Category Archives: Bible Study
Understanding Bible Faith! Are You Expecting? How Far Along Are You? Part 10
(Ver 1.2) Today is Part 10 in a series of advanced lessons on Understanding Bible faith. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning I would recommend that you go and start with “Part 1”. These words in my title ask some specific questions that you might ask a pregnant woman. Did you know that God created these natural processes to mimic and reveal to us the spiritual process of having faith? You might be amazed to find the parallels in the Bible to these two realities, if you search for them and you can see the connections being taught. Hopefully I will not get to graphic today, but this is a mature Christian subject since I might have to discuss sex. I am personally glad that God created sex and not me. Since it was nothing that I invented it is nothing that I can take credit for. Obviously God created this activity for the bonds of covenant marriage and I might talk about that today also. Do you recall how people get faith? If you do, then make the transition to this next question. How does a woman normally get pregnant? You see my difficulty beginning to teach this subject today, don’t you? In the modern world this can happen artificially, but in the world created by God if there was no sex, there were no babies. We can tell by the nearly 7 billion people and growing on the planet that there has been a lot of sex. Well today I am going to teach you about the spiritual concept revealed in sex and pregnancy that corresponds to God’s spiritual development of you having faith in God. So natural babies, start by people having sex. That is a basic viewpoint that seems rather obvious to me, but yet on the news and in our government they seem to forget this fact when it comes to allowing abortion. If there was no sex there would be no abortions in the world and nobody wants to talk about that. Oh well, I guess I better not go there today or I’ll get off track again.
The concept of the husband sowing seed into his wife to have children is definitely a self-sustaining and self-perpetuating God created design of nature. If you have never read my Bible lessons on “Understanding Seeds” then you might not understand that the sperm of a man is called his seed. The human sperm is the natural seed of human life and it is required to perpetuate our race. Calling multiple things by the same name “seed” is a complex technique used by God to conceal and reveal spiritual information in the Bible. God uses the word “seed” to refer to around 10 different things in the Bible and all of these while different are very similar in design. You see the “Word of God” is also called the “Seed of God” in Mark 4:14 and Luke 8:11. We understand that God is a Spirit so God’s words are spiritual in nature. Jesus said “the words that I speak unto you they are Spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). We can therefore, conclude that God’s Words are the spiritual seeds of life. We are already beginning to establish a direct connection between natural things and spiritual things by God’s interchangeable usage of the word “Seed”. You might recall that in an earlier Bible lesson I taught you where Bible faith comes from. Let’s review a verse that I gave you before:
Rom 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
How does faith come? It comes by you hearing God’s Seed! Did you get the transition that I just made? I can legally interchange “Seed” for “Word” by the laws of mathematics created by God. If you do not understand these laws then you have never taken an Algebra class or you took the class and you didn’t learn anything from it. What God is telling you, is that planting God’s Spiritual Seed into your heart (spirit) is the equivalent to a husband planting seed into his wife and them having a baby. You plant a seed and you get a crop. It is a basic design from God and it is really not that complicated.
Psa 62:5 My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.
You see there are many strange verses found in the Bible that can literally be taken several different ways simultaneously. This one in Psalms is no different. Here is a verse that speaks of someone expecting from God. This is the same concept that my wife told me when she said “you are the reason that I am expecting”. Since I am teaching on the subject of being spiritually pregnant with the Word of God, what does a spiritual pregnancy infer? Technically speaking if you have faith, you are expecting God to do what He has promised. This is the concept of being spiritually pregnant. Now, this concept is certainly more familiar to women, but yet if your wife has been pregnant you have at least an external perspective of the situation. What occurs when a woman gets pregnant? Things inside her begin to change and as time goes along, there is a growing force of eager expectation for the baby to come to fruition. This concept is really no different than a farmer planting a field with a crop seed. He plants the seed into the ground and then goes into expectation mode to wait for the crop to produce so he can harvest it. Harvest time is akin to delivery time in a pregnancy. This is the basis of Bible faith also. God is revealing to you that you better be expecting His word to come to pass. A woman is expecting to be delivered of her child when the time arrives and so it is with having faith. If you expect God to deliver you from your current situation, then He will, however if you do not expect God to do anything then He will do that also.
Pro 10:28 The hope of the righteous shall be gladness: but the expectation of the wicked shall perish.
If you do not look up the definitions of the words in the verses that you read in the Bible, then you can easily miss what God is trying to say to you. Unless you know Hebrew or Greek and can read the original languages, you need to study to figure out what is being stated. There are just too many translation errors in every version of the Bible for you not to do this research. This is the case for this verse, because the Hebrew word translated as “hope” is a word that means “to expect” or “expectation”. This word expresses a human response of “waiting patiently”. Uh oh? That is a problem for many Christians, isn’t it? We have just introduced a new key word to the faith equation of believing God. God is teaching you that sometimes things take time. Most people understand that a woman’s pregnancy term can vary, but that it generally takes 9 months to produce a healthy child. So it is also with crops planted by the farmer in his field. No seed planted is going to instantly produce the end result immediately. Before the concept of harvest occurs there is always seed planting and a duration of time that occurs where we wait patiently for the result. This is why many people start out walking by faith and then they give up because they think it is not working. I have heard many faith critics teach against faith simply because they do not understand the complex dependent factors of how faith works. These types of teachers obviously teach out of ignorance to their own downfall.
It is also important to note the difference between waiting patiently and waiting anxiously. If you are worried you are not in faith. If you are nervous, then you are not in faith. If you are in fear, then you are not in faith. Waiting patiently is another demonstration of having confidence in God. If you are confident in God’s ability, power and His word then you are waiting patiently. If you are worried or anxious if God is really going to do what He said, then you are about to abort your miracle. Fortunately for Christians, patience is a fruit of the Spirit. So learn to develop patients when standing on the word of God.
Heb 6:12 That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Here is a verse that certainly applies to our series about faith and possessing the Promised Land. God is taking and connecting two different factors to produce one positive result. Faith is intertwined with patience for you to inherit the promises of God. So patience is a key ingredient in your successful positive outcome. This is why the Word of God is so complicated. It takes several simple concepts or ingredients to mix together to produce a good result. That is why I could not teach you everything all at once. It would have been too complicated and overwhelming. So I try to introduce you to new concepts in stages so that you learn in manageable chunks of information. Today subject is primarily about expectation and expectancy but you can see we just learned about a higher dimension of how patience plays a vital role in waiting for the harvest or the delivery.
Rom 4:18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
Here in this chapter of Romans, God gives us a major faith example for us to live and learn by. God is speaking of the faith of Abraham. Here was a man who was 99 years old with a 90 year old barren wife and God told him that I have made you a father of many nations. If a human situation ever looked hopeless, Abraham’s situation was there for an example for us. This verse says that “against hope, Abraham still had hope”. However, this word for hope is not our modern word for hope. When people in the modern world say “I really hope so”, they are meaning to say “I wish it were so”. Abraham did not wish he would become the father of the promised child, this word says Abraham “expected” it to happen. There was a level of expectancy within the spirit of Abraham that was conceived by the Word of God spoken to him. This is an example of a spiritual pregnancy test that you should be taking on yourself today. When a woman in the modern world thinks she is pregnant, there are things she can buy at the drug store that can be used to determine if she is pregnant. These are natural “pregnancy tests” that confirm what she already thought was happening. So I am making another spiritual transition from a physical reality and telling you that you need to do a spiritual pregnancy test to see if you are in faith. If you do not have the promise of God in your spirit you need to get it into your spirit by speaking it to yourself as Abraham did. Abraham went around calling himself the “father of nations” as his name in Hebrew meant. This seed that was placed in Abraham’s heart developed and grew into a strong belief that God’s word was true despite the outward circumstances and appearances. This is a faith lesson for you in your current circumstances. No matter what it looks like on the outside, you need to look to the picture of a successful outcome on the inside of you. If you are sick, you call yourself well. If you are poor, you call yourself rich. You do what God did for Abraham by saying what God said about you.
Gal 4:19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
Paul of course was a man of God and that means he was a human male. Yet Paul still compares the process taking place inside of him as an internal conception and birth process. There are actually two conceptions being spoken of in this verse. Paul had conceived and Paul was waiting for the people in Galatia to conceive and for Christ to be formed within them. If we are looking at spiritual births, we must back up and see the steps that must have occurred for Paul to give birth spiritually speaking. Paul is using his faith for the good of the people in Galatia. However, this process is referred to in the terms of a child birth. It is not a natural process it is a spiritual process that parallels the natural. The Word of God is sown in the hearts of men and after time it produces the result of the word that was sown. In other words if you need a specific answer to prayer, you better go get the specific promises of God Word that says you have it. You put it into your heart and allow it to conceive there. If you keep it in your heart and do not abort it, it will produce the result that you desired by faith. I’ll give you one more example before I wrap this lesson up today. Here are a couple of verses that demonstrate the spiritual concept of the heart giving birth that I have been teaching on, but in the reverse. You see these are negative things that your heart can also produce:
Isa 59:4 None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
As you can clearly read God is speaking of a conception in the human spirit again, but this time it is of lust and iniquity. We learn several things from these verses. We learn the spirit of people can conceive either good or evil. Do you remember the lesson that I taught on seeds? One of these lessons I taught on the seed parable that Jesus instructed us about the wheat and the tares. The Wheat was produced by the Word/Seed of God and the tares were produced by an enemy sowing evil seed. You heart is the soil and the words you allow into it are the crops that are producing either the good or the evil in your life. What did God tell Adam in Genesis 2? God said do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or you will surely die. We obviously learn that Adam lusted and ate of the tree of evil and thus conceived and gave birth to death. You see Adam could have chosen life, but his heart caused him to make the wrong choice and die (Gen 2:17). You today have been given a redo opportunity by God. Since Jesus came to the earth and redeemed us from the hand of Satan, we now have the opportunity to conceive life within us. Remember what Jesus taught us? Jesus said in John 10:10 that “I have come that you might have life and that life more abundantly”. Yet here we are still downcast and trodden by the misconceptions of deceit from Satan that it can’t get any better than what we have in our life right now. This is not true however, since God has given us His promises to possess. These promises of God can produce the life that we need today to change our circumstances around. If Abraham would have looked at the circumstances he would have given up. But, since Abraham called himself a father of nations before he was one, he conceived it in his heart by faith and Sarah birthed the promised child. Do you think that God is talking about Abraham and Sarah getting pregnant and having a child by accident or chance? God is making a direct connection between natural pregnancy and that of spiritual pregnancy and you have to learn how to get spiritually pregnant by faith. Let me expound on this point in conclusion. If you understand natural things you know that the human male places literally millions of sperm cells inside of a woman. Why did God do it this way when all it takes is one to get the result you desire? After all there is only one egg and not millions of eggs in the woman. God is giving you a spiritual lesson in this natural information. There is only one spirit inside of your body and if you want to get it pregnant you better bombard it with a lot of the Word of God. God’s Word is God’s Seed and Jesus taught us that from the abundance of the heart, things come out of it (Mat 12:34). Whatever you put abundantly in your hear is what you will get it to produce. If you want to follow after the wrong things in life God will allow this to happen. You can conceive the wrong things in your spirit and die or you can put the Word of God there to give birth to good things. This is how spiritual things work. If you know how to have sex, then you know how to get faith and give birth to the promises of God. Genesis 4:1 says “Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived…”. Do you know God? Do you know God’s word? Then it will conceive in your heart if you allow it to work and stay there the same way. Get to know the Word of God and see if it will not produce life. We still have a lot more to talk about in this series so come back expecting to learn. God Bless you until next time!
If you would like to continue learning in this series, please continue reading with “Part 11“.
Understanding Bible Faith! My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me? Part 9
(Ver 1.2) Today is Part 9 in a series of advanced lessons on Understanding Bible Faith. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning I would recommend that you go and start with “Part 1”. Today’s lesson is about having faith when it looks like it is not working. We all struggle in this area at some point of time in our lives. If you think you are different than everybody else, then you are deceived. You can go through the Bible and read over and over about the stories of men who did great things for God and see that God had done great things for them and they all at one time or the other struggled to say, “God where are you?”. One of the greatest prophets of God was Elijah. He called down fire from God to consume the prophets of Baal. Elijah stopped it from raining on the earth for three and half years and then commanded it to rain and it rained. After all of these things, Elijah went into the wilderness downcast and depressed and asked God to kill him. I am always amazed when I read the Gospels about Jesus hanging on the cross (Mat 27:46). Here is the God of my Salvation dying on the cross for me and He says in the Hebrew tongue “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? These words are translated as “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” Wow, I have difficulty comprehending that! You should read through the Psalms of David and see how many times it looks like David is alone and in despair trying to encourage himself in the Lord. David’s confidence level, clearly was feigning and wavering in the face of his circumstances. In fact these words spoken by Jesus on the cross were originally written down by David in Psalm 22:1. Remember David was the one that killed the lion, the bear and then the giant Goliath. But, yet when he was alone in a cave hiding from Saul, he felt despair. We can see that it does not matter how many great things that God has done, we can all feel like we have been left alone. What we learn is that there will always come times when life’s situations will seem overwhelming to us. I have been there and I’m sure you have been there also. Perhaps you are there today and that is why God is using me to write to you. In this world there are events occurring daily that are extremely troubling. Prices are rising, people are losing jobs, there are wars and riots all over the world, and there are earthquakes and death everywhere. It is very easy to get into despair. In the past few weeks, I have been teaching a series of lessons on having Bible faith in God’s Word. As part of the lessons I taught that having confidence in God is an essential element to having success. If the woman with the issue of blood did not have any confidence in what she heard about Jesus, she would not have gone fighting through the crowd to get her healing. If you have no confidence then you have no faith. So you should judge yourself and see where your confidence in God is on a daily basis. You might have great confidence today and no confidence tomorrow. You cannot judge your current confidence level upon your past experiences as you have learned from the examples of David and Elijah. Today I am doing what I am teaching you to do, I am checking up on my confidence level to see if I am where I need to be.
1Jn 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
Here is the first great faith verse to know and to understand about prayer. This verse speaks of you having confidence. This verse is talking about prayer to God and asking for Him to do something for you. But, it qualifies the fact that there is a correct prayer and there is an incorrect prayer. God informs us that you better only ask Him for something that is His will or He will not even hear our prayer. How do we know what to pray for then based upon that? If you recall in my Faith series, I taught you about possessing the Promised Land. We are supposed to go through the Bible and learn what God has promised to us and only then will we know what His will is. God’s will is always based upon God’s word. You see if you are praying for God to heal you today, I’m sorry but you may not have any confidence in God. Are you asking according to His will? If you are what scriptures are you using to base your confidence? What is the will of God for healing you? Do you have any divine promises that says He will heal you? If you can quote the verses to me, then you have a sound foundational basis for having confidence, if you cannot quote them and you have to go look them up, then you have no confidence because you do not know what God has spoken.
It is like a man who prays for salvation from God. He is very sincere and he opens his mouth and says “God please save me” over and over again. What is God’s reaction to that type of prayer? I believe that God will say “I came to the earth, I died on the cross, and I shed my blood for your salvation already, what do you expect me to do now?” God would also say “I already did save you; my part is done now you do your part and receive it”. I heard a story of a man who kept telling a preacher, “When God gets ready he will save me”. This preacher tried to tell the man that God had done His part to save him already. But, the man just kept believing, that God was going to save him some day. When this man was very old lying on his death bed he still believed the same thing and died and went to hell. When people think and believe wrong they do without the blessing of God. If you are waiting on God to do something, you are thinking wrong and you better learn to change to see that God has already given you the Promised Land and He is waiting on you to possess it. These are examples of praying in error, believing in error and doing without. When you pray and ask for something that God says has already been given to you then you are basically saying to God “I don’t believe you Lord”; “Please give me the Promised Land”. God is still going to tell you “It is yours already”. But, you are going to say I’m still in the wilderness and I don’t have it and God is going to say by faith you do. That is one of the primary problems that Christians have today, God says by faith you will possess it and by having no faith you will miss out on it and die in the wilderness.
1Jn 5:15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
If you actually know something then you can have great confidence in it happening. However, it depends upon who is speaking to you, doesn’t it? If I told you that I will meet tomorrow in Washington D.C. at the capitol rotunda, would you have any confidence of the meeting happening? Not, if you do not know me. You see you are only going to have confidence in those that you know who are faithful and true. If you do not know that God is faithful and true then you will have no confidence in Him answering your prayer either. So what did we just learn about how to pray with confidence?
- Find the Bible promises that have been given to you.
- Put them into your heart by speaking them to yourself over and over.
- Pray in faith according to the promise that was given to you believing you receive it.
- Since you prayed and asked God knowing His will, you now know the Bible says God heard you.
- Since you know God heard you, you now know that you have what you asked for by faith.
- Therefore, you don’t pray and ask God for it again tomorrow because it looks like it didn’t happen.
- What I like to do is to thank God for giving me the answer, even though I do not see it in the natural yet.
- Then once it does show up in the natural, then I fight to hold on to it so that Satan does not come to try to take it away from me.
It sounds easy until you realize that it takes time for the answer to arrive from God. When Daniel prayed to God and asked for a simple answer, he waited and fasted for three weeks and finally the angel of God arrived with the answer. I do not know how long it would have taken if it was a really big thing that Daniel needed, but it makes me wonder. We like to think that God is omnipotent and can just cause things to happen instantly. But, this is not what the Bible teaches us. The angel told Daniel the very day you prayed I was sent by God, but the prince of Persia withstood me so that I could not come (Dan 10:13). You see there are spiritual forces other than God in the world and these are not on God’s side. These evil spirits are set to destroy you, kill you and steal from you and they are doing everything in their power to cause God’s blessings not to come to you. These are some of the spiritual giants of the Promised Land that will come to try to keep you out. So just because you pray according to the will of God and you know that He heard you, you will be presented a daily challenge for a time to believe that you have what God has given to you. This is why God says for you to Fight the Good Fight of Faith (1 Tim 6:12). Faith is a spiritual fight to possess the Promised Land and you are responsible for this fight. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world (Eph 6:12).
When praying and asking God for anything and it does not happen in a reasonable timeframe, learn to recognize where the problem lies. If you have prayed for something for 10 years and God is still silent about it, then God is not the problem you are. I once heard a minister say this; “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. This same minister said if I pray and God does not answer in a short time, then I change and find out what I’m doing wrong. You see God tells us that He is always faithful and God says He does not ever change (Mal 3:6). So if God is not changing where does the change need to occur in order for you to see your miracle? Wow, I said some really important things today, but this is one of the greatest ones that you need to learn quickly. Quit praying for things that God has already said “I’ve done that!”. Quit praying for the same thing over and over. Either get into faith and receive the answer from God or start to realize that you may just be wasting your breath.
Pro 3:26 For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.
Pro 14:26 In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge.
Here are just a couple of verses about having confidence in God. It appears to me that having confidence in God helps to save us from trouble. God speaks of a place of refuge which is like a safe house in a major storm. God speaks of not being taken, and that is again speaking of being kept safe. Perhaps I should discuss a little bit about what “confidence” is. If I have confidence in someone, then I can put my trust in them. This is the common bond to a healthy marriage. When each spouse trusts the other, they have confidence in their decisions and actions that they are true. If you spouse is unfaithful you learn very quickly that trust is gone. This is our relationship with God also. We have a covenant with the Most High God. In the eyes of God this is a marriage contract built on mutual trust. I hope you understand these concepts. If you do not, go and read my Bible lessons on “Understanding Covenants”.
Rth 2:12 The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.
You see the trust concept plays a huge role in your relationship with God. The better you know Him the more you will learn to trust Him. The less you know Him the minimum amount of confidence you will have in Him. I believe God understands the concept that trust grows. Here in this verse in Ruth, God is saying that the woman Ruth has grown to trust in the God of Israel. After all she was a Gentile who was not in covenant with Him. She had no basis for having any confidence in the God of Israel. Yet she by faith learned to grow in trust of the Lord and became one of the women in the lineage of Jesus.
Pro 30:5 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
God is telling you that you can trust His words. You can put your full confidence in what God says. This is a basic model of having faith in a God that you cannot see and cannot prove exists, yet you believe He will do what He said He will do. I will tell you today that God will move heaven and earth for any man or woman on the earth that will believe Him.
2Ch 16:9 For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.
This verse tells me that God is searching for someone to bless. It clearly tells us the eyes of God are in heavy search mode looking for someone. What have we learned from reading the Bible is the key determining factor to whether God does anything for anybody on the earth? You better say it is because they had faith. You can go and read Hebrews chapter 11 and see that God’s Faith hall of fame encompasses most of the famously named individuals who did great exploits for God in the Old Testament. God lists these people to show you that faith was the determining factor for their success in life. The basis of their success however was also because they had great confidence in their God and His ability to save and deliver them. So we are not putting our confidence in ourselves or our ability to do anything, we are merely exalting God to His rightful place as the source of all of our confidence and trust.
I had a man today, write me and tell me I sounded arrogant in what I teach. This man clearly did not understand the concept of confidence and trust. If I taught things that I learned on my own abilities then I would be having confidence in me and that would be arrogance and foolishness. However, I teach things that God has taught me and therefore I have learned that I can depend upon Him and put all my confidence in Him so sometimes I come across sounding arrogant to narrow minded people, but hopefully to others, they will also see that they can learn to have the same level of confidence that I possess and grow in it to become even greater. I am not talking about me or you being great, I’m talking about our confidence in God being great and growing. You can learn to have confidence in God also and someday you will see that you may also sound a little arrogant. Just do not confuse arrogance with confidence because they both sound very similar to the untrained ear. You can learn to trust Him. But, you are going to have to find out what He said in His word in order to do this. Read the Bible like it is a personal letter written only to you. Claim what you need and then go and possess it. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons about faith then go to “Part 10“.
Understanding Bible Faith! The Spiritual Enemies to Your Faith? Part 8
(Ver 1.3) This is now Part 8 in a series of very advanced studies about the subject of Bible Faith. Today’s lesson will be a continuation of the lesson that I taught on last time about Using Your Faith to Possess the Promised Land. In this lesson the Promised Land was described to us to be entering God’s Rest found in Hebrews 3 and 4. What we discovered was that the children of Israel coming out of Egypt represented a natural type of the spiriutal church and God’s salvation from Satan and the world of darkness. We definitely learn from this type that salvation was not the end of the Christian journey, but rather the beginning of our spiritual walk through the wilderness where we hear and learn the Word of God personally. You might recall that after the children of Israel left Egypt they had to go through the Red Sea that was parted for them by the hand of God. We are taught in the N.T. that this was a type of natural baptism into Moses that corresponds to Christians that are now spiritually baptized into Christ during salvation (1 Cor 10:2). The symbolism in this O.T. story is quite extensive and has many applications and lessons for the church. The Red Sea is really a type of the Blood of Christ that we have been baptized into. The cloud by day and the fire by night is a type of the leading of the Holy Spirit today in the church. The Bible tells us that those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God (Rom 8:14). Just as the cloud led the children of Israel through the wilderness, so the Holy Spirit leads us today. The Promised Land in the story of the children of Israel represents the promises of God that God has given to the church to possess today. You see, the truth of Christianity is not about the promises that we make to God, it is really much more about the promises that God has already made to us. Just as God told Israel “I have given you the land”, God is saying to the church “I have given you the victory over poverty, sickness, emotional despair, distress and the other things that He has given to us as promises in His Word” and we are to go into the this spiritual land and take them by our faith. Here is another interesting parallel. The children of Israel wandered for 40 years into the wilderness until finally a generation came along to possess the promise land. If you consider the church age has been going on for approximately 40 Jubilees then you will realize that we are the spiritual generation prophesied to take the Promised Land. A Jubilee is a 50 year period where God’s plan has recorded many secret parallels. If you multiply 40 x 50 you get 2000 years. All of these are amazing parallels that speak that we are God’s people that will take the land already given to us. Here are just a few of the promises of God found in the Old Testament. I will give you these as examples so that you know what to look for.
Pro 1:23 “I will make known my words unto you”.
Joel 2:25 “I will restore to you the years..”
Joel 2:28 “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh…”
Jer 30:17 “I will restore health to you and I will heal thee of your wounds…”
Jer 33:6 “I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth”.
Nah 1:13 “For now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder”.
Zec 3:4 “I will clothe thee with a change of raiment”.
Whenever God tells you that He will do something, these represent God’s promises that have been given to you and He is committed to fulfill them. These are just a few of the promises of God found in His Word that can be possessed by men and women in the earth, if they mix their faith with them. Just as we learned that Israel was given the Promised Land, they did not possess it because God says they did not mix any faith with the Gospel that was spoken to them (Heb 4:2); this still applies to you today also. The only way to possess the promises of God that have already been given to you is by you mixing your faith to possess them. I’m sorry I sometimes repeat myself, but I want you to get it. Hopefully you have read all of these faith lessons in the series and you have been taking notes so that you can learn this important subject. In my opinion, Faith is one of the top three subjects that every Christian should know completely. We have found that faith is more complex than just simply believing in something or someone. We have seen that faith involves several independent subjects working together in harmony to produce a positive result. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start reading with “Part 1”.
Just as the children of Israel sent spies into the Promised Land to investigate their possession, we can do the same still today using God’s word. You see the spies of Israel went in and found giants and these are a type of something in our Promised Land. There are still many spiritual enemies trying to intimidate you and to try to keep you from walking in the victory that God has already given to you. Today I will be the spy that gives you the report of these enemies and what you do with this information is up to you, just like it was up to the children of Israel what they did. I plan on being a type of Joshua and not a type of the ten spies with the evil report, but hopefully you will learn what to do. The first spiritual enemy that I want to discuss is the giant of ignorance. Here is one of my favorite Bible verses because of what God teaches us:
Hos 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
To be destroyed is the opposite of being victorious so this sound like it applies to our story of the children of Israel and why they died in the wilderness. Ignorance is the opposite of possessing knowledge. What we have here is one of the primary reasons that God’s people are defeated easily. God reveals to us (His New Covenant People) that we will also be destroyed if we remain ignorant and unlearned. Therefore, the knowledge of God should be the number one goal for the people of God. Let’s put this into context with the subject of having faith. We learned that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rom 10:17). So if we have not heard the Word of God it is impossible to have any faith. If you have not heard the Word of God, then you are ignorant of the Word of God and therefore you are easily defeated. In order to not be ignorant you are going to have to hear from God and this involves Him teaching you His knowledge.
Pro 11:9 An hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour: but through knowledge shall the just be delivered.
God gives us clues in the Bible and here is one of them that I am attempting to teach you about today. God is saying that “knowledge” will cause His people to be delivered from their adversary. It is very obvious to me that the lack of knowledge is being stated as one of the key factors to why you are defeated. Because you never knew or understood what faith was, you were constantly defeated. But, now that you are learning about faith you are a potential threat to the enemy of ignorance and Satan. You see Satan wants you ignorant. He is doing all that he can to keep you from knowing the truth. As long as you are ignorant of the truth you are no threat of taking the Promised Land. Knowing this fact alone should cause you to become a more diligent Bible student. You should try to do what I do and spend hours a day in the Word of God. I know in today’s busy world this is almost impossible, but learn what God said in Proverbs “The knowledge of God is greater than obtaining gold” (Prov 8:10). You see God is saying knowing His word should be your number one priority above you working to get rich. Please understand that God does not care if you are rich, but know this that He does cares if you are ignorant. One of the wealthiest men in the entire Bible was Solomon. His wealth is still spoken of today. However please note how Solomon got this way. Solomon wrote some of the greatest wisdom books found in the Bible. Therefore, Solomon had the wisdom of God and this caused him to be rich mentally and physically. This ought to tell you something about you knowing the ways of God that it will cause you to become wealthy. Israel was primarily defeated in the wilderness because of their ignorance. So ignorance is the first giant of faith land that is attempting to defeat you. Let’s move on to the next giant in the land.
The next spiritual giant that will come against you is the giant of “fear”. The ten spies of Israel brought back an evil report and their words caused fear to spread throughout the people. It was this fear that caused the majority of the people of God to die in the wilderness never to see the good land that God had already given to them. Over the course of 40 years the children of Israel died one by one and were defeated, except for Joshua and Caleb. You see Joshua and Caleb said they were well able to take the land and they were never afraid. Joshua and Caleb did not allow fear to rule their lives or their outcome. Let’s look at a verse of scripture that Jesus is teaching us about the giant of fear:
Luk 8:50 But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.
If you read the context of this verse you will discover that this is another faith lesson within a faith lesson from the Lord God. A man comes up to Jesus and he asks Jesus to come to his house to heal his only daughter because she is dying. While Jesus is on the way to his house, the woman with the issue of blood comes and touches His clothes and gets healed as we have already talked a lot about her faith. Before Jesus could finish with the woman with the issue of blood, some messengers come to the man with the sick daughter and informs him it is too late, your daughter is dead. However, death is not the end of the story, is it? Jesus only looks at the man and says “Fear not, only believe and she will be made whole”. Do you see what is happening here? Here is a faith choice between two reports being given to a man in a highly pressure filled moment of time. One report is very evil and the other is a good report from God and the man has a critical internal decision to make in a split second. This man could get into fear and believe the evil report or stay in faith and believe the report of the Lord. Jesus heard the same report as the man did, but it did not affect Jesus in the least. If you go and continue reading this story Jesus does make it to the man’s house and Jesus makes everyone leave except for the parents. Jesus speaks to the daughter and she arises from the bed healed. Which report did the father believe? Do you think it mattered? I know that it mattered and he believed the words of God. This is again the story of the children of Israel who had a choice to make and they chose fear and death in the wilderness. This man chose faith and saw his daughter raised from the dead. That is pretty awesome if you ask me. Let us look at another faith story about the giant of fear in faith land:
Mar 4:40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?
If you read the context of this verse you will see that Jesus is asleep in the boat and the disciples are trying to sail across a large body of water and suddenly a storm arises. Now, Jesus had already said they were going to the other side so these were the faith filled words of God already spoken informing the disciples of the outcome before it happens. Just as God had told the children of Israel “I have given you the land” they let their fear of the inhabitants of the land conquer them without a battle or a fight. So when the disciples looked at their enemy of the wind and the waves, like the children of Israel in the wilderness they caved to the fear and were easily defeated also without a battle or a fight. They ignored Jesus’ words for the sight of the physical surroundings and circumstances and Jesus is awaken and was not happy at all with them. Jesus stills the winds and the waves with His words and then turns to the disciples and declares there is a major problem here. “Why are you so fearful?” Fear is always the opposite of having any faith. So when you see your situation to be unwinnable or insurmountable and you get into fear, you are about to sink your boat. Jesus was the only one on the boat that had any faith and fortunately for them He was there. What were the disciples expected to do differently? That is a really good question to consider. I personally believe that if they would have believed the words of Jesus, they might have gone to lay down with Jesus and gone to sleep also. I do not recall Jesus telling them they had to sail the boat to get across the body of water. Maybe you and they assumed this, but that is not always good to assume what Jesus wants you to do. Regardless of what they did or didn’t do, I do not believe that they would have drowned or that their boat would have been lost if they would have stayed in faith. Of course what the disciples really should have done was what Jesus did; get up and speak to the problem to cause it to stop. I never think it is wrong to do what Jesus did. Oh, yea they are not God, how can they do this? You see the problem with people is that they think that they cannot do what Jesus did because they think He is God in His omnipotent power. But, that is just not true. Jesus was God, but God had become a man just like you and me and if He could do something, then we can do the same thing. What Jesus did was to set us an example that we can do the exact same things that He did. Do you recall what Jesus said? Jesus said in John 14:12 “The works that I do, shall you do and greater works shall you do because I go to my Father”. Was Jesus telling us that we could do what He did? I believe that is exactly what He was saying to me, you can decide to do with it what you want to and even ignore it if you like. I believe that Jesus expected them to do what He did and they chose to believe the circumstances instead. The spiritual giants of fear, panic, dread, fright, and being afraid are all still very real and they exist today. Satan will cause the circumstances to look just as formidable as the children of Israel were facing and he will even cause people to come to you and tell you how bad it is, to get you into fear. This could be a doctor’s report that says you only have a short time to live. It could be many different things, but yet Jesus taught us that it will come and you will have to choose not to believe it. Let us move on to another faith land giant that is trying to defeat you:
Mat 14:31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
Here is another faith lesson from the God of creation. Jesus is walking on the water and the disciples are in a boat and Jesus is about to pass them by when they see Him and they think it is a spirit or a ghost. After all men can’t walk on water so they thought. Anyway Peter suddenly gets faith and thinks if Jesus can walk on water then I can do this also. Peter is beginning to catch on to what Jesus was teaching. Peter saw that Jesus was setting them an example showing them what they could do. So Peter says to Jesus “If it is you, bid me to come”. Of course Jesus had no choice but to say “Come” because it was Him. Peter steps out of the boat onto the water and he begins to walk to Jesus and this is a really amazing feat and I’ll tell you why. Peter was walking on the water by his own faith and not the faith of Jesus. He based his faith on the Words of God, but it was his faith that kept him from sinking, until he started thinking about what he was doing. You see the Bible says that Peter began to observe the wind and the waves and this caused something to change in his previous water walking faith level. This is an important faith lesson for you to learn today. It concerns the circumstances that you will also be faced with. If you begin to believe today that you are healed and tomorrow things look worse than they did today, what will your reaction be? You can clearly see by Jesus’s words that He told Peter you should not doubt. He asked Peter “Why did you doubt”. By Jesus asking this question it is obvious that it was Peter’s doubt that caused him to begin to sink, so it had to be Peter’s faith that caused him to walk on the water. What is doubt? Here is a definition from the Strong’s concordance of this word:
From G1364 properly to duplicate, that is, (mentally) to waver (in opinion): – doubt.
This word comes from a root word meaning twice. It is basically saying to us that those who are double minded are those who are in doubt. We can quickly learn that being single minded and focused is the state of faith and being double minded is the state of doubt. This word can mean to waver and this means to hesitate or change your confidence. It is sometimes difficult to understand when we are double minded and when we have thoughts from Satan that are contrary to having faith but we will have to learn the difference. Remember an earlier faith lessons I taught about the factor of having “confidence”? Having confidence today and not tomorrow is being double minded and allowing doubt to rule your life and your spirit. If you believe today that God has done what he has promised and tomorrow when it looks worse you no longer have the same confidence then you are in doubt. The Bible teaches us this that “We walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7). This means that we do not observe our surroundings with your physical senses and allow them to control us. What if Peter would have ignored the environmental circumstances while he was walking on the water and not looked at the wind and the waves, what would have happened? This is actually a very good faith lesson to learn and it teaches us to ignore the circumstances of life and to only focus on the rpomise of the Word of God. Keep your eyes on Jesus and the Word of God and ignore your external circumstances. Of course I’m not saying for you to stop taking your medicine or to do something stupid. I’m just saying keep your eyes on Jesus no matter what is happening around you. I believe that if Peter would have only looked at Jesus, they could have walked to the other side together. So this is the giant of doubt that will come to try to keep you out of possessing the Promised Land. I can almost guarantee you that all of these enemies will show up to fight against you. Even Jesus had opportunities to get into fear, to doubt, or to become worried, to waver or to allow the circumstance to overwhelm Him. But, He set the example for us to follow and we need to learn to follow Him and all of His ways. These are probably not all of the enemies in your faith battle, but they are some of the most important ones for you to learn about that I know of. Overcome the giant of ignorance by gaining the knowledge of God. Overcome the spirit of fear by resisting it. When the giant of doubt comes, keep your eyes focused on Jesus and He will see you through to victory. I hope that you enjoyed my Bible faith lesson about Possessing the Promised Land and that you can take away something that will cause you to become victorious. I still have a lot to talk about on understanding this subject of Bible faith, so please continue studying the Bible with me. God Bless.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons about Bible faith you can continue to “Part 9“.
Understanding Bible Faith! How to Use Your Faith to Possess the Promised Land! Part 7
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 7 in a series of very advanced studies about the subject of Bible Faith. Today’s lesson will be an extended message on a subject that I just barely mentioned briefly in my last lesson. Sometimes you cannot cover everything in one lesson and so you have to spread the information out to give the details in limited proportions. I try not to overwhelm people with too much complex information all at once. Hopefully the way that I teach a subject is in an arrangement of understandable chunks that allows you to learn it a little bit at a time. When I learned computer programming, this is exactly how they taught it in school to me. They taught an introduction to computer programming class first that was the basic concepts of the subject. This introductory class was a prerequisite to the next subject of computer programming and each class became progressively more advanced. If they would have covered the advanced subjects first, they would have had no one graduate or pass, but since they started with the basics and moved to the more complex subjects many more people were able to learn it and become programmers. Well this is the way you should approach your Bible study also. Subjects in the Bible range from basic to expert levels. My Bible studies are generally very advanced complex subject studies. They are intended for people who know the basics of the Bible already. Paul called this teaching the meat of the Word of God and Paul had the same problem that I do sometimes. Paul told the Corinthian church, I could not feed you meat because you were babes in need of milk (1 Cor 3:2). I do teach some milk basics occasionally, but not always. If you do not understand Bible basics you should find a really good Bible teacher who goes over these concepts or you should ask me questions and I will try to answer them so you will be able to better understand the complex things that God wants you to learn and grow in spiritually.
We have been progressively moving through the subject of Bible faith and today I want to teach a lesson on possessing the Promised Land using your faith. Of course this is a strange concept to teach since we are not of the nation of Israel who lived in the Old Testament and many of us therefore think that this Old Testament story does not apply to us. However, God teaches us something very profoundly different in the New Testament and this is what I will cover today. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1” first and work your way forward. Learn to look up the Bible verses that I include in these lessons in your Bible, take notes and learn to make hi-lights and underline important parts that you did not know or have never thought of before. Learn to see what the Bible says while you learn how to study the Bible and that will help you infinitely more than the things that I teach you today. If you can learn how to fish you will be much better off than depending on me to do all of your fishing for you. I hope you understand what I just said.
Heb 4:2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
Here is a very strange verse about faith. God is comparing two groups of people, us and them. But, who is us and who is them? You have to back up and read the context to find the answers to those questions. If you go back and read chapter 3 you will find references to the children of Israel coming out of the nation of Egypt. The entire chapter is focused in on the subject of entering into God’s rest. It is implied that the promise land was the land of God’s rest. But, the rest of chapter 3 informs us that the majority of Israel perished in the wilderness and did not enter into God’s rest. God’s rest is exactly a type of something that we are focused in on today. It says in chapter 3 very clearly that the children of Israel did not enter in because of their unbelief. I have only mentioned this maybe a couple of times in this series, that unbelief is the opposite of faith. Actually unbelief is belief, just wrong belief in the wrong words. You may recall that Israel sent 12 spies into the promise land and ten returned with an evil report saying we are not able to possess it. The majority of Israel believed the evil report and as a result entered into unbelief of what God had said. So the “them” in this verse that I gave you is concretely confirmed to be the children of Israel. Now, if you go to Hebrews 3:1 you will see who it says is the “us”:
Heb 3:1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;
Obviously then Christ Jesus is said to be the Apostle and High Priest of the church. The “us” in this verse is referring to those who have believed the Gospel that was preached. These are the Joshua and Caleb type of Christians who will actually get to enter into God’s Promised Land. Is that you also? I know that is me, but you may not know that this is you. Only you can believe for you. I cannot have faith for you to be saved. Everyone is required to have faith for themselves. So that is a basic faith lesson that you should have already learned or understood from the first six lessons in this series about faith. It might have never been taught to you directly, but it was an implied teaching in many of the lessons. Just learn that faith is personal and only your faith will cause things to happen for you. Jesus never looked at anyone and said “Be of good cheer, My Faith has made you whole”. Did Jesus have faith? I believe that He did, but I also believe that Jesus could not force His faith to work for anyone else either.
So we have discovered a concept of us versus them being stated. God says, according to Hebrews 4:2, the gospel was preached to both groups, but only one group called “us” is profiting from it. The concept of mixing faith with the Word of God is what is being taught and many people do not even know this is a requirement. If you think, you can see that there are many people who hear the gospel in churches and on TV and they are never saved. Why is that? God tells us, that it is because they did not mix any faith with what they heard. You can clearly understand that faith is a freewill choice of man and a personal responsibility that God cannot override. Mixing faith with the Word of God is described to be a partnership agreement. Think of it like God gives you some faith ingredients to make a faith cake. You are taking what He has given you and putting all of these faith ingredients for a faith cake into a large bowl and then you are supposed to turn the mixer on to combine the ingredients. This is exactly what God is saying. Bible faith consists of several key ingredients that I have mentioned to you and each of these is supposed to be added in the correct order to get the proper results. Using the analogy of the cake, what if you left out the eggs or the flour? Would the cake turn out? If you have ever cooked before you know that following the recipe is a requirement for repeated results. Well, this is what God is teaching you now. Learn the ingredients of Faith and then mix them together in the correct order to get results. God does His part and you are responsible for doing your part. I have heard numerous ignorant people try to tell me I am wrong, but I ignore them because they lack spiritual knowledge. I have also heard several misinformed preachers try to tell me that God is not a formula. That salvation is not a formula. That faith is not a formula. In their minds they have rejected the truth in the Bible for their own personal interpretation of reality. If God did not want you to learn about this subject, why would God have put so many examples, definitions and scriptures about it in the Bible? You see you can clearly find that it must be very important to learn and to implement if you can actually understand what it all says. So I’m not teaching you a formula for success, I’m just teaching you the Bible and you can do with it whatever you want.
Faith as you recall always starts with hearing the Word of God. Faith then progresses through a series of steps that includes you understanding what you heard and then choosing and deciding to believe it to be the truth. I then taught you that those who believe will speak what they believe and then do what they say. This is just a basic reality of how faith works and today I am going to show you why you still need to mix faith with the Word of God to produce any positive results.
Heb 4:1 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
Here is God telling the church that there is still a promise land left to possess. This verse is written to you and you are still required to possess the promises of God with your faith. God taught us that this is entering into His rest. We read verse 2 earlier so let’s skip down to verse 3 and see what God is saying to the church:
Heb 4:3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
Wow, this is very difficult to accept. Remember what believing is? Belief is the opposite of unbelief, so we are back to having faith. Remember that belief is accepting the Word of God as fact and that unbelief is rejecting the word of God in favor of someone else’s opinion. We learned this by studying the children of Israel and the 12 spies that they sent into the promise land. This verse in Hebrews 4:3 says those that have faith and believe the Word of God have entered into the rest. Wow, again and double wow! Do you feel like you are in rest? I just watched the evening world news and it is almost scary what is happening in the world. The evening news is reporting riots and people being killed. The price of the world basic necessity of gasoline is going sky high with no end in sight. The news is reporting escalating food prices and food shortages because of weather related catastrophes around the world. The government problems with the out of control economies of the world are in dire straits. There is trouble and confusion in every city and it appears to be getting worse and not better. So are you in rest? After hearing about the trouble it is a very difficult thing to consider. However, God clearly tells us that those who have believed have entered into rest. Rest represents the promises of God and the symbolic Promised Land. I personally believe that God is calling those things that be not as though they were and I’ll talk more about that soon.
If you recall, the children of Israel came out of Egypt by the mighty demonstration of the hand of God. God used His servant Moses to deliver the people of Israel from their bondage of Egyptian slavery that lasted 430 years. It is almost comical to not see the spiritual implications given to us in this natural historical story of deliverance. The children of Adam in the world were in bondage to Satan for 4030 years when the servant of God named, Jesus died on the cross in another mighty demonstration of the hand of God. Therefore, the deliverance from Egypt is a type of the salvation of Jesus from the dominion of Satan. Now, there are vast numbers of Christian churches that only emphasize deliverance from Egypt. They teach salvation like it is going out of style and then neglect to mention what happens in the wilderness? Does the story of the children of Israel stop with salvation? You see the story does not end at deliverance and salvation; it is only there that the beginning of the new story of life after salvation starts to appear and open up. Salvation is not the end all results for Christians in the world. If it were the end results, then we should get people saved and kill them so that they go directly to heaven. Obviously this does not make any sense does it? What we learn in reading about the children of Israel is that God had given to Abraham a land and this land was theirs but yet they did not possess it yet. God called this entering into His rest. That almost sound like an oxymoronic expression since Israel was required to take the promise land by force and to kill all of the giants that were in it. God called this fight a rest and it sounds much more like an extended effort of battle or work. That is the complexity of the Bible, isn’t it? Surely you can still see the parallels being given to us (the church) that we are required to possess the promise land. What exactly is this Promised Land that we are supposed to mix our faith with to possess today?
1Jn 2:25 And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
Do you understand that God has made you promises in His word? What is the definition of a promise? This Greek word “promised” means the following “to assert something respecting oneself”. A promise is always a word based commitment to do something. If I said I promise to meet you at 3:00 PM in the lobby. I committed to do something to cause the meeting to happen like I said. This is the nature of a promise and it is totally based upon the integrity of the person who spoke the promise. If someone makes you a promise that has no moral character or integrity, then you should know not to count on it happening. This is where the integrity of God comes into play. If you are a Christian then you should know Him well enough to realize that it is impossible for God to lie. Then you must accept that the Bible is God speaking to you personally. Therefore, if it is impossible for God to lie and you can find a promise in the Bible from God, telling you personally that He will do something, then that is your opportunity to go and possess it by mixing faith with it. This is the New Covenant Promised Land which comes from an Old Covenant pattern and I’ll give you another Bible verse to help you begin to see it:
2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
What does God say in this verse? Does He not say that you have been given promises? These are not just any normal promises according to this verse. God calls them exceedingly great and very precious promises. That means that they are free, but they did not cost Him nothing to provide them to you. What God is saying is that they are highly valuable to possess, but yet we do not all possess them do we? This verse says “that you might become partakers”. You could call these people the potential possessors of the Promised Land. But, this promise land is always conditional and it is never dumped into your laps with you doing nothing. You see using the natural nation of Israel as our examples, there were many of them who died in the wilderness and never entered into the best that God had already given to them. This was the land that flowed with milk and honey and many, many never saw it. What can we learn from this lesson? Obviously according to Hebrews 4 we saw that they did not mix any faith and therefore they died without it. They heard that God had given them the land, but refused to believe it. So they did not enter into it and died in their unbelief.
2Co 1:20 For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.
Here is another verse from the mouth of God telling us that He has given to us “Promises”. Is there only one promise? According to these last two verses there are many promises. We obviously do not know very many of them, do we? It would be very much worth our time to go through the Bible to discover what God has promised to give us. Maybe in a future Bible study series I will do this. God definitely tells us that He has given to us promises, but like the children of Israel we are required to mix faith with these promises in order to possess them. Let’s review another Old Testament example of God’s promise and how it was fulfilled to learn some more of the concepts of mixing faith.
Rom 9:9 For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son.
Here in this verse we are told that God made Abram and Sarai a promise to have a son. If you have read this story in Genesis, you know that Sarai was a barren woman unable to have children most of her life. So when God comes to Abram and Sarai they have a great desire for an heir, but did not know how to cause it to happen. God appeared to Abram and told him that his seed would become as the stars of the heaven and the sands of the sea shore (Gen 22:17). Yet, years and years went by and nothing happened. Sarai got desperate and gave Hagar to her husband so that they could have a child this way. We can learn that Abram and Sarai knew how babies were made, so that was not the problem. This turned out to be a huge mistake and we still see the conflict going on in the world today. This was man’s attempt to fulfill the promise of God and this never works. You cannot do by works of the flesh, what God has given to you to possess only by faith. So how did God get Abram into faith? That is a very interesting question to consider. Remember what I taught you about the woman with the issue of blood? “For she said” and then it happened. God tricks Abram into having faith. Before this next verse that I’m going to give you, Abram asks God “what will you give me seeing I go childless?” Abram saw himself as a childless man and this is not faith. What if God in the first chapter of Genesis saw only darkness and He could not envision light? Would light have come? Light came only because God could see the light inside of Him and then He spoke it out and then light was. This is the concept of “calling those things that be not as though they were” that I talked about earlier. Read this next verse that I will give you from the story of Abram:
Gen 17:5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.
God tells Abram I have made you a father of many nations even before he has had a child through his wife Sarai. This is God calling Abram a father before he was a father. God tells Abram, “no longer is your name Abram, but it shall be called Abraham”. This is a very tricky way of getting Abram to have faith. If you read my last Bible lesson you understand that almost every Hebrew name has a hidden meaning and the name Abraham is no different. The name Abraham means “a father of a multitude”. Now everywhere Abraham goes and speaks his name, he is calling himself a father of many. Is Abraham speaking what God said? Is Abraham now calling himself the father of many sons? Do you understand that this is the concept that the woman with the issue of blood also did? She called herself healed before she was healed. God told Abraham you are the father of many nations and now Abraham believes God and because he tells everyone his name, he speaks it before it happens. This is an amazing faith lesson and you should pay very close attention to it. Abraham’s faith was based upon the Word of God and your faith must be based upon the Word of God. Abraham had a promise from God; you must have a promise from God also. Abraham believed God and you must believe God before you see the evidence. Remember faith is your only evidence that you possess before it happens. Abraham learned to have confidence in God and you must learn to have confidence in Him. By Abraham speaking his name on a daily basis, he began to expect it to happen and in less than a year, he had the promised son through his wife Sarah. This is how faith works according the Word of God.
So go through the Bible and find your promise that you need and then mix your faith to possess it. If you want to live a full life, then go find the promise that says “With a long life I will satisfy you” (Psalm 91:16). If you want to be healed, the go find the promise of healing that says “By whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). These are just two of the promises of God and there are hundreds of others. If you want to possess them, do what Abraham did and call yourself with them. If you have no children or are unable to have children and you want children, begin to say I am the father of a son or a daughter. I am the mother of a son or a daughter. When you call yourself one and believe it, God says you will have it. This is how you poses the Promised Land and enter into the rest of God. Do not be naïve to think that it will happen like magic, be prepared for the enemies of this spiritual Promised Land to resist you tooth and nail. There are always spiritual giants that still exist today. However, possessing God’s Promised Land is a spiritual internal battle that will be fought on inside of you mostly in your mind. I believe that it will be worth the effort if you want to possess it. I’m sure that Joshua and Caleb were very glad after they had taken the land that was said by God to be theirs 40 years earlier. I literally poured my heart and my tears into this lesson so that I could help someone that is faced with a challenge today. I pray that you will learn to become a doer of the Word of God and not a hearer only. God Bless you all as we strive to enter into His rest. In the next lesson I will be teaching about the spiritual enemies to your faith fight.
If you like to continue reading this series of lessons about Bible Faith please go to “Part 8“.
Understanding Bible Faith! What Is Bible Faith and What Makes it Different than Other Types of Faith? Part 6
(Ver 1.4) This is Part 6 in a series of very advanced studies about the subject of Bible Faith. Today’s lesson will be a discussion concerning the definition of Bible faith, then we will have a discussion about what faith is and then finally how your Bible faith is different from another person’s faith like those that believe in Islam, Buddha or whoever. If you have been reading this series of lessons, you should know that the subject of faith is a very complex topic to completely understand, like most other subjects found in the Bible. In the last lesson I discussed 8 basic factors that all contributed to you having faith. I also went into the Old Testament and even showed how faith was demonstrated in the life of David and how all of the steps that i listed were still valid for what was written about concerning David’s faith. You should be able to draw out these steps in the lives of anybody in the Bible that is said to have faith. Go through the list of faith heroes found in Hebrews 11 and see who God has inducted into the faith hall of fame and then go read about them again in the Old Testament. See how they heard God say something, see how they received what was spoken, understanding it and then believed it. Then watch and listen to everything that they say and do. See if they expect anything to happen. See if they have any confidence in God coming through for them. Elijah is a great faith man. He called down fire from heanven. He spoke words that caused it not to rain for three and half years. Go and read these stories again and you will see that God honored their faith when nothing else would work. Even though God never mentioned faith as a factor, God always moved the mightiest when a man was established in faith and believed God’s Word. Here are the steps that I have listed for you to review:
- Your Will
- Your Ability to Hear
- Your Understanding of the Word Heard
- Your Beliefs
- Your Confidence
- Your Words
- Your Expectation Level
- Your Actions
These are what I call the Faith Partners that must be present and working in unity to produce results. I hope that you have read all of the previous lessons for I will not be repeating that information in any great detail and it was all very important to know. So if you have not read from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start reading with “Part 1”.
In speaking of faith it is interesting to note that everyone in the world, saved or unsaved has faith to some degree. That sounds like a contradiction to a statement that I made in an earlier lesson where I told you that the Bible says “For all men do not have faith” (2 Th 3:2). But, what we must realize is that there are different types of faith and God is speaking of Bible faith in 2 Thessalonians 3:2 and not common human faith that everyone possesses. Faith is a basic human characteristic created by God. Faith is based upon ignorance and since every human is ignorant, we all have to have faith. Let me try to explain that last statement in different terms. Since none of us are God, our knowledge is extremely limited; would you agree with that statement? We therefore, on a daily basis accept many things by our faith and we do not even realize that this is what we are doing. For example, the sun rise this morning came by natural human faith. Now just because we have seen thousands of sunrises in the past does not necessarily prove or mean that there will be another one tomorrow. If you believe that there will be one then you are in effect placing your faith in your past experiences. You believe that the sun will rise tomorrow and thus your confidence and expectations are set based upon only on your past experiences or your current knowledge of how the earth rotates around the sun. There is no proof or evidence for the sun coming up tomorrow, because it has not happened yet. After it happens then you have the proof or evidence, but before it happens you can only believe that it will happen. This is common human faith, just not Bible faith. Let me try to give you another different example of having common faith. If you make a date with someone to have dinner at a certain time and place and you show up, then you had faith based upon what? Your faith is based upon the word of agreement from that person that you were supposed to meet with. Now depending upon who that person was, your confidence level and expectation level of them showing up might be great or it might be very small based upon your past experiences with them. This is acting out your faith in the real world, but this is not Bible faith. Showing up at a dinner date is an act of faith, you start with words with a friend, the two of you agree with the words that were heard to make the arrangements, you understand the arrangement, you believe the arrangement and then you wait for the time and go to the restaurant to meet with them. If your confidence level was correct you expect them to show up on time. That is how common faith works and we do it every day. Do you understand how human ignorance plays a role in both of these examples that I just gave you? In both cases you must believe in something that you cannot prove will happen. So let’s discuss what is different about Bible faith. The only difference is God is the one that we are expecting to show up; it is based upon His word that we are putting our confidence in. It is the Word of God that we must hear spoken and we must understand these words. Next we must believe the words and put our full confidence in Him and His Word. That is Bible faith and it is the exact same process that you went through to make a dinner reservation with a friend. Here is the challenge to Bible faith; no one has ever seen God. You cannot prove that God exists. So you take His existence by your faith and this is beginning of Bible faith, but not the end of it. God can then do many great things as your faith progresses upward to greater levels.
Do you realize that the Bible says it is impossible for God to lie? (Heb. 6:18, Tit. 1:2, Rom. 3:4) There are very few things in the Bible that it says that God cannot ever do and lie is definitely one of the few things that God is completely incapable of doing. Why is that important? It is important because it helps establish your confidence level in what the Bible says and the Word of God is the basis for Bible faith. If God says something in the Bible and you can claim it for yourself then God says you can have it (2 Cor 1:20). Many ignorant Christians have derogatorily called this a “name it and claim it” false religion. But, that is their problem and not mine, I’m just studying the Bible and seeing what it says and you can do whatever you like and ignore the parts of the Bible that do not fit your theology, if that is what you want to do. What these Christians do not realize is that faith is how they became a Christian and if they have no faith, then they are not Christians. The word of God is a handbook written to you personally. The words in it are written to you as a personal love letter and this is the basis or the foundation to your house of faith. You are building a faith house and your faith foundation must be the Word of God.
I am trying to teach you that everyone in the world has faith, but few have faith in God and even fewer have actual faith in His Word. Jesus taught us that wide is the path that leads to destruction and many are those that find this path (Mat 7:13). Jesus went on to say that narrow is the path to life and few are those who find it. Since both paths contain people with faith it is extremely sad to me that only a few get to live with God forever. What do the people on the wide path to destruction, have their faith in? They either believe there is no God, no judgment, no hell, no eternity, etc., or they believe in Buddha, Mohammed, Hare Krishna, the Dali Lama or some other false religion. Everyone believes something in the world, even the atheist believes there is no God, and the Hindu believes there is another chance coming in the next life, and on and on. Man was created by God to believe in something and this is what people do every day for good or evil.
That was my introduction to the definition of faith. As you can see it is complex while being based upon simple binary concepts. I learned this approach as a computer programmer. You take the complex system and reduce it to rudimentary understandable pieces and learn those and then as each part works together the complex system works as a whole. A binary concept is one where only two possible answers exist. In the binary world of computers everything is based upon either ones or zeros. That is the basis for the concepts of faith. You either, hear or you don’t hear. You either understand or you don’t understand. You either believe or you don’t believe. Just basic binary choices, yet making the right choices can result in great things and making the wrong choice can lead you down the wide path to destruction. I want to give you the classic Bible definition of what faith is according to the Word of God. This definition is found in the first verse of Hebrews 11 which is the famous “Faith Hall of Fame” chapter found in the Bible:
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
There are many people who have read this verse but do not understand what it means and I was one of those in the past. As you can see this verse contains the classic Bible construction of a definition being revealed to us. Whenever God gives us this information, it is a classic spiritual redefinition of a word that we thought we understood. This verse says “Faith IS” and then goes into what faith should be to us. I will take it word for word and hopefully elaborate on what it actually is saying. 
The first word in the verse is the word “Now” and this is a reference to time. Time is a concept expressed in three different dimensions. Time can be past, present or future. So we can clearly see that faith is said to be a present tense reality. In other words your faith that you had yesterday is not a factor and your faith that you will have tomorrow is also not a factor. It is only the faith that you have right now that is a factor to what happens to you right now. When people came up to Jesus, He would always rebuke them for having no faith or He would commend them for having great faith. When was their faith important or not important, effective or not effective to Jesus? You can clearly see that faith only mattered at the exact time when Jesus was speaking to them. Jesus never cared if they had faith yesterday and Jesus never cared if they might change and have faith tomorrow. Jesus never told anyone to go get more faith and come back tomorrow. If you had no faith right then and there, you got nothing from Jesus. The woman with the issue of blood got healed because she had right now faith at the instance when she needed it the most. All of the other people in the crowd had no faith while they were touching Him and none of them got healed. Do you understand now how important faith is? The next word in Hebrews 11 is “Faith” and since “Faith” is what we are defining, I will not be discussing that word.
So let’s move to the definition part of the Hebrews 11:1 verse and the words translated as “the substance”. This Greek word translated as “substance” is not easily understood unless you look up the definition in the Strong’s concordance and read what it says. This Greek word translated as “substance” means “confidence”. Here is one of the key 8 faith partners that I gave you earlier. Do you have any cofidence?
- Do you have confidence in the existence of God?
- Do you have confidence in the ability of God?
- Do you have confidence in God’s Word?
- Do you have confidence that God will do what He said?
Confidence is a multi-dimensional critical building block to having faith and I just listed four things that you need to have confidence in. if you have confidence in only 3 out of 4 of those things, then your confidence is lacking and you need to learn more of the Bible. Today, you might have confidence in one area but not every area that I just raised. Only you will be able to evaluate your level of confidence in each of those areas.
What is confidence based on? If you have experience with someone then you base your confidence level upon your experience. So what if you are new to someone? What do you have to base your confidence in? Confidence is a factor of trust. The better you know someone the more you trust them. This is another reason people fail to receive from God. They do not know God. They do not know the character of God. They do not know the integrity of God. They do not know the promises of God. You are going to have to ask yourself, do you trust God?
Psa 115:11 Ye that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.
There are too many verses in the Bible for me to give you them all about trusting in God. The word trust also contains multiple concepts. First, it means to have confidence in. Next, it means to be sure of. Next, it means to be certain of. There are a number of synonymous terms like be assured, be confident, be convinced, be firm and to be unquestioning. Trust and confidence go hand and hand and they are both essential partners to your faith.
The next Greek word in this verse is translated as “things hoped for”. This again is a very difficult word to understand unless you look up the definition in the Strong’s. The word translated as “hoped” is actually poorly translated in today’s English language. When we hope for something in the modern world we normally just wish that this was what was happening. I have heard many ministers about to pray for someone and they ask them “will you be healed now when I lay my hands on you?”, and the answer is usually “I sure hope so”. This means the people wished it would happen but that they did not actually have any confidence that it was going to happen. Let’s take this back to the woman with the issue of blood. Remember what she said? She said “If I touch His clothes, I will be made whole”. There is absolutely no doubts in that statement to her not having any confidence that it would not happen. What would have changed if she said “I hope I will be made whole”? You see she would not have been healed. Hope is not having full confidence and this Greek word in Hebrews 11 does not mean to “hope“, it means “to expect” and this is based upon your confidence level. So we are back to having confidence and expecting something to happen as the woman with the issue of blood did. The last part of this definition says this “the evidence of things not seen”. As we come to the conclusion we see that having faith from the Bible definition is our evidence of what we do not see with our physical eyes. What is evidence? In a court of law “evidence” is the “proof” of innocence or guilt. Why is God introducing you to legal terms and court room procedures in this definition? It is because God is the Supreme Judge and His ways are the Spiritual Laws that govern what happens to us. So you better understand that faith is the component that will either exonerate you or your lack of faith will convict you on judgment day. Did you know that Faith was a spiritual Law? This is why God is introducing legal court terms like evidence:
Rom 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
According to the Word of God, Faith is a spiritual law that is the opposite of another spiritual law called the “law of works”. Those in the Old Covenant were trying to achieve salvation by the law of works. Israel was given 5 books of the Law and these contained instructions from God of the does and don’ts of everything that was permissible on a daily basis. Jesus came and changed everything and said “He that believes on me shall have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus came to reveal the law of faith which professes salvation that is based upon believing. This was obviously a radical departure from the law of works. However, the Bible tells us very clearly that Christians have been justified by faith and that no flesh shall be justified by keeping the Law of Moses (Acts 13:39). You see the term “justified” in the Greek language means to be found innocent. Again we see the legal ramification of terms and words that are usually only associated with a court of law.
Let’s take this information and relate it back to the woman with the issue of blood. What evidence did the woman have from the time that she left her house until the time she touched Jesus’ clothes? At no time before touching Jesus did the woman feel differently or feel like she was healed, yet she continued to press through the crowd until she reached Jesus. Technically speaking at no time did the woman have any physical evidence to being healed or that she would be healed. But, by the definition of faith given to us in Hebrews 11:1, we see that her faith must have been her evidence. Because she heard and believed on Jesus and had confidence in what she heard to be the truth, she expected to get healed when she touched Him. Here is the law of faith and how it works. Faith must be present internally to see the external results. Because she believed that she was already healed internally in her spirit, the external manifestation of this reality showed up on the outside. This is still exactly how faith works in the modern world without Jesus being here physically. Like I told you before, you cannot go and touch him physically today, but that does not mean you cannot touch Him spiritually and that He is still looking for your faith to give you what you need.
If you would like to conintue reading in this series about Bible Faith, please continue to “Part 7“.
Understanding Bible Faith! Having Faith While Living in the Modern World? Part 5
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 5 in a series of advanced studies about the subject of Bible Faith. Today’s lesson will be a further expansion of the basic foundational truths surrounding faith and a discussion of the differences between having faith today in the modern world versus that of having faith back when Jesus walked the face of the planet. Are there any differences to having faith today to that of when Jesus was walking among us? In the modern world we are faced with an enormous set of challenges. There are the distractions of technology, the media and the internet. We have had numerous natural disasters, economic pressures, threats of violence, wars, riots, terrorism and other things that can consume our focus in recent days. Maybe you have been where I have been and have thought the same things that I have thought. I have personally thought it would have been nice to live in the days when Jesus was physically walking around and living with us. Life was just so much simpler back them and you could have seen the God of creation in the flesh. Wouldn’t it have been nice to see Him physically speaking, healing, walking on water, raising the dead and doing the things that we can only read about today? Sometimes people think that if I had just lived back then, it would have been easy to get healed and I would not have to put up with this disease anymore. I wouldn’t have to put up with this sickness or this disease if I only lived when Jesus was here. If, I could have just gone to see Him and bam I would have been healed like everyone else. However, when you study the Bible you actually come to a much different understanding of reality and that is what I will discuss today. If you have not been reading this series of lesson from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1”.
I want to start today by turning to the book of Mark chapter 6 and reading a story of Jesus that is often ignored. In this story of Jesus, He is visiting some old friends and relatives and we see a very different reality of how difficult it was back then to get healed even from the Son of God walking among you.
Mar 6:5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
Mar 6:6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.
People like to think that Jesus was God in His omnipotent power and that He could do anything that He wanted to on the earth when He was here. However, that is not what the Bible actually teaches us. According to these verses in Mark 6, it says that Jesus wanted to heal them, but He could not. Wow, that is very earth shattering to the theology of many confused Christians. This verse does not say that “He would not heal them”, it says very clearly that “He could not heal them”. That clearly tells us this is not God in His omnipotent power. What would cause God not to be able to do anything? What would limit God’s ability on the earth? You should really think about that before you try to answer. If you have been reading this series of lessons on Bible faith you have learned that Jesus rebuked people for having no faith and praised others for having great faith. Jesus would always emphasize a person’s faith and no other factors were given for anyone getting healed. So if no one gets healed here in this story in Mark 6, why didn’t they? Verse 5 says Jesus tried to do His mighty works there, but was not able to and then in verse 6 it reveals to us why He could not do anything there. In verse 6, it says Jesus marveled at their unbelief. The term “marveled” comes from a Greek root word to “to see” or “to perceive”. Jesus saw that they had no faith and was astonished. If you learned what I taught in the last lesson, you saw that believing was a key factor for having faith that grows and works. You first had to hear, you then had to understand what you heard and next you had to believe what you heard. This was the people’s problem in this chapter of Mark 6. These people heard that He was anointed, understood what it meant, but refused to believe it by a purposeful act of their own freewill. Pay attention to what I just said, it was not Jesus’ choice to not give them faith; it was there choice not to believe that caused them their problems. That is the first thing that you need to know about that I did not cover in the last lesson. You see I could not cover everything in one lesson or I would have overwhelmed you with too much information all at once. What you need to realize is that faith is more complicated than just four simple steps and miraculously you are healed, saved and delivered from every problem. Your “will” is a determining factor to whether or not you believe what you hear. What I am trying to show you is that faith is an internal choice that you make after you hear and understand. You can choose to believe or you can choose not to believe, it is always your choice. You can read in John chapter 5 about a story where Jesus teaches us this lesson about faith and you will see this point being emphasized. In John 5:6 Jesus approaches a lame man at the Pool of Bethesda and says this to him “Will you be made whole”? Why is Jesus asking this man, this question? Apparently it is not all up to God’s will but it was up to this man’s will to whether or not he was to be made whole again. That was a very direct question that reveals the man’s will played a major part in the man getting healed. What we must realize is that Jesus is not diminishing the man’s faith to be a factor; He was only emphasizing the man’s will needed to be adjusted. The man when asked this by Jesus said “I don’t have anyone who will help me”. In other words the man was making an excuse why he was not healed by blaming others that did not help him and this was what Jesus was trying to correct. Jesus was in effect saying to him it is not their fault that you are not healed, it is your own fault and that does not go over well with people who like to blame everyone else and not take any responsibility upon themselves.
Let’s discuss briefly what is your will? Your will is a key part of your internal unseen soul realm. Your soul is made up of your mind (ability to think, reason and your memory), your will (ability to choose and make choices) and your emotions (love, hate, happiness, sadness, etc.). Your will determines what you do today. If you get up in the morning instead of lying in bed all day, then you exercised your will to get out of bed. If you ate breakfast, you exercised your will to determine what to eat and then to eat. Your will is a conscious decision to do something. Jesus is basically informing us that if you are going to get healed then it is up to your will and not God’s will that makes it happen. In other words if you are waiting on God to heal you, you are not going to get healed. Let’s examine the woman with the issue of blood again and see what she did that fits this reality. She heard about Jesus, understood what she heard and believed it and then she did what? She made a decision to go get healed. If she had done nothing or waited for Jesus to come to her she would not be mentioned in the Bible. It was only because of a conscious act of her will that she is found in the Bible at all. So a decision that she made with her will played a huge role in the fact that she got her healing. I wish that was all of the factors, but that is not all of the factors and it gets more complex than this. So hang in there as we learn some more about faith’s prerequisites and partners to get answers using your faith.
Let’s get back to Mark 6 and see why these people did not let Jesus do any mighty works there. These people failed in step 3 of God’s faith building Bible class. Unbelief is a diametrically opposed force to faith. You cannot have faith and unbelief at the same time and get healed; they in effect cancel each other out. There is one story in the Bible that seems to show you can have both, but I believe that faith and doubt can occur in two different realms of reality. Real Faith is of the heart, and doubts can occur in your mind. What you are supposed to learn today is that Bible faith is of the heart or the spirit and it does not occur in your mind. However, to get faith into your heart takes a trip through your mind and I’ll talk more about that soon.
Luk 24:25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
Where does Jesus say you need to believe? You can actually see that Jesus is associating true faith to the spirit of man. To believe with your heart is the goal that you are after. That also implies that you can believe with your head as a mental choice and not with your heart. The mental realm is a doorway to your spirit, but it is not your spirit. In order for God’s word to work you are going to have to get it into your spirit. How do you do this? In elementary school as children, you would say the multiplication tables over and over out loud until you knew them by heart. Guess what that is how you get God’s word into your heart also. When you get something in your heart abundantly you do not have to figure out the answer, it will just automatically come out. In other words when asked what is 6 times 9 you would just say 54 and you do not have to do a calculation to figure out the correct answer. This is what you are after with the word of God also. You should be able to say exactly what the Bible says about your situation without looking it up. You do this by speaking and mediating on it day and night as God told Joshua in Joshua 1:8:
Jos 1:8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
This is God speaking to you today. If you think that this is a private message to Joshua, you do not understand God very much. God is saying that you must keep His words in your mouth all the time. The Hebrew word translated as “meditate” means to “murmur”. To murmur is a term that means to speak under your breath as in to mutter to oneself. God is telling Joshua how to be successful in life and this applies to you also. The net effect of this action is God builds faith in the heart of Joshua and he is able to lead his people into the Promised Land. It is very difficult to explain the difference between head faith and heart faith. If you learn God’s word and say it over and over until you get it inside your spirit, you will know when you have it and I won’t have to explain it to you. There will come a time when it will be obvious to you also. I will talk more about this soon.
What caused these people Mark 6 not to believe? You can obviously learn that believing with your heart is a key component to whether you will get healed or remain the same from this lesson. The people in Mark 6 were the people of Jesus’ hometown where He grew up as a child to become a man. All of these people knew Him intimately and personally, they saw Him physically for many years and yet after being baptized by John and anointed by God, they refused to believe that Jesus was anointed by an act of their will. You see the problem they had was that they could not overcome the mental conflict that was occurring in their minds when they recalled all of the years that He was with them and never did anything extraordinary. They had put Jesus into a box of familiarity and it caused them to miss the great works that He wanted to do. Apparently living back in the days of Jesus is not that much of an advantage to getting healed as I thought originally. It would seem that the more you knew about Jesus the less likely you were to believe that He was anointed and chosen of God. Did you ever think about this? Why did Jesus choose a bunch of strangers to be His disciples? It was simply because they did not know who He was that allowed them to follow Him blindly. It would appear from this information that knowing Jesus would have been a major stumbling block to you getting healed rather than the other way around. So after I read this story, I was glad I did not live back then and see Jesus personally.
In the last lesson on Bible Faith that I did, I gave you one of the greatest faith lessons found in the Bible about the woman with the issue of blood who was sick for 12 years and when she had heard of Jesus she risked public stoning and pressed through the crowd to touch His garment and she was healed. I have been using this story repeatedly because it holds valuable lessons on how faith works that we need to understand. In this lesson I further described that Jesus said it was her faith that had caused her to be made whole. In studying this story you should become aware that it was only this woman who got healed and no one else present was healed who was in the crowd. When Jesus asked “Who touched me”, the disciples told Jesus that everyone is touching you. Why were all of these people touching Jesus? They must have needed something. I do not think that Jesus was seen to be a rock star personality in those days. Jesus did not get up and sing love songs and the women would faint and scream. The crowds of people were there because Jesus had claimed to be anointed by God, but yet none of these people knew that it required more than just a physical touch to get their answer. What we learn from this information is that Jesus does not place any priority on people, but He does place a huge priority on faith. I want to go over another scripture in this story that I intentionally left out of the last lesson to teach you some additional factors about this woman’s faith. I want to show you why this woman had faith and no one else in the crowd did and we will begin reading in verse 27 of Mark 5:
Mar 5:27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.
We can clearly assume that everyone that was there to touch Jesus that day was there because they had heard the same thing that this woman had heard and that was He was anointed by God. So hearing was not the issue for anyone present, everyone present must have heard about Him the same way. They all must have understood what an anointed one meant. They all must have believed that He was anointed. They all came to touch Him, but only one woman got healed. It must have been another factor that caused this woman to get healed while others did not and that is why I want to show you what is found in verse 28:
Mar 5:28 For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.
We understand from reading this verse that it is out of sequence in time. In other words these are words spoken by the woman before she got to Jesus. Do you understand that? I want to describe the Greek word translated as “for” first in the verse. You see this word in the Strong’s means “to assign a reason”. In other words God is giving us the reason for this woman’s faith. That means it is important to understand. I alluded to this factor in my last lesson and I talked a little bit about it earlier when I mentioned Joshua, but today I want to emphasize it with some extra teaching on the subject of “speaking your faith”. If you have read my other Bible lessons, you know that I teach a lot about the power of words spoken. Here is another example, of this reality using this lesson in Mark 5. We already saw in verse 31 that Jesus said, “Daughter, thy faith has made you whole”. Therefore, we know that the woman had faith before she got to Jesus. Here is how I know that the woman possessed faith before she ever physically saw Jesus:
Luk 17:6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
Here is God speaking to you right here and right now. God says “if you had faith, you would say”. The opposite truth to this statement is “if you had no faith you would be silent”. Wow, that is really good stuff. Does God say that speaking is doing faith? Remember what step four of my last faith lesson was? God said you must 1) hear, 2) understand, 3) believe and 4) do. Step four is always doing your faith. We can clearly see that based upon God’s word here in Luke 17:6 that this woman had faith and was doing her faith because she has said something positive. Remember earlier I tried to teach you that real faith was of the heart and you get this faith by speaking to yourself over and over. This is what this woman must have done. Jesus taught us that “from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Mat 12:34). So whatever comes out of your mouth is what you have abundantly put into your heart. We can clearly understand that this woman had faith from her heart that God says resulted in her healing and that she possessed this before she arrived to where Jesus was because she was saying something.
However, it was not just saying something that was important; it was really more what she believed and then what said. She said “If I touch His clothes, I will be made whole”. Was this prophetic? Was this an amazing coincidence? You have to understand the power of words to see that she got exactly what she said. We should all learn to watch what we say after reading stories like this in the Bible. The woman is never focused on her sickness; her words are only directed at her being whole. If you walk around talking about how bad you feel and how sick you are, you are probably going to stay that way. God is teaching you a concept found in the Bible that is radically different than any concept you get from your doctor. Thinking positively, believing positively and speaking positively will result in good things happening to you. Do you remember what God says in Joel 3:10 “Let the weak say I am strong”. Why would God almighty teach weak people to say what they are not? Wow that is very strange isn’t it? However, God’s ways are not our ways and if you want the God kind of results you are going to have to change to do it His way. This is the major difference between this woman who got healed and the others who touched Jesus but did not get healed. It is obvious to me that none of the others believed or said that they would be made whole. They were just there to try it out and see if anything happened.
It is virtually impossible to teach about faith and not talk about spoken words. These two subjects are intimately connected to each other. The woman with the issue of blood was in effect calling herself whole before she was whole. This is a Bible faith concept revealed to us in Romans 4:17. In this verse God tells us that He called Abraham a father of many nations before He became the father of many nations. In this story of Abraham God changes the name of Abram to Abraham and this causes him to start saying what God said. Abraham was an old man now, but as soon as he starts saying “I am Abraham” which means “father of nations”, He becomes a father that year. God uses your words to produce the results in your life whether you want to believe it or not that is how it works. This faith concept of calling things that are not as though they are, will also work for you today. If you are sick and you want to get healed, be like this woman and start calling yourself whole before you are whole and don’t stop doing this just because it looks worse tomorrow than it does today. This woman could have given up and said there are just too many people for me to get through to Jesus. It is just too hard and it looks impossible. But, she went and made her way through the crowds of people pushing to get to Jesus and when she made it and touched His clothes and she was healed. Would it have mattered if she said “I might be healed”. I think it would have mattered a lot. You see might is a word that implies “might not”, or “depends upon something” I don’t know or some other factor that demonstrates a lack of confidence. If you have no confidence in the Word of God or the anointing you would say “might” or “maybe”. But, if you have great confidence and expect to get healed when you touch Him, then you would say “I will be made whole”. Because the woman had faith in God’s word and His anointing she could say this the way that she did. So I just introduced you to two new determining factors or faith partners that contribute to you having faith. Your confidence level determines your expectation level and these two factors are essential to receiving anything from God. I further showed you that “saying” is a part of doing and some tines it can be all you need to do.
As you can begin to see, Bible faith is a complex subject that is related to many other subjects. We have seen that being willing to hear something new is the introductory level of obtaining faith. Then we learned that you must hear the Word to get faith started. I then showed you how understanding what you heard is a determining factor to having correct Bible faith. I then showed you how believing is an essential factor to having Bible faith. Today I introduced you to your will playing a role in what you decide to believe. Then I taught you that doing is a part of having your faith work for you. Today I introduced you to “speaking” as being a part of doing and getting faith abundantly in your heart. I also showed you that what you say will be dependent upon your level of confidence in what you believe. Finally, the woman with the issue of blood expected to be healed when she touched Jesus, so expectation is another essential piece of having faith that receives. If you don’t expect to get healed you will not get healed. Bible Faith is complex, like a transmission in a car is complex. If you do not think so, you should go unbolt your transmission off of your car and take it apart and see if you are smart enough to put it back together correctly. It takes a lot of training and experience to be a great transmission mechanic and to rebuild a transmission. This is the same way with faith. There are many cross related subjects that you must study to fully understand this complex Bible subject. I wish I could simplify it more, but I did not write the Bible and I did not invent faith so I must learn to work with God’s definitions and the information given to us in the Bible, just like you must do the same.
When you begin to understand how faith works, you will better understand the examples of faith given to us in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. Take for example, the famous story of David and Goliath. Did faith have anything to do with what happens in this story? You should go back and read it again and see what you see that is different now. David heard there was a giant and asks what will be done for the man who kills this giant. It would appear that hearing was a factor in the story. When you read this story notice what David says very carefully and see if he is not speaking words of faith. It is a very powerful faith filled story with words that come from the mouth of David. David said “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine?” In other words who is this one that is not in covenant with the almighty God of Israel? Then David says to Goliath “this day will I take your head from your shoulders and feed your carcass to the birds of the air”. Before David did anything, he always said what he would do. Then David did it acting out his faith in His God. This story exhibits David’s high confidence level in his God’s ability and thus David expected to win the battle and not to be defeated. There were no doubts in the heart of the future King of Israel. But, also realize that before David killed the giant Goliath, David had faith experiences with a lion and a bear. In other words, faith is a progressive undertaking of experiences and previous victories that causes your confidence level to increase. If you start small, your faith can grow to the giant killing level, but if you start with the giant level, you might be easily defeated. Here is a modified list of faith factors that has increased significantly since the last lesson, but hopefully you can see and understand them better now.
- Bible Faith is based upon truth in the Bible.
- Being open to the truth allows truth the opportunity to come to you.
- Hearing the truth is the beginning of obtaining Bible faith.
- Understanding God’s Word spiritually will open the door to allow it into your heart.
- Believing and speaking the Truth will plant it firmly in your heart in abundance.
- Choosing to decide to believe it and do it are both conscious acts of your will.
- Your confidence in the truth determines your level of effort, your commitment and your expectation level for it coming to pass in your life.
- Expect the answer to occur even when it looks impossible. Expecting is like ordering a package from the internet and knowing it will arrive any day very soon.
- Do what you said and receive the answer.
These are the basic steps and factors to having Bible faith in the modern world. It just so happens to be the same as we found in the days when Jesus was walking the face of the earth that we learned about from the woman with the issue of blood. These faith steps also apply to other Old Testament saints like David and Joshua. Faith has not really changed at all, and Jesus has certainly not changed. So whatever He did back then is what is available to you today. I know you cannot touch His physical garment, but you can do everything else that the woman with the issue of blood did and get healed the same way by touching His Spirit. God still sees your faith today and it will still work the same. The Spirit of God is everywhere all at once and His power is available to you right now, but it is only accessed by your faith. In closing I want to emphasize one point that I have seen in the past. There are some people who believe if they throw away their medicine they will be healed. They look at this as an act of their faith. However, that is usually presumptive foolishness that gets you killed. Taking medicine does not heal you and not taking medicine certainly does not heal you. There are no examples in the Bible of people throwing away medicine and getting healed anywhere, so you cannot base your faith on this. Go to the doctor, take your medicine and believe and say that God has healed you and made you whole anyway. When you are healed you will know when not to take any medicine. Your words are much more important to your healing than you not taking any medicine. You begin to say that you are healed and whole and still take your medicine. “Let the sick say I am whole”, that is what Joel 3:10 could say if you want to see it that way. I also want to say that I write these lessons speaking about sickness because many people need to be healed and that is why I have focused in on only one part of receiving from God. But, I want to emphasize that every part of the steps that I just listed will work for whatever you need from God. Maybe it is a job? Maybe it is some money to help pay your bills? The only things that is going to change on my list is what scriptures you need to hear in order to get faith for your need. The Bible contains God’s promises and the New Covenant is built upon better promises than the Old Covenant. So go find the promises of God written about your need and use those to build your faith for what you need today. The rest of the steps are still the same. I hope that clarified a question that someone might have had about faith and how to make it work for a different need other than healing. Thanks for taking the time to study the Bible with me and to see God’s truth.
If you would like to continue reading in this series of Bible lessons on Faith you can go to “Part 6“.
Understanding Marriage, Can Our Marriage Continue Throughout Eternity?
(Ver 1.1) This will be an extremely advanced Bible study about a subject that many married Christians have thought on at one time or the other. Today, I want to focus in on a challenging question that I had presented to me from a reader. It was an excellent question and I appreciate getting stimulating questions form people. She wondered if her marriage between her and her husband would still be able to continue after this life ends. She told me that they loved each other greatly and did not want the marriage to ever end. She had read some of my other lessons where I taught some potentially troubling things that concerned her future marriage to her husband and thus the reason for the question. I do want to say up front that I admire this couple’s resolve and dedication to each other. It is a highly commendable attitude to take hold of and to keep. Anyone going into a marriage should be fully committed to that marriage for however long it might be and for whatever negative things that might occur. Recently on the national news a very prominent Christian TV personality was caught cheating on his wife. This couple after several years of counseling and help from God has decided to remain together and are attempting to rebuild the trust that was lost. While I do not admire the actions of the man to cheat, I do admire that he sees fit to change and get it right and for his wife’s ability to forgive. So this is a very hard question to answer without potentially offending someone or causing anyone to become discouraged, but I will try to do the best that I know how from my current level of knowledge of the Bible and then I’ll let you decide what you want to believe. Let’s first start talking about what marriage is.
Mal 2:14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
Jer 31:32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
You can surely see from these verses in Malachi and Jeremiah that God says a marriage is defined to be a covenant in His eyes. A Bible blood covenant is a legally binding contract between the husband and the wife based upon the Word of God. God told Israel, that I made a covenant with you when I took you out of Egypt and I was your husband. That would make Israel His wife in covenant with God. These are very clear definitions to what a covenant and a marriage are. A covenant and a marriage are clearly synonymous terms for the same thing. When a Christian couple unites in covenant marriage they become “one flesh” according to the Word of God and the law of marriage. You can read this fact in several places in the Bible, but the first time it is mentioned is when Adam and Eve are created in Genesis 2. The body of the wife was taken from the body of her husband and God says they are one flesh (Gen 2:24). This is God’s natural law of marriage covenant between a male and a female and this law is still in effect in the New Testament (Mat 19:5, Mark 10:8, Rom 7:2, Eph 5:31). You do understand that Adam and Eve were created before the Old Covenant. So anything that happens before the old covenant is still in effect after the old covenant has ended. In the eyes of God if you marry someone and consummate that marriage, you are now one flesh that cannot be legally separated for any reason except two Bible exceptions that are given to us by God. God gives us only one legitimate reason for divorce and this is infidelity (Mat 5:32, Mat 19:9). Divorce is the legal end to a marriage covenant contract and God says that this is only permissible if your spouse is unfaithful. If your spouse is adulterous and sleeps around, you are free to divorce them without fear of punishment, legal recourse or retribution from God. This is what the Bible says, so if you divorced for any other reasons you will have some future issues with God. I’m not going to go there anymore since divorce is not my primary subject. The only other legal end to a marriage covenant is when one spouse dies a physical death. According to God’s word that marriage is over.
Rom 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
According to this verse it is very clear that God says the law of marriage is null and void when death occurs. As long as you both are alive and neither is unfaithful you are bound by the law of marriage and God. But, as soon as your spouse dies, then you are not bound to that legal covenant any more. We can recognize that death is a legal separating force for the termination of covenants. This is actually a very important Bible concept that I might not get into fully in this lesson. This concept is introduced when Ruth says to Naomi I will go where you go and your people will be my people. Then Ruth 1:17 says until death part thee from me. This is a popular wedding vow phrase that many have spoken when they were married. The bride and the groom were promising to be faithful until death do we part. You can read about this in some of my other lessons of why God did this and how He used it to terminate His covenant with Lucifer. I want you to see the Greek definition for the word translated as “loosed” found in Romans 7:2:
From G2596 and G691; to be (render) entirely idle (useless), literally or figuratively: – abolish, cease, cumber, deliver, destroy, do away, become (make) of no (none, without) effect, fail, loose, bring (come) to nought, put away (down), vanish away, make void.
It would seem to me that this word is a very strong definition for the termination of a marriage covenant. You can read in the definition “vanish away”, “make void”, “render idle”, “abolish”, “cease”, “destroy” and you can clearly see that there is really no other way to take these statements other than literally. A death when it occurs in a marriage covenant represents a separating force that renders your previous obligations ineffective, useless and vain. So while you would like to think that your marriage is eternal you must take the words of the most intelligent being (God) to be a greater witness to what actually occurs. If you choose to ignore God’s words for what you want to believe it does not cause God’s words to fail or not to come to pass.
I heard a minister say once that he and his wife had made a covenant to stay together in heaven. They enjoyed each other so much that they could not bear to part like my reader. While he did not give any scriptures to back this promise, I’m totally convinced that it might be a possibility for them in some degree. You see I do not know of any scripture that says you cannot speak to others in heaven and establish relationships or friendships. This would further mean if you can speak with someone then you can do other things with that person as well, like walk the streets of gold, eat, fellowship, or whatever. While Jesus was on the earth, He constantly said “According to your faith…” and “As you have believed…”. Jesus seemed to emphasize the faith and beliefs of the people to be a determining factor to what happened to them on the earth. Is faith still a determining factor in heaven? Is how you believe still a defining influence to what you get throughout eternity? That is an excellent question to consider. I personally believe that God would not have gone to such extensive efforts to produce a people of faith, if faith was not a future eternal gift to possess and use. Here is a Bible verse that tends to give that impression also:
1Co 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
God says that there “abides” faith, hope and love and God seems to indicate that these will continue forever. Faith is mentioned first, but God says Love is the greatest of these three. Since the Bible says that God is Love, we know that love is an eternal concept that will never end. If Love will be a dominant characteristic in heaven then faith will surely be there also. The Greek word translated as “abide” means “to continue”, “to be present”, “to endure” and “to stay in a given place”. This word seems to indicate that faith will be present in heaven and if it is like it was on the earth, what you believe is usually always what you get out of life, good, bad or indifferent.
So I have concluded that it might be entirely possible to remain in a relationship in heaven if that is what you both believed for. Now the complexity factor is increased because of this additional emphasis which you must place on the Bible. Bible faith or beliefs are always based upon what God tells us in the Bible. If God says anything is for you, then you can believe it is yours and possess it. Then there is inverse truth to that law which is that you cannot believe God for something that violates His Word and expect to get it. Therefore, if you believe for something that is sinful, hurtful, harmful, lustful, or a violation of the Word of God you will probably not get what you were expecting. Let’s say a man wants to live with a woman in eternity that was another man’s wife on the earth, would that be permissible or even remotely possible? You can begin to see the complexity that is involved in multiple personalities wanting the same thing and what is the resolution? I guess what we need to do is figure out what the Bible actually says on the subject and then believe for that. In our world, people marry and divorce like it is no big deal. There are many people in the world who have married multiple times. Some have done this because their spouses have all died, but others have done it because they thought the grass was greener on the other side of the hill. What happens when a person in our world is married multiple times and then they are saved and go to be with the Lord? Jesus actually was presented this hypothetical question in the Gospels and here is this story:
Mat 22:24 Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
It is very interesting to note that the Law of Moses does not tell a woman to remain unmarried if her husband has died and she has had no children. In fact the Law that God gave to Moses actually commands the opposite. It is interesting to note that God is not opposed to being married multiple times and you should think about that. It is more important to God why you have been married multiple times and not if you have been married multiple times. Here in this story the woman’s dead husband’s younger brother is supposed to marry her and raise up children for his dead brother. This means to have sex with her and give her children. So we can clearly see that God is saying something can’t we? Now the additional complexity comes in if they have already had children, then there is not a requirement to remarry and it is permissible for her children to take care of her in her old age. The law was intended to give a childless widow an option that would cause her to not stoop to prostitution to feed herself. I believe that God was looking out for the widow in this law and that it has spiritual meanings attached to it that I cannot get into today.
Mat 22:25 Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother:
So in the hypothetical question being presented to Jesus there are said to be seven brothers and one woman. The first brother dies and leaves his wife to his brother, like the Law of Moses so states.
Mat 22:26 Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh.
They continue to go through the list of brothers in ordered succession and each has had their turn to be married to the same woman in this world. This is one woman who had seven different husbands. Surely you have read this in the Bible before? But, did you understand it?
Mat 22:27 And last of all the woman died also.
Finally the woman dies and is buried and then what? This is where we are today in this lesson of what happens next after this life? The men that were standing with Jesus are about to ask him a question. Here is the question finally presented after the long background discourse:
Mat 22:28 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.
Jesus was being questioned by a group of Jews who did not believe in the resurrection from the dead. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, so they were trying to get Jesus to see their point of view by asking a hypothetical question about it as a trick. The Pharisees did believe in the resurrection based upon words, from something that they had read in the Old Testament it gave them the impression that death was not the end of the journey. So the Sadducees ask Jesus which husband will this woman belong to since she was “one flesh” with all of them. Wow, that is a tough, tough question to answer unless you are God who knows how to handle hard questions.
Mat 22:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
So here we go with the response of the creator of the universe and this is a potentially explosive answer that can be interpreted many wrong ways. If you look at just the first part of the entire response you could say that these guys did not understand the scriptures and Jesus was saying there was no resurrection coming. But, that is not what Jesus said at all. Jesus literally said “You are in error not understanding the scriptures or the power of God”. This verse actually gives us some tremendous insight into two things. The answer to their question was clearly found in the Old Testament, if we can see it and understand it. The next item to consider is that the Power of God is involved in the solution to the mystery. Jesus was in effect saying if you understood how powerful God was, you would not be asking such a foolish natural question. Wow, that is tough right there to handle isn’t it? It almost sounds like my reader’s question of can I still be married to my husband in heaven? Would Jesus give the same answer to my reader’s question as He did to the one that these guys asked? I do not know for sure how to answer that. I just know that God says “With Him ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE”. So I’m not sure if I helped or hurt with that last statement. Let’s continue through the answer that Jesus gives us and see what else He has to say:
Mat 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
Here we have a very interesting statement where Jesus continues His answer to the men’s question. Did you see what Jesus said? Jesus definitely said there is a resurrection coming, it has not occurred yet, so it is a future event within God’s calendar. Next, Jesus said after the resurrection that people will neither marry or be given in marriage. Let’s stop there and think about that part of the statement. The Greek word translated as “marry” means to wed and applies to either sex, male or female. God says males and females will not marry after they are raised in the resurrection. Then the Greek word “given in marriage” is a term only for females when a daughter is given to her future husband to become his bride. These are very familiar topics and subjects that we are all familiar with in this world. We see this happening all around us. But, Jesus clearly says that this is not what will happen after the resurrection occurs. The question then shifts to why? Does it mean it is not possible or just not permitted or could it be a third option that you have not considered? You see in the world today you see things from a very narrowly focused point of view. What will change after the resurrection occurs? Is it possible that you will not have the same desires and your focus will experience a transformation which will permit you to see things completely different? Read this verse very carefully:
1Co 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
There seems to be some clues in the Bible that we do not see things very clearly in this world. In other words our spiritual vision is clouded and our perspectives are skewed. I believe what God is saying to us is that what we hold as valuable in this world, when reflected on could become very minor to us when viewed correctly in the next world. Think about this statement very closely and consider the words written there for you. If you can only see a small part of this world and only know a minor slice of the greater truth that will be revealed later, how can you make a determination now what you will want in the next spiritual dimension? Your desire to stay married with your present spouse might just change dramatically once you see the awesome power of God. Your spouse might be the center of your world today, but in the presence of God they could fade and become much less important to you. I do not mean to say that you will not love them, but according to this verse in first Corinthians you will see them more clearly along with God.
I can almost feel the disappointment that my reader no doubt might be feeling right now. But, let’s continue with the answer that Jesus is speaking of in his response to marriage after the resurrection. After Jesus says we will not marry, Jesus says something else that is very profound; he says “we will be as the angels of God”. We can clearly understand from this statement that angels pre-existed man. Angels were not created to look like us; we were created to look like them. But, how are the angels of God? Jesus implies that angels do not marry each other either. The implication is that they could marry but that this is not the design of God for them to marry. You can take this to mean that there must be both male and female angels can’t you? If there were not any female angels then God would not be able to compare us to them. We could never be like them, if there were only males. Do you understand that? You see when I read in Genesis where the “sons of God” (angels) had sex with the daughters of Adam (women) on the earth and created a race of giants, I wondered if there were any female angels. It is clear that God says there are male angels. If God created male angels with male sexual organs and no female angels it would not make any logical sense to me. I guess I’m getting off of the subject somewhat, but it is a very fascinating concept to consider. I have to conclude that if people who are resurrected can become like the angels and female humans are included in this group there has to be female angels that exist or they would not really be like anyone else. The major thing to learn from this statement is that after the resurrection, we will be like the angels of God. Whatever they do, we can do, whatever they are we are very similar, however they live, we will live also. Please remember this and I will try to talk more about the angels later. However, Jesus is not through answering the question and we must see the rest of the answer and put it together correctly:
Mat 22:31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
Here is Jesus beginning to give us another very deep revelation of the spiritual realm. As you can clearly read, Jesus has not finished speaking about the resurrection. This next statement is a direct revelation that is very powerful to know:
Mat 22:32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Wow, this is a hard saying from God. It will go over your head if you are not careful to observe the words that are being communicated on the subject of the resurrection. What was Jesus saying with this statement? The words of the prophet were written many hundreds of years after the physical deaths of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God is saying that at the time the prophet wrote these words, these three men were not dead. These words confounded the Sadducees who were listening and put them to silence. You see I have had several very ignorant commenters try to teach me about what happens after physical death occurs and they should have noticed what Jesus just said before they try to tell me what they think. Some have said the soul and spirit sleep and do not know anything until the time of resurrection. Some of them have tried to say that the human life is ended when a person dies and there is nothing else for them. But, God Himself says that they did not die and they are alive and the resurrection has not yet occurred. Here is one of the most important things you should learn from today’s lesson about spiritual things. If you are a Christian and your body dies in this world, the Bible says your spirit departs and is present with the Lord (Php 1:23). Jesus is saying that physical death is not the end; it is only a change of address. Death is a departure from the physical realm and an entrance into the spiritual realm. Did you understand what I just said? If you did not you should go and read it until you do understand it or just ask me some questions about the parts that you do not understand. What you need to see is that Jesus when speaking to these men on the earth said God is the God of the living and not the dead. God said Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who had died physically hundreds of years earlier, were not spiritually dead but were called alive. Let me give you a verse that I alluded to earlier about changing your of perspective after you die:
1Co 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
What I see from studying the Bible are people’s desires, viewpoints and perspectives are purely based upon what they know and have experienced up until this point in time. In other words your favorite food might be apple pie on the earth, but who knows what it will be when you get to heaven since God could have things there that you have never experienced. People think that because the love found in their current family has been so special and real to them, that it cannot get any better so I will be happy if I just have this throughout eternity. However, God says in 1 Corinthians 2:9 that we have no idea or clue to the great and awesome things that He has planned for those who love Him. I tried to tell you this before, but when you are standing on the streets of gold surrounded by mansions and an innumerable company of angels with the awesome light coming from the throne of God, if you still think and feel the same way that you do today, then God has failed in you knowing Him.
I heard a minister teach about a vision of heaven that he had once where he appeared there and saw things that were so amazing that they are difficult to describe in human terms. He saw spiritual things and even people he knew and talked to them. One of his relatives a sister was there and he got to speak to her. She had died a number of years earlier and she asked him questions about her family that she left there was doing and I think these questions shocked him. You see she did not know what was happening on the earth in the physical realm so she had to ask questions about it to her brother who had just came from there to visit. Her brother did not tell her that her husband had remarried but, said that they were all doing fine. You see people in heaven do not see things the same way and they do not care about the natural realm in what you ate today and what we are wearing or even who you are married to. People in heaven do not care what kind of car you are driving or what kind of house you are living in. Things in the natural realm are very unimportant to people in the spiritual realm. It is a complete opposite perspective to what people on the earth are focused in on. Those in heaven only care if you know Jesus and are saved and that you are growing up spiritually. The eternal things are so much more important than the natural things of this world, that our perspectives are totally different after we leave here. Here is a verse that certainly applies to what I am trying to say to you today:
1Co 7:34 There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
God is comparing two women in this verse and it clearly says there is a major difference between them. But, do not take it out of context or try to say that God is saying you should not get married. You see if people did not get married and have children, there would be no harvest for God to come back to get. God is simply showing us how a perspective changes when you are married. You see things differently than someone who is not married. You can also take this into the spiritual realm comparison between someone who is spiritual versus someone who is naturally minded. If you are focused on Jesus, then you want to please Him and if you are married your focus is shifted to your spouse. When you get to heaven, who do you want your focus to be on? What do you think God wants your focus to be on?
So I am not saying today that you will not love your spouse when you get to heaven. I’m not saying you cannot spend a lot of time with your former spouse in heaven. I am just saying that in heaven you will see things more clearly than you do today. You will be able to see God for the first time there and you will know Him better than you have ever known Him. I personally believe that the experience of heaven will truly be overwhelming. I believe God has some awesome things prepared for us and when we begin to see them, the past will become just what it was, a spec of inconsequential meaning that pales to the definition of an eternity with God. The human mind cannot fully comprehend infinite and eternal concepts of time. No doubt we will be able to do things in eternity that we never imagined in our short life span on the earth. So I have much more to say on this subject, but I have gone long enough today. I’ll give you a list of key points from today’s lesson about marriage before and after the resurrection.
- Marriage is a blood covenant union between a man and a woman.
- Divorce is not permitted except for infidelity.
- There is a physical resurrection coming where we get a new glorified body.
- Just because you die physically does not mean you are not alive spiritually. You exist just not here in the physical realm.
- After you die physically, your marriage in the natural realm is over.
- This does not mean Christians will not know each other in the spiritual realm in fact you will definitely carry over your memories and experiences in this life into the next.
- We will see things clearly then and not be limited in our perspective as we are now.
- Jesus said in the next realm we will:
- Not marry
- Not be given in marriage
- Be as the angels in heaven
I see marriage, children and families as natural things that God has created for us to teach us about spiritual things. If we did not have these things we would not be able to understand the future spiritual reality that we will soon all experience with Him. So my reader asked me if her marriage could continue and this is a difficult question to attempt to answer today. I hope I have not disappointed anyone in my answer with what the Bible says. I do not believe that you will be disappointed after you get to heaven in any degree. There are many things that you do not know yet, so keep learning them and you will see things more and more clearly as we approach Him who is calling us to a greater and higher ability to see.
Understanding Bible Faith! How Faith Comes? Part 4
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 4 in a series of advanced Bible studies about the subject of Bible Faith. Today’s lesson will be a basic foundational definition to how to get Faith. There are many people in the world who claim to have faith and yet when pressed for a definition of what faith is to them, they cannot tell you. Then if you asked them how did you get this faith, again they cannot tell you. Therefore, we are going to explore the basic Bible subject of faith to help people understand what faith is and where faith comes from. Technically speaking you do not have to know how transmissions work, to drive a car and faith is the same way to some extent. You can drive a car by just automatically learning which gear to be in and press the gas and you are off and running. Salvation can be this way also. You do not have to know that it takes faith to use your faith to be saved, yet your faith is still the determining factor to whether you are saved or not. So we could liken your faith to be your spiritual transmission and God and His power and Grace to be the spiritual engine to the car. Without both of these two key components working flawlessly together in harmony, your spiritual car is not going to move. Hopefully you will understand this analogy better as we continue through this lesson. If you have not read this series of lessons from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and read starting at “Part 1”.
In order to understand what faith is, let’s first find out how faith comes. If you did not know that faith comes then you did not read my first lessons very closely. In a previous lesson I described a verse found in Romans 12:3 that said that all Bible faith comes from God. This verse told us that God has dealt to every man (among you) faith. I explained that verse in that lesson, so I will not repeat the explanation here. Just read it and recognize that God has faith to give, so we as men and women must receive it. Also, in a previous lesson I taught that faith is measurable and quantifiable ranging anywhere from zero or none upwards to full of faith, the maximum that you can have. Remember that your faith can vary in that range of measurable numbers based upon something. Jesus would look at His disciples and rebuke them for having “no faith” and then for a few people that Jesus ran into, He would praise them for having “great faith”. Obviously there is a great deal of difference between those two ranges found on the faith value chart. We can conclude based upon the information that we learned in lesson 3 that faith comes in stages and can grow or increase up the chart to the highest levels. But, how do you get faith and how do you increase your faith that you already have. If you were a car, and your gas tank was empty you would simply go and fill it, does this simple concept also apply to faith? Can I go to the Faith station and fill my Faith tank? That is where we are at in the lesson today so let’s go to the Bible and see what God has to say to us.
Rom 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
God gives us a major revelation concerning faith in this verse of Romans. God ties the amount of faith that you possess to the amount of Words of God that you hear. Of course, it is much more complicated than that simple statement. If you could get faith by just hearing God’s Word, then you would just need to go buy the Bible on CD and play it all the time and you should have faith to move mountains left and right. Obviously it takes more than just hearing to get faith. But, hearing is where you faith lesson begins today to teach you about how to get more faith. Let me teach you the progressive steps to getting faith and then we will look at this in the scriptures to find if we can prove what I just said. Faith depends upon you doing the following steps and there are 4 possible reasons why faith does not come and only 1 instance where your faith actually grows. Read these 5 examples very carefully and see if you can see what God is teaching you:
Faith Comes by Hearing, but they:
- Don’t Listen or Refuse to Hear!
- Listen but don’t understand what is Said.
- Hear, Understand but don’t believe it.
- Hear, Understand, Believe and then don’t do it.
- Hear, Understand, Believe and then do it and finally they have faith that grows.
Wow, I do not know if you understood what I just said but it was good. These same concepts are how you learn things in school. You go to class, you either choose to hear your teacher or reject her words by closing your mind to them. Then you can hear her words, but not understand what was being taught. Right there is your opportunity to ask questions or remain ignorant. Next you can hear your teacher teach you about history and then not believe that it happened. Next, you hear your teacher teach you about algebra, understand it, believe it but just not do the work and you will fail that class. Finally, when you achieve to all of the first four requirements, hearing, understanding, believing and doing is when your faith will grow and increase and you can move to the next higher faith grade level. That was how faith works in a nutshell. It is the basis of how faith comes and how you put it to work for you. Let’s examine if we can find faith demonstrated to us in a Bible example that we are given and see if this is how it really works:
Mar 5:25 And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,
Mar 5:26 And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,
Mar 5:27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.
Mar 5:28 For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.
Mar 5:29 And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.
Here is story of a woman who was diseased for 12 years. But, did you notice what the Bible says happened to this woman? I tried to underline some of the important parts for your careful consideration. It says in verse 27 that she had “heard” of Jesus. How does faith come? According to Romans 10:17 faith comes by hearing. So right there we know that this is the first requirement for having faith. She obviously heard something that gave her faith and it must have been the Word of God according to Romans 10:17. What did she hear? While we are not told what she heard directly, we can make an assumption based upon other scriptures that it had to be something from the Old Testament. Remember what Jesus did after being baptized by John? Jesus went into the synagogue one day and open the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and read from it “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and He has anointed me” and then he continues to say “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18-21). If you think that Jesus did this only one time, you would probably be making a wrong assumption. I personally believe that Jesus read this verse of Isaiah everywhere He went to build the people’s faith. So I believe that this woman with the issue of blood had heard what Jesus had said. Now right there she must have understood what was spoken and you clearly see that she believed it by what these verses in Mark 5 say that she does after hearing. Here is a woman that should not be out in public, but she has heard of Jesus and decides to get healed. She does not ask Jesus or anyone else if it is permissible to do anything; she simply presses through the crowds that were also touching Jesus, sneaks up on the back of Jesus and touches His garment surreptitiously. The Bible says that instantly she felt in her body the disease was gone. Immediately, Jesus felt power had flowed from Him and he turned to ask “Who touched me”. Wow, this is one of the best faith lessons in the Bible that I know of and it clearly demonstrates the principles that I have outlined. A woman hears about Jesus, understands what she heard, chooses to believe it and then acts upon her faith and goes and gets healed and Jesus did not know it was happening until after it happened.
Mar 5:31 And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?
The disciples look at Jesus like He is crazy and say to Him, Master everyone is touching you. Here is a definitive clue to the difference between a physical touch and a spiritual touch. The crowd was touching Jesus physically, but this woman with faith touched Him spiritually and there is a major difference between those two realities. That is why I get some critics who write me and tell me how wrong I am and I get some people who have spiritual eyes to tell me “Wow that was good”. If I could make everyone see things the way God sees them, I would certainly do that, but I can’t and God won’t so we have what we have in the world today. Faith is a spiritual force and not a physical feeling.
Mar 5:33 But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.
The woman was caught, but now that she is healed it is legal for her to be in public again, so she goes to Jesus and falls down before Him. She is obviously grateful and thankful and she tells him the truth.
Mar 5:34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.
Jesus confirms to everyone present and to us His readers that it was the woman’s faith that made her whole. You see if it was only up to God’s power, everyone would be falling down before Him thanking Him for their healing, but no one else present got healed. Jesus clearly tells us that it was her faith that was the determining factor for her healing. It was her faith that made her whole. The Greek word for “whole” is the word “sozo” and it means to “save” or to “deliver”. This is the word that is translated many times as “saved” or “salvation”. Faith as you can see was the cause for her salvation. People, who do not want to see this, claim that everything that happens to them is what God has caused to happen. If is funny that God does not say this in the Bible anywhere. Jesus could have told the woman with the issue of blood “Be of good cheer, my power has saved you”, but God does not say this. Are you able to see the truth? I pray that you do. So what does this story in Mark reveal to us that the woman did:
- She heard the truth.
- She understood the truth.
- She believed the truth.
- She acted on the truth.
- She was saved because of her faith.
That was faith in a nutshell again and it confirms what God taught you earlier. So did you hear it? Did you understand it? Do you believe it? What will you do with it? Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. So if you want to increase your faith that is what you need to do. It technically means that you have to be an open and receptive type of vessel in order to hear. If you are not being open to the Word of God you will not hear it to begin with. So decide in your heart to be a vessel that is willing to change and then go and hear the word of God until you understand it. Next, if you believe what you have heard is the truth, then you are ready to take hold of the hem of His garment and receive the power of God for your answer. Your faith is the transmission that causes your spiritual car to accelerate and to go places. God’s Grace is the Motor that supplies the power to your spiritual car to change your location. You can keep your car in the garage and never use it to go anywhere in the world or you can do what Jesus taught “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you would say…”. I hope that you enjoyed this basic Bible faith lesson and that you learned something that can be useful with your walk with God. Until next time, I will let you go and review this lesson and see if you truly understood it and then you can write me and tell me about how it worked for you. God Bless.
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons on faith, you can go to “Part 5“.
Understanding Bible Faith! Your Faith is Measureable! Part 3
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 3 in an advanced series of lessons on understanding the basic concepts of faith found in the Bible. To have basic and advanced in the same sentence is almost an oxymoronic expression, but I am attempting to simplify a very complex subject so that anyone who wants to can understand it. In the first lesson I gave you an overview of the origin of faith and how that God had faith when He created the world so therefore I taught you that faith was not a brand new concept found only in the New Testament. I further showed you definitive scriptures from Hebrews 11 that described Old Testament faith examples even though God never emphasized or taught this to be a required quality to possess. However, you can clearly see that many people are included in the Bible simply because of their faith. For example, we are told that Rahab the harlot had faith and then we are told in Matthew that she becomes a key figure in the life and genealogy of Jesus (Mat 1:5) because of her faith (Heb 11:31). I taught you that faith is a rudimentary subject of Bible theology which is foundational to you being a real Christian. I also showed you that faith was an essential element for your salvation. Many people want to emphasize God’s sovereignty and ignore man’s faith. I had a commenter like that yesterday. He blasted me pretty well with his religious rhetoric and I’m just going to smile and ignore it. When you discover the balance in the Bible of putting things together correctly you learn to ignore unbalanced ignorant people who know about God but, who do not know God personally.
We have not yet technically defined what faith is, or determined where faith comes from fully, or how you get faith to grow or described how faith works, but we will eventually get there, but probably not today. Today I want to show you some more very important foundational Bible concepts about faith that God reveals to us from a series of scriptures that describes to us, that the amount of faith that we possess is quantifiable or measureable. In other words not everyone has the same amount of faith and that is going to upset some people’s theology greatly. You see I have heard it taught in some churches that God gives everyone the same amount of faith and that all faith comes from God. However, both of those statements are only partially true or I should say just a part of the complete truth. When people teach things like this, they claim that it is not up to us to do anything to have faith and they alleviate us from having any responsibility or accountability for our actions. They in effect seem to place all of the responsibility upon God and that relieves them from having to do anything. This is what I call the “Blameless Christian” theology; a theory of which some confused men on the earth teach. They believe that whatever happens to them in the world, it was just not their fault and therefore they could have done nothing to change it from happening, whether it was good, bad or indifferent. Wow, someday these men and women are going to be very disappointed when God begins to ask them some very basic direct questions about what they were thinking. If you have not read this series of lesson from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start reading with “Part 1”.
What do I mean when I say that faith is measureable or quantifiable? Here in the U.S. we have a set of standards that may be different than you are used to in your country. However, the concepts are identical regardless of the standard being utilized. We measure the size of boards when building a house and precise calculations are made to keep the house level, plumb and square. Then here in the U.S., almost everything in the grocery store is sold by weight, volume or some other identifiable and quantifiable quality that makes them more fairly priced. If you go to the market and buy some grapes, they are normally weighed and then the price is calculated from that. This is the only fair way of buying and selling grapes since grapes can vary in size and the number of grapes on each vine differs. This is what I am trying to teach you today, that faith even though you cannot see it, it is also a measureable spiritual substance according to God and He is able to tell how much that you possess, even if you can’t. Like buying grapes, God is also able to measure your faith to determine how much you enjoy. In the natural realm, this would normally involve a measuring device like a scale along with a computation or calculation for the total amount found, but since we are discussing a spiritual reality this is going to be a little bit more complex than that. I think I want to start this lesson with a Bible verse that is widely taught that confuses people. Here in this verse it would at first seem to imply that faith is a substance that God has given to everyone in equal amounts, but upon closer examination, I believe it says something much different:
Rom 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.
Here is God teaching us where Bible faith ultimately comes from. If God can give faith to a man, then all Bible faith must ultimately come from God. This is a further confirmation that faith existed with God before God created man. I mean it only makes since that if He can give something away, then He must first possess it before He can hand it to you. I certainly believe this statement that Bible faith comes from God and the Bible. That is the first key element to note in this verse. However, just because God has given you something, does not mean that you have possessed it or that is all there is to give. In other words I could give you a drink of water in a cup, but you only took a sip and threw the rest away. Did you possess everything that I gave you? Was it up to me to make you drink the water? Do you think that I had any more water or was that all of the water that I had? Do you understand the complexity of spiritual things based upon a simple example of a glass of natural water? There is absolutely no way that I can make you have all of the water that I have and drink it. I could have another pitcher of water to refill your cup after you drank that one. I could have a well of water that is able to refill that pitcher after you drink that much. It could be a never ending supply of water. So to say that God gave faith to every man and that they all received the same amount is pretty crazy using my cup of water example.
Bible faith is clearly a spiritual substance given to us by a spiritual God. Then it says that God has given every man “the measure of faith” and this is where the controversy begins to get deeper. This verse cannot be talking about every human on the earth or it would contradict what the Bible says in other places and God’s Word does not contradict itself ever when interpreted correctly. You see the Bible clearly tells us in other places that every man does not have faith and if you look in 2 Thessalonians 3:2 you will see this is true. Therefore, we have a potential scripture conflict that needs resolution. The way to resolve this conflict is to note the context of the given verses. If you read the entire chapter in 2 Thessalonians you will see that God is speaking about unsaved wicked and evil men not having faith and in Romans 12:3 the context is clearly written about men who are Christians because God says “to every man among you”. Romans 12:3 is written to church members who have to possess faith to be a Christian. So we can conclude that even if God has given faith to every man (saved or unsaved), that everyone does not possess it because they have not received the free full gift from God. This is like if you have a party and invited 12 people and you put out 12 pieces of cake for them and say come and get it. Whose responsibility is it now to take the cake and enjoy it? The host of the party is not responsible to make you take your cake and eat it, so if you choose not to come and get it, you lose out and the host of the party has done their job. This is how salvation works, God is not responsible to make you take your salvation cake and eat it. It is totally up to you to partake of Christ by faith and taste and see that He is good. You see you may not know that you like cake, until you try it by faith. I guess I got off the main subject of did God give to every man “faith” and the same amount. Here is where the controversy continues. I have heard several preachers say that this verse in Romans 12:3, proves that we all have the same amount of faith, but in actuality that is not what God is saying and if you teach it that way you contradict several other scriptures that clearly teach a radically different truth. Let’s start by analyzing the word translated as “dealt”. If you were playing a card game you would normally deal out the cards equally to every participant and this is where people probably get the initial idea or concept of everyone having the same amount or an equal distribution of faith cards, but here is the actual definition for this word from Strong’s:
From G3313; to part, that is, (literally) to apportion, bestow, share, or (figuratively) to disunite, differ: – deal, be difference between, distribute, divide, give part.
Nowhere in this definition does it ever say or even imply that the portions divided are equal. In fact I get the opposite inference from reading this definition that the portions are greatly varying from each other. Do you see this when you read it? But then I have heard that it is the words “the measure” given in this verse that implies everyone is given the identical portion of faith. However, let’s look at the definition of the word “measure” also from the Strong’s:
An apparently primary word; a measure (“metre”), literally or figuratively; by implication a limited portion (degree): – measure.
Here in this definition it does not say “the” measure it says “a” measure and that changes it dramatically. When you read all of the definition it says that out of all of the faith that is possible we have been given a very limited portion of it and if you try to say that means we are all equal you would be assuming incorrectly. The translators of the KJV Bible obviously thought wrong and put the word “the” in their translation instead of the word “a” and came up with this incorrect wording. If you like you can check other translations like the NASB and Young’s Literal Translation and see that they translated it correctly to say “as to each God did deal a measure of faith”. What I will do now is try to show you this position of everyone possessing differing amounts of faith using the Bible to help us establish this truth. Let me give you some Bible examples of this in order to make my point more clear.
Mar 4:40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?
Here is a verse of scripture where Jesus and the disciples are crossing over a large body of water which appears to be the Sea of Galilee and a storm arises that appears to be their demise. However, Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat and the disciple have to wake him up and after Jesus calms the sea and winds, He looks at them and rebukes them for having no faith. The state of “No Faith” would have to represent a complete absence of the spiritual substance of faith from them. If you had a scale that weighed grapes, this would be zero or the state of having no grapes. If you had a bucket this would be the state of it being empty or void of any substance. You do understand this don’t you? If Jesus is saying “where is your faith”, then Jesus is clearly expecting them to have faith and they do not. Why is Jesus looking for faith? You should ask yourself that question and try to come up with the correct answer. In reading this story it would appear to me that Jesus is not a happy faith leader and He clearly tells them they better get with the God faith program. I also believe that He is talking to you and I right now also.
Mat 17:17 Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.
Here we can read another rebuke from the God of creation to His followers. I have only noticed one thing in the Gospels that Jesus ever rebuked His followers for, maybe you can find something I did not and if so please let me know. But, it appears to me that Jesus is blaming the disciple’s lack of faith for their inability to cast out the devil from this man’s son. This is a further confirmation that faith represents the power to remove an evil spiritual force or enemy. So clearly faith is a number one priority to Jesus and these are two examples where Jesus declares that He expected His followers to have some faith and He could not find any when He looked at them. So this is two examples of where people had no faith. Now let us go up the spiritual faith scale to where Jesus said someone had just a little bit of faith.
Mat 6:30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Here is the first occurrence of the word “faith” in the New Testament. Jesus is speaking and it is clear to me that Jesus has some inside information that we do not normally possess. Jesus is comparing some natural things that God accomplishes by clothing the grass of the field and He compares this to clothing people who He says are much more valuable than grass. Then Jesus says something very profound. Jesus said these people that he was speaking to had “little” faith. The word “little” here means “puny” or an “insignificant” amount of faith. If I had a 5 liter bucket and I poured a couple of drops of milk into it that is what Jesus is talking about here in this statement. Jesus is clearly saying that faith is a measureable substance and that you can have just a very tiny portion of it. Do you understand this? There are five times found in the Bible that Jesus refers to people having “little faith” and these can be found in Matthew 6:30, 8:26, 14:31, 16:8 and Luke 12:28. Let’s move on to another very different example of contrasting faith that Jesus gives us from that of no faith or little faith:
Mat 8:10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
Here is the second time faith is mentioned in the New Testament and this time it is dramatically different than the first time. Jesus is speaking about a Roman centurion here in this verse. A Roman centurion was a military man that Jesus said had “great” faith. The term “great” means a very large amount in quantity. You can clearly see that this is the complete opposite of the term “little” faith. In my bucket analogy it would be like pouring in milk to reach almost the top. These verses fascinate me tremendously. They clearly tell me that Jesus was looking for faith by His reaction to when He found it and didn’t find it. It also clearly tells me that the amount of faith that people possessed was not up to God or Jesus. Otherwise Jesus would have not been surprised to find a Roman centurion with great faith and the children of Israel with little faith to no faith. If it was God who was dealing out the faith and He wanted Israel to have great faith, then they would have clearly had it. Do you see my logic here? This tells me that “faith” while it comes from God it does not depend upon God solely and completely for how much we have. In other words we have a major part and role to play in the situation and we will definitely talk more about this in other lessons. Let me give you another example of great faith:
Mat 15:28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
There are only a very few number of people in the Bible that Jesus ever commended for having “great” faith and this woman in this chapter of Matthew is certainly one of them. Later in these lessons on faith we will discuss why some had great faith and why some had little faith but that is not my subject today. What I want to demonstrate to you is the fact that Jesus said “faith” was measurable and that the amount that a person had was not dependent upon God’s actions alone. It is very interesting to note in this story that this woman is another example of a Gentile being ministered to by the King of the Jews who clearly said that He was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Yet Jesus ministered to her and the Roman centurion and Jesus said both of them had “great” faith. It is very clear to me that great “faith” gets God’s attention no matter who possesses it. I firmly believe that we as Christians should be doing whatever it takes to achieve to this level of great faith so that we can be praised by God. Did that sound arrogant? Do you want God to say to you “well done thou good and faithful servant”? If you do then I believe it is going to take you having great faith.
Mat 9:2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.
Here is a scripture that I have touched on some before, but I will give you another perspective on this verse given what we have learned. We have clearly seen that Jesus rebuked his disciples for having no faith. Jesus also said of others that they had little faith. Then we saw that Jesus clearly said some had great faith. Because, Jesus does not appear to measure or qualify the amount of faith that is being observed, I make the logical conclusion from that information that Jesus puts their faith somewhere in the middle of the scale. In other words their faith was not just a little bit and it was not a huge great amount, I believe that it was just right faith for the situation they were in. I’ll call this the Goldilocks Faith, just for the sake of argument. In the Goldilocks story she is always looking for the just right fit for her size. It is an interesting concept to consider, if you can have varying degrees of faith from zero to a whole bunch, then you should be able to evaluate your faith and measure what you can and cannot do with it. Many times people want to have million dollar faith when they don’t have the faith for 50 cents. This is where faith gets a bad rap in churches and people begin to teach this faith stuff doesn’t work. You should read the life story of a man named Smith Wigglesworth and learn that he did not start out raising people from the dead and that this only came after years of developing his faith to this level. Smith Wigglesworth also started an orphanage that when he began he had nothing with little faith to even get it going. But, by the time of the end of his life came he ran a home for hundreds of orphan children that cost big bucks to sustain. Smith Wigglesworth learned the conepts of faith from God and learned how to grow his faith. He wrote a book about this called “Ever Increasing Faith” teaching us that faith grows. Let’s think briefly about the men who carried the lame man up on the roof, if they had no faith or little faith, they would not have gone through such extraordinary ways to get to Jesus. However, if they had possessed great faith, they would not have had to go through such extraordinary efforts to get to Jesus. It is a complex paradox of how faith works. The Roman centurion told Jesus “You do not have to come to my house to heal my servant, just speak the word only and he will be healed”. You see if the Roman centurion had middle of the road faith, he would have had Jesus come and lay hands on him. If the Roman centurion had no faith or little faith he would have not even come to Jesus and his servant would have probably died. Wow, I just gave you a quick introduction to how faith works and what faith does depending upon the amount of faith that you possess. That was an introduction to stuff to come.
It is also imperative to make another observation from these few verses that we have read in Matthew. Jesus has not died on the cross, been raised from the dead nor ascended back into heaven and yet Jesus is speaking of “faith” as being a critical element to who receives a miracle from Him and who does not. This fact further proves the existence of faith as being an essential and present factor in the Old Testament even though it has not technically been revealed in the Word of God up until this point in time of the physical ministry of Jesus. Let’s move on to another quantifiable measure of faith found in the Bible.
Act 6:5 And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:
Here we have a measurement of faith that should be the ultimate goal of every Christian. Here in this verse of Acts God describes a man named Stephen. In this verse God says that Stephen was “full” of faith. Using my bucket analogy again, that would mean a bucket that overflowed with milk; in other words a bucket that you could not put any more faith into. This was the condition of this man and this concept is totally difficult for me to even comprehend. God is clearly contrasting the amounts of faith in at least five different levels. We had no faith, little faith, just right faith, great faith and full of faith and we could logically assume that there are varying ranges of faith in between these levels given to us like a gas gauge. In fact using my bucket analogy we could have a totally empty bucket all the way to the overflowing bucket level.
We have learned a lot about faith today. Faith is a measureable and quantifiable spiritual substance that the total amount of faith contained in every human can vary dramatically from none to overflowing amounts. We have seen repeatedly that faith was a substance that God expected to be present in every person that was ministered to by Jesus and we can conclude that God expects this in us Christians the same way. Here are some other facts about faith that we have discovered today:
- Bible faith ultimately comes from God.
- However Jesus and the Bible said some had No Faith.
- Jesus taught us that some people had only Little Faith.
- Jesus taught us that some people had “Just Right” Faith to be made whole.
- Jesus also taught us that a few people had Great Faith that exceeded His expectations.
- Later in Acts we saw Stephen being described as being Full of Faith.
- All of these are differing levels of the same spiritual substance from Zero to Maximum.
- We again saw that Jesus was looking for faith in everyone that He encountered.
- People were praised by God for having faith and rebuked by Him for not having any or just having a little bit.
- Finally, we can logically conclude from all of this infrmation given to us today that since faith is measureable that the current level of our faith can be increased no matter where we currently are at on the faith scale.
Do you understand the importance of studying this subject of Bible Faith? Are you beginning to see the significance that God put on this subject of faith in the Bible? I hope you have learned something that will help you in your walk with God and that this new knowledge will be put to use to help further the Kingdom of God. God Bless you until next time.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on Bible faith you can go to “Part 4“.
Understanding the Brotherly Love of the Lord in the Family of God!
(Ver 1.1) Today is a lesson to me because I am challenged at times with turning the other cheek when people write me hateful self-righteous comments on my website, my flesh wants to strike back, but my spirit feels compassion and love for them. This is a very constant internal struggle that we are all faced with over the course of our lives. This is a battle of our wills, between what our flesh wants and what our spirit wants to do and as long as we live on the earth this is a never ending cycle. Satan is bent upon getting real Christians to come out of the spiritual dimension and to get them back into the physical fight with our brothers and sisters but, we must learn that there is a higher path and ground to stand on. So when a commenter left me a message yesterday telling me I’m not a Christian, my flesh wanted to write them back and tell them they were a self-righteous idiot to stand in the seat of judgment against a fellow Christian. They didn’t know me, so they had no idea what I was or was not. They obviously just read some words on a web-site and I guess I didn’t believe like they did so they have concluded I don’t know God. Wow, I find that attitude very humorous. People can act so foolishly and not even know it. The Bible says in Isaiah 5:20 “Woe to you who call evil good and good evil”. In the very next verse in Isaiah God says “Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes”. In other words God calls someone who judges incorrectly and raises their own self higher than others, a person who is in jeopardy of being judged by God.
So rather than doing what my flesh wants to do today, I will teach on love towards your brother. In doing this I will feed my spirit on the right things to do and build up myself to become stronger in this area. You see I technically do not know if my commenter was my brother or not, but I will give them the benefit of a doubt since they were reading a Christian’s blog about Advanced Spiritual Bible study.
Rom 12:10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
To be kind means that you have the opportunity to not be kind at times. It would seem that this occurs more often than you might think. People can be easily misunderstood; their words can be taken incorrectly very easily. Reading someone’s writing is not like hearing a person’s voice where you can pick up on voice changes, inflections, sarcasm, humor and emphasized or deemphasized expressions or whatever. I have found that writing online is probably harder than just talking to someone in person because of these challenges. So while I do not intend to offend anyone, I know sometimes I do. The term translated as “kind affection” is a Greek word that is interesting to note in this verse. The word means an “emotional cherishing or fondness of a family member”. Did you know I was in your family that is if you are a Christian? Obviously if you are not a Christian you are not in my family which is the family of the Most High God. I am in the family of Jesus Christ and I know this for a fact whether you do or not. Did you know that God has a spiritual family? Christians need to learn this first and then learn how to treat their fellow family members with kindness.
Here in this verse we have another word that is translated as love, but is a different type of love. The Greek word “philadelphia” is the word that is translated as “brotherly love”. Brotherly love is a “fraternal love” of your family again. If you did not know that there are different types of love in the Bible you should do a study on that subject. Most intelligent people understand that you love your wife differently than you love your sister. Unless your sister happens to be your wife, like Abraham’s wife was. In John 3:16 it says “God so loved the world that He gave…”. In John 3:16 the Greek word for love is “agape”. This word in John 3:16 is the God kind of love where God loved us while we were even sinners and died for us when we did not deserve it, earn it, or ever could. The Bible tells us that God is “Agape” in 1 John 4:8. It does not say that God has Agape, it says He is Agape. Then if you are a Christian this Agape is now a part of your spirit. Agape is an unconditional God kind of love that every Christian possesses in their spirits. However, getting “Agape” out to the external is a different subject entirely. Philadelphia is similar but yet different. It is kind of like the saying you can choose your friends but you cannot choose your relatives. Well sometimes your natural relatives can be the most challenging to love, so it is in the spiritual family of God also. In the real world you can walk away from someone being hateful, but if this is your brother doing this at the family dinner, then you have an opportunity to overcome the same internal challenge that I have been going through today. Do you retaliate or do you try to smile and say something kind. Wow, that is a bigger challenge than you can imagine.
Next, in this verse it says “in honor”. This is an interesting concept. This word in the Greek means “something valuable” or “a great price paid”. This word in 1 Peter 2:7 is used to describe Jesus Christ as being the “precious” stone that the builders rejected. This is the exact same Greek word used in Romans 12:10 as “honor”. Anything that is “precious” in the eyes of God should be precious to you also. I believe that God is saying to treat others as being precious as you are. Wouldn’t it be a nicer church if people would just do what God said? I hope and pray that someday they will become a doer of the word of God and not just a hearer only. The last phrase in this verse Romans 12:10 says to “prefer one another”. This is another amazing truth that is very profound. This Greek word translated as “preferring” means to “lead the way for others”. Wow, is that a strong statement. So obviously when someone hits you verbally and you want to hit them back, God instructs us to become an example to them so that they can be directed into the right path. I use to have a sign in my office that said “He who leads when no one follows, only takes a walk”. So today I am attempting to take a few people on the internet down a path of brotherly love and I am hoping someone will learn to follow.
1Co 11:1 Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.
I’m not Paul and I’m certainly not Jesus, but I’m trying to follow their examples. The Christian way is a complex life style that can be simplified if you approach your existence using God’s words to guide you into the right things to do. Because people do not know the Bible they do not follow the Bible. God says in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. Instead of getting the right knowledge from God, a lot of the time people are deceived into a distracted priority for a lesser way of learning and doing. I am attempting to come up to a higher spiritual dimension today and to set an example of what to do when someone calls you names unjustly. This will probably not be the last time that someone does this to me, so this will probably not be the last time that I write about love on this website. I trust that those of you, who can see the difference, you have some understanding in what kind of spiritual battle I have been going through today. Now that I read the Bible about love and looked up the definitions, reminding myself of the truth, I have a better and stronger resolve to do the words of God towards others. So if you have been a faithful reader of this website, I apologize for writing a Bible lesson directly and mostly at myself. I hope that you will display some grace towards the things that we probably all face at one time or the other and to my brother who left me this hateful comment, I will tell you that I love you anyway and I will pray that you will do the same in the future. God Bless!
Understanding the Davidic Covenant and the Rapture Connection!
(Ver 1.2) This is a basic rebuttal to a man who left me a very ignorant comment on one of my posts. He was adamantly opposed to the concept that Jesus could possibly come back and catch His church up before the tribulation occurred. He basically took some verses out of context and gave them some natural interpretations to justify his ignorant position and beliefs. I have learned not to reply to my critics and their hateful words because they are not interested in getting help or learning the truth. I may read their comments to see if I can learn something, but I then delete them and move on. So if you want to leave me a hateful bunch of reasons of why I’m wrong, please do not waste either of our times. So today’s lesson is not for my commenter but, only for those who are willing to hear the truth and to change. That is what makes me different than my commenter, I am perfectly willing to change if anyone can give me spiritual Bible verses that say I am wrong, and then I will change very fast. What this man was guilty of is an attempt to put his limitations and definitions on what God can do. It is very clear to me that God will never violate His word. You can always count on the fact that God will do whatever He says. However, it is also very clear to me that there are many people in the world who do not understand God’s word so they have come up with erroneous conclusions that put limitations on what God can do in their mind. It is interesting to note that God is not limited in His ability to what you have in your mind and what you think that He can do. Your interpretation of God’s word does not limit His ability to do what He said He would do. Your wrong interpretations of His word will only affect you personally and what He will do for you and it will have no effect when He comes to rapture me out of here in a very short time from now. I am going to start by giving you his main scripture that this man said was proof for why Jesus could not come back before the tribulation ended and then hopefully show you how narrow minded and blind his argument was.
Act 3:21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
According to my very ignorant commenter, he claimed that this verse says that Jesus has returned to heaven and must remain there until the time when all things that have been written about have been completed, fulfilled, accomplished or performed. In other words according to him Jesus cannot ever come back to the earth to rapture the church before the tribulation because every prophecy has not been fulfilled in his mind. I wonder who died and made this reader God. Clearly he acts like he knows more than God when he can tell God what he can do and what he can’t do. Clearly he does not know how to read the Bible and see that Jesus has already been back to the earth several times since ascending into the heavens and being seated at the right hand of Majesty. He is attempting to put God into his little box and God is not interested in his mindless interpretations. According to my reader he saw where Scofield said that Israel must be restored to the seed of David before Jesus returns. Therefore he has concluded that a pre-tribulation rapture of the church is impossible without understanding that the Seed of David has already been restored His Kingdom. I went and reviewed Scofield’s notes on the subject and I do not have any idea how this man came to his conclusions based upon this information. It is very clear to me that he is thinking of spiritual things in the terms of natural interpretations, definitions and realities and not seeing that they have already been fulfilled in Christ. Let’s go back and see what God said to David:
2Sa 7:16 And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.
The basis of the Davidic Covenant is established when the prophet Nathan comes to speak to David in 2 Samuel 7. You can go and read the entire chapter if you like. I just want to focus in on one verse for now and this occurs in verse 16. God says to King David that He will make David’s house and kingdom an eternal everlasting one. Since David died physically and has not been resurrected, God was obviously not speaking to David who was incapable of fulfilling this prophecy. In fact there were no sons of David who were ever capable of fulfilling this prophecy until God became his son in Jesus. If you understand the genealogies of Jesus given to us in Matthew and Luke you know that these are two different ancestries of two different people. If you do not know this you better go and study it again in detail. Both lineages go through David, but after David the one in Matthew is through David’s son Solomon and the other one in Luke is through David’s son Nathan. So it is very clear that they are not the same person who comes to the end of this list. Both do not end up at Jesus, only one does. So how do you resolve this problem? You have to realize that the genealogy in Matthew is that of Joseph and the genealogy in Luke is that of Mary the mother of Jesus and I do not have time to prove this to you in this lesson. Use your brain and read it and hopefully you will see it. What we understand from the Bible is that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, so in order for Jesus to be born a physical son of David his physical mother must have been a daughter of David. This is the only way the Davidic covenant would ever be fulfilled eternally. Jesus Christ is the only son of David that is alive today to take his father’s throne and since Jesus is eternally alive His kingdom is also eternal.
What I am going to do now is to change subjects for a bit to show you that Jesus is not limited to the words of an ignorant commenter to what He can do. According to my commenter, it is not possible for Jesus to return to the earth because we read in Acts 3:21 that heaven has received him until all things have been restored in the earth. It is very obvious to me that my commenter is expecting an earthly Kingdom to be reestablished like David’s kingdom and that only this would fulfill the prophecy in his mind. However, Jesus is not limited to your interpretation of the scripture, so He can return to the earth as often as he likes and you can’t do anything about it. Let’s look at a couple of examples in the Bible where it clearly tells us that Jesus came back to the earth after being seated in heaven:
Act 9:17 And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.
Uh oh? What did this verse say? Did Jesus appear to Saul on the road to Damascus? Didn’t Jesus know this was not permitted according to my deceived commenter? I guess Jesus didn’t read Scofield commentary and decided to show up and talk with Saul anyway. This verse also says that Jesus was the one that sent Ananias personally to Saul. How did Jesus accomplish this while being in heaven? Apparently Jesus appeared to Ananias and told him to go to see Saul. You can read this in the surrounding verses of chapter 9 how that Jesus appears to Ananias in a vision. What is a vision? A vision is the appearing of Jesus in a spiritual form on the earth where a man is permitted to see him spiritually. Maybe you do not understand spiritual visions because you have never had one. So that is probably the most difficult obstacle for you to overcome. You need to learn about what visions are and how visions occur using the Bible. I wrote a Bible lesson about this subject so you should go and read that if you want to know if they are “Real or Fantasy”. Here we have a verse that says very clearly that Jesus appeared to two different people on the earth after going back to heaven and you will have to ignore them completely to hold on to your deceived ideas of what Jesus can and can’t do in the earth before the tribulation occurs. Here is a much more detailed account of the appearing of Jesus to Saul on the road to Damascus and you should pay close attention to this story to see if God is saying this is the way it happened or not:
Act 26:12 Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests,
We can definitely see that Paul is describing his journey and the reasons behind the journey. Saul was given authority of the chief priests to persecute the church of Jesus Christ. That is what he intended to do when something happened to interrupt his plans:
Act 26:13 At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me.
A very bright light shines from heaven into the natural realm on the road to Damascus and Saul and his traveling companions see it. This light is compared to the light of the sun. Of course Jesus is called the Sun of Righteousness in Malachi so this is not uncommon to describe the appearing of Jesus as being a very bright light from heaven. In fact if you look through your Bible you will see that Jesus is described to be either light or various synonymous terms for the sun around ten times just in the New Testament. If you do not know where these verses are you can check out my post on the “The Names, Titles, Symbols of Jesus”.
Act 26:14 And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
You see in my Bible, the words of Jesus are in Red Ink so that they are easily recognizable. If Saul is on the earth on the road to Damascus, how is it possible that Jesus can appear and speak to him, since Jesus is obviously not permitted to come back to the earth until the restoration of all things be accomplished? Wow, I wonder how stupid you have to be to come up with some of these false teachings. People really need to open their spiritual eyes and see what the Bible actually says before they open their mouths and prove how ignorant that they are. It is very clear to me that my commenter has a scriptural dilemma to resolve; a conflict of monumental proportions. Either the prophecies that he says have not been fulfilled and God is a liar or the prophecies have been fulfilled in the spiritual realm.
Act 26:15 And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
This verse must baffle the minds of many of the mindless deceived people in the world. Saul was persecuting the church and Jesus says he was persecuting Him personally. How is that even possible? If you think only naturally it is not possible, but if you begin to think spiritually it is very possible. You see the problem is when people do not see things spiritually they are limited to their natural view points and these are clearly not what God intended for us to use. The Bible clearly says that the people in the church are the “body of Christ” and members in particular (Rom 12:5, 1 Cor 12:27, Eph 4:12, Eph 5:23). Just as the human body is made up of millions and billions of individual cells, God is saying my spiritual body is made up of millions and billions of individual people. I’m about to blow some of your minds with my next statement of revelation so get ready for a new bomb shell. You can clearly see according to the Bible that Christ has NEVER technically left the earth fully yet! As long as the church is here Christ is here since we are His body and He is our head. So obviously my ignorant commenter is just a bit confused and does not know what he is talking about in this instance. If Jesus never left the earth then it is perfectly legal for Him to return anytime He likes for any reason He likes and this would include the rapture of the church, His body. When the church is raptured and only when the church departs the earth has Christ fully left the earth. However, it is more complicated than that since even after the rapture occurs more people on the earth can become Christians also and choose to believe.
Act 26:16 But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee;
So according to the words of Jesus himself, He has appeared to Saul to make him a witness to the truth. Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus would do this with everybody on the earth? However, there is no Bible verse that says He will do this so do not pray for Jesus to come and appear to you, for more than likely your prayer will be answered by Satan and not God. You can clearly see in this verse that Jesus is saying that He has appeared to Saul for a specific purpose and then in the final statement of this verse Jesus claims that He will come back to teach him more things in the future. The statement that Jesus made goes from present tense to future tense and it is very important for you to see this. Jesus is able to appear to anyone that He wishes at any time. It is His choice to do this and not yours. I have heard more than one modern minister say that Jesus appeared to them in a vision and that He taught them something very important to tell us. So if Jesus wants to come back to the earth, He is not going to check with you and see if it is OK for Him to come. Get it? He is the head of the church and not you!
Act 23:11 And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
Here is just another Bible example of how Jesus came to Paul and appeared to him on the earth without asking for anyone’s permission. Please understand the precedence that is being established and is presented to you. If the Bible records these specific instances where Jesus appeared on the earth after His physical ascension into heaven, then there is absolutely nothing stopping Him from coming to rapture His church body out before the tribulation has started. This is really not rocket science but you do have to have the eyes that see spiritual things. You do understand that Jesus does not have to set foot on the earth to catch His church up to where He is, don’t you? So technically speaking the rapture of the church is not Jesus setting foot on the earth at all. We are going up to meet him and he doesn’t have to come down to get us. Therefore, your argument for no rapture is purely fictional rhetoric.
So back to the Davidic covenant; let’s return to this and see what else the Bible says. We know that Jesus Christ is called the son of David in Matthew 1:1, 9:27, 12:23, 15:22, 20:30-31, 21:9, 21:15, 22:42-45, Luke 1:32, Rom 1:3, 2 Tim 2:8, and Rev 22:16 to name a few of the verses that reveal this information to us. Then you can read in Revelation 1:8 that Jesus says “I am alive forevermore”. So clearly Jesus has been resurrected never to die again. Based upon these scriptures Jesus certainly qualifies to be the eternal ruler of his father David’s throne which was prophesied in the Old Testament.
Luk 1:31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
Luk 1:32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
Luk 1:33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
What we must do after reading this angelic prophecy given to Mary about her coming son Jesus is determine if God is declaring a natural kingdom or a spiritual kingdom. There are obviously many Christians who do not understand that there is a difference and this is their first mistake. What these Christians do is to think naturally first, without considering or finding out if there is any other way that this prophecy could be fulfilled in the spiritual realm. For example, in many of my Bible lessons I have taught you that the Bible declares that there are three different cities named Jerusalem. So when you read a prophecy of Jerusalem you must determine which city is being spoken of. I guess this concept blows the mind of many people and they are just not making the connection. I believe that they are having trouble making the leap from natural into spiritual things. There is only one city in the natural named Jerusalem in the Bible and this is all they can wrap their minds around, but the Bible teaches us that there are two other cities in the spiritual realm called by the exact same name. This makes correct Bible interpretation infinitely more complex. By assuming that a scripture is speaking of the natural city you are more than likely missing the truth. You see we can find many verses in the Bible that reveal there is a major difference between these two realms. For example, read Matthew 5:34 and 23:22 to see God’s throne being described as a place in heaven. This is clearly a spiritual location, a spiritual throne and a spiritual kingdom based upon the fact that God is a spirit (John 4:24). If you can see the existence of parallel realities in the Bible you will be far above the capabilities of many people who read the Bible using their natural one dimensional mind. I guess I need to do a Bible teaching on the reality of the spiritual nation of Israel. I have avoided this subject because of the potential controversy that it can stir up. You see I have read other people’s blogs after they have written about spiritual Israel and they are attacked vehemently by narrow minded spiritually blind people who cannot see the truth and what the Bible says. Let me ask those who fight this Bible subject so enthusiastically if there is like the Bible says a spiritual city called Jerusalem, what is it the capital of? We can clearly understand that natural Jerusalem was and is the capital city of the natural nation of Israel here on the earth. Can you not think logically enough to conclude that a spiritual nation of Israel must exist if God names his new heavenly city Jerusalem in Revelation 21? I mean come on and use your brain.
I guess I have gone long enough in today’s lesson. I have not fully covered the subject about the Davidic Covenant and there are many other scriptures that we could add to this discussion. I want you to think with me if God tells David in 2 Samuel that his kingdom will be an eternal one, what do you think that implies? To me it is obvious that it is not a natural kingdom here on this earth. There are many Bible verses that say that Jesus will come back and establishes a 1000 year reign of peace on the earth. This is God’s day of rest prophesied from Genesis 1. I think that there are some confused people who are expecting Jesus to set up His eternal kingdom in this 1000 year time frame and that is why they say that the rapture cannot take place until this happens. However, this is just more misguided interpretations of the Bible while they clearly are not looking for the real answers. Did you know that the 1000 year natural reign of Christ is not forever? I mean think! It clearly only lasts a 1000 years and then what? The Bible tells us that Satan will be released from the pit to deceive again. So everyone who is born during the 1000 years of the righteous reign of Christ will be given the opportunity to make a choice and to be deceived like we have all had these same choices to make. There is an eternal Kingdom of God and the Bible says it is in me right now. Jesus clearly taught us where His kingdom was located when He said “the Kingdom of God is in you” (Luke 17:21). So men are looking for external things while God has established His kingdom on the inside of us in a spiritual realm you cannot see. Either change your perspective to see the truth or choose to remain in your deception. Thanks for reading my Bible lesson on the Davidic Covenant and why the rapture can take place at any time. God Bless!
Understanding why People Murder People! Genesis 4 – Cain and Abel!
(Ver 1.2) This is a very tricky complex subject. In light of the events in America this weekend in Arizona, I thought it would be a good topic to discuss briefly. I do not like evil and this is not my favorite subject in the Bible to study. Clearly the murder of defenseless people is an evil action which should be viewed as an abomination to God and not the plan of God. While it is possible for God to cause something positive to come from any evil negative, there is absolutely no way that God planned it, authorized it or was a party to it. If you think that He was you are probably very ignorant! People read stories in the Old Testament like how Joseph spent years in slavery and prison and think that it says God caused this injustice to happen to him so that Joseph could fulfill a greater plan of God, but this is just a religious philosophy to help explain away the existence of the devil who influences evil men in the world to do stupid things. You see in the Bible it clearly teaches that Satan was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). So if a man ever killed anybody, where would they have learned it from? Was it God or Satan? Let’s look at the first murder in the Bible and see what God says about it.
Gen 4:3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
Gen 4:4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
I like verses like this in Genesis. It says “in the process of time” which represents a scientific principle of creation. In other words, before creation there was no time, but now we live within the designed process of time constraints. Cain was the firstborn son of Adam and is said to be a farmer who grows things and his younger brother Abel as we are told is a shepherd of sheep. Kind of sounds familiar doesn’t it? Jesus was both a shepherd and the Lamb of God and his brother Satan killed him also. Uh oh, maybe I shouldn’t have told you that already. Here in these verses we are told that both men are attempting to do service to God and try to do the right thing, but one does it much better than the other. Did you notice the difference? It wasn’t the fact that one brought sheep and the other brought their crops from the field like I have heard some preachers try to teach. What they brought was not the key difference being revealed to us. God says that Abel brought the “firstlings” and this is not what Cain did at all. So what does this word mean? It basically means the “firstborn” or those who have the birthright of man or beast. So God had respect for Abel’s offering because He gave the best and Cain only gave some of his crop and not necessarily the first fruits like Abel did. Oh well that is not my subject today so I’ll move on. Hopefully you understand what I just said because I will not explain it any further today.
Gen 4:5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
So here is where Cain’s offering mistake hits the fan. Since God did not respect Cain’s offering it made him very angry. Emotions are one of the greatest blessings and the greatest curses that we have been given depending how we use them and where they directed. Let’s think logically again and determine whose fault is it for God accepting Abel’s offering and not Cain’s? In today’s society no one wants to accept responsibility or accountability for doing the wrong things. You see in the news recently a young Mexican man was killed by a U.S. Government border agent because he started throwing rocks at the agent, so the agent had to defend himself and stop him. Well, the news media interviewed the young man’s mother and she was very upset calling the shooting a crime against her son of major proportions. Isn’t it funny how the mother ignored all of the crimes that the young man was guilty of only to say that an officer defending himself was the real problem. You see the young man crossed into the U.S. illegally and was not supposed to be there to get shot. Then if he hadn’t thrown any rocks at the officer he would have just been sent back to Mexico and not shot. Does the young Mexican man have any responsibility for what happened to him? I believe he holds all responsibility, whether you want to see the truth or not. So it was in Cain’s day also. Cain could have done the right things like Abel and God would have respected his offering also.
So up until this point nobody has been killed, but yet the seeds are planted in the mind of Cain. Here is where the story repeats in today’s murders also. We have a man who has done wrong and has become emotionally unbalanced because of his past wrong thoughts, choices and actions. Cain let’s jealousy overrule the love for his borther and doing right. Since Cain has justified his actions as not being the problem it is now much easier for him to escalate his actions to a much greater sin level. Are you learning anything about how people become murderers?
Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
It is very clear to me that God tells Cain what I just taught you. God says to Cain change and do the right thing and I will accept your offering. However, Cain refuses to conclude that he has done anything wrong. So a smaller insignificant sin is about to become the entrance door to a much greater path to sin. This is exactly how murderers become murderers. They hardly ever start out at the murderer level; it is usually always some smaller petty crimes that are committed first and then they grow into a harder more callous state of the hardness of their heart towards others. It is a progressive build-up within an evil process over time to become a murderer. These are the seeds of Satan being planted in the hearts of men that cause them to do progressively evil things. It always starts with little things and then grows to the greater. That is why God tells parents in the Bible to “train up a child in the way that they should go and when they are older they will not depart from it” (Prov 22:6). That is the root to how children without any correct training are becoming murderers in our world.
Gen 4:8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
So instead of Cain making corrections he became more hard-hearted towards God and took it out on his brother since God was unable to take the wrath that he wanted to display to him. Here is another factor to why people murder; people will take out their anger towards God on whoever they see first. Because God has mistreated them and not been fair in their minds, they have become mentally bent to relieve their frustrations on somebody and sometimes anybody. God tells us that Cain began to talk to his brother and because his brother was the only one there at the time and of course God treated him differently then he became Cain’s solution. Instead of talking to God, Cain thought that by getting rid of his brother that would solve his problem and now God would have to accept his offerings. Isn’t it amazing how twisted the human mind can become when all it took was for Cain to take responsibility to do the right thing? Believe it or not this is why the young man also killed those people in Arizona. This man took out his misguided frustrations and anger upon the person who he thought would take away his responsibility for his own past bad choices and self-justified actions. It’s craziness I know and borderline insanity, yet he clearly knew it was wrong based upon his notes that he left asking for forgiveness. He was not insane, he was just deceived and took out his foolishness upon those who could not defend themselves. It is extremely sad when this happens in the world, but yet I believe God says these things will happen more as the time of the end grows nearer. It is important as Christians not to let murderers think that have won anything.
Heb 11:4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
Here is God’s commentary to the story of Cain and Abel. You can clearly see that God honored Abel because of his faith. You can assume that it was the lack of faith that caused God not to honor Cain’s offerings. You see the Bible says that God is not a respecter of persons, but it does not ever say that God does not respect someone’s faith. If you have been reading my lessons on Bible faith you understand this by now, I hope. Here is the other major thing to see from this verse of scripture in Hebrews; God tells us that Abel was deemed righteous and you can assume Cain was not. This is the difference between going to heaven and going to hell. I will not be surprised when I meet Abel in heaven. Abel’s righteous actions still speak the Bible says and they are profoundly greater than those of his brother, the murderer. I would much rather be in Abel’s shoes than Cain’s shoes today so it is with the killer of those in Arizona also. I’ll wrap today’s blog up with a statement from Jesus that you should take note of being a Christian.
Mat 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Here we have a major revelation being presented to us. Jesus is declaring the life in this world is only temporary so we should not be so afraid of anyone who could kill us physically. Jesus is clearly saying that there is an eternity after this life that we better be concerned with. Fear God who is able to save or throw you into hell forever. This life is only a time of preparation; it is not a permanent lasting situation. Jesus is clearly saying that just because someone kills your body, the real you (the spirit being) is not dead. You are just not here in this world alive physically anymore. Jesus is warning you that we should be eternity aware and not so much concerned with the natural realm where crazy evil men will try to take your life. I guess that is enough for one lesson today and I pray that you at the least learned a little bit that helped you get through the events that happen daily on our news. God Bless.
Understanding Bible Faith! Your Faith is the Determining Factor to You Being Made Whole! Part 2
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 2 in a series of lessons on understanding the basic concepts of faith found in the Bible. In the first lesson I gave you the overview of the origin of faith and how that God used faith to create the world; so therefore I taught you that faith was not a new concept found only in the New Testament. I showed you conclusive scriptures from Hebrews 11 that described Old Testament faith examples even though God never emphasized or taught this to be a requirement. In reading Hebrews 11 you can clearly see that there were many people included in the Bible because of their faith. I told you that Faith is a rudimentary subject of Bible theology which is foundational to being a real Christian. I also showed you that faith was an essential element to become saved. I then taught you that “Salvation” is a word than means to make whole the spirit, the soul and the body. We have not yet fully defined what faith is, where it comes from or how it works, but we will eventually get there just probably not today. Today I want to talk about faith being the critical factor for anything that you receive from God. I want to reemphasize the importance of you having faith so that you can begin to understand why you need it. This of course means that you must understand that just because God has given you something like salvation for free, that you must do something to receive it. There are many Christians who do not understand that concept who have obviously never had anything in the world given to them. However, in the Bible you can read story after story of how God gave man something by His grace and how that man was required to receive it by his faith. What we see is a spiritual partnership being established between God and man. God is trying to give you something by His grace and teach you how to receive it by your faith. If you have not read from the beginning of this series I would highly recommend that you go and start reading with “Part 1”. Otherwise turn to your Bible and read with me:
Mat 9:2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.
Here in this story of the lame man is revealed a lot of profound spiritual truths. Jesus is teaching a large group of people in a house that will not permit the lame man to get to Jesus. So the lame man’s friends take him onto the roof top and they cut a large hole in the roof so that they can lower him down to Jesus. The Bible says something very amazing here and if you are not careful you miss it. The Bible tells us that Jesus saw their faith; the faith of the friends to help and the faith of the lame man to get up on top of the roof to get to Jesus. This revelation clearly tells us that faith is visible and observable externally in our actions. You need to remember that as we go through this lesson on Bible faith. The next thing you need to take note of is that faith is the only thing that Jesus observed, so it must have been a very important part of determining if this man would get healed or not. Do you see anything else mentioned in this verse? Why can’t people just read scriptures and see what they say? There are certainly other things to learn in this verse, but I will skip them to move on with our subject of faith today and give you another example of Jesus and the faith of people to receive:
Mat 9:22 But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.
Here in this chapter of Matthew is the woman with the issue of blood who has been sick for many years. But the Bible says that she pressed through the crowd in order to touch Jesus and she got healed. Nowhere does it say that Jesus knew this was going to happen or that He caused it to happen. So even though it was God’s power that healed the woman Jesus reveals to us the determining factor that caused it to occur. Jesus makes another statement that is essential to our subject today. Jesus turns to the woman and tells her that it was “her faith” that made her whole. “Made whole” is the Greek word “sozo” and this is the same word translated as “saved”. So Jesus clearly tells us again that faith was a determining factor for her salvation. What we can observe from this story is her faith was set in motion by her actions and the two of these caused her to become healed. You can clearly see that in the context of this story that the disciples say the crowd was touching Jesus on every side. But, the Bible does not say that any of them got healed. So it was not because she touched Jesus like the others did that got her healed. It was because she touched Jesus in faith that caused the healing to come from Jesus. Of course it was the power of God that was on Jesus that healed her, but it was received by her faith and that is how Bible faith works. It is a joint partnership between God’s grace and man’s faith. Let’s look at another example of this in the Bible:
Mat 15:28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
Here is another example of a verse that Jesus directly mentions a woman’s faith to be the key factor of her receiving her daughter’s salvation and deliverance. Jesus does not mention anything else, so I conclude that this is the only reason that she got her answer from Jesus. Why was Jesus so obsessed with only faith? Why didn’t Jesus ever say anything else? Jesus never looked at anyone and told them “It was my power that healed you” as most confused Christian in the world think. You need to understand that faith is being emphasized more than anything else and that this is by God’s design and purpose to teach you that faith is the important part to learn about. There are many Christian who believe that God has the power to heal, but do not understand how to get God’s healing power to work for them. They want to pray and leave it all up to God and that is not what we find in the Bible that actually happens in the majority of the cases being presented to us as examples:
Mar 10:52 And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.
This is now the fourth example found in the Bible of a blind man who Jesus said “his faith” made him whole, saved him, healed him and delivered him from blindness. Jesus never took the credit for it being His power alone. In fact Jesus never mentions His power as being a factor to whether people got healed ever. Again we see the same Greek word being translated as “made whole” which is later used for our salvation. Therefore we understand again that it is our faith that is the determining factor for if we receive from God what God has given to us by His grace. I’ll give you one more example found in the Bible, even though this is not the last example that I could give you of faith being mentioned:
Luk 17:19 And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.
Here in this chapter of Luke Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem and is passing through a village where he is met by ten lepers. These men ask for Jesus to heal them and Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priest. As they were going one of them notices that he has been made whole and comes back to Jesus to worship and thank Him. Jesus again mentions that it was “his faith” that made him whole. Every time Jesus only mentions one thing and every time it is the same thing. Jesus never commends anyone for anything else other than when they had faith. What you should do is go through and reread all of the Gospels and see if you can find anything else that Jesus ever emphasized to be a determining factor for anyone being saved, healed or delivered? I know there are times in the Bible that Jesus does not mention anything as being a factor, but every time that I saw Jesus mention anything, it was always the faith of the people that was the determining factor to if they got healed or not. This is the way the Bible was written and it gives man the choice to believe it or to reject it. But, if you can see it and understand it, I believe that it will dramatically change your perspective on what God thinks is important. If Jesus who was God in the flesh says that faith is a critical spiritual reality to possess, then I believe that we need to study the subject to find out what it is that we are missing. I’ll end this lesson with one more scripture found in the New Testament that is very revealing.
Luk 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?
Here is a key verse that describes to us about when Jesus comes back to the earth, what exactly He will be looking for in His people. You can again see how faith is being emphasized as being a critical factor to possess. It also seems to put the responsibility in our court to whether we have it or not. Why would God be looking for something that He knew we already had? It really does not make any sense, if it is not our responsibility to get this faith before He returns for us then Jesus would not need to look to see if we have it. If it is not up to us to get it, then Jesus does not need to check for something called faith to exist when he returns. I hope that you understand this logic.
Let me end this lesson by giving you some more scriptures where Jesus emphasized faith to be the determining factor for man to receive from God:
Mat 9:2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.
Mat 9:22 But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.
Mat 9:29 Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you.
Mat 15:28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
Luk 7:50 And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.
Luk 18:42 And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.
These are some of the major scriptures found in the Gospels that reveal faith to be the determining factor for receiving from God. It is very clearly the only thing that God was looking for and it is the only thing that pleased Him to allow the people to receive. Reread these verses very carefully and you will begin to understand the importance of faith today to receive from God. The Bible instructs us to let every word be established in the mouth of two or three witnessess (2 Cor 13:1). I have just given you two different writers and six different verses and that satisfies the requirement exclusively. If you choose not to beleive them then that is your problem and not mine.
Here are the key points from today’s very important faith lesson so that you can go back and review:
- Faith is visible and observable in the actions of people.
- Faith is the determining factor for salvation, healing and deliverance.
- Jesus never mentions any other factor for a person being made whole, other than their faith.
- Jesus is expecting to find faith when He returns for us very soon.
- Do you have the faith that Jesus is looking for?
Faith appears to be a critically important subject in the New Testament and it is certainly taught to be the determining factor of whether or not you are a Christian and whether or not you are ever to be made whole. Jesus rebuked his disciple constantly for having no faith or little faith. Then Jesus would look at people who got healed and tell them that it was their faith that caused it to come into reality. Jesus obviously thought faith was important and you need to understand this importance in order to figure out what Bible faith is. We will discuss more about Bible faith in the next lesson, so please continue to grow in the knowledge of God. God Bless.
If you would like to continue reading about Bible Faith, you may continue to “Part 3“.
Understanding Bible Faith! The Genesis of Faith! Part 1
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 in a series of lessons on understanding the basic concepts of faith found in the Bible. Faith is of course a rudimentary subject of Bible theology which is foundational to being a real Christian. According to the Bible, without faith it is not possible to even be a Christian. However, you do not technically have to know how you became a Christian to be a Christian. In other words you do not have to understand that it took your faith to become a Christian to have the faith to be a Christian. I know that was a complex statement that I just made. But think about it logically for a second, it is very much like a new born little baby does not have to know or understand how they got to be here to be a real baby in our world. But, any Christian who doesn’t know how they became a Christian is practically incapable of knowing how to get others to become a Christian with them. That is why so many people join a church and they think they are Christians, but are not. It is like a natural child cannot have another child. It requires a maturing physical process of the human body to be able to have children, so it is within the spiritual realm also. You need to learn to grow up spiritually in order to know how to have spiritual children. One of the basics of the spiritual birth process is found in the concept of “faith”. Having faith in Jesus Christ allows God to come into your heart to abide. Today’s lesson title is called the “Genesis of Faith”. Genesis is a word that means “beginnings”. So we will attempt to learn where faith came from and when it started to be important from a spiritual Bible perspective. The Bible says a lot about this subject, but most of the direct references of the subject are only found in the New Testament. Why is that? I believe that is a very good question to understand and I will attempt to start to explain it today using several Bible verses. Is faith something new to the New Testament? I’m going to start by explaining why faith is important to know and then we will get to where faith came from and when it came into existence and finally we will touch on a small portion of what Bible faith is.
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Here we have a popular verse that is widely taught and greatly misunderstood. The primary subject of the verse is “salvation” and that is what you should see first. The next thing you should understand is that salvation is the gift that is given to us from God. God is directly teaching us two key factors about the gift of salvation. Salvation is a term that means to be completely delivered, physically, mentally and spiritually. The word “saved” actually means to be made whole. This definition informs us that unsaved people in the world are clearly missing key factors that cause them to be incomplete beings. A human being is a spirit that lives in a body and that has as soul. So God’s salvation must address all three of these human dimensions in order for us to be made whole. Therefore, God’s salvation is an all-inclusive work. In other words God did not save a small part of you and leave the rest of you out in the cold. Of course it is much more complex than that and I cannot get into that level of detail in this blog. Just keep in mind that salvation is a gift from God. Meaning we did not buy it, earn it or even deserved it, yet He gave it to us freely. But, like any gift salvation can be rejected, lost, thrown away or discarded if not cared for, esteemed and held as valuable. There is nothing that I could give you that you could not completely disdain and treat with contempt. So it is with God’s gift of salvation, we can understand that we must value this gift and take care of it in order for it to remain in our life. The first of the two predetermining factors to salvation mentioned in the verse is “grace”. Grace is of course what God has given, extended and done for us even though we did not deserve it or could do anything to earn it. The grace of God is often associated with two other deity qualities called mercy and compassion. God exhibited His mercy and compassion by extending us His grace. To allow a guilty man to go free instead of being put to death is an act of either stupidity or great mercy depending upon what that free man does with his new freedoms. This is the state of the human race today. They have been granted God’s clemency and God is watching to see what man will do with it. The next key factor in the verse is of course my main subject today and it is called “faith”. So we understand that in order for anyone to be saved, it at the least takes these two given factors to be working together in harmony. Of course this subject is vastly more complex than that and I cannot get into all of the other related things all at once, so you will have to exercise your patience and bear with me as I try to teach a very complex set of truths. Just take away from this verse the fact that “faith” is a requirement in order to be saved and we will learn more later the why, how and where it came from as we go through the series.
If you search your KJV Bible for the word “faith” you will discover that the word is only found two times in the Old Testament and well over 200 times in the New Testament. One time in the O.T. is in Deuteronomy and the other is in the prophet Habakkuk which is later quoted for us in Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38 saying “the just shall live by faith”. So we can clearly see a direct imbalance to the distribution of the subject of faith, with it being totally under emphasized or hidden in the Old Covenant while seemingly being revealed to us in the New Covenant. Again I’ll ask you, why is this? Is faith something new to us? This of course is by God’s design and I will hopefully explain why as we go. In order to understand why faith is not mentioned directly in the O.T., we need to read some more Bible verses and learn what God says about the subject of faith in the N.T.:
Gal 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
If you just read the first part of this verse you might begin to think that “faith” is something new in the New Testament. The first part of the first seems to imply that faith originated at some point in time and before this there was no faith. However, that is not what this verse is actually saying if you read the entire statement correctly. Too many people only read a part of a verse and walk away from the Bible with thinking or assuming they know what it said; when in fact they did not see the real meaning that God had given to them.
What we should be able to see clearly in this verse if we look closely in Galatians 3:23 is the fact that faith is not new and preexisted before the New Covenant in a hidden state. Hidden simply means covered or concealed. God tells us in the end of the verse that faith was later uncovered and revealed after Jesus died and was resurrected. Why do you hide anything? That is a very good question to consider. To hide something is often an act of someone trying to protect it or keep it from being stolen, lost or damaged. My mother use to hide her silverware thinking no one would break into her house and find it and of course no one did, including her because she forgot where she hid it and never knew what happened to it. Why was it necessary for God to hide faith from the Old Testament readers? Who is God trying to keep from this hidden information? To answer this question you must understand that too much information can be a very dangerous weapon in the wrong hands and since we are talking about spiritual realities that are much greater than natural things. Who is this spiritual enemy that would benefit from this information? Let’s think naturally for a second. I believe that it is very much like knowing how to build a nuclear bomb today in our world. To those peaceful nations who know how to make one, it is a deterrent to keep others from attacking them, but to a terrorist it is the ultimate weapon of destruction. This is why Iran wants this weapon of mass destruction right now! So what I am trying to do is to show you that faith involves revealed spiritual power and ability and that this is equivalent to knowing how to build a nuclear bomb in our natural world. You still may not understand these statements, but I’m not finished, so hang in there.
Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Here is another widely misunderstood Bible verse about faith and words. Here is a verse of scripture that basically reveals how the world was created. God says that everything that we can see came from two spiritual power factors that God possessed. Did you see what they were? The two factors were God’s faith and God’s words. Too many people read this verse and think that it is talking about our faith and that we have to believe in order to understand, but that is just a lack of understanding of the wording of the statement to causes many to think wrong. The main problem with the Greek language is the lack of punctuation such as a comma. The presence of a comma can change the meaning of a verse dramatically and this verse is an example of this. Take the words “we understand that” and put them at the first of the sentence and reread the statement:
Heb 11:3 We understand that through faith the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
We can basically get the same statement meaning by simply adding the appropriate comma after “By Faith, we understand,” in the original version. Hopefully you can begin to understand that God has faith and God used His faith to create the world that we live in. If God has faith, let me ask you this question “God has existed for how long?” I guess I’m getting ahead of myself somewhat by teaching you that faith was a spiritual force that has always existed with God. But I want us to learn in this lesson that faith was definitely not something that was new and only came to exist in the New Testament. We will verify this further as we continue.
For example, this chapter 11 of Hebrews is commonly referred to as the “faith” hall of fame. This is because the chapter is dominated by the subject of “faith” and it reveals to us the names of individuals throughout the Old Testament who exhibited faith even though they did not understand that this is what they were doing. According to Hebrews 11, the first mention of anyone with faith in the Bible was the firstborn son of Adan and Eve named Abel who was slain by his younger brother Cain. In verse 4 of Hebrews 11 it says “by faith” Abel offered unto God a far better sacrifice than his brother Cain. So it was the existence of Abel’s “faith” that caused his sacrifice to be accepted by God and not so much of what was sacrificed or given. According to the Bible “without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6). According to this statement whatever we do or say in this world it is imperative for us to do it in faith in order to be considered pleasing to God. That could have been the most important thing that I said in this entire lesson and it reveals to us the great significance that God places upon the spiritual factor of “faith”. There are very few things in the Bible that God says are impossible and this is a prime example of one of the most important lessons about spiritual impossibilities.
You can continue reading in Hebrews 11 and see time after time God mentioning and commending the faith of these Old Testament saints. If you did not understand it, Faith is one of the central themes of the entire chapter. The word faith occurs over 23 times in this chapter proveing God is making a point on the subject. Verse 5, “by faith Enoch…” Verse 7, “by faith Noah…” Verse 8, “by faith Abraham…” Verse 11, “through faith Sarah…” I could go on, but you get the point, I hope and pray? You see the faith of a man or a womean was the key factor for everything positive that happened in the Old Testament and why their names even appear in the Bible at all. We can clearly learn by reading just Hebrews 11 that faith existed in the Old Testament even though it was never revealed directly to anyone. God just wrote about them in ways that taught these Bible concepts without telling us what those concepts were called. That was very tricky if you ask me!
Earlier I spoke of faith as being a powerful spiritual force that helped to create our world. This of course is probably a new concept to you that you do not yet understand. So I will attempt to give you another Bible verse that exhibits this reality to us in the words of God written to the church. In this way, we will hopefully see that we have this power within us right now and that we should learn how to use it.
1Co 13:2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
Here in this chapter of 1 Corinthians God is saying some things about the spiritual reality of faith from a God perspective. I am not going to go through the entire verse and try to teach everything that it says in order to shorten this lesson. I want to focus in on the words in the middle of the verse about faith. God says that we can possess this force of “faith” that is able to move mountains. But, then He says without us having any love we are still nothing. That is an amazing statement of potential power without us even realizing its full impact. You see what does it take to move a real physical mountain? Since I live close to the mountains I know that this task takes some dynamite and some really big equipment. I’m talking about big trucks, bull dozers, scoops and on and on we could go. All of these things are natural examples of physical power. These natural examples are what God is saying faith represents in the spiritual realm. Do you understand this? You can either use your faith to move a physical mountain or a spiritual symbolic mountain and both are valid in this verse since God does not qualify the noun with an adjective limitation. This is called a double reference, where a scripture crosses the natural boundary to apply even to a spiritual domain equally and simultaneously.
We can understand natural mountains, but what is a spiritual mountain? A spiritual mountain can be any spiritual obstacle or obstruction that is in your spiritual way to any spiritual success. In the eleventh chapter of Mark we see Jesus himself speaking to His disciples in the 22nd verse He tells them to “Have faith in God”. Another very legitimate translation of this verse is “Have the faith of God”. Young’s literal translation reads this way and Young was a Greek expert more than I am. If you look at the context you will see that Jesus had just cursed a fig tree and the disciples were pointing this out to Him and God says to them you are capable of doing this also. Jesus who was God tells His followers if they would have the God kind of faith they would be able to speak to the mountain in verse 23 and say to it be removed and not doubt it in their heart but believe what they say would come to pass, Jesus said they would have whatever they said. Jesus was describing how He created the world to them and telling them they could do what He did and remove the obstacles that were hindering them. This is why Paul could write the same in 1 Corinthians 13:2 to us the church. Both of these represent two witnesses to the fact that faith embodies God’s powerful spiritual force. We need to read Mark 11:23 over and over and decide if we are a “whosoever” that God was speaking to.
So faith is a spiritual force, but that is not the only way that it is described to us in the Bible. You see faith is a multifaceted spiritual reality that can be used for offensive or defensive actions. We can read in Ephesians 6 where God is describing the spiritual armor of the church which consists of a number of spiritual entities and one of these is called the “shield of faith” and this is clearly a defensive weapon of force.
Eph 6:16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
The verse starts by saying “above all” meaning there are other parts but this one is one of the greatest that is an essential necessary part to possess. What God is doing in this chapter is describing the spiritual warfare components that are essential to know and understand. First off you need to know you are in a spiritual war and if you do not know this you are already defeated. The Bible says for us to “submit to God and to resist the devil” (James 4:7). What does it mean to resist? That is not a passive verb, if anything it is an aggressive verb of action. To resist is when you are in a war with an opposing occupying force and you choose not to submit to them. You do know that Satan is the occupying force that we are now in resistance to, yes? God gave man the earth and put Adam in charge, but Satan came and took it from him and has been occupying the earth illegally for the past approximate 6000 years. His time of occupation is growing significantly shorter now and it is time to demonstrate his defeat and he is not happy about this at all.
God says to take the shield of faith so that we might quench all of the fiery darts of the enemy. What is a fiery dart of the enemy Satan? Satan is a spiritual being so a fiery dart is a spiritual weapon thrown at the unseen part of you and this is your mind. You are to use faith to counter these offensive weapons of Satan. What we have not done is to talk about everything that faith is, how you get it so that you can know and understand how to use it as a defensive or offensive weapon. Perhaps in a future lesson on this subject we will see how to go about increasing our faith. For example, did you know you cannot find anywhere in the Bible that God says for us to pray for Him to give us faith? That is probably the second most important thing that I said today but you might have blown it off as a non- important or trivial statement. This could be because you just do not understand very much about faith yet. Let me review some of the things that I have taught you today so that you can go back into your Bible and review them:
- Faith is one of the requirements for Salvation.
- Faith was a hidden spiritual concept until revealed by God.
- Faith is the spiritual power to move physical or spiritual obstacles or obstructions.
- Faith is a spiritual defense against the spiritual power of your enemy Satan.
- Faith pre-existed the New Testament but was only formally revealed to us after Jesus died on the cross.
- Faith was active in the Old Testament but never directly identified to be faith.
- God used faith to create the world so God had faith before time existed.
- Therefore faith existed with God eternally.
I just taught you several very key basic elements that are essential to understanding the spiritual subject of faith found in the Bible. This was just a basic introduction to the subject of faith so I hope you can continue to read and study this subject as I am able to continue it with God’s help. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series, you can continue to “Part 2“.
Understanding How To Be Thankful in a Thankless World!
(Ver 1.1) We are living in a day when many are not thankful for anything. Teaching children when they are young to be thankful is a difficult assignment which too many parents ignore. When I was a child being raised in the south, many parents taught their kids to have manners. They would say Yes ma’am, No ma’am, Yes sir, No sir, please and thank you and if they didn’t their parents would correct it swiftly. This seems to be a lost skillset in the world today. Not only do many children grow up without manners, they grow up without any regard to being thankful to the ones that even brought them into the world. I know not everyone had a rosy childhood and a great set of parents and that life is much tougher on the outside than it could be or should be. But, there is what appears to me to be an over emphasis for people on their current situations in life that ignores the fact that these are always a relative set of temporary circumstances. In other words ALL problems are always relative and they do not last forever. If you look arond you closely you can always find someone that is much worst off than you are. So many look at their temporary problems and are consumed by what they don’t have and miss out on being thankful for what they do have. I have learned one thing in life that is of most importance for me and my relationship to God and that is I need to stop worrying about what could happen or what I don’t have and only focus on what God has already done in my life and given to me and give Him thanks for that. This is the Thanksgiving season and this is my message today for you, begin to be thankful for something. Look for something to be thankful for and start with that.
So I usually do not get personal, because this blog is not about me. But, I am going to relate to you something that my family went through over 20 years ago. My wife and I were expecting our second child and it was a great time for us, we thought. Everything progressed in the normal way and when it was time to have the baby, we went to the hospital like we had done before. However, this night our world was going to be shaken and change dramatically.
Our new son was born and the doctors started checking him over and then started calling in specialists and things happened very fast from there. The doctors did tests and x-rays and determined my new son was born with a major heart defect and deformity. The heart surgeon did immediate open heart surgery to save my new son’s life while I called my mother to help me pray to God. My wife was in another hospital recovering and I went to the children’s hospital where the surgery was taking place. After several hours of wondering, what was happening, the doctor came out and told me that he was alive and that we were very lucky. I knew that my wife was going through a very tough time being alone without her new son in her arms in another hospital. But we were doing the best that we knew how to do at the time. We all made it home eventually and we lived the best that we could a couple of more years before he needed another heart operation. So we went to the hospital and went through the pain again and the outcome was good again. You see the hand of God was with me and my family when I did not even know it sometimes.
My son continued to grow and he turned 4 years old. All during this time we went to church and prayed and kept hoping for a miraculous outcome. We would strive to look for little victories whenever we could. A couple of weeks after his fourth birthday my son and I were getting ready to go to church like we always did. My wife had to be at choir early so she went on first ahead of us. My son and I stopped in at McDonald’s and had pancakes for breakfast and were about to head to church when all of a sudden he collapsed in my arms and his eyes rolled back in his head. I knew something was not right immediately and I yelled for someone to call an ambulance. I then waited until I could not wait any longer and put him in my car and drove him to the closest emergency room Hospital about a mile away. They started working on him as fast as they could and I could hear him scream as I filled out paper work for the hospital. They worked for over an hour and I tried to call the church to leave a message for my wife where we were, but she was on stage singing in the choir and the church services was on TV so they could not go and get her until she came off of the stage. My other son was away at a church camp retreat this weekend so God was watching over us in many ways that I cannot tell you. While my wife sang in the choir praising God, my son died at the hospital. We were probably 15 to 20 miles from the church. I cried very hard when the doctors told me the news. I sat outside on the curb of the hospital waiting and finally my wife drove up and I had to tell her that our son was with Jesus now.
I wish things could have been different, I wish things could have been better, but yet I was thankful for the four years that I had with my son. He taught me many things that I would have not known otherwise. There were times in the car when he sat in the back seat in his car seat praising God and raising his hands in praise. Oh, to have a son with the heart of a child that was thankful for what he had and was not missing what he didn’t have, that is what changed my life forever.
I will see my son again, so I know he is not gone forever. I will talk to him in eternity and we will run together and play like he never could on the earth. Now learn the lesson of a child’s heart today and become thankful for everything that you have even if that is only a very little. I believe that God honors a thankful heart and blesses them that give Him thanks. So if you would only concentrate on what you have and be thankful, I believe that God will bless you and cause you to have more eventually.
This is the season of Thanksgiving here in the U.S. I pray that you become highly focused on everything that truly matters in your life and less focused on the things that you do not have. Problems I believe are only temporary and they are always relative. No matter how bad you think you have it, you can always find someone who has less or a worse situation and you can do something to be a blessing to them in whatever way you can. Being a blessing is why I do what I do on this website. If you could see my heart right now you would understand my tears while I wrote this blog. I hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving wherever you are while you give thanks to God for all that He has already accomplished in your lives. God Bless!
Understanding How To Do The Greater Works of Christ! More Hard Sayings Found in the Bible!
(Ver 1.4) Caution Men at Work! This is Part 5 in the advanced study series of Understanding Hard Sayings found in the Bible! You may not realize it, but this web site is dedicated to doing the greater works of Jesus Christ on the earth today. I saw a sign that once said when men work they have to put up a sign, but women work all the time and I thought that was a good statement. I at least had to laugh while I agreed. However, that is not my primary subject today. While Jesus walked our planet in the flesh He made a statement to us that many Christians do not understand nor fully accept. It is just one of the many “Hard Sayings” of the Bible that too many have not received or tried to understand. Today’s lesson is Part 5 in a series of advanced Christian studies about “Understanding the Hard Sayings” foudn in the Bible and my primary subject is about work. But, what is work? How do you define work? How are we intended to work for God today? Here is this hard saying from God spoken through the mouth of our Lord Jesus:
Joh 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
Do you believe in Jesus? If you do, then you qualify to do the rest of this verse. This statement is a conditional statement or command that comes from God and is spoken only to those that believe. If you believe in Jesus pay very close attention to what Jesus says to you and then see what you should be doing for Him. In this verse Jesus is speaking of a four letter word called “Work”. Jesus is speaking about the “works” that He did in this verse on the earth. What were these works that Jesus is referring to? How did Jesus work on the earth when He was here? What examples of work did He do for us? What did He do on a daily basis? Where was the majority of His time spent? In the minds of many Christians there is a wide variety of possibilities for the answers to these questions. There are many who read the Gospels and see how Jesus healed the sick people, cast out devils, open blind eyes and caused cripple men to walk again. These are the works of God in the minds of many. While I do not deny these, I do not believe that the Bible says these were the works of God that Jesus was referring us to in this verse. Wow, I know I just stepped on some religious toes right there. Let me see if I can heal your toes that I just stepped on before we go any further. What is work? To many people work represents a job that needs to be done. A job or work can be something that a person is paid for doing, but not always. A job or work can be something that is fun to do or something that is totally the opposite of fun. There are people who get paid for cleaning bathrooms and picking up garbage and these cannot be fun jobs, in my mind. So how do any of these definitions of human work apply to God’s definition of work? Did God ever get paid for doing work? Was it fun for God to do this work? It is interesting to note that God says He is working, but our problem is we do not know what He was doing and why. How does God work? I want to shift your focus to a verse that you may or may not be familiar with:
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.
Here in this verse God informs us about some of the things that Jesus of Nazareth the man did on the earth. God says that He anointed this man Jesus to “do” good by healing all that were oppressed of the devil. This verse clearly tells us where sickness comes from, but that is not the subject of today’s lesson. So according to God’s definition, healing is doing good and not necessarily work. Doing good can be work, but I do not believe that it is entirely a one for one exchange of meanings. Do you understand the difference? Take the Queen of England, does she work? No! Does she do any good? I guess it depends your definition of doing good? Anybody can work, but few actually do that which is good according to God’s definition of what doing good is. So I do not find a verse in the Bible that says work is healing or healing is work. Maybe I’m being too picky or maybe I’m just seeing what the Bible says. Let’s go back to the first occurrence in the Bible of the word “work” and see what God reveals to us.
Gen 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
So God clearly tells us that He worked to create our world. This is the very first time this word is used in the Bible so God must be giving us some insight into His definition of this word by the law of first mention. So how did God create the world? If we can figure out how God works then we can better understand this subject of doing the greater works of Jesus. When you read the first chapter of Genesis and see God’s work, you only notice God doing two primary things. First you notice God looking at a problem and then you see God speaking words to fix the problem. God saw darkness in verse 2 and in verse 3 God said “Let there be light”. This must be work by God’s definition. So speaking words must be how God works. Does this make any sense to you? You should read the first chapter of Genesis and see how many times God said and maybe you will understand this definition better.
Mat 4:23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
As you can see in this verse the Bible says that Jesus spent a significant amount of His time teaching and preaching the people. Isn’t this speaking words? Wasn’t this God’s definition of work from Genesis 1 and 2? You can see in Matthew 9:35, Matthew 11:1, Matthew 21:23, Matthew 22:16, Matthew 26:55, Mark 4:1, Mark 6:2, Mark 6:6, Mark 6:34, Mark 8:31, Mark 12:14, Mark 14:49, Luke 5:17, Luke 11:1, Luke 13:10, Luke 13:22, Luke 20:21, Luke 21:37, Luke 23:5, and John 3:2 that Jesus is revealed to be a teacher. These 20 verses all tell us that Jesus spent a lot of His time teaching the people. This is clearly speaking words with His mouth so that the people can hear what He said and then hopefully understand and believe. I believe this was the work of God being stated in the Bible that Jesus was speaking of. I’ll give you one more very important definition of work found in the Bible that will help you to see what Jesus is teaching us:
Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Here we have the most important definition of work that I have found in the Bible and it clearly states what Jesus was attempting to get people to do on the earth. So whatever Jesus did on the earth that was good was designed to get people to believe who He was. Therefore, God’s work was the intentional effort to get people to believe in something that they had never known before. This is clearly the definition of work to God and the reason why Jesus spent so much time teaching people the truth with His words. Stop and analyze what is the definition of “believing”? To believe something means you must have heard something and are now at the crossroads of accepting it or rejecting it. If I said “God spoke to me today”, you now have to choose, do I believe this since you were not there to hear it also. If you believe me, then you are accepting my word by faith, since I do not have any proof or evidence of this to present to you. Wow, this has turned out to be a basic faith lesson today. Faith is probably one of the top three most important lessons to learn in the Bible, in my opinion. But, I guess I’ll get back to teaching on doing the greater works that Jesus said we should be doing.
What have we learned today? Work to God is speaking words to get people to believe in Him. So what would the greater works be? I believe that these are just presenting the greater truths that God has given to us to share with others so that they would also believe in Him. Jesus said we would be able to do the greater works, only because He was going to leave the earth and go back to His Father in Heaven. Therefore, something that Jesus has now accomplished has allowed us to do a greater work than He could have done here personally. You see all of the multitudes of the people that Jesus taught, He could not get anyone saved until after He had died on the cross, was resurrected from the dead and returned to heaven. Helping to get people saved today by preaching and teaching the Word of God is clearly a much greater work that Jesus could not perform while He was here personally on the earth. Does that make any sense?
Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
In this verse Jesus is contrasting two different types of people on the earth. Both groups of people are teachers, did you get that? Did you know that you were a teacher before you got saved? You might have been teaching in a bar or a strip club, but you were teaching. It is very clear to me that Jesus said by doing and teaching others the right things that you would be called one of the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. But, by doing and teaching the wrong things you would be the least. So that is your marching orders today from God. Do what Jesus said to do and make an effort to teach others so that they can believe and do right things. Only by teaching others the Word of God will you be able to make a lasting difference in the world. Only the Word of God and the Spirit of God changes people. This is why Jesus could say go and teach.
Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teach all nations, that is why I can say that this website is dedicated to doing the greater works of God on the earth today. I am a teacher called by God, anointed by God, taught by God and directed by God. I hope and pray that you understand the difference between doing good (healing) and doing the works of God (teaching). I am definitely not preaching against doing good to anyone using God’s definition of what doing good is. In fact, I embrace it fully. I also hope you understand how important it is to get God’s definitions for the words that we are studying in the Bible. By looking up God’s definition of what work is to Him, this helps us to understand how it is even possible for us to do greater works than Jesus did. Otherwise, you would feel very intimidated by this Hard Saying of Jesus. Jesus clearly raised the dead, caused blind eyes to open, cleansed lepers and caused cripples to walk; when was the last time you did any of this? Then figure out if you could do any of this for someone what could you do that was greater than that? I cannot think of anything. Maybe in a future lesson we will talk about the “anointing” factor that we read about in Acts 10:38. Why did God have to anoint Jesus who was God to heal the sick? If you have never understood about the anointing factor from God it is another subject that you need to study. I am anointed to teach and that is why it is possible for me to write Bible lessons on the web. This was God’s doing and not my choice. I did not pray and ask to be a teacher, God chose me and anointed me and that is why I can do what I do. It is very much like David didn’t anoint himself to be King of Israel. God chose him and sent the prophet to anoint him to be king.
You will discover by reading the Gospels carefully that Jesus would almost always teach first and then heal. I know not always and that you can find some cases where Jesus operated in the gifts of the Spirit of God and just healed someone, like the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda. But, whatever Jesus did, is what you should be doing in the same way. Today’s emphasis was on teaching and who knows what I’ll teach on tomorrow. I enjoy teaching the Word of God and that is why I do what I do. I reach people all over the world and I hear from them and they are a blessing to me. I am blessed to be a blessing and so the work of God is spreading around the globe. I am convinced that doing the greater works of God is first learning what the Bible says, doing it and then going and sharing it with others. Get involved in what God is doing and see that the time is very short to do it in. God Bless!
If you would like to read on in the series you may go to “Part 6“.
The Riddle and the Puzzle in the Bible of the Missing Row on Satan’s Breastplate?
(Ver 1.2) There are many people who do not understand how the Bible was written. God has hidden a countless number of mysteries, riddles and puzzles in the Bible for us to solve with His help. These riddles are always word based puzzles. All of these puzzles are implemented with techniques that use hidden and spread out information that makes them very hard to find. These mysteries are of course much more difficult to solve than they are to find but many of the puzzles are also very hard to recognize by just reading the Bible. Today I am going to show you one of these very complex puzzles that I have been working on from the Bible for several years and so far have not completely solved the entire mystery of the puzzle. I want to share what I know today with those on the Web to challenge you to see it and then to think and help me to see things that maybe I have not thought of. There are certainly people on the web that have also found this puzzle, but clearly they have not understood it completely either. I believe that since we are so very close to the time of the end, that God is intending that we should know what these puzzles mean before He returns for us. The biggest problem that I have with most of the interpretations that I have found on the web concerning this mystery is that they are all someone’s opinion on what it means. No one gave any Bible verses to establish the truth. So that is a major problem with most interpretations, they are “Private Interpretations” and these are not allowed (2 Peter 1:20). This however, does not stop men from coming up with their own personal interpretations of what they think the Bible means. The Spirit of God began to show me this puzzle almost 20 years ago and even though I have studied it over and over, I have not come to a definite meaning to what is being taught. So, I will share with you what I know and maybe God can use someone else to help solve the mystery. In the Old Testament, Moses was given specific instructions of how to make the Temple of God and the garments of the Priests. There are several articles of clothing of the priests with some very specific items that all must have symbolic meanings. The garments of the priest are said to be holy. One of the key pieces of the Priest’s wardrobe was a breastplate. This breastplate was put on over the head and shoulders of the high priest and covered his chest and back areas of his body. This resembles what many soldiers wore while they were in battle to protect themselves from blows to their bodies. The breastplate was an outward covering of the body and specifically the upper torso.
There are two places in Exodus that specifically lists the qualities found in the breastplate and these verses describe the breastplate to us in some detail. One of the places this is found is in Exodus 28 and the other is in found Exodus 39. We will only focus in on the description found in Exodus 28 in this lesson today:
Exo 28:15 And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work; after the work of the ephod thou shalt make it; of gold, of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine twined linen, shalt thou make it.
The priest’s breastplate is called the Breastplate of Judgment. The word judgment means a judge’s verdict or degree, either for or against you. Every mention of titles, names or specific qualities of the breastplate I believe all have symbolic meanings. I believe that God is more interested in teaching us about spiritual things than He is making us look like we worship external manmade idols. The breast plate consists of three colors of threads. One is Blue, the second is purple and the third was scarlet. I believe these colors also have symbolic meanings attached to them. Now God begins to describe the stones that should be included on the external covering of the breastplate:
Exo 28:17 And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row.
As you can see God picks very specific stones and a very specific arrangement, placement and order to each stone. The stones are arranged as we discover in 4 rows of 3 stones each for a total of 12 stones in all. This is a very key number to remember. I believe that the number 12 is also symbolic of spiritual things. We know from study that Israel had 12 tribes, that there are 12 hours in a day, Jesus picked 12 apostles and the foundation of the New Jerusalem has 12 specific parts that we may look at later. Let’s continue through the rest of the rows of stones given by God:
Exo 28:18 And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.
Exo 28:19 And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.
Exo 28:20 And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings.
So we have a list of 12 unique individual stones with no duplicates arranged in a pattern of rows and columns. It just so happens that rows and columns are a sommone type of computer database concept and terminology. If you are familiar with Spread Sheets like Microsoft Excel, then you also can understand how rows and columns play a factor in what God is showing us by this specific diagramed information. If you understand these concepts it may help you to see where we go later in this lesson. Then in the next verse in Exodus we see another association being made.
Exo 28:21 And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes.
Each stone is engraved with the name of the sons of Jacob. What order to place the names, however is not given to us. We could assume that it is in the order of birth given to us in Genesis 29 and 30, or we could assume it is in some other order like the names of the tribes given to us in Revelation 7:5-8 or even Ezekiel 48:31-34. However, in each case example that I just gave you, God lists the 12 sons of Jacob in a different sequence. So which is the right one and does it even matter? Many have tried to come up with the sons of Israel names associated with each stone, but I am not convinced any of them are right. I have read at least 3 or 4 possible renditions on the web of who they thought the stones were and they were all different and nobody could tell us why they picked one to be associated to the other. It could be that the names being associated with each of the stones is not important, or it could be that it is still just hidden from our view and we have not found it yet. Here are the stones we found on the Priest’s breastplate listed in the specific Row order given to us by God.
|
Row/Column |
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
1 |
Sardius; H124 (3) | Topaz; H6357 (4) | Carbuncle; H1304 (3) |
|
2 |
Emerald; H5306 (4) | Sapphire; H5601 (11) | Diamond; H3095 (3) |
|
3 |
Ligure; H3958 (2) | Agate; H7618 (2) | Amethyst; H306 (2) |
|
4 |
Beryl; H8658 (7) | Onyx; H7718 (11) | Jasper; H3471 (3) |
I have listed the name of the stone from the KJV Bible as well as the Hebrew Strong’s number followed by a parenthesized number of times this specific word is mentioned in the O.T. As you can clearly see 3 stones are only mentioned a total of 2 times in the Bible and only in the description of the Priest’s breastplate in Exodus. This is Row 3 of the list of 12 stones. Next you can see that 4 stones are mentioned in the bible only 3 times, 2 stones are mentioned 4 times, 1 stone is mentioned 7 times and finally 2 stones are mentioned a total of 11 times. That is the makeup of the 12 stones and their frequency of word usage occurrence in the O.T. Hebrew Bible. All this tells me is that 7 stones are only mentioned in the descriptions of the breastplates and then 5 stones have varying references from 1 additional mention to 4 mentions and finally to 8 additional mentions. In reading these references I only saw Jasper mentioned in relation to the throne of God. I then noticed Topaz mentioned as coming from Cush. I did not see any references to any of the tribes of Israel so we still have a major mystery with relating the stones to the individual tribes of Israel. It would appear that God does not mention this in the Bible or it is definitely hidden using a method that God has implemented to conceal the information.
Heb 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
So here we go with the beginning of the enormous mystery puzzle. We know from the above verse in Hebrews that God gives us some valuable information of those things that were given to Moses in the O.T. Law. God specifically tells us that those things that Moses created for God’s temple on the earth were shadows of the heavenly things that already preexisted in heaven. That is very important information. God has a temple in heaven that resembled the temple on the earth created by Moses. This would have to mean that God had a high priest in heaven that also resembled the high priest here on earth. Are you getting it so far? We are now ready to see some more important clues found in Ezekiel 28:13 that seems to describe Lucifer or Satan as the type of or in the role of the high priest in heaven. Satan is described to resemble the role of the high priest on the earth, but with 3 less stones on his covering. Read this verse carefully:
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.
If you go through the list of stones and lookup each of the Strong’s Hebrew words, you discover that each stone listed in this verse is an exact match for a stone found on the Mosaic priest’s breastplate. They are of course listed in a completely different order. Then as you can determine by looking and counting, there are exactly 3 stones less with a total of only 9 stones being listed. So we have to reorder them to see which ones are present and which ones are missing. So not only does Satan have stones in a different order, he is missing a total of 3 stones. By closer comparison you can determine that it is Row 3 of the high priest’s breastplate that is missing from the covering of Satan.
|
Row/Column |
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
1 |
Sardius; H124 (3) | Topaz; H6357 (4) | Carbuncle; H1304 (3) |
|
2 |
Emerald; H5306 (4) | Sapphire; H5601 (11) | Diamond; H3095 (3) |
|
3 |
|||
|
4 |
Beryl; H8658 (7) | Onyx; H7718 (11) | Jasper; H3471 (3) |
All of this is just too amazing to be a simple coincidence. If you understand God you will know that God purposely hides information like this for us to discover. Using database concepts, this information would represent a missing record from a file. 
A record always contains related field information that is grouped, organized and associated to form the information in the row. A row would be like the name and address for a customer. Therefore, in database terms, we would have a table that has 4 rows of people’s names and addresses that we know. Each row would represent one person that we know and the information that we want to relate to that person, like their stree address, city, state and phone number. These are just basic database concepts, but they must certainly apply to the puzzle being presented to us by God. God is definitely trying to reveal something to us, but what it is, is the major question of the day? What can we derive from the fact that exactly Row 3 is missing and not Rows 1, 2, or 4? It would appear to me that since Row 3 is missing that it seems to be an indication that something was taken away from Satan and not just simply being added to the high priest on the earth. However, that is not a complete factual reality, since in any spread sheet or database you can add a row anywhere you like. So that is the mystery of the missing row in a nutshell. What is being added to the earthly priest that Satan did not have? Or what is being taken away from Satan that man still has? Since the Bible does not appear to answer the missing row question specifically from Satan’s breastplate, nor the names of the tribes of Israel can be directly tied to each stone, then this forced me to change my perspective and to look in the Bible for alternative related subjects and topics in order to come up with a better understanding for what God is trying to teach us. Sometimes I have learned that if you can’t understand it from one perspective then you better change your perspective to see it differently and this is what I’ll do for the rest of this lesson. I learned that the Bible says God does not change, so the Bible does not change either, it is only our view of the Bible that should be affected. Did you understand what I just said? It was very important!
You see, I believe the Bible clearly reveals to us that the people in the church are a spiritual pattern of the Old Testament Mosaic priests. These O.T. natural Priests were given to us as natural views into the coming spiritual truths and realities found in the New Testament. Let me briefly show you some scriptures in the N.T. that seem to indicate this to us:
1Pe 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
As you can see this verse both calls people in the church living stones as well as being a people who are called a “holy priesthood”. I do not think this is an accident that God mentions these two things in one verse. It would appear that there is a definitive association to the stones found within the breastplate of the O.T. priest. In this verse you can clearly see that we in the church are supposed to offer to God a spiritual sacrifice and not a physical one. So the people in the church are the new spiritual priests of God. Could we possibly be replacing Satan the original heavenly priest? If the church is also the spiritual priests of God, what kind of spiritual breastplate are we now wearing? If you noticed I did say a spiritual breastplate and not a physical breastplate. The O.T. breastplate is clearly a symbolic representation of something that we cannot see with our natural eyes.
1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Here is another witness to the fact that the church is called a royal priesthood of God. You see the word “priesthood” comes from a Greek word meaning to “execute the priest’s office”. To do what the priest did physically, but do it now in the spiritual realm for real. We have observed two major verses in the N.T. written to the church of God that tell us we are now God’s spiritual priests, but let’s look at one more for fun:
Rev 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Here is another witness found in the Bible that says the members of the church have been placed into the office of a “priest” unto God. You can clearly see from these three witnesses that the church is directly called priests. So we are at the point now to try to figure out what the breastplate might represent to us as God’s priests.
Eph 6:14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
As you can clearly see, this verse describes Christians as wearing a “breastplate of righteousness”. This statement is made in the clear context with a description of the armor of God and is starkly contrasted with the O.T. “breastplate of Judgment”. So it is not directly a high priest type of breastplate or is it? It still could be considered very similar. As you recall in the description of the high priests breast plate it was labeled the breastplate of judgment a figurative named title just as our breastplate is stated to also be a figurative described title. The one of judgment is obviously very different than the other that is given to us for righteousness. However, the Bible says that we have been justified and redeemed and therefore we are not under the condemnation or judgment of the law. Since we have been freely given the righteousness of Jesus, I believe that we would be wearing a different type of priest’s covering than the one found in the O.T. law.
1Th 5:8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
I am convinced that the Bible gives us many clues in little pieces that we need to put together correctly. Here we again see another reference to us wearing a breastplate, but this time it is mentioned in conjunction with two new terms called faith and love. Do you realize that faith and love are two of the fruits of the spirit mentioned in the New Testament? Do you also realize that there are 9 direct fruits of the spirit mentioned in this verse in Galatians? I believe the reoccurrence of the number 9 is again more than a simple coincidence.
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Gal 5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
So are these 9 fruits being mentioned in a list just a mere coincidence? The only way you know there are nine is by us counting them. Of course the only way you know there were only 9 stones on the breastplate of Satan was to count them also. How many stones did Satan have? You know by now that Satan had only 9 stones. We can logically conclude that since the High priest’s breastplate had 12 stones, 3 more than Satan’s breastplate that God is trying to tell us something very important. I personally believe that the 9 fruits of the spirit in Galatians are missing 3 fruits and here is one of the main reasons that I believe this:
Rev 22:2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
So I believe this verse has some more major clues in it that are applicable to our puzzle solution. This verse clearly mentions the number 12 and this is the same number of stones on the O.T. High Priests breastplate. Then there is a connection of the number 12 to fruit which we discovered this connection when looking at the fruits of the spirit and the breastplate of righteousness found in the N.T. It is also interesting to note another connection found in this verse connecting these 12 fruits to the tree of life. If you have ever read some of my other lessons you know that the tree of life is a clear reference to the people in the church. Here is an example of one of these verses:
Pro 11:30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.
As you should be able to see this verse says that we have “fruit”, “righteousness” and the “tree of life” all mentioned in one verse and there is no way that this is there by chance or accident. In the N.T. the people in the church are clearly those who have been given God’s righteousness. We clearly saw verses that said the breastplate of righteousness was part of our spiritual wardrobe. Then there is this very simple fact that almost all natural fruit grows on trees. You do not plant a fruit seed like an orange seed and get more oranges; you first get a tree and that tree will produce the oranges. So where does spiritual fruit come from? Spiritual fruit must also come from a spiritual tree. I believe these righteous trees are those who have been given eternal life by God.
Pro 15:4 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.
We are given another clue to this fruit that we are to produce and this is by our mouth and the words that we speak. This is one of the key reasons that I teach a lot on the importance of your spoken words. There are many verses that I can give you that are related and I will give you a couple of them:
Pro 12:28 In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.
Here in this verse we can see a reference to a pathway, righteousness and life and these are all being connected or linked together again. We saw in Revelation 22:2 that the tree of life was in the middle of what? This verse says that the tree of life was found in the middle of the street. Is a street a pathway? I believe it can be. It is often times called a highway, a parkway, a drive or other words in our English language but a way to go is the clear reference being given to us. So we can see in Proverbs 12:28 that the righteous are intended for life and this would imply the ability to produce the 12 kinds of fruit mentioned in Revelation 22:2 on the tree of life. If you study the Bible in the Old Testament, trees are many times used as symbols for people. So a symbolic a group of “trees of life” in Revelation 22 could also be a righteous group of God’s people.
It is also interesting to note that in Revelation 22:2 that there are 12 fruits that are produced every month. How many months are there? In our calendar there are 12 months in a year. So we have two number twelve’s being related together. If you multiply 12 x 12 you get 144 and this is a number that occurs other places in the bible. If you add 12 + 12 you get 24 and this number also appears in the Bible multiple times. So are these coincidences or simply clues to a greater mystery. I think I’ll end this lesson here today, for I do not want to overwhelm you with too many questions to consider all at once. What I want you to do is recognize that there are little clues found in the Bible that are repeated to display hidden information that has meaning and significance. I believe very firmly that the righteous ones are those who are supposed to be producing 12 kinds of fruits of the spirit. What the other 3 fruits are, represents the missing row on the breastplate of righteousness of Christians. This is another mystery of Biblical proportions. But, the patterns and information being given to us is clearly not by accident or chance. What we must do is study to show ourselves approved and continue to ask God to reveal to us the mysteries of the Bible. God Bless!
Understanding the Collapsing Timeline of the End of the World!
(Ver. 1.2) This is Part 1 in a series of advanced Bible Lessons about the signs of the end times. Many people in our world do not understand that we are at the end of the end of our age. A time called the end of the “last days” on earth. The door to this Age of Man’s dominance upon the earth in conjunction with the works of Satan is closing rapidly. Most of the world proceeds in the darkness and grows more evil for they do not know the signs of the time. It is true what the prophet Hosea said “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. No doubt if people only had the right knowledge, they would also be able to see the times of God’s seasons are concluding quickly. However, I heard a TV preacher the other day make a statement that I agreed with 100%. This pastor of a church here in the U.S. prophesied a coming reveal of God’s Word; his statement said every mystery of God will be revealed in the next 2 years. While I do not know if 2 years is the time frame for Christ’s return or not, I believe that there are countless numbers of mysteries in the Bible to be discovered by God’s people and that God will reveal them by His Spirit to His people before Jesus returns. I mean think about it, why would God hide information in His book if it was not going to be revealed? What do we need with mysteries and hidden information from the Bible in heaven? I had a commenter say that it will sure be nice when we get to heaven and God can teach us all the things that we missed out on down here. Why can’t God teach His people the truth, here and now? Do you think that God is incapable of teaching His people what the truth is in the Bible? All it takes is for God to show us some little keys and suddenly the whole book could unfold right before us like a giant puzzle solved. You see when we get to heaven, there will be no enemies up there, no evil, no crime, and no deception and then what will we need with the truth? From my vantage point on the earth, the church needs to know the truth now so that we can become one body in harmony and accord with each other. That means we have a lot to learn in a very fast time frame. If you are interested in learning these secrets of God with me, then get involved with what God is doing in these last remaining days on the earth.
1Th 5:1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
Why did God not have to write about the times and the seasons to these His people? What the Bible does is reveal something that implies we will be able to see these times and seasons and understand that the coming of the Lord is at hand. You can certainly look at the world around us and see many of these things mentioned in the Bible about the end are happening all around us. There have been earthquakes, wars, rumors of wars and many going here and there saying peace, peace! The signs of the times surround us every day. Technology, computers and the internet have made it possible for the Anti-Christ to take control of the world’s finances like never before. The Arab nations are building nuclear weapons and the nation of Israel is in perilous times. There are terrorists and people killing people and people dying all around us. In our calendar year, the seasons are used to determine the times of planting and reaping. God has been planting seeds for the last 2000 years. The knowledge of God has exploded like never before, but there is also a coming time of harvest, where God says that’s it, it is finished! How do you tell people this and not sound crazy in our world today? You sound like a chicken little saying the sky is falling! You come across as a fool, but at least you can be a fool for Christ.
1Th 5:2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
So we have a verse that contradicts the previous verse. This verse says the coming of the Lord will be like a thief in the night. You just never know when a thief will show up. But, what we have here is the same event from two perspectives. Those who know Christ will be able to see the coming times and for those who do not know Christ it will happen suddenly without any warning.
1Th 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
We certainly see everyone today in the world calling for this illusive peace. What they do not understand is who is behind these wars, the spiritual forces that manipulate and control people in doing the evil that they do. This verse is again given in contrast to other verses in the Bible that reveal the church is not appointed to wrath. Sudden destruction is not coming to the church, if you think it is then you are very confused in who wins this spiritual war. Sudden destruction will come upon the evil people in the world who do not want to see the coming of Jesus. The church of Jesus will be taken up and out of this destruction before it happens.
1Th 5:4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Here we have the previous verse to verse conflict resolution given to us very clearly. We the church, are not those who are in the darkness. The destruction is only for those in and of the darkness. Those who walk in the darkness are those who have been blinded not to see the truth of God. These are those who have been deceived into believing lies. These verses in 1 Thessalonians 5 are contrasting the end events from two perspectives, one is light and the other is darkness. Do you understand this?
1Th 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
We again see that the church of God is those who walk in the light of God. Anyone who has light can see what is happening in the world because of the light that God is shining upon us. This is in stark contrast to those in the darkness who cannot perceive the times or the seasons.
1Th 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
God says let us therefore be awake while we are in the light of day. This is a spiritual statement and not a physical statement. People still sleep at night and work during the day physically. But, these natural realities correspond to spiritual realities that we must understand clearly. To watch and to be sober is another contrasting statement to those who like to party during the night and get drunk. These concepts are not that difficult to grasp if you have eyes that see spiritual things.
1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
For God has not appointed us to wrath. I spoke of this verse earlier because I wanted to show you that God is not angry at the church. Wrath is a coming time of punishment for being evil and rejecting the truth. Wrath will never be given to anyone who has been delivered from it by the blood of Jesus. Jesus became sin that we might become the righteousness of God and this makes us saved from the impending doom of the world. The Bible says that we (the church) have been reconciled back to God. That means to be brought back into right relationship with Him. I do not understand how people ignore verses like these in order to teach a mid-tribulation or post-tribulation rapture of the church. The church will not be here during the time of wrath and that means we will be taken out of here very soon. Jesus almost 2000 years ago said this about the times that we are living in:
Rev 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
In being able to recognize the times and seasons, it requires that you understand the Bible and what it teaches on these subjects. If Jesus could make this statement of coming soon almost 2000 years ago, how close do you think that we are today to the return of Jesus? How could Jesus say this and it be a truthful statement? To human perspectives 2000 years is almost an eternity. But, we of course understand that God lives outside of the dimension of time in an eternal self-sustaining mode of existence. God is called the ancient of days in the Bible, so time to God must be completely different than time to us. To man 2000 years is a very long time since man only lives to be a 100 years old, but to God, it is just a yesterday. If I said to you today, “I’ll see you tomorrow”, is that a long time to you? To most people, tomorrow is not a long time. We are simply talking about at the most 48 hours. So when you see Jesus speaking of 2000 years as a short time you must find God’s definition of what time is in order for you to understand the real truth of the Bible. This is called letting the Bible interpret itself:
2Pe 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
So by God’s definition of time on the earth, one day can represent a time period of 1000 years to Him. What God is doing is changing our definition to His definition so that we can see things from His perspective. This is one of the most important concepts for correct Bible interpretation that you can find. This definition gives us a reference to time that was hidden in the Bible. When you start analyzing the Bible using this information you can begin to see why Jesus could say that He would see us at the end of the day tomorrow and it be nearly 2000 years on our timeline. Therefore 2000 years would not be a long time in God’s eyes. Seeing things the way God sees them is one of the most important keys to understanding the Bible. Let’s break down this information we just read for a future point of reference:
1000 / 24 = 41.6667 years = 1 God Hour. So One hour in God’s timeline would be just over 41 years of our calendar.
41.6667 / 60 = 0.6944 years = 1 God Minute. One minute to God would be approximately .7 of a calendar year to us.
0.6944 * 365 = 253.47 days = 1 God Minute. One God minute is just over 8 months of our calendar.
253.47 / 60 = 4.2245 days = 1 God Second. 101.388 hours = 1 God Second. 6083.25 seconds = 1 God Second.
While I have not found a reason why these numbers are significant, the concepts behind them are what I am trying to convey. To hear when God tells you to wait a minute, that it could mean wait up to 253 days for the answer. Even God’s Wait a Second, could be over 4 days long. It is a radical shift in our perspective of time concepts. It causes us to come up to a higher dimension of spiritual understanding. It forces us to renew our minds with some new spiritual facts and knowledge. What I am attempting to show you is that many times in the Bible God is defining words differently than we do. Do you understand that any verse in the Bible can change dramatically depending on the definitions of the words found in the verse? If we use man’s definition of the word found in the verse, there is a high probability that we just got it wrong.
By the law of first mention, we must go back to Genesis 1:5 to see the first time the word “Day” is used in the Bible. God goes through a series of 7 days of creation, doing something new every day that is unique to the world that we live in. This is a God week by definition and according to the definition of what a day is it means a period of 7000 years. However, we must also change our perspectives to see what else is hidden in this information. I do not believe that it took God 7000 years to create our world; I believe that God is trying to teach us something else about these days of creation. If you have read my other blogs, you already know that these 7 days of creations are prophetic statements of the history of man on the planet. Every day of the creation account has symbolic meaning of something that transpired in the earth during that millennium. The 7th day is a representative pattern of the coming millennial reign of Christ. This is God’s day of rest upon the earth where we have no enemy to fight or defend against. The first 6 days of creation are days of work for man, where we definitely have a great challenge presented to us by God. Our enemy Satan has come with great fury knowing that his time is very short. So while we do not know the exact day or hour for Christ’s return we can clearly see that the harvest season is fast approaching. There is no way to know how long of time that we have exactly on the planet. Our year 2010 is a corresponding year of 5771 in the Jewish calendar. The Jewish people have supposedly calculated from the time of Adam’s creation to today and they think it has been just under 6000 years by a few hundred years. I think that they are close but that it is much closer to that magic number of 6000 years than we think. There is no way that God is going to wait over 200 years to come back to the earth, people would not survive that long. If I had to guess a number I would say that the Jewish year is closer to 5985 to 5991. But, that is just me pulling numbers out of the air that mean nothing. It is only logical to see that Biblical prophecy is falling into place very rapidly around us. I do not think that the coming of the Lord can wait more than a very few years. If God does wait, then we are in trouble. The world’s economies are declining and the wickedness in the world is increasing at rates that are off the charts. I’m not going to explain the 6 day time line of creation like I have tried in other blogs. So please if you do not understand these concepts go and search my website for additional information on this subject. Using this information let’s look at some Bible verses that certainly apply:
Mat 17:1 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
When you realize that Jesus did nothing by chance or accident, you begin to see important prophetic verses in the Bible with hidden double meanings within them. In this verse it says Jesus went up to a mountain top and took with him Peter, James and John. The symbolic representations in this verse are very clear. If a day is as a thousand years then after 6000 years (6 God Days) of time on the earth Jesus will come to take His church up to be with Him. This is what I see that this verse implies, you of course can believe whatever you like. While on the mountain top Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah. These are also two symbolic representations of those who were dead (Moses) and those who were caught up alive (Elijah) to be with Christ. This whole story in this chapter of Matthew is giving us a prophetic confirmation of God’s timeline on the earth in hidden terminology. I hope and pray that you can see it and how it fits together with other Bible verses.
Mat 24:37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Here Jesus is telling us some more secrets about His impending return. It says that as it was in the days of Noah it will be again in the coming of the Lord. So how was it in the days of Noah? In Noah’s day, the people mocked Noah for building an ark. They laughed because they knew not the impending coming disaster nor could they discern the times or the seasons because they were in darkness. They lacked “knowledge” of the truth and perished because of this lack of knowledge. Jesus says in this chapter of Matthew that they ate and drank and had parties. They married, built houses and went about their ways ignoring the coming disaster. This is a very important lesson for the coming of the end of the age that we are living within. Noah was considered righteous and is a type of the church family of God. Noah knew exactly when the disaster would start and how it would end. Noah was prepared for the disaster, so Noah was saved from the disaster. Noah escaped the wrath of God, and so it will also be with the church. This is a clear pattern of the true church in the world today. These are those who can read the signs of the times and understand the seasons. The Lord’s coming will not come as a thief in the night just like the rain did not come as a thief in the night to Noah. If you are prepared for Christ’s return then you will know and see His return clearly. In the parable of the 10 virgins, there were 5 who were foolishly not prepared and went away for oil. These are types of the people in the world who do not know God. They will not perceive that the time is too short to try to get more oil. While you are away Jesus will come back and those who are ready will go up. This parable is an attempt by God to tell you to get ready now before you realize the time is too close at hand to get more oil. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, do you think that this could be a symbolic indication of the coming 6000 years of Christ’s return? I certainly do. Let’s look at one more verse about the end of time in relation to a historic type:
Luk 17:28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
I take these verses very literally. When Jesus says the coming of the son of man will come like it happened in the days of Lot, what does that tells us? The righteous were taken out and the destruction began to rain down immediately upon those cities. This again gives us a picture of the pre-tribulation departure of the church. God does not appoint the righteous to His wrath. This verse says those in the earth will be eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building and their consumed focus on these activities will cause them to miss the coming of Jesus.
Joh 2:1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:
God gives us little clues in the Bible in vastly spread out verses. Here we have a reference to a real event that occurred during the days of Jesus on the earth, but God uses it to inform us of a spiritual event that is coming. These types of verses are allegorical and they are real events that happened on the earth, but they show us a spiritual reality. After two God days (2000 years) there is coming a wedding feast that will occur in heaven on the third day. While the earth is experiencing the vials of Revelation, the church will be in heaven getting ready for a wedding feast. Verses like these are very interesting and potentially controversial because it appears that I am pulling something out of context to teach a spiritual prophecy. However, God uses this technique throughout the Bible in symbols, types and shadows and allegories. I mean think about it, God could have used any number of days in this verse and it could have been accurate, but God chooses to use 2 days and then Jesus went to a weeding. Do you think this is an accident? I certainly do not!
Joh 4:43 Now after two days he departed thence, and went into Galilee.
Again we see that Jesus could have stayed however many days that he wanted, but it is recorded that Jesus stayed here 2 days and then the departure occurred. Is this another coincidence or is this a prophetic picture of the coming departure of the church? Only you can decide what you believe, it is. I will believe that it is a prophecy.
Joh 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Approximately four times in this chapter, Jesus uses the term the “Last Day” in conjunction with a time of resurrection and new life. What is the last day of the week? The “Last Day” of the week would be to the Jewish people the Sabbath, also called the day of rest. The God Sabbath is also called the Millennial Reign of Christ. We can very clearly see that Jesus is saying that there is coming a God Last Day where some things will change dramatically for us. There are a bunch of verses like this one in the Bible that make much more sense when viewed in the context of the prophetic creation week. When you apply God’s definition correctly you can understand how they are telling us our time on this earth is closing to an end, when we return to reign with Christ on the 7th day.
Joh 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
Wow, there are so many verses that we could go into that give us this repetitive clue of the coming “Last Day” when the feast will come. This of course will be the covenant marriage feast of the Lamb of God to His bride, the church. You must search your Bibles for these little hidden clues and then you will begin to understand them. God uses some very tricky methods of hiding information in the Bible in plain sight.
Joh 12:1 Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
Again we see an amazing coincidence of 6 days and then a feast. The Passover was a representative symbolic meal of covenant between God and Israel. This is a pattern of the coming Marriage Supper when the church eats and drinks with Christ. So God could have put any number of days here in this verse but, chooses 6 as being significantly important for us to see. This verse also speaks of being raised from the dead after these 6 days, so that is again too amazing to be an accident. These are just more prophetic pictures of the coming to the end of our current earth age.
So while the Bible does not give us exact dates and times, it gives us enough information to discern the times and seasons that we are living in. I hope that you are beginning to understand the concepts being taught and can see the references to the soon return of Christ. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series you may go to “Part 2“.
Understanding the Symbolic Nature of Genesis 1, 2 & 3! Spiritual Symbols Found in Genesis!
(Ver 1.4) In reading and studying the Book of Genesis I have found that it is essential to look at the first 3 chapters of this book using symbolic spiritual eyeglasses which allow us to see the concealed spiritual meanings that were hidden from the surface only reading that many Christians do. By studying the book of Genesis I have discovered that most of the subjects written about in these three chapters contain natural symbols that convey a much greater and complex spiritual truth. The difficulty comes in rightly dividing what is natural and what is spiritual and then interpreting both of these at the same time correctly. Clearly the book of Genesis and especially the first 3 chapters contain both real naturally created realities and people, but at the same time it contains a vast number of spiritual symbolic references that are intermixed throughout the text in almost every verse. This makes correct Bible interpretation of Genesis infinitely more complex, especially for carnal minded Christians.
1Co 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
I put this verse in this lesson to show you how important rightly dividing the Bible is to correct interpretations. Here God says there are many who teach things in the Bible that are just from man’s own wisdom. You can still find this in churches and on the internet everywhere. But, God says there is a better way, let the Holy Ghost teach you spiritual things and then compare these spiritual things with other spiritual things. Most Bible scholars would certainly agree that this complexity is repeated in other books of the Bible like the prophets and especially the Book of Revelation. Revelation is dominated by symbolic references throughout the entire book and it is widely one of the most controversial books with the most widely dispersed interpretations surrounding it. So symbolism is an added layer of complexity that makes understanding these Bible books with it, much more difficult to comprehend and to understand correctly. For example when God mixes natural fruit with symbolic spiritual fruit in the same chapter this forces us to see what is being discussed by the context and then to use the rest of the Bible to help us interpret the meanings of the spiritual side of the information given. This is called “Comparing Spiritual Things with Spiritual Things” and “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth” and we are required to see it correctly or we will remain hopelessly confused. We must therefore, choose to rightly divide the Word of God deciphering or decoding every word between the spiritual definition and the physical definition or we will wrongly divide it and make them all spiritual or all physical references. To make them all spiritual or all natural, we would get most of our interpretations wrong when doing this. So God did this all by a grand design. God purposely hid complex information in the Bible to keep it from Satan and to allow Him to reveal it to us His church in His perfect time. It is the designed process that I call “Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight”. So in today’s blog I am going to focus on the symbols recorded in the first three chapters of Genesis and give you a list of the most important ones that I have found. Here is the List of Symbols in Genesis 1, 2 & 3:
|
Symbol |
Description |
Chapter Verse Reference |
| Adam | A real man, but also a symbolic representation of the man Jesus Christ | Genesis 2:18-26; Romans 5:14 |
| Afraid | The symbolic spiritual force of the fear of the consequences of sin and death | Genesis 3:10; Heb 2:15; |
| Ashamed, Not | Symbolic Spiritual Innocence | Genesis 2:25; 1 John 2:28 |
| Cleave | The symbolic covenant of marriage between Christ and the church to be JOINED! | Genesis 2:24; 1 Cor 6:17 |
| Darkness | The spiritual kingdom domain of Satan and those in it | Genesis 1:2; Rom 2:19 |
| Day | Those in the Kingdom of God where the Sun of Righteousness has arisen | Genesis 1:5; Malachi 4:2; 1 Th 5:5; |
| Day | The days of creation were symbolic 1000 years of the history of Man | Genesis 1:5, Genesis 1:8, Genesis 1:13; Genesis 1:19; Genesis 1:23; Genesis 1:31; Genesis 2:2; 2 Peter 3:8 |
| Divided | Symbolic separation of spiritual beings | Genesis 1:4; 1:7; Luke 12:51 |
| Dust | The Symbolic Spiritual ground and the possession of man for 7000 years (7 days) | Genesis 2:7; 3:14; 3:19; |
| East | The Symbolic direction of the rising Spiritual Sun | Genesis 2:14; 3:24; Mat 24:27; |
| Eat | Spiritual enlightenment and understanding either of good or of evil | Genesis 3:6; 3:11-19; 3:22; John 6:51 |
| Firmament | A spiritual division or separation, an expanse or spiritual dimension as a partition. Above the firmament is heaven the throne of God. Below the firmament is the future expanse of Satan’s domain. The air realm represents man’s current position and where Satan currently resides. | Genesis 1:7; |
| Flesh, One | The symbolic covenant of marriage between Christ and the church | Genesis 2:24 |
| Fourth Day, the | The 4000 year appointed time of the coming of Christ into the world | Genesis 1:19 |
| Fruit | That which is produced by a Spiritual Tree either good or evil | Genesis 3:2, 3, 6; James 5:7 |
| Garden | The heart of man, the symbolic soil of the earth where God plants His seeds to grow spiritual fruit | Genesis 2:8; 3:2; 3:10 |
| Greater Light, the (Sun) | The symbolic Jesus, the ruler of the spiritual day Kingdom of Light | Genesis 1:16; Mal 4:2 |
| Hand | Symbolic Spiritual Power | Genesis 3:22 |
| Lesser Light, the (Moon) | Satan the ruler of the darkness of this world; the Prince of the Kingdom of Darkness | Genesis 1:16; Eph 6:12 |
| Light | The God of Creation, God is Light | Genesis 1:3; 1 John 1:5 |
| Meat | The symbolic food of a spiritually mature man | Genesis 1:29-30; Heb 5:12 |
| Naked | The External Shame of Sin also the unclothed spirit of man | Genesis 3:10; 2 Cor 5:3 |
| Night | Those in the spiritual darkness, who stumble and sleep and get drunk in the world; kingdom of Satan | Genesis 1:5; 1:14; 1:16; 1:18; 1 Th 5:7 |
| Rain | The symbolic outpouring of the Spirit of God, the former and the later | Genesis 2:5; James 5:7 |
| Sea(s) | Peoples/Nations of the earth | Genesis 1:10; Rev 17:15; |
| Second Day, the | The Covenant of Abraham to separate God’s people from the other people on the earth | Genesis 1:8; |
| Seed | The symbolic representation of children, words, and several other types of spiritual things | Genesis 1:11-12; 3:15; |
| Serpent, the | Satan the spiritual ruler of the darkness, the deceiver of the nations | Genesis 3:1; Rev 12:9; Rev 20:2 |
| Seventh Day, the | The Millennial Reign of Christ; God’s symbolic Day of Rest | Genesis 2:2; Heb 4:4; Rev 20:6; |
| Sixth Day, the End of the | The prophetic coming into maturity of the church of God before His return. | Genesis 1:26 |
| Skin | The outward clothes of the spirit of man; God later removes this with the circumcision of the heart | Genesis 3:21; Rom 2:29 |
| Third Day, the | God starts planting seeds and expecting fruit to grow in His garden; Moses given the Law | Genesis 1:12 |
| Thorns and Thistles | The Weeds of the Enemy Satan | Genesis 3:18 |
| Tree(s) | Any man who makes a choice to either produce good fruit or evil fruit | Genesis 2:9; 3:8 |
| Tree of Life | Those men who have chosen to receive the Word of God and produce fruit unto righteousness | Genesis 2:9; 3:24 |
| Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil | Those men who have seen good but chosen evil | Genesis 2:9, 3:11; |
| Waters | Symbolic people, the voice of many waters | Genesis 1:6; Rev 17:15; |
| Way, the | Symbolic Spiritual Path to Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom from God | Genesis 3:24 |
| Woman | The symbolic type of the Church who was taken out of Christ | Genesis 2:22-23; 3:15; Eph 5:32 |
These are certainly not every symbolic reference in these three chapters of Genesis; these are just the ones that I have seen and feel are important to know. You of course are welcome to look for others and if you find them please let me know so that I can add them to the list. I will certainly confirm that I do not know everything and I like to learn new things. God teaches me new things almost every day and it is very exciting when He does this. I pray this list will be a helpful tool in your study of the Bible and specifically the book of Genesis. God Bless!
Understanding Spoken Words in the Bible! Elijah’s Words and Prayer for Rain! Part 11
(Ver 1.3) Today is Part 11 of a series of very advanced lessons on Understanding Spoken Words in the Bible. You may have noticed if you read my Bible lessons that I teach a lot on this subject and one reason is that the Bible says a lot about this subject. I figured out that any subject that God emphasizes this much must be an important one for me to learn about and to know. Therefore, I spend a lot of time looking at these verses on this subject and they have shocked me into changing what I say dramatically. If you understand this subject just a little bit you will know this is true for you also. I will warn you that today’s lesson is potentially very advanced and only for mature spiritual Christians. This is because the topics and things said may be hard to swallow for younger immature Christians. So please judge yourself before you continue reading this Bible lesson. If you are not comfortable with controversial topics then please just go read someone else’s blog for today. If you have never studied this series of lessons on Spoken Words, I would strongly suggest that you go back to “Part 1” and start your reading there first.
When you study the Bible, you do not read but 1 chapter in Genesis and you can see that God speaks words in order to create our world that we live in. At least seven times in this chapter of Genesis it says “And God said” and God would say something and then shortly it would come to pass. It is interesting to note and to analyze what God said and then to see who He was speaking it to. Did you ever realize that in Genesis 1 you cannot find where it says that God was ever speaking to anyone in particular? In other words God was not speaking to someone specifically in a conversation like we have them between ourselves. God would speak words directed at no one but a problem that He perceived and then things would change based upon what He said. Therefore, no one had to hear God’s words spoken for them to be effective and to cause something to change. It’s kind of like the old saying if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? According to what the Bible says, the tree heard it even if no one else did. For example, God would look at the darkness that covered the earth and say “Light Be” and then light was. So obviously the darkness heard what God said even though we did not. So we learn from this that your words have the same potential and they do not have to be directed at or heard by anyone in order to effect changes in your personal world. God spoke the answer before the problem and then the answer was made manifest. Read Genesis 1 and see what God says “Let there be light”, “Let there be a firmament”, “Let the waters be divided”, “Let the earth bring forth grass” and on and on. Every one of these cases represents a problem followed by a spoken solution. This is a concept taught in the Bible where God describes as “calling those things that be not as though they were”. Do you understand this concept? If you do not understand this concept you should go and read Roman 4:17 and the surrounding verses to see what God says about this subject of speaking words before you see them happen. The concept of calling for what is not seen is exactly what God did in Genesis 1. God saw there was no light and said there was light and then the light came in. You can see this principle demonstrated in Genesis 1:3, 1:6, 1:9, 1:11, 1:14, 1:20 and 1:24. It is a very powerful lesson from God being given to us. God plainly sets us an example of what we should be following in the world today. Then in Genesis 1:26, God said “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness and let them have dominion…”. So if God said this, did this happen like the other 7 times God said? You can clearly see that everything God said in Genesis 1 came to pass exactly like he declared it, so these words spoken about man would be no different. If man was designed by God to be like God, then we would have to be open to operate like God does. We of course do not always have to believe this, but this is usually just because we have not been taught these concepts from the pulpit.
Today’s lesson is concerning prayer and spoken words; their relationship and their essential unified association to each other. It is usually self-evident to most people that prayer should involve speaking words to God. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray like John taught his disciples, Jesus gave them some example words to speak to God. Many times people take this example prayer that some call the “Lord’s Prayer” and just parrot the words back up to God like this is being effective. However, this was not what Jesus was teaching us to do. You can teach any parrot to say these words and that would not be praying at all. God is not stupid; He has heard these words before, so these words are not intended to replace your words that you normally speak. Also, Jesus taught more than one set of verses on the subject of prayer so we must try to put all of them together and then learn from them all. Here is something else that Jesus said about prayer:
Mat 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
As you can see Jesus says for us not to be vain in repeating the same words over and over to God thinking that we will be heard. This verse implies that it matters what we say in prayer. If you pray the Lord’s Prayer repeatedly in your prayer life, are you not being vainly repetitive? So that sounds like a problem to me. Do not use a model prayer as the only basis for what you pray. You may certainly at first use this prayer as a model construction for your prayer and then change it to your own words. The Lord’s Prayer starts with praise to God and the acknowledgment to who God is and then the prayer asks for God’s will to be done in the earth. Finally, the prayer gets to us asking for what we need in our lives and the forgiveness of our sins is one thing that we should ask for. But then you should also understand that this prayer was taught to the disciples before Jesus died on the cross. Therefore, this was a model of an Old Testament prayer to God and not necessarily a New Testament prayer to God. For example, Jesus said to pray that the Kingdom of God be established in the earth; and guess what the Kingdom of God is inside of me right here and right now, so this prayer has been answered, so why would I pray that again? I’m smart enough to know that the Kingdom of God has come inside of me already so I do not need to ask for this to happen again. If God has already fulfilled it, then you do not need to pray for what has already occurred. Do you understand this? You might can pray that the kingdom of God be expanded and grow, but technically speaking Jesus never taught us to pray that sinners would get saved. The only verse that I have found about praying for sinners in the Bible is when Jesus tells His disciples to “Pray the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest”. This is the salvation principle of God sending sowers, a preacher or worker to speak the truth in love to an unsaved person so that they can hear and believe in Jesus and then be saved. So prayer is an awesome subject to study in the Bible and we will get to more of this subject later. But, today I want to speak on specifically about spoken words in relation to prayer. You cannot technically pray without using words, but we also speak words all day long and how do these words affect what we pray?
I cannot find anywhere in the Bible where God honors silence or silent prayer. In fact when I was studying about angels it would appear that the scripture says if the man would have been silent, the angels would not have been sent. You can read this in Daniel very clearly. Daniel prayed to God and fasted for 21 days until the angel of God finally showed up with the answer to his prayer. So Daniel’s silence would have resulted in no angels being sent, the angel Gabriel told Daniel for your words I was sent (Dan 10:12). This is a problem in many religious circles where they hold a moment of silence for some individual that maybe has just died. This might be considered giving someone respect or honor but your silence is doing no good other than that. What if when Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus and stood before it in a moment of silence and then left? Would Lazarus had been raised from the dead? No, I do not believe that he would have. So we can then see what Jesus did to cause Lazarus to be raised, can’t we? Jesus makes the statement to God, “I thank thee that you have heard me”. Jesus implies something that is very important to our lesson today, and that is God is listening to your words. You then see Jesus speaking to the dead man and calling his name “Lazarus come forth”. Was Jesus calling Lazarus alive with his mouth and the words that just came out? So silence would not have brought the answer to Lazarus. To give honor or respect to someone is probably not a bad thing to do, but it will not change the situation. It is like here in the south when we see a funeral procession going by we normally pull over in our cars and stop out of respect for those who are driving by. This is a common practice in the southern parts of the United States and I believe it promotes an attitude of Christian love towards those who have just lost someone from this world, so I believe it is a positive thing to continue doing even though there are no Bible verses that say to do this.
Jas 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
This is one of my key Bible verses today that introduces the rest of the subject of prayer to come. You can clearly see that God is instructing us to pray and not just for ourselves. This verse ends in the statement that the prayers of a righteous man or woman have great power in them. Because Christians do not believe this, they do not do it. Many times it is a self-image problem; they do not feel like they are righteous enough to ask God to do anything. Fortunately for us it is not our righteousness that we are depending on; if it was we would all be in trouble. It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that permits us to come boldly before the throne of God without guilt or shame (Heb 4:16). So here is the next verse that follows this one about your prayer:
Jas 5:17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
So here I go today with the basics on this lesson about prayer and words. As you can read in this verse, God says that Elijah was a man just like one of us. What people should understand is that the people that God uses in the Bible were not special or different or unique in their appearance, characteristics, problems, situations, challenges or life’s little nuances from us today. Too many Christians think in the terms that prophets like Elijah possessed something special that we do not have that allowed him to accomplish great things in the Bible that we simply cannot do. However, that is certainly not what this verse is saying, is it? Elijah according to God and James who is writing this account is said to have prayed to God and this caused it not to rain on the earth for a period of 42 months. This is actually a very interesting statement that God makes to us, since if you have ever read the story of Elijah you can’t find where Elijah ever prayed this in a way that we would call prayer. So what is God trying to teach us from this statement? I believe God is saying sometimes we need to expand our definition of what prayer is.
Jas 5:18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
So here is another verse that says Elijah prayed and God caused it to rain again. We have now seen two verses that said Elijah prayed and God answered the prayers because they were effective. It sounds like to me that this would be a good subject to go back into the Old Testament and see what God says to us about how Elijah accomplished these miracles of no rain and then rain again. You can find this story of Elijah starting in chapter 17 of 1 Kings:
1Ki 17:1 And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
Here is the beginning of some words that Elijah spoke that almost floored me. This is the exact same Elijah that James wrote about so get that first and foremost into your head. Then realize that this verse is the very first verse in the Bible that mentions the name of Elijah. So therefore, we can conclude that there are no prayers of Elijah to God that are mentioned in the Bible up to this point. So we have a major problem that needs a resolution; either God did not record Elijah’s prayer in the Bible or Elijah did not pray the way that we would consider prayer to be performed. I personally believe the second is true and God gave us the exact information in the Bible that we needed to know to learn about what prayer is and what prayer is not. Remember what Jesus said “Father I thank thee that you heard me”. Do you think that God was listening to the words that Elijah said to Ahab? Let’s reexamine what Elijah says; God tells us that Elijah was speaking to Ahab and Elijah said “The Rain will obey my Words!” I know this was my paraphrase of what he said, but it is very close to exactly what He says to Ahab. I mean did you see it? Elijah had to believe something in order for him to make this kind of statement; the drought had not started yet so these words could be considered to be a prophetic prediction of something that has not occurred. Or as we have seen in Genesis 1, John 11 and Romans 4, it could be that Elijah was calling those things that be not as though they were. We of course know that Elijah was a prophet of God, but remember what James said, the New Testament says Elijah was man just like one of us. In other words what Elijah did, we can do. Wow, I don’t know if you believe that or not, but I do. I know that just blows the minds of religious people to think this way, but I’m just reading the Bible.
In reading this chapter of 1 Kings you can see that God speaks to Elijah and tells him what to do only after he has spoken to Ahab. God tells Elijah to go to a brook where God will sustain him and Elijah goes there and stays until the brook dries up for a lack of rain on the earth. God then tells Elijah to go to a city where a widow woman has been commanded by God to provide for him. The widow is obedient and God blesses her and even when her son dies, the prophet of God raises the child back to life. So God is definitely heavily involved in this chapter of the Bible and this is how this chapter ends:
1Ki 17:24 And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth.
The Widow woman says “The Words of the Lord in your mouth are true”. It is very interesting to see what this woman saw and says. Keep in mind that James said this was a man like us, and then reread this chapter with this in mind, looking for what he says. Are the words that come out of your mouth, can they be considered the truth of God’s Word? The words that you speak, will a stranger woman that you just met see that they are the words of God? Your words that you speak are much more important than you can possibly imagine. I believe your words help to identify you.
1Ki 18:1 And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth.
Here is the first time that God tells Elijah to go back to Ahab and tell him that it will rain again. You cannot find where Elijah asked God to do this, can you? This appears to be a God initiated conversation and not Elijah’s prayer for God to send rain, doesn’t it? So how did God tell Elijah this? Was it some loud audible voice from heaven or is this not how God speaks to you? God only spoke to me once in an audible voice so I believe this is not how God normally speaks to His people in the earth. Every other time that God speaks to me it has been as a still small voice in my spirit and I believe this is how God spoke to Elijah in telling him what to do also. Otherwise God is doing something different or something special for Elijah that he doesn’t do for us today and this is not what James told us in the New Testament. It is also special to note and to understand that prayer is not about just you speaking to God. If you are the only one speaking in a prayer conversation with the Almighty then you have a major problem on your hands. You should be quiet enough to let God speak back to you since He is so much smarter than you are. It would be much more valuable to hear what God says at prayer time than for Him to hear what you have to say constantly. Do you understand this concept of listening in prayer? Just pay attention and give God the opportunity to speak, you might be shocked at what He says for you to do.
1Ki 18:41 And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain.
In this chapter of 1 Kings, Elijah goes to king Ahab after God told him it was going to rain and makes some more statements that are absolutely faith based words. In this chapter Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to a Godly duel of power exhibitions and demonstrations. This was an exhibited display of the confidence that Elijah had in his God’s ability. Why were there 450 prophets of Baal in the camp of Israel? Why did Israel put any of their confidence in these false religions and religious leaders? That is a very good question to consider! In this chapter Elijah calls down the fire of God to consume the sacrifices that were drowned in water first. Keep in mind we have just had a drought of over 3 years long and Elijah is pouring water on his altar. Does this sound like the actions of a man in a drought? Here we see in chapter 17 that Elijah told the king that it will not rain for my words and then in chapter 18 and verse 41 Elijah says that he hears the sound of the abundance of rain. Yet it has not rained a drop in over 3 years. Is this a problem? Or can you see that what Elijah is doing is what God did in Genesis 1? I’m going to ask you this more than once today; are you a man or a woman that is also like Elijah? You should really read James 5 a few hundred times before you answer that question.
1Ki 18:43 And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times.
These lessons found in the life of Elijah are very profound. Elijah told Ahab there was a sound of rain when there was no rain. Then Elijah tells his servant to go and look for the rain and the servant comes back and reports he did not find any rain and Elijah tells him to go and look seven more times. What is Elijah doing? Is there anything that you should learn when faced with a drought in your life?
1Ki 18:44 And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.
So the seventh time the servant went to look to the sea, he comes back to Elijah and tells him that he saw a small cloud coming out of the sea. Do you understand how rain is formed? These are the water cycles of the earth’s evaporation from the seas that forms clouds and then the weather patterns that carries this moisture in the atmosphere to then fall back down to the earth as rain? Here we have Elijah knowing how this weather phenomenon works before there were any modern weather forecasters. What was Elijah doing? Do you remember what Elijah said in 1 Kings 17:1? Elijah told the king that the rain would obey his words. Elijah said that it would not rain for these years until he said it would rain. The prophets of Baal and the things that God did to them were some of the reasons that Elijah could make these claims that God could back his words, but this is the lesson that Elijah and God is trying to teach us today. I believe that this lesson applies to us in the modern world. Elijah said he heard rain when there was not rain then said go and look for the rain until they say a cloud form.
1Ki 18:45 And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel.
So what is God trying to say to us? Elijah said it would not rain and it did not rain, Elijah then said it would rain and it did rain a bunch. I did not see one time in these two chapters of 1 Kings, where it said Elijah prayed for no rain or rain. Only James calls what Elijah did prayer and that is a very profound revelation. I only saw one time where it could be implied that Elijah may have asked God for rain and this was in verse 42:
1Ki 18:42 So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees,
You can clearly see in this verse that Elijah assumed a position of humility and this is associated with an attitude of prayerful inclination towards God. However, I’m going to be really picky and tell you that it does not say Elijah prayed and it does not give us any words of prayer that Elijah said to God. So what do we do with this lack of information? We can assume that Elijah prayed and God thought that this prayer was not important enough to include in the Bible or we can assume that Elijah didn’t pray like we think of prayer and then we have to go back to James and figure out how did James know that Elijah did pray since God does not say he did in 1 Kings? Did James assume like others or did God teach James a greater definition of what prayer was? You also have to understand that God told Elijah that it was going to rain in 1 King 18:1 so why pray for what God has already said will happen. Do you understand this concept? I believe that these two chapters of 1 Kings should expand our definition of what prayer is in the eyes of God. Your words are heard by God and then God uses these to fulfill what you have said. I know that does not go over big with everyone, but I believe this is what God is saying.
So how do you apply this story of Elijah to us today? I believe that it crosses over into many things that we do in many ways. A couple of years ago the region of the country where I lived was going through a drought situation that was becoming significantly greater. Over the course of a few months, the lake levels had dropped lower than they had been since I lived here. Water rationing was mandatory and you could not water you grass or outdoor plants, wash your cars or do things to waste water. It was getting crazy here so I finally decided to do something about it. That sounds pretty arrogant doesn’t it? That statement makes me sound like I am God or something. However, I learned from the story of Elijah the principles given to us from James that I could do what Elijah did. So one day during the drought I looked out at the clear blue sky and started talking to the weather patterns, jet streams, pressure zones and the climatological situations to change in order to bring us rain on my house and city. So did it change overnight? Like the story of Elijah I went out and looked at the sky several times before it finally rained but then the drought was over and it rained a bunch. You see I believed the Word of God was true and that what God said Elijah did, I could do. I never prayed a prayer and asked God to send rain; I only looked out at the problem and spoke to it to change to bring me rain. You of course could say that this was just an amazing coincidence that I did what I did at just the right time before it rained or you can look at the Bible and declare with me that God is not a liar. After over 3 years of no rain Elijah said he heard the sound of an abundance of rain and after a few more days it occurred. So either what happened to Elijah was an amazing coincidence also or you are just stupid and don’t want to see what God is saying in the Bible to us. Here is a verse found in the Bible that directly applies to what we just read about in the life of Elijah:
Mar 11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Jesus makes a radical statement here that most religious people readily reject. Jesus says if you speak to a mountain and believe what you say will come to pass, it will happen. So is speaking to rain any different than speaking to a mountain? Are they not both inanimate objects without the ears for hearing? However Jesus clearly implies that they can hear in this verse found in Mark. This is a paradox of Biblical proportions. You see if you are a commander in the army and issue an order you just expect it to be obeyed and carried out. This is the same type of reasoning that Jesus is giving to us in this verse in Mark 11:23. Jesus is implying that the mountain is waiting for an order to obey in order to be moved. If no order is given, then no movement is made. If you speak to it and tell it to go and believe what you say will happen, then Jesus clearly said the order will be carried out. You are not concerned with how it is carried out, only the fact that it happens like you said. Mountains can be symbolic representations of problems in your life, even like a real drought. Can you see how this verse applies to what Elijah said in 1 Kings? Everything that Elijah said was what happened in the earth, because he believed it would happen. Elijah obviously believed in his words and they came to pass just as he had spoken. God called this prayer in James 5 and you should understand this drastically changes what we should be saying in our daily lives. Too many Christians pray and ask God for help and then go around speaking the opposite of what they prayed. It would sound like to me based upon what we learned from Elijah that these words cancel each other out. If you pray for God to help pay your bills and then look at your bills and say I can’t pay you, then you have canceled your prayer out. What we have learned in the story of Elijah is God’s definition of prayer is much greater than our definition of prayer. Your words of prayer could be the words that you speak to a king in the earth and tell him that it will not rain for your words. These are powerful concepts that are being transferred to us from God and if you get a hold of them they will change what comes out of your mouth. So I’ll end this lesson with this question again; Are you like an Elijah? God Bless!
Understanding Seeds! Planting Financial Seeds! Part 12
(Ver 2.2) Today is now Part 12 of a very important series of lessons on Understanding Seeds in the Bible. We have covered a lot of very significant information that will not be repeated so I would highly recommend that you go back and start your reading with “Part 1”. I almost purposely left this part of this subject of seeds out of the series because it is so popularly preached on TV that it gives many a negative perception on a positive subject. However, money and finances are clearly found in the Bible so I will touch on it today. I believe if you study the Gospels you will see that Jesus taught on money more than any other subject. I have heard many preachers, especially TV preachers, jump all over this subject and it appears to come across that they do it because they are only after your money. Of course I do not judge them because I do not know their hearts, only God knows a man’s motivation for doing what he does. It could be that God told them to teach this subject with great emphasis and I would sound like a fool if I would criticize what God does. So, I cannot say or will not judge if this is true or not, I just said it just appears to many to be this way because of the emphasis that they are placing on a minor part of a much greater subject about seeds. It would seem to me that to only pick one part of a subject and teach that causes the wrong perceptions to be given and to many people it is true that perception becomes reality and this is not a good image to portray to the world. So far, I have given you eleven different lessons about seeds in the Bible and have not mentioned money or finances even once. I guess since I do these Bible lessons for free and never ask you for money, is the one reason that I can include this lesson on money in the series today.
In searching the Bible for any form of the word “seed” I found approximately 257 verses in the KJV that directly mentioned this word. Out of this total I counted less than 20 verses that speak about money or that can be applied to money directly. Of course this is a subjective number of verses depending upon your desire to try to apply verses from one topic to another. This is certainly a legal method of Bible interpretation; God does it all the time. You can find that God used the same word seed to describe at least 10 different things in the Bible and the laws and principles that govern them are universal truths that cross over into each topic area. But, it is always difficult to teach some subjects like money and not sound like you are asking for money, especially in light of what the Bible says on this subject. That is just the inherit problem with this subject and I will do the best that I can in spite of this appearance. I hope that you can see the difference in what I say since there are no names or ministry names attached to this website and no donate buttons anywhere that allows you to give money to me. If you are a Christian you should be giving your money to where you go to church and are being fed spiritually; we’ll see more about this as we go into this lesson.
So even though seeds of finance are a minor part of this subject in this entire seed topic realm, it is still a valid concept that applies to your money. First, off think about this, farming and agriculture were common methods of income in Bible days. The seed concepts of sowing and reaping applied whether you planted corn or raised sheep. If you farmed then you raised crops or animals that could be sold or traded to others. So the seed concepts found in the Bible about farming must also apply to modern day money and finances directly, also. Farmers used seeds to grow crops and these crops produced more food than the originally planted seeds. So the principles of sowing seeds into good ground, seed increase and multiplication are clearly applicable to our modern money. In the world of finances money would represent the seed. Today we can take money and invest it in the stock market or whatever expecting it to grow over time. This is a seed principle that works when you plant your seeds in good ground. You see good ground in the financial world are the companies that are going to be profitable. If you place your money in a company that is foolish then it can go out of business and you lose your investment and that is the definition of planting your seed into bad ground. In America we have many people who buy lottery tickets. These are people who are hoping to hit it big and win millions of dollars overnight. I have not found that concept in the Bible. In the Bible if you want millions of dollars you must start with what you have and plant it to cause it to grow into millions of dollars. This is the Bible concept of financial seed planting and reaping an increase. These are clear Bible farming concepts that you need to learn and to apply to your life and what you do in the world. If you are expecting to hit it big and get rich over night the odds are that it will not happen. Yes, the lottery does occasionally reward someone with a large payment that gives the appearance of the possibility that it can happen to anyone. However, mathematically speaking the odds of it happening to you is extremely low; in fact it is more likely that you will get hit by lightning and die than to think that you will win the lottery. So let’s examine some scripture that can apply to money and finances in relation to seeds.
Gen 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
While this scripture does not directly mention money it can be applied to money very easily. This verse states a Bible law that establishes the concept of planting seeds and reaping harvests as long as the earth exists. This would seem to imply that this principle will exist in the new earth to come also, so it seems to me to be a concept that we need to learn. God tells us that our world was designed to be a seed world of sowing and reaping. If you plant your seeds in good ground you will always harvest an increased crop or return on your initial investment. Your seeds sown are always your initial investment that you risk losing. The same enemies that you find in the natural world of natural seeds also apply symbolically to the financial world. The concept of weeds, insects and the birds of the air that eat your seed; these are all symbolic enemies to financial dealings. Before you can invest money anywhere you should first determine if this is good ground to plant in. Too many times people put money somewhere and then change it to something else before they make anything where it is planted. This would be like planting corn seed in the ground today and then digging it up tomorrow to take it to another field that you heard was better ground. If you think this is stupid to do, you are right, but in the financial world people do it everyday.
Lev 26:16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
What I wanted to do was to show you that every seed sown can have an enemy. Here we have God telling the children of Israel that the seeds they have sown will be eaten by their enemies. This was usually caused by a reckless disregard for obeying the Word of God. Whenever the children of Israel disobeyed God, this would open the door and allow enemies to come in and take what they had worked for. So this is a lesson for Christian to learn from as a bad example of what not to do.
Deu 28:38 Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.
So you can see another verse where insects can come and eat your seed. Here God says that you will take a lot of seeds into your field and harvest very little of them because they were all eaten by an enemy. In our world today, financial enemies abound all around us. There are false investment schemes that take your money and you can lose everything. A man in the U.S. is serving jail time right now for taking billions of dollars from people and spending it on himself and his family. His lavish lifestyle lasted for several years until it finally caught up with him, but most of the people that put their money in his false funds all lost their money. These are some of the potential enemies to financial transactions and many of them are backed by satanic influences that causes you lose your money.
Deu 14:22 Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year.
So here is another verse that does not mention money directly, yet clearly applies. The word tithe means to give a tenth. The word increase is a numerical financial term of positive results. This verse also says that your field brings forth year by year. So this is a principle of being faithful to do what you know to do in a consistent manner. Being consistent is a seed principle. There are many factors to planting seeds in the natural that apply in the financial world. For, example, one key factor of correct seed planting is timing. Did you know you can plant the right seed in the right ground at the wrong time and totally fail and lose everything? So knowing when to plant is a key to getting positive results. There are of course other seed concepts that also apply to money. You can under seed a field and not reap what you should have. You can over seed a field and also cause your crop to be unprofitable. There are really too many factors to consider about seeds that apply to investing that I cannot go into them all. It is not my goal to teach you how to invest your money; it is only my goal to introduce you to Bible concepts and to note the things that God has created in the world that give us views into spiritual laws. I’ll take you to one more Old Testament verse before I move to the New Testament:
Isa 55:10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
Here is a verse that is speaking of natural things and spiritual things simultaneously. It can also clearly be applied to financial things. The blessings of God are many times manifested in the natural realm in financial blessings. You can see this concept in the Book of Job when God blessed Job in the end with more than he had in the beginning. You can also see the concept repeated in the life of Abraham when God blessed him exceedingly and abundantly so that his herds could not coexist with his nephew Lot’s herds because the land would not sustain them both since they were so blessed. You can see the blessing of God on the life of Jacob when he worked 7 years for Rachael and his father-in-law tricked him into seven more years. Jacob’s father-in-law saw that he was blessed because of Jacob’s presence and tried to manipulate his income and cheat him out of his blessings from God. So we can see this pattern repeatedly found in the Bible that God blesses people financially with an increase in the natural realm. So the verse in Isaiah can be applied to natural seeds, spiritual seeds, and financial seeds and so on. If God gives us seed and bread these are clearly symbolic of financial things that represent income producing and life sustaining factors. Let’s look at some New Testament verses about seeds and money:
2Co 9:6 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.
Here we again find a verse that crosses subject topic boundaries. This verse applies to many things and it represents a spiritual law of God. The basic law presented to you is this; you will always reap what you sow. If you sow a little bit, you get a little bit back. If you sow a lot you get a lot back. These are just basic seed laws found in the Bible. You can see that this verse does not mention seed directly, however to sow is to plant seed; therefore the seed is indirectly related. Let’s see what else this chapter says about seeds of finance:
2Co 9:7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
What is a cheerful giver? You can again apply this to many things, including money. Being a cheerful giver involves primarily your attitude. If you have a right positive attitude you will be blessed in what you do. Have you ever read the story of Joseph in Genesis? Here is a man that was handed some very rough set of circumstances in life and he maintained a great attitude through them all. Joseph always expected God to fulfill his words that were spoken to him, so even though his brothers sold him into slavery he continued to believe in the best outcome. Joseph spent a great amount of time in prison, but wherever he was, the blessing of God was upon him and he was raised because of his attitude. This is a very powerful example for Christians today. It tells us that we do not always have it exactly the way that we would like it to be all the time, but we can still expect God to work it all out to cause it to be good for us in the end. So this verse is all about your positive attitude and your faith in God. You can read the other verses in this chapter and hopefully see the connections to money and finances, but I’ll end this chapters’ discussion with this one more verse:
2Co 9:10 Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)
As you can clearly see the term seed sown is self-evident. The term increase is also self-evident. The “fruits” of your righteousness is of course symbolic of your harvest. So this verse clearly applies in the spiritual realm to our effort to grow in spiritual maturity. However, this verse will also cross over in the context of the natural realm and must be related to our financial blessings from God. It can also mean emotional blessings. It can further apply to our seeds that we plant in the lives of other people that allows God to grow them and produce fruit in their lives. There are just a wide variety of applications for almost every verse on seeds. This is why I teach that money is just a small part of the bigger picture of seeds given to us in the Word of God. So let’s examine another chapter of the N.T. about seeds:
1Co 9:7 Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?
As you can see from this verse, God is comparing several similar concepts of financial matters. God says nobody finances their own war. God says nobody plants a crop and not also eats from it. Nobody raises sheep and not drink the milk of the flock. These are all symbolic representations of a spiritual set of realities found in the Bible. We the church are in a spiritual warfare with a spiritual enemy named Satan. Then Paul was a sower of the word of God and he says that anyone who sows will eat from that which he has sown. Then sheep are a widely symbolic representation of the people of God in the Bible. So the clear implied meaning is Paul fed the sheep and the sheep fed him back. This is not rocket science so grasp these simple concepts and learn to live by them.
1Co 9:9 For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?
Here we have a Bible concept that is very profound being explained. Many times God writes a Bible verse about natural things that cross over into the spiritual realm and this is a prime example of this. Paul is saying that God wrote about oxen and corn but that these apply to him and to us. In other words God did not write this verse for the benefit of the oxen, it was written for our benefit so that we can learn from it. Oxen when treading corn are said to be partakers of the corn and this is a Bible principle given to us from God. If the oxen are working then they should eat from their labors of work.
1Co 9:11 If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?
So this is a popular TV preacher verse found in the Bible. However, Paul is not writing this asking for their money he is only explaining a very powerful concept of sowing and reaping. Paul was sowing spiritual seeds into their lives and Paul said it was good for them to give back carnal or natural things back to him. In this verse Paul is claiming to be like the oxen that was working and that he should be a partaker of his own labor. However, what we see here are two principles being exercised simultaneously. To give to Paul would cause Paul to receive a harvest from what he has previously spiritually sown from the Word of God. For them to give financially to Paul is a concept of them planting back natural seeds into good ground; therefore they can also expect a harvest for what they have planted. In other words if they wanted Paul to continue to bless them with spiritual things it was good for them to give to Paul of their natural things like money, food, etc. so that Paul could live on the earth to continue to preach and not have to work to eat.
1Co 9:13 Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?
As we continue to read in this chapter, Paul and God is giving us a key principle that ministers of the gospel are partakers of those which they minister to. In other words this was a designed system of church government by God. It promotes a minister who is focused on you and not himself. If your minister had to work for a living in the world, you and the rest of the church would be a secondary thought to his primary time taker of working for a living. However, if the church pays for his wellbeing and financial needs then the minister can focus on God and the church and ministering to the sheep of God and not have to worry about where he will eat tomorrow.
1Co 9:14 Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.
God again says what I just tried to say. The minister of God should be paid by the people who he ministers to. This is clearly the concept of sowing and reaping for both participants. The minister should minister in faith that the people will meet his financial needs and the people should give to the minister in faith that the God of their salvation will give them increases from the seeds that they have sown. So here is the flip side of the coin that also goes with this subject of sowing and reaping:
1Co 9:18 What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.
God in this verse clearly says that anyone who preaches and charges you money for the information is being an abuser of God’s designed plan. Paul very clearly says that he should not charge anyone to preach what God has given to him for free. This is what discourages me about many TV preachers that I listen to. While they say good spiritual things for 20 minutes, they end their show with a request for you to buy the rest of the message on CD or DVD and it always costs much more than it does to produce these and to send them out. A DVD can cost $20 plus postage and handling fees and this is clearly outrages for a piece of plastic that costs maybe 20 cents in bulk. Clearly these ministers of God are looking to your purchases of their messages to fund their TV ministries. So I understand and I am not stupid that TV cost a lot of money, but yet in what they do and the way that they do it, it gives the appearance of being an abuse of power that God says was not acceptable. It also promotes a philosophy that only the rich can afford to know the truth of the Gospel and that is not a fair thing to do. As you can tell this bothers me a great deal and I think it is very wrong. Here is what Jesus said on the subject:
Mat 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.
Jesus tells us that God did not charge us for the information that we learned to preach, so we should not charge others to hear it also. That is why I do a free blog on a free website and I never ask for money or request you to send me a donation. Money is not a motivational factor and why I do what I do. However, that does not mean you should not do what God says to do either. Wow, this is a very complex subject that involves the participation of everyone doing what they should do, when they should do it and then everything works according to God’s designed plan. So that is why I did not want to include this lesson in my series about seeds, because it can very easily be taken wrong. I probably ended this lesson and sounded like you should give me something for the spiritual seeds that I have given to you; and that is not what I said at all. I said that I do these lessons for free because I love being a blessing to others. So I try to do the right things according to the word of God and you should do the same. If you noticed this blog is called the “Agapegeek” Blog and not my name. That means I am anonymous and you do not know me or my address to send me anything. I do this on purpose also. How you can bless me is to tell a friend about what you have learned and increase the traffic on my web site. That would be one of the greatest ways that you can be a blessing to me. If you learned anything about giving and sowing financially then you should give to your local pastor to help support your church to grow. We have just briefly covered a much broader subject of sowing and reaping financially from the Word of God. This is a complex subject and one that is not easily understood by many. Many people find it very difficult to relate their money to be like a seed that can be planted into ground to grow and increase. However, you can certainly find this concept in the Bible therefore you can personally choose to participate in it or to ignore it. Thanks for reading my Bible Study and God Bless!
Understanding Seeds! Seeds and Weeds! Part 11
(Ver 1.4) Today is Part 11 of a very important series of lessons on Understanding Seeds in the Bible. We have covered a lot of very significant information that will not be repeated so I would highly recommend that you go back and start your reading with “Part 1”. Today is a follow up to some concepts that I have talked a little about before. However, today we will get into the aspect of weeds in a much more in depth study from the Word of God which will certainly challenge you to think. I will probably introduce you to several brand new concepts found in the Bible on this subject so be prepared to learn. Let’s start by stating the basic concepts of weeds. Weeds are plants that you did not plant! This is the basic concept that is critical to understand. If you wanted thorns and thistles growing in the front yard you would have planted them. But, if you are like me you put out weed killer to eliminate these types of plants so that your grass will grow and be healthier. Weeds grow in the same soil as plants from good seeds and in fact weeds also come from seeds, but just not the seeds that we plant intentionally. I personally believe that weeds are a result of the sin of man and God’s curse and we will probably talk about this more as we go. I would venture to say that weeds are a caused effect. Nothing happens by accident in the world. There are always causes and effects to everything. These are basic laws of physics implemented by God’s design. If you see waves in a pond of water you know that something caused the waves. So you must realize that God when He created our world and looked out on it and said “It was very good”, that God did not create weeds. I do not consider weeds to be good, but maybe you do. It is a highly subjective topic. Regardless, if weeds are present we know that something caused them to be here. So let’s review some things that we covered before and then go into more details in other parts of the Bible.
If you recall we covered several parables on seeds and one that Jesus taught that said the Kingdom of God is like a man who planted wheat seeds in his field. This parable is often called the parable of the Wheat and Tares. In this parable, while the man was sleeping an enemy came and sowed the seeds of tares among the seeds of wheat. It is interesting to note that by only looking at the ground at this point in time you cannot tell this was done. The implication was given to us that this was done secretly when the owner was away from the field and the owner only finds out about these weeds after time goes by and both kinds of seeds come up and grow together. In this parable the owner of the field is clearly God. The field can be viewed as the mass of humanity which is a type of the soil of the earth that we live in where seeds are planted. The good seed is again the Word of God. The weed seed was sown by God’s enemy Satan and these are the words not from God. The good seed produces the desired crop of righteous people on the earth; these are those who have chosen the narrow path and the weeds are those people who have been deceived and chosen the evil wide path to destruction. In this parable the servants (symbolic angels), go and ask the owner if they should pull up the tares, but the owner says let them grow together, or when you pull up the tares you also take out some of the wheat. So the harvest is representative of the end of the age that we are currently living within and the time for this harvest is extremely short. The harvesters are the angels of God who will gather God’s crop into God’s barn in heaven and then cast the weeds into the fire to be burned. You can read this parable in Matthew 13:24-30 if you would like to, but I covered the greatest parts of it in enough detail that you should understand these concepts pretty well. What we learn from this parable is a fact that God did not plant the weeds. God did not cause the weeds to be planted and in fact this parable states that God had nothing to do with the weeds. That is one of the key pieces of information from this parable to understand, so get a hold of that.
In the parable of the Wheat and Tares God introduced us to the concept of both seeds and weeds and this is my primary subject today. How are they related, where did they come from and who is responsible for each. It is clear in this first parable that the weeds are the evil people who have bought into Satan’s deceptions and are not saved. The wheat plants are the good people who have been saved by accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior and these are called the righteous seed in the Bible. So in this parable the concept of weeds is related to people. However, in another lesson the concept of weeds is potentially something completely different. Maybe you recall in the Parable of the Sower that Jesus taught us some more seed concepts that were extremely important to know. In the parable of the sower, the soil was the hearts of men and women in the earth. The good seed was of course the Word of God still. The sower was the preacher that would proclaim the Gospel of Christ and the Word of God. This parable also contained the concept of weeds being introduced in it, but this time the weeds were not specifically people, they were the things that caused people distractions in this world so that they did not produce fruit unto to God. It is critical to understand the difference in these two parables and to also put them together correctly so that you understand the similarities and the differences. Both parables are about the primary subject of seeds and both parables contain the concept of weeds. However, if you look at the first parable you could attempt to claim that the weed people were predestined to be weeds and the wheat people were predestined to be God’s harvest, but that interpretation contradicts the information given to us in the parable of the Sower. We must balance both parables to understand the subjects being taught. In the Parable of the Sower, everyone had the same opportunity to hear and understand the word of God, but clearly only three out of six soil types produced any fruit unto God. Here was Jesus’ explanation of these weeds:
Mat 13:22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.
The first thing that you need to understand from this verse is that thorns are weeds; something that was not planted by the original farmer. So we can see that Jesus calls seed among the thorns to be those people who care more about things in this world than they do the eternal things that God says in His Word. Part of the root of this problem is given to us as being the deceitfulness of wealth and money. Often when people get a hold of money on the earth, they think they are in need of nothing including a savior. You can read about this parable of the sower in Matthew 13: 3-9. So we have two different parables with seeds and weeds using two different perspectives. However, they have more in common than you can imagine. They are actually the same people from two points of view. Those who are the tares in the first parable are those who have let the weed seeds of Satan dominate them. In fact the first three types of soil are all tares in the first parable that we looked at. These are those who have rejected the truth, refused to hear the truth, let others in the world talk them out of the truth or as we have seen love things in the world more than they love the truth. Both of these parables resulted in the same two separate groups of people, those who are weeds and are burned and those who produce fruit unto God and are harvested into heaven by the angels. So let’s examine this subject in other areas of the Bible and see what else God says to us about weeds and seeds. Where is the first mention or implied reference to weeds in the Bible? I will give you a clue and tell you that it can be found in the Garden of Eden.
Gen 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Here we have the description of God’s creation. God planted a garden and caused to grow every tree that was good for food the Bible says. This subject so far sounds very similar to the two parables that we just read about where Jesus told us of God’s attempts at planting seeds into His gardens from two different perspectives. Both of these parables involved planting good seeds that came from God to produce good crops and an enemy comes into the garden to cause weeds to try to overcome God’s garden. Isn’t this what happened in Genesis 2 and 3? I believe that it is exactly what happened in these two chapters and we will begin to see that more clearly as we go. In Genesis 2:15 God describes the man’s purpose for being in His garden was to “dress” it and to “keep” it. Both words denote delagated human resposibility and accountablity. The first word is a word that means “WORK”! To work a garden implies one thing, that there are potential enemies and weeds that may come in and therefore you must do something about them to keep them out. Work involves two aspects in gardening, first caring for the plants that are good by feeding and watering them and eliminating the enemies and the plants that are bad to protect the good. The next Hebrew word translated as “keep” is very similar to work and it means to “watch” and “protect” the garden. A watcher or protector is someone who is given the task and responsibility to not only work the garden, but is required to protect it from any enemies who could potentially come and destroy it. Wow, two words of instructions was all that is necessary from God and they say so much to us in light of the parables that we have just seen about seeds and weeds. What we begin to understand now was that it was not God’s responsibility to keep the enemy out because that was given to Adam for him to do.
Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Here in chapter 3 of Genesis we now are deeply into the subject of an enemy coming into God’s Garden where he should not be. Therefore, we are currently entrenched in the middle of the parable of the wheat and tares that we have looked at in the beginning of this lesson. We see this enemy, the symbolic “serpent” coming to Eve and he begins to plant weed seeds into her mind that caused the doubts of deception to grow. These are examples of the weed seeds of the enemy that God was teaching us about in the two parables we just reviewed in Matthew 13. God places a man in His garden and then leaves him in charge and goes away and now the man is responsible to “dress” and “keep” it. Satan brings the evil seed of the tares to Eve and she speaks them out for her husband to hear and he willfully hearkens to the voice of his wife and they are now captive to the deception of their enemy. Adam had the opportunity to guard and protect the garden of his heart, but he allowed Satan’s words through his wife’s voice dictate his decision to intentionally sin. I hope you understand what I just said as an overview of this story. If not, you can go and read my detailed lessons on Genesis 3 and hopefully you will grasp these subjects more clearly. I will drop down in Genesis to help you see a part of what I just said:
Gen 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Here is a key verse that reveals to us God’s actions for the intentional sin of His man Adam. You can clearly see that God says Adam listened to Eve’s voice and not to Satan’s voice. There is no mention that Adam ever heard Satan speaking directly. Do you understand this? Probably not, because of the erroneous teaching of many tells us that there was a physical talking snake in the garden and if Adam was there he would have heard it all. However, that is not what the Bible says at all. You should go read my lesson on “Was there a Talking Snake In the Garden?”. Then you can see that God says something else about the ground being cursed for Adam’s sake. God then says that Adam will eat from it all the days of his life in sorrow. What was “IT” that Adam is said to be eating from. You can potentially say the ground that God just cursed, but I do not see it this way in the light of other verses found in the Bible. I believe God was saying because you Adam chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will eat from it all the days of your life. Isn’t this what Adam was just found guilty of partaking from? So what was the ground in the two parables that we looked at? The Garden soil was clearly the hearts of men and women. So what does all of this mean? If you search your Bible and read the references for this Hebrew word that is translated as “cursed” they almost always have something to do with someone who disobeys the Word of the Lord. God says something for them not to do and they do it and a curse is brought upon them as a consequence for their sins. However, curses are just the opposite of blessings. So how does God or people for that matter bless someone or curse someone? If you have read my other lessons you know that you bless people with the words of your mouth and you also curse people with the words of your mouth. James 3:10 said “blessing and cursing from the same mouth, this ought not to be”. So curses are spoken words that produce negative results in our lives or in the lives of those the words are spoken to. I think I will continue to the next verse in Genesis just to show you the connection to weeds again in this story.
Gen 3:18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
Thorns and thistles are clearly both weeds produced from evil seeds. They are not produced by the Word of God so we can assume that these are produced from the seeds that Satan has just sown in God’s Garden of man’s heart. In the parable of the sower God repeated “thorns” for us to make the connection to this story in Genesis. What were thorns in this parable? God said thorns represented “the cares of this world” and the “deceitfulness of riches”. Do you think these apply to Adam in this story? I certainly do. I believe that God had just given the man and his wife the earth and Adam now believed that he was self-sufficient and did not need God’s help anymore . Adam at this time thought he had everything under control, but soon he would find out that he did not have anything under control when his Son Cain would kill his first born son Able. This was the beginning of Adam’s realization that what he had done was not so great after all. The sin that Adam introduced into the world was only beginning and the evil seed influence was only going to get worse before it got any better.
So God tells Adam that “IT” will produce thorns and thistles. So let’s back up and determine what “IT” is? If you recall the Bible says that Eve spoke words to her husband and God said that Adam “hearkened to the voice of his wife”. To hearken means to obey or do what she said to do. If Adam did something that he should not have done because his wife said for him to do it, what was this thing that God is talking about? Let’s back up and see what the Bible says Eve said.
Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
These are the only spoken words of Eve recorded in this chapter. So either this is the key to what she said or it is not. I believe that it is! If Eve said to the serpent then she spoke words that potentially her husband could hear. These words were partially correct but yet they contained some subtle differences to what God had said. God did say you could eat of the trees of the garden, but God never said that you cannot touch it. God simply said you shall not eat it or you will surely die. So how is the middle of the garden different than the garden? If God plants a garden and tells Adam every tree that is good for food I have given you for food but says this one in the middle of the garden is not for you, what is God saying? If you read my other blogs you already know this answer, but I’ll go into some new perspectives to help you see it a new way. I believe God was differentiating between two gardens in these statements. There is a major difference between natural things and spiritual things and you should understand this if you are a Christian. God gave man natural things as food and Jesus said that it is not what you put in your mouth that makes you unclean, so we know it was not anything that Adam physically ate that caused him to sin. If you do not understand this you should go read my lessons on “Does Eating Fruit Kill You”. So where is this middle garden that God is talking about where the tree of knowledge of good and evil is present? Let’s do a word search for the Hebrew word translated as “midst” and see what we find. I’ll start with one that I like in Proverbs because it is definitely related to my subject today:
Pro 4:20 My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.
Pro 4:21 Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.
Remember that the Word of God is the Good Seed of God. So what does God tell us to do with this seed? God starts by saying “attend” and this is a critically related word that can mean to “hearken”. Sound familiar? This is an intentional act of listening, hearing, understanding and doing. God then follows this up with “incline” your ears unto my seeds (words). Then God says for us to keep them before our eyes and then to keep them in the “midst” of our hearts. The word “midst” is the exact same Hebrew word used to describe the location of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2 and 3. Do you get a hold of what God is trying to say here? It is the heart of man that is the location of God’s garden. It is the heart of man where God wants His seeds to grow. It is also the heart of man where weeds grow from the enemy of God, Satan. You can read about the heart of man being the middle of man in Psalm 22:14, 40:8, 40:10, and 143:4. Some of these are difficult to see because the same Hebrew word is translated as “within”. But, you should be able to find it if you look for it and see that within you is the spiritual heart location of God’s garden. Knowing this fact you can now begin to see that where spiritual fruit comes from as well as where spiritual weeds are also grown. These are spiritual concepts of seeds and weeds and are completely relevant to our discussion today.
Please allow me to take you to some more words of Jesus that are clearly and directly related to the story of Adam and Eve in the garden and hopefully this will help us to see the connections a little clearer of seeds and weeds. You might recall that I spoke these next words in connection to two groups of people in the world and here is what Jesus said to us about them:
Mat 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at:
Mat 7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
So we can clearly see that these two groups of people are traveling separate paths. Those who are not of God are going down the easy path through the wide gate and the broad way to destruction. Those who God calls saved are those that are traveling down the narrow path and way through the narrow minded gate of righteousness. These are two distinct groups, two ways and two paths; one leading to life and the other leading to death everlasting. These are symbolic representations of either seed paths of good or the seed path of evil. There are many more opportunities in the world for evil seed than there is for the good seed. God only wrote one book of Good Seed and the internet, libraries and book stores are full of millions of books that you can choose to read that distracts you from the good seed. So let’s examine the next verse and see how it fits with what we are talking about in this lesson:
Mat 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Here is a word of warning from Jesus our God that we need to watch out for certain types of people in the world. The people specifically mentioned in this verse are called “false prophets”. A False Prophet would be the opposite of a True Prophet. A prophet is always someone who prophesies so we learn that not everyone that prophesies is from God in this verse. What are prophecies? These are spoken words aren’t they? Spoken words are a type of seeds, get it? God says beware the seeds of the false prophet and do not allow them to grow in your heart. These types of people will come in the form of harmless looking sheep, but they will secretly be wolves. So they disguise themselves to appear harmless and this is the first part of deception that you should become aware of. Now learn the connection in the next verse that I was attempting to get to in the previous 3 verses of Matthew:
Mat 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Jesus says you will know people by their fruit. In other words when people come to you in sheep’s clothing and speak subtle words to you, stop and observe them for a time period to see what kind of fruit they are producing in their life. In this verse Jesus connects or technically disconnects real fruit from weeds. Jesus says that you do not get grapes from thorn bushes and you do not get figs from thistles. Why did God use the exact same words in speaking to Adam that ‘it” would produce for him? God clearly tells Adam that thorns and thistles would result from something that he has done and now we are clearly given the location of these weeds and as we can see from what Jesus said these are spiritual weeds and they are the opposite of bearing spiritual fruit. Are you beginning to see and understand the connection that God is making to us in the Bible? Do you understand spiritual weeds better today than you did before you read this? I pray that you take this and continue to study the subject and go and find more verses that reveal and confirm this spiritual reality. I hope you enjoyed my advanced Bible lesson on Seeds and Weeds and please go and tell a friend what you learned. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on Seeds you can go to “Part 12“.
Understanding Angels! The Negative Aspects of Angels! Part 8
(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 8 of a series of studies about the spiritual reality of angels found in the Bible. We have covered a lot of information that is not going to be repeated, so if you have not read these lessons from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1” and read forward to this lesson. We have primarily been focused on the angels of God only and only the positive things that they do for the people of God on the earth. We saw for instance how angels delivered Lot and his family from the pending disaster of Sodom. We saw the angel of God assist Abraham’s servant in finding his son Isaac a wife. We saw angels bringing messages to Daniel and Joseph from God with words that came from heaven. But, today I want to discuss some negative potential impacts that angels can have against those who are not always doing the right things in the earth. In a previous lesson I talked about the two angels who were sent to Lot to rescue them from impending doom and disaster. But, you may also recall that the angels said they were the ones sent to destroy both of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and they did it very well. So we can clearly see that angels have significant power and ability to do both positive things like save Lot and his family and then extremely negative things like wipe out two large cities of ungodly residents. Wow, that is very important information to know as a Christian. As a Christian you should always be aware that you are not doing something that will provoke God or your angel into doing something negative to you. So today instead of discussing how angels can be a blessing to Christians, let me give you the flip side of this coin and show you how they can also be your worst nightmare. If you read in the book of Numbers and chapter 22 you find the story of Balaam. The King of Moab comes to this man and asks him for his help to curse the children of Israel. Balaam was told by God not to do it, but Balaam eventually yields to the King’s pressure and goes with him. We can pretty clearly see that God says don’t go and Balaam ignores God and goes anyway. This was clearly a great mistake to disobey God’s Word and this is what the Bible then says happened to Balaam:
Num 22:22 And God’s anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.
You can very clearly see that God was not happy with Balaam and the same angels of God who were sent to minister for those who would be heirs of salvation can also become Balaam’s adversary or enemy because Balaam was doing things that he should not be doing. This proves that angels can either work for you or against you depending upon your spoken words, decisions and actions in the earth’s realm. If you make the right choices and do the right things they will prosper you and make your way successful and if you make the wrong choices you may find yourself in the predicament that Balaam was found in of an angel with a big sword in hand ready to strike you down. One of the key factors to this story of Balaam is not so much what he did but who he was going to do it to. The children of Israel were God’s covenant people and they were at this time married to God the Almighty. You do not go and mess with God’s wife and expect to live. This is a grave mistake that people in the earth make today. I have seen many news media people attack anointed men of God and this is cursing them like Balaam was going to do. I would not want to be one of these news people in what they are doing to God’s wife on the earth. You may recall that Jesus takes attacks on the church very personally. When Saul persecuted the church and killed them, Jesus showed up and said “Saul, why do you persecute me”! This could have been really bad news for Saul but, Saul repented and called Jesus his Lord and his life changed dramatically for the better. If he would have continued in his previous ways and ignored the words of Jesus then it would not have gone well for Saul. You might also recall that even though Saul repented, that he went away from the meeting with Jesus as a blind man.
Num 22:23 And the ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.
Nowhere does it say that Balaam saw the angel, but clearly the ass that Balaam was riding on either sensed the presence of this spiritual being or somehow knew that she should not go where Balaam wanted her to go. You can read this story and see that Balaam whips his stubborn animal into submission and it almost cost him his life. This angel had a sword in his hand and would have killed Balaam if he did not change and do what God said for him to do. This is a very powerful lesson about angels either working for you or against you and how it is up to you to determine which one that they do. You can clearly see that Balaam had a freewill choice that he could have made. Balaam could have continued on his way in error and died or Balaam could humble himself and change. This is where many people in the earth miss it and die. Out of pride they cannot admit their mistakes and continue with the path they are on and they reap the consequences of disobedience.
Num 22:31 Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.
We can see that God in his mercy suddenly allowed Balaam to have a spiritual vision into the reality of angels. Suddenly from this entire story Balaam could see what the ass saw and knew that He was in jeopardy. This also represents another way that men can see angels while on the earth. Angels do not always have to manifest in our physical presence for us to see them. The Bible very clearly tells us that God opened Balaam’s eyes so that the angel could be seen. However, either angels must manifest into a physical form or God must open our spiritual eyes so that we can see them or you will never know that the angel may be standing right in front of you trying to keep you from doing the wrong things. You should definitely learn the lesson of Balaam and see how you can be effecting what your angel is doing. So let’s look at another story quickly found in the Bible. What we experience in this next verse is a fact that even the greatest men of God in the Bible can fail and cause angels to do negative things. Here in 2 Samuel you can read the story of David’s sin. David makes a choice and does what God said not to do. So let me ask you this, if God tells David not to do something does God want that to be secretly done? That is the reasoning of some ignorant people, however I always believe that God says what He means and means what He says. So in this story David numbers the children of Israel and God had told David not to do this. So God sends a prophet to David and tells him to choose between 3 negative consequences and David does:
2Sa 24:16 And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD was by the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite.
So as you can read in this verse God sent an angel and this angel is on the verge of destroying Jerusalem and God recalls him before this occurs. What we learn from this story is even the greatest men of God can make mistakes. David we are told in the Book of Acts was a man after God’s own heart. However, clearly David made a huge mistake that cost lives. So we can learn from this lesson that no one is immune or too good from the negative impacts of angels. While the angel did not attack David personally, since David was the King in charge of his people, the angels hurt David more than if he would have attacked him physically. David repented before the Lord and God withdrew the angel. There are probably many other Bible verses that we could look at that convey the strength and potential negative impacts that angels can have. If you study the Book of Revelation you will see angels administrating severe consequences upon the earth as the vials are poured out. Do not be deceived into believing that angels do things only by God’s design. We have seen too many cases already where people determine what an angel does in the earth. Those who obey God’s words are favored and the angels help and work for them to make them successful. Those who are disobedient or ignore God’s words will cause angels to work against them.
- Angels are not normally visible to the natural eye
- Angels can still be present even though we cannot see them
- Angels have weapons, power and ability to do great good or great harm
- Angels can be sent because of God’s anger of man’s disobedience
- Therefore man’s disobedience can cause negative things to happen to them or others by angels
- God had to open the spiritual eyes of the man Balaam to see the angel
- Even David caused negative things to happen from an angel
- This means you are not immune to the same results of the angel’s work in the earth
Those are a few very important statements to know. It is also interesting to note that this story of Balaam proves God is not in control of what men in the earth do. These verses clearly say that God said not to go and Balaam made the purposeful and intentional decision to disobey so God had to send an angel to stop him. God told David not to count the children of Israel and David intentionally disobeyed and felt the consequences. These stories clearly demonstrate the “Freewill” of man to obey or disobey God’s instructions. That is the problem in the world today still, men and women want to clearly disregard God’s words and instructions for their version and definition of morality. I do not know if God still sends angels to deal with this reckless disregard to God’s standards, but somehow I believe that it still applies. I heard one minister say that he was praying and God told him to go to another minister and give him a message of warning. This minister did not want to obey God but, he did it anyway. The message that God gave him for this other minister was for him to judge himself and change his ways. What his ways were was not revealed to us, but God got the point over in a very clear way. However, this minister disregarded God’s attempt to help him and guess what this minister died at a very young age. Was this the work of an angel? I do not know and cannot say what killed him other than disobedience. If you understand the stories of Balaam or David then you understand that the root of the problem was always “disobedience”. Disobedience always has consequences eventually. This is just a very basic spiritual law given to us in the Bible. God says the wages of sin is death and sin can be reduced to simply being disobedient. So I know I’m not perfect, but I try to be aware of my words and my actions so that I do not provoke my angels to do something because God is angry with me. I hope you are beginning to see the important parts that people play in what happens to them in the earth. These are just some of the basics found in the Bible that are very important to know. God Bless!
If you would like to continue in this series of lesson on angels you may go to “Part 9“.
Understanding Symbolic Sheep in the Bible! Are You Once Saved and Always Saved?
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 3 in the series of lesson on the subject Once Saved Always Saved and what others have called unconditional eternal security. If you have not read all of the lessons from the beginning I would recommend that you go back and start reading with “Part 1“. Today is a response to a reader’s comment, who thinks that I know nothing about sheep in the Bible among other topics that I may get into later. However, this man wanted to chastise me for not following his steps of hermeneutical Bible study. He claimed that I clearly did not know what I was talking about when I taught on Predestination and Once Saved Always Saved, because He had figured out the magic formula for Bible interpretation. However, this man failed in one minor detail, he gave me no Bible verses for his method of interpretation so therefore I categorically reject his methods completely. You can read from my other Bible lessons how I interpret scriptures based on other scriptures found in the Bible. This is called letting the Bible interpret itself. There are many basic laws of interpretation given to us in the Bible and I am totally guilty of following these the best that I know how to do. So you can find many blogs on my methods of Bible interpretations so go and read them and learn. Any man can invent rules for Bible interpretation and that is the problem with most of them that you find on the internet. The Bible says that no scripture is of any private interpretation and this is what most people are guilty of. Today’s lesson will be an obvious example of how two people can read the same scriptures and get two opposite interpretations and why. You see all you have to do is ignore certain key words in these next verses and you can get the exact same interpretation that he gave me. However, if you try to do it correctly and pay attention to every word you come up with a major difference in perspectives. Here are some of the Bible verses that this man said I do not understand:
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.
Joh 10:29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
Joh 10:30 I and my Father are one.
In this chapter of John and John is one of my favorite books of the Bible which I have studied more than any other except maybe Genesis, I find a very interesting set of statements being made. This man said that these verses prove that people are “once saved and always saved” by God and can never lose their salvation because that is just what it says. However, if you look very closely and examine the wording and context that is not what it says at all. Sheep are of course symbolic of people in this chapter. The sheepfold is the symbolic world that we live in. Jesus is of course the Chief Shepherd that is in charge of all of us sheep. These verses start with the statement that “My sheep hear my voice”. So right there we learn the first lesson. Not everyone is “His” sheep. You do not have to qualify the noun “sheep” with the adjective “My” if all sheep can hear His voice. Do you get it? So let me ask you a simple question, are you one of His sheep? How can you tell if you are one of His sheep? Is it just because you say you are? I believe our current President proves that is a lie in his actions every day. Saying you are a Christian does not make you a Christian ever. You might recall in the book of Acts that some men came up to a demon possessed man and said “In the name of Jesus that Paul preaches come out of him”. However, the demons said to them “Paul we know and Jesus we know but who are you” and they made them sorry that they confronted a being more powerful than they were (Act 19:13-15). These were examples of men who were not His sheep, but tried to act like it anyway. So you either are one of His sheep or you are not one of His sheep! What is it that determines this fact? It really is not that complicated, if you can hear His voice then you are, if you do not hear His voice then you are not. So let me ask you this, do you hear His voice? I know for certain that I hear His voice on a daily basis, what can you say about this? So the first thing that you learn is not everyone is His sheep and then only His sheep can hear His voice. So let me ask you this, if someone speaks and you are not paying attention do you ever miss what is said? My wife accuses me of this every now and then. She says something and I am sometimes distracted or not paying attention like I should and I miss what was said. Has this ever happened to you? Just because you can hear does not mean that you heard. This is proved every day in church. People sit in the congregation listening to the preacher and I would guess that only a small handful actually hear what is being said and understand it. So hearing is not the complete answer given here, I believe it takes more than just hearing. You can learn this from the Parable of the Sower when Jesus taught on the 6 types of soil, 3 types of soil produced some fruit and 3 types did not produce any fruit. But, they all heard the same words of the sower who was planting the seeds. So obviously there is much more involved than just hearing. Do you get it?
So the next statement that Jesus makes is “I know them and they follow me”. So if you hear His voice Jesus says “He knows you”. However, then He says “They follow me”. Uh oh? Is that another potential problem? What if they don’t follow Him or His voice? Do sheep ever have a “freewill” choice of whether they follow the Shepherd or ignore the Shepherd’s voice? I mean come on, do people ever lose the right to choose? You see you clearly do still have a choice to make even after becoming one of His sheep. There is a clear implied meaning given to us here in this verse that sheep still have choices to make even after being saved out of this crazy world. I mean come on and think a little bit with your brain! If they choose to follow Jesus they can choose not to follow Jesus also. The only way that this would not be possible is if God tied a rope around the neck of every one of His sheep and then dragged them wherever He went whether they wanted to go or not. That would be forced “predestination” and forced “eternal salvation”. Does God forcibly enforce His will upon all Christians and all people in the world? There are many confused Christians who think that He does. If this is the type of God that you serve then you are highly deceived and very ignorant. God is not forcing any of His sheep to follow Him. If you know anything about being a good shepherd, they always walk ahead of their sheep calling to them and the sheep normally follow them. The sheep are therefore highly trustworthy of their master that He is not going to lead them to the wolves. However, sheep do still have a choice not to follow. Once Jesus told this story found in the Bible that is very relevant to our current subject today about sheep:
Luk 15:4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?
Is Jesus talking about sheep in this parable? I don’t think so! Jesus is again using sheep as an example of people. However, it is very clear and self-evident that sheep can wander off and away from the voice of the shepherd that was guiding them. This tells me that Jesus the Great Shepherd is not in complete control of everyone on this planet and what they do. Any sheep at any time has the choice or chance to walk away. Do you get this concept? This is called “FREEWILL”. These are saved people who have walked away from Jesus’ voice and no longer are able to hear it. Do you GET IT? Of course Jesus says any good shepherd will leave the 99 and go and look for the 1 that is LOST! So here we go again. Does this mean the shepherd when He finds this lost sheep drags him kicking and screaming back to the flock by force? If you think it does then you again do not know the loving compassionate merciful God who allows His sheep to do as they will. Sure a sheep could wander off accidently and be totally glad to get back to the safety of the flock and the shepherd. But, still people are not sheep, they are people and they can do what they want, when they want, to who they want at any time. If a sheep wanders off and commits suicide there is no getting that sheep back even if the shepherd wants it back really bad. If while away from the safety of the shepherd a wolf comes and eats that sheep, it is also gone forever. These are basic sheep principles of shepherds and their flocks. People want to think that God is in control of everything, but if this was true and God is the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Almighty, He would have never let one of His sheep get lost in the first place. In this parable, it is clear that a sheep got away and the shepherd did not know about it until He stopped and counted and said I only have 99 and I started with 100 so one got lost. Wow, what do you do with people who ignore what the Bible says for their version of reality? It sure makes it difficult if you can’t see the words that written on the pages, doesn’t it?
Let’s further examine the emphasized subject in verses 28 and 29 of John 10 that we were looking at first. If you can see, then you can understand that both of these verses are about the Power of God vs. the power of Satan. Both of these verses say that God is able to keep those that have chosen to follow Him. Remember that choosing to follow was an important prerequisite to the next two verses. So the next two verses are only applicable if you continue to follow by your freewill choices. As long as you are with the shepherd you are clearly SAFE and no one including Satan can come and force you away. This would be the opposite of forcible salvation; it would be called forcible damnation. If it is illegal for Satan to force you to hell, guess what it would be illegal for God to force you to go to heaven. This MUST be a two way street that goes both ways and the only determining factor which way you go is by your own choice of continuing to follow your faithful Shepherd.
So did we learn anything today? I bet my commenter didn’t hear a thing that I said and that is really a sad state of the world that we live in. My Bible says “Whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not”. It is almost impossible to get a blind man to see. What you must determine is a basic question; do sheep still have any freewill choices to make in the real world after being saved? Can they do what they want rather than do what God says? Before you answer this question you should go and read your Bible and see if there are any people in there who God said not to do this and they ignored it and went and did it anyway. There is Balaam, there is all of natural Israel, there is even Moses who God said speak to the rock and he hit it instead. There are too many examples in the Bible of people disobeying God’s voice. Why did God pick sheep as a type or symbol of people in the world? You should study more about sheep and learn how they are a picture of people. For example, sheep are pretty dumb animals, I have to admit that and that speaks a lot for God’s opinion on what people think in the world. You should be smart enough to first see that God’s intelligence is so far above your intelligence that it is barely comparable to a man vs. a sheep. So having said that your opinion is worthless! What you think about the Bible is totally irrelevant! There is no significance to your thoughts unless they become God’s thoughts. So what have we learned about sheep today?
- People like Sheep are DUMB!
- Sheep still have a free will!
- Not ALL Sheep belong to God!
- Sheep still have to pay attention and understand the words of the Shepherd.
- A Sheep can Get LOST accidently or on purpose!
- God will try to go and find the lost sheep!
- Not every sheep has to follow the Shepherd!
- No one can force a sheep away from His Shepherd as long as it hears and follows.
These are the basics found in these verses about sheep in the Bible. You of course can disagree with what I just said and ignore the facts if you want to. But, please do not write me any more ignorant comments about my lack of understanding of the Bible and go pull the plank out of your own eye before you try to take the speck out of mine. God Bless!
If you want to continue reading about Once Saved Always Saved and the Eternal Security subjects you may go to “Part 4“.
Understanding the Difference Between Being the House of God and Being In the House of God!
(Ver 2.2) Today I will teach on a Bible basic truth that every Christian should know. There is an interesting difference between being in the house of God and being the House of God that many preachers that I have heard must not clearly understand. I have been in numerous church services where either the pastor or the worship leader gets up behind the pulpit and says “It’s good to be in the house of the Lord”. I guess I know what they are trying to say, but technically speaking that is a very false statement and directly contradicts what the Bible says in so many aspects. That statement also portrays a false reality to unsaved people that is easily taken wrong or misunderstood. Those types of statements leave people with the impression that if they come to church, they have satisfied their religious obligation to God. However, the Bible says that the church building that you are meeting in is not the house of God! You see the Bible clearly says that God does not dwell in the buildings made by the hands of men anymore. We know this is what God use to do in the Old Testament when God told Moses to build Him a temple and the Ark of the Covenant. Jesus in Matthew taught that David entered into the house of God to eat the show bread. But, these were all natural symbolic representations for a much different spiritual reality that was to come. Here is one of my key verses for today’s lesson and I hope you can see what it says:
Act 7:48 Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,
So here we have a major problem with the statement that too many preachers make. God clearly tells us in the Bible that it is impossible for man to build or make anything that is worthy of God’s dwelling place. If you read the next verse and the context you will see what I am talking about. God does not dwell in your man made church building; so when you say He does you leave a very false image in the minds of your listeners. However, there is another reality that God may show up at your church service if you invite Him in and then choose to let Him come in. I’ve heard ministers describe the presence of God at their meetings appearing like a cloud that would roll in over the people and then amazing things would happen. However, some people saw the cloud and others did not see the cloud. There are many examples of this type of cloud in the Bible if you look for them (Exo 16:10, Exo 19:9, Exo 24:15). I gave you 3 instances found in Exodus but God appears as a spiritual cloud several other times in the Bible as well. Then there are also literally many church buildings around the world that God does not ever show up in, because He is not welcome. Oh, sure they pretend that they are doing the right things and singing the right songs and acting out the parts pretty well. However, they neither know God nor are known by God so they worship with their lips, but Jesus said their hearts are far, far away. Jesus warned some religious people like this in Matthew 23:27 calling them “whited sepulchers that are beautiful on the outside but inwardly were unclean and full of dead men’s bones”. So God is not interested in your external religion or your outward religious ideas of being righteous. Just as God did not show up in the Jewish temple anymore, God will not show up at your church if your heart is not right before Him. These are examples of how important it is to be precise in exactly what you believe and to know what the Bible says. So where is the house of the Lord now? Or maybe I should have asked who is the house of the Lord now? If you study your Bible you will find that it says the people in the church are now this house of God:
1Ti 3:15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
As you search the Bible you find verses that read much differently than what some men preach and teach. Here is one of those examples. You of course can take this verse literally or figuratively. I believe that this temple is symbolic based upon the scriptures that I will show you in a minute. First, let me ask you what is the church of God or again I should say who is the church of God? Let me give you a few quick scriptures that hopefully will make my point that you can see for yourself:
Rom 16:5 Likewise greet the church that is in their house. Salute my wellbeloved Epaenetus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia unto Christ.
Here is God calling the people that meet in the house the church and not the building where they meet. This can get more complex than this, but this is the basics of the lesson today. You see the people that meet together in a building can be holding church services, but technically this is not the church. God clearly calls the people in the building the church and never is there any physical building called by this name or title in the Bible. This is really a very important difference to recognize.
1Co 1:2 Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:
Again we have the people living in the city of Corinth being called the church of God and not a building. It further qualifies that not everyone in the city is the church, but only those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. So it is much more important to be in Christ than it is to be in a building with a name on the outside. This is the mistake that pastors are leaving people with when they tell them they are in the house of the Lord today. They should be saying it is good to be in Christ Jesus and be the house of God.
1Co 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
This is the last verse that I will show you today that says the church are the people that Paul persecuted and Paul did not burn down buildings or deface a building. When Jesus appeared to Saul on the road and said “Saul why do you persecute me?” Jesus was telling him He took it personally because these people that he persecuted were the church and the body of Christ where God lives today:
1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Here is the main reason that I wanted to get to today that clearly tells us where the Spirit of God is today. You can clearly see that God is not living in the buildings that are made by the hands of men anymore. God has designed and created our bodies to be His temple and dwelling place. So wherever we go God goes. Where ever we are the church is, if you are a true Christian. You see when you become a Christian the Spirit of God comes inside of your body to live and to bear witness with your spirit that you are now a child of God (Romans 8:16). This is exactly why when you tell people they are in the house of God a building made by man’s hands that it contributes to a lie. You can hold church in a hotel and God will be there if He is inside of you. You can hold church in a tent and God will be there if God is inside of you. God is not interested in your building projects, however God will help you build one if that is what you like. I have to say that it is much nicer meeting in nice churches with climate controlled environments than sweating or freezing outdoors. Just build your church building and don’t call it the house of God. I am the house of God and you are the house of God we are a spiritual building made of living stones being built up into an eternal spiritual city of the Most High God. Here is a Bible verse that says what I just tried to say:
1Pe 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
The term “lively stones” literally means stones with life in them. This makes us complexly a very unique chosen building material for God’s house. You can clearly see that we are being “built up” to become a spiritual house for God. This is one of the key accomplished works of Jesus Christ. Why was it necessary for God to build a new spiritual house? I have taught on this before, but I’ll say it again for those who do not understand it yet. You see you only build a new house if you have something wrong with your old house. Heaven was the previous spiritual house of God where there were an enumerable number of angels dwelling. So what do you do when some of your angels have been found with sin in them? You should really think about that before you try to answer it. God is a just God and God is God who does not lie and break promises with those in His family. So God’s old spiritual house and family has a major problem occurring internally within it and this causes God to decide to build/create a new House through His Son Jesus Christ. I’ll talk and teach more on this subject soon, so please keep a look out for it, the Bible says some very important things on this subject for Christians who desire to understand.
Let’s get back to God’s new spiritual building project where you can clearly find in the Bible that Jesus is building this new house for God using us the church. We know in 1 Peter 2:5 that it says we are being “built up” a spiritual house. This implies a foundation and then subsequent building layers. Who is the spiritual foundation for this new spiritual house? Of course it is God Himself to some degree who is our foundation as well as a few other chosen individuals that are mentioned in this verse:
Eph 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
Again we can clearly see that we the people of God in the church building are being built upon a foundation that consists of three spiritual entities. Jesus Christ is clearly called the most important stone in the new building and He is described as the “chief corner”. This was usually in ancient building projects the first stone that was laid and one that all other stones are aligned from. So the first thing that you should grasp is that Jesus Christ is also a stone in this new spiritual house. God became one of us so that we could be made again like one of Him. The next thing that you should observe in this verse is that the Apostles of Jesus and the prophets of God from the O.T. are also living stones that makeup the foundation for this new building. Do you understand this? This is very important that you see. Here is another verse that gives us an additional perspective on the subject:
Rev 21:14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
In this chapter of Revelation God describes another place or actually the same place that we have been discussing but in different terms. In this chapter God describes a spiritual city called “New Jerusalem” and “Holy Jerusalem”. Both of these are the names given to the new spiritual dwelling place of God. If you noticed in this verse that this city contains a foundation of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ. That sounds very similar to what we just read in Ephesians 2:20. What we can see are some amazing parallels that are certainly not found here by chance or accident. Both Ephesians and 1 Peter spoke of a building project that is being created by God. We are called the temple of God in the letters written to the church, however in Revelation God speaks of us in terms of being a city. Both are structures with walls and foundations and are built with stones. Here is another verse that certainly applies to our subject today concerning this city found in Revelation 21:
Rev 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
This verse is pretty amazing. It speaks of us as being the tabernacle of God. Tabernacle is a term meaning God’s tent. Isn’t this what Moses built God in the Old Testament? Moses built a tent which clearly meant a temporary dwelling place. What Moses made was a temporary dwelling because it was made by men. Anything that a man makes will be temporary. However, we are now found to be an eternal dwelling place for our God made not with the hands of men. When we leave this planet we will be given eternal glorified bodies like the one that Jesus possessed after His resurrection. This will be a body that will never fail or fade. Therefore it will be a permanent dwelling place for the Spirit of God. God is saying in Revelation 21:3 that God’s new house will be “with” men. The term “with” in this verse means to be joined to Him in marriage and become one flesh with Him. What we see today is a small taste of what we will see in eternity. The Spirit of God being in us today is a pattern for what we will experience forever in eternity. Therefore, God’s New Jerusalem is a spiritual city of People in covenant with Him where He lives and dwells throughout eternity. We will be His people and He will be our God and according to the Bible no eye has seen nor have we even begun to imagine the great things that He has planned for us (1 Cor 2:9). I hope and pray that you enjoyed my short and basic Bible lesson on God’s spiritual building project and have learned that we are that project here today and right now. So the next time when you go to church remember you are not going to the house of God, YOU ARE THE HOUSE OF GOD who is going to a building to meet with the rest of God’s house for fellowship, praise and worship of Him who is In US! God Bless!
Understanding the Power of the Spoken Word in the Bible! Keeping Your Mouth Pure!
(Ver 1.1) Today is “Part 10” in a series of lessons on spoken words found in the Bible. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1”. Truly one of the most important subjects found in the Bible is the power of spoken words. God clearly created everything that we can see in our world by His spoken words and the Bible says in this same chapter of Genesis 1 that God made man in His image and after His likeness. So man possesses the same capabilities and characteristics that God possesses in of course a controlled set of circumstances and in a more limited capacity. In other words we are not going to go out and create any new worlds like God did with just our words. But, that does not mean we do not control our personal view of this world with our words. I guess most Christians just ignore verses in the Bible about this subject and refuse to believe them and that is very unfortunate for them, because God’s Words are still true and they work for them or against them whether they understand them or not. It is very much like the laws of gravity. I do not fully understand the law of gravity, but I know enough to cooperate with it so that I do not fall off of a cliff and hurt myself. I could spend a lot of time on this subject and probably will, but today I’m going to start in an O.T. book of the Bible that is not widely taught from by many preachers. This is the book of Ecclesiastes and we will read in chapter 5.
Ecc 5:1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.
Here we have a verse that is easily misunderstood and ignored by Christians. What is the primary subject of this verse? This verse is primarily about your personal relationship with God. But, it also has some very important instructions given to us concerning our relationship with God. Did you notice what this verse says? It says it is better to listen than to speak when holding a conversation with God. Why would this be important? Did you know that you cannot learn anything or even hear anything important if you are the one doing the talking? You might think that you know something worthy of God’s time and ear, but God clearly says that you do not. What is the “Sacrifice of Fools”? If you study the Bible you can see that God says the words that we speak to God in praise are called the sacrifice of our lips to Him (Heb 13:15). So what is the opposite of the sacrifice of praise to God? I believe the opposite would be you speaking the words of self-exaltation, or any words promoting something other than God. In other words stating with your opinion or your personal thoughts and ideas of what the truth is to you, these would be the words of a fool according to God. That is one of the primary reasons that I do not watch much reality TV on our channels here in America. These are the words of fools who do not understand that what they are saying is evil. Isn’t that what God just said in this verse? Here is a very good definition of what is evil in the eyes of God. These are people speaking things without any basis of factual information or knowledge of the truth? These are empty words from people with empty minds. These are fools in the eyes of God. God clearly tells us as Christians we should be swift to hear and slow to speak (Jas 1:19). So this verse has some very important instructions given by the inspiration of God for us and we can learn from them or we can choose to ignore them like many do. These are strong words from a strong God and it gets even better than that, read this next verse:
Ecc 5:2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
Wow, it is so incredible what the Bible says, isn’t it? God implies that He hears every word that you speak and in fact in previous lessons on this subject you might recall that I taught that we will all give an account for every idle word that we have spoken according to Jesus himself (Mat 12:36). This verse starts with do not be “rash” with your mouth! Did you know that you can be rash with your mouth? In previous lessons on words I taught on the sword of your mouth being able to cut two ways; either blessing someone or cursing someone. This is the power that you have in your mouth according to the Bible. You should always speak blessings over your children and encourage them with your words. There are many children in our world that have never heard their parents say they were proud of them. There are many children in the world that have never been told that they have great potential to do great things in the world. These are the children that have been cursed by their parents saying they are stupid, dumb and incapable of anything positive. These would be examples of “rash” words being spoken in the world.
The next statement in this verse demonstrates an old principle that I have previously taught on in the series. This part of the verse says let not your heart be hasty to utter, say, speak, declare, etc.! Wow, again did you understand the connection? The words that we speak came out of us from the abundance of the understanding in our hearts (spirit) (Mat 12:34). This is again why it is better to listen to God and allow Him to speak, since His understanding is infinitely greater than yours. This is a very important principle being given to us. The words that you speak come from what you have deposited in your spirit. So if you do not like what you are saying you are in need of a heart transplant, spiritually speaking of course. Jesus you might recall said “The words that I speak to you, they are spirit…” (John 6:63). If Jesus’ words were spirit, then guess what your words are also spirit, just understand the difference that many times your words are coming from an ignorant spirit and most definitely are not the words of an unlimited knowing Spirit like God. I say that but you can change that by learning to speak the written words of God and that makes your words seem wiser even if you do not yet fully understand the full meanings. Finally this verse again confirms that it is best for us if we let our words be few when speaking to God. This is always a good idea whenever dealing with anyone in the world. If you are the one doing all of the talking then you will never learn anything new. So being a good listener is the key to learning the truth. I’m going to skip down to verses 4 and 5 for my next point on spoken words:
Ecc 5:4 When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.
Ecc 5:5 Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
These are very important concepts to learn from concerning your spoken words. God is giving us a very specific principle in these two verses. What is that principle? It is to say what you mean and then for you to literally do what you say! In other words don’t tell someone I’ll meet you at 2:00 in the board room and never show up. What does that make you if you say one thing and then do something else? It is called being a liar and that is not a positive characteristic for anyone in the eyes of God. In these two verses it very clearly says that it is better for you to not say anything than it is for you to say something and to never do it. The example given is clearly about your money. If you tell God you are going to give Him something and then you never do it then you have made yourself a fool in the eyes of God. This is a very important life lesson. I worked with a man who would tell people I’ll have that for you tomorrow and something would always happen and he never could fulfill what he promised. The character of that man was now in question by everyone and everyone soon learned that you could not depend on anything that he said. People need to be able to place their confidence in your spoken words. If God said “I will do this for you” and then never did it, what would that make God’s character like? That would not be good for God’s reputation would it? If you cannot backup your words with your actions then you need to shut up and stay quiet. It is much better to be perceived as an ignorant man then it is to open your mouth and prove it to everyone. Here is another verse that speaks to us along these lines of our actions
1Jn 4:20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
Is God talking about your words and your actions in this verse? You bet He is! If a man says “I love you God” but yet treats everyone in the world with contempt, God says that man is a liar. A liar is someone who speaks words and then does not follow through with the effort to make them happen or to display them to others. There is a direct connection between your words and your actions so learn the lesson of God and see what He says. You should learn from God’s Word that He is faithful to perform what He has promised because God’s character is never in question.
Ecc 5:6 Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?
Here we have another verse that declares the importance of your words. Did you know your mouth is what causes your flesh to sin? If you did not know this then you just learned something very important today. Your mouth is connected to your spirit and your spirit is the eternal part of you that will be judged someday by God. God does not judge your flesh, get it? Did you know that you are not a body? Your body is the flesh and bone house of your spirit so your flesh is not responsible for your sin, you are! Here we have a principle being given to us and it has far reaching consequences. How are people saved? This is not a trick question, but one that most Christians cannot answer correctly. People are saved by their words that they speak. If you read Romans 10 you will see the connection between your words and salvation. If you confess the “Lord Jesus” with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dean, you shall be saved! Here is the heart and mouth connection being given to us again in relationship to being saved. So what is the opposite of being saved? It still involves a heart and mouth connection but it is the complete opposite of those words found in Romans 10. Instead of Jesus being your Lord, you think that you are the lord of your life and do not require anyone else. So you think wrong and speak wrong and thus are not saved. People like this are deceived by Satan who is really in control of their lives and he is their lord whether they believe it or not.
If you have been reading my series of lessons on angels you already understand a little bit about the importance of words spoken and angels doing, working or being sent by God to help you. So what is the connection of this verse with the previous two about vowing to God? Why does it say you are speaking to your angel? Have you ever seen an angel and have you talked with one? Most of us have not so this verse implies that angels are listening to your words the same as God is listening to your words. So you cannot say “I vow to God” and then say “Oh, I made a mistake” and expect God or the angels to help you. If you say something you always have the choice of whether or not you will do it. God will not force you to do anything. However, this verse in context with the others that we just read about words clearly tells us that your voice can cause God to become very angry with you and He can “destroy” the work of your hands. The work of your hands is the job that you do to make money, your business, your employer, your income producer, etc. God can bless this or God can cause it to fail and it is clearly linked to your mouth in determining which one God will do. If you do not understand this you need to study the Bible a lot more and learn how to be blessed by God.
So today I took you through 5 or 6 verses found in Ecclesiastes about spoken words and their connection to your relationship with God as well as showing you the need to aligning your words to your actions for the continued blessings of God to come upon you and overtake you. What you say has more bearings on what you get out of life than anything else that you do here. Learn today to be quick to hear from God and slow to speak so that you can continue to learn from Him. Let your words be few in general to everyone, unless you are told to speak to people and say something from God like I was today. I pray that you will continue in the Word of God and continue to be led by the Spirit of God in everything that you do. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading this series of lesson on spoken words in the Bible you can continue with “Part 11“.
Understanding Angels! Protecting Angels! Part 7
(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 7 of a series of studies about the spiritual reality of angels found in the Bible. We have covered a lot of information that is not going to be repeated, so if you have not read all of these lessons from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1” and read forward to this lesson. In the past we have been discussing the physical makeup of angels, where angels come from, the dimensions of angels, the assignments of angels and we have learned that they are intended to be a beneficial spiritual force that works for us and with us. Christians and the angels of God are on the same spiritual team and we have the same God. But, we have also seen battles, conflicts and the realities of other angels that are not working for God. These evil or unclean angels are God’s enemies and we will discuss them more in the future. Today I want to discuss a different purpose of angels of God found in the Bible. I believe that God has assigned specific tasks and responsibilities for angels to follow. These are generally followed for our benefit, but angels never override your will unless there is eminent danger. If you recall we studied the story of Lot in Sodom and God sent two angels to his house to get him and his family out before the city was destroyed. These angels practically had to drag this family away from the city by the hand, because they did not want to leave. I do not know if it was a case of core unbelief or just the fact that they thought they belonged there in the city. We did see that Lot left two daughters in the city that were married and they would not leave with them, so this might have contributed to the hesitation. However, if they would have stayed in Sodom they would all have been killed that very day by the falling fire and brimstone from heaven. Of course the only reason they were saved was because God talked with Abraham and Abraham asked God to spare them. So really Lot had nothing to do with his salvation other than allowing the angels to guide them out. He was very fortunate that he had an uncle that knew a God who was merciful. Many times angels will do this for your unsaved relatives also if you ask them to. So what we learn from God’s story of Sodom is that angels can protect people from a pending disaster, either natural or supernatural. Therefore, one of the key assignments of angels given to them by God is to protect those who are heirs of salvation.
Of course it is always much more complicated than trying to make that simple of a statement trying to say that an angel’s job is just to protect us. We can clearly see in the world that even Christians die in plane crashes and terrorist attacks. In fact children are killed every day in our world and they have not yet come to the age of accountability to make a decision for Christ. So where are all the protecting angels for these children? These are very difficult questions to try to answer since we do not know all of the facts or circumstances surrounding any one’s death that occurs in our world. So how can we attempt to explain why something happened if we do not know all of the information necessary about what caused this to occur? That is our challenge, since the Bible says that we are looking through a glass darkly and only see partially the spiritual realm, we must do the best that we can from what information God hsd given to us. I do not believe that we can know everything unless God somehow shows them to us and many times these things are personal items between God and that person and God will not tell you their secrets just because you want to know them. God says in Deuteronomy 29:29 “that the secret things belong to the Lord” so don’t go asking God to reveal to you things that do not concern you personally. So today I ask the question do people have guardian angles assigned to them by God? Here is an interesting statement that Jesus said about angels:
Mat 18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Here we have a verse where Jesus is speaking about the little children that have been brought to Him to be blessed. Jesus tells us that these little children all have “their” own angel. These angels go from here to heaven and when in heaven they check with God and see what God says for them to do. Since God does not show any favoritism to anyone we must logically conclude from this information that every child born on the earth has an angel assigned to them. The population of the earth is currently less than 7 billion and in the book of Hebrews God tells us that the total number of the angels in Heaven are innumerable. Men can easily count to a billion and even a trillion if they had enough time or could just use a computer. According to Revelation 12 we know that 1/3 of the angels have been cast down with Satan to the earth. Therefore, we can clearly observe that even taking away 1/3 there are potentially more than enough angels to go around to watch over 7 billion people.
Let me tell you about some personal experiences that I believe that angels have come to my aid in my past. One day as a young man I sat in my car at a red light in the left turn lane waiting for the light to turn green. I was the first one in line and just sat waiting for a green light to go. Suddenly a dump truck ran over the front of my car and crushed it. It seems this truck was coming down the hill to my left and lost his brakes and the driver of the truck could not get it to stop when the light was changing. I never heard anything or saw anything that was about to happen. So the driver came down the hill without brakes, without sounding his horn and he was trying to weave and dodge everyone as he came down the hill without any brakes. He missed most everyone except my car. However, if I was 5 or 6 feet closer into the intersection or the light had turned green I would not be here today. A man I knew saw me right after the wreck of my car and stopped to talk to me. He said I was very lucky to have escaped harm and he was right. You see I did not see any angels present that day, but yet looking back on it I can see the hand of God that spared me so I conclude that an angel was at work that day doing something to help me. It could have been just to cause the light to stay red long enough for me not to go forward. It could have been to tell me to stop and not inch any closer into the intersection. It could have been helping the driver of the truck to know how to turn and when to turn the wheel to keep from killing anyone. I mean we do not know all of the possibilities that could have been affected by an angel’s help. It is very difficult to know when something like that happens all of the factors that went into that day’s activities for everyone involved. I mean I could have been a few minutes later and missed everything or I could have been a few feet forward and been killed.
Then later in life I was attending a church gathering at a large convention center in downtown Dallas Texas. It was very late at night and the service was still going on, but I decided to take my kids home to get them into bed. So we left early and started for where I parked my vehicle about three blocks away. I noticed as I walked down the sidewalk that there was no one else around anywhere and that concerned me. We had to go close to 3 blocks to get to my car and it was very dark except for street lights. Suddenly I noticed two teenaged punks up ahead of me nearly a block away on the other side of the street. Then I noticed them looking at me and taking something out of their ankles like knives or weapons of some sort. I knew this was not a good situation to be in with two small young children. I was carrying my youngest child and my eldest son walked by me. I saw that the punks crossed the street so I crossed the street at the same time in the opposite direction. They suddenly realized that I had changed my course as they were coming towards me. I remember praying to God and “pleading the blood of Jesus” over my situation. I grabbed the hand of my son and we turned to walk back towards the convention center down the middle of the street. Suddenly a group of people appeared out of nowhere. There were probably four of them, two men and two women so I started walking towards them and arrived at them at the same time as the two teenaged punks so I turned and stood by them and we all stopped to look at the punks. The teenagers were outnumbered at this point so they asked some dumb questions acting all innocent and then ran off. I walked with this people for a little while never saying anything to any of them about what just happened. Suddenly again one of the women turned to me and said “Thank you” and they went on into the night and disappeared. So why was someone that I did not know telling me “Thank you” with me not saying anything to them at all? I have asked myself that question many times and can only come to the conclusion that it was because I prayed and ask that God cover us with His shed blood. So were these angels sent from God or were these just people who happened to be at the right place at the right time for me? I don’t know! I just believe that God answers prayer and how He does it is not up to me. I cannot tell this story without tears coming to my eyes thinking about it.
So those were just two examples of how angels could have affected a positive outcome in a potentially negative set of circumstances. One time I saw nobody and the other time there were people involved that I saw. I have heard many times a minister of God say this, “People are looking for the spectacular and all the time missing the supernatural”. In other words they read their Bibles and want God to do something like part the Red Sea for them or appear in a burning bush and God does not have to do something like this to cause a supernatural event to transpire and save your life. I’ll give you one more example of someone I knew. He was working very late one night at the office and he had his little daughter with him there at work. They decided to go home and of course it was dark and everyone else was already gone. As he loaded his daughter in the car and put her in her car seat a man with a gun came up and told him let’s go back inside the office building. This man that was being robbed with his daughter was the type of man that carried a licensed firearm with him for protection, but it was in his brief case in the front seat of the car. So he told the gun man I have my wallet in my brief case and reached in and his hand fell on the gun in the exact perfect way so that he just grabbed it and pointed it and began to shoot it at the robber. The man was hit several times but did not go down. The robber pointed his gun at the window of the car where the daughter was and pulled the trigger and guess what, the bullet bounced off of the window. The car did not have bullet proof glass and this should not have happened. So was this a chance accidental occurrence that everything just worked out like it did for the child? You have to be pretty blind to think that it was. I am confident that the angel of God was present there to help and to save the little girl who is still our friend today as a 13 year old young lady. Can angels stop bullets? I believe that they can, what you believe is your choice.
Psa 34:7 The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
So God tells us in the Bible that the angels of the Lord are present around those that have respect for God. Therefore, those who do not fear God might have a problem. It would be good to hear God say that we have an angel that is with us, but it also much better to hear Him say that one of their assignments is to help deliver us from something? What we need to figure out is what it is that they deliver us from? I believe that we only need deliverance from something that is intended to do us harm or hurt. Do you understand this? What is this trying to tell us? If angels can deliver you then other angels can also do things to you to cause you harm. That is just a basic reality found within the spiritual realm. Satan wants to kill you and God wants to save you and we have the classic battle of good vs. evil in our world transpiring all around us every night on the evening news. So how does Satan cause things to happen to take you out of the world? Many times Satan influences and uses people to hurt other people. Just as good angels can influence good people to do good things, Satan can influence and suggest that evil people do bad things to hurt other people. We have not discussed demons and evil spirits yet, but the Bible says they exist and we will definitely talk about them later.
Exo 14:19 And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
You can read another story of angelic involvement with the children of Israel leaving Egypt. In this story God says that an angel appeared before them to help guide them. The children of Israel make a camp and the angel moves to the rear of them for protection. We can clearly see that angels give God’s people a layer of protection from their enemies of Egypt who were pursuing them to take them back. This is not ministering “to” them; this is another example of angels ministering “for” them. We can clearly see that “protection” is one of the primary responsibilities for angels. You can also assume that Satan was influencing Pharaoh to pursue God’s people to do them harm. This is another example of how angels can affect the outcome of what happens in the world.
Exo 23:20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
So I hesitate to mention this verse, because it says the angel was guiding Israel in the way that they should go. However, it will be a good opportunity to teach you something about the role of angels in the church. Angels can clearly give people direct messages from God. We can seen this happening repeatedly in the Bible. These words from God can be considered guidance. You can even see this in examples found in the New Testament. However, many times these angels brought news from God about pending disasters. For example, Paul’s ship wreck in Acts 27:23 was foretold to him by the angel that he would live through it. But, here is the problem; I have not found a verse of scripture that tells us to pray for angels to lead us. The Bible in the New Testament says that those who are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God (Rom 8:14). So it appears to me that today we are to be primarily led by the Spirit of God that lives in us. This does not mean that God cannot still send you an angel if He chooses to do so. However, it is God’s choice and not yours. Do not put God in a box and think that an angel is the only way God can do anything for you, just leave the option open if God so desires. I have heard stories of people who prayed for angels to appear and Satan shows up to give them a message like it was from God and this was nothing but a way to deceive them into doing something not in line with the will of God. The Bible clearly says that Satan can disguise himself to appear as a messenger of light (2 Cor 11:14). So if you pray and ask for angel and are not promised one in the Word of God, then you are asking and praying for something out of the line of God’s purpose and plan and this normally just opens the door for Satan to come in to deliver his message of deception.
There are many verses in the Bible where angels are used by God to protect and deliver His people, so I will not go through all of these. I will briefly talk about Peter being thrown into prison by Herod in Acts 12:5. In this chapter you can see that Peter was being persecuted for preaching the truth. Thus we have Satan influencing Herod to do God’s people harm and Herod later finds out this was a mistake that he should not have made. In verse 5 of Acts 12 you see that the church was praying for God to deliver Peter and they continued to do this until Peter showed up at their door one night. God ends up sending an angel to wake Peter in the jail and this angel walks him to the house where the church is meeting. The angel is able to bypass the guards, release his physical bonds and open doors supernaturally to get Peter out of prison. This is a supernatural event of the divine intervention of God of how an angel can be used to deliver anyone from harm. Peter would have been executed the next day if not for the angel of God and the prayers of the church. This is another example of how angels are sent for the words of people on the earth. If there had been no prayers or words spoken there would have been no deliverance for Peter and we would have a few less books of the Bible to read today. Please notice that spiritual angels can affect an change physical things and outcomes.
I’ll end this lesson with another example of how angels can potentially work in the earth and you not see them or know of their involvement. In an earlier lesson I told you that the towers in NY on 9/11 were amazingly empty compared to normal capacity. My wife knew one man in NY that was supposed to be in the tower giving a presentation for his company. This was a very important meeting and one that he should never have missed. However, something transpired that day that was not expected at home and he was forced to stay home with his family that day. Because he stayed home we can only assume that this saved his life. The company that he worked for and the company that he was presenting to both vanished that day and do not exist anymore. So what appeared to be important that day turns out was not very important in the grand scheme of life. Were angels involved in this one case, again we do not know but yet something happened out of the normal course of life that caused a dramatic different result. I personally believe it was an angel, but you can believe whatever you like.
So I am personally convinced that angels do supernatural things to help people when someone asks God to help them. It doesn’t have to be you praying for yourself either. It can be like Peter when it was the church that prayed for his deliverance or Abraham speaking to God for Lot’s benefit. Ask God to get involved in the lives of your friends and relatives and see what happens. I am a firm believer that we are not done with evil in the world. I believe the terrorist and evil people of the world are hard at work coming up with new ways to hurt people. By releasing the angels of God to help protect us is one of the best defenses that we can possess against this spiritual evil. If you have personal stories of how angels helped you out of a bad situation I would be very happy to hear about them. I’ll end this lesson here for today and pray that you have a very blessed day.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on angels you can continue with “Part 8“.
The Predestination Fable vs. Freewill Theology!
(Ver 1.3) This is now Part 3 in a series of advanced Bible studies concerning the erroneous doctrine of extreme “Predestination”. If you have not read from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1“. It seems that there is not a shortage of ignorant people in the world or on the internet. Today I will address a very deep topic that I have addressed previously but I will do it today in a more detailed way for these people who refuse to believe the truth. There are so many levels of deception in the world. There are so many variations of the same lies that it is almost impossible to address them all. I had a reader write me a new variation of an old deception about “Predestination”. His claim was that everyone will be saved who wants to be saved, but God still predestined some people for hell because the Bible says Jesus chose Judas to betray Him. I guess according to this man’s reasoning Judas didn’t want to be saved and this was why Jesus chose him. I really do not know what people are thinking when they say some of the things that they do. Hopefully by writing this I can help someone in the world not to fall into this level of deception, for you see I do not believe that you can help people who do not want to be helped. It is very difficult and even impossible to help everyone. If you noticed while reading your Bible even Jesus could not help everyone. That statement might shock you, but you do realize that some of the Jews hung Him on the cross? Did Jesus not preach and teach the same words to these people as He did everyone else? How is it that some accepted and others rejected and the same words were spoken to each? I guess according to this guy it was because of God’s predestined purpose that everyone did what they did. After all God controls what every human on the planet does every minute of the day. We are all just God’s puppets and we only do His will. That is why there is so much good in the world and love towards each other. Heck, I haven’t seen enough love in the church, much less in the world. Why does the church bicker and fight within their own ranks so much? I guess it was all just God’s will and Jesus doesn’t get His prayers answered. Remember in John when Jesus prayed and asked His Father to “Make them one as we are one”? Has this ever happened in the last 2000 years? I think one of the few times that I saw it was in the Bible in Acts 2:1 when there were only 120 in the upper room and they were all in one accord. It seems to me that once the church grew beyond the 120 it became increasingly more difficult to remain in harmony. Why is that?
Today I’m going to speak about “Predestination” vs. “Freewill”. What is predestination? According to definitions that I have found it is the theology that states God has foreordained every event in the course of human history including the end result of salvation for every man, woman and child. This was a popular teaching that originated from “Calvin” I believe and it has continued in many ignorant and deceived churches to this day. This teaching has many problems and ignores many other Bible verses. It promotes a theology of “Limited Justification”, where only those selected by God have been atoned for by the Blood of Jesus. Therefore the Blood of Jesus is not all encompassing or powerful enough to save everyone. It further promotes the theology of “Once Saved Always Saved” where a God selected Christian can do nothing to lose their salvation. This philosophy is based upon the fact that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent and can do whatever He desires, so therefore they make the erroneous leap that God controls everything that happens to us in the world. Just because God can they think that God does. If it happens in the world then that is or was the plan of God in manifestation. This teaching comes from the minds of heavily deceived individuals who do not see or understand the Bible. Why do they not understand the Bible; primarily because they do not know the author of the Bible who is God! To understand the Bible you must first and above all else come to know Him (the Author) and allow His Holy Spirit to guide you into all of the truth (John 16:13). By knowing God you learn His character, His Integrity, His Nature, His Ways and His Personality. God’s integrity and character is the highest moral standard that exists above everyone else. For example, the Bible says it is impossible for God to lie. You can clearly see that makes His character way beyond mine. It is entirely possible for me to lie to you. It is entirely possible for any human on the earth to lie to you. In fact I do not know of another being natural or spiritual that exists that cannot lie. The existence of Satan proves that even angels can lie. That is why we MUST see what God says in His Word in order to find the truth.
Whether you realize it or not we have a significant problem within the Body of Christ, a major conflict, a battle of theologies between the “Predestination” Theology and the “Freewill” Theology. Many may have never heard of either of these teachings. Therefore they do not understand what they mean or know that there is a conflict being debated. If you do not understand these subjects then you need to learn quickly which one is the truth and which one is a fabrication. But, hopefully you will better understand them as I go through the rest of this lesson. What we have on the surface is the theology that God is in control of everything that happens vs. the theology that man has a freewill to choose his own destiny. This is the root of the battle.
So this reader of mine who ignored everything that I said in the last lesson on the subject of predestination (“Many Called and Few Chosen”), wrote me a long comment why I was so wrong giving me lots of his misunderstood Bible verses about how God prophesied every major event in the Bible before it ever happened in the world. Therefore according to his brilliant reasoning “Prophesy” proves “predestination” or a “predestined plan” that cannot be changed. I have written in other Bible lessons that God lives outside of the boundaries or constraints of time. Do you believe God is limited to time? If you think God is limited to the dimension of time where was God before the “beginning”? Scientists clearly understand that our known universe had a beginning, a clear starting point in time called the “big bang”. We must logically conclude that if God created time God existed before time. Can we agree upon this factual conclusion?
Jesus said “I am the beginning and the end” and this clearly tells us that God pre-existed in a self-existent perpetual state before and after either of these two points of reference in time. Let’s consider the nature of prophecy. The Bible clearly says that “I make known the end from the beginning” (Isa 46:10). Therefore God definitely knows the end before it happens. We are therefore at a crossroad point of decision to choose to believe one of two paths of opposing theology. The first path is the belief that just because God knows the end and everything in between that also means God orchestrated and caused it all to happen this way. This belief alleviates all other source or influences of freewill choices. Or the second path that we could take is that God did not cause it all to happen this way but rather only reports to us in the Bible what will happen based upon foreknowledge. This approach keeps the positive or negative influences of human freewill and other spiritual beings. Just because God knows what will happen does not mean God causes it to happen that way. Let me ask you this, do you believe that God is in control of everything that happens? Can you show me a Bible verse that says this? I simply do not know one and if you do then I would be happy to learn about it. However, you cannot take a prophecy and say God caused it to happen unless you see the words “God caused Judas to betray Jesus”. Otherwise your theology is based upon assumptions of human reasoning and that is a very dangerous place to put your confidence. The Bible says many things that will counter this theological theory that God controls everything and we must see these clearly to understand the real truth. I mean can you read? Here are some Bible verses that you should pay very close attention to:
Mat 13:25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
Jesus is teaching a parable that relates a spiritual truth about the Kingdom of God. The first thing that you need to note is the fact that God says He has an enemy. Not an evil puppet, an enemy. You can find this reality multiple times in the N.T. God says in Hebrews “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies thou footstool” (Heb 1:13). Do you know the definition of an enemy? According to God your enemy never does what you want them to do; if an enemy did what you desired then they would not be your enemy. We are fighting terrorism in the U.S., because why? Terrorists call the U.S. their enemy. Therefore, we are forced to defend our nation and to try to defeat them because they called us the enemy of their god Allah. Do you have a different definition for an enemy? You should go through the Bible and see the references to what God calls an enemy. An enemy is never one that under the control of those they are opposed to, unless they have been totally defeated. In this parable of God’s garden or farm, God is said to have sown wheat seeds and an enemy has come along in secret and sown “tares” in God’s garden. It doesn’t sound like God is in complete control of His own garden, does it? You cannot read a story like this and believe in “predestination” unless you twist it to believe that God’s enemy is just a part of God’s planned design. If you believe that, then you have to change the definition of what an enemy is. If Satan is doing exactly what God wants him to do, then he is a friend of God and not an enemy. You can clearly see this is true or it makes Jesus Christ out to be a liar. You see in John 15:14 Jesus said this to His disciples “You are my friends, if you do what I command you”. So if Satan is doing what God wants he would not be called an enemy he would have to be called a friend of God. I mean are you blind or can you read? Go through your Bible searching and tell me where it says that Satan is a friend of God? Knowing this fact alone blows extreme “Predestination” out of the water. There is no way to believe in predestination unless you change God’s definition of a friend and an enemy. By clear definition it is impossible for God to have enemies and be in total control of everything. You really need to study your Bible more before you make wild theological statements like God has predestined some to hell. Let’s see another new perspective that counters the theology of extreme “Predestination”.
Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
In the book of Genesis God is telling us of a time when man was morally corrupt. It is easy for me to understand that this is why America is in the dilemma that we are in today. Liberals want to remove God from our government and our schools and then expect things to get better. However, the Bible proves this is not what happens in our world without God’s involvement. Without churches, a Bible and God being intimately involved you can see what God says happened in the world. The rise of “wickedness” and “evil” in the thoughts and minds of humanity in our country has caused a generation of people who are not better than we use to be, but much worse. If you take God out of your schools you teach ignorance, children grow up without any moral character, standards and integrity. Therefore, they do what they want to do to who they want to do it and whenever they think they can get away with it. Take a look at this next verse in Genesis:
Gen 6:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
Ok, I’m going to ask you again, Can You READ? What does this verse say? It says “God was sorry that He made man because He saw the wickedness that was running rampant in the earth. I thought God caused all of this wickedness to occur by His designed plan? After all how would God use Noah to save humans if God had not caused the evil in the world to be present in the first place? So this is the reasoning of predestination theology that you have to say that God purposely caused the “Evil” so that He could implement a plan of “Salvation” for us all. That is what extreme “Predestination” is preaching. But, how can you cause something to happen and then regret that it happened? Does that make any logical sense to you? You see you cannot do this if you have any morality and integrity at all. You do not ever go to your car in the drive way and purposely break it just so you can fix it, that would be called insanity. You see this is a major problem for extreme “Predestination” theology. If God wanted something different than what was happening on the earth, God would have controlled it to make it occur differently. God would not have allowed “wickedness” if it was all up to God. You can see that, can’t you? These verses just don’t make any sense in the extreme “Predestination” world that God caused it to be this way so that God could regret that He created man to be evil. Wow, this is some very powerful stuff if you can accept it as the truth!
Let me give you another verse of scripture that is directly opposed to the exreme philosophy of “Predestination”. You see according to “Predestination” theology God has foreordained that some people would go to hell and some people would be saved. If this is true, man would have no choice to ever make to obtain either one of these end results. So how do you deal with a verse that says something like this?
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.
I have heard many opinions to what this verse means and most of them are wrong. There are those who claim this verse teaches that everyone will be saved because God always gets His will done both in heaven and on the earth. This is the theory of “Universal Salvation” and it is another lie from Satan. Then there are others who must ignore this verse to teach “Predestination” theories. This verse very clearly says God desires everyone to be saved. This verse countermands the philosophy of “Selective Atonement” that other deceived Christians want to buy into. In the “Selective Atonement” philosophy God only paid the price for the sins of those that were chosen. The others have their sins carried with them to hell forever. But, you can read and see that God is speaking in this verse about being patient towards us on the earth because His will is for “everyone” to be saved. If it is therefore possible for everyone to be saved by the shed Blood of Jesus then Jesus paid the price for ALL sin with His onetime blood sacrifice. Where many Christians get confused is in the fact that salvation is not totally up to God. The reality is found in the Bible that God saved everyone but this does not mean that everyone is saved. For those who want to leave salvation totally up to God is how they created the belief of extreme “Predestination”. For those who can see the truth, they know that man has a part to receive through faith everything that God has given to them by His grace. Can you help explain to me what God needs to have patience if He is controlling what is happening in the world? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.
1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Here is another popular verse that “Universal Salvation” teachers try to exalt to the total truth. Since everyone was condemned to die by Adam, we can now clearly see that by Christ everyone will live again. But, the problem with that is this is not what it says. This verse says only those “IN CHRIST” will be made alive and that is totally different. If you do not understand what it means to be “IN CHRIST” you should go and read my lessons on “Understanding Seeds”. What we have seen in these two last verses that I gave you is that the Bible says it is possible for everyone to be saved, but that it is not an automatic occurrence just because this is the will of God. So we are uniquely challenged by God to take every verse we can find in the Bible on a given subject and then to balance the information given to us in order to come up with the correct interpretations. One of the keys to doing this is by allowing God and His Word to interpret itself. This means getting God’s definitions for every word. This means reading God’s commentaries on the given subjects that we are learning. There are many factors to understanding the Bible and one of the greatest errors that men make is to take a single verse or two and try to make a single truth found in the Bible the complete truth and this is a major mistake.
Let’s go into another Bible verse that is often overlooked by “Predestination” teachers. In the Gospels the disciples of Jesus come to Him and ask “Lord teach us to pray as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1). If extreme predestination was really true, then Jesus’ response should have been “You don’t need to pray and ask God for anything because God’s will is always done”. However, this was not Jesus’ response was it? This was Jesus’ response to His disciples:
Luk 11:2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
Obviously Jesus thought praying to God was important enough to teach His disciples how to do it. This fact alone discredits “predestination” completely. Why do you pray to God? Do you pray to find out the will of God for your life and that is all? If you pray and have to ask for the will of God to be made known to you so you can do it then you are obviously not doing the will of God already. Do you understand that logic? In this verse Jesus is teaching His disciples to “pray” that the kingdom of God should come. Wow, that was a very heavy duty statement for God to make. If God’s will is always done on the earth then there is absolutely no need to pray for the Kingdom of God to come. Jesus then continues to pray that the “will” of God be done on the earth like it is performed already in heaven. Right there we have another MAJOR conflict to the extreme “Predestination” theology. Jesus who is God in the flesh is speaking to us and teaches us to pray and ask Him for God’s will to be done on the earth. This clearly means the will of God is NOT currently done on the earth if we have to pray for it to be done. Jesus says very clearly that in heaven the will of God is done, but on the earth we have a different situation occurring. Do you understand this? Is God stupid? Did God lie? Many must think that God is either confused or that He just wants people to believe that they are praying for something that is already going to be done on the earth to make them feel important. I tell you the deception occurring in the people who do not know how to read, seeing what it says and to those that try to explain verses like this away to hold on to their fantasy reality is just so incredible to me.
Let’s talk about foreknowledge next. Since God obviously did have a laid out plan for man, does that mean God must control everything to make it happen? Extreme predestination means that God is in control of everything that happens in the world and nothing happened unless it was part of God’s plan. This means Adolf Hitler was God’s plan. This means the terrorist who flew into the World Trade Center was part of God’s plan. This means the death of little children in the world was a part of God’s plan. The level of deception and ignorance to believe in something like that borders on insanity, if it does not cross well over that boundary line. If you believe that God is killing people in the world as a part of His divine plan for man you are a fool. You first off do not know the definition of what “LOVE” is. God who is LOVE (1 Jn 4:8) must demonstrate this highest level of LOVE as an example to us or we are following the wrong God. If God does not abide in LOVE then we are all in major trouble! If people want to redefine LOVE as it if it is permissible to kill people in mass, then we should all be taking up guns and doing exactly like God does. However the Bible says “Thou Shalt NOT Kill” (Exo 20:13). This Hebrew word translated as “kill” means to commit murder. So according to many ignorant theologians God is in clear violation of His own governing laws that He gave to man to follow. When Jesus Christ was born a man through a virgin named Mary (Gal 4:4), God placed Himself under the very laws that Theologians claim is Ok for God to violate. Completely foolish people think that God is some how separate from His Word. In other words God can say one thing and do something that is completely opposite to what He said and it is OK because God did it. Can you tell how much I dislike ignorance and stupidity?
I do not think I ever got to talk about the “foreknowledge” subject in the last paragraph. “Foreknowledge” is the specific knowledge of an event, planned outcome, or schedule before it happens. However, this is very different than man’s definition of “foreknowledge” and let me tell you why. Humans even have a variation of foreknowledge in limited degrees based upon planning. You see you might know that there is supposed to be a party tomorrow at 2:00 PM in the meeting room where you work. You know this because someone planned it and invited you to it. We can clearly see that just because this event is scheduled and planned that it does not necessarily have to occur, because in this world unexpected STUFF still Happens! The day the terrorists flew into the World Trade Center probably caused many parties to be canceled un-expectantly. We need to take this example and apply it to God, if we can. Extreme “Predestination Theology” wants us to believe that everything that occurs in the world is because it was “God’s Planned Event”. Then they have to further say that God does not allow anything else to interrupt His plans since He is in ultimate control of everything. Wow, these are really deep thoughts! What confuses many Christians is trying to determine the difference between foreknowledge and predestination. Just because God knows what will happen, when it will happen, to who it will happen and where it will happen does not mean that God caused it to happen or that someone cannot do something to change it from happening? What does the Bible teach about this?
You might recall that in the O.T. the prophet comes to the King and says get your house in order for God says that you shall surely die (2 Kings 20). Who said this and is it set in concrete? If understand the Bible you know the prophet was just a messenger for God and that God said it therefore God knew what was going to happen before it happened.. Is the king being told the set firm willed plan of God? Or is the King being told one possible outcome? Isaiah leaves the King and the King gets in prayer with God. God then sends Isaiah back and tells the King God has heard your prayer and you shall live another 15 years. So here is where people come up with more stupid interpretations. I have heard ignorant people claim that God has a secret will and God has a revealed will. So God’s secret will was for the King to live another 15 years because this is what happened. But, this is more crazy human reasoning trying to makeup explanations for spiritual things that they do not understand. I tell you stories like this just baffle me to how people can believe in the concepts of extreme “predestination”. Either God changed the predestination of the King or the King did something to change his outcome in life or God just lied. God said you are going to die and the King lived another 15 years after he prayed. So what is it?
Let’s continue to look at what else God says in His word and see if we can determine the truth. By the way “Freewill” theology is one that teaches that man has a freewill choice in their destiny of going to heaven or to hell. “Predestination” means God has already determined who goes to heaven and who goes to hell and therefore man has no clear choices to make. If “Predestination” was true why get up in the morning and do anything that day? Why preach the gospel to anyone? Why even eat food and live? What are we doing here? Let’s go back to the beginning in Genesis 2 and 3. In these two chapters God reveals the fall of man. The Bible says God has created a Garden called Eden and has placed His created man in this location. God tells the man that it is OK to eat from every tree. But, then God says “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you do, you shall surely die”. Right there is a major problem for predestination theorists. Why would God tell the man anything if man was already going to eat from the tree and fulfill the real plan of God? You see according to “Predestination” the man Adam has no choice in what he does, so obviously when Adam fell it was God’s plan all along. So the warning of God to Adam makes no logical sense and is incompatible with the doctrine of “predestination”. Why warn someone they are going to die if they eat this fruit, if this is what God wanted them to do anyway. So that is the basis of the major downfall in the theology of “Predestination”. Why does God write us this book called the Bible to every human that is full of warnings? If man has no choice in fulfilling their destiny, this makes no logical or theological sense? The existence for the entire book of the Bible makes no sense in the theology of “Predestination”. God does not have to speak to people who are already programmed to do what they were created to do? You see in order to believe in true absolute “Predestination” you have to believe in a “preprogrammed” humanity. If man has no choices to make then whatever they do in life is what they were designed by God to do, good, or bad or in different. This is just a real philosophy that is not found in the Bible:
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:
Bible verses like this one have to be totally ignored by “Predestination” deceivers. God who writes this verse for us, says “I have set before two choices, one is Life and the other is Death, therefore choose life so that you can live”. Why would God give a choice to a man who had no choices to make in their eternal destiny or earthly existence? That is clearly very STUPID to think that man does not have a choice to make!
Pro 1:29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:
Here we have another example of how ignorant people fail in our world and teach errors like “Predestination”. Because they “hated” knowledge and ignored the truth they have not chosen the fear of the Lord. Does God say we have a choice to make? Does God say we can choose to be ignorant? Does God put the ball in our court as being our decision to make? It sure looks like that to me.
Isa 56:4 For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant;
Does God again say that these men had a choice in what they could do? Doesn’t it say that they could have done like others and not pleased God? “Predestination” says man has no choice to make. They are pre-designed to please God or to be thrown in hell. If this is the case why does God not believe this? Didn’t God know He just lied to us in the Bible? What is God stupid or are people stupid?
Php 1:22 But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.
I have blogged on this verse before. In this chapter Paul is in a quandary trying to decide to stay on the earth and continue his ministry to the people or to leave the earth and go and be with Christ which he called “FAR BETTER” for him. Paul says very clearly that this is his choice to make and that he does not know yet which way he will decide to go. Wow, there are hundreds of verses found in the Bible like this one that throws “Predestination” into a downward spiraling airplane that will soon crash and burn. If man has no choices then why does God say that we do in the Bible? No, you see the problem is that people want to take part of the truth of the Bible and exalt it to be the complete truth and this is just a huge mistake. Yes, God has a plan for man! Yes, God know the destiny of every man! No, God did not intend you to go to hell if that is where you end up. In my first blog on this subject I clearly showed you that God had written everyone’s name in the Lambs Book of Life and that the Bible says that God was forced to blot out those who would not receive His free gift of salvation. So if God had predestined you to hell already from the beginning, why would your name be recorded in the “Lamb’s Book of Life” and then be blotted out? Do you understand the problem in that question? Doesn’t God already know who makes it and who doesn’t? After all if God “Predestined” you for salvation then He would just have a book of names that He predestined to be saved and would not have to blot out anyone else’s name who was not predestined. Predestination and foreknowledge are very similar but yet totally different concepts. If I know that you are coming to my house tomorrow, that is different than me making you come to my house tomorrow without inviting you to come. So God can very easily get accused of doing things that He is not guilty of doing. Just because idiots want to teach “Predestination” does not mean it is the truth.
Then there is the difficulty of the fact of “prophecy” found in the Bible. Clearly, God has prophesied many things in the Bible that will happen even in future events to come. I can understand if God prophecies something that He is responsible for fulfilling. This only makes sense to me. God says I will do this and that in this time frame and then it happens. But, when God prophesied things concerning other people, places and things it makes you think that God is controlling these people, places and things to cause them to also occur. However, we have the factor of “foreknowledge” that is not being taken into account correctly. Because God knows how you will react to something, can mean that He can use this knowledge for something that He needs accomplished in the earth. You see a reader pointed out to me that Judas was “predestined” to betray Jesus and to die. In the “predestination” mentality they believe that God created Judas so that he could betray Jesus. Did you know you can’t find that statement in the Bible? If God does this then He is the master designer of a Heavenly Matrix system that puts every man into the specific role they are destined for. The necessary level of control is beyond our imagination for this to occur; God would have to use the power of suggestion, mind control and even mental and physical manipulation would not be off the table for predestination to occur. Is God capable of this, yes I believe that He is? However, is this the God that you know? It is not the God that I know and it is certainly not the God found in the Bible.
So we have covered a lot of different angles found in the Bible that to me clearly dispute the philosophy of predestination. I have given many verses that states man was given choices to make in life. You must therefore decide which way you want to believe. You cannot believe both ways like some would think. You must either choose to believe in the fantasy of predestination and ignore all of the verses that I gave you today or open your eyes to what I have tried to clearly teach from the Bible.
If you want to continue to read the follow-up to this lesson series on Predestination you can go to “Understanding Sheep“.
You can also go and read “Part 4” of the lesson series to study this subject further.
Understanding How to Keep the Sabbath Holy! The Fourth Commandment!
(Ver 1.3) This is now “Part 3” of a series of lessons on Understanding the Purpose of the Law. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start your reading with “Part 1” first. What is the Sabbath? Today’s lesson is a response to a readers question about keeping the Sabbath Holy. To many traditional Jewish people the Sabbath is a day of rest on Saturday. To many Christians it is a day of worship on Sunday. To many Muslims it is a Holy Day on Friday. So what are we to do as Christians on this day? Are Christians supposed to view the Sabbath like Jews or Muslims? This is a potentially controversial subject, because many view this subject using extremes. This is traditionally the downfall of the Jewish people. They were so consumed with their attempts to please God that they invented pages of rules to make sure that no one ever violated God’s law to keep the Sabbath Holy. However, Jesus said “Your traditions make the Word of God null and void” (Matthew 15:6, Mark 7:13). If you read the Gospels closely you should see that the main reason why the Jews crucified Jesus, was for the Sabbath conflict that existed between Jesus and their self imposed Sabbath rule violations. They refused to believe a man was from God who would violate their traditional Sabbath rituals. Jesus was criticized more for doing things on the Sabbath than anything else that He did. Of course Jesus purposely violated their rules to demonstrate the Law Giver was standing before them. Jesus was not required to keep their rules, they were required to keep His rules and they were doing a very poor job at that. In Luke 6 Jesus is standing before the scribes and the Pharisees and they are watching him closely to see if He was going to violate their Sabbath rules so that they could accuse Him. Jesus turned to them, looked at them and asked them a very direct question. Jesus asked “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil on the Sabbath?” You can clearly see Jesus was making a point that they could not answer. Jesus was saying that their definition of work was NOT His definition of work. You can also see that Jesus infers that doing “Good” was more important than their idea of a law of not working. Jesus confronted this issue with the Jews repeatedly and revealed to them many new things that they refused to see:
Luk 13:15 The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?
Here Jesus calls the Jews hypocrites because of their Sabbath rules. You can clearly see that giving your farm animal some water was a good thing that was acceptable in the eyes of God even if this could be considered to be work by many people. So is doing Good a job or work? Not according to God! Jesus clearly calls religious people who think their external rules are the solution for keeping God’s law hypocrites. Yet people in some churches today still have this same attitude.
Luk 6:2 And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days?
So the Jews were consumed by trying to obey the letter of the law and they failed to recognize the one that gave them the law was standing before them speaking to them. So what was Jesus’ response to this question?
Luk 6:3 And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him;
You see the Pharisees saw the disciples of Jesus going through a corn field and picking ears of corn to eat and according to the Jewish rules this was a violation of the Law of Moses. Anyone can clearly see that this is obviously a laborious task to pick corn in a field. I do not know if you can read sarcasm or not, but that was a sarcastic remark I just made. Of course it wasn’t really work it was just their idea of what the Law of Moses said. To the disciples they were hungry and saw food and went and got it. It is really not that complicated and Jesus told them, “Didn’t you read what David did”?
Luk 6:4 How he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone?
Jesus looking at the Pharisees told them that David violated the law and entered into the temple to eat that which was reserved for only the priests of God and David also gave to the others that were with him. It is funny that God, who was standing before them, did not strike David dead for violating this law, did He? Normally, if even a priest entered into a Holy place with sin they fell down dead and had to be dragged out with a rope that was tied around their ankle. So obviously God’s view of things is different than man’s view of things, aren’t they?
Luk 6:5 And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
So God’s point is that He is the one that gave the law of the Sabbath, He is still Lord of the Sabbath and only He determines what is acceptable to do and not you. In other words you are not God so do not pretend to be God and make rules up that define what is acceptable on a Sabbath and what is not acceptable on a Sabbath. This is what got the Jews in the major hot water that they were in and we have some Christians in the world today trying to do the same.
Here is the other side to the problem of trying to keep the Sabbath Holy today as a Christian. God says in the Bible that “NO FLESH shall be justified by keeping the LAW” (Acts 13:39). If keeping the Sabbath Holy is the fourth commandment and it is impossible for any man to be justified by keeping it then what are we to do as Christians? That is a really good question. I believe that we should be doing what Jesus did. If Jesus did anything on the Sabbath, we should be doing the exact same things. Jesus spent a lot of time going about teaching and preaching the Word of God and healing those that were oppressed of the devil. According to the Bible this was God doing Good in our world (Acts 10:38)! So doing GOOD is what the church should be doing on the Sabbath and every other day of the week. So everywhere you go and in everything that you do it should be in making an effort to do good for someone that needs good to be done to them or for them in the world. This is what I believe the Bible teaches us about the keeping of the Sabbath. I’ll give you an example, one day I was walking through a mall with my uncle and my son. We came upon a little boy that was crying alone in the middle of the mall. We could have kept walking but I decided to stop and asked him what the matter was. It seems that the child had gotten lost from his mother and was scared because he couldn’t find her. So I called to the nearest store clerk and asked them to call mall security to help find the mother. The young child was eventually reunited and there was a happy ending. So what if I had not decided to do this good deed? I could have hoped that someone else would have come along and done it. Or a bad man could have potentially come along and taken advantage of the situation and this child could have never been heard from again. So what would you have done? What is your definition of doing good? Jesus gave us an example of doing good in the story of the Good Samaritan. You can see in this story that some passed by the wounded man that was hurt and kept going. Those that passed by were a “Priest” and a “Levite” two religious zealots who would not be willing to lift a finger on the Sabbath to help even a hurt man. But, Jesus said the Samaritan came by and helped this man and made an concerted effort to do something good for him. Jesus praised the Samaritan and put down the priest and Levite. Who was justified in the eyes of God that day? It certainly was not the Jewish religious leaders?
Today we have many people in churches trying to do what the Jewish religious leaders did and they are looking for ways to accuse other Christians of violating their Sabbath rules. However, the Bible says “I am Holy so you be Holy” (1 Peter 1:16). So observe what Holy God does on the Sabbath and then do likewise. Be led by the Spirit of God to do good and you will see that God may praise you someday as being a Good Samaritan also. If you disagree you should take it up with God and not me, for I did not write the Bible. God Bless!
Understanding Angels! More About Put Your Angels to Work! Part 6
(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 6 of a series of studies about the spiritual reality of angels found in the Bible. We have covered a lot of information that is not all going to be repeated, so if you have not read these lessons from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1”. I was planning on talking about the negative side of angels today, but God seemed to say that I wasn’t done teaching on the last subject about angels being servants of God. You see I seemed to imply some things that could be taken wrong in my last lesson. I seemed to say that you could tell an angel something to do and they would have to do it. But, that is not the entire truth; usually you find that the truth is always more complicated than your first impressions. In the last lesson I showed you where God said in Hebrews that angels are ministering spirits sent “for” those who are heirs of salvation. The meaning of the word “ministering” meant a servant. We have seen several times where angels were sent from God because of the words of men and women on the earth. So obviously angels are not our personal servants, they are actually the servants of God who do things for us when we speak right words. How do you know you are speaking right words? That is why we need to learn more today. I always like to think that you learn what God says in the Bible and speak what God says in order to be on the safe side. You are much more likely to think and say the right things when you do this. Do you recall what God said to Joshua? God gave Joshua a formula for success. I have heard many people try to preach against taking formulas from the Bible, but yet you must be spiritually blind to think that God would tell one person the way to be successful and this rule not to apply to everyone else also. Read the words of Jehovah God and see what they say:
Jos 1:7 Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.
To be strong and courageous is the opposite of being fearful and weak. God is revealing a faith principle to Joshua without calling it faith. God tells Joshua that by doing the Law of Moses and not deviating from it, he would be prosperous in whatever he did. To turn to the right or to the left means to depart from going straight down the path that God has instructed you to go in. This gets more Christians into trouble more than many other things. To depart from God’s Words is sin. However, God does not put any restrictions on how you can prosper unless you try to prosper by violating God’s law. In other words you cannot lie, cheat or steal and think that God and the angels will cause you to be a success in life. You see God always gets back to the basics. The basics are always found in God’s Word. If you can follow God’s spiritual laws you will succeed in the natural realm. Apparently this is what Abraham did in our last lesson without having the Law of Moses to follow. Because Abraham did the right thing before the eyes of God by finding a wife for his son among his own people God was able to send an angel to help make it happen. So how do we insure that we do God’s Word? God gives us some more clues in the very next verse in Joshua:
Jos 1:8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
Did you see what this verse says? It says the Book of the Law will not depart from your mouth. Where is the key to your success? It is in your mouth according to God. By reading, learning, memorizing and speaking God’s words constantly, God said you will make your way prosperous and always have good success here on the earth. The term “meditate” means to murmur or mutter under your breath; to keep it in your mind by speaking it with your mouth. It is very difficult to teach any subject in the Bible and not get back to the reality of the importance of your words that you speak. So was the servant of Abraham successful and prosperous in his attempt to find a wife for Isaac? He obviously was, so Abraham followed God’s law of success given to Joshua in order to make this happen. Do you see and understand the connection that I just made and why this applies to a lesson on angels? Do you also remember the verse that I gave you in Psalms?
Psa 103:20 Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.
Does this verse make any more sense to you now? You see this verse does not say that angels only obey words. It says angels hearken unto His Words. But it does not say that God has to speak them? It says “the voice” of His Word and that is totally different than the “voice of God”. What if you begin to say what God says about you, are you now the voice of His word? I believe that you become the “voice” of His word when you say what He says. If you say what God says, I believe that allows angels to do what God said to do for you. So what is the key to success in life? It starts with first learning what God said and then saying and doing that whole heartedly in faith. Remember God said to be strong and courageous and not weak and fearful. There are just many factors in life that we need to learn about in studying this subject. If Abraham was fearful that his servant would not find the wife for his son, guess what there would have been no wife found. So you have a major part to play in being successful in life and you just cannot speak a command to the angels to do something that God has not already told them to do.
Here is another aspect about angels that I have already alluded to that you should learn. While angels have been sent to the earth to minister for those who are heirs of salvation, they are not our direct servants. As we have seen they work for God and only do what He says for them to do. However, if we say what God has said then we have the ability to give voice to God’s commands and they will normally hearken to our words. Here is another key factor to consider in this discussion on angels being servants. Jesus in speaking to his disciples said the following:
Mat 10:24 The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.
Jesus was calling his followers both disciples and servants. Meaning Jesus was the Master and Lord that this verse is referring to. Paul in Romans 1:1 says “Paul a servant of Jesus Christ”. If Christians are servants of God also, what does that make our relationship to the angels of God? We are about to learn another key factor to angels:
Rev 22:8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.
John in writing the book of Revelation says that an angel came to him and he fell down to worship him. However, the angel stops John from doing this and says the following statement to him:
Rev 22:9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.
The angel of God says very clearly not to worship him, for he is a “fellowservant”. In other words the angel says we both have the same Master and Lord. The word translated as “fellowservant” means co-slave. It can also mean “ministrant of the same master”. You can clearly see that the correct order of things is that God is always the highest one over all others. What we discover from this information is that we are all working for the same cause and good. Angels can certainly do things that we cannot do and in many ways they have an advantage over us. However, once you see that it is God’s purpose that we are working for, then we realize that both angels and Christians have a common enemy with God. God’s enemies are now our enemies and we are working and fighting against these spiritual beings. We who are Christians are also working to get more people into the kingdom of God, but that is not an angelic assignment to preach the gospel. Preaching the Gospel is a human assignment from God. So our roles are different because we are dominated by different realms of reality. Humans are resident in a natural realm and angels primarily stay in the spiritual realm. I have seen where men can cross into the spiritual realm in the form of a vision and see things that they normally do not see. We of course in our studies have seen where angels can cross into the natural realm and do things for those who are heirs of salvation. So the lines between these two realms can be blurred to some degree, but yet we still have specific primary responsibilities that have been placed upon us by God. These roles will further blur in the future. After the church is taken up to heaven, then who preaches in the earth? Apparently according to Revelation, the angels will be allowed to preach to men on the earth:
Rev 14:6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
So today there are no angels preaching in the world that I know of. But, later I believe you can see that this verse says that will change.
Today I’m going to end this lesson from a story that I learned from a preacher that I consider one the greatest men of God in the past century. This man said that God told him to stop praying for money and to command his angel to bring in his finances. God gave him the verse in Hebrews that we looked at about angels being a minister and other verses that said the laborer was worthy of his pay (1 Tim 5:18). He was struggling financially before this revelation from God and he read a verse in the Bible that said I “If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land”. He realized that he was not eating the good of the land so there must be a problem. So this man was a full time minister of God and traveled to church to church speaking and teaching the Word of God. He used to totally depend upon the pastor of the church to treat him fairly and pay him according to the offerings that were supposed to be given to him. Sometime this worked and sometimes men were not as good of Christians as they appeared on the surface and withheld from him. So this minister when he would go to a church would determine how much money he needed to meets his bills for the week and then place a demand on the angels of God to go and cause the money to come. He would not pray to God and ask for any amounts of money, he would not tell the pastors of the church that he expected any amounts of money specifically; he would just say to his angel to go and work for him and they did it every time. God was teaching this man a principle that is found in the Bible and it works regardless of your profession. If you can find the same Bible verses and believe them, the angels will hearken to your voice also. Just as Rebecca was influenced by an angel to come and minister to the servant of Abraham and all of his camels, the angels of the Lord can cause people to give to you also. Angels will of course never make anyone do anything that they do not want to do already. God will always use people to be a blessing to others who want to be a blessing. In return God can bless them further. You may recall in Genesis that God told Abraham that I will bless you so that you can be a blessing to others (Gen 12:2). This is also not a license to steal or even a get rich overnight scheme. You can take any truth found in the Bible to the extreme and make it a lie. There are also many other truths in the Bible that apply; your heart condition, your attitude, your willingness, your obedience to God and His Word and I could go on and on. This is the problem with many Christians, that they hear one good thing and jump on it like that is all there is. God is not a lottery and we are not pulling a Heavenly Vegas slot machine trying to hit it big. Keep balanced at all times and stay in the Word of God and allow God to teach you what else you need to know.
So here is the next part that you need to know. This will not work if you only try it! This preacher knew God’s word and believed God’s words and then he did them and spoke to the angel. You better get the scriptures in your spirit so that they are resident and firmly set within you before you begin to say them and expect them to happen. That was a very basic lesson in faith and believing God’s Word. There are many who do not understand it in the world but yet there are also many others who do this every day. I am not here to convince you of anything that you do not want to believe in. If you read the Bible and see things differently than I do, that is fine with me. Just do not criticize me like you are God and know everything. How you believe in angels will not affect your salvation, but it might affect your finances. If you have a story about how an angel has helped you, I would very happy to hear about it. Later in these lessons I will try to give you some examples from my personal life of how I believe that angels have helped me in life. I thank you for taking the time to study the Bible with me and pray that it was a blessing to your walk with God.
If you would like to continue to the next lesson you may select “Part 7“.
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