For example, if God instructed man not to eat any flesh with blood remaining in it in the Torah Law of Moses (Gen 9:4, Lev 17:14), then the commenter is saying that God must have changed His mind while Jesus was speaking to people on the earth when He told them to eat His flesh and drink His Blood? From this, the commenter is saying that God can do any of the following:

  1. God made the Law; therefore, He can break His Law.
  2. Jesus was never “subject” to the O.T. Laws (Torah) like eating flesh with blood in it.
  3. The final statement was “If God desired us to eat flesh with blood, does He need to ask any human if that is ok to do”?

Many human statements given without deep thought and allowing God’s personal involvement and participation with His Holy Spirit to instruct us and help us understand what is written, can bring about confusion with other unknown truths that could be found in the Bible, if searched. There are No Rightly Interpreted Bible verses that contradict with any other Bible verse. That would make the Bible just a human book of mistakes, instead of what it truly is, a book written by a far superior Spirit intellect attempting to communicate with people that know very little about anything spiritual as we ought. But since God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, He is smart enough not to forget what He says nor contradict what He meant. Today, we are about to discover that the Bible teaches us the following essential facts concerning God’s divine nature and character:

  1. Num 23:19 “God is not a man that He should lie”. This verse reveals whatever God says is a true statement and it cannot change.
  2. Mal 3:6 “I am the LORD and I change not”. God being unchangeable and Immutable are two other ways of saying that He will not say and believe one thing today is true and a completely opposite thing tomorrow is also true. Nor will He say one thing today and do the opposite tomorrow.
  3. Heb 6:18 “It is impossible for God to lie.” Here is another challenge to the claims that God does not need to always do what He says.  If God said He would do something and then changed His mind, He would be called a liar. This truth further binds God to do exactly what He says by His own sovereign choice and design.
  4. Duet 1:17 “You will not respect person in judgment”. Rom 2:11 “There is no respect of person with God”. Here is an example of how God commands man to be like He is. God is described to not respect any person, and He commands people to do the same. This teaches us God’s intent is for humans to do exactly what He says and does.

In these descriptions of our God, He is “Truthful”, “Honest”, “Fair” and “Just”? Perhaps some do not believe that God is “truthful” (Jn 15:26), “honest” (Num 23:19), “fair” (2 Chr 19:7), or “just” (1 Pet 2:23)? Perhaps some may not believe the Bible is God’s spoken words that instructs what He does and what we should do also. Or that it also teaches us who He is, what He does, and that neither of these will ever conflict. In other words, who God is, is what God desires for us to become. Then also what God does, must be exactly what God wants us to be like (Gen 1:26).

If some do not believe God has these qualities that proves these people may know a little bit about God, but they probably have never experienced a personal close relationship with Him. That should be truly concerning. Now let us go deeper into the Word of Truth to learn more about if we should drink His natural blood and eat His natural flesh:

Joh 13:34  A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

We can find multiple commandments written to humans to do things that God has described as His character. For example, notice in the verse above.  We know in 1 John 4;8 God says He is LOVE. Then Jesus said in John 13:34 that we should love each other on the earth exactly as He personally demonstrated and showed us His love to us. How many people fully do this? Can you name one? Many people can act very kind to someone for a short time, until they are enraged and suddenly, they become a totally different personality with unimaginable changes in character.

People must redefine the true nature of God’s character of LOVE that is clearly described to us in 1 Corinthians 13 to justify their ability to not be held accountable for doing what He commanded us to do, Himself. According to the definition of the God kind of Love called “Agape”, people are supposed to rejoice in truth in verse 13. Therefore, God claims in His word that He will never lie to us as we previously saw in Numbers 23:19 and He will always do exactly everything that He has said.

If this part of the Bible is not true, then this would be easy for us to say the rest of the verses in the Bible is not true either. Either God must obey His written revealed Word, or He has suddenly become a liar and we better know we learned in Hebrews 6:18 God says it is “IMPOSSIBLE for Him to LIE”. This simply means if He has said it, He must also do it, or His character has changed to become like a human sinner. This would appear to teach us that we are following a book of fables that we cannot trust. But that should not be a description of His Word or His character. We can find it written over and over that we can Trust Him (Prov 3:5).

This is troubling for many religiously minded people in the world that define the word “sovereign” to means God can legally do anything and it is ok, because He is God. But we better be seeing things differently in the Bible because this is not truly stated as the definition of God’s sovereignty. There are many places in the Bible where God has said things, and He must place Himself personally under the words, commandments, and prophecies, to fulfill them.

Gal 4:4  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

Notice what God said in this verse about His personal appearance upon the earth. God declares that there was a predetermined set time for His arrival, and if he would not have appeared at this set appointed time, it would have demonstrated to us that He was not powerful enough to fulfill exactly what He said would occur.  But we all know, this did not happen.

The next part of this statement makes it perfectly clear that during God’s manifested presence in human flesh (Heb 2:14), He purposefully chose to place Himself under His own written LAW (Torah) fully and completely. This chosen placement of being under the LAW of Moses forces the truth that if He would have violated any of the written LAWS, He would have become a sinner like the rest of humanity (Rom 3:23). This simply teaches us that Jesus fulfilled every requirement of the law while here on the earth in a physical form. Why did the sovereign God choose to do it this way?

Mat 5:18  For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Here is another statement from the mouth of God the creator of the heaven and the earth. Jesus personally said, “Not one jot or tittle of the law will pass away, until ALL BE FULFILLED”. That should cause us to believe something differently than what our commenter said. Since it was impossible for a human to keep the LAW, we know that only God could do this, and this is exactly what He chose to do. In other words, if God does not follow His own commanded LAW, He would be unable to fulfill it. Or are we going to redefine what “fulfillment” means next?

The Greek word G1096 translated as “fulfilled” means to “come into existence”. Wow, that changes a lot about how we should view these scriptures. They are not suggestions; they are all things that will come to pass and will be accomplished by God personally. In other words, they must ALL be viewed in the light of Jeremiah 1:12. In this verse God says, “I watch over my word to perform it” (NASB). This verse simply confirms the truth, that God will do everything that He has said.

Therefore, if He commanded a man not to eat flesh with blood, God as a man, would not do that either by His own choice of fulfilling the commandments. This would also mean that Jesus would never contradict the law by telling others to disobey the law either. This shows us that this would only be God sovereignly abiding by what He said, and He needs no one’s permission to make His spoken words good, and these words will never change.

We all know from scripture that the LAW was given to Moses directly by God (Neh 10:29). This makes the “LAW” the words from God’s mouth. According to Jesus, He claimed all these words were a divine prophecy that MUST be FULFILLED. This simply means God CAN NOT DO ANYTHING ELSE but make sure everything that He said completely happens as He said it would. This teaches a potentially radical need for a shift of focus to what was said. God is not declaring that we should all still be sacrificing offerings of animal sacrifices. No, we should change to learn that Jesus came into the world to accomplish the whole law for us, to save us in our inability to fulfill them for ourselves.

But we should know for 100% fact that the Bible is the inspired Word of the Living God according to 1 Timothy 3:16. This verse simply means the Bible came out of the mouth of God and was given to us by His Holy Spirit. This should make it simple to know that a Holy God is not someone that can lie and if we think He can say something and it does not restrict what He can do, we are potentially amazingly deceived. Him being a “sovereign” God does not make it acceptable for Him to lie, to steal, to murder, to be unjust or anything else that violates a pure definition of His character of LOVE, or His spoken words of LAW.

Did Jesus ever lie in the Gospels? Can you find a verse containing a lie from the mouth of Jesus? No, there are no lies from the mouth of Jesus. This also means that there are no lies from His Father God either.  Jesus made it very clear that “He only spoke what His Father said to speak” (Jn 12:49). Therefore, when Jesus said, “if you have seen me, you have seen my Father” (Jn 14:9), we can know what we see Jesus doing is what we know God does.

This teaches us that Jesus is the manifested true nature and character of the God who created us (Col 2:9). Therefore, if we cannot see Jesus do what you claim, then His Father could not do it either. Both manifestations of God are NOT LIARS. God must do exactly what He says, and He is bound to His spoken words eternally because His Words are Him. Remember what John 1:1 teaches us. In this verse God said “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This simply means the Word of God does not ever change like we learned in Malachi, where God said that He never changes.

Yes, there are still spoken words that have yet to be fulfilled, because Jesus was also a prophet (Mat 13:57), and He told us of things that will soon come to pass at the end of the age (Mat 24). But unfulfilled words are still not words that are untruthful. Time does not cause words to be lies because they have not occurred. It only means we are supposed to expect them to happen at any moment, because they were spoken by God who can never lie. Isn’t this easily understandable? If God said it, the words were the truth, and they must happen to eliminate the possibility of a lie.

God’s words will always come to pass, and He will not violate them, and He must do whatever is necessary to make them occur. This is a better definition of being “sovereign”. No matter what the opposition, rebellion, lack of cooperation from humans, or the devil’s works to try to make them not happen, God is committed to make sure everything that He said that will happen, to happen. This completely contradicts a belief that God can say something and then not be bound to make it happen or follow it, that is not what “sovereignty” means, it is more like insanity to believe that God is an unreliable example for us to follow.

We can also find verses like Ephesians 5:1 where a human Christian is commanded to be “an imitator” of God. Therefore, if God does not have to keep His word, and can violate it, we are free to do the same by human logic. This would make us all “liars” (Rom 3:4), and on our way to hell according to Revelation 21:8.

Our commenter claims that since God sovereignly created His law, it is within His right of further sovereign choice that allows Him to violate the same laws. The commenter claims, “After all He is God”. Let us evaluate this reasoning by using basic morals that should be found in human relationships.

If a man marries a woman and they both promise to love, honor, cherish and be faithful to each other until one die, is it OK for them in 6 months or even 60 years to change their mind? In today’s Christian church this is the casual lie that has been embraced as acceptable. This is the same attitude that is being projected upon the God that created us. The logical reasoning is that if God can change His mind and it be OK, then all humans also can simply do the same. We are suddenly changing out the real God to be made into the image of a lost sinful human and ignoring His original designed intent for humans to be made into His image and conformed into His likeness (Gen 1:26).

This is the danger of not knowing the real Creator God or His written Word, people can be easily deceived into believing things that are baseless and unscriptural about a subject of critical importance. If we do not understand the very basics about God’s character and nature, we can be carried away to believe almost anything.

ABSOLUTE TRUTHS COME FROM GOD’S MOUTH

Continuing, let us learn that God is a Spirit of Truth. Psalm 31:5 describes God to be the God of Truth. This simply confirms whatever God says can be received by us to be unchangeable “Truth”. Then in John 14:6, Jesus said, “I AM the “way”, the “truth”, and the “life”. Jesus confirms that He is the God of truth in personal manifestation, using simple God created algebraic laws within mathematics. Then in John 15:26 we find a prophecy that Jesus will ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit who was also called the “Spirit of Truth”. So, we have one God in three manifestable personalities and presences, and they are ALL Named and called the TRUTH.

Therefore, no matter who is speaking, whether it be God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, none of His spoken words will ever contradict any other past, present, or future words spoken, since Truth cannot be changed. This was confirmed when God said in Malachi 3:6, “I am the LORD and I change not”. By placing an unchangeable God with His unchangeable Words this is the definition of “Absolute Truth” coming from God’s mouth. Because the Bible comes from a God that can never tell lies, His written Words are the most reliable and highest forms of never-ending truth that are available to humans.

There is a modern-day culture that is attempting to transform the Christian belief system based upon unchangeable Words of God, into an absurdity of relativism of there being “No Absolute Truths”.  In other words, whatever I want to believe about God, or the non-existence of any God is my choice, and it must be acceptable to everyone.  Then multiply this single person belief by 8 to 9 billion people and we have only chaos, confusion, and disorder.

This has been a slowly encroaching plot over the last 60+ years, to get people to accept one single lie as a normal truth after the next. But suddenly since 2012, the pattern of deception has increased and grown exponentially to lie after lie, every day of the week and almost a new lie every minute of the day. We cannot watch modern television news media and hear much if any, truth whatsoever, no matter what network you are watching.

But the removal of absolutes, is a perversion attempting to sway society away from a common unified set of truths, is a planned attack to destroy humanity and send them to hell. What are we being taught today in schools that violates God’s written fixed Truths?  We are seeing this happen more today than before in our lifetime. Here is just a short list of insanity ignoring absolute truths:

  1. One internet article from an intellectual PHD has been published in 2023 and has said that there are at least 81 identifiable genders of the human species. It is interesting that God who created us, said there are only 2 (Mat 10:6). That is a major problem, but who is correct? Romans 3:2 says let God be true and every other man a liar.
  2. People in the world claim that there are massive racial biases and hatreds in much of the population. This is being taught as absolute truth in schools and by governments. But God’s Word says we are all one race from the same two parents Adam and Eve (Gen 2-3).
  3. The world says now that a marriage can be between two women, or two men and this must be called normal. But Jesus said in the beginning God only made two humans, one male, and one female and God called them a husband and a wife. (Mat 19:4)
  4. A biologically confirmed male can be a female by human choice is normal and acceptable. This is being taught in schools ignoring scientifically irrefutable evidence of DNA, and the Absolute Truth of the Bible saying God formed us in our mother’s womb (Jer 1:5).
  5. A biologically confirmed female can be a male also ignoring scientifically irrefutable evidence of DNA and the Absolute Truth of Bible.
  6. Children can be murdered up to and even after birth now in more than one state. This is refuted in the Bible very clearly. First, the sixth commandment written is, “Thou shalt not commit murder” (Exo 20:13). A child is someone known by God before they are conceived (Jer 1:5). Babies are given a spirit at conception, that can hear, that can feel pain, that are aware (Gen 25:22-23, Lk 1:41). And this same internal developing body, soul, and spirit in their mother continues to grow and mature for years after being born. Modern 4D sonagrams are displaying the truth that these children inside the womb are the same as those outside of the womb. Please search and see for your self.
  7. Children are the responsibility of the state, and the parents have no rights to determine their children’s future or what they are indoctrinated with by the state. It is interesting that this is exactly what Nazi Germany did in the 1930’s. This is another attempt at the same agenda that removes God’s designs of family and places easily brainwashed children into doing whatever the governments want them to do. This is clearly a design of Satan to turn children against their parents to commit the sin of breaking the 5th commandment so that children do not honor their father and mother (Exo 20:12).

Humans, especially the youth, are being indoctrinated with ever changeable values to not know any of the “Absolute Truth” of God.  They have been taught that they came from apes, and now it has moved into the lie, that if I desire to identify as a monkey, that is my choice and you must accept me and support me, as I have declared and call me by whatever label I have chosen, regardless of evidence or facts. This philosophy is a very dangerous cliff to be walking to near to.

Isa 5:20  Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

God warns of this coming change in culture in this verse of Isaiah 5:20. God says to us all, “Woe, unto those that try to call “evil”, “good”, and “good” “evil”. These same people will try to pervert “light” can call it “darkness” while calling “darkness”, their “light”. God goes further to say that these same people will begin to train people to call everything that is “bitter”, “sweet”, and everything that is “sweet”, a new type of “bitter”. This is complete insanity to those that have any common sense and know the truth and refuse to change to believe their lies.

This perversion of cultural shift has become dominant in the entertainment industries, like movies, television, and music. We have popular number one songs that claim, “I’m Bad” to mean something that should figuratively be a symbol of being “good” or “great”. We have government laws and mandates that claim women’s healthcare rights when it is really nothing but an agenda for “abortion” murder rights. There are examples after examples of these types of wrongs ignoring absolute truths of God’s written Word.

Regardless of what people think, say, or believe, there are “Absolute Truths”, and there will always be unchangeable laws of created truth that will never fail, and they all come from God! Nothing you can say or do, can overrule any of these God given and established laws (Heb 4:12). God has said in Deuteronomy 30:19, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life…”. We are going to be faced with this choice every day of our lives, to choose the lies of the devil, or the truth of God. God was smart enough to tells the right answer. He said very plainly “Choose Life”.

CONCLUSION

One of the most interesting things about the commenter’s written words about a Bible lesson found on this website, is the fact that there are “No SUPPORTING” verses used to confirm and verify the given statements. This places the commenter’s opinion in isolation apart from the written Word of God, our only source of Absolute Truth. Do you recall what God said in Amos 3:3? Here God says, “How can two walk together, unless they agree?”. Please pay attention to find if there are supporting scriptures to agree with God in any lesson, and who is not providing any scriptures of agreement with God, and therefore only speaking an opinion.

This simply means that any words written or spoken without Scripture references are merely worthless personal opinions. I DO NOT CARE ABOUT MY OPINION OR YOURS! YOU SHOULD NOT CARE ABOUT EITHER ALSO!  THE ONLY FOUNDATION FOR ABSOLUTE TRUTH IS FOUND IN THE BIBLE, AND IF IT DOES NOT SAY WHAT YOU OR I ARE TRYING TO SAY, IGNORE THE TEACHING OR THE OPINIONS COMPLETELY!

What the commenter claims was, that if Jesus said for us to eat His flesh and to drink His blood, then it must be literal. It did not matter if the spoken words of Jesus the Son of God, violated the commandments of His Father God, that were given to Israel because He was God and could do whatever He wanted. They reasoned that because Jesus said He was the LORD of the Sabbath that therefore He could violate His Father’s own laws. We have hopefully learned from scripture that this is pure foolishness.  We have already seen the facts in the Bible that Jesus was completely born under the LAW and He said He came to fulfill the LAW and not to ignore it. You can never in any verse of the Gospels find where Jesus violated a single LAW. NEVER!

If He had violated His written LAW, this makes Him a sinner of the Commandments of God. Paul wrote in Romans 4:15, “that where there is no LAW, there is no violation of the law”. But we previously learned in Galatians 4 that Jesus Christ was born purposefully to be held accountable “under the LAW”. This meant any disobedience by Jesus is a violation of the written LAW and this would cause “sin” to have occurred. Hebrews 4:15 testifies that “Jesus was tempted in every way to sin like we are, but yet without any sin having occurred”. This literally means Jesus kept the LAW!

Therefore, Jesus Christ was unable to break a law to sin, for this would also make His Father a liar. God is the source of all truth. God must fulfill and keep His truth and is therefore bound by every word that comes out of His mouth and these words will never pass away. They are forever absolute truths.

What we have learned today, is the fact that Jesus used natural substances like human flesh and natural blood to teach us about far greater and higher spiritual realities. This simply means it was never God’s intention for Jesus to give His literal physical human body for an eatable substance for anyone to consume naturally, to obtain their spiritual salvation. This would not make a lot of sense for God or for us.

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 

Eph 2:9  Not of works, lest any man should boast.

The book of Ephesians is very clear that natural works will never save any human. God says to save the spirit of a human it takes “faith”. Faith is of the heart (spirit). Therefore, we do not get spiritually saved by doing natural human work and especially by physically eating anyone’s touchable physical body or blood and placing it in our natural physical stomach. There is too much flesh involved in this process.

But what was the body of Jesus Christ made from? We can read in John 1:14 that the “Word” of God was made “flesh” and dwelt among us. We previously learned that the Word was God (Jn 1:1), and we should know that God is a Spirit (Jn 4:24). Now we are beginning to learn more about what Jesus was speaking of.

Jesus’ salvation offered to us in the New Covenant comes from us receiving the spoken Word of God into our hearts (spirits) by faith and then confessing the risen from the dead LORD Jesus to be our LORD (Rom 10:9-10). Therefore, the symbolic flesh of Jesus is representative of the Word of God. This was the short answer to the much deeper question of what the blood and body is being told to us to be consumed.

We get a deeper application to the understanding of spiritual things in 1 Corinthians 11:24-25 where Paul describes the last supper that Jesus partook together with His disciples. Notice this was the “Passover” meal that is being participated in by Jesus and it was written to do this in the Old Covenant Law. Then Jesus said after taking the unleavened bread, this is my body. Next, He took the cup and said this is the New Covenant in my blood, this do often in remembrance of me.

Wow this can be a separate lesson by itself. However, notice that Jesus said we are eating and drinking this bread and blood many times, not just once? How many times do we receive the Holy Spirit to begin our walk of salvation with Him as our helper? Guess what, it is only one time. The Bible does not tell us that we eat and drink over and over, to become saved, again and again. After we receive the Holy Spirit once by faith, He comes in and abides and we become joined as “one” spirit, the Holy Spirit with our human spirit (1 Cor 6:17). This only occurs once.

Therefore, eating physical Passover elements of bread and wine, are NOT our salvation, only the refreshing of our spiritual remembrance as a memorial for what Jesus did for us 2000 years ago and a continual reminder for what we received by our faith once in our present natural life.

The Old Covenant was the natural pattern and a prophetic pointer for the coming New Covenant spiritual reality. The New Covenant partaking of physical elements of Communion or Eucharist is a spiritual memorial or monument found in our mind, for us to remember what was accomplished in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

Thank you for taking the time to read and study the Bible at “Agapegeek”. God loves us more than we can imagine, but He will only take those with Him, that have accepted Him fully. Jesus is returning to catch away His Church Bride, and the wise virgins were ready when He came. The foolish virgins, who were not prepared, were not let in when He came. Which kind are you? It could happen much sooner than you think. Jesus said very clearly that it would happen at an hour when you think not.

If God wills, we will get back into other subjects that we have been learning previously, unless He directs to teach something new like today. God will continue to richly bless each of us, and His grace and peace will be multiplied to each of us through our growing knowledge of Him.

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2022 – WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM

(Ver 1.0) This is the season for celebration. Many people enjoy times with their family in giving and receiving gifts. This seasonal time has been abused. This seasonal time of remembrance has become only commercialized to some. To others it has become a pagan holiday to be avoided. But to many others it is still a time of peace, love, joy and thankfulness for the True and living God’s arrival onto the planet earth in a manifested physical human form.

This blows the minds of a lot of people. How could the awesome, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent Creator become a part of His creation? Why would He do this? Behold this child that was born in a manger in Bethlehem, He is the Savior of the entire world.  Come let us find and see Emmanuel, which is interpreted: “God with us” (Mat 1:23). If this is not enough cause to rejoice, then you do not understand very much about who He was, and what God has done by being born a baby human. He has made a way for humans out of this dark evil world by us choosing to join with Him in unity. This plan brought us His brand-new creation! But how does one become “born-again” to be a new creation ( 2 Cor 5:17)? The answer is found in a question that Jesus asked to His disciples:

Mat 16:13  When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 

Jesus asks his 12 close followers, the most significant question a human could answer. Jesus certainly had no doubts and knew exactly who He was. But how many people around Him knew who the Son of Man was? The disciples’ answers Jesus question with what they had heard people say about Him:

Mat 16:14  And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.

Some say You are John the Baptist, some Elijah, some Jeremiah, and some just one of the prophets. None of the answers was correct. People obviously did not have a clue who this man was, that was walking with them. Do you know that what other people think, believe or know about Jesus will never help you personally? Even today some people still say, that He was just a prophet. Others think less of Him than that. So, Jesus makes the question more personal:

Mat 16:15  He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

This is the most important question you can answer today to save you from an eternity in hell. If you can answer this question correctly, you will be saved from a state of endless separation from the God who created you. Take notice how Peter one of the disciples answered correctly:

Mat 16:16  And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Wow! This was Peter’s winning “all in” response with no hesitations or doubts attached to it.  This statement held such great confidence. Notice that Jesus did not deny the answer. People today have the same opportunity to give Jesus the correct answer. By anyone today confessing this reality of truth, causes us to make a personal confident affirmation that Jesus was God born in a manger in Bethlehem. It further affirms the belief that Jesus was a man that lived 33 ½ years on the earth in the flesh. Jesus was a man who was hung on a cross. Jesus was a man that died and was buried in a tomb for 3 days and nights. But it also means He was raised from the dead being the first born within a new creation. Then by acknowledging to Jesus that He is the Christ/Messiah, the Son of the Living God, we confirm to Him and everyone else that He is risen and alive forever more. Praise the Lord!

Therefore, during this time of out celebration of the birth of the Lamb of God in a manger, let us remember how blessed we are to know Him personally and to fellowship with Him daily. Romans 10:9-10 proclaims that if anyone will believe in their heart that Jesus was raised from the dead, and then confess with our mouth that Jesus is MY LORD, they will be saved! This is the number 1 priority for this website, to get people saved and then to bless them with the knowledge of the true Living God, so that they will never depart from this faith in Jesus Christ.

God bless you if you prayed this prayer for the first time. Please leave a comment acknowledging your decision to follow Christ. Jesus said very clearly, that if you acknowledge me before men, I will acknowledge you before my Father in Heaven (Mat 10:32). It is absolutely essential for you to go and tell someone, and it does not have to be this website. You can go to your friend, a neighbor, a loved one, a family member. Just please tell someone, I made Jesus my LORD and Savior, and then open your Bible and begin to fellowship with Him. Ask Him to speak to you from His written Word to show you what He has given to you as a free gift.

Thank you to all readers and subscribers that pray for us on Agapegeek.com. We are blessed immensely to have the pleasure to spend time with those of like precious faith (1 Peter 1:1). God bless you all and “be a blessing” to someone today and have a very Merry Christmas! Please never forget the Greatest Gift that you can ever receive is from our Father in heaven, His name was Jesus Christ and He is LORD!

Agapgeek.com

Jesus in the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet Part 14 – The Mem Part 1 – the Blood

(Ver 1.1) This lesson is “Part 14” in the Bible study series revealing the Lord Jesus Christ, that had been hidden by the Spirit of God in His very intelligent design of the original Ancient Hebrew Alphabet. This is also “Part 1” of the individual letter “Mem” study. There is absolutely too much essential information to be placed in only 1 lesson. We are about to find that the letter “Mem” is a picture of moving liquid. It primarily represents two types of liquids. The first is “water”, and the second is “blood”. There are also several other figurative meanings found in the picture of the “Mem”. We will mainly focus on the subject of “blood” in this first lesson, but there are times when both will be mentioned.

This alphabet lesson on the “Mem” is another truly amazing subject uncovering extraordinary, veiled information in one letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This single letter has a massive amount of spiritual information pointing us prophetically to Jesus. The “Mem” is one of the most essential letters to understand of the entire 22. If you have not read this series from the beginning, it is recommended that you go and do so with the “Part 1 Introduction” first. There is just too much information that has been given in each lesson that will not be fully repeated in the others. But this lesson will stand alone for those that desire to see only the application of this one alphabet letter “Mem”.

Please also understand that these are “advanced spiritual Bible lessons” from the word of God and are potentially offensive to the unsaved, immature carnal, or newly born Christian. Therefore, before you read these lessons, please pray and ask the LORD should I even be reading this? Then analyze what should be my response if I do not agree with what is being taught about Jesus? Please accept a suggestion. No matter what your reaction, please walk in love, and please do not leave an unsolicited evil accusation about anyone or anything you don’t agree with. God is Love! And you only prove you don’t really know Him, by speaking evil of His children (Mat 12:34).

Today we will be learning only a limited number of subjects of the total amount of God’s important information about Jesus Christ found in the letter “Mem”. In fact, in this first “Mem” lesson, we will only cover the introduction to the letter “Mem” and the subject of it representing “Blood”. There are literally many volumes of books that could be written on each letter and how it applies to the work of God in Christ Jesus. Here is a quick list of the contents of today’s sections:

  1. Introduction to the Ancient Hebrew Mem
  2. Jesus’ BLOOD is One of the Foundational “Mem” Symbols
  3. Jesus To Die the Death, Another Prophecy Fulfilled on the Cross
  4. Jesus God’s LAST ADAM – The Blood of God Sacrifice
  5. God’s (Alef) + “Blood” (Mem) + “Cross” (Tav) = TRUTH
  6. Jesus the First and Last – Mem Water and Blood Prophecy Fulfillment
  7. The Mem Part 1 Blood Conclusion

Let us get started with learning this incredible picture of God’s “Mem” letter as being a representation of the Blood of Jesus Christ.

1. Introduction to the Ancient Hebrew Mem

The ancient Hebrew letter “Mem”, is the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and has the gematria number value of “40”. The letter “Mem” can be spelled as a Hebrew root word with these three letters: “Mem” + “Yod” + “Mem”. The Hebrew root word H4325 (mayim) are these three letters, and this word is defined to be “water”. This Hebrew word H4325 is translated into “water”, or “waters”, over 500 times in the Old Testament. Therefore, the primary meaning of the letter “Mem” is “water”. This should be obvious by simply observing the pictogram of the letter “Mem”. Everyone should be able to see how this picture is of three waves. This wave concept has a far-reaching application to many designs within God’s creation.  For example, here is a short list of waves that we encounter today all around us:

  1. Tidal Waves of the Ocean
  2. Tsunami Waves of an Earthquake
  3. Storm Waves of a Hurricane or Typhon
  4. Light Waves radiating from the Sun and Stars
  5. Sound Waves of a Concert
  6. Voice Sound Waves of a Preacher
  7. Microwaves heating our foods quickly
  8. Radio and Television Waves Broadcast from Towers
  9. Cell phone waves allowing talk, text and internet world communication

These are just a sampling of God created waves that are practically identical with the exception of substance, frequency and magnitude of the wave being generated and measured. The opposite of a wave is silence, calm, peace and this is important to know. We will only be focused upon the water wave movement concept in this introduction, and how this type of moving liquid represents blood and life.

There are many different types of “waters” in the world. As you can see by the picture of the letter, this type of water has the meaning of moving liquid by God’s designed picture of 3 waves. It is also noteworthy to see that the picture contains the implication of “continuance” or “continual movement” as the waves could never end, if the writer desired to continue to draw more and more waves.  Also notice that this letter “Mem” picture looks a lot like the English letter “M”. But the English letter does not have the design of “continuance” as both ends of the letter are abruptly terminated with a straight line and not a diagonal line of the “Mem”. On the other hand, the English letter “W” does more closely resemble the design of the “Mem”, but with a pointing upward termination point.’

Let us get back to the concepts of waves and water briefly. Water is always a collective body contained within boundaries of limitations, The larger the body of water, the greater potential for more massive waves. The greatest waves on earth are the most powerful and potentially destructive. These normally occur in the earth’s oceans and could only occur naturally by a massive earthquake or an asteroid collision. We can clearly read about an asteroid hitting an ocean on the earth and killing many in Revelation 8:8-9.

In recent times we have already observed the activation of an enormous Tsunami wave on December 26, 2004, when an earthquake of over 9.1 magnitude caused a massive wave in the Indian Ocean, that killed over 225,000 people. Therefore, waves and their sizes, and their causes are very important to understanding this subject of the “Mem” designed picture more completely. For examples, all waves have causes and are a potentially powerful force that can be directed for good or for evil purposes. This is the classic scenario of “cause” and “effect”. If you observe a wave, we must stop and know there was somethings that caused it. Then we must begin to understand its purpose or intention for releasing this power. The concept of moving waves is definitely a picture of power being released and the larger the waves, the greater the power that caused them.

Just keep this in mind, for later when we directly study the next subject of “water” in a subsequent lesson. But it is important to interpret every verse in the Bible by God’s dividing line verse of good versus evil. In John 10:10, Jesus said the “thief” only came to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come, to give you life and that life in full abundance”. Therefore, if anything like a wave came to kill, it was from Satan, and all other waves that we can experience to gain pleasure those were from God as good.

Now let us observe some other concepts and details concerning water, because this is what the letter “Mem” primarily represents. The “Mayim” Hebrew word is plural, but it can be translated as being either “singular” or “plural”. Sometimes the contextual usage is only speaking of one body of “water”, and other times multiple bodies of “waters”. Liquid “water” is an interesting concept. One large glass of “water” could have the same amount of total liquid volume as two smaller cups of water divided. So, the word “mayim” or the letter “Mem” are not very specific to the amount or volume of the liquid that is being referred to. In other words, a body of water, could be a giant ocean, a major sea, a river, a lake, a stream, a pond, or a puddle, etc. They are all containers that describe limiting features of the content called “water” and “waves” can occur in each by the application of power and energy.

Let us now go much “deeper” into exploring God’s created elements and characteristics of natural water. The chemical make-up of water is “H2O”. This represents two parts hydrogen, plus one part oxygen. That is the concept of “1+2=3”. But these 3 are clearly 1 water molecule. Obviously, it takes three parts (plural) to make the singular one water molecule. Water can also be found on the earth in 3 forms, 1) vapor (air), 2) water (liquid) and 3) ice (solid). There are also three areas or realms of water on our planet. There is a lot of water particles in the atmosphere. These water particles produce varying degrees of humidity, fall like rain, and produce dew. Then there are the bodies of water on the surface of the planet. The amount of water on the surface is massive, but without it you would not be alive on this planet. The final area of water is under the earth’s surface. According to some scientists today, they estimate that there is as much water under the surface of dry ground as there is in all of the oceans. This is why even in the desert a well can be dug, to reach life sustaining waters. Did you notice all of the groups of three we just found in the basics of water? I wonder if this is why God placed three waves in the design of this letter?

This information teaches us that letter “Mem” represents an essential life source, and Jesus claims to be this source of life in these two verses:

Joh 14:6  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 

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

Hopefully, we can all begin to see how just these two verses apply to the concepts of Jesus representing “living waters” that was designed by God to produce human spiritual life. If you study this more fully you will soon find how essential “water” is to the existence of humans on this planet. Now apply that truth, to Jesus being this “water” symbol that came to give us spiritual life to enjoy here on earth, as well as to live eternally alive with Him.

There are a number of simultaneous applications of the picture letter “Mem” as water. One of the first things that is noticeable about the picture diagram, is that it is not a representation of a “flat line” body of calm water. Whenever water is especially calm it is observed to be motionless. Other words that could apply, are “idle”, “stationary”, “still”, “peaceful”, “passive”, and etc. The concept of a “flatline” is found in many other realms of created entities that are wave like in nature.

For example, the term “flat line” is very important in the medical field. Whenever a patient’s heart stops, their life monitor “flat lines” and this sets off an alarm for immediate attention. This is our first observation of how flowing blood is a representation of the “Mem”. It is when the blood in the body stops moving that death has occurred normally. This information appears to teach us, that flowing waters represent “life” if directed appropriately for this usage. The opposite of this would generally teach us that, no movement or waves could be applied to mean “death”. But was have already learned that “waves” or “floods” of waters to an extreme are also designed to produce death and chaos.

Most should already know that God is good and that He is the highest positive application of the symbol of the Mem “water” picture for “good” and “life”. The other negative side of the application is Satan, who is called God’s adversary (Zec 3:2). The name Satan actually means an opponent or adversary and he is the root cause of all “evil”. Therefore, good waters are from God, and evil waters are from “Satan”, and we do not yet know everything that this picture is used by God to teach us. All we know so far, is that water (Mem) can be a source for great good to produce life, and then it can also be moved to the opposite extreme, to steal, kill or destroy people (Jn 10:10). We can begin to learn this concept simply by observing the picture of waves. Please keep this in mind as we continue to learn. Here is the quick recap of what we have learned so far about the “Mem” pictogram meaning:

  1. The Mem is a picture of Flowing or Moving Water representing “Life” until taken to extremes
  2. The movement of Mem water waves has the “power” to move or change things
  3. Water is a plural word with an unknown quantity of total H2O molecules and all of these can be labeled or named as one collective body
  4. There is always something or someone releasing energy to cause the movement of the water that produced the waves
  5. Water can be used for either “good” and life or for “evil” to cause death

Now let us reaffirm the good nature of water. Our planet without the created waters upon the three areas of existence, the 1) surface, the 2) atmosphere, and the 3) under the surface, would be a lifeless planet like Mars. Water is one of the three major created components that make life available to our existence. These 3 components are called 1) water (Mem), 2) light (Qof) and 3) seed (Nun). Perhaps you may recall that all three of these essential components for continued human life are represented by ancient Hebrew alphabet pictograms. The water is our current subject of the “Mem”. The light is found in the subject of the letter “Qof”. And the “seed” is found in the letter “Nun” that immediately follows this letter Mem. It is interesting for us to see how God made the Mem (water), and the Nun (seed), so directly linked in the alphabet, because we will soon learn that they both are powerful natural representations of the same spiritual subject.

The next meaning of the letter “Mem” also relates to the subject of water. It should be known upfront that the human body composition is comprised of up to 50% to 65% “water”. This internal water content is absolutely essential for a healthy human life. Now for the real connection of water to our body. The “blood” in the human body can be up to 80% water. Therefore, blood and water are both representations for the letter “Mem”. This is further confirmed because our “blood” is not laying still, but is rather being pumped with every heart beat to circulate our “blood” over and over and over throughout our body. It is very easy to see how moving and flowing “blood” in the body is a picture of “life” and is a “good” God created designed representation for the moving liquid found in the letter “Mem”.  Therefore, the moving liquid picture of the “Mem” represents “blood” and “life” in many verses.

We should know that taking water into our body for our healthy life is accomplished by “drinking” it with our mouth. Remember the letter “Peh” is a picture of an “open mouth”. It is amazing how all of the letters are tied together by God’s intellectual design. The water goes into our mouth, and is swallowed into our stomach and is used by the body in a large capacity of life’s functions. The human body can only generally survive without consuming water for 3 days. This is another interesting pattern of the number 3. The process of water is a cyclically repeated pattern necessary for continuing life on this physical planet. Therefore, we have the concept of moving natural water going externally from the body to internally inside the body for a good and healthy life

But what other good purposes does water possess externally? One of God’s key usages externally is for cleaning. Water has an inherit quality to have a dissolving nature to it. If we stir in sugar into a cup of water, the sugar substance is dissolved and the water becomes sweet tasting with no visible or observable indicators of this sweetness. But this quality design feature can also do the same with “dirt”. Whether we need to clean our clothes, our house, our car, our body or whatever, flowing and moving water is an essential created material for this usage. God knew this when He created it and He will apply this meaning to our study also.

Finally, it is noteworthy in our introduction to remember God writes of the blood of Jesus in 1 John 1:7. In this verse the Holy Spirit made a point to say it is the blood of Jesus that cleans us from all “sin”. We are beginning to notice that water and blood are used by God in parallel patterns. The water is used by us to clean our bodies and clothes and the blood of Jesus was used by Him to clean us to make us able to be with Him eternally. We have added to our list that the “Mem” represents the subjects of:

  1. The essential force for internal Life and Health
  2. And external cleansing agent from filth
  3. The cleansing blood of Jesus to remove human filth of sin

Ok, that was enough for a quick introduction to the “Mem” water and blood letter. We have seen how the letter can be either used for good or evil, but when applied to God who is always good, it is an essential element for cleansing us from all sinful unrighteousness externally and for giving us new life as a new creation internally in our human spirit. We will now turn our attention to the letter “Mem” and its application to represent “blood”.

2. Jesus’ BLOOD is One of the Foundational “Mem” Symbols

For all humans, one of the most essential hidden messages of prophecy found in the ancient Hebrew “Mem” pictogram, is the representation of flowing, living blood. Because the picture is of a moving liquid, it is very logical to associate this concept with the constant “movement and flow of blood”. As a saved Christian we should already understand how this living blood picture fits with the essential work of Christ in our human salvation. For example, without consuming the blood of Jesus, no human could ever be saved. Notice what Jesus said to us in John:

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 difficult words to accept for many. It is important to understand that Jesus is not teaching cannibalism in this statement. This is a figurative representation for a far superior spiritual reality. Nevertheless, Jesus used the natural substance of Mem “blood” to help guide us for the need of His sacrifice on a cross (Tav) and without this substance no human would have any eternal life.

If you are not a Christian, you may not believe this yet. Those that received salvation could only do so, because of the willing sacrifice of divine blood of one God/Man named Jesus Christ. In a human male of about 180 pounds, he could have had at least 1.2 to 1.5 gallons of blood. It was this Mem image of flowing blood, that purchased out redemption out of a human sin debt, that could only be paid for by God Himself. This is why this symbolic meaning of the picture is by far one of the most significant meanings that is needed to be understood.

What we need to understand, is that there was a problem with every human born from the first created man named Adam. Because he rebelled, and sinned willingly, we all rebelled and sinned at that very instant having the death sentence passed upon every generation. We must understand that before sin entered into the world, Adam’s blood was created sinless and he was able to live forever. But after sin, his corrupted sinful blood was passed down to us all. Acts 17:26 informs us that God created all nations on the earth from “one blood (Mem)”. Because of Adam’s sin, the entire bloodline of every human descendant became corrupted (1 Cor 15:50). We see this principle again in 1 Corinthians 15:22 where God says, “For as in Adam, all die”. It was Adam’s DNA in his seed (Nun) that produced the next line of blood-stained generation of humans, and this continued even to today.

This is why we all needed a savior, even if you think you never did anything bad enough to be sent to hell for. Because God knew all of this, this is the reason why, Jesus brought into the world a “New Sinless Divine Blood”, that was not defiled or corrupted by the first Adam’s sin. We learn this fact from reading in 1 Peter 1:18-19. In these verses God says, “We were not redeemed with corruptible things, … But with the precious blood of Messiah/Christ”.

In this section, we are only focused upon the “primary” importance of the “Mem” representing the “blood” of Jesus Christ. In doing this, we must go back to Exodus 12 and establish God’s pattern of the coming Messiah by observing Him found in the blood of a lamb. Exodus 12:1 begins by saying “And the Lord spoke unto Moses”.  The Hebrew word H559 that was translated as “spoke” is spelled “Alef” + “Mem” + “Resh”. Please recall the “Alef” is a picture of an ox representing “God in Christ as the strong servant”.  Then recall, the “Mem” is a picture of “water” and/or “blood”. Finally recall the “Resh”, is a picture of a man’s head representing his chief “authority”.

Placing the meanings of these three letters together it says, “God’s (Alef) water/blood/words (Mem) of Chief Authority (Resh)”. Since God was doing the speaking to Moses with this word, we can certainly see the application of that description to what was taking place. We have only been introduced briefly to the fact that the “Mem” represents physical water and blood. But we will soon learn that this natural “water” symbol, can also represent spiritual spoken words of authority. We will get to this fact soon. Keep these in mind, because all of these meanings have an application to Jesus.

Now notice the named “Moses” also begins with the letter “Mem”. Most know the story of Moses. Moses was born during a time where all male babies were commanded to be thrown into the Nile River (Mem) to be drown (Exo 1:22). This river was a very large flowing “Mem” water supply of Egypt. Therefore, Satan was trying to use God’s created supply of water (Mem) designed for life, as an instrument of death. Do not forget later when Moses is sent to deliver Israel from Egypt that the first plague sent was God turning this water supply from water into blood (Exo 17:7). That is a major pattern of confirmation for the symbol of “Mem” representing both water and blood.

In fact, in Exodus 17:7, the word translated as “waters” is the word H4325, which is the word form of the letter “Mem” that begins and ends with the letter “Mem”. Then notice the Hebrew word translated into the word “blood” is H1818, and it ends with the letter “Mem”. We are about to discover how all of this is being designed and connected together by God as prophetical patterns of the coming Jesus. Let us get back to the story of Moses being saved by God from Satan’s River of death.

Most recall, that all male babies were commanded to be killed in the river. But Moses was saved by him being hidden for 3 months, and then being placed in an empty container translated as an “ark”.  By Moses being placed above the waters of death, it was this “ark” that saved him. This Hebrew word H8392 translated as “ark” is spelled “Tav” + “Beyt” + “Hey”.  The “Tav” we should know by now is the last letter of the alphabet a picture of a “Cross”. The “Beyt” is a picture of the “Tent House” representing the “Family” inside the house. Finally, the “Hey” is a picture of a man with hands raised, meaning “Look”, “Behold”, and “See”. Therefore, we can see how an “ark” of salvation is a prophetical picture for Christians beholding the revelation (Hey) of the cross (Tav) that is creating a new family of God to enter into (Beyt).

It was Moses floating above this water that saved him, when he was drawn out by a daughter of Pharoah’s house. Moses’ name actually means to be “drawn” from water. Remember, that it was this daughter’s father that ordered the Hebrew babies to be killed. Therefore, the enemy also became the deliverer for Moses, without fully knowing it. God is amazing, isn’t He? It should amaze us how God can use what was intended for evil to be used for deliverance. This is how the life of Moses was saved by God’s selection usage of water. We have also just confirmed the concept about water being of two opposing usages for good and life, or evil and death. That is an important factor or type, to not forget. It will reappear as we study this subject.

So far, we have just covered multiple applications found in Exodus about blood and water and we find them all as references to the letter “Mem”.  Now let us move faster, or we will never get finished. Reading down the chapter 12 of Exodus, we find where Moses was told that every house (Beyt) must take a “lamb”. This Lamb must be without blemishes. It was to be taken into the house (Beyt) for 4 days, and then it was to be sacrificed on the 14th day of the month, when the moon was “full”. On that evening, the lamb was to be slain and its blood (Mem) was to be collected and placed on every post of the door of the house (a prophetical type of Tav). Let us stop there an learn more fully the word translated as “blood” that we were briefly introduced to earlier.

This Hebrew word H1818 has the sound of “dawm”, and it is spelled with two letters, the “Dalet” and the “Mem”. Did you notice these two Hebrew letters that are translated as “blood” are a picture of the first Passover? So, we have the major part of the story of Passover told to us in two letters that are translated as “blood”. That is not a coincidence. The “Dalet” is the picture of the Father’s house door posts where blood will be applied for his family to enter into to have every life saved. The “Mem” is obviously the picture of “blood” that is applied to the doorposts (Tav). This application to God’s heavenly house (Beyt) and eternal life, found in two letters translated as “blood” for Christ’s work on a cross to save us is amazing. What we are about to read in this chapter is a picture of God’s spiritual house. We will not get into this part of the lesson in depth today.

But for natural Israel, this act of obedience to place the lamb’s blood on the doorposts, is exactly what saved the children of Israel from the death angel coming to take the firstborn of each family house. That was the good news for the people. But the reversed bad news was for the “lamb”. The “lamb” that was slain on the first “Passover” had to die and its blood had to be placed upon wooden posts in order for no one inside the “door” to die.

This was called a substitutionary work for human salvation. Instead of the human in the house dying, the lamb died in their place. It was the outward display of a lamb’s blood that prevented the death angel from taking anyone’s life hidden in the house (Beyt). All of this found in Exodus 12, should be a clear picture of Christ’s death on a cross for all humans. It was because of His death that no other human has to die spiritually. You can read more about this in other lessons on this site. But we will observe a few of the obvious verses to confirm this:

  1. John the Baptist calls Jesus the “Lamb of God” in John 1:36.
  2. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:7, that Jesus was the “Passover” sacrifice for Christians.
  3. In John 10:9, Jesus said “I am the door, if any man enter in, he shall be saved”.
  4. In 1 Peter 1:19 God says we were saved by the “precious blood of Christ, without blemish and without spot.

That was just a small sampling of verses written to the church about Jesus our Passover and His saving blood (Mem) sacrifice on a cross. There are many other references concerning the blood (Mem) of Jesus that obtained our human salvation. His blood did more than you have seen or know. But yet it is possible to learn more, by simply studying “Blood” verses in the New Testament about this subject. Hopefully, you can see how this picture of a “Passover Lamb” was fulfilled in the life and blood (Mem) of Jesus. Let us move to another part of the “Mem” blood subject.

3. Jesus to Die the Death, Another Mem Prophecy Fulfilled on the Cross

This was amazing when it was discovered recently during Bible study time with the LORD. The Hebrew word that is translated as “to die” (H4191) is spelled with 3 letters. The first letter is our study subject “Mem”. This “Mem” letter is joined with the middle letter “Vav”, and finally, the word ends with a “Tav”. Do you recall what these pictures represented?  The letter “Mem” is our study letter representing moving water and blood symbolically. The letter “Vav” is the picture of a “Nail”. The letter “Tav” is the picture of a “cross”. This spelling contains the clear hidden prophecy of Jesus’ bloody death by Him being nailed to a cross. As you can see this is described by God in picture story telling form found in just 3 alphabet ancient letter designs. God knew this would happen when Moses wrote the Torah, and placed His death again, in hidden alphabet letter meanings for the word translated as “to die”. It was hidden right in front of us for many years.  Let us look at the first verse in the Bible, this word is selected for us by God:

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die

Wow, if you only knew the hidden facts in this verse. As we can read this verse is God describing to the first created man Adam, that there was one tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he must not eat from. In this verse one hidden mystery that is profound occurs at the end of the statement. The words are “thou shalt surely die”, and these two words are really just the same word. They are the same word H4191 written twice. There are several potential explanations for why God wrote it this way. Some teach that when a word is doubled there is a major emphasis and this is probably a reason why the word “surely” was placed in the translation.

But I believe it is best to allow the Bible to interpret the Bible. For this reason, we can find Jesus speaking in Revelation 2:11 saying to the Churches, “He that overcomes, will not be hurt of the second death”. This literally means there are two types of death. The first is natural death, and the second is spiritual death. Most humans are only concerned about the natural death of their bodies, because they do not understand that they are a spirit, that will live forever.

Knowing the fact that there are two types of death, that are destined for some humans that do not ever repent to receive salvation to overcome the devil, helps us to understand why God placed 2 words “to die” in a row in Genesis 2:17. In one appropriate translation it could say, “in dying, you will die”. But it also appears that because the first Adam willfully disobeyed God, all of mankind was destined to die twice. Uh oh! That is the reason why this word is spelled the way it was. Jesus Christ chose “to die” twice in our place by placing His blood upon a wooden cross, to die physically, and simultaneously He died spiritually when He was separated from His Father in heaven, by spending 3 days and 3 nights in hell (Mat 12:40).

We can clearly see how Jesus completely fulfilled this prophecy of Genesis 2:17 for payment of all human sin by becoming our substitute. This is why God could say in 1 Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam, all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”. Because Jesus shed His “Mem” blood hanging nailed (Vav) to a cross (Tav), God’s justice payment was satisfied, and no other human needed to go to hell. To be “born” twice, will insure only one physical death and for some saved humans in the end of the age, a “no death” exit. This message was hidden in the “Mem” + “Vav” + “Tav” Hebrew word translated as “to die”. Hallelujah, and all praise be to the merciful LORD.

4. Jesus God’s LAST ADAM – God’s Mem Blood Sacrifice

We are about to get into some more amazing hidden prophetical statements that were concealed in the Old Testament about who Jesus was. If you have read other Bible lessons in this series you should already know that Jesus is called the “Last Adam” in 1 Corinthians 15:45. In this verse Jesus is compared directly with the “first Adam” introduced to us in Genesis 1, 2, 3 & 4. Reading in Romans 5:14 God reveals a secret that the first Adam as a patterned type for the Last Adam. In all these verses, God says the first Adam was created as a living “soul” pattern, for the “Last Adam” named Jesus who would be made by God to be a “quickening Spirit”. That is an amazing statement of comparison. What we are focused upon is the fact that both men are called “Adam” by God. This name has a lot of major implications attached to it.

We are primarily concerned about the letters found in the Hebrew name “ADAM”. We are about to discover something very amazing hidden in this name. First, we must know that the last letter in the name is the study subject “Mem” representing both blood and water. The Bible word “Adam” is the Hebrew word “H121”. It is not a translation of the Hebrew word, but rather it is a transliterated pronunciation of the Hebrew letters “ADM” (Alef+Dalet+Mem), pronounced as “Aw-dawm”. The first letter of the name Adam is “Alef”, the strong ox representing God. The second letter of the name is the “Dalet”, representing the “door” of the tent tabernacle or the movement in or out through the opening where a son is born. The last letter is the “Mem”, representing our substances of water and/or blood indicating life.

Now let us remember what we have just learned about the word H1818 that is translated as blood. Please recall this word is pronounced “dawm”. It was spelled as Dalet + Mem and just so happens to be the last two letters in the name Adam. These two letters are symbolic of the human heart as a “door” (Dalet) that allows movement of the blood (Mem) throughout the body. Most humans are aware of the physical heart muscle that pumps the human blood into all the rest of our body. This physical muscle is named the “heart”. It operates by contracting and expanding automatically, in the conjunction with the opening and closing of valves as if the opening and closing of doors (Dalet). The physical heart figuratively represents your spiritual house, and the valves represent the doors of the heart house. It is the Mem “blood” that was placed inside of us by God to pass in and out of our beating heart. The normal human heart beats over 100,000 times a day in order to keep us physically alive. Most humans take this action completely for granted.

What we are about to find is that this physical “heart” organ represents an unseen spiritual state. The human spirit is also called by the same named “heart” in the Bible. It is this spiritual location that Jesus wants to enter into to fellowship with us all. For example, notice this verse in Revelation:

Rev 3:20  Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 

Let us stop and analyze an invitation that Jesus gave to every human on the earth. We will begin by first noticing the reference in the words of Jesus to a “door” (Dalet) that he is standing before knocking.  Jesus is definitely the God servant Ox figure of the Alef. Therefore, we have the Alef standing before the Dalet. These are the first two letters of the name Adam.

You see we learned in the “Dalet” lesson that Jesus is our door for salvation, and by us choosing to enter into this door, we can be saved. But Jesus is not the only door that is necessary to be opened in order for us to become fully saved. Every human has a spiritual door provided for God access, that must also be opened by the human spirit in order to be necessary for their salvation to occur.

By a human opening their heart’s door, they are allowing the Spirit of Christ to come inside to give them eternal life by Him being their LORD. Both doors (Jesus and human) must be entered into by both covenanting partners and these acts produce a union of becoming one Spirit (1 Cor 6:17) in two realms of existence. Jesus wants you to invite Him into your heart, and He will enter your newly created spirit (2 Cor 5:17), to bring you into the presence of the Father in heaven. This is the LAW of marriage found in Genesis 2:24 for the first Adam that is re-applied by God spiritually in the Last Adam (Jesus). But this covenant of marriage is between Christ and His bride the church body (Eph 5:31-32).

Now that you know that, we need to get back to our Hebrew letters found in the name “Adam”. We just discovered the Dalet + Mem means moving “Blood” as if alive. Now let us add the first letter “Alef” and place it before the root word “blood”. Remember, that the first letter “Alef” has the most basic meaning of being a representation of “God”, who is the ultimate “beginning” and strong servant.  The last part of Adam is “Dalet” + “Mem” (H1818) meaning “blood”. Combine these and we get “God’s blood” or “the blood of God”. Wow! That is pretty amazing information. God has hidden the fact that found in the very first human man, was His very own “blood”. That is pretty remarkable and we can confirm this by reading and studying more in Genesis:

Gen 2:7  And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

OK, we can read that the body of the man was formed from the dust of the earth. But it had no life until God breathed into Adam His breath (Spirit). God is a Spirit (Jn 4:24). Therefore, God does not breathe created “air” (oxygen). What then did God place in the body of Adam to cause him to become a breathing human? What is God saying to us here? Notice that this action giving life is called the “breath of life”. That is pretty amazing based upon what God says in Leviticus:

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. 

Did you notice what God reveals about the life (H5315) of a human body that causes it to be alive? God clearly reveals that it is “blood” that causes physical “life”. God had to place His “blood” in the body of the created man to cause Adam’s physical life to come alive. But that is not all of the truth necessary to know everything that happened to the first Adam when God “breathed” into his nostrils.

Jas 2:26  For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. 

Can you begin to see the direct connections being made by the LORD? God says in James, that a human body without their spirit is dead. Then in Leviticus God declares the life of a human body is in their blood. What did God just say? God just said, that if there is no human spirit or blood in their physical body, there is no physical or spiritual life present. This was the case for the body of Adam in Genesis 2. It was not until Adam received the breath of God that life came inside the body. Where then did Adam’s blood and spirit come from? Both of these could have only come from God.

There looks as if there is a new revelation appearing, about the fact that when God breathed (His Spirit) into the nostrils of the lifeless body of the first Adam, that He placed His personal life, inside Adam to give Adam a sinless blood and him a sinless living spirit simultaneously. Uh oh? This information could probably be causing a lot of religious minded people to potentially close their minds. But it is what the Bible says. Adam when created was in a form of a being that could have lived forever, if they had not eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was only after sin, that death entered into the world.

What we are learning is that the first created Adam, was created more like the Last Adam Jesus than we might have realized. But because God knew the end from the beginning, God also knew that the first Adam was going to sin and fail. And this fact is why God placed the “Last Adam” inside of the first Adam as a “seed” (Nun). By pre-planting the physical “seed” (Nun) of the “Last Adam” in the physical body of the first Adam pre-sin, God already had the solution for post-sin from the very beginning (Alef). God reveals this by calling Jesus the “Son of Man”. The Hebrew word H121 transliterated as Adam is the exact same word (H120) that was translated as “man”.

These Bible truths may or may not be a new revelation for you, that Jesus our Savior was designed by God into the foundation of the world from the very beginning. God implemented this strategy of making Jesus the pre-planned “slain Lamb of God” from the foundation of our world (Rev 13:8). We can understand that because God knew the end from the beginning (Isa 46:10), He already planned a solution implementation to pay the penalty of human sin and rebellion even before it became a reality need. We are learning that Jesus was not just a thought in the mind of God during creation but was rather a part of God’s designed solution implementation. God’s nature is to provide the solution before the problem is ever known. Nothing surprises Him in the least.

God provided a future body of the Last Adam Jesus the savior of the whole world, by placing His physical body seed “IN” the body of the first Adam when he was created. This is the truth, or otherwise Jesus could not ever be called by the title “Son of Adam/Man (H120)”. But there is a lot more challenging new information to combine with this one. For example, Jesus the Last Adam, is also called the “Son of God” as well as being the “Son of Adam”. That is a new mystery that needs further revelation. How can Jesus the Last Adam, also be a Son of Adam as well as the Son of God? And what else does all of this information about two Adam’s imply?

We need to discover another major new Bible concept, that God says the “first Adam” was also a “son of God”. That may be more challenging than anything that you have ever learned in the Bible. But we are about to discover why this is so important in relationship to our “Blood” Mem letter study.

Please remember in Luke 3:38 that the first Adam was called “the son of God”. I know the word “son” is not in the Greek text, but it is implied strongly by the reference of every pair of men being a father and son relationship that pass their “seed” bloodline to the next generation. Are you going to try to tell us that everyone pair is a father and his son, except the last pair, God and Adam? That would not logically make any sense. Patterns are prophecies of truth in the Bible. Remember this information was already confirmed by knowing that the three letters of the name of Adam meant “God’s blood”. Now notice what God says in this verse:

Act 17:26  And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 

God has declared that all people from every nation on the earth, originally came from the blood of God that He placed in the body of the first Adam in Genesis 1-2. There are no races of people, no matter what the tone of the skin color or the physical characteristics. Every human has the same original parents named Adam and Eve and their blood could have only come from God. The fact that all humans came from one woman named Eve, is scientifically proven by observing human DNA origins going backwards from woman to woman until the single common woman that is called our mitochondrial-Eve by Wikipedia. Go read about it for yourself. This information was first published nearly 30 years ago.

What we are learning is very profound. We can begin to see the value that God places upon every human and why it was necessary for Him to come to the earth in person to redeem us. This is why God says in Hebrews 10:14 that it is not possible for the blood of created animals like bulls or goats to take away (human) sin. Why would this be? If man had been given the same kind of blood as animals, it would surely be possible for their innocent blood to pay the price for human sin. Or if God gave His blood to the animals like He did to Adam, that would make us all of the same type. But because humans were the only one that was given God’s blood, God required the same or greater payment to save us. Hebrews 10:14 is just one more confirmation. But let us look at other references in the first chapter of Genesis to further confirm God’s blood was placed inside of Adam:

Gen 1:26  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

The Hebrew word translated as “Likeness” in Genesis 1:26 is very important to our subject of the first Adam being God’s son, and having God’s blood. This Hebrew word “H1823” translated as likeness is made with combining 4 Hebrew letters. These letters are the “Dalet”, “Mem”, “Vav” and “Tav”. Wow, now let us place these meanings of each of these letters together to see that they say “Blood” (Dalet+Mem), “Nailed” (Vav) to a “Cross” (Tav). This was obviously God’s original plan for Jesus.

But another definition for this Hebrew word translated as “likeness”, has this meaning in the Ancient Hebrew Lexicon as; “A son from the blood of his father resembles his father”. What we have just reaffirmed is the fact that the first Adam was a son of the creator heavenly Father. This is what amazed the angels that observed God’s creation of the first man Adam (Job 38:7). God places His own Spirit life and blood inside of the body of His created man, and this made him different than any other creation up to this point. The angels in heaven could look at the created first Adam and see a direct family relationship to creator God. It is very much like people can look at my son, and see my characteristics in his looks, actions, characteristics, etc.

Jesus the second man, and last Adam, also possessed the singles pure blood (Mem) of God. It was the fact that Jesus lived His life without sin, that gave Him the right to pay the price of all of us human sinners that were born in the first Adam’s family blood line. Believe it or not this is the truth. God even tells us of this in the Hebrew word prophecy found in the letters of the word translated as “Truth”.

5. God’s (Alef) + “Blood” (Mem) + “Cross” (Tav) = TRUTH

One Hebrew word translated as “truth” is H571. This is an amazing word to our Bible study. This word is spelled with three letters. The first letter is the “Alef” representing Jesus the strong Ox servant. The second letter is our study letter “Mem” representing “blood”. The last letter is “Tav”, representing “the covenant mark of the cross”. Placing these three letters together God gives us the prophecy of “God/Jesus blood on the cross is ultimate truth”. Remember what Jesus said to us in John 8:32? In this verse of very profound revelation, Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”. Wow, do you see God’s connections to knowing who Jesus was, and whose Spirit and blood was found in His body, by His selection of the spelling of this Hebrew word translated as “TRUTH”? 

Jesus just mentioned the word for “Truth” twice in this single statement in John 8:32. Within the context you can clearly see that Jesus is speaking to Jewish people. There is no doubt in my mind or heart, that He was speaking in Hebrew the word “Truth”. Remember that Jesus very plainly claimed to be the “Alef” and the “Tav”, four times in the book of Revelation. This word “Truth” is indirectly connected to that claim because of the beginning and ending letter of the Hebrew word. This would tend to teach us that Jesus also understood what the “Mem” in between represented as being His “blood”.

We have just learned something very significant about two Adam’s. Both of these men originally contained the sinless blood of Almighty God. The first Adam rebelled against God, and this did not faze Him, because He had already planned another Adam to save us all. Because God Himself became this second and last Adam, God could insure and guarantee our salvation personally. We also see why it was necessary for Him to come because of His original man being designated to be so valuable by God placing His own blood inside of his body.

It is the “Mem” spotless blood of Jesus that is the primary emphasis to our study of this ancient Hebrew alphabet letter. Without this blood sacrifice on a cross, we would all be lost and going to hell with Satan. That is the “TRUTH” (Alef+Mem+Tav). Hopefully, you are learning and seeing some new amazing things that were hidden in the spelling of words with God’s “Blood” in them. We will only go through one final section in this lesson, ending with a description of how the water and the blood symbols of the “Mem” were found in the life of Jesus from beginning birth to the ending death.

6. Jesus’ the First and Last – Mem Water and Blood Prophecy Fulfillment

Isa 7:14  Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 

We are beginning to wrap up this Mem blood study, by connecting the beginning and the ending of the physical life of Messiah Jesus. Never forget the basis of this entire series originates from the fact that Jesus directly claimed 4 times in the book of Revelation to be the Alef and the Tav, the beginning and the ending. From this information, Jesus implied He was also every other letter of the alphabet that fell between the first and the last. This certainly included the “Mem” water and blood letter.

What we are about to see, is how the life’s beginning and the ending death of Jesus were clearly connected and woven together by God’s designed plan using both of the major Mem symbols of water and blood. We are about to discover how both the beginning of the Jesus’ life and His ending physical death involved His human interaction with natural water and blood. Wow! This is impossible to be a coincidence. This knowledge simply confirms the infinite foreknowledge of God to incorporate every Hebrew letter into the life and ministry of Jesus. It clearly demonstrates God’s extreme intelligent design of every detail including the alphabet letter choices.

What we are about to discover is that the “entrance” of Jesus into the world involved the interaction of both Mem “water and blood”. Then we can notice the exact same two interacting components in the death of Jesus. Let us begin first with the birth of Jesus first using the above prophecy found in Isaiah 7:14.

Why was it necessary for the Messiah to be conceived within, and born from a “virgin” woman? God very specifically prophesies this plan hundreds of years before it was fulfilled in the virgin woman named “Mary”. Think about it? Any woman could get pregnant. Even Sarah at the age of 90, who was well passed the time of having a child normally, suddenly and miraculously had a God promised child. Sarah was a type of the mother of Jesus. Yet she does not come close to matching the profile of the virgin Mary, other than both being miraculous conceptions. It appears this birth of Christ was going to be even more miraculous than that birth of Isaac. In Isaiah 7:14, God reveals this birth will be for a “sign” (H226).

This Hebrew word H226 translated as “sign” is spelled “Alef” + “Vav” + “Tav”. The combination of these three letters reveals the meaning, “God nailed to a cross”. This word can also literally mean the “mark of a covenant agreement” between two parties. We all know Jesus claimed to be the “Alef” (beginning) and the “Tav” (End) four times in the book of Revelation. The joining nail in between these two letters represents a bonding connection. Placing this information together we can get another image of the “beginning” of Jesus being joined with His “end”, and amazingly this occurred in the Gospels very plainly. Let us examine why God selected a virgin woman first as the beginning for Christ’s physical birth.

1Jn 5:6  This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. 

1Jn 5:7  For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 

1Jn 5:8  And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. 

These are amazingly parallel verses found in the New Covenant about our subject letter “Mem”.  Notice the mention of “Truth” at the end of the verses related to the Spirit of God.  Then notice that four times in these three verses, “water” is mentioned directly. Four times in these three verses, “blood” is directly mentioned. Therefore, there is no doubt that we are directly over the target letter “Mem” subject.

Remember in the introduction we were talking about three components H2O that were designed by God to describe one element called “water”. This pattern is found again here, being repeated amazingly in great detail. Let us begin by noticing verse 5 is describing the birth of Jesus.  This is strongly implied by God’s usage of the Greek word G2064 that was translated in verse 5 as “came”. To come is a term indicating that a person has been in a previous place and has now manifested in the current location, representing physical earth.

This simply means that Jesus came down from heaven, being sent by His Father who was still there, and it was accomplished by the Holy Spirit overshadowing a woman named Mary. It is very important to note upfront that the child Jesus spent 9 months inside this woman before He “came” into the world.  Then you better not forget how this time was spent?  These 9 months were God as a developing child surrounded by “Mem” water.  That is your first clue that God is about to reveal something more intense is coming.

We can learn all about this reading in Luke chapter 1. God the Father sent an angel to Mary to inform her that she is being favored by God. She is told that she would have a child. She asked the angel how this would be possible, since she had not “known” a man. This simply meant that she was a virgin. That was a great question. The angel then informs her that the Spirit of God would come upon her to cause this child to manifest. Again, we find the entire trinity in the conception of Jesus. The Father in heaven, sent the angel with the “Word” message, the Holy Spirit would come upon Mary, and the Son of God would manifest. That is all another amazing three in one interaction of God.

Ok, that brings us back to what is a virgin and how is this connected with 1 John 5:6?  Notice in this verse of 1 John, God reveals Jesus was born with both blood and water being mixed together.  How is this possible during child birth? Normally it is not possible. There is never any blood present during normal childbirth. But Mary was a virgin. This meant her hymen was still present in her birth canal. This little piece of skin was designed by God to produce blood flow when torn. Normally this occurs the first time the woman has sexual relations with her husband, but Mary had never experienced this until after Jesus was born (Mat 1:25).

Can we see what God is revealing here? Normal childbirth labor occurs with breaking of the membrane to release the flow of water in the womb. It was this Mem “water” that Jesus the Son of God grew in, until He could be born. When Mary’s water broke, the normal gush of moving fluid exited and was followed by the head of the baby Jesus. During the exit from the womb, Jesus had to have broken the hymen and that would also cause Him to pass through the blood of His mother. Do we understand that the sole created purpose of the hymen in a female, is to bond in covenant with her husband? That sounds a lot like the description of the Hebrew word “H226” that was translated as a “sign”. Do you believe this was a beginning sign for something major that was happening in one of the first works of God in Christ’s birth? Take a look at another verse of significant revelation concerning the birth of Messiah:

Gal 4:4  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 

As we can see, God sent His Son Jesus, by Him being “made” inside of a Hebrew virgin woman named Mary. Jesus spent the normal duration of 9-months to fulfill the birthing time. But please notice the major emphasis for why He was born of this woman Mary. According to God, Jesus was born of Mary because she was under the Law of Moses, and this fact made her child Jesus to also fall under the same LAW!  Uh oh? Let us say this again. Because Mary His mother was under the Law of Moses, Jesus her firstborn son, also was placed under the full Law of Moses. Why was this necessary?

Some ask the question, isn’t it His law already? Didn’t God speak this law to His servant Moses directly? We are not able to teach this revelation as fully as is needed today. God had a problem in heaven after Lucifer sinned and rebelled causing 1/3 of the angels to fall with him. Did you know there were no laws in heaven when Lucifer rebelled against God?  Did you also know that in Romans 4:15 God says where there is no law, there is no transgression?  This is one of the main reasons why God created Adam on the earth.

God brought about a nation from Abraham that He could introduce His “LAW” through. It was this fact of being under His LAW, that Jesus, who was God in the flesh, manifested. By God placing Himself under the Law of Moses in the flesh, He placed all of His creation under the same LAW and this included Lucifer and every other angelic being, good or evil. Notice what God reveals to us in this verse about the LAW:

Rom 3:19  Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 

God’s Law of Moses only applied to those natural people that were born under His law. This appears to imply that it did not apply to God, nor any other angelic being, nor any other nation that was not in the Old Covenant. This is very amazing implied information being given to us. God appears to be revealing to His saved church, one significant reason for Him being born on the earth, was to place Himself under His own law. What was the reason for this act? According to what we just read; it was to “silence” the mouth of everyone in the world. Who is the god of this world that needed to be silenced?  2 Corinthians 4:4 says Satan is the god of this world that blinds the minds of every unbeliever. Uh oh, we are learning some great new information.

Using this information and other verses in the New Testament we will find that because Jesus could live the LAW as a sinless man, He could pay the price to allow for human salvation, while simultaneously legally rejecting salvation for Satan. Jesus seems to have accomplished this condemnation by His death on the cross:

Joh 16:11  Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. 

Notice what Jesus reveals about Himself and His soon coming crucifixion on the cross. This soon coming event of His Tav cross death, according to Jesus appears to be one of the final nails in the coffin on Satan.  This is very enlightening information being given to us by God Himself. This is also a very eye-opening new way to look at the verse 1 Corinthians 2:8 for some. In this verse God reveals “If Satan would have known the reason for the life of Jesus, He would have never crucified the LORD of glory!”. Are you beginning to see why? Jesus living in the flesh under the Law of Moses, and never breaking the LAW, could have lived forever in His sinless state or existence. He would have never been able to die. If there would have never been a death, there would have been no burial. If there would have been no burial, there would have been no resurrection from the “dead” of anyone. But because Jesus was the “Firstborn” from the dead, He gained preeminence over Satan for eternity separating God from the realm of darkness totally and completely. This could all occur because God came into the world born of a woman under the law through His water and blood interaction.

We will not go through all of the other verses of 1 John 5 in this lesson today.  It would take literally books of new information to reveal everything God is saying to us about the spirit, blood and water connections in the life of Jesus.  What we should conclude is Jesus was intentionally born into the world passing through both “water” and “blood”, which are the two major meanings of the “Mem” pictogram. But now let us move to the end of the life of Jesus to see how these same two substances are again mentioned and joined together at His ending death. Please notice, that none of this is a coincidence.

It just so happens that one of the last recorded events that befell the natural body of the LORD Jesus, occurred while the body was still hanging on the cross. During this event there occurred the mixing of both Mem “blood” and “water”, that fell upon the ground. And this sounds like the birth of Jesus exactly.

Joh 19:33  But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: 

Joh 19:34  But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. 

Joh 19:35  And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. 

Joh 19:36  For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. 

Joh 19:37  And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced. 

This is really amazing how God accomplished this work. God by His infinite foreknowledge knew everything that would take place on crucifixion day including the exact time that it would occur. We are only going to focus upon verse 34 for our Mem study lesson. Soldiers were coming to every man crucified, to break their legs to speed up their deaths since it was getting close to 6 PM that began the new day Sabbath evening. Jews demanded that these 3 men, not be left on the cross to defile their Sabbath. Isn’t it interesting how the number 3 has appeared again. When the soldiers came to Jesus, they were surprised that he was already dead.

But for good measure to ensure His death, one soldier took a spear and with its sharp point pierced the body into the heart of the Lamb of God. Instantly after the spear was extracted from the body of Jesus, both blood and water flowed out upon the ground. Wow, that is both of the major symbols of the Ancient Hebrew Mem letter picture. This just cannot be a coincidence; it is definitely another major sign of the intelligent design of an all-knowing God.

Notice the connection in this passage again to 1 John 5:8. The Spirit of Jesus leaves His physical body, and the body is dead. Then the spear is placed into the physical body and the “water” and “blood” is poured out on the ground. What did John say in 1 John 5:8? These three agree in one, the spirit, the blood and the water. Did not all of these just leave the body of Messiah? What were the three witnesses saying in agreement?

  1. Without the “Spirit” the body is dead,
  2. Without the “blood” the body is dead,
  3. Without “water” the body is dead.

What we have just seen in this section, was the beginning birth process and entrance of Jesus involved by a passing through Mary’s natural bodily “water” and “blood” fluids. But before this natural birth of Jesus occurred, she heard the Word of God and believed it to receive it. Then the Holy Spirit comes upon Mary passing even to her spirit through her bodily fluids of both “water” and “blood”, in order to cause her to be physically impregnated in her womb. When this happened the Word of God became “Flesh” (Jn 1:14), and this grew a new manifestation of God as an unborn child called the Son of God, Jesus. God’s Spirit now lived inside of a natural woman in a sack of “water”, surrounded by her “blood” being fed by an attached umbilical cord.

Now consider this additional factor of Mem “water” and “blood” in this birth process. The union of Mary’s physical egg with God’s Word/Seed caused a baby to begin to develop. In as few as 5 weeks this God/Man baby had the basic structure of a heart that caused the flow of “blood” through the continuing to grow body’s circulatory system. Wow, this is amazing. Now we have a self-contained body unit inside of His mother’s self-contained body unit. Mary’s body being a daughter of Adam, Abraham, Judah and David had sin’s corruption within it. What allowed God in the flesh to be inside this sinful woman and her not to drop dead in God’s presence inside?

The answer is found in the previous stated fact that declares Jesus’ body to be a self-contained independent temple of God. The growing baby inside Mary’s womb, as we learned previously had the incorruptible blood of God, that was sinless and spotless. It was just one drop of this powerful blood that was immediately able to pay the full sin debt of all humans in the entire time of man’s history on the earth. It was also this blood that had allowed God in the flesh to touch the sinful woman Mary’s body, and her not fall dead instantly. In the mind of God, the Lamb of God growing inside Mary’s body had already been slain when Adam sinned. This is why Jesus could walk up to sinful humans and say to them in advance before His natural death, “your sins are forgiven”. He knew what was going to happen in just a short time.

That was a lot of uses by God, of Mem “blood” and “water” interactions. We will see even more examples of this in the next lesson that will focus upon the subject of “water” predominantly, the Lord be willing. But all of these cooperating works in agreement of God’s Spirit, Water, and Blood is what gave Him the legal right to be physically born as a human baby into the world (Jn 10:1).

Now combine the beginning entrance of Jesus into the world, with the legal witness of His exit out of the world. As we learned previously God’s usage of “blood” and “water” and His Spirit were witnesses to both situations. Did you know “blood” is a witness? We read in Genesis 4 where the blood of Able cried to God from the ground. This established the fact that “blood” speaks even after death as a witness to his murder. Did you know also, that the Blood of Jesus also speaks? In Hebrews 12:24, we find where God says “The blood of Jesus speaks better things than the blood of Able”. Now we have just learned some amazing truths.

We have also established a fact that both the birth and the death of Jesus were witnessed by three realities of the same substances. The first was the Spirit of God. The second was the “blood” of God, and the third was the word of God. I know you thought that was supposed to say the “water” of God. But in the next lesson, we will confirm this Mem “water” represents God’s spoken Words. We can already begin to see this reading in John 1:1 where God says, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God”.

Now combine John 1:1 with Genesis 1:1-3. “In beginning God (Elohim + Alef-Tav) created the heaven and the earth, and the Spirit of the Lord brooded over the waters, And God said, “let there be light”.

There appears to be an even greater usage of God of His water and blood hanging on a cross than we might have ever seen before. Remember that it is the blood that was poured out of the vessel of the body of Jesus that establishes the New Covenant creation of God. This is why Jesus could cry with a loud voice hanging on the cross “It is Finished”, speaking of God’s old creation containing Lucifer.  The ending last natural work of Christ on a cross was for Him to supply an offering of His blood and water for the full one-time payment and cleansing of all human sin. That is amazing! Thank you, Jesus! It was the witness of these three elements, Spirit, Blood, and Water (Words), that gave God the legal right to raise Christ back from the dead, after the first Adam’s human sin penalty was fully paid for in three days.

7. MEM – BLOOD CONCLUSION

It was God’s powerful, wonderful and amazing Mem “Blood” that purchased us out of an eternity of spiritual death separation abiding in hell. It was God’s blood that caused every human sin to be able to be cleansed and removed from God’s judgment. We have been focusing upon the Mem “Blood” substance representing the blood of Jesus, our LORD and Savior. We have explored several Hebrew words that contain the “Mem” blood letter. We learned about Jesus coming to the earth “to die” two deaths that were revealed to happen in Genesis 2, if Adam sinned. God had pre-planned the solution to this problem by already establishing a pathway of blood for the Last Adam to be born as a baby child in Bethlehem.  

We further studied the fact that the name “Adam” means “God’s Blood”.  We further studied the Hebrew word translated as “Likeness” confirmed Adam had the blood of God in His body. This teaches us how valuable created man was to God from the very beginning. The first man Adam was made slightly lower than God Himself and certainly above the angelic class of beings. But He fell below them becoming in need of a great sacrifice to save us.

We also learned the Hebrew word translated as “TRUTH” is Jesus the Alef and the Tav joined with the “Mem” blood connector.  We will always be eternally grateful to what God did to become a human to bring about a clean blood supply from heaven to pay the price of all of our sins.  Thank you, Jesus!  This was only “Part 1” of the Mem study subject. The LORD willing, we will learn the Mem “water” application to Jesus in “Part 2”.  We appreciate your time in studying the Bible with us. Satan literally hates these lessons because they are blessing so many people.

Intro Alef Beyt-1 2 Gimel Dalet Hey Vav Zayin Chet Tet Yod Kaf Lamed Mem 1 2 Nun Samekh Avin Pey Tsade Qof Resh Shin Tav Alef-Beyt Chart (Series updated as LORD directs and permits)

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Jesus in the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet Part 13 – The Lamed

(Ver 1.2) This lesson is “Part 13” in the Bible study series revealing the Lord Jesus Christ, that was being hidden by the Spirit of God in His design of the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet. This is a truly amazing subject of immense revelation. If you have not read this series from the beginning, it is highly recommended that you go and do so with “Part 1” first. There is just too much information that has been given in each lesson that cannot be fully repeated in the others. Please also understand that “advanced spiritual lessons” from the word of God are potentially offensive to the unsaved, immature carnal, or newly born Christian. If you do not feel you are a spiritually growing and mature believer in Christ, please judge yourself and consider if it is your desire not to be hurt no matter what is said. No lesson published here is given to cause any person to stumble away from the LORD. Thank you in advance for your participation in desiring to know more about Jesus today, than you did yesterday.

Today we will be learning only a limited amount of God’s important information about the letter “Lamed”. There are literally volumes of books that could be written on each letter and how it applies to the work of God in Christ Jesus. Here is a quick list of the contents of this lesson’s sections:

  1. Introduction – The Lamed Shepherd Staff
  2. Jesus Found in the Lamed Letter Order of 12
  3. Jesus Found in the Lamed Gematria Value 30
  4. Important Bible Concepts of the Lamed Staff, Rod or Scepter
  5. GOD’S Name Connection with the LAMED
  6. Prophetical Patterns Found in Old Testament Shepherds
  7. Abel the Natural Type for One of Christ’s Main Purposes
  8. Moses Natural Deliverer of Israel from Egypt,
    Jesus Spiritual Deliverer of Church from World
  9. David the Pattern of Christ’s Shepherd’s Authority
  10. Jesus Our New Covenant Shepherd
  11. Jesus – His Shepherd’s Authority
  12. Personal Application of God’s Lamed Authority!
  13. The Conclusion

Let us get started with learning this incredible picture of God’s Lamed Authority in Christ Jesus.

1. Introduction – The Ancient Hebrew Lamed Pictogram

The ancient Hebrew letter “Lamed”, is the 12th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and has the gematria number value of “30”. We will be talking about these numbers more later. But it is very interesting that we can “first” find Jesus, learning and speaking with the Rabbis in the temple was at the age of 12. The Lamed letter has the sound that is similar, but slightly different to the English letter “L” depending upon the placement in the word. The letter “Lamed” is spelled as a root word with these three letters; “Lamed” + “Mem” + “Dalet”. The Hebrew root word H3925 that is made from these three letters, means to “goad”, and thus to teach or help the one being goaded to learn. This word is sounded as “Lamad” and it is mostly translated a form of “teach” or “learn” in the Old Testament. This is a very clear representation of what the ancient Hebrew letter “Lamed” represents.

Most can view the ancient Hebrew pictogram of the “Lamed” and see the clear image of a wooden “staff”.  This was a very common possession of many people in that time in history. The nomadic traveler that walked from place to place, would carry a staff as an aid for their journey of travel. We can see this in the life of Jesus in Mark 6:8. In this verse Jesus tells the 12 disciples to go cast out devils using the authority that He had given to them and for them to only take their “staff” with them. This staff was clearly a “sign” of their delegated authority, as well as being an aid for their travels.

The basic picture of a “staff” is also a very significant object found in the hand of shepherds in the Bible. This makes this letter Lamed a direct connection to a shepherd that watches over his sheep. This wooden object was constantly carried by a shepherd to help him guide, manage and protect his flock. The shepherd’s staff was generally used for the tasks of “goading”, “guiding”, “protecting”, “correcting”, “comforting”, “controlling”, “teaching”, etc. The shepherd’s “staff” also clearly carried the meaning of “authority”. This symbolism of authority and shepherds will grow increasingly as we connect this object as describing the LORD Jesus Christ.

The clearest symbolic meaning of a Lamed staff is “authority” over sheep. We can understand this by the connection of the shepherd having “sheep” under his authority, that need to be managed. Remember we learned the root word Lamad was spelled Lamed, Mem, Dalet, and it meant to “goad. This is certainly one usage of a staff to help train the animal to move to safety, water or food, or whatever was required to help them learn. A goad is a term, that denotes staff usage and application. The shepherd would need to train his flock by calling to them and potentially by goading them for their benefit.  When the holder of the staff pokes or prods an animal with the pointed end of their staff, they usually did so to encourage them to move forward to something good, or away from something harmful. From this we learn, that the goading by a good shepherd was based upon “love” of the sheep.  Therefore, the Lamed does represent a teacher of words.

If we analyze the letters of the word “Lamad” H3925 we learn the “Lamed” means “shepherd’s authority”, the “Mem” means “moving strong waters”, and the “Dalet” means “a door of entrance into the house”. Placing these together we arrive at “Shepherd with authority, speaking words to move His sheep into His house”. How did we arrive at that conclusion? We know that moving waters is defined by Jesus to be His spoken words in John 7:37-38. In verse 37 Jesus said, “If any man thirst let him come to me, and drink”. Then in verse 38 Jesus said, “He that believes on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. Finally, in verse 39, the writer reveals this was spoken of the Holy Spirit that those that receive that believed upon Him. This may not yet make sense to why this is words, until we find out how Jesus defined His words in the previous chapter. Jesus said in John 6:63 that His words were Spirit and Life. So, we have confirmed the connections of words to water. We can further confirm this with John 15:3 where Jesus said, “Now are you clean through the word that I have spoken to you”. This is clearly connecting spoken words to the cleaning power of water.

Now for the last letter “Dalet”. We learned in the “Dalet” lesson that this letter represents the picture of a “door”. We further learned that Jesus directly said that He was the “door” of the sheep in John 10:7. Hopefully, you can see the message connection to Jesus in all of these letters. In John 10:7, Jesus is implied to be the target location of entrance into ultimate safety for all sheep to go into. This would imply the Lamed staff of authority was being held by Jesus to help His sheep move towards the door. With the realization that water is words we now can see how authority is implemented in love with words. Therefore, we have “The Shepherd moves with His Words, the sheep into the Door of salvation”.

Let us confirm this with information from the New Covenant. It is very interesting that Jesus when appearing to Saul on the road to Damascus, said to him; “it is hard for you to kick against the prick”. This occurs in Acts 9:5, and the word “prick” (G2759) is defined as someone who is “goading” another. In this statement of Jesus, He is claiming to be the one that is using His Shepherd staff of authority to strongly encourage Saul to change his direction of travel. Jesus uses a stubborn animal analogy that means “those that are resisting His word of training are only kicking against Him personally and He is suggesting very strongly this is useless since Saul is the animal being trained and He is Chief Shepherd”. The order of intelligence, authority, and power was on Christ’s side, and not Saul’s.  

This is one of your first confirmations for Jesus being the Shepherd that is goading Saul with His Lamed “staff” of authority (Words) to change Saul’s direction. That is very amazing to relate to our study of Jesus the ultimate shepherd in authority. Let us continue with some other foundational concepts and connections to Jesus next by looking at the Lamed number values.

2. Jesus Found in the Lamed Letter Order of 12

Most Biblical scholars and diligent students of the Bible, recognize the awesome significance of the number 12. Therefore, we will begin this section of the lesson with a story of Jesus growing up after birth. It is interesting that Joseph and Mary took the child Jesus to the temple 8 days after His birth to be circumcised according to the Law of Moses (Luke 2:27, Lev 12:2-6). We also know from Luke 2:42 that it was the custom of Joseph and Mary to go back to the Jerusalem temple every year specifically to celebrate Passover. But it is not until Jesus was 12 years old that God mentions Him being personally in the temple by name. But something happened on this trip with Jesus at the age of 12 that was significant to God for Him to write about it. Could it be because of Jesus’ Lamed 12th letter connection? It appears that it could be based upon what we are about to learn.

Because God writes specifically about the age of 12 Passover trip of Jesus, we must understand that something had to have changed for God to mention only this one trip. There are no other mentions, that I know of where Jesus is again related to be in the temple, until after He turns 30. Wow, this is very significant since both of these numbers are associated with the letter “Lamed”. Because of these facts, we can connect Jesus directly to the number 12 by God writing about Him specifically to be at the temple in Jerusalem at the age of 12.

As we should know Jesus was present at Jerusalem for Passover like he had been for the past 11 years of His life. What was significant about this trip that made it different than the previous ones? We need to know that at the passing of the age of 12, and entering into the 13th year of life, the Jewish people traditionally considered the young male child to have moved into manhood. In other words, at this age a child has become accountable to the Law of Moses. This is actually very significant. Jesus was stated in Galatians 4:4 to have been born of a woman under the Law. We already know Jesus was circumcised on the 8th day of His natural life, so His parents followed the law very specifically. We also learned that this family’s custom was to present themselves according to the Law every year at Passover. We are observing the Law being followed very faithfully in the first 12 years of the life of Jesus.

But this trip things became radically different than all of the previous years. Jesus made the conscious choice to stay in the temple in Jerusalem when His parents Joseph and Mary left to go back home (Lk 2:43). It is interesting that they never worried about their eldest son for a long time after when they could not find him with any of the people that were traveling with them. It actually took 3 days for them to find Jesus again (Lk 2:46). Finally, Joseph and Mary found Jesus sitting in the temple in Jerusalem and Mary was not very happy.

Finding Jesus at the age of 12 in the Temple, brought the response to His mother, “Didn’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business” (Luke 2:49).  This answer to his mother Mary, appears to be a significant meaning to what was happening. Mary must have needed to be reminded who His Father was. With this passage of 12 years of His life, He had to understand that He was now responsible to be fully accountable to what was written about Him in the Law. No doubt Jesus had seen and heard things read about Him in the Law while at the temple for 12 years. The others at the temple were completely amazed at the things Jesus knew and understood in Law.

Jesus appears to be embracing the Father’s authority given to Him by staying to focus upon the Law. Yet it is clear that He still submitted to His mother’s and Joseph’s authority to continue in their house to mature until the age of 30 (Lk 2:51). It was age 30 when we find Jesus being baptized by John to begin His earthly ministry with His full authority power.

The number 12 is a dominate number from Genesis to Revelation. Here is a quick list of some of the most significant mentions of the number 12:

  1. There are 12 months in every year (Est 3:7)
  2. There are 12 hours in every day (Jn 11:9)
  3. There are 12 hours in every night
  4. Ishmael the first son of Abram and Hagar had 12 sons (Gen 25:16)
  5. Jacob had 12 sons (Gen 35:22)
  6. The 12 sons of Jacob become the 12 Tribes of natural Israel (1 Kings 19:31)
  7. Jesus had 12 apostles (Mat 12:10)
  8. Jesus healed a woman that had an issue of blood for 12 years (Mark 5:25)
  9. Jesus raises a daughter of 12 years old from the dead (Luke 8:42)
  10. One of the 12 disciples named Judas betrayed Jesus (Mat 26:14)
  11. Jesus going to the cross said He could call 12 legions of angels to save Him (Mat 26:53)
  12. Jesus fed 5000+ and had 12 baskets of fragments left over (Mat 14:20)
  13. The New Jerusalem has 12 foundations containing the names of the 12 apostles, 12 precious stones found in the walls, 12 gates made from 12 pearls guarded by 12 angels each containing a name of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel, and the size of the city is 12,000 furlongs high, wide and long. All of this is called the Lamb’s wife (Rev 21).

We can certainly see how the number 12 has great significance and application to being a pointer to the works of Jesus. Therefore, let us now briefly look at the number 12 and gematria number 30 of the Lamed to connect us with Jesus.

3. Jesus in the Lamed Gematria Value of 30

It is also most interesting that we are told by the Holy Ghost through Luke in chapter 3 and verse 29, that Jesus began His mortal life’s ministry at the physical age of 30 (Lk 3:23). When this occurred His spiritual Father in Heaven baptized Him with the Holy Spirit, being sent down from heaven in the form of a dove (John 1:32). It is fascinating that the name of the prophet “Jonah” means a “dove”. Jesus connects Himself to this prophet by saying “As Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of whale, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”. During the baptism of Jesus, He goes under the water and the dove comes upon Him, and then Jesus begins His ministry preaching the Kingdom of God is near, repent. And in Jonah, the prophet is spit up out of the mouth of the whale, and he obeys God and goes to Nineveh to deliver the message from God for them to repent. Pretty amazing parallels.

Therefore, we have both number values of the letter “Lamed”, 12 and 30 being connected to Jesus directly. These even connect Jesus to His Heavenly Father. The mortal ministry of Jesus only lasted for 3 ½ years but made more of an impact on us in the world than anyone else in human history. Therefore, we can see the number 30 definitely has application and association to Jesus.

It is also very amazing that Jesus was sold to be crucified for exactly 30 pieces of silver. We can read this very clearly in Matthew 26:15. In this verse we can see how Judas made a covenant with the leaders of natural Israel to betray the Christ. Remember Jesus calls the betrayer the “devil” in John 6:70. This was prophesied to occur in Psalm 41:9. In this verse God says, “My own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me”. This appears to teach us something very deep that we are unable to get into any detail today. Just do not forget these verses.

But also remember that it was this betrayal by the one named “Judah” (aka Greek Transliteration Judas) who was filled with the devil, that brought about the availability of the New Covenant for all humans. These were two covenants, two choices and two eternal consequences. Apply what 1 Corinthians 2:8 says to us about Jesus being betrayed and crucified. In this verse God says “Satan would not have crucified the LORD of glory had he known” what was going to happen to himself. That is also a very deep subject that cannot be taught any further.

In Genesis 41:44 we can read that Joseph was 30 years old when he stood before Pharoah. Joseph was a prophetical type of the Messiah Jesus.  Then according to 2 Samuel 5:4, David was 30 years old when he became the king of Israel. We should also be able to understand how David was a prophetical type of the coming seed of David called the Messiah, Jesus.  Finally, the Jewish priesthood normally never began their works in their priestly office in the temple until the age of 30.  All of these types point us to the work of Jesus, especially with Jesus being called the King of Kings in Revelation, and our “High Priest” of the New Covenant in Hebrews.

There are other cases for Christ as the type of the number 30, but we are trying to keep this lesson shorter.

4. Important New Bible Concept of a Staff Made from a Branch

Before we go further with learning about a “staff” being a representation of Jesus, we need to better understand how God uses the object and symbol in the Old Testament Hebrew writings. Two of these Hebrew words used by the LORD God that have the meaning of a “rod” or a “staff” are H7626. and H4294. These Hebrew words have the following meanings in Bible Lexicons, like Strong, BDB, and others:

  1. A Branch
  2. Staff
  3. Scepter
  4. Spear, Dart
  5. Writing Instrument, Pen(cil)
  6. Measuring Rod
  7. Tribe (figuratively)

These applications of the Hebrew concept of a branch are tremendous. We will begin by remembering that Jesus is called the “Branch” in Isaiah 11:1. And in Jeremiah 23:5 Jesus is called the righteous “Branch”. Therefore, we have two references to Jesus as being related to a “wooden” branch that can be made into many other objects, like a rod, a staff, etc. Never forget the number of uses for pieces of wood from a “tree”, they are practically endless. But also remember the essential fact that Jesus Christ was crucified on wooden posts made from a “tree” (Gal 3:13). God has just connected Jesus to being a figurative “branch” of a tree. Please remember this potentially new concept.

When we study more in-depth the Hebrew word H7626, it is not only used by God to describe a wooden “staff”, but also the descendants of a family. For example, in Genesis 49:28, God lists the names of the 12 sons of Jacob and calls them the 12 “tribes” of Israel. In Genesis 49:10 we find the same word being translated as “scepter” applying to only the royal line of Judah for which Jesus would come. The Hebrew word translated as “tribes” and “scepter” are the exact same word. God binds these two realities into one common word. What we are observing is the confirmation of Romans 1:20, where He reveals the invisible (spiritual) things of God are clearly understood by the natural things that He created, even His eternal Godhead powers.

It is also important to know these descendants that are called “tribes”, are also called “heirs”. An “heir” is simply a family descendant that inherits the family’s possession upon death of the parent(s). Remember Jesus is called the “Heir” of God in Hebrews 1:2. This truth could be a great stumbling block for some. Why would God the Creator, need to make His “Son” named Jesus, His pre-imminent heir? There are clues in the Bible everywhere to answer this question. The bottom-line answer is Lucifer. I apologize that this cannot be expanded any further today in this lesson due to the length of the subject. But, also remember that all saved Christians are called “joint-heirs” of God (Romans 8:17) by us entering into Christ (the Dalet Door).

We have just learned God’s connection of a natural tree branch to be the same as a branch of the family lineage, that God calls a “tribe”. God chose one human “branch” of the first Adam’s family tree. This chosen branch was named Abraham, and God used Him to bring forth His chosen Son. From this man Abraham, came Isaac, and from the Isaac branch, God chose the branch Jacob. From Jacob God selected one family tribe/branch called Judah. There were many branches of the First Adam tree but God only chose the Abraham branch family, to bring forth the Christ. From Christ came a New Creation (Gal 6:15) with the combined family of God from heaven and earth being joined in one united God/man named Jesus. 

Romans chapter 11 has God writing about several new concepts of branches being cut off or being grafted into a tree (family). What God is doing is using natural concepts of trees and branches to teach us about far greater hidden spiritual works that He was doing in His Spiritual family in Jesus Christ. Jesus repeated this process of cutting off branches when He described himself to be like a figurative vine and people being the figurative branches (Jn 15:5). All branches that did not produce fruit were cut off and thrown into the fire (hell). These are things that were happening in Jesus Christ to create a brand-new Kingdom of God.

But God’s New Creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) only occurred after Jesus was raised from the dead, to pay the sin penalty for everyone that would receive Him as LORD and produce fruit. Being raised from the dead first, Jesus became the “First born” from all the dead (Col 1:18) and thus a New Beginning for a new creation. This made the risen Lord Jesus the primary heir of God’s previous kingdom with all authority being passed to in heaven and on earth (Mat 28:18). God did this because Jesus was from both dimensions of reality. We are also saved like Him being born again, to become joint-heirs (Rom 8:17) with Him.  Remember Jesus was the firstborn of many brethren (Rom 8:29), and those that were born-again were made these many brothers and sisters of Christ.  Let us now shift our attention to another new concept hidden in the name of God, which contains the letter “Lamed”.

5. GOD’S Name Connections with the LAMED

We are first introduced to one primary name of God in Genesis 1:1. This verse says “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”. This name of “God” is the Strong’s Hebrew number H430. It can be transliterated into the English language as “Elohym”.  The second letter of this primary name of God is the “Lamed”. What we immediately see is this name is being called our Creator. This name H430 of God also occurs approximately 2600 times in the entire Old Testament.

We should also take notice this Hebrew name H430 is plural by the ending letter “mem”. H430 comes from the singular word “H433” that is transliterated as “Eloahh”. This word means, a “god” singular. This information confirms that God in His chosen revealed form is a “triune” plural being. Another way to possibly say this is, God reveals Himself to be a “complex unity” of three manifestations or divine nature roles, called, “God the Father”, “God the Son”, and “God the Holy Spirit”. This is similar to the human concept that calls one man, a father, a son, and a husband. These are just three roles of one man that has multiple relationship types.

Now we need to realize that the word/name “Elohym” is often shortened to “El” (H410). This name H410 “El” is recorded in the Bible approximately 242 times directly in the text as a name for God. Twelve times this word was translated as other words than “God”, like “mighty”, “power”, “great”, “might”, “strength” and others. What we are learning is very profound to our study of Jesus being the God of all “Power” and “Authority”.

The Hebrew shortened name of God “El” comes from two Hebrew letters. The word begins with the “Alef” which represents God as a strong “OX” head of power and strength.  We learned this represents the “servant” Jesus in the “Alef” lesson. This letter is connected by God to our study subject “Lamed”. We can begin to see that the “Lamed” staff picture represents a symbol of “authority” and “leadership”. Placing these pictures together we arrive at the meaning “Strong Power with Leadership Authority”. That is very interesting because it does describe who God is exactly. We can confirm that even the alphabet letters being placed together by God, tell us the truth.

Now here is another interesting concept found in the Bible. There are well over 100 names of people and places listed in the Bible that have the shortened name of God “El” (H410) imbedded within them. Some of these are very profoundly related to the LORD Jesus Christ. For example, in Isaiah 7:14 where God prophesies about Messiah being named “Immanuel”.  This is one of the most direct confirmations in the Bible, revealing Jesus was God.  This name literally means “God with Us”, and it is repeated in the Greek language as “Emmanuel” in Matthew 1:23

Another interesting name containing “El” is H1008 that is transliterated as “Bethel”. This Hebrew word means “House of God”. It comes by combining a new Hebrew word H1008 meaning “house”, with our H410 the short name of God. Remember, we learned in the “Beyt” letter lesson that this letter also means “house”. We can see the intelligent design of the construction of the Hebrew language. There is the basic building of words by God combining 2 or more root words together to form a new combined word meaning. Then there is the most fundamental building of root words by combining two or more letters together. Adding these letters together to form the root words, are built upon each letter having individual meanings that are being connected to form new combined word definitions. These are such interesting signs of intelligent design of the Hebrew language. This word “Bethel” simply means “the House with God’s Power and Authority”.

We could write book after book about Jesus being found in names with the “El” God name found in them. We will end this section with the name “Israel”.  This Hebrew word H3478, is derived from two other Hebrew root words like the “Bethel” word was. The first word is H8280, and this word means “to have power as a prince”. Isn’t that interesting because Jesus is called the “Prince of Peace” in Isaiah 9:6. This word H8280 is again combined with the H410 “el” short name of God. From this combination we get the fuller meaning, “He will rule as a prince of God”. This is a confirmation of Jesus’ claim in Matthew 28:18 where He said to have received from God all delegated authority within heaven and on the earth.  Some may try to reject this meaning, but it is further confirmed by the Holy Spirit’s writings through Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:27. In this verse it is written “He has put all things under His feet (Jesus)”.

We have just quickly explored the God (Alef) connection to the divine authority (Lamed), that is being given to the Son of God (Jesus) through one name of God “El”. These facts of truth, should cause you to think and ask a lot of questions. For example, why was it necessary for the Supreme Almighty Father God, to delegate all of His heavenly authority to Jesus the Son of God?  This question will need to be answered in a series of lessons all by itself. Let us continue with a short review of Old Testament prophecy patterns of shepherds that point us to Jesus next.

6. Prophetical Patterns Found in Old Testament Shepherds

Hopefully you already know some things about Bible patterns, types and shadows. These are just more of God’s designed tools using natural information that reveals His supernatural intelligent design hidden in His written Word. God uses real historical patterns of real people in real situations, and in real places to disclose greater hidden divine spiritual truth. This is where He uses historical hidden outlined information, like a sewing pattern to create a future dress, shirt, or pair of pants. Most of these were designed by God to teach us about far greater spiritual truths revealing His work to bring about His Son Jesus.

What we will discover by searching in the Old Testament, is that there are repeated types found containing natural shepherds with their “staff”, that represent prophetical patterns for the coming Messiah. Some of them should be very obvious and others have not been seen to be a pattern of Jesus because of their implied implications applying to the spiritual realms.  We will only go through a quick overview of a select few patterns, for the sake of time. Let us get started with Abel.

7. Abel a Natural Type of One of Christ’s Main Purposes

If we go and read the Old Testament, starting at Genesis 4:2, we find the second named son of Adam and Eve to be a son named “Abel”.  In this real historical account, there are two brothers. The elder son or we could also say the “firstborn” son of the first Adam was named “Cain”. This son “Cain’s” name is spelled “Qof”, “Yod”, “Nun” in Hebrew. These are the pictures of “the rising sun” (Qof), “the working hand” (Yod), and the “seed continues” (Nun). This is an interesting name. These letters have the implied meaning of “God’s (who is light) early work of His hand, to create a son (seed)”. This appears to be a hidden reference to Lucifer.

If we go and read Isaiah 14:12, we will discover the created being named Lucifer, is called the “son of the morning”. The Hebrew word H7837 is defined as “dawn” and thus the translation of “morning” meaning the rising of the sun. We know from God’s word that He claims to be “Light” in 1 John 1:5. So if Light (God) is rising in Isaiah 14:12 the implication is given that Lucifer was one of God’s earliest or even a “first” of all of His creation. It also is plainly stated that this created angelic being is called a “son” by the Hebrew H1121. This is the word “ben” formed with a “beyt” house joined with a “nun” seed to mean a son. We already learned in the “Beyt” lesson that this name is used to describe the LORD Jesus as the Son of Man and the Son of God.

Some are probably raising their eyebrows at this information. But it is confirmed in the book of Job, when the angels appear before God in heaven where they are clearly called by the title of the “sons of God” (Job 1:6). The same Hebrew word H1121 (ben) is used by God to describe Lucifer’s and the angelic descriptions as “a son” in both verses of Job and Isaiah. Job states directly the son title of angels is a direct reference to be of “Elohim”, and Isaiah makes Lucifer’s connection to God the Light by indirect symbolic reference. If you struggle with this, don’t let it keep you from continuing to read and see what else we can learn about who Cain could represent.

We have not yet fully covered the letter “Qof”, but this letter contains the meaning of the “gathering” of light at sunrise just as the Hebrew word H7837 means dawn of light. It represents a time of movement from darkness to light. Combining this letter “Qof” with the other two “Yod” and “Nun”, we can also get the meaning the “the early gathering hand of seed”. It is interesting that this is exactly what Cain brought as an offering to the LORD. Genesis 4:2 tells us Cain was a “seed” planter and in verse 3 we are informed Cain brought some of his planted “seed” produced “fruit” as an offering to the LORD. This type of work would involve “metal” tools for sowing the seed, as well as for harvesting the “seed” (Nun).

Another key point is Cain’s offerings of his “fruit” produced from “seed” was rejected by God (Gen 4:5). From this information we can again begin to see how Cain, appears to symbolically represent a pattern of Satan, another spiritual being whose “fruit” (labors) from his “seed” (words) have been rejected by God (Gen 3:15). We can more clearly conclude this by us knowing this man Cain, was the first natural murderer. This natural title for Cain corresponds with Satan being called the ultimate “murderer” by the LORD Jesus. In John 8:44, Jesus calls the “devil” a “murderer” from the beginning. This should be obvious that Jesus is giving us a pointer for us to go back and look at the book of “Beginnings” (Genesis) to find the first “murder”. We will find that we are studying about it right now in Genesis 4.

Abel’s is the name of the “younger” or “second” named son of Adam and Eve. Uh oh! Remember Jesus is called the second man in 1 Corinthians 15:47. If Cain the older son is a type of Satan the murderer from the beginning, then Abel does fit the pattern to be Jesus, since Jesus was not murdered by Satan until almost 4000 years after the death of the pattern type named Abel (1 Cor 2:8). This is still a good fit for Satan being Cain, because we are learning that Satan was created long before even the first man Adam was created. Jesus, the Last Adam (1 Cor 15:45) and Son of Adam (Lk 6:5), was born much later. Remember patterns are only outlines, and all of the details will be filled in by God with more revelations from other verses in the future.

The younger son’s name Abel, is spelled in Hebrew; “Hey”, “Beyt”, “Lamed”.  This name’s meaning becomes much more obvious to us by combining the ancient Hebrew picture language definitions of each letter. Abel’s name could be thought of as saying “Behold (Hey) the Son’s House (Beyt) of the Shepherd’s Authority (Lamed). Please just look up each ancient Hebrew letter’s meanings and you will find this combined application. It is amazing that this name Abel ends with our Bible study letter “Lamed”, meaning authority. It is also amazing the “Beyt” appears as the middle letter the picture of a father’s house where his son and heir is born. Finally, the letter Hey means what is being connected is a revelation to behold and to be amazed with. This is certainly an outlined picture of Jesus, because Jesus was significantly questioned about where He got His authority in the Gospels (Mat 21:23).

We can get a further confirmation about Abel being a type for Jesus by the description of both men’s blood being spilled onto the ground. This is just another parallel between these two individuals. God says to Cain, “the blood of your brother cries to me from the ground” (Gen 4;10).  We know the blood of Jesus certainly flowed onto the ground while hanging on a cross (Tav) (Jn 19:34). Then in Hebrews 12:24, God writes of Jesus “the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than the blood of Abel”. There is no doubt the shepherd Abel was a type of Jesus the “Good Shepherd”. It should become more obvious by how God connected Abel’s blood to Jesus’ blood with both speaking.

It would be great if we could go and study every letter, word, and verse of Genesis 4 to find Jesus in more specifics, but that is not possible in this introduction and overview of the “Lamed”. We should be able to see how one shepherd named Abel is a picture of the great Shepherd named Jesus Christ. Finally, please just realize that we can read in 1 Corinthians 2:8, that Satan would not have crucified the LORD of Glory, if he had known what was going to happen to him, and us in the world. This is truly an amazing application discovering how these will fit with Cain and Abel types found in Genesis 4. We will continue next with the overview and application of Moses as a type of Jesus.

8. Moses Natural Deliverer of Israel from Egypt,
Jesus Spiritual Deliverer of Church from World

The description of Moses being a prophetical pattern of the LORD Jesus is amazingly clear when found and seen in scripture. Moses himself prophesies to natural Israel in Deuteronomy 18:15, that God will raise up a Prophet from among the brothers of Israel, and Him should they hear. This is clearly the coming Jesus Messiah. Then in Hebrews 3:5-6, God compares the servant Moses’ faithfulness over his house, to Jesus the Son of God’s greater service over His own house. These are examples of Moses being type for Christ, and there are so many direct comparisons found in the Bible, that they cannot all be listed in this lesson. We will only touch on a very few.

For example, in Exodus 3:1, Moses is stated to be a servant (Alef) that keeps his father-in-law’s flock. The term flock implies Moses to be a shepherd of sheep. Remember who Moses was. Moses lived in the house of the ruling family of Egypt, before he left to become a shepherd of a “flock” in a wilderness. Moses moved from a life of wealth and luxury to a life of hard work and poverty. This sounds very similar as a type and pattern for the supreme ruling God the ruler in Heaven, coming to the earth as a man to become a “Good Shepherd” of His people. In 2 Corinthians 8:9, we find Jesus being called “a former rich man, but for our sakes He became poor that through His poverty, we might also become rich”. We can further see that this was God’s intent for the people that Moses delivered also. These people were taken out of the slave poverty of Egypt to be given a land flowing with milk and honey (Exo 3:8).

In this verse of Exodus 3:1, we are told that Moses “led” his flock. It just so happens that after the Hebrew word translated as “led” (H5090) there appears the hidden “Alef+Tav” untranslated word H853, which are the two letters that Jesus claimed to be in the book of Revelation. This is just another direct connection that God is prophesying about Jesus in this verse. This information clearly teaches us that Moses was a rich ruler that became a poor shepherd, and he was a pattern of the coming Alpha and Omega Lord Jesus. The parallels to Jesus should be becoming very clear already. Now we need to connect our study subject the “Lamed” staff to Moses as a pattern for Christ.

Then in Exodus 4:2 God asks Moses, “what do you have in your hand”?  The Hebrew word H3027 translated as hand, means “power”. Therefore, we discover another connection to Jesus who was anointed with the “power of God” (Acts 10:38). Moses replies; “A rod”. We already learned the Hebrew word H4294, translated as “rod” is defined by Strong to be a “branch” indicating it comes from the “wood” from a tree. But we can notice this word is also translated as “staff” as it probably should be in the context of “tending a flock”. This symbol of a staff and Moses designates that in the eyes of God, Moses had authority. Not just over sheep, but also in more powerful ways that Moses did not yet understand. This power and authority status of the type Moses is a continuation of prophecy that is only fulfilled in the coming Christ/Messiah. We will be learning more about how this is true as we continue to learn. We are now going to go through the example of David as a type of Christ.

9. David the Pattern of Christ’s Coming Shepherd’s Authority

It is definitely important to know that David was a key shepherd prophetic picture of Christ. This story of David and Goliath found in 1 Samuel 17, has many amazing parallels.  This real story is a battle between two opposing kingdoms, or nations who are enemies. The Philistines have gathered and arrayed themselves against God’s covenant people of Israel. The Philistines are clearly a figure of the kingdom of darkness in the world ruled by Satan. The natural nation of Israel is plainly a pictured type of the New Covenant church. Goliath the giant is called the “champion” of the evil nation without a covenant to God, and this can only represent Satan/Lucifer. The young boy named David was just a simple shepherd that only watched over his father’s sheep as his primary role in life. This image represents the humble servant of God called Jesus Christ who came into the world to help gather His father’s lost sheep back into His Father’s sheepfold (Mat 15:24). Remember Jesus is called God the Father’s Holy Child in Acts 4:30.

This battle takes place between two mountains, representing the two spiritual kingdoms: darkness and light. The area between them is called “Elah”, and this was a valley of potential death. David writes of this location in Psalm 23:4 when He says, “Lo though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil”.  This name “Elah” can be interpreted to mean a “mighty oak”. It is interesting that this is a tree that produces very strong wood. But notice one major root of this name “Elah”, is the name of God’ El” that we looked at earlier. Remember this root is spelled “Alef”, “Lamed”, and means “Strong Authority” or the “God with Authority”. This is because the “Alef” alone represents a picture of “God” who is strong and the “Lamed” alone represents a picture of the “authority” of a shepherd.

The Hebrew word transliterated as “Elah”, combines the name of God El with the letter “Hey”. The letter “Hey” represents an instruction for us to “behold”, “look”, “see” what is being connected and revealed. For example, we learned in previous lessons that the name of Jehovah translated as “LORD”, is spelled “Yod”, “Hey”, “Vav”, “Hey”. These combined letter meanings proclaim, “The hand, behold; the nail, behold”. This was a clear hidden prophecy of who Jesus was, and how he would die on a cross.

This name “Elah” also has the meaning of a “covenant oath” as well as the curses that take place when the oath if violated or broken. Can we think about what this is saying? It would appear that God places a story of two nations in His Word, that takes place in a valley of God’s strong oath of covenant.  But there was only one young boy named David that remembered God’s covenant. The rest of the nation of Israel was cowering in fear of this giant (1 Sam 17:13). This is sounding more like our Christ, when facing Satan and the cross, than many can see at first. Now let us look at some other interesting information concerning the Lamed connections being made by God.

In 1 Samuel 17:7, Goliath had in his hand a great “spear”.  In this verse, the shaft of this spear is called a “staff” in the KJV. It is described to be as great as a “beam”. All of these are symbols of someone who has great power and authority. Clearly this is significant to our discussion of the “Lamed”. God appears to be telling us that Satan has the same kind of ability in the spiritual realm of darkness. We can confirm this in the verse of Colossians 1:13, where we read Jesus has “delivered” us from Satan’s (Lamed) authority (G1849) ruling in the kingdom of darkness. Can we see the parallels being made? David delivered Israel from the authority of the Philistines and Goliath their champion, and Jesus has delivered us from the authority of Satan ruler of the darkness. Thank you, Jesus!

Notice how the battle takes place and see the application into our current times. When David was running to fight Goliath, the giant cursed David saying in 1 Samuel 17:43, “Am I a dog that you come at me with a stave (shepherd’s staff)”. This Hebrew word H4731 means a “stick” and Goliath’s words are a prideful demeaning reference to a weapon called a “staff” held in the hand of the young shepherd “David”. Goliath clearly underestimated David’s power and ability that was backed by God. This was the same for Satan who vastly underestimated God’s plan of deliverance through Jesus Christ.

Here again we see a young boy that tended sheep for his father, who is fighting a huge giant with far greater weapons of war and trained skills. This Goliath is clearly a type of Satan, that has grown in power and size from the earlier little serpent symbol found in Genesis 3:1 where he only defeated one man named Adam and his wife named Eve. It is also very important to see that this same devil has grown into a much larger “great red dragon” in the book of Revelation. This should inform and warn you that his tricks of deception have potentially significantly increased. However, to the Christian, we have still been removed from his authority over us, if we give him no place of entrance into our life.

If you read the entire story of David and Goliath, you will continue to find that David is very courageous and fearless of this great giant. The only weapons that he is running with to fight this giant is the tools of a common poor shepherd. David places 5 stones in his shepherd’s bag (1 Sam 17:40) and five is a number for God’s grace.  With God’s grace, David takes his staff of authority, and his sling, which projects the stone. This sling can be associated to be a symbol of the human mouth that speaks (the mouth representing a word projectile spiritual weapon system, against our spiritual enemy Satan). Notice, we can confirm this from David’s actions, while facing the giant. Count how many times David “speaks” confidently (projecting and releasing faith words) and says exactly what he is about to do, and then does it by God’s participation of grace. David remembered that this enemy giant had no covenant with his God, and he did.

Please go and read this chapter and we will notice, before the physical battle begins, there is a different war of wills and words fought. Goliath curses David with his symbolic spear of authority and power, using the power of his gods (the devil). We can see where Goliath’s trust and confidence was in his god, who was not named JEHOVAH LORD (1 Sam 17:43). Goliath then proclaims his will of intent to feed the flesh of David to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field. We can clearly see a spiritual battle that is taking place between two kingdoms and two gods.  One is Satan the god of this world, and the other is JEHOVAH, the creator of heaven and earth.

Remember we are learning of God’s Old Testament “shepherds” with “staffs” that are types and pointers to Jesus. One common prophetic thread between Abel, Moses, and David, is they all have brothers that are a problem to them. For example, David’s eldest brother is mentioned in 1 Samuel 17:28. In this verse David has to endure verbal abuse by his elder brother. It is very clear that David was not looked upon as a rightful member of their family. Then we can read in Exodus 32, about Moses’ brother Aaron, that gives in to the children of Israel to make them a false god in the image of a golden calf. This sin caused the wrath of God to fall on many.

All of this is in parallel with the very interesting fact that these correspond with Abel’s abuse and natural death committed by his older brother Cain. Now how are all of these types connected with Jesus? When we see Jesus walking the earth in the flesh, his physical brothers also reject him, abuse Him, and kill Him by nailing Him to a wooden cross by Satan’s leading. Wow, these are pretty amazing parallels between all of these shepherds.

There are many other types and shadows found in these stories of shepherds and others. But we will need to conclude this section for now. Hopefully you can see the comparisons from Abel, Moses, and David to Christ. It is essential that our Christ/Messiah is called the “Son of David” in Matthew 1:1. It is highly recommended that you go and read the 23rd Psalm of David about shepherds now. This Psalm will come to life when seen through the eyes of Jesus and His work to lead us into the path of righteousness, so that we can dwell in His house and family, forever and ever.

10. Jesus the New Covenant Lamed
and Shepherd of the Sheep

Remember the Lamed is a picture of a shepherd’s hook and a staff of authority. Interestingly, the letter picture is of a staff that is pointing down, as if held by someone that is in heaven holding the staff while reaching out to the people of the earth, trying to gather them. That cannot be a coincidence, it is more likely to be a “God Incidence” of prophecy. This picture looks very similar to the English uppercase letter “J”, depending upon the font style.

The essential connections that are implied with God’s selection of this symbol are great and should be obvious, if we know the Bible. We have learned a lot of them today. Let us analyze some of the Bible implied truths about a “staff”.  The “staff” of authority is a useless item without a “shepherd’s” hand to hold it. The main reason for the “shepherd” to have and hold his “staff” in his hand, is for him to guide and protect His sheep. Therefore, without “sheep” the authority symbol of the “staff” is only useful for personal travel. This concept reminds us an old saying “He who leads, without anyone following, only takes a walk”. There is a lot of wisdom in that message.

This section is about Jesus claiming to be the “Good Shepherd” (John 10:14). Jesus by making this faith declaration is claiming to have sheep that will follow Him. Further, by Him making this claim Jesus has just implied that He has come down from heaven to the earth to gather some of His potentially lost “sheep”. In order for Him to accomplish this He had to have been given authority to do so, and this is the symbol of a “Staff” (Lamed). We are all making these connections, right? Let us look at a couple of verses that apply to find His “lost sheep” first:

Jer 50:6  My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace. 

This verse in Jeremiah is a very obvious definition of who “lost sheep” are in God’s dictionary. This verse plainly says “God’s people” in the Old Covenant have become “lost sheep” and their shepherds have caused them to go astray. That is very profound information. God clearly defines “sheep” to be a symbol of people.  Then God informs us there are others in the world that were called to be “shepherds” with authority. It should be obvious by further implied references that a figurative “shepherd” in the natural world is someone that should lead, guide, and feed God’s people into the path of knowing God.

Jesus, we find in Matthew 9:36 had great compassion upon the people, because He saw them as sheep without a shepherd (G4166). This clearly teaches us that God saw the need for good “shepherds” as a requirement for His people. We can see this concept again repeated in the New Covenant. We will find that God has established “shepherds” in the church. This Greek word G4166 is most often translated as “shepherd” but it is also translated as a “pastor” in Ephesian 4:11. In this verse God writes that He has established some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some “pastors” and some teachers. That is very interesting information to remember. Let us now focus upon our first verse about Jesus claiming to be a “Shepherd”:

Mat 15:24  But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

This verse is very applicable to our subject and contains a vast amount of implied information. This verse begins with Jesus saying He was “sent”. This simply implies He came from somewhere else, and we know from other verses that He came from Heaven (Jn 6:38).  Then Jesus narrows His reasons for His personal appearance to focus only on finding the “lost sheep” from the house of Israel. This clearly says the people of natural Israel were lost people that were apart from God and needed to return to Him. There are multiple parallels found in this statement, to the information we read about in the Old Testament shepherd types and shadows. Even though they were focused upon helping natural sheep, we can relate these to what Jesus was doing with spiritual lost sheep.

Now let us focus upon some other direct claims of Jesus that were spoken from His mouth to confirm His fulfillment of the prophecy of the ancient picture of the “Lamed”.  This should not be a lot of new information for most serious Bible students. We will turn to the book of John and chapter 10 to read some selected verses:

Joh 10:1  Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
Joh 10:2  But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 
Joh 10:3  To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. 
Joh 10:4  And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. 
Joh 10:5  And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. 

Reading from verse 1, we find Jesus claiming to be speaking in a “sheepfold”. His claim is that He has entered into the sheepfold by going through the legal doorway. His appearance is contrasted with someone else called a “thief” that entered illegally. We must understand Jesus is speaking of the “world” as the symbolic sheepfold. This is the realm of the earth’s atmosphere, where humans breathe air. Jesus says His entrance into the world was lawful and this was because He was born of a natural woman like every other human since Adam and Eve.  Jesus’ entrance into the world is being compared with someone that was not created here or born here legally. This can only be the devil.

Notice the concept given about a shepherd’s voice being known by his sheep. This is essential to understand. A shepherd is not a “cattle wrangler” forcing or driving his animals to go where he desires. Every sheep has their own freewill choice to follow. Because the good “shepherd” is so caring and loving to his flock, they will willingly learn his voice and follow him happily to the next green pasture to feed.

In these verses we can see Jesus, speaking and comparing His purpose for coming into the world’s sheepfold. This is being compared with someone called the “thief” that is being implied to be significantly evil and harmful to God’s sheep (people). This thief is not someone that a true sheep will want to follow, and they are usually tricked or forced to go where they would not really want to go. This “thief” we must know is Satan, and Jesus speaks more directly about His role as a shepherd versus this thief in verse 10:

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. 

Joh 10:11  I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. 

We can see this more clearly in John 10:10 where the thief, who is Satan, only came into the world to steal, kill and destroy. But Jesus says His purpose was to give His sheep “life abundantly” and this will be achieved by His personal death. This is the basics of the Gospel being proclaimed. Let us move down to verse 14 next:

Joh 10:14  I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. 

Joh 10:15  As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. 
Joh 10:15  As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. 

As you can further see, Jesus is now directly claiming to be the “Good Shepherd” of the sheep. As we saw in Jeremiah earlier, He came to show people the truth and the right way to the Father. Notice the intimate and personal relationship between Jesus and His sheep. The term “know” represents personal close fellowship. Jesus said I “know” my sheep and they will also “know” me. This represents “covenant” relationship, as between a husband and his wife. Let us move down to verse 26 next:

Joh 10:26  But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 

Joh 10:27  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 

Joh 10:28  And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 

We can clearly read that it is “believing” in Jesus that causes anyone to become a following known sheep of Jesus.  Jesus again in these verses, says all of my sheep can hear His voice and recognize Him as their Good Shepherd. These verses and the others that we did not cover prove Jesus to be a “Shepherd” that had authority to gather all of His believing people to save them. Therefore, let us go analyze the subject of Jesus’ authority to learn more about how this relates to the Lamed.

11. Messiah Jesus – The Shepherd’s Authority

One of the most key aspects of the physical ministry life of Jesus on the earth for three and half years was all of the people that took note of His authority. The fact that we can see Jesus had great authority over the kingdom of darkness, made Him unique above all others on earth.

Mat 7:29  For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 

A good shepherd is a guide to the blind, hurt, lame and hurting sheep. Jesus operated with this role by teaching His lost sheep things that had been kept secret since the foundation of the world. Jesus taught them using mostly parables that were on their level of natural understanding. When they came to the saving position of believing in Jesus being raised from the dead, and calling Him LORD, then they would be able to understand the spiritual applications of these natural truths. If they had not believed in Him or did not want to make Him their Messiah, they were unable to understand these truths.

Mat 21:23  And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?
Mat 21:27  And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell. And he said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things. 

Here is an example of the religious Jewish leadership demanding to know where Jesus got His authority to teach what He was teaching and to do what he was doing. Clearly, they were clueless to whom they were speaking. They had no idea that this was their God of the Torah in the flesh. Since these were men in authority, they recognized that Jesus was acting with greater authority than they even possessed. They could not go into towns and heal everyone. But Jesus did this more than once.

It is very interesting in this discourse, they asked Jesus one question and Jesus asked them one question back. Jesus said you answer me this question, I will tell you by what authority I do these things. But they refused to answer, because His question would have exposed them and answered their question simultaneously.

Mar 1:27  And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him. 

Jesus constantly did things of such great authority, that He cast out evil spirits continually. Even when the devils questioned His authority to cast them out, Jesus only said “Shut up and come out of him” (Lk 4:35).

These were just a sampling of verses in the Gospels that declare Jesus was operating with great authority, in His teachings to His lost sheep, and in the casting out of evil spirits that possessed and oppressed the sheep. All of these verses clearly show Jesus was a guiding shepherd teacher and a protecting shepherd from the wolves that wanted to devour His lost sheep.  These facts show that there was a symbolic Lamed “staff” of very great authority present in the spiritual hand of Jesus. Praise the LORD!

12. Personal Application of God’s Lamed Authority!

We need to learn how to personalize each ancient alphabet letter picture.  How do we apply this ancient picture of a shepherd’s staff to us as Christians in these last days?  The first application is do you know Jesus the Great Shepherd? Can you recognize His voice? Do you follow where He is leading you?  If you answered no to any of these questions, it is time to turn your life over to the God who created you and knows everything about you and loves you enough to save you from an eternal existence separated from Him. There is a link at the bottom of this lesson that will help you to be introduced to Him. Please go and click on this and follow the basic instructions. Then leave a message to proclaim you accepted Him as your LORD. If you have already done this, then we need to begin to learn what God has given to us by entering into the LORD Jesus Christ. Here is one verse that will help us:

Luk 10:19  Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. 

This verse is Jesus telling us to take a new look at how His “staff” of authority applies to us right now. In this declaration from the mouth of Jesus, came His personal authority that was given to Him by His Father. He has delegated the most awesome gifts of righteousness and authority that people could possibly imagine (Rom 5:17). Jesus says “I give unto you power”. This Greek word is G1849 (exousia) and it should be translated as “authority”. The applicable definition of this word comes from Thayer and it is defined as “the power of rule or government” and is further said to be “the power of him whose will and commands must be submitted to by others and obeyed”. Did you know Jesus gave you this ability over the devil?  

But many will say: I don’t feel like this is true! Others will say: “it doesn’t work for me”. But yet God is not a man that He should lie” (Num 23:19). Therefore, it must be true regardless of if we know it or believe it, or it looks like it is working or not. Do you remember the time when a man came to Jesus asking Him to help his lunatic son? This son had a spirit like “epilepsy” that would cause the child to fall on the ground and shake. His father said it oft times made him fall into waters or fires trying to kill him (Mat 17:15).

The disciples were given “authority” to heal this boy. But the disciples tried to cast out this spirit and failed because of the deception of the enemy. Jesus looked at His disciples and was very frustrated at them, calling them “a faithless generation” (Mat 17:17). He further informed them that it was because of their unbelief that they could not cast this spirit out! What caused their unbelief in this case, when their faith was sufficient in many other cases of deliverance? The reason they failed for this child, was because the demon in the boy made it look like it was not working this time, and they gave up.

When Jesus cast out this spirit, the same thing happened that must have happened with the disciples. When Jesus commanded the devil out, the child fell on the ground and looked dead (Mk 9:26). But Jesus just ignored what the devil made it look like, and simply took the boy by the hand and lifted him up totally free (Mk 9:27). This implies that when the disciples tried to cast out the demon, the devil tore the boy the same way and he fell on the ground. The boy could have appeared dead, or he just could have continued to make the child shake and foam at the mouth, and one of these delaying tactics caused their faith to change to unbelief. Do you see the difference?

We have been given this authority regardless of how it looks on the outside world, and in our personal circumstances. God says it will work, if you will not change when it is applied in your life. The devil will try to delay you to change your mind also. He will even try to distract you away from using your spiritual authority. But where is this authority and why have many not known about this before?

We need to give God a chance to reveal a new Hebrew word translated as “heart” in the Old Testament. This word is H3820, and it is only two letters. The first letter is the “Lamed” representing “authority”, and the second letter is the “Beyt”, representing the house where a family resides within. In this application we need to see that a tent must be entered into in order to be experienced. We can all look at the outside of a mansion, but never go inside to experience it. Therefore, the concept being taught by these two letters represents a man’s “Authority is Inside”. Or it can also be expressed as “the authority of the human is inside”.  Did you get what this is saying? Please don’t miss it. What God is expressing is the location of human authority is in our spirit.

When Jesus was physically present upon the earth in His mortal flesh, we saw that He had great authority, even over the demonic spirits. We have also seen how He could delegate this authority to His disciples. But this authority was spiritual and not a natural ability. It required spiritual “faith” to be effective to release God’s power. What is “faith”, or a better question would be “where is our faith”? Everyone has “faith” in something, but do we have any faith in the words of Jesus? God answered this question in many verses but Acts 8:37 is a good one. Here we are told to believe with all of our heart.

According to this Hebrew word, we discover a mystery of where Jesus obtained His authority. Remember the Hebrew word H3820 is normally translated as “heart”. This represents the center of a human being. This location is within the unseen spiritual interior of the physical body. Remember a tent is God’s symbol of the human body where the human spirit resides inside. This human body spirit container is called a tabernacle in the New Testament (2 Peter 1:14), because this is also where God’s Holy Spirit comes to live when we ask Him inside to sup with us. When God is invited into our tent, He joins with us to become one Spirit (1 Cor 6:17). Therefore, we have just learned and confirmed:

  1. Our Body is a Tent/Tabernacle
  2. The temporary tent residence of our human spirit
  3. The tabernacle that we invite God into,
    to be joined with our spirit to be One
  4. And God calls this place “inside” to be our heart (Lamed + Beyt)

Whose spirit did Jesus have on the inside of His physical Tabernacle body? You better answer God’s Holy Spirit, because that was the temporary temple residence of God in person. Jesus confirms this speaking in John 2:19. All of the people believed Jesus was speaking of their stone temple, but we are informed He was speaking of His mortal body, being buried for 3 days and being raised up again to eternal life. This is very amazing information.

But how does that help us? The answer is because Jesus died and was raised from the dead, He obtained all authority in heaven and on the earth (Mat 28:18). He immediately gave this fully obtained authority to everyone that believed on Him. He further sent the Holy Spirit to live inside of us, so that we would have the spiritual power and authority on the spiritual inside to release this on the outside in the physical realm. Do you see how Jesus was a pattern for us today? How He operated with power and authority is how every believer can do the same. Don’t believe this? Jesus said in John 14:12; “Whoever believes on me, the works that I do, shall you do also, and greater works will you do because I go to my Father”. Wow, when was the last time you raised anyone from the dead? Don’t feel bad, because we are all rising to a higher dimension of authority everyday by learning the truth.

Some may still say I don’t believe any of this. You may ask, why don’t I feel like I have any authority? Why doesn’t this authority seem to work over the devil in my life? Just don’t forget what we learned at the beginning of this section. The devil is going to try to make us doubt it is not working, even when it is working, to get us to fail.

Also remember what we have just learned from God’s chosen spelling of the Hebrew word “heart”. God gave us spiritual authority over our spiritual enemy only on the inside of our body, hidden within our spirit. It is NOT normally an external feeling that can be experienced with our five physical senses. God requires us to have “faith” in Him and His Word. This includes us believing in even how He chose to spell the words that have important revelation within them. Do you see the parallels in that last statement? There are hidden messages in letter definitions that were not understood for a long time. These were opened up now so that we could believe in our unseen human heart, about His spiritual works.

Another great Hebrew word that is created with the “Lamed” as the first letter is the Hebrew word H1980. This word has the root word “LK” which consists of the “Lamed” + “Kaf”.  The letter “Kaf” is a picture of a man’s open hand.  It is the letter that directly precedes the “Lamed” staff. Thus, they are already intimately connected by alignment, association, and usage.  It requires a Kaf “hand” to hold the Lamed “staff” of authority. These two letters together have the meaning of in the hand of a man. This certainly applies to Jesus, but it also applies to Christ followers called His sheep.

The word H1980 is most often translated as a form of to “walk”. This is because a man with a staff in his hand implies that he is traveling somewhere to arrive at his destination. In Biblical times, many travelers were the only source of information from other locations of the world. Thus, this word also means to be a “messenger” with a “message”. But this word is also used as a form of “relationship” between two individuals that were “walking together” in unity.

For example, in Genesis 3:8 we find God walking in the garden of Eden to fellowship with His created man and his wife. It is implied that God and Adam did this walk together often, because Adam recognized the sound of God’s voice walking in the garden and ran and hid because of their sin.  However, the second time this word is used it has a different ending result. In Genesis 5, we read of a man named Enoch. This man also walked with God, and their relationship was so very close that God took Enoch off of the planet without him seeing physical death. Wow!

Do you see how us having a staff in our hand has any application to our lives on this earth? God is saying to us, that we need to have close intimate relationship with Him personally daily, minute by minute. We must use our faith to walk with Him to get the messages that we need for our lives. A part of this must be fellowshipping with the Word of God, and the other part fellowshipping with the Spirit of God in prayer, worship and praise. But it does not stop there, because we still live in a natural world right now. We have this staff of authority in our hands to walk to others and bring them the “Good News” from the Kingdom of God. This is exactly what Jesus did personally in the flesh when He was here, and this is the example for us to follow.

Our spiritual authority has been given to us in our spirit, residing in a temporary spirit tent dwelling called our body. God accomplished this by joining our spirit with the Holy Spirit of Christ, and this was all defined by the Hebrew word “labe”, that is translated as “heart”. In or physical body, we have been given the “staff” of authority to walk with God and to bring His message to others.  Christians have been given great gifts from God that contain His authority. This authority is inside the house where the Spirit of God abides forever. We have been given a powerful “staff” of authority and we are told to hold it in our hands and never to turn loose of it. Jesus transferred this staff with His commands (words); “Go into all the world”, and “in my name you will cast out devils”.  God desires for us to continue finding and inviting lost people to become a part of His sheepfold.

13. CONCLUSION

We have been going through a brief study of the ancient Hebrew letter “Lamed”. We have learned that this letter is a picture of a shepherd’s staff. It represents God’s ultimate authority. We should have seen how this authority was given to the Son of God, named Jesus after His resurrection from the dead. This authority was further delegated to His body on the earth with Him being the “Head” (Resh) in heaven. We have not yet learned about the “Resh” letter, but that was your first introduction to Christ being the head of the body, called the church.

We have seen several verses that can help us to see Jesus as the ultimate “Good Shepherd” in this lesson. Every “Good Shepherd” will have a staff in His hand, and Jesus is no different.  Here is just another verse relating to Christians being “sheep” and Jesus being our Shepherd:

1Pe 2:25  For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. 

This verse in 1 Peter is an obvious reference to Jesus as the Shepherd that was being prophesied in the ancient Hebrew letter “Lamed”. This is just another confirmation that Jesus is our Shepherd that David wrote and prophesied about in Psalm 23. Remember this verse is a fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 53:6 where the prophet wrote that we were all like sheep that went astray. We can again confirm those saved in the church body, are the sheep that have returned to their true shepherd. Let us conclude this lesson with another ending prophecy of Jesus in the book of Revelation:

Rev 19:11  And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. 

Rev 19:12  His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. 

Rev 19:13  And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. 

Rev 19:14  And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. 

Rev 19:15  And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 

Here is an awesome description of Jesus coming back to the earth to rule for 1000 years with His saints. We know this is Jesus because Jesus claims to be the Faithful and True witness in Revelation 3:14. Then we can confirm Jesus is God, because these identical terms were used to describe the LORD in Jeremiah 42:5.

Notice in these verses that the coming Lord Jesus is clothed in a robe dipped into blood (v13), and is riding a white horse (v11). God further describes a sharp sword in his mouth, which is a representation of His words of authority, eminence and power. We can also clearly see the church riding behind Jesus on more white horses, with clean and white robes, representing purity and righteousness. But it is verse 15, that we need to focus upon.

In verse 15 of Revelation 19, we are told Jesus will rule the nations of the world with a “rod” of iron. Notice the transition that has occurred during this context. Instead of a wooden shepherd’s staff, this one is made of strong iron. This iron rod/staff is for a much different purpose than the wooden staff of the Shepherd Jesus, that managed docile loving sheep that follows Him willingly. No, we are seeing two different rods, and purposes for two different groups of people.

Notice the Greek word G4464 that is translated as “rod” in this passage, means a stick or baton that presents the holder to be royalty in a kingdom. This certainly fits Jesus as the King of kings”. It is normally translated to be a “rod” like we saw in Moses’ hand of authority.  We again see in Revelation 17:14 that Jesus the Lamb of God is called the LORD of lords, and the King of kings. Clearly there are many references to the multiple roles of Jesus within God’s Kingdom.

What we are confirming is the fact that during this current church age of grace, Jesus offers humans a loving Shepherd. Anyone can join His flock by believing and confessing Jesus as their LORD. But when the age of Grace ends and the fulness of the gentiles come in, there is a new transitional time for judgment that will begin.  This time will initiate a 7-year period called the time of Jacob’s trouble. Jacob as you know is the foundational member of the natural nation of Israel. There were 490 years prophesied about these natural people by the prophet Daniel. This is 70 weeks of years. Every week has been fulfilled, except for the last week that many call the 3 ½ year “Tribulation”, followed by the 3 ½ year “Great Tribulation”.

This final week of prophecy to the natural people of the earth will end the ability to be saved during the 6 days (6000 years) of God’s work for humanity. There will be a 7th day of “Rest” called the Millennium, that will follow the “Great Tribulation”. These verses in Revelation 19 describe the ending battle to fully subdue the devil’s kingdoms ruled over the people on the earth. This is why this battle is brought about with the stronger authority of iron. The weapon that will ultimately defeat the devil, will be the sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus. It is this picture that represents His powerful words. We will hopefully talk about these concepts when we arrive at learning the ancient Hebrew letter “Zayin”, the LORD be willing.

Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us. We are greatly blessed when anyone reads, learns and shares these lessons. It is also a great blessing to receive feedback, questions, comments and positive constructive criticism. If you run across any grammatical or typographical errors, it is greatly appreciated when you let us know. God bless you all. Remember Satan is very angry because he knows that, JESUS IS COMING SO VERY SOON!

Intro Alef Beyt-1 2 Gimel Dalet Hey Vav Zayin Chet Tet Yod Kaf Lamed Mem 1 2 Nun Samekh Avin Pey Tsade Qof Resh Shin Tav Alef-Beyt Chart (Series updated as LORD directs and permits)

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Jesus in the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet Part 3 – The Beyt Part 1

(Ver 1.2) This will be “Part 3” in the Bible study series, revealing the Lord Jesus hidden in the ancient Hebrew Alphabet. Today, will be “Part 1” of the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, called the “Beyt”. The current plan will be to go through each letter, as long as the LORD directs and permits. We may or may not go through every letter in the correct alphabetic order. God is appearing to direct us into the more significant alphabet letters first. That does not mean any are not important, it only means, that God appears to place significant emphasis upon selected letters, like the Alpha (Greek)/Alef (Hebrew), and the Omega (Greek) /Tav (Hebrew) as direct names and titles of Christ. We learned this in the book of Revelation. We are about to discover that the “Beyt” is another letter that God places extraordinary meanings that apply to Jesus within.

If you have not read this Bible series from the beginning, it is highly recommended that you go back to “Part 1” to start. Today’s lesson will be divided into at least two or three separate parts. There is an extraordinary amount of information, and revelation found in the Bible about today’s Hebrew alphabet letter “beyt”. Here is a list of today’s lesson subjects:

  1. Introduction to the Beyt
  2. Basic Bible Concepts of the Tent (beyt) “House” and “Family”
  3. Alef (Strength) + Beyt (House) = The Father
  4. Hey (Behold) + Beyt (House) = Love
  5. Tet (Surround) + Beyt (House) = Good
  6. Beyt (House) + Nun (Seed) = The Father’s House Continues in His Son
  7. The House (Beyt) Name of the LORD
  8. Conclusion

Finally, please be advised this entire lesson series may have potential new information, and revelation from the Bible, that you may have never seen, or heard before, or even imagined could be hidden in the Bible. It will also be a very spiritually mature lesson needing a lot of serious thought and study. This means it will take you significant time to begin to understand what the Lord desires us to see. Don’t plan to rush through it, and think you can get everything that is given.

Any new information is potentially offensive, and could result in your immediate judgment to condemn it as being false teachings. But that is exactly what God says would happen. In Acts 17:11, God gave praise to the church at Berea, because they were more noble than the church at Thessalonica. The Bereans did not automatically reject the new revelations given to Paul by God, simply because they had never heard them before. Rather, they studied daily in their Scriptures to confirm what was taught, was actually what their written Word of God said.

If by chance you disagree with any part of this lesson, or even find a typographical error, wrong Bible verse reference, or any other unintentional mistake, know everyone is human and can come short of perfection. Therefore, it would be a great blessing for you to share whatever you believe needs attention in a comment. Thank you in advance for your kind participation, in helping us to share the Word of God.

Please determine to be a Berean type of church member. Any new revelation will always be found in the Bible, if it is a true reality from God. Also, the Holy Spirit inside will always bear witness with your spirit when His written Word needs to be confirmed.

ALL new information brings to us knowledge, but new revelation from God, brings us the opportunity for the change of God that is needed in us!

1. Introduction to the Beyt

The Beyt is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It has a number value of “2”. Two is significant because of the Law of Marriage found in Genesis 2:24, where God says two separated individuals (a male and a female), will become one new (united) family. Remember the first Hebrew alphabet letter was the alef. This letter was a picture of a single ox, and it represented “strength”. Therefore, using the number of the second letter, could represent two weaker individuals, that when joined together can be stronger in unity.

Perhaps you will recall that we learned about the first letter “alef” which represented a strong “ox” having a yoke to plow the field, as preparation for harvest. We learned that this letter has very strong pointers to Jesus. Remember in Matthew 11:29, Jesus called for us to take His “yoke”, indicating He was this letter’s prophetic ox servant. By Him using the call for us to be “yoked” with Him, we are symbolically being called out of the world, to be joined with Him in united marriage as one (alef).

This being joined with the Lord to labor with Him, is one of the very significant parts of the works of Christ to save humanity. We must understand this because Romans 5:14 declares Adam, to be a figure (modeled pattern or type) for Jesus to come. That subject alone could be a book by itself. But the short take away for this number of two, becoming one, is the fact that Jesus is now joined to His wife on the earth, and because of this union, we are saved and Him joined with us, makes us much stronger, than our enemy. We will speak about this more as we continue.

Today’s letter is transliterated into English as “beyt” or “bet”, but it has other potential sounds when combined with other letters. This letter is equivalent to the Greek letter “beta”. It is interesting that the complete set of letters that are used to make up the known language, are called the “alef” + “beyt”, or “alphabet”. From an alphabet all other words are formed and originate. Remember this as we continue to learn.

This letter “beyt” in the ancient Hebrew paleo pictogram representation, appears as the image of a “House” or “Tent”. It is noted by its characteristics of being like a simple architectural diagram, of the floorplan of a modest tent dwelling. One potential meaning for this simple beyt tent diagram, is to represent a “space” that needs to be filled by entering in.

To accommodate this need, the tent diagram has an entrance door at the top of the letter, that allows the outside individual to enter into the house to rest, sleep, eat, take shelter from weather, etc. Therefore, this letter beyt can represent the meaning of coming “in” to the house. Consequently, the letter diagram can represent an internal space for peace and safety. When this letter is used as a prefix, it has the application of being “in”.

Another key representative definition of this Hebrew letter is the “family” that resides in the house. Therefore, this letter can also mean, “coming into the family”. In God given family terms, there are two primary ways of permanent access into a family’s house. The first is by “covenant” invitation (marriage) (Eph 5:31-32), and the second is by being birthed inside the tent (family) (John 3:3). This is logical, sense this interior of the tent was also where the birthed child was normally conceived.

This was the quick overview of what this beyt letter represents in Bible terms. But it is a single little picture that contains literally vast amounts of implied application. There is an old quote that says, “A picture tells a thousand words”. This is the path the LORD is leading us into. We are discovering what one little picture of a tent means to God and how it applies to the LORD Jesus Christ. Let us get started.

2. Basic Bible Concepts of the “House” and “Family”
of the Tent (Beyt)

We have already learned that the “beyt” represents a tent house where a family resides (abides), grows, and originates from. In this section of the lesson, we will be introduced to some of the God inspired concepts hidden in the letter picture of a house (beyt). Some of these have been revealed to us in the Bible after Jesus arose from the dead, but the basic foundation will be found in the Old Covenant and with the combinations of other ancient Hebrew letters joined to the “beyt”.

As part of this individual letter study of the “beyt”, we are going to go through a small number of other Hebrew words that are created by joining another important letter to the “beyt”. Some of these letters, we have potentially not yet studied. This intelligent letter joining process, may introduce a new concept to some. We are about to see that each letter being combined to make up new words of the language, are done so by a purposeful strategy. Nothing is randomly selected in the Bible. There are no accidents, or coincidences of spelling or word choices. Everything in the Bible is present because of the extreme intelligence of a far superior intellect than any human.

This is a good time for an introduction, to this new concept of the joining of letters together in the Hebrew “alphabet” by intelligent design. We just learned in the letter introduction, that the word alphabet came from the combination of alef + beyt. And from the almost infinite combinations of these alphabet letters, can come every other word that could be formed and spoken. Wow! That is an awesome concept, but it becomes even more amazing when we learn “what” these two combined letters “alef” and “beyt” are defined to mean.

It is very important in our study to know that there is a two letter Hebrew word formed from these exact same letters, in the exact same placed order of “alef” + “beyt”. The “alef” begins a Hebrew word that when it is combined with the “beyt”, is most often translated as a “father” of the house. This word represents the head family member of the entire household. This is the Strong’s Hebrew word “H1”. This word occurs in the Old Testament over 1200 times, making it a very significant subject for God in His Word.

This is an excellent time to introduce you to a God selected key individual named Abraham. The name Abraham is H85 and is a contracted word that includes the word “H1” translated as “father”. The name actually means “a father of nations or a multitude”. This is exactly what God said to Abram in Genesis 15:5. God informed Abram to look at the stars and count them, because this number represents how many children he could have. Yet at this promise, Abram was an old man, and his wife Sarai was barren.

We could spend a lot of time studying the name Abram and Abraham. Both names contain the word H1 father (the alef + beyt). But God added one letter to Abraham, called the “hey” which means “behold”. This letter changed Abram’s name from “exalted father”, to Abraham meaning “father of many nations”. This was God naming Abraham to help cause His Genesis 15:5 prophecy, to happen. This will have to be another lesson, since we are focused only on the “beyt” of God today. But the subject of Abraham will return soon in this lesson for another major reason.

Abraham appears to be one of the most significant chosen men in the Old Testament. From him comes the nation of Israel, and many other nations of the earth. The Islamic religion and people came from his relationship with a slave girl from Egypt named Hagar. But it was the promised child through Sarah, that will bring forth the promised “seed” called the Messiah/Christ. And because of Christ, Abraham becomes the spiritual father of every believer in Christ (Rom 4:16). Therefore, Abraham becomes the father of 3 of the major world religions. But being in Christ as Christian, is the only nation that saves us.

Remember the “alef” letter represents an “ox” with great strength, and we have just learned that the “beyt” represents a tent house or the family in the tent. Therefore, the meaning of these combined letters is, “the strength of the family and the house”, and this is God pointing us to Himself as being the ultimate “Father” with the ultimate house. Remember that it was God the Father, that spoke all of the creation into being. It is God the Father, that progenerated every other spiritual being either angelic or human.

Eph 3:14  For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

Eph 3:15  Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 

These two verses give us a foundation to the rest of this Bible lesson on the “beyt”. First, verse 14 begins with naming God as “Father” to whom every human should bow to. Then in the same verse it is written that it was this Father God who is the Father of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. The fact that Jesus is called LORD, designates that Jesus is also, God the Son.

Next, in verse 15, we have the confirmation that God has a family that is in both heaven and earth simultaneously. We have just discovered some amazing facts about God in the Holy Bible. These include the following statements:

  1. God is a Father (Hebrew H1 Alef+Beyt),
  2. God has a Son named Jesus
  3. God has a family
  4. Part of God’s family is in heaven
  5. Part of God’s family is on the earth

Let us observe a few other implied facts of truth from these two verses. Notice, because there is no mention of the realm of hell in these verses, we can logically conclude that there are no family members of God under the earth. Yet we still find people like in Luke 16, that go to hell. This would imply these people were not a part of God’s family, and this implies the existence of another possible family that belongs to someone else. We will find by studying the Bible correctly, that this spirit being is Satan, an adversary of God (John 8:44).

Next, we can further logically conclude that because God is stated to be a Father, with a son named the LORD Jesus Christ, He is implied to have a wife that gave birth to His son. Hopefully, you already know that a wife in a relationship with God represents the people, that are in covenant with God (Jer 31:32).

In verse 15, God is plainly revealed to have a family, and based upon our knowledge of the “beyt” so far, we must conclude that He must also have a house, where His family abides. This just further confirms that God has a covenant wife, and children that define a God designed family. Could this be why the devil is attempting to redefine the God created family unit? It would seem if the devil could convince everyone to rethink the family unit being one male, one female and their children, he could get people to throw out the rest of the Bible.

Then based upon John 4:24, we know God is a Spirit, and therefore His family, wife, children, and family house must be a spiritual certainty. However, we understand that we primarily learn about these unseen spiritual realities, by observing God’s created natural patterns of houses, and families that are firmly established in the Bible (John 3:12).

That was a quick introduction to the New Testament family of God. We have seen clearly God to be a spiritual “Father”, and the head of a house and family. We can begin to observe and understand how the ancient Hebrew letter applies to God the Father. But now let us go back to the Old Testament to analyze further, this Hebrew word H1 for father.

3. Alef (Strength) + Beyt (House) = The Father

Notice the order of mention of the letters. The ox alef is the first letter of the word “father” (H1) and the “beyt” the second. The ox-alef represents the strength of a father, and he is the head of the household, which is represented by the second letter the tent-beyt. This combination order signifies that “the father, and his strength is in his house”.

Throughout the Bible, it was always the strong father in a house, that made the key family decisions. This even included the choices of who their children would marry. Is there any reason why you cannot see how this description matches your knowledge of who is “God the Father”? We can actually find this patterned example of God the Father, written in the life of Abraham, by him sending a servant (type of an ox), to get a wife for his son Isaac in Genesis 24.

Please go and read this story to help you see the patterns of word selections that God uses to describe the life of Abraham and his son Isaac. We learn in Galatians 4, that this story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and their children were selected by God because they allegorically inform us of the hidden spiritual family of God the Father in heaven. If you don’t understand this, it is too much information to share here. There is another lesson series specifically written to describe this amazing revelation. Please go to “Understanding the Spiritual Family of God” to help you.

This story of Abraham sending his servant to obtain a wife shortly after Isaac was planned to be sacrificed by Abraham in Genesis 22, was a significant pattern for the coming work of God through His Son Jesus. Remember, that Jesus was both God’s sacrifice (Isaac), and His servant (ox), that would be sent into the world to save us. But it was also the Holy Spirit that would be sent into the world to live in the bride of Jesus, to help her get ready for the wedding. We learned about Jesus being as an ox servant in the first alphabet letter’s lesson on the “alef”. Knowing this gives us the strong indicator that God the Son, is planned to be a father of a coming house in the future, like Isaac was. It is interesting to read in Isaiah 9:6 that Jesus is prophesied to be the “Everlasting Father (H1)”.

It was God the Father, that selects the wife for His Son that He would die for, to save her. It was the blood of Jesus (God’s strong alef servant), that was used to purchase, and redeem her from another close relative’s family, like Isaac’s wife was. We need to transition into a new Hebrew word and learn about the subject of the “son”. This will be our foundational introduction to the “Son” title of Jesus. We are going to be introduced to a new ancient Hebrew letter that is combined with the “beyt”, by God’s awesome intelligent design. This new letter connects Jesus into the House of God.

4. Hey (Behold) + Beyt (House) = Love

We are going through a few words that are created by joining other letters to the “beyt” study letter. If we join the “hey” meaning “behold” with our “beyt” meaning house or family, we get “behold the house”. Or in other words we could say “look to the house”. This can also be defined as, “provide for the family”. It is interesting that children born into a family have absolutely no voice in determining who their parents are, or what house they will live in. This would include who their relatives will be, and what were their family tree origins (tribe, nation, etc.). No, this family birth decision must be considered only a gift from God.

Therefore, this Hebrew word carries the implied meaning of “gift” or “give”. This information defines the concept of “love”. The parents of the house should love the child that they were given from God. We know from reading 1 John 4:8, that “God is love”. Therefore, we must understand every human family must love each other and God, because God first loved them (1 John 4:19), and created them (Malachi 2:10). The fact that God declares that He is love, confirms that God has a house and a family that He can love. We just learned this by observing the Hebrew letters “behold” (hey), and “house” (beyt), that were combined to form the Hebrew word for “love”. It was this word H157, that gave us the meaning and definitions of the letter, to be the root of a “love gift” from God.

We are being introduced to a foundational “beyt” family concept. God has created the subject of love to be strongly tied to the subject of a beyt “house”. This would seem to imply that “love” was, and should continue to be the motivation for every God style “beyt” house and family.

This love concept would be initiated by a man loving a woman, and these two joining as a husband and a wife, to form a new family. Then love producing a family of children, with the wife becoming a mother, and the husband becoming a father (alef + beyt). These should be very simple basic concepts, but the devil is doing his best to try to destroy this foundation of true love, in a “beyt” type of God created house.

Let us now move to another basic characteristic of the God intended design for His “beyt” house.

5. Tet (Surround) + Beyt (House) = Good

We have just seen how God’s type of house and family is founded upon “Love”. This is an essential part of any “good” family. We can clearly learn from Genesis 1, that the entire world that He created for humans, contained only “good”. In fact, God called His creation at completion, “very good”. This teaches us there was “no” evil found in the work of the LORD. Adam and Eve had the manifested true nature of God the Father at the beginning.

What we learn from this is the Hebrew word H2896 that was translated as “good” is designed from the connection of two Hebrew letters. The first letter, is the “tet” and we have not yet studied this letter. But in ancient Hebrew it represents a picture of a “basket”. A basket represents a place of containment. When we place “fruit” in a “basket”, it is contained or surrounded by the basket. This is a very interesting selection of letters when placed together with the “beyt” our tent house letter that we are studying.

This Hebrew word H2896 simply means “to surround the house”. But it is the kind of father in the house as the chief authority, determines what kind of house and family someone experiences. This Hebrew word H2896 is normally translated, defined and associated in the context of being in God’s family. Therefore, God’s house is always defined to be “good”.

Psa 122:9  Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good. 

There are a lot of verses, that could be used to show God’s house and family to be good, but this one was a great example. Now, it is how we define “good”, that will determine what type of “god” we see Him to be? God warns us in Isaiah 5:2, “woe to those who call evil, good, and good, evil. This teaches us we better make the correct determination of this definition.

According to the Bible, and the ancient Hebrew definitions, to surround a house with “good” means the house is surrounded with “grace”, “beauty”, “love”, “health” and “prosperity”. This is very meaningful, because these characteristics describe the LORD God and the LORD Jesus precisely. Their heart is only “good” continually towards those in their “family” and “house”. A good house, is a functional and an organized house. There should never be any strife, confusion, or chaos in a “good” type of God house.

Let us now move to the God intended product, of the true love and good God based “beyt” house next.

6. Beyt (House) + Nun (Seed) = The Father’s House
 & His Name Continues in His Son (Seed)

Let us dive into another Hebrew word that is “very” significant to our God family, and house subject being about Jesus. Since we have seen in Ephesians 3:14, that God is the Father of the LORD Jesus, we need to look at the Hebrew word H1121 “ben”. Interestingly, this word begins with the letter “beyt” (the house) and is joined with the 14th letter of the alphabet the “nun”. We have not yet covered this letter, but it is a picture of a sprouting seed, and this letter represents continuance. The picture of the “nun” alphabet letter actually resembles the image of a magnified “sperm” cell, produced from a “father to be”.

The sperm cell in the Bible, is called a “seed” in Leviticus 15:16. It is the exiting of this sperm cell from the father’s body, that can cause a son to be formed. This information should help you to see what the Hebrew word “ben” (son) means.  Placing these two letters (beyt + nun) together we obtain the meaning “the house continues”, and this word is translated as “son” over 4000 times. Therefore, this concept and word is extremely important to God.

It is noteworthy to see that the “beyt” is the first letter in this Hebrew word “son”. This is the opposite of the Hebrew word for the Father where the “alef” ox was the first letter in the word H1. The Father is always greater than the house he lives within. He is the builder of the house and exists before the house. Therefore, the house while important comes second, representing the father coming into his house. But this word H1121, the son comes from his father’s house as a seed (Genesis 4:25). The son is born in the house, and in the family of his father, and then exits out of the house to create his own family house and dwelling. Do you see the importance of the order of the Hebrew letters? Even the order has prophetic meaning.

This was an introduction to a couple of new concepts called generations and inheritance. The firstborn son of every family was normally given the responsibility to continue the family name to the next generation. Every father was always pleased when they had a son, because he knew that his family and his name would continue. This was Abraham’s huge problem in Genesis chapters 12 to 16.

Sarah was barren and unable to have children. Abraham had resigned to make a child of one of his servants, his heir (Gen 15:3). But God had mercy and intervened in his situation and promised him that he would have a child from his own “seed” (Gen 15:4). Did you notice how God included the Hebrew letter “nun” (the seed) in His promise to Abraham? That is not an accident either and has huge hidden truths in it. We will get to this as we continue this series, the LORD be willing.

Let us look at another witness to confirm from the mouth of the Son of God named Jesus, personally that His Father (who is love), has a family house:

Joh 14:2  In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 

This verse spoken by the Son of God, describes a very good house of His Father. These words confirm that Jesus was, and is the Son of God, and that His Father has a house (beyt) in heaven. We also notice that Jesus’ position on the earth, confirms that He had come out of His Father’s heavenly house as the promised “seed”. This confirms the design of the Hebrew word ben for “son” to be the “beyt” (God’s house) first, and the “seed” (son of the house) second. The word H1121, is very prophetical for the work of God, sending His Son Jesus Christ into the world.

The Greek word G3614, that is translated as “house” literally means a residence or an abode for a family. Thus, we have confirmation that God in heaven has a house (beyt). The word translated as “mansions” is a very poor translation of the Greek word G3438. This word only means “staying” as inside a residence. Both of these words imply a dwelling place for a family, and this aligns with the meaning of our Hebrew letter “beyt”.

This verse is also a covenant marriage union between a husband and his engaged wife. Thus, we are being introduced to the fact that the man Jesus, came to the earth to bring a woman as a covenant wife, back to His Father’s house in heaven.

We are observing another implied occurrence of the two becoming one. This is because the son, named Jesus is speaking to His future covenant bride, and telling her that He will be going to his Father’s house in heaven, to prepare for her a newly built house (beyt), for them both to be together in, as a new family. It is the Father’s role in heaven to determine when the time for His Son’s return to get His bride. Hopefully, this should all be familiar to you.

All of this information about God’s house and His Son are why we are now going to search and study the phrase “house of the LORD”.

7. The “House” (beyt) Name of the LORD

Psa 23:6  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever. 

According to the Psalmist David, to have a desire to “dwell” in the “house of the LORD” forever, should be everyone’s primary goal to obtain to. However, notice that David begins with speaking of goodness and mercy, connecting this goodness with him dwelling in the house of the Lord. This would strongly imply, that humans on the earth when David wrote this were not currently living in God’s final house location or family.

Also, the Hebrew word H3427 that was translated as “dwell”, can be defined, “to marry”. Marriage is still one of the primary ways to enter into a “beyt” type of family house. Since this chapter 23 begins with saying the LORD is my Shepherd, should help you to see this chapter is a prophetic picture of the coming LORD Jesus’ house and family. We know this by reading John 10:11 where Jesus claims to be the ultimate “Good Shepherd”. But we will see more of this later.

In the past sections we were introduced to the concepts of the house and family of God the Father, and God the Son. We learned that God has a family in heaven and on the earth and that His Son Jesus came from the heavenly house, to bring back to His Father, a wife from the earth. This concept teaches the fact that God has a “beyt”, and Jesus will have a “beyt”. It therefore, makes logical sense to search for the phrase “House of the LORD” (JEHOVAH), to learn what God reveals about His personal family in the Old Covenant.

My Bible search program “eSword”, on the personal computer found this exact term “234” times in “213” verses. I highly recommend that you go and download “eSword” for free to use in your study of the Bible. The Microsoft Windows version of the software is a free download. But the Apple version has a cost, because Apple charges a significant fee to software developers to make their software available on their platform. However, the software is so good, I have it on my iPad and highly recommend this version also.

If you did not know that you could search for an exact phrase, this is a good thing to learn. In the search window of “eSword”, there are numerous options available. In one dropdown selection box, there are 4 options of search types. These include:

  1. “Search for all of the words”,
  2. “Search for any of the words”,
  3. “Search for the exact phrase”, and
  4. “Regular Expression”.

I selected the third option for this search. But the other options are useful depending upon what you are looking to find. Each search option is basically self-explanatory, with the exception of “Regular Expression”, and that option permits a much more complex search for a specific character pattern in the Bible. This type of exploration is a very advanced type of searching, and you should learn to master the simple, before you advance to try the complex.

It is important to know that using the selection of “Search for exact phrase”, does not work in the KJV+ translation or any other translation with embedded Strong reference numbers. Always do your phrase searches in a version of a Bible with only the basic Bible translated text like KJV.

It is also noteworthy to see, that by selecting the exact phrase option in my search for “house of the lord”, in the KJV Bible, I eliminated 319 verses that would come up if I had only searched for a verse that had every word. Knowing this, reduced my labor and effort of study, and this was a great time saver. If you do not care about the word order or the specific phrase, or amount of time you spend, then it is normal to only search using option 1, “search for all the words”.

In this lesson today we will only focus upon one word found in the phrase “House of the LORD”. In this phrase is found the Hebrew word H1004. This word was translated as “house”, and it comes from the root of a two-letter word that consists of the “beyt”meaning a house, and the “tav” meaning a mark. We have learned today that the “beyt” represents a house, and the family that lives in the house. You hopefully recall that we have learned in the “Part 1” lesson, that the “tav” is the symbol of the “cross” meaning the mark. Combining these two letters together we get “The Mark of the Family”. This is designating that the head patriarch’s “name”, is the individual “mark of their entire family” tree.

It is this family mark of the father’s name, that normally distinguishes one family from another family and today there are a lot of different families, but them all originating from Adam’s family. For example, in modern terms, the “Jones” family is different than the “Smith” family, because they had a different father. Wow! This teaches us a potential new concept about a house (tent). It teaches us there is one primary owner of the tent, and he is the builder of the family, as well as the father of the house, and the house is called by His name alone.

It also confirms why Jesus called God His Father (John 20:17), and said the father of the religious leaders of Israel, was Satan (John 8:44). In knowing this we have just revisited the existence of two spiritual “houses” (beyt), and two “family heads”. The greatest Father, is God’s house and family in heaven, and now in Christians (1 John 4:4), and the other was of the devil on the earth. In these two houses (beyt), we have one evil destroying father, and one good, loving and saving Father, God. Again, it was the blood of Jesus that redeemed humans from the bondage of being in Satan’s house through the rebellion of Adam.

This was only a short introduction to the subject of the “house of the LORD”. But we have just learned about the mark of the family’s name coming out of a house to move to his son in the next generation. Since this was selected by God as the symbol of the tav that represents a “cross”, this would strongly imply the cross, has a lot to do with the plan of God and His Son. It is only by God’s design that each fruitful father, has “seed” in himself, to continue his family name into the next generation, in his son. We will talk about this concept more as we continue to learn.

8. CONCLUSION

We have been going through a lot of potentially controversial new Bible information. If you have gone through this lesson today, without being offended at anything that was taught, it is a miracle of God. We give all praise to the LORD. If you have understood everything that was taught, you are by far a very spiritually awake and mature Christian. But it is wise to reread these lessons to receive what else the Holy Spirit may desire to say to you through them. We praise the LORD for giving you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Him. We have only seen the introduction to the subject of Jesus being represented by the tent house “beyt” letter.

We should now be coming into a relationship with some of the basic concepts found in the Ancient Hebrew “beyt” pictogram. This was a picture diagram of a very basic tent drawing with a single door. The door grants entrance, and provides exit to the family that lives within the tent house. We have discovered that Jehovah God has a house. We learned how to search for the exact phrase “house of the Lord” and we can find more than enough verses to confirm the existence of this God house truth.

Since God has a tent house, we understand God existed before the house was built. We further learned that this dwelling place was built by the Father to establish a location for His family. In God’s human design the father accomplishes this first, by bringing His bride into the house through a covenant “union”. Then the two of them can have children, to fill their house. We also learned the father of a house has a “name” and this name is the “mark” of the entire family that is produced from the seed that was “in” their father.

God had a Son as we read in Ephesians 3:14. His son is named the LORD Jesus Christ, making Him a new physical manifestation of God (1 Jn 4:9). This Son of God manifestation was our salvation. The name Jesus literally means “Jehovah Saved”. Wow, this is something to shout about!

We have also been introduced to several new Hebrew letters that have yet to be covered. Included in today’s lesson we saw the “Nun”, the “Dalet”, the “Lamed”, the “Tet”, and the “Tav”. Each of these letters have profound connections to Jesus Christ and our “beyt” letter. By combining these letters, we saw the father was the “Alef” + “Beyt”. We learned the son was the “Beyt” + “Nun”. We learned the house of the LORD had a named mark. The house of the Lord was the source of love. The house of the LORD was where goodness could be found. The common letter to all of these concepts was the “beyt”. This is causing the “beyt” to be very essential in the design of a good “God House”.

We will go through these new letters and more, the Lord be willing. But you should have seen enough to learn how connecting letters together can have great prophetic meanings.

Thank you for taking the time to study with us on Agapegeek.  We are extremely blessed to have you spend your valuable time to learn what the LORD has given for us all to see.

If you would like to read the next lesson, click Part 2 of the “Beyt”.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

Jesus in the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet Part 2 – The Alef

(Ver 1.1) This will be “Part 2” in the Bible study series, revealing the Lord Jesus in the ancient Hebrew Alphabet. Today, we will begin with the first letter of the alphabet called the “Alef”. This is one of the two most obvious letters that Jesus claimed to be directly related or named by. We learned this from the 4 statements of Revelation, where Jesus said “I am the Alpha and the Omega”. We also learned from these references that these signify the beginning and the ending, since this is clearly what they are in Alphabetic terms. What we have concluded based upon this revelation, is that all of the letters must represent Jesus in some form of identity. Therefore, the reason for these lessons.

If you have not read the series from the beginning, it is recommended that you go back to “Part 1” to begin.

INTRODUCTION TO THE ALEF

The Alef is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It has a number value of “1”. The sound of the letter is transliterated into English as “alef” or “alif”. This letter in the ancient Hebrew paleo pictogram representation, is as the image of an “Ox” or “Bull’s” head. It is noted by possessing two large horns on the top of its head with its snout pointing downward to the earth’s ground. Again, this letter also signifies the meaning of “beginning”, since it begins the alphabet.

This picture representation of an ox is very profound in association with our main subject of Jesus. An ox was a “servant” type of animal. It was identified to be useful because it is a very powerful and strong animal. It was used by ancient civilizations as the main worker in the farm harvest field. This beast was used to plow the ground in order to plant and sow seed for crops. The ox also was used during the harvest of grain to break up the harvested fruits of grain heads to make required substance of use for bread making.

This was only a quick introduction, and it should be easily seen how this ox picture letter introduces us to the concepts of the work of Jesus Christ. This work was fulfilled on the earth, during His physical natural appearance in Israel, approximately 2000 years ago. We will now go through some Bible examples of this letter representation to verify this relationship to being Jesus.

JESUS THE PROMISED SERVANT OF THE LORD

Let us begin this part of the lesson, by comparing Jesus’ first coming to being a fulfillment of a servant, like the pictograph ox prophesied by the Alef, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  We will not go over every verse possible, but rather will only hit the major highlights, beginning with Old Testament prophets:

Isa 42:1  Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. 

Isa 43:10  Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. 

Isa 52:13  Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high

Isa 53:11  He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities

Zec 3:8  Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH

As we can read in these 5 verses from Isaiah, and Zechariah, Jesus is clearly prophesied to be the coming “servant” of the LORD. These are certainly speaking of His first coming appearance, in His natural human mortal form. Clearly these can be compared to be like a symbolic ox pictogram. These should be very interesting to you.  They should also help you to see how they were fulfilled when we confirm Jesus in the New Testament to be God’s servant:

Mat 12:17  This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet:

Mat 12:18  “BEHOLD, MY SERVANT WHOM I HAVE CHOSEN; MY BELOVED IN WHOM MY SOUL is WELL-PLEASED; I WILL PUT MY SPIRIT UPON HIM, AND HE SHALL PROCLAIM JUSTICE TO THE GENTILES. (NASB)

Matthew writes plainly about Jesus being the fulfillment of the Old Covenant prophecies that call Jesus, God’s coming “Servant”. Matthew is literally quoting Isaiah 42:1. If we go back to Isaiah and examine the Hebrew word that God selected to describe Jesus, we will find that it is H5650. This Hebrew word was used to define a slave or bondservant. It is used by the LORD to describe this condition of slaves, approximately 800 times. Therefore, we have no doubt what God was describing Jesus to be, when He would come into the world. Let us move to another interesting account of what Jesus claimed to be when present on the earth:

Mar 10:42  Calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them.

Mar 10:43  “But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant;

Mar 10:44  and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all.

Mar 10:45  “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (NASB)

Wow, these are amazing words spoken by God in the flesh while physically walking among us (John 1:14). Jesus makes the personal claim to be a servant to every human on the earth. He further claims He did not come into the world to be served, but to serve all of us, by giving His life as our ransom. This was God buying us out of our spiritual slavery to Satan (Rev 5:9) through His shed blood (1 Peter 1:18-19).  In doing this great saving work of a servant, He is also claiming to be the “Greatest” among us ALL, which He was.

Let us now move to another set of verses about Jesus being the fulfillment of the prophesied servant of the LORD:

Php 2:5  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus

Php 2:6  Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God

Php 2:7  But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men

Php 2:8  And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross

These are more amazing verses of ultimate truth. Verse 5 identifies the key subject of the next 3 verses, “Jesus Christ”. Then in verses 6 and 7, we find very radical claims, that this humble man named Jesus the Christ, was God personally appearing in the form of human flesh. This reveals an Old Covenant hidden divine mystery. These verses should raise important questions in your mind. How could this natural looking human named Jesus, be God who created us? This is where we find the answer in Luke 1:37, “For with God, nothing shall be impossible”. But, why would the eternal Spirit of God who made us, be made manifest to become like us within His physical natural creation?

Remember, Jesus looked like an unspectacular human (Isa 53:2), he walked (John 7:1), and he talked (John 18:1), like humans, but His words were observed to be spoken with noted authority (Mark 1:22). He got hungry (Mat 21:18), He ate (Luke 21:41-43), He slept (Mark 4:38), and He prayed (Mat 26:36) like any normal human. And He died (Luke 23:46), like the natural sinful humans, that were hung with Him on crosses, except His legs were not broken (John 19:32). Yet He had not sinned even once (Heb 4:15)

These are radical truths and questions to think on. But these facts demonstrate a confirming revelation, that God’s ways are not our normal human ways (Isa 55:8), and He is nothing like most humans have imagined growing up in the natural world. We think of God in so many ways that are not truthful and did not exemplify Jesus Christ’s example.

For example, God gets the blame for every major disaster that occurs in the world today. God normally gets questioned about, His existence because it appears that He does nothing to stop all of the great evil that we can see all around us. But all of these thoughts of reasoning are promoted by the devil to get us to not believe in a God as a loving Creator.

We can see very clearly in verse 7, where God took upon Himself an appearance of the form of a strong but lowly “servant”. This is a major confirming reality for Jesus calling Himself the Alef, a picture of the ox.

Notice we can see the true revealed nature of God in verse 8. This verse identifies God’s heart to be filled with immeasurable LOVE! The God who created everything around us, that has infinite knowledge, understanding and wisdom, power and ability, could come to the earth in the form of a slave servant to die for you and I? Wow, what a God we should want to serve. His example that was set before us to become a humble servant, should cause us all to humble ourselves to become like Him. Let us move to a new topic about the God man servant Jesus, learning about oxen “yoked” together.

TAKE MY YOKE

Mat 11:28  Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

Mat 11:29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 

Mat 11:30  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 

Notice that these words are usually written in Red Ink, because they were spoken directly from the lips of Jesus while here upon the earth. Jesus begins by asking people to come to Him in order to be relieved from the extreme burdens of this world. In order to not be “burden” with the sin and death of this world, we are told to take upon us a new concept about servant oxen. This is really a new concept to many Christians.

There are too many people in the world, that do not know they are in bondage as slave to sin and Satan. They are living their lives, having fun, living without a care in the world, not knowing they are being trapped into an eternal destiny of captivity in a lake of fire. Jesus is asking us, very plainly to leave that evil bondage to take a much better path for an easier servant life path next to Him.

Did you notice in verse 29, Jesus said to take “His” yoke?  Did you know that Jesus claimed to have a personal yoke? Do you recall when we read about this was part of an ox in the introduction? The servant ox that was working in the field, would always have a yoke placed around its neck. This would be where the master would hook the plow for the strong animal(s) to pull forward to make a straight row. Jesus is identifying Himself to be this ox wearing the yoke, believe it or not!

You also might recall in the Part 1 introduction, we learned about the “Alef” and the “Tav” being Jesus’ identifiers, by His own claim. We learned this symbol occurs over 7000 times in the Old Testament. We also learned how this symbol was an ox plowing to a mark. It just so happens this mark was a cross in the ancient Hebrew Paleo alphabet. This was not an accident. We will hopefully get this letter later in the series, the Lord be willing.

Jesus is asking us in Matthew 11, to “join” with Him in doing God’s work for the coming world harvest. We do this by coming alongside Him, by being “joined” with Him in covenant marriage (Isa 54:5). This concept was established in God’s LAW in Genesis 2:24. God states in this verse: “for this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife”. The term “cleave” literally means to be joined together, like with glue.

A farming “yoke” joined a pair of animals together. In Biblical days, an older mature beast was hooked up with a younger new worker, in order to train them into service to learn how the work would be done. The more mature animal would show the younger new animal how each of the farming tasks were performed. This is exactly the normal Christian life, or at least it should be.

Jesus our mature brother, gives us His yoke and we come alongside Him, to learn what He has for us to do as a fellow laborer. Because He is God, our work is not as hard as we think, or at least it should not be. If we try to work in the flesh, we will be cumbered with a lot of stress, but if we work in the Spirit of Christ, we will find that this is where He claimed “His burden would be light, and His yoke is easy”. It is only when we do it our way, that we will struggle, stumble and can even fail.

CONCLUSION

Can you see it? This is pretty amazing and potentially new information for some. But all of this was found in the Bible. The Alef first letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet is a picture of a bull or an ox. This animal is useful as a servant in a field. This letter represented Jesus the ultimate “Greatest Servant”, that died for all of our sins!

We are told to become a yoked servant to Jesus. This yoke provides us eternal security, as long as, we stay yoked with Him. Because God loves you so much, He will give you the “freewill” right to become detached if you choose to. This usually happens when Satan tries to place some enticing trap to distract you off of the yoked path being with, and in Jesus. This is not necessarily one “sinful” act, but it can begin that way. It would also be an opportunity to become rich or famous in the world. Whatever it is, it is your choice to who, you will join yourself to. Either direction you take, you will be joined to, or yoked with either Satan or Jesus, there are no third options available.

Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us. We are blessed to be a blessing to everyone that will receive the Word of God. God is so very awesome, loving and kind. If you do not know Him today, it is past time to take off Satan’s yoke and for you to offer yourself as the servant of the “Most High”. Praise be to the LORD in advance, for everyone that accepts Him today. Please click on the link “Are You Saved?” to help you get started, and then leave a comment to tell Satan and his world you have renounced and left his ways, for the way of Christ.

God Bless you until next time, the LORD be willing.

Intro Alef Beyt-1 2 Gimel Dalet Hey Vav Zayin Chet Tet Yod Kaf Lamed Mem 1 2 Nun Samekh Ayin Pey Tsade Qof Resh Shin Tav Chart (Series updated as LORD directs and permits)

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

JESUS HIDDEN IN THE NAME OF GOD

(Ver 1.1) This will be a short lesson for our readers that do not have a lot of time to study the Bible. However, this will be a very important lesson about a hidden picture of the work of God in Jesus found in one of His most popular Old Covenant names.  What we discover in the Gospels is Jesus trying to reach the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24). This was one way that God was trying to turn the natural nation of Israel back to knowing Him. This teaches us a lot about the heart of God to be LOVE! The heart, and Spirit of God who is LOVE (1 John 4:8), had continually tried to turn their hearts of His old covenant people back to Him, over and over!

When we discover that He placed clues to all of our salvation, in His name, He demonstrates to us that He was showing us how much He loved us all!  This is a very interesting and revealing Bible study, that will be eye opening to a lot of Christians. This study is designed to be open to everyone, even those that do not yet believe in Christ.

INTRODUCTION TO JEHOVAH

One of the primary names of God found in the Old Testament is Jehovah, which is an English transliteration for the Hebrew “Yehovah”. This is the Hebrew word H3068 and it occurs over 6000 times in the Old Testament. This name has been translated into the English word “LORD” for the majority of times it was recorded. Only twice was it translated in the KJV Bible as “GOD” and twice as “JEHOVAH”.

Think about how God selected this name.  Could God have wanted His people to “know” something more than just this is My name? Of course, He did. It appears God revealed Himself in the Bible using several different names, and each one possesses qualities that define His personality, ability, and nature. Therefore, we can conclude that we can learn more about God by just learning about His names. Do you want to “know” Him personally, more today than yesterday?

Remember the Hebrew word for “know” is “yada” (H3045). and this word represents a “covenant” relationship between two parties like a husband and a wife, or God and His people!

Exo 6:3  And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known (H3045) to them. 

In Exodus 6:3, during the time of Israel’s deliverance from their captivity in Egypt, God was desiring to show Himself to them through His covenant name. God very clearly informed them in Exodus, that none of their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac or Jacob knew (H3045) God by the name of JEHOVAH! This verse of Exodus informs us that God revealed Himself to the foundational family members of natural Israel, by the primary name of “God Almighty” (Gen 17:1, Gen 28:3, Gen 35:11, and Gen 48:3).  This was the name “El Shaddai”, another English transliteration.

Psa 91:14  Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known (H3045) my name. 

We are not going to go through every verse that we could potentially find about knowing God’s name as Jehovah. But this one seemed good to the Holy Spirit to mention. The 91st Psalm is an awesome promise of God for protection from our enemies. Verse 14 is noteworthy because God says “IF we set our love upon Him by knowing His name, He will deliver us and set us on high above our enemy”. Wow that is awesome. Do you LOVE God? Do you LOVE His Spirit living on the inside of you? Do you LOVE His Word so much, that you cannot make it through a day without feeding on it? If you do just half as much as I do, then you also want to KNOW HIS NAME! We must have a hunger and thirst to know Him intimately and personally.

What we have seen in Psalm 91, is a strong indicator that knowing God’s name is one of the keys to His divine covenant provisions for peace, protection, safety, blessings, etc. This is not the only requirement, but it must be one of the most significant.

That is what this lesson will help to reveal to you. It is my heart’s desire to show you something in the name of the LORD that is truly amazing. You may or may not have learned this before, but even if this is not new, it should still be a blessing.

THE ANCIENT HEBREW ALPHABET

If you have read many of the lessons that the LORD has given to me on this website to share, then you already have a hint that the ancient Hebrew alphabet is a spectacular hidden treasure of specific design by the Holy Spirit. If you are new to this website, we will review some of the important foundational information needed to understand the remainder of the lesson. First, the Hebrew alphabet is composed of 22 letters. Each letter has a visual picture, a specific sound, a meaning, and an associated specific number value. This teaches us that even each alphabet letter has layers of potential hidden information.

For example, computer numbering systems can contain numbers and letters. The hexadecimal number system consists of 10 numbers (0-9), and 5 alphabet letters, A through F. Combining these causes a specific type of code that is unknown to anyone that is unaware of this number system. For example, the number 10 in hexadecimal, does not mean there are 10 items that have been counted, it actually means there have been 16 items counted. The number before 10 is 0F in Hex numbers.

Now consider another layer of code being placed upon the top of the hex coded number system.  Computer geeks created a system of exchange of characters called ASCII. This acronym means “American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII).  In this code system the hex number “41” has been assigned the meaning of the alphabet letter “A”. Do you follow how this could work? Believe it or not this is exactly how computers, smart phones and tablets work and you probably were clueless. That is exactly how the Bible was written. This teaches us God implemented a book of such immense intelligent design, that most humans are completely clueless of the hidden layers and complexity of valuable truth contained in it.

What we need to learn is that God knowing everything, can easily hide information using things that we think we understood, but did not see, because it was not obvious at first. This is what this lesson is about using only Hebrew letters for one major name of God.

HOW JESUS IDENTIFIED HIMSELF

We have learned in previous lessons, that Jesus associated Himself with the alphabet letters, by claiming in Revelation 1:8, 1:11, 21:6, and 22:13 to be the “Alpha” and “Omega”, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. The translators were wise enough to capitalize the first letter of these words to represent names of God, and to be more specific Jesus.

The Holy Spirit who knows all languages, can speak through a Jewish man named John in any language. It is very clear from reading the book of Revelation that John understood both the Hebrew and Greek languages, because he gave us the names of some spirit beings in both tongues. For example, Revelation 9:11 says; a king over the bottomless pit is called by the name Abaddon in Hebrew, and the name Apollyon in Greek. Both names are identical, but only seen from two human languages.

God chose to write this clue of the Alpha and the Omega, for the world to receive using the Greek alphabet, which was one of the major world languages of that day. A very significant portion of the world had been conquered by a Grecian named Alexander the Great, and this caused the common language of Greek to be spread as a standard form of communication for governmental and economic business. God had prophesied to natural Israel, that through Abraham all the nations of the world, would be blessed, and this was being fulfilled with the Words of God being written in the Greek New Testament. This was by God’s design and not human reasoning.

What we are learning is a repetitious pattern found within the Bible, and especially the Old Covenant writings in ancient Hebrew. God was clever to only reveal this in the last book, to keep it a hidden secret for the majority of human history. I believe God did this to make it known to His people today in the world, just before the end of the age, which is coming very near. Let us quickly examine Jesus as the first and the last.

Please go and read Revelation 3:14, which is a letter spoken by Jesus and written by John to the church at Laodicea. In this verse Jesus makes the direct claim to be “the beginning of creation of God”. This statement further implies that He is also the end of God’s creation by logical understanding. This conclusion is based upon Him calling Himself the “Alpha” and the “Omega”, where one is the beginning alphabet letter, and the other is the ending alphabet letter. Wow, that is very interesting to think about. Let us look at another verse to help confirm this reality:

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. 

Here is further confirmation of Jesus’ role, to be the beginning of God’s words, and the completion of God’s words that cause our faith to first come, grow and to become fruitful to be harvested. We must understand what Romans 10:17 says, in order to understand the claims being taught. In this verse, God says “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God”. Now place this fact together with the Hebrew 12:2 claim of Jesus being the beginning of faith and the ending of our faith.

Do you see the connections being made between words and faith? Do you remember where and how words are created? All words are formed by selecting, combining, and organizing the available alphabet letters necessary to achieve a thought, and idea, a concept, a picture, or a meaning that is desired to be communicated by someone to someone! It can be called communication or verbal intercourse.

One Hebrew dictionary defines a “spoken word” to be the arrangement or placement of letters, to create order or organization. Now think about this in the terms of the creation of our world in Genesis 1. God looked in Genesis 1:2-3, at the darkness, chaos, confusion and disorder that was covering the face of the earth, and then commanded with words the solution “Light Be”, and then light was. We can clearly see this is how God works to bring order out of disorder using organized letters of words, and this teaches us how the entire Bible is designed.

Where are we going with this? We should be drawing nearer to the conclusion, that if the beginning, and ending alphabet letters represent Jesus (God’s Word), then every other letter in between them, must also represent an image, form, pattern, or type of the same God named Jesus (the Word of God).

Because Jesus makes the direct claim to be the first, and last letters of the alphabet, it is very logical, practical, and even common sensical, to say all of the other letters, found in between these two, also represent Jesus the Christ in some form. God would not limit Jesus, to only two alphabet letters to form every word that needed to be commanded, spoken and communicated to His people. 

I have concluded from many years of Bible study, that every verse in the Bible is intelligently designed to teach us about Jesus in some potentially direct or hidden way (John 5:39). I have now further concluded that every letter of the alphabet is revealing something to us about Jesus. God has been attempting to communicate His good life, nature and character, to us to warn us about eternal death and separation from Him. He has been doing this, from the very beginning, even to the very ending opportunity, for us to come and learn about Him. WOW!

JEHOVAH – THE HIDDEN JESUS

You should know already, that the name of Jesus in the English language is a transliteration of the Greek name “Iesous”. The Greek name “Iesous” is a transliteration of the Hebrew name “Yehoshua” and this was translated in English as “Joshua”. However, this name of Jesus, and Joshua contains God’s Old Covenant name revealed as JEHOVAH to Israel in the Old Testament over 6000 times. The name of Jesus literally means “Jehovah-saved” and is a joining of two Hebrew words with the first meaning self-existent, and the name “Jehovah”, and the second meaning “salvation”. Clearly this is a very significant name that was given to Jesus by an angel sent from God, and it declares to the world, Jesus is JEHOVAH, and I WILL SAVE!

However, we are about to discover how God hid the identity of Jesus in His work to save us, directly in His Old Covenant name using just, 4 Hebrew alphabet letters. It is also very interesting to note that two of these letters were repeated, therefore there are only 3 unique letters in the name of JEHOVAH. So let us begin to learn how these 3 letters selected and organized by God, reveal Jesus’ identity.

It is very interesting that there are 3 unique alphabet letters selected by God to form His Old Covenant name. Three is a significant number depicting strength as noted by Ecclesiastes 4:12, where God says a threefold cord is not easily broken. Obviously three is the number for the trinity. This triune quality of God is found in several verses, with God being identified by the personalities of the Father, the Son or the Word, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:16-17, 1 John 5:7).

The first Hebrew letter of the name Jehovah is the letter “Yod”.  In the ancient Hebrew paleo representation, it is an arm with its hand extended. This is very significant when used for God. It appears to teach us that it was God that worked to create us, and it will be God’s work that will save us. It was His Love that reached out to us, even while humans were sinful lost people going to hell.

The second letter of the name of Jehovah is the “Hey”. In the ancient Hebrew paleo representation, this is a picture of a man with both arms raised being amazed or in awe of what he is witnessing with his eyes. It contains the meaning of a surprised expression of words like “Lo” or “Behold”, meaning “Look” at that. What we are observing so far, is God’s proactive action of saving work, that is designed to be viewed by humans in awe!

The third letter of the name of Jehovah is the “Vav”. In the ancient Hebrew paleo representation, this is a picture of a “peg” or a “nail” that is driven into something to make it secure as in a joining together of two items. For example, if you desired to join two pieces of lumber together, you could use a nail to accomplish the work. Wow, this is getting really good.

Now the fourth letter of the name of Jehovah is the “Hey” again. Remember this is the letter that was a man with two hands raised, like we find in the praise of God in 1 Timothy 2:8. But the word meaning still represent “surprise and awe” as in “Behold”, “Look”, “See”, etc.

What message do we have, placing all of these letter pictures together? If we join the pictures together of the hand extended, and the behold, the nail, and another behold, we find God is saying “BEHOLD THE HAND, BEHOLD THE NAIL”. Who else can this be speaking of besides Jesus the Christ, who was crucified by being nailed to a cross? The nails in the hands of Jesus held his body to the tree. Today, if you go to heaven, Jesus can show you His hands and the nail prints in them, to prove His love for you in His saving work.

Can you see how there are two men standing in awe in this name of God? One man is the Hand of God reaching out. The other man represents the object that God is reaching for to save and this is the lost human. God joined these two separated men together by joining a human body to be nailed on a cross. Ok, both heaven, and earth are standing in awe, and amazement of God’s work that He planned before Adam was created, and has accomplished, for a people that did not deserve it. WOW! What we are seeing is the plan of human salvation from just one name containing 4 letters organized in a way to convey an important message.

We have now gone full circle. God Jehovah in heaven became a man named Jesus in the flesh, in order to save everyone that would believe in Him. He did this to receive nails in His hands. The name Jesus meant Jehovah saved and the name Jehovah means “Look at my hands, and look at the nails in my hands”. Is this enough to help anyone to see, how much God loved us?

CONCLUSION

One of the most amazing things about the Bible, is all of the evidence that we can find in its supernatural design. No book containing 66 books, and written over literally many hundreds of years by at least 40 authors, could have this amount of coordinated intricate design, unless the Spirit of the Living God wrote the book personally and told them what to say.

We have discovered profound evidence declaring the Work of God in the Old Covenant name of JEHOVAH. Doesn’t this make you think, about how anyone could have missed the death of Jesus to not be the death of their God on a cross? Doesn’t this information scream how much the God of all good creation, loved His creation, to personally get involved in fixing, and restoring our relationship with Him, when we were unable to do it ourself?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read and study the Bible with us. It is always a humbling pleasure to share the LOVE of God with others. His Word is the most amazing and awe-inspiring book that exists. There are no other books that even come close.

It would be a very interesting study, if you are able to do it, to take each letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet and just see if you can find Jesus hidden in the picture, sound, meaning, or number of the letter. I believe it is possible. One great location to begin your study is Psalm 119. This is the longest chapter of the Bible, and it was designed by God using every letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Every 8 verses will go from the “alef” to the “tav” in their order. Every first word of each verse begins with that letter that is being featured by God to teach you something.  Do you believe that this was an accident? Or are you like many others, and can see Jesus everywhere in the Bible?

If you liked this lesson, please provide feed-back by pressing like, or by leaving a comment. Also help spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, by sharing these lessons with your church, friends, and families. It is a great blessing to share these lessons with you. It is also a great blessing to hear from people that love Jesus and God’s Word, because they are the same! God Bless you all!

THE TRUE IDENTITY OF THE WOMAN IN REVELATION 12 Pt 10 – WHY THE CHURCH Pt 3 – WHO IS MY MOTHER?

(Ver 1.0) This is now “Part 10” in the advanced Bible study series of lessons revealing, “The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12”. If you would like to read from the beginning, you may like to go to “PART 1” first. Today’s lesson is also “Part 3” of the miniseries within the full series called “Why the Church”.  If you would like to read from the beginning of the mini-series, you may like to go to “Part 8” now. Regardless of where you begin to study, this series is only intended for spiritually mature Christians. If you feel this does not describe you, please do not attempt to continue to read any of this series. It could cause some to be offended, and that is never our intention. Love demands that you judge yourself.

This mini-revealing series is designed to answer a lot of Christian’s deep questions to; how this woman could possibly be the church in the light of the apparent divine identity of her child as being the Christ? Many good people see the natural words, and description written to us, to indicate this woman could only be the virgin Mary, or the natural nation of Israel.

We thank you very much for taking the time to read and study the Bible with us at Agapegeek. Whether you love the word of God or you just have a curiosity about the book written by human men containing the words of the Living God, you are not here by accident or chance luck. Within the Kingdom of God, there are no coincidences. God loved you so much that He sent an angel or spoke directly into your spirit to give you a thought to search and find this website. God wanted to say some spiritual truths, to you that your natural mind was unable to hear directly from Him on your own current spiritual ability to understand. I praise the LORD only to be used in this way, because without Him, I could do nothing.

Many Christians are challenged by the God given design of the book of Revelation. I believe the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and said the book of Revelation is a compilation of word images. God spoke these written words through His mouth, using His Spiritual tongue, to paint us a visually organized spiritual set of word masterpieces. These pictures were given to us from the ultimate Word Artist. His paintings are the most valuable images, and understanding them are of far greater value than owning a Picasso, or Rembrandt.

In Revelation 12, there are plainly many words, that can only be taken as symbolism, like a dragon, and a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet. These clear symbolic references are then mixed with natural descriptions, like a pregnant woman, who is crying out in pain, travailing in birth, laboring to be delivered, etc., that can easily be taken as a literal specific human event, like the birth of Christ in Bethlehem.

Think about what was just stated about these Revelation words being word pictures. Did you ever see the drawing that someone did of a beautiful woman? But then did you ever notice that if you looked as that picture with a different perspective the beautiful woman became a witch? Or did you ever notice the 3-dimensional photos, where on the surface it just looked like a lot of random colors and dots, but when your focus changed, it became an amazing 3-D picture of another object like the space-shuttle?  

This is exactly what is happening in the book of Revelation, with us changing our normal human natural focus into God’s spiritual higher divine perspective. These word images do two things with amazing clarity of wisdom. These words conceal the truth with natural word thoughts that can be taken one way to hide the truth. But then they can simultaneously reveal the truth, by us only receiving the Holy Spirit to allow Him to help us change our view using the Light of His Word.

Now consider this truth. God writes about every major thing that will happen in the future, but He does it in a way to keep it from being known by His enemies. The author of the book of Revelation, who is the Holy Spirit, appears to hide the meanings of His strategies and plans from the devil. But simultaneously it appears that He desired for His saved children on the earth to be able to read and discover the real actual meanings at the right time. How can God do this using only words?

He could do this by utilizing coded message. He could write the book of Revelation using an obvious message that everyone would think that it is. But using His other writings that were written to His children, He could help then to understand the keys found in the letters, and then He could use these keys to help us find the correct definitions and meanings for what was not available to His spiritual enemies.

This is the strategy of encryption using unlocking key techniques used in software everywhere today. What if God knew that people would possess, the internet, computers, and smart phones? What if God leveraged His foreknowledge of the future to hide information about what would occur during the tribulation, because people on the earth would have this technology at the end-of-days, to solve the mysteries with His help? What if this is true?

Could this new transformative spiritual information, help us to change our perspective about what a pregnant woman wearing our closest star, and standing on the moon giving birth to a child could mean? Can we begin to see the heavenly spiritual word images, instead of the earthly natural viewpoints?  Why can’t this woman mean something greater than us just trying to understand it only using natural literal imagery? Couldn’t Satan simply read about what the book of Revelation said, 2000 years ago, and then just prepare a counter-strategy, far in advance to keep it all from happening? I pray that opening will help a lot of people that are still struggling to see from God’s viewpoint.

INTRODUCTION/REVIEW

In the last lesson we were introduced to some very new radical Bible ways to change our natural perspectives into higher spiritual perspectives, of how to see the woman in Revelation 12. Many have struggled to understand how the church is pregnant and could give birth to the Messiah. But God taught us how this picture of a pregnant woman wearing the sun, and standing on the moon, can represent the spiritual church using common well known natural descriptions. We covered 7 major points in the last lesson. It was a long essential study, but today there will only be one single but very significant subject to help shorten the length of the study. Let us review a short list of items that should have been learned in the last lesson, to help us understand that the woman in Revelation 12 is definitely the church:

SYMBOLNEW COVENANT REALITY
Rev 12:2 A pregnant woman. Can this represent the church?Galatians 4:19 Paul gives birth again to cause the Spirit of Christ to be formed in new believers
Rev 12:2 The woman travailed with birth painGalatians 4;19 Paul also travails using the exact same Greek word to give spiritual birth
Rev 12:2 The woman cries out in pain (Today this is called going into labor)1 Cor 3:8, 1 Cor 15:58, Gal 4:11, Php 1:22, 1 Th 3:5, Rev 2:2, to name only 6 verses that reveal the church is in labor to produce new children of Christ.
Rev 12:2 The woman waits to be deliveredGal 4:27, Tit 2:13, Rom 7:24, 1 Cor 15:24, 2 Cor 1:10, Gal 1:4, 1 Th 1:10, these are just 7 verses of connections to the church waiting to be delivered
Rev 12:4 The woman brings forth the fruit of her wombGod’s desire was for man to be fruitful (Gen 1:28). God is waiting patiently to harvest this fruit (James 5:7, 18)
  

We will not spend any more time reviewing the last lesson. But if you have not read this one, it is highly recommended that you go back to “Part 9” and read the series overview. However, understanding today’s subject is not dependent upon reading it. Today’s Bible lesson will stand alone if you would like to continue reading.

COMMENT QUESTION AND ANSWER

Recently during the last lessons, we have had comments that try to claim the woman in Revelation 12, represented a God designed rare occurrence within His heavenly creation for a sign. This event took place in the 2nd heaven on September 23, 2017. It is undeniable that it occurred. In this created event the claim is made that our sun was in the Zodiac constellation of Virgo. During the night sky on this date some have concluded that the stars making up the constellation Virgo were clothed with our sun. An alignment took place that had another constellation above her head named Leo. This Leo was said to be her crown of 12 stars. However, normally Leo consists of only 9 stars, but during this date, three planets could be seen in the formation of Leo. This they say was the 12-star crown.

Now, is where it becomes more interesting when observing the heavenly natural layout, with Revelation 12 verses 1-3. There was the moon and a serpent constellation aligned under the feet of Virgo. Then there was the planet Jupiter that revolved around inside of the belly of Virgo for approximately 9 months before exiting Virgo between her legs, like a type of birth.

This is truly amazing but, this event should only be viewed as a visible sign or symbol that gives us the desire to point us to know that it is now the time, for us all to go and discover what God wrote about in the book of Revelation. Beyond this meaning, it cannot be interpreted to mean anything else without Bible verses that confirm it. If you know of any you are free to share them.

At the beginning of the lesson, we talked about the era of technology that we are living in. This is clearly what Daniel spoke of in Daniel 12:4 when he prophesied that at the end, there would be a massive increase in knowledge and many people would be traveling around the world rapidly. This confirms God knew the end from the beginning.

It also confirms God knew when this constellation could be seen by human technology to help us to confirm that we were living near the time that this event in Revelation 12, needs to be understood. But what if this was only given by God to help us know the times, we were living in to help us prepare for His soon coming?

There are many issues that come to mind, if we try to make this event that occurred on September, 23, 2017, to be the fulfillment of Revelation 12:1-5. First, we must ignore that the same woman is mentioned in almost every verse to the end of the chapter. If the woman in Revelation 12:1 is a constellation, then the same woman in verse 17 is also the constellation or we are being very inconsistent in our interpretations.

The second major problem occurs by the fact that this is now 2022 when writing this lesson. This would be almost 5 years after the event and Revelation 12 must have commenced and it only lasts for 42 months. We must be inside of the tribulation very deep already, and obviously we are NOT! Therefore, the only way to view this constellation event, is to say it is a pointer signpost to investigate the true meanings of the words and cannot be the actual fulfillment.

Finally, another problem that comes to mind are the words of Jesus Christ. In Luke 17:20, Jesus says very clearly “The Kingdom of God cometh without observation”.  This only means we are not going to see the Kingdom of God or Jesus coming with our natural eyes until it will be too late. Let us now go into the meat part of today’s Bible lesson. This subject will be about what Jesus thought and said concerning His physical mother Mary, when confronted with this subject while living in the flesh here on the physical earth.

WHO IS MY MOTHER, AND BROTHERS?

We are going to explore some far-reaching words of the LORD Jesus, to help us better understand, and confirm the true identity of the Woman in Revelation 12 as being the church. Do you remember the nursery rhyme called “Are you, my mother?” In this story a newly hatched baby bird, goes to look for his mother”. He asks everyone he meets, “are you, my mother?”. This bird goes to many different parts of God’s creation and asks each of them all the same question. He goes to a kitten, a hen, a dog, a car, and sees a plane. On and on until he is returned to his home nest where he finally meets his mother, and the mother asks “do you know who I am?” The little bird answers “yes you are my mother, and you are not a kitten, a hen, a dog, a car, or a plane, etc”.

This is an interesting child’s story, but it does have application to our subject of a child in Revelation 12. Would the child in Revelation 12, ask everyone, are you, my mother? That is what people in the church are doing? Or would he already know before his birth and proclaim, you are my mother, and you are not Israel, Mary, or anyone else that is natural flesh? It just so happens Jesus the Christ (Messiah in the flesh), answers this question of “who is my mother in Revelation 12”, long before the book would be written. But His words are possibly unknown, ignored, explained away, or completely rejected by those that have not seen, or do not want to see the truth. Let us read the real story and see what He reveals to us:

Mat 12:46  While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him

Mat 12:47  Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee

Mat 12:48  But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? 

Mat 12:49  And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! 

Mat 12:50  For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother

These are vastly misunderstood words, that were spoken directly from the Creator God’s own mouth (John 1:1-4). If you read verse 46 carefully and thoughtfully, you discover a major problem developing with the belief of Israel and Mary being the woman in Revelation 12. Verse 46 says Jesus’ mother Mary the once virgin and Jesus’ half-brothers who were all the natural children of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and finally Joseph and Mary (Mat 1, & Luke 3 genealogy). 

Take note what Jesus does in verse 47, after being told that His natural family members including His mother Mary, were outside the house desiring to speak with Him!  Jesus, practically ignores all of them, by answering the messengers in verse 48, with a question.  Jesus asked them “Who is my mother, and brothers”?  Sounds like a nursery rhyme question, but instead of asking those present, are you my mother, He asks them do you know who my mother is? This was an obvious question revealing Jesus already knew His spiritual mother, since He could only be speaking spiritually, and not naturally.

Please understand, that if Jesus was speaking naturally, He must have amnesia, or some mental deficiency. Then pay attention to what Jesus’ true intention was, for this mentally challenged behavior. Jesus looks at His disciples while extending His hands toward them saying, “Behold, My mother and brothers”. WOW! Please do not ignore what Jesus just said. This is Him revealing the main reason, why He spoke and acted in this manner.

Jesus, is either a ranting lunatic or He knows something we don’t! We should believe the second. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is to settle that Jesus was speaking of a radically different mother, and brothers that were NOT of the natural nation of Israel, and Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and finally Mary. Think about it?

The natural nation of Israel was sitting all around Him. He was teaching them something radically wonderful about Himself. His natural mother and natural half-brothers were standing outside of the physical house. Respectfully, Jesus should have acknowledged Mary to be His physical birth mother and his half-brothers, to be his natural co-family members. But there is no mention of any of them. Should we call Jesus a liar? Let us look at a new verse that reveals who the natural nation of Israel believed Jesus to be:

Mar 6:3  Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him

What we learn from reading the natural perspective of the people of Nazareth, they believed that Jesus was the elder son of the carpenter named Joseph, and Mary. They believed Jesus had 4 younger brothers named James, Joses, Judah, and Simon. They believed he had an undeclared number of sisters. All of this was true from the natural perspective and viewpoint. Wow, could this be the reason why the people today have not seen the wisdom of God in Revelation 12 yet? I believe it is.

What we are observing in scripture are two viewpoints of the same man named Jesus. All of the natural humans were uninformed and ignorant of the truth. They believed He had a human father. They believed He was born in Nazareth. They clearly did not desire to ask any questions to learn the truth, so God in the flesh was asking them a question to help them change their perspectives. Does this apply to our study lesson today? Could their limitations of knowing who and what was possible for God be limiting their ability to receive higher spiritual truth?

It must be true, because we can notice how the Spirit of God in Jesus, was not looking upon their natural earthly perspective when He asked them the question, “Who is my mother”. WOW, I pray that we are all spiritually awake with our spiritual eyes being enlightened. Let us analyze another verse that confirms how Jesus thought spiritually at the young age of 12 years old, about his natural family:

Luke 2:48 – And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. 

Luke 2:49 – And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?

Take notice of this story that occurred when Jesus was only 12 years old. The natural family had traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. When they were returning home, Mary and Joseph finally noticed that the eldest son Jesus was not with them. It took them 3 days to find him and they discover him in the temple listening and teaching. When He is confronted by His mother Mary, saying “Son, why have you done this to us?” and “because your father and I have sought for you in sorrow”.  

What was Mary’s perspective? It seems like in just 12 years’ time, she had let slip that her son’s father really was the Holy Spirit! Could she have become more naturally thinking, while Jesus in the same time had become more spiritually minded? We must ask this question, because Jesus’s words disagreed with His natural mother’s words. Therefore, since Jesus was God in the flesh we know His truth, is not calling Mary a liar, it is only a higher truth that trumps the natural perspective.  Jesus is being well aware of His true Father’s identity when He asked them both two questions, “Why did you seek me?” and “Did you not know I had to be about my Father’s business”?

The only way to resolve this naturally viewed perspective problem found in two Bible examples of natural versus spiritual truth conflicts, is for us to change our perspectives, that these words of Jesus in Luke 2:49 and Matthew 12:49 were from a higher spiritual view of reality. This new way to see can help overcome our natural mind’s way of thinking, to be renewed to change our perspective to say and believe, Jesus is speaking spiritually and we were previously just thinking naturally from the very limited bit of spiritual knowledge that we had. 

The prophet Jesus was in no doubt speaking prophetically in both statements about His spiritual family roles. In Luke 2:49, Jesus was speaking about His role on the physical earth as a physical man, to bring the spiritual Light of the Word to humans living in the flesh, and to die for all of our sins. Then in Matthew 12:49, when Jesus asked them the question, “Who is my brother and mother”, He was envisioning the future work of God after being raised from the dead, for the new coming reality only found in the New Covenant truth of the need to be born-again spiritually. Wow!

We can understand this by who Jesus is pointing to in Matthew 12:49, when He declares them to be His mother and brothers. It was impossible for these 12 men being pointed to, to be His physical mother and brothers. Therefore, we reject this natural belief immediately, to look for a new higher spiritual truth, since Jesus only speaks truth. All of these men, became the foundational members of the church body, with the exception of Judas. These are the men that would be like Paul, to be used by God to give birth to the soon coming new church members.

These were the men that when Jesus was raised from the dead in John 20:21-22, He appeared to them and said “Peace be unto you, as my Father has sent me, so I send you”. Jesus then breathed on all of them, with His mouth, and He told them to “Receive the Holy Spirit”. This was the beginning of the spiritual church body and bride of Christ. Jesus had just transferred the Spirit of God from the inside of His single Last Adam resurrected body (1 Cor 15:45), to His human disciples. They immediately received the same life-giving Spirit of Christ that He had on the inside of Him, and they were born-again. They received this gift, in order to now spread it continually to many others utilizing a spiritual new birthing process.

Now recall that we have learned in this series, that Jesus was called the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:8). Then in Romans 8:29, Jesus was called the first born from MANY brethren. The Bible begins to make so much more sense, when we begin to understand what God is saying from His perspective. This is the church rising to come up to a higher and more mature level of Christian spiritual life.

What we are now further confirming, is how Jesus can be called an “Everlasting Father” in Isaiah 9:6, in one prophecy. The only naturally born Son of God in another verse (John 3:16). And the “Firstborn” having many other “brothers” in Romans 8:29. God writes about the same Messiah from more than one perspective. Sometimes, He is God’s ONLY naturally born Son, and sometimes He is referred to as the first spiritually born Son of God with many other born-again believers. Not rightly dividing the Word of Truth is one of the main reasons why many Christians are confused.

This new knowledge should help us to better understand how Jesus could be looking at His disciples in Matthew 12, and call them by at least 2 different family relationships. First, Jesus will become an “Everlasting Father” to his new spiritual sons, through Him personally breathing upon them His internal Holy Spirit in John 20. Then we should be learning that these same apostles, can also be called His spiritual brothers by them being born-again of the same Holy Spirit as Christ was raised from the dead by. Jesus was their personal spiritual Father, by Him sowing the Word of God into their human spirits for 3 ½ years. Jesus claimed that they had been made clean by the washing of the water of His spoken words in John 15:3.

What we have also learned from reading Galatians 4, is that human male church members can travail in birth until Christ is formed in other humans to get them born again. Therefore, these human male disciples that were the founding members of the church body, can also give the new-birth to new spiritual children through laboring for Christ, to spread the Seed of Christ, in order for the Spirit of Christ, to come inside of each of us from generation to generation.

This concept represents one of the laws of God found in Genesis, called “the seed within itself”. God’s design of self-perpetuating natural entities like trees, plants, animals, and humans, would be extended into the spiritual realm to, and for His church to continue to grow and spread. However, God realized that humans needed His help not to mess it up, like the first Adam and He gave us His Holy Spirit on the inside to insure we do not fail.

What we are observing is the fact that Jesus in the flesh, knew His Spirit of Christ would be what is given to future added church members through the labor of those disciples that were seated with Him in the room. This is exactly why Jesus could point at them, and say “Behold my mother and brothers”.  Let us now review verse 50 of Matthew 12, and learn why Jesus made this new inclusion of a new female type called sisters, in His family:

Mat 12:50  For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother

There are many ignorant people that do not believe, that women should sow seeds to get anyone else saved. But according to Jesus the Christ, the Head of the Church, this is NOT what He was teaching the founding members of His body. Notice Jesus begins by saying “WHOSOEVER shall do the will of my FATHER!”. This is an all-inclusive statement including male, and female, bond or free, Jew or Greek”.  Let us continue to learn by reading some important information to what is being taught now:

1Co 12:12  For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. 

1Co 12:13  For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. 

Notice what the Holy Spirit said in these verses. In Verse 12, He compares the naturally created human body that is made up of trillions of individual cells all being called by one name, is the same as the body of Christ being made up of millions and billions of individual human believers, with all of them being called Christ. Wow! We are ONE in Him. But these verses did not mention females. This is corrected in the letter to the Galatians:

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. 

Paul must have obtained a new revelation from Jesus, because his statement to Corinth has been dramatically enhanced to include female humans into the same body of Christ. We can see how this new statement potentially resolves a possible issue found in Matthew 12:50, where Jesus had included both HIS brothers, and HIS sisters, to be called HIS same spiritual mother.

We must stop thinking on such a limited natural mindset. ALL Christians, are much more in Christ, than many have realized. Too many Christians are limiting what God can do with anyone that chooses to be “in Christ”, and who also lets “Christ live in them”. Every believer whether male or female, has been given the exact same great commission to go into all of the world and preach the Gospel as His physical body living on the earth (Mark 16:15).

CONCLUSION

Thank you so very much, for spending your valuable time to read this essential end-time spiritual prophetic Bible study. We have just been presented some radical new spiritual information that was taught by Jesus to the church about who this Revelation 12 woman represents, in the spiritual mind and view of God. Today, Christians have been largely ignoring these words of Christ and it is past time for this to cease. We must stop seeing the Revelation 12 male child to be the physical man Jesus, who was actually the one that was speaking in Matthew 12 to reveal to us the truth. Since they have jumped to the conclusion that the child is natural Jesus that would die on the cross, they further the confusion by claiming the woman standing on the moon and clothed with the Sun is Israel.

However, the Holy Spirit inside of Jesus, through the omniscient foreknowledge of God was inspired by Him, to teach us some important clues about the coming future book of Revelation in Matthew. Because God foreknew Christians today would struggle to see the true identity of the woman in Revelation 12 to be the church, He answered all of our questions, with us saying “how can this pregnancy be, seeing we know not a man”, just like Mary was asking the angel, and He did this long before we asked Him the question. Wow! Praise the LORD, what a God we serve!

What we are learning today, is if we are a spiritual woman who is pregnant and laboring to be delivered, then the pregnancy, the child, the labor, the delivery are also all spiritual truths, and not physical truths. The spiritual truths of God, still trumps the natural truths of man every time. Remember what Jesus said, “I only speak what I hear my Father say” (John 12:49).

Jesus, when asked to speak to His earthly mother and brothers, makes one of the most radical statements found in the Bible. To the human mind dominated by natural reasoning Jesus sounded crazy, when He pointed to His human male disciples, and called them His mother and brothers. In the natural these men were neither.

At the very same time, Jesus totally ignored Mary and the natural nation of Israel brothers that were standing outside of the house. Don’t you think that God in the flesh, knew exactly what He was saying, and doing at this dramatic moment of time?  Can you see how He was helping us to understand something before we even knew that we needed to understand it? Isn’t this the nature of our God? Doesn’t He already provide for us everything that we need before we need it?  This would be the nature of a God, who knows that you need before you even ask!

Did the first man Adam, and his natural wife have to starve and wait for a year before they had physical fruit to eat? Why then would the second and last Adam, and His wife the church, need to wait for our spiritual food of life to eat from? Glory to God!

Hopefully, everyone can begin to see how Jesus’ perspective was on a higher spiritual dimension of thought and reason. This is the way that we should begin to think more consistently. God said in Isaiah 55:8, “My thoughts are not your thoughts”. Do you believe He said this to demean us, or do you think that He could be challenging us to come up higher and think like Him? It should be obvious because He is love that He is only challenging us to think His way. Thank you, Jesus!

Thank you for taking the time to read and study the Bible with us. We love you very much, regardless of if you agree with us or not. God loves you the same whether you agree with Him or not also. But yet God wants us all to rise above the natural human level of perspective. Hopefully, the LORD has helped us all to do this.

THE TRUE IDENTITY OF THE WOMAN IN REVELATION 12 Pt 9 – Why the Church Pt 2

(Ver 1.0) This is now “Part 9” in the advanced Bible study series of lessons revealing, “The True Identity of the woman in Revelation 12”. But today’s lesson is also “Part 2” of the miniseries within the full series called “Why the Church”. This mini-revealing series is designed to answer a lot of Christian’s deep questions to how this woman could possibly be the church. Many see the words written to indicate this woman could only be the virgin Mary, or the natural nation of Israel. This is based upon the fact that her child will rule with a rod of iron, and this MUST be Jesus in some form. No doubt this is the popular belief, and it logically stands to reason why it is believed to be this way.

What this lesson series is attempting to do, is to help you change your vision from a natural reasoning viewpoint into a heavenly God spiritual viewpoint. God sees things in ways that the carnal human does not even begin to comprehend. Therefore, it is again highly advised that you go and pray the prayer found in Ephesians 1:17-23. This will ask God to give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing HIM who is Christ Jesus. Opening your spiritual eyes to see what has been accomplished by God in and through Jesus Christ. Make this prayer personal and believe God heard and answered you.

Today’s Bible lesson will deal with the Bible interpreting itself on the subject of what the pregnant woman represents and her child represents, from a Holy God perspective, and viewpoint. This should be of interest to a lot of Christians. Because it will answer a lot of questions about how this woman in Revelation 12 can represent the church. Are you excited and expecting to learn? If you really are, then you are ready to begin.

If you have not read the first part of the miniseries or the entire full series, please at least start with “Part 8 – Why the Church”, or “The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12 PART 1”. There are too many details already covered that are not able to be restated in this lesson.

First, we need to repeat the series warning.  This series was written for spiritually mature Christians. For those that are newly born again, or younger Christians, you may want to go study some more basic Bible foundational subjects before trying to digest some deep eschatological study that may be hard to swallow. This decision could possibly help you not to be offended at what will be a very deep spiritual subject filled with complex spiritual information and application, about a highly controversial topic. Thank you for judging yourself before continuing.

We pray that you love God, and His Word as much as we do. We are infinitely blessed to have the author of the Bible living on the inside of us to help us all understand the mysteries of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We want to say before you begin, we love you all very much. This lesson series is founded upon divine love and no other motivation is present or hidden. Please know this before you leave any mean or nasty comments.

One of the first things to answer about the woman in Revelation 12, is to determine, if she is natural or spiritual. Is she literal, or a figurative symbol for a greater hidden spiritual message? Answering this question, can only be established based upon the context descriptions of her.

We can remember, that she is seen in heaven in verse 1. This causes us to begin to lean to understand that she is a spiritual reality. But then we see she is clothed with the sun and standing on the moon. Both of these CANNOT be taken literally, and this almost seals the confirmation that she is a spiritual being. The major confirming sign that this chapter is speaking of spiritual realities, is the mention of the dragon and the ancient serpent, who God defines to be Satan and the devil. This being is certainly a spirit being, therefore, the woman can only be interpreted as spiritual also.

Please remember the basics of eschatological hermeneutical principles. Here is a fundamental rule to begin “If the plain sense, makes perfect sense, seek no other sense”. Because the first verse in Revelation 12, does not make plain and perfect sense, this forces us to seek God for the actual true sense. People have tried to answer this problem by searching the Bible for any references to the “sun, moon, and stars”. They have then found one reference in Genesis 37:9 in the dream of Joseph.

This was used rapidly to confirm in their minds that the woman can only be the natural nation of Israel, since that is what the dream was about. But they ignored the placement of these objects on and around the woman because these facts do not make plain sense. Because the placement of these objects is important, and they were defined by Jacob to be clear symbolic references to specific individuals, we should try to apply this information into the Revelation 12 interpretation of the symbolic elements. But few have tried to do this.

We will be exploring a lot of great new hidden secrets of God concerning the church. What we are discovering is that the woman in Revelation 12, represents a victorious church that has overcome the enemy Satan. It must be understood that the two key chapters to understanding Revelation 12, is to first understand Genesis 3 and then understand Galatians 4. These two chapters have direct connections to what God wants us to learn about Revelation 12. But we will also be going over other verses to help us. Let us look at some new insights about what we learned in the last lesson, before we continue to today’s subjects.

NEW REVELATION 12:1 INSIGHTS

In the last lesson we did an overview of some of the key aspects and descriptions found in Revelation 12:1. We all know there was a woman, that appeared in heaven. She is said to be clothed with the sun. We have learned that this means she is clothed with Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2). But there is much more to this sun symbol than just this single great revelation. For example:

Eph 6:11  Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 

Notice what this verse says to us. God says put on His armor. Then we find in the book of Romans:

Rom 13:12  The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light

Ok, now we are gaining important insight into what type of clothing we in the church are supposed to be wearing. Our spiritual armor is called “the armor of light”. Wow, what does the sun do for our world? The sun gives us light by day. Now we are confirming we are in God’s kingdom of Light and the Day (1 Thessalonians 5:5). We are supposed to take off the works of darkness, and put on this (sun) light armor.

By casting off our clothes (works) of darkness, what happens to them? They fall to the floor of course. If they fell, are they under us, or above us?  Uh oh? This is just more confirmation that the moon under our feet in Revelation 12:1, are things that we have put off and thrown down and this allows us to be standing above the moon. Do you see how this truth concerning the church matches the description of the woman so far very well?

This new information about clothing being like works for good or evil, implies that we are supposed to be doing works for God’s Kingdom of His dear Son, and not the works of the enemy. What we must conclude is that wearing the Sun in Revelation 12:1 is the same as wearing Light as an Armor in Romans 13:12, and this must be connected with doing good “works” for the Kingdom of God on the earth. Can we agree so far? This will get much clearer soon as you continue to read.

But also notice in Ephesians 6:11 God says by wearing His full armor, the church (we) will be able to stand against the enemy. Notice the mention of standing. Does this involve the feet? Of course, it does, and we see a woman in Revelation 12:1 with her feet, which are implied to be standing on, and above the moon. We have already determined very clearly; the moon is the representative symbol of the ruler of the darkness who God calls Satan (Ephesians 6:12).

Again, we have this connection being made in Romans 13:12, with the mention of “night” and “darkness”. Being connected with the armor of “light” and the mention of “day” being at hand. The woman in Revelation 12, is certainly standing in the Daylight of the Sun. We are experiencing another confirmation for who the woman in Revelation 12:1 really represents, and how the church is planned by God to overcome the devil, by wearing God’s defensive weapons and by wielding God Spiritual Sword, called the Word of God. Amen.

INTRODUCTION –
SEEING REVELATION 12
FROM GOD’S SPIRITUAL VIEWPOINT

Let us review one of the foundational verses for this miniseries of lessons about WHY the church is the woman in Revelation 12. We should be attempting to rise far above the normal natural human perspective of things that anyone can read in the Bible. We can read in Isaiah 55:8, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways”. It is very clear from this statement that God claims to be smarter than us, and to think and see things different than we do as humans. This is one of the reasons, Jesus came to the earth to help reveal God’s higher thoughts and ways to us, and here is one thing that He said about this subject of perspectives:

John 3:12  If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? 

Remember again that Jesus gave us this “key to help us in understanding God’s thoughts”. Knowing this will be a huge benefit to understanding a great portion of the book of Revelation. We must begin by understanding that God is a Spirit (John 5:24). If God is a Spirit, and it was Him who designed and authored the book of Revelation (2 Tim 3:16).  God selected a writing technique utilizing many major patterns from natural symbolic objects and realities, that reveal unseen existing higher spiritual truths, entities and realities.

But here is a potentially new revelation for you. God expects you to become a mature Christ follower. He expects His church to grow up spiritually (1 Peter 2:2). This simply means we are not supposed to remain as carnal thinking humans. This should help you to see the necessity to change our thoughts to conform to His. This is essential for understanding the book of Revelation.

Today we will focus on the natural subjects of the process of a physical woman’s pregnancy, labor, and delivery of a child. In this analysis, we will confirm and apply what this natural process represents, in the spiritual birth process that is taught to us in the Word of God. Probably most of you have never thought of this or studied this subject, until now. Is a spiritual woman’s process of giving spiritual birth, the same types of experiences as the natural birthing process? That should sound interesting to a lot of Christians who want to know the truth.

We will be going through additional verses in Revelation 12, starting with verse 2 and possibly continuing to verse 6. What will help you to see these verses differently, is by changing your perspective and expectation for who you may have ignorantly “pre-judged” her to represent. To “pre-determine” who she represents before you see all of the evidence, blocks your ability to see any truth that God really desired you to see. There are a lot of Christians that are closed minded to change any viewpoint. Some have called these types of people, “concrete Christians”, meaning they are thoroughly mixed up and firmly set, and almost impossible to change even with the greatest message of truth. We pray no one reading fits this description. Please, decide to be an Acts 17:11, more noble type of Bible student.

This is a common tactic of the devil, to block God’s revelation from being seen. As long as Satan can get us to seek words that makes this woman to be only natural Israel, then that is what we will see and find. This fact of what we seek for, determines what we find, is based upon the law Jesus spoke to us in Matthew 7:7. Therefore, instead of seeking to find natural Israel, just ask God to help you to seek the truth, and you are promised to find it (John 16:13).

Imagine in your spirit, that the Holy Spirit came to you in an audible voice and said “This woman is the Church”. Would you ignore this personal God visitation to help give you this revelation? Some people do this all the time. But not with an audible voice from God. No, God uses pastors and teachers of the Word of God by giving them the revelation, and then helping them to present it to the rest of the Body of Christ. This method of divine operation is so easy to bypass and ignore as false teaching, simply because a message did not conform to what you believed it said. Uh oh?

Therefore, allow the Holy Spirit that lives in you to bear witness with what you are reading today. If the Holy Spirit, makes you feel very unpeaceful, then please reject and ignore everything that this internal feeling occurs upon. It is possible, that God will give you peace with certain parts of the message and not every part. If that occurs, then be as wise as an old cow feeding in a pasture, eat the good green grass and spit out the bad tasting sticks. But if the Holy Spirit gives you perfect peace in your spirit, then that should be a sign to you, that this should be given your attention. Finally, are we ready to go? Let us turn to Revelation 12:2 and begin our study.

Rev 12:2  And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered

Rev 12:3  And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 

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

Rev 12:5  And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne
Rev 12:6  And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days

Ok, these are really awesome word selections displaying an intentional intelligent design and designer behind them. God’s intelligence is so far beyond ours, that we easily miss the spiritual truths that He is speaking using a naturally coded message. Remember that it is much easier for us to understand the spiritual truths, by first coming to understand the corresponding natural truths. Let us list some of the major new qualities and descriptions of the woman in Revelation 12 verses 2 through 5:

  1. Verse 1 informed us that there is a woman in heaven who is “with” child in verse 2.
  2. Therefore, she is crying out, while travailing in labor in the spirit realm.
  3. She is experiencing pain while waiting to be delivered.
  4. An evil dragon stood before or against her.
  5. The dragon waits to devour the male child as soon as he is born.
  6. After birth her child was caught up to God and to His throne.
  7. The woman goes into a wilderness prepared by God to be fed for 3 ½ years.

We will not go into tremendous detail, but we will try to take each point, one by one. However, this lesson will not be able to touch on every subject, because of the length of the lesson that this would cause. It is wise to warn you that this will still be a long Bible lesson. It is recommended that you break it into seven separate study sessions, unless you have the time to do it all in one study. Today we will focus our study upon seven sections of information which are:

  1. A Woman with child, which will take us to the next subject.
  2. Can the spiritual church of Jesus Christ, have a spiritual child or children?
  3. Then we will learn about how God reveals the spiritual woman the church has children.
  4. Next, we will review what are the differences between spiritual and physical births.
  5. Next, we will address, the spiritual concept of labor.
  6. Next, we will address the spiritual subject of fruit.
  7. Finally, we will address the spiritual subject of delivery.

If you notice these are all components found, or implied in the natural concepts of birth that were listed within Revelation 12, but instead of looking at them from the physical perspective, we are going to shift into the higher dimension of seeing them from God’s spiritual viewpoint, revealed in the Holy Bible. If you are ready, let us get started.

1. WOMAN WITH CHILD

What do these natural words, descriptions, and symbols teach us? First, we must begin by understanding that everything stated in these verses (1-6) are predominately spiritual truths that are being taught to us with a mixture of both supernatural, and common descriptions of natural realities. Please take notice that the words spoken DO NOT teach a natural how to guide for human pregnancy. No, God is only using concepts that most are already familiar with to help reveal the hidden unknown spiritual message.

Without this foundation, you will be very confused. Let us go over a quick list of what we should be able to see in Revelation 12:1-6:

  1. Remember that a woman (wife) in a relationship with God always represents a covenant partnership. We can learn this in several verses, but research Jeremiah 31:32 (Israel), and Matthew 9:15 (Church) to see two references.
  2. This statement implies that this woman was previously a physical reality upon the earth, before she was taken into heaven. We can confirm her simultaneous existence in both heaven and on the earth, reading verse 6.
  3. Therefore, we can conclude that God/Jesus must have taken this woman up to be with Him at the throne. Does this sound like a type of rapture for those that were ready with oil in their lamps? In this story 5 virgins were not prepared and did not enter into the wedding. These could represent the people that were left on the earth who repented and returned to Christ. We will find more evidence coming to support this view soon.
  4. Also, this verse implies that this woman’s appearance in heaven was because she is considered righteous and not of the kingdom of darkness. We will see this more clearly when we look again at her clothing.

QUESTIONS?

  1. Is the church viewed as a spiritual woman to God?
  2. Can a spiritual woman give birth?
  3. Is a spiritual woman’s child also spiritual?
  4. What does it mean to be spiritually pregnant?

2. DOES THE BIBLE SPEAK OF
SPIRITUAL CHILDREN THAT ARE
BIRTHED BY THE CHURCH?

This is a very major and significant question that must be answered accurately, in order for us to believe, and confirm that this woman in Revelation 12 could represent the church. It is plainly stated in Revelation 12:2, that this woman was pregnant, and she was crying out while travailing with labor pains, waiting to be delivered. Please remember that this Greek word used to describe the pregnant “woman”, is the same word used to describe the Lamb’s “wife” in Revelation 19.

This is a lot of amazing information that we just read. This clearly describes the natural process of birth. But does this information also have spiritual applications for the church? I believe with all of my heart that it ALL DOES. To begin, we will only focus upon answering the question, can the spiritual church body (Romans 12:5), have a spiritual child?

The Greek word G5043 that was translated as “child” twice in Revelation 12, verses 4 and 5, describes the male child that was born to the woman. But this same word is used many times in the New Testament to describe both natural, and spiritual children. A search of this word in the New Testament reveals a lot of valuable information.

Also, it is very interesting to notice that this exact Greek word is never used to describe the baby Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem of the virgin Mary (Israel). It is only used to described the physical child that was born of Elizabeth, whose name was John. But for Jesus, it is NOT used. This appears to be another strike against the child in Revelation 12 being the newborn baby Jesus. Let us go to the first book of the Corinthians next, to see what Paul wrote to the church:

1 Cor 4:14  I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. 

This is a very interesting verse of truth. Paul writing to the church in Corinth, calls them “his” beloved “sons”. It just so happens the Greek word translated as “sons” is the exact same word G5043 translated as “child” in Revelation 12. Is that a coincidence? I ask that question a lot, to get you to think. There are no coincidences in the Bible. If this is a spiritual parent child relationship, we should begin to ask, is Paul their spiritual father or mother? Uh oh? That sounds like satanic gender confusion.

We all should know the Apostle Paul was a human male. We also should all know that Paul was an unmarried bachelor (1 Cor 7:8). Therefore, it is impossible for Paul to have had natural children in this verse in 1 Corinthians 4:14, and he must be speaking spiritually. Let us read down a few verses and see another usage of this same Greek word:

1Co 4:17  For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church. 

Here, we can confirm again, that a male name Timotheus, is being called a spiritual child of his spiritual parent also a male named Paul. Wow, if that is not amazing, I do not know how to then get you awake. This described parent and child relationship is purely spiritual, and not physical. We should believe that these types of spiritual revelations, are the reason why Satan is bringing up the confusion of natural sexual identity. Satan will attempt to use this evil, to turn people away from the spiritual truth of God’s word.

It is interesting that this same pattern is repeated again in 1 Timothy 1:2, and 2 Timothy 1:2, where Paul calls Timothy his dear son (child) in the faith. This is again repeated in Titus 1:4 where Paul calls Titus, his own son (child) after the common faith. We are seeing a pattern of spiritual truth that must NOT be ignored. God confirms very clearly that there exist spiritual births that come by spiritual parents.

Now who is PAUL? Paul is a male member of the early corporate church body. He is one of the chief spiritual leaders of the Christian faith. He wrote 2/3 of the New Testament, so he definitely knows what he is talking about. Paul should be considered to be a representative of the spiritually mature part of the body of believers, since he was the one that was teaching them how to grow spiritually (1 Cor 3:2). Since Paul is one major member of the entire church, Paul qualifies to be called a spiritual woman bride. Paul is confirming that the church can have spiritual children with some of the body being a mature parent, and new believers of the body being their child (G5043). Can we all agree so far? It only gets more amazing from here.

3. HOW WOULD THE SPIRITUAL CHURCH
BRING FORTH SPIRITUAL CHILDREN?

Please take note that this is the next most significant question for us to answer, in order for us to determine if someone specific in the church, or the church as a combined whole can conceive, bare, and bring forth a spiritual child. Let us take a look at a verse in Philemon:

Phm 1:10  I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: 

Here is Paul writing to the church and claiming to have given birth to a son while being bound in chains. The Greek word G1080 that is translated as “begotten” literally means to “procreate”. This word procreate can mean, “to multiply by sowing seed”. This word can certainly apply to both the natural methods of procreation, and the spiritual methods of procreation.

It can also be applied to the father as the seed supplier, or the mother as the seed receiver. Therefore, which one is Paul claiming to be? It is entirely possible that Paul is claiming to be both. That is a difficult new question to answer in detail, in this Bible study series, but it is answered in the Bible very clearly.

What is the answer? The answer comes from Genesis 2. This is where God gives us the details of Adam’s creation and how his wife came out of his side. This was the exact pattern that occurred in the Spirit realm when Christ died on the cross and was raised from the dead to become the second man (1 Corinthians 15:47). Jesus is also called the Last Adam in 1 Corinthians 15:45.

To help us confirm that what happened to the first Adam, is what happened to the second Adam (Jesus), we must also know Romans 5:14, where God teaches clearly that the first Adam was a “figure” of Jesus to come. The Greek word translated as “figure” means” a “sample type”, “pattern”, “model”, and “style”. Wow, that is powerful.

This knowledge teaches us that what was recorded to happen to Adam, will be the prophetical “pattern” for what must happen to Jesus during His manifested presence upon the earth. But Jesus will make the right choices and His wife and bride will NOT be deceived. Again, we have the prophesied victory of a woman over Satan spoken from God’s mouth in Genesis 3. God’s Words WILL come to pass, and the time is now for the victory.

But we did not answer the question, how can a natural male in the church be both the spiritual mother and the spiritual father of new spiritual children in the church?  The answer is still found in Genesis 2. Adam was put to sleep, and Jesus was put to sleep on the cross. Adam’s side was opened to remove Eve, Jesus’ side was opened to pour out blood and water to save His church bride. Because the first natural woman was taken out of Adam, the last spiritual woman was taken out of Jesus. But God said in the Law of Covenant Marriage in Genesis 2:24, the “two shall be one flesh”. We learn in 1 Corinthians 6:17, that whoever is joined (married in a covenant) to the LORD is ONE SPIRIT! This teaches the concept of two being called one, as long as one is a male, and the other is the female joined in matrimony.

Please remember Eve, is a prophesied pattern of the spiritual church and not natural Israel. Then recall in Genesis 3:10, Adam calls His wife by the name Eve, because she is the mother of all living. Wow! This is where Christians are missing a major revelation of the church’s role in the kingdom of God immensely. This pattern of Eve being the mother of all the natural living human race teaches us that the church must also be a mother to all the spiritually living born-again believers in Christ. How does this occur? How is this even possible?

If Eve is one pattern of who the church is, and she was a mother the natural living, then this matches the description of the pregnant woman in Revelation 12 being a spiritual mother of the spiritual living. It is possible a lot of people will not be able to comprehend this immediately. Especially spiritually immature Christians. But we will soon see more evidence for what is being taught by the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Jesus.

We do not have time to cover this part in depth. This should be a Bible study series, all by itself. But there are more than enough facts of spiritual truth being given to you to continue to study and confirm more of this with other scriptures. I would suggest that you go and read the Bible study about “How did the church became the body of Christ”.

You might also like to read and study verses like “Romans 12:5”, and “1 Corinthians 12:12, 27”. In these two verses, the church members are called the body of Christ on the earth. This clearly is God calling His female church bride by the male name Christ, also being His body. Therefore, we can confirm how the woman bride is being given the same name as He does (Christ) through the covenant that we have entered into with Him. Wow, this is awesome when you see it. How can spiritually born-again people on the earth be our risen savior’s body, while He is physically seated in heaven? This is how God reveals hidden spiritual mysteries. God reveals this problem and answered it very clearly in Ephesians 5. We need to move on to a new verse that may help people to see what is being taught.

My special reader asked, “How can the woman be the church, since we did not birth the Messiah”. My response should be, “SAYS WHO?” What we are about to confirm using the Bible, is that the church actually does birth the Messiah, but our spiritual child is not the physical Jesus born in the form of a baby, in a manger in Bethlehem. Remember to stop thinking carnally, and look for the spiritual realities of God in scripture.

Gal 4:19  My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, 

This is one of the most amazingly obvious proof texts confirming the church to be the woman in Revelation 12:2. Notice that this is Paul writing to a different church in Galatia. He uses the same terminology “children” to describe his relationship with them. The Greek word G5040 translated as children comes from the Greek word G5043 used in Revelation 12. Therefore, God confirms that we have a direct connection that He is speaking of the same subject.

Then notice the Greek word G5605 that is translated “travail in birth”. Wow, this is the exact same Greek word used to describe the woman in Revelation 12:2. Now we have two direct word connections and this one is overwhelming and irrefutable. It just so happens that Galatians 4 and Revelation 12 are the only times this word is used by the Holy Spirit in the ENTIRE BIBLE. That makes this the ultimate qualified match.

Mary is never described using this word, and certainly not Israel either. This evidence of intelligent divine design, narrows the possibilities of choice that could have been easily changed by God, selecting and using different Greek words in either verse. There are many other possible word selections to describe child birth. This specific identical word choice, simply confirm that the woman in Revelation 12, can be NONE OTHER THAN THE CHURCH!

We must conclude that Paul by travailing the same as the woman in Revelation 12, is proclaiming to be that woman. Whether Paul knew this in his mind or not, it was what the Holy Spirit inspired him to write. Therefore, God is ultimately making the match.

Ok, here is what we MUST notice in this verse. My reader said the church never gave birth to Messiah, but here is the clear evidence proving the church does give birth to Messiah. The Greek word G5547 is translated as Christ. This is the Greek word for the Hebrew word translated as Messiah (H4889). Both words mean “the anointed one”.  Clearly God has just confirmed the Church does give birth to Messiah, but this Messiah is definitely not the natural child in Bethlehem. Are we all awake yet?

What else is important to learn from this verse? Notice that Paul said I travail in birth AGAIN, until Christ be formed in you. This is amazing! Paul is claiming to be a female that gives birth to children. Paul is also claiming this is NOT HIS first-time laboring to give birth. The word “again” clearly implies there have been MANY births, and we can see this from all of the children references that Paul claims to be the birth mother of. Wow, this is amazing if you will receive it.

4. THAT WHICH BORN OF FLESH IS FLESH
AND BORN OF SPIRIT IS SPIRIT

This is a majorly deep spiritual topic today, and our prayer is that it does not escape your understanding of God’s Truth. We have talked more than once in this series of lessons about this subject, that was brought to us by Jesus in John 3:3-6. Jesus taught clearly to Nicodemus and us, revealing that there are two types of “births” possible, and they DO NOT MIX. For humans, the natural comes first, and then and only then does the spiritual re-birth become possible. You should remember that we have already established from John 3 that only a spiritual woman can give birth to a spiritual child. Therefore, Paul as a born-again spiritual participant in the New Covenant, is qualified to give birth to new spiritual children who have the Spirit of Christ. Let us look at an important verse:

Rom 9:8  That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. 

Here is an essential concept concerning two kinds of children that come from two kinds of seeds, resulting in two kinds of births. The first was the natural human child birth process, and the second is introducing us to the “promised spiritual re-birth” process, that was also mentioned by Jesus in John 3.  God begins by comparing children of the flesh that came from natural Israel, with the children of the promise. Uh oh? What God is doing is informing us, that He promised all humans, that He would have spiritual children. Please go and reread Galatians chapter 4. Because this is a vital chapter needed to understand Revelation 12. Here is just one verse to pay close attention to:

Gal 4:23 – But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. 

In chapter 4 of Galatians, God gave us an allegory using Abraham, Sarah and Hagar to confirm to us an exceedingly important spiritual truth. Sarah and Hagar had two types of children because of who they were naturally. These two symbolic sons that were birthed, by two different symbolic women, represent the concepts of flesh births, versus spirit births. The first son born was Ishmael, and he is called a son of the flesh and the son of the bond (slave) woman because he came by the will of man. But then came Isaac who is referred to as the promised son who came from Sarah, and she is called the “freewoman” who came by the will of God.

We learn in Galatians 4, that this son named Isaac, was a type of the spiritual Christ that the church comes out from. This makes this type of Isaac the promised child, who is the risen from the dead spiritual Jesus Christ (Romans 7:4).  I pray no one is choking on the meat that the Holy Spirit is trying to feed us. I will encourage you that once you see this truth, it is impossible not to see it everywhere in the Bible. Notice what else God said to us in Galatians 4:28:

Gal 4:28  Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. 

Paul writing to the church (the members of the body of Christ) in Galatia, and he is calling them, both his brothers as well as children, is confirming that they were, as well as we are, the promised spiritual “Christ” child spoken of to Abraham. This is an amazing revelation. But you really need to go back to Galatians 3 and study to see that the promise given to Abraham was the promise of the Spirit that will be birthed in every believer in Christ. Please read this very carefully stated truth in Galatians 3:14. If you are lost with this new information, be patient and do not throw it away. It is the truth. Let us explore this more by explaining how we can be called simultaneous brothers with Christ and other believers, and be called promised children of God, and Christ at the same time.

We are named Christ, because we are the body of “Christ” (1 Corinthian 12:27). Each individual believer represents one spiritual member, in the one spiritual body of CHRIST with every believer being joined to Him and every other believer to form this ingenious new spiritual body (Romans 12:5, 1 Corinthians 5:4). This new growing body of the Spirit of Christ, can also be called the temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19).

This new spiritual design of joining believers as cells in a human body, or bricks in a temple, is practically identical to the created human body consisting of potentially trillions of individual cells, and all of them being joined together are called by the name that was given to us by our natural parents, when we were born naturally. The human body comes from the union of just two physical cells. But from these two cells, they grow by division, and spread out to every other cell, increasing until full maturity. Even after maturity, cells die and are replaced with new cells in most tissues.

This human natural growth process from two joined cells, is the exact same process that is happening in the spiritual realm for the spiritual body of Christ. Jesus was called the firstborn from the dead in Colossians 1:18. In this same verse Jesus is also called the “head” of the body (of Christ) in order that He might have preeminence.

It is the head that controls the body and not the other way around. This makes HIM LORD and not any other individual spiritual cell joined to Him (in Covenant) in His spiritual body. Are you getting this, because this is an amazing new revelation for many Christians? In His new spiritual body, He is the head, and we are HIS body members (Ephesians 1:22-23), with all of us together being called Christ. There is no sane way to separate a person by naming His head Christ, and His body (the church) something else. They are called by ONE name.

Jas 2:7  Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called? 

In this verse James inspired by the Holy Spirit, writes about Christians being spoken of by other humans wrongfully. God is making the claim that when they do this, they are blaspheming the “worthy name” which they are called. This name has to be “Christ”, because no other human name can be worthy.  There are many spiritual aspects of being one with Christ, and here is another factor for us being called by His name as a born-again believer:

Rom 16:7  Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. 

Paul makes a comparison of order and likeness. Paul informs us that Andronicus and Junia were his kinsman. This Greek word G4773 literally means a relative by blood. But you can tell by the names of these people in Rome, they are probably not Jewish. Therefore, Paul is not speaking naturally and this can only be a spiritual relationship by the blood of Jesus. Yes? This was the message of these men were like me.

Then comes the mention of order. Paul is teaching us next how these Christians became members of the same spiritual family, by entering into CHRIST. But we also can notice that Paul said these entered into Christ, before he did. This truth is based upon our natural time line. We are recognizing another parallel, between the natural and the physical birth process of organized order that is noted by God.

Therefore, we are learning of two simultaneous realities that occur at a new spiritual birth into God’s Kingdom. This is a very essential truth to learn. When you are born-again by believing in Jesus being raised from the dead, and confessing Him as your Lord (Romans 10:9-10), you are reborn into a brand-new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). This means this had never existed before Jesus was raised from the dead. He became the first born from the dead and each of each us after enter into Him in order of believing.

When this happens to you by believing in Him, you enter into Christ, and the Spirit of Christ also enters into you, and you reside in both the natural, and heavenly dimensions simultaneously. WOW! Did you know this already? If you did, do you understand the power that was needed to accomplish this (Ephesians 1:19-20)?

What we are learning today is awesome.  We should now have begun to understand that Jesus seated in heaven right now, is the physical raised from the dead man, named Christ in the spirit realm. He is the mediator of the New Covenant (Hebrews 9:15) that we are in. But simultaneously born-again Christians living on the earth. are also called by His name Christ, because we have His Spirit on the inside of us. We are IN HIM, and HE is in us. This was God’s plan from the beginning and His wisdom is amazing!

If it would help you, please take note of Genesis 5:1 where God describes Himself creating man as a male and a female. God then says He called both of them by the name “Adam”. This matches what God did for Christ Jesus and His Church, by calling us both Christ.

Ok, everyone needs more verses to confirm the truth. God says in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses, let every word be established. Notice in 2 Corinthians 6:15, God through Paul writes what fellowship does “Christ” have with “Belial”. The church is very clearly stated to be named “Christ”, and if we join ourself to a devil, we are joining the body of Christ to that same spirit. Paul is writing that this should never be. Do you see this?

Now look at 1 Corinthians 6:15, and see that this is the exact same truth. In this verse, God through Paul says the church as a member of the body of Christ, we must not allow Christ to be joined to a harlot. This is just one of several other places where the church is referred to by the name of Christ.

But how does this work? We learn another important piece of the puzzle in Romans 8:10. In this verse God reveals that it is the Spirit named “Christ” that comes to live on the inside of our human body. Wow, because every born-again Christian has the same Spirit of Christ, we are all of the same name of Christ and represent one living and growing spiritual body of a child on the earth.

This brings up another new point. What happens when a Christian dies? Their spirit departs the earth body of Christ and goes to be with the spiritual body of Christ in heaven (Philippians 1:23). This helps to solve how a spiritual woman in heaven in Revelation 12:1, can still have parts of her same body as a remnant left here on the earth to battle with the dragon in verses 6 and 17. But this is probably a different topic for later.

So, we have learned how the spiritual process of a child growth and development can be understood, by us viewing a natural child’s development process. This will be brought up again in this lesson later, so please do not forget it. But remember this is what we are seeing happen to the woman in Revelation 12 with a growing child in her womb.

God was a genius in transforming one natural seed named Jesus (John 12:24), into a growing corporate spiritual entity consisting of millions and even billions of individual spiritual cell members. He did this in His own one Body and then He calls us by the same name Christ. And this is legal because we all have the same Spirit of Christ abiding on the inside of us. Wow! This truth has a far-reaching application to help us understand, and explain how the church will end up victorious over the devil. It also teaches that God views us (the church) the same as HIM. Let us take a quick side journey to help someone that needs to know how their prayers can be answered:

Joh 15:16  Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. 

This verse shows us why we can come to The Father in prayer with confidence, and ask Him our request. We can do this boldly because we ask in His name, and the Father in heaven will answer, because of who we are in HIM, and not based upon who we are on the earth, or what we have done. It is also important to notice the mention of bring forth fruit. We will be talking about this concept in a soon coming section in much more detail. Just take note of the connection being made by God’s design.

Now that we are beginning to learn and understand, how the church can be represented to be one body of one spiritual growing child. We need to explain, how new spiritual cell members in this growing body, came to exist. In the natural realm there are a lot of cell divisions that occur and each are just grown into a new body component, but in the spiritual realm it is slightly different. But this helps to explain how we can be both brothers and children of the same cell that birthed us. This is actually very similar to the natural if you think about it.

We are spiritual brothers because we are from the same spiritual Father (Holy Spirit, also known as the Spirit of Christ in Romans 8:9). We are spiritual children of others in the church, because we have God’s Spirit of Christ that was birthed on the inside of us from sowed Word (seeds) into our hearts shared by others in the body of Christ. These spiritual laborers, got each of us born-again spiritually, while they were travailing in birth, to bring us out of the flesh, and into the spiritual Kingdom of God. Praise the LORD!

We can further confirm what was just taught by analyzing Galatians chapter 3 that is directly connected with Galatians 4. In this chapter we learn two very important concepts about Abraham. First, we learn Abraham’s promised seed (son) was CHRIST by reading Galatians 3:16. In this verse the LORD says the seed is singular and not plural that God was speaking. Wow, that truth is ignored by a lot of Bible teachers. The main take away is for you to know God said His promised seed was only CHRIST! Please take note the name JESUS was omitted from this verse, even if we understand this was who came first to be born as the CHRIST.

Galatians 3 continues with a discussion between the promise and the law that was unable to nullify the promise because it occurred over 400 years before the law came. Then notice in Galatians 3:26 where God says we in the church have all become His children through our faith in CHRIST Jesus! Pay attention to the flipping of the order of the names, and take a note that God did not say “Jesus CHRIST”! God is so specific to even the order of words, that reordering them has a meaning about things beyond our imagination.

Now pay close attention to Galatian 3:27. This is another direct connection to Revelation 12 where the woman was clothed with the sun. Here we see how when we now in the church, are baptized into CHRIST, we have put on CHRIST. Again, this is amazing spiritual information that occurred when we were born-again. But it still directs us to Revelation 12 to confirm it is the church that is represented there.

Now for the sake of time we will jump to Galatians 3:29. In this verse God wrote about the church again, and here He says “If you be CHRIST, then are you Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the “promise”. Ok, if you study you will notice that I changed the translated possessive tense word “Christ’s”, to “CHRIST” not being the possessive tense. However, this Greek word 5547, Christos is translated as “Christ” the majority of the times it occurs. In other words, this word occurs 569 times in the New Testament, and it is translated as Christ in 553 of them. It would therefore, be legal to make it fit the majority if it works, and makes plain sense in context. I believe it does.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that there are times that it does appear to be correctly translated as “Christ’s”, with something belonging to Him. This is legitimate either way in this verse of Galatians 3:29. Whether we belong to His spiritual body, or are being called by His name Christ, it is the same end result as we have learned.

Notice the mention of a promise again? These are amazing connections being made.  Do you understand what the LORD is saying? I mean really, do you? This is a radical statement of your identity, and who you now are to GOD! God just called you Christ! God just said you are Abraham’s promised seed. Being the promised seed child, you have become a spiritual heir and a joint-heir with CHRIST (Romans 8:17). Let us back up in Galatians 3 and see what you may have missed:

Gal 3:14  That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. 

What may help you in understanding, is go back to Galatians 3:14. Notice again what this verse said. Also notice this time God included the name Jesus before CHRIST. This qualifies the reference of CHRIST, to be only the physical man Jesus who died for our sins. It is by our faith in His finished work for us, that Abraham’s “promised” blessing is able to come upon the entire human race. This we can learn was the promise of the Spirit to live on the inside of us through faith in JESUS CHRIST ALONE! It was only us being born of the Holy Spirit, and being joined with the Holy Spirit, that gives us this opportunity to be named CHRIST. This was the promised GOSPEL that was preached to Abraham (Galatians 3:8), even if he never understood it on the earth (Matthew 13:17).

This potentially new spiritual information may be overwhelming to some. It will take some a lot of prayerful thought and study to come up to a higher dimension of spiritual growth to see it. No one is claiming to be GOD.  No one is claiming to be JESUS. We are just reading what God has done for us and acknowledging this is an amazing gift of sonship being freely given by HIS GRACE and we receive it all by our faith.

Let us move to a new concept that was just introduced to us. This new concept is called “labor” and it is what the woman in Revelation 12 is described to be doing.

5. LABORING TOGETHER WITH AND FOR CHRIST

It is very important to know that when a woman is in travail producing a new child, she is said to be in “labor”. Uh oh? This is just another random coincidence, isn’t it? Absolutely not! There are many verses in the letters written to the church that describe us (the church) working laboriously and painstakingly for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Uh oh? Notice what Jesus said about this subject in Matthew:

Mat 9:37  Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; 

Here we have Jesus speaking to the foundational church members of the Body of Christ. Jesus was focused upon the great need of so many people that needed to come to know HIM! He is making a prophetical statement concerning a future spiritual harvest of saved human spirits (James 5:7), and their saved souls (James 1:21).

However, He is expressly declaring the need for many “laborers” to accomplish this. Wow, this is amazing when you see how this is connected to Revelation 12, and the woman that is laboring in travail. In fact, you may already can see it, since we have already found where Paul was travailing in labor in Galatians 4, to give birth to Messiah, in the people coming into the church. This work of God is certainly sharing the Gospel good news with other people and sowing spiritual seeds to produce new spiritual fruit. Notice this verse next:

1Co 3:9  For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. 

Wow, again we see the concept of workers in labor together with God. As a Christian, we were created in CHRIST to do works for God (Ephesians 2:10). We do this with Him, because He lives in us to help. Notice the term husbandry to define the church, because this will come again in the next section. This means we are God’s spiritual garden on the earth.

God further calls us His physical building on the earth. The building corresponds with us being His temple that we saw earlier. The LORD is using multiple natural concepts to help us to understand how the spirit realm was created and is operating today. What we are discovering is the spiritual concept of Christians that perform labor for God is the spiritual realization of the natural description of a woman in Revelation 12 in labor.

This is becoming such an accurate picture of the woman in Revelation 12, that it can’t be denied. Can you begin to see the new spiritual perspective, of how this woman was given to us by the Holy Spirit using natural realities can fit with what we are doing in the church today? Can you understand, how excited I was to hear from God at 3 AM to receive this information?

Women could describe the experience of giving birth so much better than I could. But one noticeable feature of the process is the pain. This can result in loud outcries. Another observable quality of giving birth, is that the woman’s labor pains become more and more frequent, and closer together and they usually increase in intensity as the ending finale birth comes. Did any of this sound like what might happen before Jesus comes to take us out of the world and our labors to get people saved?

Can you potentially see that persecution from the world, has been increasing in intensity and come more frequently? If you have not, then you are not laboring for God’s cause. We need to see what else the Bible says about laboring, to take us into the next phase of the revelation.

1Co 3:5  Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man

1Co 3:6  I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase

1Co 3:7  So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. 

1Co 3:8  Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour

Notice these verses are using natural farming concepts. But farming is also an analogous concept to having a natural child in birth. Both of these subjects are parallel natural realities projecting information about the spiritual birth process that Paul was describing in his letter to the church.

The spiritual birth process is based upon the principle of “seed”, “time” and “harvest”. Wow that was a lot to process. But notice the ending statement in 1 Corinthians 3:8 is about each worker in the church receiving a reward for doing their labor. Wow, is that not more than amazing, with us seeing the woman in Revelation 12 being in labor? Connect this back to the Galatians 4 example of the labor with Paul working to get Christ the Messiah formed in the church in Galatia. Please tell me that you are seeing this.  If any of this is registering on your spirit, leave a comment to help encourage others.

Remember in Revelation 12, we had a woman wearing a victorious royal crown. Could this be a part of her reward for enduring her spiritual labors for CHRIST?  I personally believe this is a part of the reward as we can see from 2 Timothy 4:8, to name just one example. We need to move on to the next subject. Now we are going to add a new spiritual dimension to connect us to what is happening to the church and parallel to what is described about the woman in Revelation 12.

6. THE PRECIOUS FRUIT OF THE EARTH

We have been learning new spiritual God perspectives that come from the Word of God to understand the natural descriptions about a woman in Revelation 12. So far, we have discovered that the woman is standing on the devil in a position of victory in Revelation 12:1. We have also seen she is wearing a royal victor crown as a symbol of her reward for victory. We have also learned that she is wearing Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness as her clothing revealing to us her position of authority being IN CHRIST (Romans 5:17). This new information confirms that she is a spiritual being and her identity can only be the church.

But we are now beginning to see in Revelation 12:2, that she is pregnant and travailing to give birth to a spiritual Messiah in the hearts of people that are becoming new-born believers. We have also seen how this process begins to correlate together of her enduring signs of crying, travailing, being pained, waiting for the birthing full process to come to completion. We learned this could certainly be the combined natural and spiritual process of how the church “labors” in the world, for Christ to minister by spreading God’s Word (Seed), into the hearts of unbelievers, to get others saved out of the world of our spiritual enemy. Please realize that this time of completion for laboring for Christ, is soon coming to an end.

But now, let us think about the natural birth process to help us understand what else God could be teaching us from the spiritual process of producing a natural child by receiving His Seed in our hearts. Do you know what this natural and spiritual concept of childbirth, is referred to as, in the Bible? You are about to find out that it is called “producing fruit”. If you did not already know this, please get your spiritual eyes opened to what the Holy Spirit is about to say. Let us begin by reading a verse in James:

Jas 5:7  Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. 

We were introduced to this topic in the previous sections. Notice this verse is about the coming of the LORD. This coming has to be for the catching away of His church bride. If this is the woman in Revelation 12, it is our hoped for “deliverance” from the world. Notice that this verse is speaking of God being a gardener, who has planted a lot of seed, and is waiting very patiently to produce something that is good for harvesting. Wow, did that turn on any lights in your mind and spirit? If not, Satan must have you very blinded with his darkness (2 Cor 4:4).

This verse in James is speaking of people. This is the only thing that is precious enough to cause God to wait and endure all of the evil of the world. God is looking for “precious fruit” to harvest. This fruit came first from Jesus sowing the Word in our hearts as taught to us in the Parable of the Sower. From God’s perspective, the end outcome of planting any of His good Seed is to produce good fruit, in the hearts of humans.

We confirmed in 1 Corinthians 3:5-8, that it is the church that has been assigned this responsibility to continue the sowing, and watering process to produce fruit in humans. Remember what Paul said in Galatians 4? “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you”. I believe sincerely that Paul was travailing, and waiting for these carnal Christians to become fruitful and to be on the path of spiritual maturity. Why do I say this? Because this “fruit” is what God is waiting for in James to harvest.

Now, here is another truth that helps to confirm this belief that this pregnant woman in Revelation is pregnant spiritually indicating she has produced a lot of fruit, and is waiting to be delivered. Let us remember Jesus’ natural birth to help us better understand this spiritual birthing process being described in Revelation 12.

Luke 1:42  And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. 

Do you see how Elizabeth described the unborn natural baby Messiah child, that was in the belly of the virgin Mary? She called her baby inside her physical womb, to be her “fruit”. Wow, this is God revealing an amazing parallel concept between the natural and the spiritual ability to produce “fruit” from planted seed. It is very obvious that a natural child is called a woman’s fruit of her womb. God is again using natural farming concepts to describe the natural birthing process, and this means both of these are teaching us hidden spiritual concepts about fruit, that we cannot see with our natural eyes.

It is very interesting to remember what Jesus said about fruit in Matthew 7:15-16. God in the flesh who we see waiting and wanting to harvest the precious fruit of the earth in James, informs us that we will be able to determine who is real and who is fake by examining their fruits. What is He speaking of? It is NOT apples, cherries, or apricots. God is saying if what they say is a blessing to produce a new-birth in some other human, this will be a sign of their external fruit. By observing their labors to produce fruit, you will know if they are real Christians.

Let us go back to the Parable of the Sower again. In this parable that Jesus taught us, He said He was the Sower and He came to sow the Word of God! The soil in this natural to spiritual parable was the heart/spirit of a human. The parable compares soil (human spirit) types, differentiating between those that produced fruit and those that do not produce any harvestable fruit.

Matching this information with other parables, and the verse we just read in James about God being the ultimate farmer, waiting for fruit, we know that those that produce fruit belong to God, and those that do not produce fruit, must belong to the evil one, Satan. This is revealed more clearly by the parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-35). The wheat is harvested into the barns of God, and tares are burned in the fires of hell.

Now we have determined there are two types of people in the world. Those that belong to God and produce fruit to be harvested and those that belong to Satan that are called weeds that are eternally separated from God. But applying this to what we have just learned we know the woman in Revelation 12 has fruit in her womb. We should now understand that the womb is soil of the spiritual heart of a human. The spiritual fruits that are produced in the spirit, represent a human’s good works for the kingdom of God, and the fruits of the spirit (Gal 5:22).

It is very interesting to see how in Galatians 5, this was God’s selected location to discuss and define “fruit” directly after chapter 4. In this chapter 5 spiritual comparison we find the differences between producing good versus evil fruits. This is definitely applicable to what we have been learning. Do you believe this is just a coincidence? It cannot be! This is just a confirming method of God’s intelligent spiritual design.

Finally, notice that a woman that is unable to bear fruit in her womb is called “barren”. This is also discussed in Galatians 4, but we don’t have the time to go into this part of the deeper lesson. Please just notice the fact that the woman being in travail in Revelation 12, has the visible evidence of having produced fruit in her spirit (the spiritual womb and soil) of God’s Garden (Genesis 2:8). This is the location of where His WORD was planted as a seed to produce “fruit”. Wow, that is an amazing new way of viewing the woman in Revelation 12. Can you see it?

7. DELIVERANCE

We need to wrap this lesson up quickly. We have been receiving the “Seed” of God into our spirits, while studying this subject. What we need to remember, is that in the natural process of childbirth, there is usually always a “deliverer” involved to catch the baby. This has occurred this way in every normal natural childbirth since Adam and Eve. This deliver is usually, a mid-wife, doctor, or nurse, or they could be the spouse’s husband. I believe the husband Joseph was the deliverer of Mary. But in the spirit realm this person who delivers the church, is definitely the LORD Jesus Christ.

What we find in Revelation 12, is two connected verses concerning the pregnant woman on this subject of delivery and an implied deliverer. In verse 2 and verse 4 God mentions the woman is waiting to be delivered. This is the Greek word G5088. This word has a very amazing definition that corresponds to what we have been learning about. Let us review the Strong’s definition:

G5088 to produce (from seed, as a mother, a plant, the earth, etc.), literal or figurative: – bear, be born, bring forth, be delivered, be in travail.

This Greek word contains a double wow factor. This only means it applies to the literal natural and to the spiritual by figurative application.  Notice this word applies to natural things being produced from physical seeds. This included a human mother (woman), a tree, a plant, etc. including the earth’s natural soil. All of these are naturally created realities that parallel the spiritual realm. Notice the spiritual woman in Revelation 12, is travailing in labor awaiting to be delivered. How does this apply to anything for the spiritual church? A lot of light bulbs should be illuminating in your spirit all of the sudden from this new description. Please let us read these verses and analyze them in the NEW light of what we are seeing in Revelation 12.

Luk 21:27  And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

Luk 21:28  And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.

These verses are obviously speaking of the physical man Jesus, with Him being referred to as one of His physical human titles the “Son of Adam”. As the risen Jesus departed from the earth in Acts 1 for a cloud to receive Him, He will also be returning in like manner from a cloud. But this return is for the catching away of His bride, as spoken about in the Parable of the 10 virgins (Matthew 25:1).

Jesus was teaching in this context about the signs of the times for His return. Please pay attention to the last command. Jesus speaking to His followers, told them when you see these things, “look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is very near”. Now look up the word “redemption” and see how Strong defines G629 as being a “deliverance”. This is another amazing parallel to the woman in Revelation 12 being pregnant.

Every time a woman experiences pregnancy, she goes from not being outwardly seen as pregnant, to being obviously seen to even be called big or great in her pregnancy. Or another way to look at it, is to say her delivery day is “drawing near”. The Greek word G1448 that was translated as “drawing near” is also defined as “soon approaching”. Consider what this is saying about the potential of a birth in Revelation 12.

If this woman is the spiritual church, and being delivered of this child represents the rapture, by God using naturally coded symbolic terms, this should dramatically change how we are to view what is being revealed. We should be able to see from God’s perspective, that this description of the woman in Revelation 12, could be a detailed view of the end-time church and the rapture event, followed by the mention of the people that have repented and were saved after the rapture.

It is just so essential to see that the Greek word G726, that was translated as “caught up” in Revelation 12:5, speaking of the child after He was delivered, is the word “harpazo”. It is this exact word that is used by God to describe the rapture event in 1 Thessalonians:

1Th 4:16  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 

1Th 4:17  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord

No place in the New Testament, is this Greek word “Harpazo” used to describe the physical risen from the dead man Jesus, being taken up to heaven. The absence of Jesus being taken as man and not as a baby, and the church being “caught up” to heaven to be with the LORD, are two amazing confirmations to the woman in Revelation 12 being the church.

Also, the Greek word G4536 that is translated as “trump” in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 announcing the rapture event, is the exact same word used by God to catch John up to heaven in Revelation 4:1. This is just another major connecting force, that cannot be denied. This would teach us that the woman’s labor of the child coming to completion, is the same event of deliverance that is being described in Revelation 4:1, and 1 Thessalonians 4:17.

It is highly recommended that you go search the New Testament and look for all of the verses that has anything to do with deliverance, or a deliverer. We should all know that the deliverer of the Church is Christ. There are also other key Greek words that mean to be delivered, like the woman in Revelation 12 is waiting for. These include “redemption”, “redeem”, “save”, “salvation”, and “savior”. Of course, there are many forms of these words and others that could not be mentioned today. But all of these confirm the spiritual truth, that the Church body of Christ, is a woman waiting to be fully delivered. For example, please remember this one:

Tit 2:13  Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 

As you can read in Titus 2:13, the church is waiting for out savior Jesus Christ. The Greek word G4990 translated as “Savior” literally means a “deliverer”. That is what we could also call a person that is catching up a baby in a hospital. Wow, I don’t know how anyone can deny what the Holy Spirit is teaching today.

But notice again, that this day of deliverance is called a blessed expectation event. Again, we see a woman who is expecting to be delivered. The Greek word G1680 is the word translated as “hope”, and this word means “expectation of something good”. It can also be defined as a feeling of “pleasurable anticipation”. What this is describing occurs when a normal husband sees his wife after a long time of separation, and vice versa, the wife’s feeling for the appearance of her husband after a long separation, like a long trip. WOW!

I believe the woman in Revelation 12 represents the church from what the LORD has shown us. I believe the process of childbirth, represent every person that was, and is being born-again by planting seed in the hearts of unbelievers. I believe the growing child in the spiritual womb of the woman, represents the spiritual body of Christ growing to completion to be taken up to heaven. Therefore, I believe the woman’s final birth of the child is the completion of the church age. This soon coming completion or fulfilment of the 2 day or the 2000-year period of the church (2 Peter 3:8), is where God ends the current ongoing time of GRACE for salvation. After this God will return to the 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy to finalize His dealings, with another woman named natural Israel, for one week of years. If this is correct which I believe the scripture is teaching us, then the rapture is represented by the child’s finale birth in Revelation 12. This is why the child is immediately caught up into heaven and to the throne of God after the final birth has occurred.

In other words, the spiritual growth and birth process of the CHRIST child has been fulfilled and it is time for her to be taken up (Romans 11:25). The laboring has been accomplished. The birthing has been finalized. The woman has been brought to full safety and protection in heaven and the marriage supper of the LAMB can be celebrated. This would help us to understand how the description of the woman in Revelation 12:1, begins with a sight of a woman “appearing” in heaven. These words mean someone in the spiritual realm was looking on with wide open eyes viewing someone in heaven that was called very remarkable. Who else can this be but the body of Christ that the prophets and righteous men desired to see being fulfilled in total completion (Matthew 13:17)?

CONCLUSION

We have covered a lot in this lesson, and it has gone into so much new spiritual information that it is probably good to end now. Hopefully, the Holy Spirit has given you a lot of good spiritual meat to chew on for a long time. What God has taught us, is to look for His ways of understanding natural things so that we can apply them in the spiritual realm and find truth to see what He has prophesied in the book of Revelation. One question comes to mind that will mentioned in this discussion of a woman who is expecting deliverance. When will this occur? We can begin to learn this in this verse:

Rom 11:25  For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. 

As you can see God is speaking of the natural nation of Israel, and comparing them, to be separated from the largely spiritual Gentile church body of Christ. God calls His church a mystery, but He has been revealing us, with increased intensity in these last days. But notice in the last phrase of the verse. God indicates that there is coming a “fulness” to the Gentiles.

Now notice what the Greek word G4138 that was translated as “fulness” means. This word means “something that is filled as a place, a container, a time period, etc.”. Think of this in the terms of a pregnant woman. There is a limited capacity inside the womb. There is also a set time for delivery where her body just says I’m ready. God says in Matthew 24:36, that no man knows the exact day or hour of this event of Jesus coming to deliver us. But we all can see the signs and seasons, and know how close we are to this happening. I guarantee you, that it is closer than you think!

You should have a lot of take aways from this lesson. We were not able to answer every question, or go into every verse. This would definitely require many lessons to cover it all comprehensively. But remember the natural birth process of a woman, and a seed planted in a garden, should cause us to better understand what is happening in the unseen spiritual realm.

A child represents fruit using natural to spiritual symbolism. But it also represents the Spirit of Christ the Messiah being birthed inside humans to grow the church. Therefore, we have learned how the woman qualifies to be taken up into the spiritual realm of heaven to appear before God in Revelation 12:1 and 4:1.

There are multiple ways to react to what you have just learned? You can reject it completely or partially. You can also accept it partially or completely. If you have heard this taught before, I would love to hear about it and where it was shared. If you have never heard about this before, please share it with every Christian you know, if the Holy Spirit inside of you agrees with it. If not, that is OK, please just share why you feel something was not peaceful. No matter what, thank you for reading the lesson.

If you have any feedback, questions, or comments please leave them. They are greatly appreciated and encouraging. If you need prayer for any need, it is also nice to receive these requests. We will certainly pray if we are able to agree with you scripturally, and the request does not violate the written word of God according to His will for your life. We love you all very much no matter who you believe the Revelation 12 woman is. We hope and pray you will love us also. Love NEVER Fails!

If you would like to continue reading in this Bible study series, please click on “Part 10” now.

THE TRUE IDENTITY OF THE WOMAN IN REVELATION 12 Pt 8 – Why the Church Pt 1

(Ver 1.0) This is now “Part 8” in the extremely advanced Bible study series of lessons revealing, “The True Identity of the woman in Revelation 12”. If you have not read this series from the beginning, there is a lot of details already covered that will only be taught in a climatic summary form in this lesson. This lesson may be good information for people who like the bottom line and not all of the details. Also note that this lesson will be divided into two parts. Today we will cover the review of mainly Revelation 12:1, with some added new insights from a slightly different viewed perspective. Then in the next part (the LORD willing), there will be a lot of new spiritual information that many are awaiting to see that were hidden in Revelation 12:2. You certainly may continue reading Part 8 and Part 9 independently if desired, however, if you would like to read the series from the beginning please go to “Part 1”.

First a warning, this series was written for spiritually mature Christians. For those that are newly born or younger Christians, you may want to go study some more basic Bible foundational subjects before trying to digest some deep eschatological study that may be hard to swallow. This decision could possibly help you not to be offended at what will be a very deep spiritual subject filled with complex spiritual information and application, about a highly controversial topic. Thank you for judging yourself before continuing.

This series was first shared with me through the Holy Spirit, over 12 years ago and it was published in 2009. It has been undated numerous times to bring added revelation and clarity. If you have read the entire series and made it to this lesson, you should be commended, because you are like one of the Acts 17:11 Christians, that Paul said were more noble Bible students than those in the Thessalonica church. This verse reveals that there are two types of Christians, those that are mature and those that are very carnal and immature. Which one you choose to be, is normally determined by your amount of love you receive and release from God, your deep knowledge of His Word, and the length of time and amount of spiritual growth experienced as a Christian.

This has been one of the most loved or hated Bible lessons that I have been given by God to share with the body of Christ. Those with spiritually mature pure hearts, begin to love it after understanding what God is saying to us. But the immature baby Christians, who are set in their ways, believing they understand the Bible in totality, they hate this spiritual information. This is what Paul faced in the book of Galatians, when he said, “Have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?”.  It is very interesting that this was written by God in Galatians chapter 4 and this will be one of the primary-focuses of this Bible lesson today.

Recently, I received a nice and very spiritually mature comment with a question from a faithful reader. This was a confirmation from the Holy Spirit that I was to do this lesson. I had already felt led by the Holy Spirit to teach this subject again, and God confirmed it by this question. The reader’s question was:

May I seek some clarification about your understanding of the woman in Rev. 12? You say she depicts the church, however the church didn’t give birth to the Messiah, Israel did so I would be very interested to hear why you believe as you do. Thank you again.”? 

That was a great question, asked in a respectful way. We should pray that more people ask questions, rather than to call people heretics for a teaching of things that they do not yet understand. It appears that the question is based on popular teachings within the church majority. The belief that the woman is Israel originates from several descriptions that appear on the surface of the text in Revelation 12. First, the child is caught up to heaven and said to rule all nations with a rod of iron. This is taught to be the risen from the dead Jesus Christ. While this does sound like Jesus, notice that Jesus never did get caught up to heaven, as a freshly born baby child, as is described in Revelation 12. That is one of the first obvious problems with us claiming this child is the Messiah Jesus.

The next problem is this child is taken up by force using the Greek Word “harpozo” (G726), that describes a sudden snatching by forced departure, like is described as the rapture event in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, and 1 Corinthians 15:52. If you can, please find us a verse that describes Jesus ever being taken to heaven exactly in this manner?

Therefore, we have just reviewed two significant text problems with us making this woman appear to be Israel or Mary and the child being the physical Jesus. But people still believe this is the physical Jesus anyway. We must however learn to pay attention to every detail that we can find. God did not write things using words and descriptions that were not important. Make a note that whoever this is, this child is taken up to be with God in heaven by forced departure and it happens as they are a fairly young immature child.

Next, the woman is surrounded with three objects, the sun, the moon and the stars, and these three objects appear in the dream of Joseph in Genesis 37 that use these symbols to describe Jacob’s family of Israel. This was where 11 stars bowed, with the sun and the moon to worship the 12th star. Jacob interpreted the dream to mean the sun was himself, the moon was Rachel, and the 11 stars were all the brothers of Joseph who was the star that everyone bowed down to worship.

This mention of 12 stars, a sun and a moon in Revelation 12:1, represents another major cause for most to jump to the conclusion that this has to be the natural nation of Israel. Almost every past and modern Bible teacher has jumped to this conclusion without performing a deep study of the subject. They simply teach that this woman is natural Israel and the child is the baby Jesus born in a manger, who had been sent into the world, to become the Messiah (the Christ). If that is true, please apply the interpretation of Jacob to how these symbols are used in Revelation 12 specifically by the Holy Spirit’s leading.

How could a woman who is pregnant that people call Israel, be clothed with Jacob? I thought Jacob was named Israel? This is just one of the major problems. We might be able to stretch or twist a verse to make this claim of Israel being clothed with Israel, but we really need a Bible verse that interprets it this way.  Remember what the Lord said through 2 Peter 1:20 “No prophecy is of any private interpretation”. This simply teaches the law of self-interpretation of the Bible. This means the Bible interprets the Bible, and my opinion or yours does not matter.

The next major contradiction and disqualification for the woman in Revelation 12 to be Israel, is the position of the moon under the feet of the woman. If the lady in Revelation 12 is Israel, the moon must represent Rachel, and she is been walked upon as an enemy, defeated and conquered by this symbolic woman in Revelation 12. Jacob informed Joseph very clearly that the moon in his dream represented his mother in Genesis 37:10. Therefore, if we use this dream to interpret the woman in Revelation 12, we MUST also use and apply the interpretation of the dream to understand all of the words in Revelation 12. These are major problems, and they are totally ignored by every Bible teacher that wants to believe this woman is Israel.

This is a very common and popular teaching and it is one possible interpretation using selective surface reading of the text in Revelation 12. But it may be based upon a very carnal human reasoning with the joining together of scriptures that do not actually go together. Right there, that statement could make a lot of pastors, theologians, and Bible students very upset.  Some get so angry that they write the nastiest and most hate filled comments that you can imagine. This type of response does nothing but to prove their immature carnality. Love does not name call, and love does not speak evil of others, even if they disagree with your beliefs.

Today we will cover only verse 1 of Revelation 12. We will call this Part 1 of the summary and unveiling. Then in the next lesson, the LORD willing, we will cover verse 2 in significant detail. 

WHY NOT NATURAL ISRAEL?

In this lesson series, we have gone through many logical, comprehensive, and wide-ranging truthful Biblical reasons why this woman and this child cannot be Israel and the physical baby Jesus Christ. If you have read the entire series, you should be able to list some of them. Let us quickly review a few:

  1. The angel of God showing the vision to John, said everything after Revelation 4:1, must occur in the future beyond when John saw the vision and wrote the book of Revelation. This book was written a long time after the birth, life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of the LORD JESUS. Therefore, this disqualifies the woman to be Mary, and Israel and the child to be Jesus the physical Messiah.
  2. The next most important reason, is that Jesus said in John 3:3, that which is born of spirit is spirit and that which is born of flesh is flesh. This is a law of God’s design. This forces the mother and child to be either flesh birthing only flesh or spirit birthing only spirit. This disqualifies Israel from being the woman because she was a combined spiritual wife made up of many physical humans in the Old Covenant (Jer 31:32). The woman and the child appear to be both spiritual beings in Revelation 12 and neither Mary or the natural nation of Israel ever gave birth to a spiritual child.
  3. What did we find that the Sun represents in the woman’s clothing? This is ignored in the Israel and baby Jesus’ interpretation completely. We have found this Sun is a symbol of Jesus the Sun of Righteousness (Mal 4:2). Who then is clothed with Jesus? Was it the natural nation of Israel or Mary? The church is clearly told to put on Christ in the New Covenant (Rom 13:14, Gal 3:27).
  4. What does the moon represent? And what does it mean to be standing on this object? We have discovered from the Bible the moon represents the ruler of the darkness and this has to be Satan (Eph 6:12). We also have found verses that anyone that is underfoot, has been defeated (Ps 44:5, Ps 91:13, Mal 4:3, Lk 10:19). Has Israel defeated the ruler of the darkness? Has Mary defeated the ruler of the darkness? If not, they are disqualified to be valid interpretations. We will be discussing parts of these subjects as we move forward.
  5. Let us consider one more reason, that may have not been taught before enough. The woman in Revelation 12 appears in heaven. This describes that she is spiritual at her appearance. Has the natural nation of Israel appeared spiritually in heaven? Can the natural nation of Israel appear in heaven without being saved through Jesus Christ? Not according to Jesus. Jesus said in John 3:3, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. Then in John 14:23 Jesus said, “No man comes to the Father, but by me”. The only legal way to heaven is through Jesus Christ. This disqualifies the natural nation of Israel from a heavenly appearance, unless they receive Jesus.

These were just 5 major disqualifications for the woman in Revelation 12 to be viewed as the natural nation of Israel, or the physical virgin Mary, and for their child said to be the physical baby Jesus born in Bethlehem. What we are about to discover and confirm is that the church does give birth to Christ, but not in the form of a physical baby in a manger. That will probably shock a lot of people, but this concept was already introduced to you in the updated “Part 5” of the series. I pray you were able to read this first. If you are ready to begin this spiritual insightful view of the woman in Revelation 12, let us please get started.

GOD’S SPIRITUAL VIEW
 OF REVELATION 12 REVEALED

We will now begin to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal His higher spiritual messages that are desired to be taught to us from these verses about a pregnant woman found in Revelation 12. Please stop and pray the prayer in Ephesians 1:17-23, before continuing. In this prayer Paul asked for the church to be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of HIM! Who is HIM? It is the LORD JESUS CHRIST. Then Paul prays and asks God to give the church (us) the spiritual eyes of understanding for enlightenment to see what God has accomplished and given to us in Christ. Paul is simply asking the Holy Spirit inside of the church to illuminate our spirits to be able to comprehend what God has provided to us in Jesus Christ.  Please believe that God has heard and answered this prayer and you will be able to receive more of these deep hidden spiritual concepts about Christ. Ok, now let us continue.

Joh 3:12  If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? 

Jesus gives us a “key to understanding” a great portion of the book of Revelation. This is because God has written the book of Revelation using vast patterns of natural symbolic objects that reveal unseen spiritual entities and realities. God also has used numerous naturally created systems and methods, like childbirth to teach us about complex spiritual truths. In this verses Jesus reveals that there is a significant difference between earthly things and heavenly things. But then Jesus indicates that by us understanding these natural things, it will greatly assist us in understanding invisible heavenly things. We confirm this truth of Jesus in the book of Romans:

Romans 1:20, “For the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood from the things that were made, even God’s eternal power and Godhead.”

Did you understand what God said? The Creator God declares we are able to understand the hidden and unseen qualities of the divine Godhead, because we can learn them from naturally created objects, systems, patterns, and laws, etc. That is what we are going to do today. We are going to go through the naturally created symbolic objects and descriptions and then use these with the Bible to understand the hidden messages that God is trying to teach us in these last days.

Rev 12:1  And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: 

Let us begin by listing the qualities and descriptions of the woman in Revelation 12 verse 1. Take note that the Greek word G3700 translated as “appeared”, means to look with eyes wide open at something remarkable as if in shock and awe. Now read the list of important subjects:

  1. There was a great wonder woman that suddenly appeared in heaven.
  2. She was clothed in the Sun.
  3. Standing with the moon under her feet.
  4. Wearing a crown of 12 stars.

We will not go into tremendous detail, but we will take each, one by one.

THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE
OF A GREAT WONDER WOMAN IN HEAVEN

What do these words and symbols teach us?

  1. This appearance of a woman in heaven causes us to logically conclude she is a spiritual being, in order to be found existing in heaven. This causes us to ask how and when she appeared.
  2. Remember that a woman (wife) in a relationship with God always represents a covenant partnership. We can learn this in several verses, but research Jeremiah 31:32, and Matthew 9:15 to see two references.
  3. This statement implies that this woman was previously a physical reality upon the earth, before she was taken into heaven.
  4. Therefore, we can conclude that God/Jesus must have taken this woman up to be with Him at the throne. Does this sound like a type of rapture? We will find more evidence coming to support this view soon.
  5. Also, this statement implies this woman’s appearance in heaven was because she is considered righteous and not of the kingdom of darkness. We will see this more clearly when we look again at her clothing.

A WOMAN CLOTHED WITH THE SUN

We have already covered this subject extensively. Please recall what this SUN represents to God.

  1. In spiritual terms, being clothed with any object, means to be endued with its power. We learn this many places, including Elijah’s mantle being passed to Elisha in 2 Kings 2:14. Jesus speaking to the church told His disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they were “endued” with power from on high. The Greek word G1736 that is translated as “endued”, means to be clothed with.  The sun in the sky certainly qualifies as a high heavenly object. The sun is also the closest great power source for all life on our planet. We learned this sun represents Jesus “the Sun of Righteousness” that rises with healing in His wings, in Malachi 4:2.
  2. We can confirm from Malachi 4:2 that wearing the Sun of God represents being clothed in His righteousness. We can confirm the church is clothed in His righteousness in verses like Ephesians 4:22.

THE MOON UNDER HER FEET

We have also covered this subject extensively. The first mention of the moon is found in Genesis 1 and is called the lesser light. Genesis 1:16 informs us that “the lesser light”, also called the moon rules the night (darkness). This heavenly object depicts the evil being Satan who rules the darkness of this world (Eph 6:12).

  1. Standing upon the symbolic moon symbol of Satan depicts the picture of victory over Him by a woman. God informs Joshua in Joshua 1:3, “everywhere the soles of your feet tread, I have given to you”. This means this woman was fighting a battle and she won the wars like Joshua.
  2. We know this represents the church because Jesus told us in Luke 10:19, “Behold I give you power to tread upon serpents (devils) and scorpions (demons) and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing by any means shall hurt you.” These words apply to Jesus’ believers.
  3. In Romans 16:20, God promises to bruise the serpent Satan under the feet of the church (New Covenant Bride) very soon. It has been almost 2000 years since this was written and it is time for it to be fulfilled.
  4. God promises the church to be “overcomers” in the New Covenant. Overcoming signifies someone who has been raised up above someone else in power and authority by their enemy’s defeat.

A CROWN ON HER HEAD

This is another great symbol that reveals the truth of victory for the woman. This confirms the fact that she is standing on the moon (Satan), with the moon (Satan) under her feet, and the moon (Satan) has been “overcome” and defeated. Review what God says to the church in this verse:

1Co 9:24  Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. 

1Co 9:25  And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. 

God our LORD and savior informs us that we are in a race. But ours is not a physical endurance contest. Rather, our run is in a spiritual endurance contest. Our opponent and enemy is a spiritual being named Lucifer and Satan. God informs us in Revelation 12 we win this race. The exact same Greek word is spoken here that was found in Revelation 12:1. This is a run that we will win over Satan, and our crown of victory will be the incorruptible kind of eternal victory. Are you an overcomer?  Why not? Jesus tells how we overcome Him in this chapter 12 that we are studying about:

Rev 12:11  And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. 

We can clearly read and see there are two things that cause the church to be standing on the moon (Satan). The most essential piece is the Blood of the Lamb of God, our spiritual husband. The second is our participation by speaking the Word of God out loud to bring our testimony to bare upon Satan’s head and put him under our feet through exercising the authority that Jesus gave to us (Lk 10:19, Mat 28:18-19).

If anyone needs additional convincing that God’s desired plan for your life is to overcome your enemy, please read verses like these:

  1. Romans 5:17
  2. Romans 12:21
  3. 1 Corinthians 15:57
  4. 2 Corinthians 2:14
  5. 1 John 2:13-14
  6. 1 John 4:4
  7. 1 John 5:4-5
  8. Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26
  9. Revelation 3:5, 12, 21

For the final part of the review of the crown, we must remember that wearing a crown, is a sign of kingship and royalty. The church is called a “royal (kingly) priesthood” in 1 Peter 2:9. The church is said to “reign (as a king) in life, by one Jesus Christ” in Romans 5:17. Then in Revelation 19:16 Jesus is called the KING of kings. If you are not reigning over Satan now with the LORD’s help, it is past time to get started.

CONCLUSION

We have only started to see just some of the spiritual truths that the Spirit of God desires us to learn and know. In the next lesson we get into some things that the Holy Spirit spoke with me about at 3 am in the morning. These things were very revealing to show His perspectives of Revelation 12:2.

We pray that everyone will come back for the next lesson, with eager anticipation and hunger to see what God says to us all. If you love the Word of God, as much as I do, I know you will. Please share the lesson series with your mature spiritual friends. Also leave a comment or question, if you feel led by the Spirit to do so. Thank you for praying for us. We greatly appreciate your support with your intercessory prayer. You have no idea how the enemy is trying to silence this website completely. Thank you for standing strong in and with us and the LORD. We love you very much, whether you agree or disagree with what has been taught. God bless you all very much. Always in His abundant love and Grace!

If you would like to continue reading in this awesome God given series, please go to “Part 9” now.