Blog Archives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Church Teachings on Revelation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Preterist View

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

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

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

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

Historist View

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

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

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

Futurist (Premillenial) View

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

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

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

Idealist (Spiritual/Amillenial) View

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

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

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

Post Millennial View

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

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

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

Conclusions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Understanding Spiritual Gifts Part 3 – The Gift of Faith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

Understanding Spiritual Gifts Part 2 – Intro to Spiritual Gifts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jesus God’s Gift and Gifted Anointed Servant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

Understanding Spiritual Gifts Part 1 – Introduction to Gifts

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

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

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

Understanding Gift Giving

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Understanding Gifts in the Bible

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction to Spiritual Gifts

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

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

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

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

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

God Our Ultimate Gift Giver Example

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God (the Gift Giver) is a Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What should we have learned today? Good Spiritual Gifts:

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

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

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

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

Celebrating Resurrection Day 2025 – God’s Supernatural Plan and Involvement in Resurrection

(Ver 1.0) This is an amazing day of celebration. This day is when we normally enjoy a time of reflection when our Lord and Savior was resurrected from the “dead”. Please notice the term “dead” because this is very important. Was this Jesus coming back to physical life only?  That is what many teach and preach but is that all that occurred on this day? What does this Bible that we should love really say about what happened on this day and why are so many fighting against what the Bible says?

Act 12:4  And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.

Today is traditionally called Easter by too many people.  This term “Easter” is an extremely wrong translation of the Greek word in Acts 12:4. This word was chosen by King James translators and it only occurs only in this one verse of Acts. The original Greek word occurs 29 times in the New Testament and it was correctly translated as “Passover” 28 times. Only in this verse does it suddenly appear the word “Easter”.  What we are discovering is the term “Easter” is a foreign influence coming probably from Satan as its inspired source.

Therefore, the celebration and remembrance of Passover should be our primary focuse today. It is because of the sacrificial Lamb of God’s death, burial and resurrection from the dead that has saved us from experiencing this fate without believing In Jesus Christ. It was all God becoming a human man with flesh and blood that facilitated and enabled Him to die for “us” paying the penalty of all our human sins. What an amazing work that He accomplished “fully” so that everyone that believes on Him will not experience an eternity in “hell”. He was our “Passover” substitutionary Lamb of God. Praise the Lord!

What was Completely Different About the Resurrection of Jesus?

This is a new mystery for many Christians because it has not been popularly taught in many churches. There was a very major difference that occurred when Jesus was raised from the dead than from all the others listed in the Bible that were previously raised from physical death before Jesus and after Jesus was resurrected. Have you ever thought of this mystery? How many people were listed as being raised from physical death in the Bible? Do you have any clue? There are so many that we do not really know the exact number. Let’s list the major ones that are listed in the Bible:

Old Testament Examples of Dead Raised

  1. The Widow’s Son at Zarephath – 1 Kings 17:17-24

– Description: The son of a widow in Zarephath fell ill and died, with no breath left in him. The prophet Elijah prayed to God, and the child’s soul returned, reviving him.

– Reference: 1 Kings 17:22 – “And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.”

  1. The Shunammite Woman’s Son – 2 Kings 4:18-37

– Description: The son of a Shunammite woman died suddenly. The prophet Elisha prayed and performed a physical act of lying on the child, and the boy was restored to life.

– Reference: 2 Kings 4:35 – “Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro; and went up, and stretched himself upon him: and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes.”

  1. The Man Thrown into Elisha’s Tomb – 2 Kings 13:20-21

– Description: After Elisha’s death, a dead man’s body was thrown into Elisha’s tomb. Upon touching Elisha’s bones, the man revived and stood up.

– Reference: 2 Kings 13:21 – “And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.”

 

New Testament Examples of People Raised from the Dead

  1. Jairus’ Daughter – Matthew 9:18-26; Mark 5:21-43; Luke 8:40-56

– Description: The 12-year-old daughter of Jairus, a synagogue ruler, died. Jesus took her hand and commanded her to arise, and she was restored to life.

– Reference: Mark 5:41-42 – “And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose, and walked.”

  1. The Widow’s Son at Nain – Luke 7:11-17

– Description: Jesus encountered a funeral procession for a widow’s only son. He touched the bier, commanded the young man to arise, and he sat up and began to speak.

– Reference: Luke 7:14-15 – “And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak.”

  1. Lazarus – John 11:1-44

– Description: Lazarus, a friend of Jesus, died and was in the tomb for four days. Jesus called him out of the tomb, and Lazarus came forth alive.

– Reference: John 11:43-44 – “And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth.”

  1. Jesus Christ – Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-18

– Description: Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. On the third day, He rose from the dead through divine power, fulfilling His own prophecy.

– Reference: Matthew 28:6 – “He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”

  1. Many Saints at Jesus’ Crucifixion – Matthew 27:50-53

– Description: At the moment of Jesus’ death, the graves of many saints were opened, and they arose after His resurrection, appearing to many in Jerusalem.

– Reference: Matthew 27:52-53 – “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”

  1. Tabitha (Dorcas) – Acts 9:36-43

– Description: Tabitha, a disciple known for her good works, died. Peter prayed, commanded her to arise, and she opened her eyes and sat up.

– Reference: Acts 9:40 – “But Peter put them all forth, and kneeled down, and prayed; and turning him to the body said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes: and when she saw Peter, she sat up.”

  1. Eutychus – Acts 20:7-12

– Description: Eutychus fell from a third-story window during Paul’s preaching and was taken up dead. Paul embraced him, and he was restored to life.

– Reference: Acts 20:9-10 – “And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: … and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him.”

 

Total Count

– Old Testament: 3 individuals (Widow’s Son at Zarephath, Shunammite’s Son, Man in Elisha’s Tomb).

– New Testament: 7 specific individuals (Jairus’ Daughter, Widow’s Son at Nain, Lazarus, Jesus Christ, Tabitha, Eutychus) plus an unspecified number of saints (referred to as “many” in Matthew 27:52-53).

– Total Individuals: At least 10 named or specific individuals, with additional unspecified saints in Matthew 27:52-53.

Answering the Mystery Question

This was an almost comprehensive list of the physically dead that were brought back by God’s power into the “Land of the Living”. As you noticed this list included “Jesus Christ”. However, the question is still unanswered. What made the resurrection of Jesus completely different from every other human being that God gave back life to? The simple answer is that everyone raised from the “dead” by the power of God, ALL of these physically raised people DIED AGAIN! Only Jesus was raised from the dead, and lives forever and He will never die again. This is the beginning of the answer. But let’s confirm the TRUTH!

Rev 1:18  I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

From the mouth of Jesus, He claims to have been “dead” but now after resurrection has as physical flesh and bone body that will “NEVER” experience “death” or separation from God His Father again forever! Wow! What else does the Bible say that is different from all other humans that were raised from the dead? Take a look at this verse:

Rev 1:5  And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

Wow! Please read this verse very carefully. We can see from the reference of the “blood” that this is concerning the death of our Lord and Savior on a cross where He physically suffered in our place to pay the ultimate death penalty for us all because we all have sinned.

But please focus on the phrase “THE FIRST BEGOTTEN OF THE DEAD”! This has been one of the most IGNORED statements in the Bible.  The Greek word translated as “begotten” is the Greek word “prototokos” (G4416). This word is most popularly translated as “firstborn”.  It is used in Mathew 1 and Luke 2 to describe Jesus being the “firstborn” son of Mary in the Bethlehem stable. But this birth is not the same as the “firstborn” birth that Jesus is stated to experience in the verse of Revelation 1:5. The first birth of Mary is purely natural and physical a child coming into the world through normal physical life birth born of a natural woman, and the other first birth is completely a Spirit of God rebirth from the “Dead” as plainly stated. Let us confirm this again with scripture:

Col 1:18  And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

Do you see what God is saying? Here the translators made the choice to use the word “firstborn” from the dead.  But we know this verse is still speaking of Jesus in this verse by claiming He is the “Head” of the church body. God further claims that this “birth” gave Jesus the “preeminence” over “ALL” others that were labeled “dead”. This word “preeminence” is very confusing to many since Jesus was God incarnate in human flesh. Didn’t God the Creator already have all “preeminence” over all of His created creation? That is another mystery for another lesson. But why is Jesus being called the “Firstborn” from the dead? Is is impossible for this description to be referring to a natural birth like He is called with Marry in Matthew and Luke. Therefore, this birth can only be a spiritual rebirth or what Jesus called in John 3:3 being “born again”.

Joh 3:3  Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Hopefully, you know when Jesus spoke these words to a human man, He was also a Human Man as well as being the Son of God simultaneously. I believe with all of my heart, Jesus had to be including Himself in this statement. We can begin to see the reason why by what we just read in Colossians 1:18, this second spiritual birth causes Him to have all “Authority” both in heaven and on the earth as Jesus claimed in Matthew 28:18 saying “All power is given to me both in heaven an on the earth”. Wow, the works of God are truly amazing and complex for many.

Conclusion

What we are observing on this “Passover Lamb” Resurrection Day Celebration is that Him being raised from the dead was completely different than anyone else in human history that was every raised from the dead. We can see how God described Jesus to have died physically once on a cross and we are now beginning to see how that He was also being described to have been born twice, once a natural birth of Mary in Bethlehem and the second birth occurred when He was raised from the dead after His death on a cross. These two births could not have occurred in any other order or sequence of recorded Bible events.

Now Jesus is the only man in heaven with a physical body that never dies. The Bible says this resurrection was God’s “firstfruits”.

Co 15:20  But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

The term “them that slept” is referring to natural and physical death viewing the the natural body as being motionless while buried in the ground and decaying. This is not a soul sleep as some teach. Spirits never sleep only naturally bodies sleep. Did you know Jesus was raised from the dead on the “Feast of Firstfruits”? Every other Christian whether physically dead or alive is awaiting our own resurrection that will be occurring much sooner than many people think or believe.

Very soon we will all have bodies that never die. This will be a glorious day for all Christians. For those that have not believed in Jesus and made Him their Lord and Savior, this will not be a good time. It is not too late to make Jesus your Lord and believe the Truth about His death, burial and resurrection. It all happened just as recorded in God’s Holy Word. Please search for Him and you will find Him. If you are ready to receive Him there is a link at the bottom of this lesson to receive Him.

Jesus is coming back for us very soon. Please celebrate his death, burial and resurrection with the greatest antic pated joy for His soon return. God bless you all and thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us. God loves you and we love you and He is coming very soon!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction to Languages and Translations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction to the Origin of the English Name of Jesus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Hebrew Name of Jesus Transitions into English

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Was “J” Added?

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

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

Why Was “J” Added?

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

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

Fun Fact

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faith Exam Part 1 – Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faith Exam – Series Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ending 2024 Blessings – Beginning 2025 Blessings

~ We Were Made to
Be Great Blessings
For Such a Time as This ~

(Ver 1.0) Hope your 2024 Christmas Celebration of the Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ was very blessed. Every day of 2024 was great in His Presence. 2024 was an amazing year. It could clearly be called a victorious year for the Lord. But it really depends upon whose side you were on. Satan has tried to take down and out the righteous. But only the evil ones and their pride filled agendas were lowered. God’s light is shining forth with great brilliance and God gets all the Glory. His Word, Blood and Name will prevail over the devil’s agenda. Jesus Christ is Lord no matter what the devil attempts against His Church.

If God has done anything great for you in 2024, it would be an exciting blessing for everyone if you would share it to encourage others. If you believe that you have not had a victorious year in 2024, then it might be time to change and prepare to expect the year 2025 to be better. Become pregnant with the Word of God in your spirit, plant it to grow your faith, and then begin to expect God’s promises, His Great Love and His goodness to happen to you in due time.

What many people do is to focus upon the wrong things. Too many of us are focused upon our problems, trials and tests. Maybe you also noticed that it has been like a giant storm was happening all around us since 2020, this storm appeared to be bringing us only great destruction and evil. Yet God was still doing great, powerful and supernatural things constantly even during the storm and many people who only were focused upon the evil missed God’s goodness.

If anyone asked God to work in their lives and expected Him to do it, then God was faithful regardless of what we saw or did not see Him do. Please do not be offended, but “IF” you believe God did nothing for you in 2024, you are just wrong. I can guarantee you that He did all that you allowed Him to do. Uh oh?

You mean people can limit what a sovereign God can do? Absolutely! Either we do not see what He did, don’t remember his faithfulness in the past, or we were just actually never in faith and expecting Him to do anything. All of our fears, worries, and doubts place limitations upon what God is able to do for us. There are many reasons how people don’t receive God’s best. But we all have failed before, and God is always there to help us change what we need to change to cooperate with His will.

God certainly did great things in 2024 if you saw them. Take for instance a bullet missing Trump’s head by less than 1/8 of an inch and only piercing his ear instead of his funeral taking place. Praise the Lord! Then look at the election. More enlightened and awakened Christians turned out than almost any time in history. Praise the Lord! These are just two major things out of many millions of things that the Lord has been doing in 2024.

One thing that the Lord has been teaching me this year, is to let Him help us more in the very little things of life. Somethings we get too self-centered and think we are in more control than we are. How often have you lost a minor thing like a screw? It was only one small screw, and it dropped somewhere. Did you bother to ask God to show you where it went? I have been doing things like this more and more and I am beginning to realize that God does know where it is, and He loves us so much that He does what is necessary to lead us how and where to find it. This is how amazing God is.

Here is what I am expecting in the next year. I expect God to continue to put on a show for us. I am expecting many more people to be saved, healed and delivered from Satan’s kingdom. I am expecting greater miracles signs and wonders from a God who is able to do exceedingly more than we could ever ask or think to ask. I expect more victories for the righteous and more defeats for the devil and his kingdom.

I am a very firm believer that the church of Jesus Christ will be taken out of this world very soon, but only after winning and being victorious over the devil. This means Satan’s kingdom will lose a lot of people and God’s kingdom will continue to increase. Always remember the prophecy of the Apostle Paul when he wrote in Romans 16:20 “The God of Peace will bruise Satan under your feet shortly”.

Thank you very much for being a faithful reader and subscriber of the Advanced Study of the Word of the Living God. Also, thank you for your faithful prayers. Without the prayers of God’s people for each other many people could have experienced worse things. We need to give thanks to God for all the really bad things that never happened to us in 2024. Remember, God says in Psalm 34:19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers us from them all”.

Let us keep our eyes upon Jesus, looking forward, praying and believing for the God’s best together in 2025. Let us never forget this verse:

1Co 15:52  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

What an amazing verse this has become since the election of Donald J Trump. Would you put it past God in giving us a double meaning written in this verse? This will be the “Last Term” of President Trump. This seems to be a hidden clue in the Word of God that could strongly indicate the Lord’s return could happen in the next 4 years from 2025 to 2029. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Hopefully this should help motivate people to witness more and tell people about Jesus.

May God continue to bless you and enrich you with the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in Christ (Eph 1:17). If you have not made Jesus your Lord now is the best time possible to make this decision. You will certainly never regret it throughout eternity.

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

Serpent Witchcraft – Part 7 –God Confirmation and Prophetic Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INTRODUCTION

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

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

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

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

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

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

General Overview of Serpent Witchcraft

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Thanksgiving – 2024

Happy Thanksgiving brothers, sisters, friends and family.  This is a glorious time to be alive before Jesus returns to take us out of the world very soon. Hope and pray that you are all doing well and will remember to take time on this day to taste and see how good the Lord is to us all. Here are our spiritual food verses for today. It comes from Psalms 100:

Psalm 100:1 – A Psalm of praise. Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.

Psalm 100:2 – Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

Psalm 100:3 – Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Psalm 100:4 – Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

Psalm 100:5 – For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

What a blessing it is to have the Word of God to feed on every day. Especially today in the USA, a day that we celebrate as a special time for increased emphasis and reminder for giving thanks, called Thanksgiving.  Job 23:12 says, “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food”.  Therefore, as we recall the great and mighty works of our Almighty God, make Him your priority in this day and feed on His Words first, for they are spiritual life to everyone that finds them (Prov 4:22).

Did you notice what Psalm 100 said? God instructed us to come before His presence with singing, by entering His gates with thanksgiving.  After everything the Lord has done for us, who will remember His great works and be happy and thankful enough to obey Him? Being thankful is a choice today and every day. There is always something to give Him thanks for.

Are we blessed to know God? Are we blessed to have His Word? Are we blessed even more to have His Spirit living inside us? Are we blessed to have the ability to praise Him? Are we blessed because we are not in the darkness and going to hell? These alone are enough to shout an eternity for.

Let’s praise and thank Him for the opportunity to live in His presence.  Thank Him that no matter what our circumstances are, we can depend on Him. For His Word has said, “For He will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). But never forget the next verse that teaches us how to release our faith to release His promises in our lives:

Hebrews 13:6 – So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. 

Hebrews 13:6 instructs us to open our mouth and say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man can do to me”. God is teaching us that we must come into agreement with His spoken words and accept them by speaking them. Because He has said to us He is with us, we must say He is helping us. This is what faith is, it is not based upon what your enemy is doing to you.

In these days of transition from great darkness and lies to increasing light and truth, let us keep our eyes upon God who is our source of all Light and Truth. Fo God has also said “While we look not at the things that are seen, but we rather focus on the unchanging God and His Word” (2 Corinthians 4:18), we can trust Him to do what He has said according to 2 Corinthians 4:18, and Numbers 23:19.

What are you thankful for today? How many things can you list that God has done for you? You may be going through some tough times, but rather than focusing on what is not good, look to your source of everything good. For He has said, “Every good and perfect gift comes down from Him” (James 1:17). He is our source for every need. He is our supplier of every good gift.

Look back at Psalm 100 verse 5. God proclaims His goodness, and His mercy is always present, and they will never end. That alone should give you hope to begin your day giving thanks to Him.  Let us purpose in our heart to sing blessings of thanksgiving unto the Lord today. This is important every day, not just today. Yet we are being reminded by a Holiday that we should do everything to make a Holy Day. We can do this by showing someone that does not know Him, His Great Love!

For those in the USA, Happy Thanksgiving. For those in the rest of the world every day should be a time to give thanks to God. He is not finished with any of us, and He will watch over His Word to perform them in our lives. But we must choose to continue to hear His voice and be led by His Spirit to cooperate with His works.

We love you! God loves you! And the best is yet to come!  His name is Jesus Christ and if you do not know Him, now is a great time to receive His free gift of salvation.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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

God’s David Overcame Satan’s Goliath

Oh, Say Can You See by the Dawn’s Early Light
God’s New Day of Light Rising

(Ver 1.0) Warning! Please note this post is potentially highly offensive to everyone without their spiritual “eyes wide open”. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatian church and said, “Have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” (Galatians 4:6). This was written to some early church examples of saved people. But these Christians were drifting back into their old flesh ways of “works”. This was happening even after they had received the Spirit of God by Faith. God’s New Covenant ways for salvation was based only upon Faith in His Word and His Works in Jesus Christ.

In these last days we still have deception in the church today. These are people who believe in the lies of the devil instead of knowing what God teaches in His Word. Nevertheless, be warned this post will potentially offend some that believe Satan won the USA election yesterday and righteousness lost. And despite what you might think this post is not about politics, whatsoever. This is about Good versus evil, Truth versus lies, and David versus Goliath. Yesterday, the chosen David of God Won!

This is a very short acknowledgement of the victory won by a symbolically much smaller David yesterday. This David was fighting against a much greater spiritual giant except for God who was on his side. These attacks began as spiritual in nature using a flood of lies that have been coming out of the mouth of Satan for the last almost 10 years. But soon these attacks became physically manifested to destroy his character personally, bankrupt him, cancel him, and silence him using unlawful lawfare and even assassination attempts twice that we know of now.

Does anyone remember this story of David? If not, please go back and read it very closely in 1 Samuel 17. This real account of a young man was about someone in a fight of one of the most monumental accounts of a victory, in amongst insurmountable odds. This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible concerning a future “king” of the natural nation of Israel. That alone sounds like Donald J Trump who is the future President of the USA.

David was a young shepherd boy of his father’s sheep. He was chosen and anointed to be the next king of Israel by God almighty when God sent Samuel to David’s father’s house to anoint him as king in 1 Samuel 16:13. The older brothers of David were in the army of Israel. And the Phillistine army selected a champion to go out and defy the armies of the living God by mocking them. He cried out when he saw David coming at him with a stick, “I believe you are at the wrong rally”. Goliath continued by saying to David, “What am I a dog?”, and continued by calling him other names. This sounds like the left calling Trump a nazi and Hitler and many other names.                                   

However, David had collected 5 stones that he carried with him, and he selected one of them and placed it in his sling.  This stone flew from David like a rocket and hit the overwhelming giant Goliath in the head and down he came to the earth. From a natural perspective anyone knows, that it would have been impossible for a teenager to defeat a well-trained and armed enemy soldier, especially one that was over two times as tall, and David was physically no match for his enemy’s strength.

But God had a plan and knew about this enemy long before David met Goliath. God had already built David’s faith and determination by teaching David that he was strong enough. God did this by showing David he could slay a lion and a bear that came to eat the sheep that he was watching over. This is the life story of Donald Trump in symbolic forms. The successes he has experienced and the oppositions he has encountered has trained and equipped him with determination for such a time as this, to “FIGHT”, “FIGHT”, “FIGHT” for America.

Perhaps you are not aware of the insurmountable odds that Trump has been going through. If you are unaware, then you are also unaware of the hand of God that is upon him. No, Donald Trump is not the Messiah, nor is he the antichrist. God called this man and has anointed him for this job to keep the freedoms of this nation intact to continue the Gospel to go out into all the world. The right of free speech has practically been silenced in almost every other nation in the world, but only by the Grace of God, am I still able to post the truth today.  Otherwise, this post could have been labeled misinformation or disinformation disqualifying it from publication only because it differed from the opinion of the satanic agenda. That is a clear violation of the first amendment of the US Constitution, but God prevailed to help us keep these rights for another 4 years. Let us say a prayer for our nation and for our President that will be used by God to get the Gospel out to the rest of the world.

“Thank you, Lord, you are my God. Thank you for being so faithful to your covenant people. You are a just and good God and the ultimate righteous judge. You will not destroy the righteous with the unrighteous. You are faithful to keep your Word. Thanks be to our God who always causes us to TRIUMPH in Jesus Christ. We will continue to hear your voice and be led by your Spirit. We are fully committed to receiving and cooperating in the fulness of Your Grace. Use us today to reach a lost soul that has not heard or received your gift of righteousness and salvation.

God continue to bless your covenant nation the USA. Help us to continue to share your truth. Let us not fall, rather let us overcome every plot of the enemy to hinder or stop your end-time revival and reawakening. You are not willing that any should perish so anoint righteous men and woman in every nation to stand up for you and proclaim your Gospel.

Bless the work of the hand of President Donald J Trump. Give him the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. May you anoint his prayers and hear and answer them quickly. Give him knowledge, understanding and wisdom in every challenge that the enemy tries to bring against him and us. We pray for the “Peace” of Jerusalem and that war will cease in the middle east. We pray for the “Peace” in the Ukraine and a quick resolution to that conflict with Russia.

Lord there are a lot of people in the world that are having great challenges. Let them be blessed by the Spirit of God’s revival fire, that is now falling upon all people in this last time before Jesus returns.

Thank you so very much for loving us all and being merciful. We pray that your will, is continually accomplished on the earth, just as it is accomplished in heaven. Your blessings maketh rich and you add no sorrow to them. You are the maker of heaven and earth and all that there is therein. We acknowledge you as Lord over our Presidents, government leaders and us all. We are so grateful to receive every good and perfect gift because these can only come from you.

We are grateful for the fulness of Life that Jesus Christ offers, and we resist the enemy that comes to steal, kill and destroy us. As we trusted in your name in this election, we will continue to trust in your leadership and guidance.

In Jesus’ beautiful name we pray, Amen!”

Thank you for being a faithful reader of God’s Word and Truth. We pray for you to be restored and renewed back into full health and prosperity even as your soul prospers today (3 John 1:2). God loves you very much. If you need any specific prayer, please leave that in a comment and we will add you to our prayer list. Be blessed and expect the best is yet to come!

Deception the Greatest Weapon of Satan – Part 7 – Spiritual Warfare Good Versus Evil

(Ver 1.0) This is Part 7 in the series of essential Bible lessons on one of the most significant causes of many of the problems that Christians and even the general population are living through today. We now are living at the time of the very end of the church age of God’s Grace. People in the world that do not get saved very quickly are about to go through the worst times of all human history (Matthew 24:21). I know this, God knows this, Satan certainly knows this, and you should too.

If you feel that you are going through a state of confusion and are having trouble discerning between what is the Truth versus what are lies, what is Good versus what is evil, what is Right versus what is wrong, you are not alone. But I believe that you may be at the right place at the right time to begin to allow the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to see things as God sees them. Stop right now and pray the Word of God:


Lord Jesus! I ask you according to Ephesians 1:17-18 that you give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ Jesus. The eyes of my understanding being enlightened, that I may know what is the hope of your calling, and what are the riches of the glory of your inheritance in the saints. Thank you for opening my eyes to see what is true in your written words and how they apply to my situation right now. In Jesus Name. Amen!

Today’s subject is “deception” and “lies” of the devil versus the Truth of God. Both the lost world and even God’s saved Christian people are being faced with this constant attack of deception from Satan, every minute of every day. This is happening in more ways and from more people being used by the devil, than can be imagined or named. The lost world has easily fallen into the belief of most of these lies, but this deception has even caused some people that say they are Christians to also fall or drift away from their individual Bible beliefs and personal faith in God.

Most of the world doesn’t believe in the existence of spirit beings, like God or the devil. But there are also too many Christians today that believe there is no devil or hell. There are also too many other Christians that believe Satan is completely defeated and powerless, and we don’t have to be concerned with him anymore. All these people in the world and these types of Christians have already been deceived. This is our topic today about how this has occurred. If you have not read this series from the beginning, you might like to go to “Part 1” to start. Otherwise, this short lesson will still be beneficial to anyone that has the time to partake of it.

Embracing and Building Our Minds
 on God’s Foundation of Truth

One definition of “deception” can be defined as someone who adds to, subtracts from, misdirects, replaces, hides or conceals the truth for their own advantage. But this definition could be applied to good or evil intentions of deception. Remember in earlier lessons we learned the concepts of good deceptions that are designed to help another. For example, I gave the story of my mother when I was a child, if you remember she mashed up squash and stirred and concealed it into my cream corn. You see I would not eat squash as a child and my mother felt this would be good for me, so she deceived me into eating it by placing it into a substance that I did like. Today as an older man, I do eat squash on purpose, and I like it. I guess my mother knew more than I did as a child.

I believe this is potentially how God is as our loving Father. He at times keeps things from His rebellious or foolish children who do not know what is best for them. God being omniscient always knows what we need. But there are subjects we are not mature enough to receive yet. But all God wants to do, is to get us to grow up spiritually and He knows many more ways of accomplishing this than we could ever imagine. And sometimes He does this in ways that are hidden from our knowledge or understanding as my mother did with squash to her son, who refused to eat it.

But on the negative side of deception, there is a different motivation and application other than for the good of others. For an evil purpose of “deception”, it can be defined to describe someone who presents untruths as in the guise of truths. These deceivers have great negative intents to get others to believe the lies to keep them from being born again and growing up spiritually.

The Lord be willing, we will someday do an in-depth study on Genesis 3:1. In this account of the first human deception, God warned Adam not to eat from one tree or he would surely die. But Satan places doubts in the humans’ mind by simply contradicting this warning saying, “you shall not surely die”. Clearly this was a lie intended to encourage the humans to commit sins, and it did work very successfully.

Another technique of deception we can see today is to cause people to view a person differently than how they had viewed them before by simply relabeling a good person as evil, or an evil person as good (Isaiah 5:20). For example, recall a recent popular and well-known TV personality that had a number one primetime show for several years from 2004 to 2015. This person was loved by every celebrity, news media and talk shows, and all Hollywood. Even every politician loved him.

But quickly all this popularity and love suddenly changed when he ran for President of the USA in 2016. Now these same people that praised him, had suddenly changed their narratives to call him Hitler and a Nazi. Where good words were once spoken about him, he was re-labeled by politicians on both sides, the media and modern celebrity culture as an evil man, simply because of a potential occupational shift. Why would a man labeled good for TV suddenly be thought of as evil, when he desired to fulfill a new and greater calling and purpose for his life?

This relabeling inspired by Satan caused many humans to believe that a good man could have suddenly changed to an evil man that must be hated. But we can all see that the only thing that had changed was the sudden shift in the words that were being said about him. That is a modern-day example of a great deception that was implemented to shift people’s attitudes and votes. If you do not believe this could be done to you, I am sorry to say you have been deceived.

This is just a very simple way to deceive people and it is repetition of what Satan did to God’s reputation in Genesis 3. By reversing a true personal label describing someone from being clearly good and labeling them as something evil like Satan did by implying God was a liar begins to plant the seeds of doubt about God’s character.

Most Christians should have been taught and understand that God is the first and final authority and source of ALL Truth. Everything that God says is Truth. In fact, the Bible clearly tells us in Hebrews 6:18 that it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we can depend upon God’s Words to always be True and free from every attempt of unrighteous deception.

John 14:17 calls the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. This just further confirms God is our Truth source. Jesus also confirms this by stating in John 6:63 that His Words are Spirit and Life. And in John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. Therefore, God is dependable to give us Truth which produces Life. Satan on the other hand is only reliable to lie and deceive according to John 8:44, where Jesus said very clearly, Satan is a liar and the father of lies. We can again confirm this deception is what happened to Adam and Eve. If they had believed and obeyed God’s command they would live, but they chose to obey Satan and they both died.

Therefore, we are given a very clear set of guidelines in the Bible of two opposite personalities and forces with radically differing moral values. God is truth, righteousness and good, versus Satan who is called a liar, unrighteousness and evil. We can further confirm this by John 10:10 where Jesus was comparing his purpose for coming to earth versus Satan’s purpose for coming to earth. In this verse Jesus said, “the thief (Satan) comes not but to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come that you may have life, and that life in abundance”.

It is very interesting to know truth in the Strong’s dictionary means “stability”, “certainty”, and “trustworthiness”. Without a firm foundation built upon God’s truth, humans have opened their minds to the lies of chaotic deception that can never be trusted. This is why Bibles have become illegal in public schools for children. This makes them easy prey to deception, unless the parents take this responsibility, as they should.

Therefore, God has drawn a line in the sand, and we are asked by God to step into the “cross” truth side with Him. God has said in Deuteronomy 30:15, “I have called heaven and earth to record against you today, I have set before you, life and death, and blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life…”. This is our daily warfare that we will be discussing in this lesson.

Identifying the Enemy

Here is one of our basic foundational verses for this Bible series of lessons. It comes from the book of Revelation chapter 12:

Revelation 12:9 – And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. 

As we can see from this verse again, there is a spiritual enemy that will soon be cast out of heaven. Until this happens in the soon coming future, he is still alive and doing so much to drag every human to hell with him. We need to ask, how is he able to cause even Christians to depart from their faith and follow him to hell? This verse describes the answer to this question on how he is very successful in deceiving “everyone” on the planet, including some Christians. God informs us that this strategy is based upon a concept of lies called “deception”.

We also learn from this verse that this enemy is named Satan and the devil. We further learn for the first time who is the spiritual being that was symbolically labeled as the “serpent” in Genesis 3 and has grown significantly to be symbolically called the Great Red Dragon in Revelation 12.

Therefore, we are learning that “deception” is a key weapon and strategy of this enemy and has been his primary tactic since the very beginning of humans. We should know that the devil’s “deception” represents an intentional misguidance through words, that direct someone away from knowing the truth.

We know this tactic of deception affects the church simply because of two factors. First the Bible warns Christians not to be deceived (Luke 21:8, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 15:37, Galatians 6:7, etc.). And second, we can see the effects of deception by observing the incredible numbers of denominations found within the Christian body of believers. All these denominations represent the presence of deception, based upon there being only 1 real God view of the truth.

Remember the early church when they were started in Acts chapter 2, they remained in “one accord” for a long time (Acts 4:24). But as the church number grew and increased, suddenly there arose dissensions, conflicts and disagreements (Acts 11:2). This was clearly the introduction of satanic deception fighting against the spread of the truth, and this has increased to such a level today that it is difficult to comprehend.

Christians today will literally shun a fellow believer simply because they do not agree 100% with what they teach. This is an example of true demonic deception because usually neither of them knows or realizes they are not God who knows the complete truth, and in their pride, they fight against someone exactly like them that God has chosen to grow and learn with them.

Deception within the last days before Jesus returns has increased within so many churches that they have become no different than the lost world. When a church embraces the murder of children, same sex unions and other abominable things, this is a sign that it won’t be long before these churches could all be taking the mark of the beast to worship the “antichrist”.

Satan has been able to keep a vast number of Christians divided against each other fighting over differing beliefs of doctrines.  That is an incredible tactic of deception, and as long as the church is arguing against another church, they are not winning the unsaved world, nor are they resisting or hindering the plans of their enemy to take over and control the world.

This study subject is about the top strategies of Satan to send people to hell and to defeat Christians, called “deception”. It is this exact evil plan of deception that was implemented by Satan in the beginning (Genesis 3:1). And this original plot of deception worked so well against 2 humans in God’s planted garden, that it is still the same strategy being used today, only on a larger scale.

Satan’s schemes to deceive must be made known and understood to allow us to stand against them. God’s word says “His people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Just as Adam and Eve were ignorant of this tactic of Satan, so also are many of the people of God.  Satan is our spiritual adversary (1 Peter 5:8), and he desires to devour us by stealing, killing and destroying us (John 10:10). But this is only available to him by him tricking us to open the door to give him legal access into our lives and this is called falling into his trap of deception.

As we have previously learned, no natural or spiritual army should go up against an enemy without learning their enemy’s weapons and strategies. The army should always be trained in the basics of their weapons that will be used to overcome these enemies. This training is done individually and as a unified working unit in their basic offensive and defensive weaponry. These are the fundamentals of how to overcome a known enemy’s tricks and traps.

Jesus Christ is a Christian’s commanding officer, and we must call Him Lord of every aspect of our lives. He won the war for us, but Christians remain here in combined teams and individual spiritual warfare to battle and work for Him. Christians must cooperate with Him against these evil spirits to enforce His won victory. We accomplish this primarily through living in “Peace” (Romans 16:20), being led by His Spirit (Romans 8:14) and by using His given spiritual authority accessed through our faith in His Name (Acts 3:16).

These are some of the main factors that will cause us to win the victory over our enemy by us cooperating with God’s plan. Hearing from God and obeying His voice will cause us not to be destroyed. Let us begin to examine some of these basic tactics of deception work.

Satan’s Tactics of Deception

There are many ways how a Christian or the unsaved world can be further deceived. Did you notice I said “further”? It should be obvious that all Christians are at least partially deceived about something, because only God knows the entire truth and we all grew up in a world full of deception. These lies of Satan that we have all encountered had some effect and influence upon each of us, whether we admit it or not. This is why the Bible commands us to not be conformed to this world. And it says we are freed from this corruption only by the “renewing” of our minds. The implied renewing agent is of course the Word of God’s Truth (Romans 12:2).

There are significantly too many ways to be deceived to list in one lesson. But we will cover a few of the things that God teaches us in His Holy Word about our enemy and his tactics of deception.

Ephesians 4:27 – Neither give place to the devil.

We are commanded to not give the devil any place in our life. This verse clearly teaches us that it is what we choose that must determine the access of Satan to enter in and take ground from us. When an enemy attacks their opponent (us), this means they are trying to occupy the territory that we are in possession of. This is a spiritual warfare that we are participating in willingly or unwillingly. For a Christian there is no option but to participate because Satan will not stop trying to defeat us, unless we resist him (James 4:7).

This warfare takes place in the spiritual realm and is fought with spiritual weapons that include primarily words and thoughts. The battle is for truth. Each Christian has varying degrees and levels of truth if they are saved. It is impossible to get saved without hearing and believing the Truth of the Gospel (Romans 10:9-10, 17).

If Satan can get a Christian to believe any lie that is not a part of the Bible, he has taken a small bit of ground to overcome us. This is why we must learn the Word of God and put it into our mouths to win. God’s Word is always Truth, if it is rightly divided and understood. If Satan can get a Christian to believe a wrongly divided Word of God, this too brings deception. So, we must make sure we are hearing from God correctly. We also must verify every word that is being taught to us, with our own Bible studies (Acts 17:11).

We learn in the Bible that God’s Words are the most powerful (Hebrews 1:3, 4:12). This means whatever Satan tries to say to us we can be like Jesus in Luke 4:1 when He was tempted by Satan. Jesus set the ultimate example to follow. First Jesus knew and understood the Word of God. He did not have to say to Satan wait a minute while I look up that verse. No, Jesus just said, “It is written” and quoted the right verse to counter the devil’s temptation to sin. So, if we can learn His Words and keep these words in our mouth, we are practically guaranteed victory (Hebrews 10:23).

But if Satan can get a Christian to get distracted by his thoughts or their circumstances, this can take their focus away from the Holy Spirit’s voice, and His Written word. These tactics usually always are designed to initiate deception. And this is the beginning which was devised by the devil to change our previously focused God beliefs in a new direction of believing things that are not true. And when we continue to think negatively and wrong, for enough time, this is designed to change our spoken words. Once we speak wrong and believe it, Satan has us exactly where He wants us (Proverbs 6:2).

Finally, all of this can then align us with the spirit of fear (Satan) (Job 3:25). This can allow Satan to gain an entrance to control us and even to destroy us like he did Job. And all of this describes how Satan can gain an opening to take away enough spiritual ground to take full advantage to win over us.

The more ground (mental and spiritual focus) Satan takes by replacing our right thoughts and words (Truth), the greater impact we allow him to accomplish. When a Christian’s thoughts are completely shifted away from God’s spiritual ways, to align with carnal worldly ideas and beliefs, this Christian has been turned away from following God’s narrow path leading them to Life Eternal.

The only other direction to travel is to follow with the Satan influenced people in the natural world in the wide path representing there is no God judgment consequences for sin, or there are many ways to God deceptions. Satan desires everyone to be led into the deceived common and comfortable wide path because this is leading them all to eternal damnation. This is exactly why Satan wants no Bibles in public schools for children. Instead, he is feeding children lies to corrupt their beliefs and these can become strongholds.

2 Corinthians 2:11 – Lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.

This verse further confirms what God taught us in Hosea 4:6. God wrote to us in Hosea 4:6 that being ignorant of Satan’s devices (plans and strategies) is one major reason that gives the devil an advantage to defeat us. But there is another opening that caused by Christians not being a doer of the Word of God. Jesus taught us this in a parable of the wise man that built his house on the foundation of the rock (of Jesus) by doing what Jesus said (Luke 6:47-48).

Some Christians believe they can go to church and listen to the preacher’s message and then walk out and live their life like they want to. This is based upon the assumption that the preacher is teaching them the Truth. But Jesus clearly teaches this will only get your life destroyed by the storms of life caused by Satan. Everyone will have a storm it is practically guaranteed, but when they do come, those that know and do the Word of God, their house will not be shaken or fall. It is not so fortunate for those that either do not know the word or refuse to do it, they are deceived and will not stand. Satan is so much stronger than people know. He has been here and alive for thousands of years longer than us. He has been in the presence of God in heaven, and he knows how to fight better than any human alone. Thank God we are not alone if we are saved!

Sometimes a Satan victory over a Christian only means the Christian dies younger than they should have (1 Corinthians 11:30). But other times it could mean that Christian believer could have been tricked into departing from their faith completely (Hebrews 3:12). This means at the end of their mortal life they are joined back with Satan’s destination to live eternally in hell (1 John 5:16, Heb 10:26).

For example, this verse in 1 Corinthians 2:11 immediately follows verse 10 that stipulates one main reason why a Christian could give Satan an advantage. Verse 10 describes a state of unforgiveness in the life of a Christian. This means someone has potentially done something evil or horrific to them which caused them mental, physical or emotional hurt and pain. But instead of giving this to Jesus Christ, they carry the burden themselves as a heavy load of unforgiveness. This obviously is a sin and when a Christian operates in unforgiveness, they have given their enemy an opening to attack them by not doing what Jesus commanded them to do (Mark 11:25). This is a prime example of one technique of deception to keep Christians from obeying their Lord and Savior.

Deception taking place today can be easily identifiable through Satan’s usage of many other significant strategies revealed in the Word of God. There are so many of these that we cannot list them all, nor can we teach them all fully and in depth today. These methods of deception include, but are not limited to the following:

  1. One very Popular Strategy of Satan is for him to use a deceived person and fill their mouth with his spirit of accusation against a righteous Christian. Satan is called the accuser of the brethren in Revelation 12:10. He is constantly at work to divide humans with this technique of accusation. However, Satan uses whatever the deceived person is guilty of doing, to accuse the good person of doing it (Romans 2:1-3). For example, God gets accused and blamed by Satan and his people, for every death, evil and destruction, but Satan is the one guilty of these things according to Jesus in John 10:10.
  2. Another key strategy of Satan has become a plot to actively and openly deceive people and nations with massive and overwhelming unified lies from many mouths of Propaganda (Revelation 12:15). Satan telling these lies over and over through mass media, until people and nations are influenced into accepting the lies as truth. This is has become an overwhelming deception plot like a “Flood” of untrue words. It is now being used by Governments and their State Run News to keep all their people in-line with their evil agenda.
  3. Another common Satan strategy is to mix a small Portion poisonous lies with a greater portion of truth (Genesis 3:1-5). This Causes the lies to be planted in the hearts of people and accepted as truths more quickly. Then Satan can bring more new lies that can then be jointly slipped into the message for increased deception as each previous lie is accepted. This is a progressive deception and there is a pun intended by design in this technique name.
  4. Another very popular modern method of deception is to make evil lies entertaining and funny. Anything that is untruthful and evil can become entertaining to indoctrinate people into accepting the same flow of deceptive evil. Modern television and movies have used comedy extensively to play a huge part in building up lies in humans. They funnier they can make sin they more people are led to enjoy it and participate in it.
  5. Another popular and successful Satan Strategy to deceive Christians is to mix one of the Greatest Truths of God’s Word into a known cultic taught message so that those that are beginning to know some of God’s basic Truths will immediately reject the greater Truth. For example, there are multiple Christians churches today that deny the virgin birth of Christ, the Messiah. With out this truth this makes the Lord Jesus just a man and denies His direct claims to being God.
  6. The final tactic of deception to be listed today, we will call the antichrist deception. This is going to be a man that appeals to the masses. He will be a man of the greatest deceptive attributes possible. He will look physically nice and appeal to many people. He will appear extremely intelligent and appear to have a solution for any problem. But the most deceptive quality is he will have the ability to speak lies as if spreading them smoothly like butter or jam on a piece of bread that will be eaten up by most that hear them. Many will be drawn to him but at the end of his smooth talking there will only be death and destruction for the entire world. This spirit is working in people today, but they are not the final coming antichrist.

Perhaps you also have seen all these tactics taking place recently? The strategies of Satan have been working because too many people who know a lot of the truth, are too passive to raise the red (blood of Jesus) flag of truth against these plots to deceive. By doing nothing there is no way to overcome the lies and deception taking place. Knowing God’s Truth and speaking it in love, loud and clear today is the only way to victory.

For example, Satan has even taken considerable ground about the basic family unit created by God. In the beginning God made them male and female and there were only these two in the first family. But some churches believe God created a lot of other genders and family types. But Malachi says God never changes. How it was in the beginning will be how it is in the end.

Christians in the New Covenant and New Creation are constructed uniquely by God, and we are supposed to know the truth of the Word of God. We were designed by God to have an advantage over the Old Covenant people, the lost unsaved world and even the created angels.

For example, those in the world are easy prey to Satan’s deception. But real Christians should have the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Truth living on the inside joined with our spirit (1 Corinthians 5:17). And God on the inside causes us to be far greater than the deceiving enemy in the world (1 John 4:4). Yet too many Christians who have the Spirit of Truth, don’t choose to listen to Him, when the lies of the enemy are presented, nor do they spend the time to read and study the Bible to figure out what He might say.

Conclusion

This has only been a basic review and overview of just some of the evil strategies of Satan to deceive the world and the saved church. We are living through a great rise in deception today. It surrounds you, it bombardes you from every side of your existence. It is Satan’s plan to overcome you using these constant words of lies deception. We will end this lesson with just a couple of key verses of hope and promises of God’s strategies to overcome Satan’s deception:

John 8:31 – Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed

John 8:32 – And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free

Are you a believer? If yes, these verses and words were spoken to you. The keys to be set free from Satan’s deceptions, tricks, traps, and works of evil, is to continue reading, studying and listening to the Word of God, both day and night and always being led by the Holy Spirit. Yes, the world is a busy place with lots of distractions and important things we must also do. Most work, most have a family life, many have children and there are just necessary things that must be done to live here.

But spending as much time as you can, will benefit you more than you can possibly imagine. Seeking to know the Word of God like a valuable treasure that it is, will cause God to bless you with more and more revelations to knowing Him and His ways. To know the Truth, and to understand it will keep you from being deceived. To be ignorant of the Word will allow Satan to begin to deceive you into a path of destruction.

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

This is a prophecy that has not yet been fulfilled. This very clearly says it will be our God of Peace that will bruise Satan under our feet very soon. We know this because our church age of grace is ending very soon. According to this verse, the church was designed by God to win over our spiritual enemy and to crush Satan’s head under our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace (Ephesians 6:15). There are times it does not look like this is possible to occur, but God said this is exactly what will happen. And God is not a liar (Numbers 23:19). All we need to do is to choose to participate and cooperate with His plan.

Thank you very much for reading and studying the Bible with us today. Hopefully you can begin to recognize and see all the deception that is taking place around us. It is on the internet. It is found on television, in newspapers, movies, and even in many churches. If you ever recognize lies being spoken, it is time to stop reading them, watching them, or listening to them. Jesus said very clearly for us to “take heed what you hear”. God also instructs us to guard our hearts with all diligence. Protecting what you are allowing in your mind, blocks what gets planted in your heart.

There is a flood of lies coming to you in this season of time. The church must stand up and preach the truth to counter the devil’s lies. God is not finished with America. God is not finished with Christians all around the world. The victory has begun by the Lord Jesus Christ but must be enforced by the Body of Christ being led by His Spirit. God has prophesied the Bride of Christ to be a victorious woman over the devil (Genesis 3:15, Revelation 12:1, Romans 16:20, Luke 10:19, Romans 8:37, 1 John 4:4, 1 John 5:4, 1 Corinthians 15:57, 2 Corinthians 2:14, Isaiah 54:17, Revelation 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, and 3:22, to only name a few).

God bless you very much and please keep being a faithful doer of the Word of God and not just a hearer only. Only doing what God says ensures us that we can stand through all the deceptions and storms of life (Matthew 7:24). Being in God and remaining with God, will cause us to always triumph and overcome all evil. God is good and Good will always overcome evil.  Truth will always prevail over lies. God can’t be defeated, so let us remain with Him always and He says He will always remain with us and on our side (Hebrews 13:5-6, Psalm 118:6).

Have a blessed day and night and continue praying always in the Holy Spirit. Thank you for taking the time to read and study the Bible here. We pursue Truth to know it, apply it, and live it but also to share it with everyone that is willing to learn it. Finally, never forget how much God loves us. He is doing and will continue to do exceedingly and abundantly for us, with us and to us than we can even imagine.

2024 Election – Submit and Cooperate with God and Resist Satan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God’s Sovereignty Alone Versus God
and Human Cooperation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Staying in the Peace of God that Wins Over All Enemies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How is Your Peace Today?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Understanding Bible Shalom Peace Part 1 – Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These are just a few of the basic concepts of what peace represents in the English understanding of the word. Let us go over a few of the basic concepts found in the New Testament Greek word. We look first at the Greek word G1515. This word is defined as:

  1. To join (unite, bring together) in a state of peace implying harmony and agreement
  2. To be “One” meaning there are no divisions or disagreements
  3. “Prosperity” the implied result of living in peace with no conflicts implying safety and freedom from evil and conflicts including thefts
  4. “Quietness” the implied result of no war, strife, argument, disagreement, fighting, wars, destruction, chaos
  5. “Rest” the implied result of living in peace with others without the need to be on constant guard or watch for an attack
  6. Peace is also implied as a state of mental and physical “Health”, which is free from any oppression of thoughts, such as worries, fears, doubts or being physically ill, sick, weak, etc.

This Greek word G1515 parallels a lot of the English meanings that we saw before in the English definitions. But it has added a few new important details to the views found in the concepts of the God kind of “Peace” verses a human narrowed focus of peace. Let us transition to the Hebrew next to find a few potentially new aspects of “Peace” to God’s definition.

The Hebrew word H7965 transliterated as “Shalom” is by far more than a simplistic idea of just being “quiet” or “still” as in a calm and peaceful day, or sea. Looking at the Strong’s definition we find what this word literally means:

  1. “To be safe”, implied from enemy attacks, weapons, captivity, danger, accidents, harm, thefts, destructions, etc.
  2. “To be well”, implied to be whole, complete, free from mental or physical illness or disease, etc.
  3. “To be happy”, implied to be emotionally stable, secure, free from worry, and fears
  4. “To be prosperous”, implied to be more than blessed enough to bless others, free from lack, want or poverty
  5. and “To be in health”, implied to be in a physical or mental, condition of fitness and strength, having freedom from weakness, lack, where there is nothing missing, and nothing broken, and to abide in possession of God’s perfect human design originally made in His image and likeness.

This definition parallels and states more clearly what was found in the Greek word G1515 definitions. Therefore, to God the concept of “peace” concretely includes “spiritual” applications, physical applications, calm mental and emotional thoughts free from worry, stress, and fear, as well as living prosperously without any lack or want. All these qualities describe the original spiritual conditions and characteristics of God and His purposed original design for humans that were made “in” His image and after His likeness (Gen 1:26). This state of original “peace” between God and man has been restored now through Jesus who has blessed us who believe in Him and have placed our confident trust in Him.

From these definitions of the word “Peace” we can derive what it is not, and this will help us quickly determine if we are “In Peace” or “Out of Peace”. Here is a short list of what is NOT PEACE:

  1. Evils
  2. Destruction
  3. Chaos
  4. Divided against enemies
  5. War, Aggression, Hostility, Strife and Fighting
  6. Death, Demise
  7. Illness, Sicknesses, Diseased, Weak, Fatigued or Feeling Poorly
  8. Loss, Shortage, Poverty, Lack, Famines
  9. Struggles, Tensions, Strains, Tiredness
  10. Pressures, Worries, Fears, Concerns
  11. Having the need to focus and deal with Lies, Deceptions, Tricks, Traps, Snares

What we will soon discover is that God’s kind of “Peace” that was built upon unity, harmony and being one in spirit, was fully established at the beginning of His original works of creation in Genesis 1:1. This type of ultimate peace is not what we are observing now. What we can see happening in the world today is the continuation of pure evil and chaos that entered by the sin of the first Adam. God warned Adam that he would lose his peace when He said, “The day you eat, you will surely die”, speaking of the tree of the knowledge of “Good” and “Evil”.  However, God’s type of unified harmony became reestablished for those that were entering into the church in Acts 2 and onward.

God’s new creation being re-born in Christ Jesus was the beginning of living internally in spiritual “Peace”, but it will only be completely reestablished at the end of God’s current creation. This completed and “restored” Peace can only be released and experienced fully after all “evil” influence has ceased, and this primarily was written about in the book of Revelation chapters 21 and 22.

During our present condition and time of existence of internal spiritual peace, we are experiencing very limited external peace in the world. While we are living in internal peace, it is being joined with what looks like massive chaos and evil. What we must conclude is that God’s enemy Satan is working very hard to disrupt God’s plan to eliminate all evil. All evil will be eliminated with God’s finalization of a New Creation resulting in a New Heaven and a New Earth.

But these center times that have been occurring in between the beginning of the first creation and its ending, there has been a time where we can see there have been selected opportunities for everyone to live in some external peace, but it has never lasted. We can clearly look at our present world system and find various levels of evil, enemies, wars, chaos in our personal lives, in our work, in our families, in our friends, in our governments, etc.  Therefore, final realization within the New Creation will receive a return of the God kind of Peace and it “will” have at the minimum these qualities:

  1. Safety,
  2. Goodness,
  3. Love,
  4. Unity,
  5. Harmony,
  6. Freedom,
  7. Prosperity,
  8. Blessings,
  9. Health,
  10. Life Eternal,

We have only touched on “peace” as defined by God. Hopefully, you gained a basic knowledge that God’s true peace is all-inclusive providing us spiritual peace with Him as gift, and complete freedom from all evil influence eventually in the future.

The Hidden Meaning of Shalom Peace

There is a hidden meaning of the word Shalom, found in the ancient Hebrew alphabet spelling. These pictograph letters selected and used by God to spell the word Shalom, are the 1) Shin, the 2) Lamed and the 3) Mem. These three letters were selected and designed by God with His purposed plan to restore “peace” within His Kingdom forever. Remember this word spells the word “PEACE” and it was joined with His name “LORD” (YHWH) to declare who He was and what He will do in Jesus Christ.

If you have been studying the series of lesson about Jesus being found in every letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet, you should be convinced when Jesus said I am the Alpha and the Omega in Revelation. This applies to Him claiming He was every letter in the alphabet. Since Jesus was Jewish, He spoke Hebrew and said the words Alef and Tav to another Hebrew man named John who wrote the book of Revelation in Greek for most of the lost world to read. Therefore, John was inspired by the Spirit of God to write the first and last letters spoken by Jesus as the Alpha and Omega. This is based upon pure logic, common sense and also example of when Jesus spoke to Saul on the road to Damascus. Jesus clearly spoke to Saul in Hebrew also (Acts 21:40).

This revelation strongly suggested that since Jesus was the beginning of the alphabet and the ending of the alphabet, He could logically be found in every other alphabet letter also. This means, the Shin, the Lamed and the Mem are letters about Jesus and placing them together provides us a hidden message about what God is doing through Jesus to re-establish “Peace”.

The first letter “Shin” is a picture of the two top front teeth of a man. Remember, Jesus was God in the form of a man (Jn 1:1-14). This letter as the two front teeth represents an instrument that cuts or divides because it is very sharp. This too describes Jesus’ work on the earth in the flesh. Do you remember what Jesus said in Matthew 10:34?

Mat 10:34  Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 

We can clearly see Jesus claiming to have come into the world in the flesh not to bring peace, but rather a sword. Swords cut, swords are for war, swords divide, and this is what the Shin represents in this word. Think about the two front teeth taking a bite of corn on the cob. They cut the corn off the cob, and then allow those pieces to enter the mouth, be chewed to pieces and swallowed. This is exactly what God is planning to figuratively do to Satan.

The next middle letter of the word Shalom is the Lamed. This letter is a picture of a Shepherd’s staff. It represents a Shepherd’s authority and power. Normally this letter represents Jesus, but we are going to find out by the next letter, it has a different application to the work of Jesus.

Finally, the last Hebrew letter in Shalom is “Mem”. This letter’s pictograph represents large waves of water. It represents moving liquids like water and blood primarily. But when water movement increases significantly it brings violence, destruction and death and these are works of Satan who is an extreme worker of evil (Jn 10:10). Therefore, the letter Mem can represent someone that produces “Chaos” and the disruption of “Peace”. We confirm this to be Satan by reading Revelation 12:15, “And the serpent cast out of his mouth, water (Mem) as a flood…”. This paints the picture of the Mem speaking words that are creating massive chaos. But it confirms exactly what is happening in opposition to peace.

Wow! Let us place the meanings of these three letters together to discover the hidden message concerning the works of Jesus Christ to restore “Peace”. Remember God is the God of “Peace” and think about what this meaning has to do with God’s works in creation.

Placing the letters of Shalom together we arrive at the meaning of the joined Shin, Lamed and Mem all together as God saying:

Shin        =     “He will destroy and divide

Lamed     =     the Authority

Mem        =      of he (Satan) that causes Chaos, death and destruction”

This will be the focus of the rest of this lesson series. We will be exploring the Bible to verify that this is exactly what God is still doing in our world today and it will soon come to an end and Satan knows this now and is fighting extremely hard to cause the plan of God to be slowed or to be stopped. But we all know this is a futile effort, because we have read the back of the book already, and have believed that it shall be even as the Lord has spoken.

Conclusion

We have only touched the surface to see a very small part of the Who, What, When, Where and Why of the subject of “Peace”. We were introduced to the basic Bible concepts of “Peace” as defined in the Word of God. We were also introduced to the meaning of the word Shalom hidden in the ancient Hebrew alphabet spelling. This word as we saw meant “He will DESTROY the AUTHORITY of the one that made CHAOS”. The “He” that will Destroy (Shin) is Jesus, the authority (Lamed) that makes chaos (Mem) in heaven and on the earth is Satan.

We further learned one of the names of God is Jehovah (YHWH) Shalom (Peace). We should have seen this name confirms Jesus to be the one that will destroy the authority of chaos, by us beholding (Hey) His hands (Yod) having been pierced by nails (Vav). Remember the name LORD YHWH is spelled Yod + Hey + Vav + Hey meaning Behold the Hands, Behold the Nails and this spells Jehovah. All of this was written about in Zecheriah 12:10.

God is the one that is eternal, all powerful, all knowing, all seeing, and who by His chosen name He purposes to dwell in a constant and never changing level of the highest order of “Peace”. This means He does no evil. God is also not the author of any confusion (chaos) but rather “Peace” according to 1 Corinthians 14:33). This verse in 1st Corinthians is a profound confirmation to what this series is teaching.

We will in this series be learning more about God’s characteristics of “Peace”.  We will further see how God’s original works of creation was done in ultimate peace and perfection. But we will then learn where and when Chaos and Evil occurred. We will be answering some important questions about why is evil still in existence and appears to be doing a massive amount of preparation and rehearsal for a coming world government that will be led by the highest evil ruler, Satan in the form of the antichrist.

Nevertheless, we will learn that Satan does not win, and God’s ultimate “Peace” will prevail in Jesus. Jesus is prophesied to be the “Prince of Peace” in Isaiah 9:6. This shows us that this is what we all should have great expectations of seeing and experiencing soon. We will be studying all this and much more in future lessons.

Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with Agapegeek. We appreciate your faithfulness and encourage you to verify everything that is written. Do not believe anything without the Holy Spirit’s confirmation internally, along with Him confirming what the verses say using the ruling force and power of the Holy Spirit’s “Peace” in your heart. Continue to abide in the Peace of God that passes all understanding (Php 4:7).

May God of Peace continue to be with you and richly Bless you All!

If you would like to continue your study in this series on the subject of Shalom Peace, please click “Part 2“.

What are the Best Sources for Learning Truth – How Do We Find and Know “If” it is God’s Absolute Truth Vs Satan’s Lies or Human Reasoning?

(Ver 1.0) This is an answer to two questions received recently about where the best resources are found for learning, knowing, and understanding what truth is. Do we need to go to a Bible school or seminary to find truth? Are there great printed books or are there great resource materials on the internet for knowing the truth. Are these materials and resources available for a cost or are there also some that are free?

We should all know going to any book, printed material, school, seminary, college, etc. costs money. If money is no object, there are several resources that could be recommended.  However, since the invention and rise of the internet in the 1990’s, called the information highway by some, the amounts of data that has been accumulated and is being made available is astronomically increasing at a staggering rate exponentially and most of this good information is free.  Praise the Lord!

There are some exceptions, but most of the information on the internet is free and that is great. However, the problem rises very soon for us to be able to discern correctly which resource is legitimate truth and which ones are designed to mislead you, program you, or even to eventually deceive and destroy your faith and belief in the True and Living God. With the new rise of Artificial Intelligence within Applications and Websites, this is also a potential troubling concern for some people to realize and ask a basic question about, who is trying to control what you see and know and why are they limiting the information and spread of free speech.

These are some of the things we will address from a Biblical World View perspective. Yes, we are firm believers that the Bible is the source of ALL Ultimate Unchangeable Truth because it came out of the mouth of God to be written down for us to learn TRUTH. If this belief offends you, you are potentially in the right place to learn how to know for sure if what you believe is true or not.

What is Truth?

What is Truth? Is it different for everyone? Does Truth change? Or is it just our knowledge that changes our perception of “Truth”. Or is there an “Absolute Truth” that will never change? If there is “Absolute Truth” where is it found? Let us start with one definition of truth. 

Truth is defined by some as “reality”. Truth is also defined by some to be “the state of things as they are”. Others define truth to be “facts”.

While all of that is good, it is all very subjective depending on what your basic groundwork of “fact” and “truth” is. If you are grounded upon the Bible, you are on a firm foundation. If you base your “fact checking” on the government, media, or internet, you are potentially being misled into believing “lies” to be “truth”.

Joh 17:17  Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

According to Jesus, God’s Word is the resource for Truth. Who can argue with God?

Do You Hunger and Thirst for God’s Truth?

Psa 107:9  For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.

Mat 5:6  Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 

One of the key factors for learning truth is for us to possess a very strong hunger and thirst (internal desire) to seek and search for it. It would be like someone that was lost in the Sahara Desert and was dying of thirst. They would be in desperate search for this liquid substance to live. This is the attitude we must possess for learning God’s truth. Only His Words can give us spiritual eternal “life” (Jn 6:63). But to give diligent search for water is not passive, it requires work to search to find it:

Mat 7:7  Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

Mat 7:8  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Today TRUTH is not being presented everywhere you see and hear things. This hungry desire is based upon what Jesus said in Matthew 7:7-8. Here Jesus said we are required to do 3 things, 1) Ask, 2) Seek, and 3) Knock and it will be given, found, and opened to us (applying to many things, but certainly including knowing the truth). You may have heard of “Fake News” recently and this exists everywhere, and this revelation implies strongly that there should be a search for “Real News”. This applies to TRUTH also. There is “Fake Information” being presented as “TRUTH” everywhere also.

For the past 35 years I have been consumed with obtaining, knowing, and understanding all of God’s truth that I am able to receive.  In doing so I have discovered and confirmed without any doubt this book called the Bible is the most amazing, intelligently designed, and wisely written book ever. It could have only originated from a very powerful supernatural being living outside of time and who was able to view and personally influence the over 40 men that recorded the letters and words written on every page. This means God All Knowing and God Almighty. No other source is even remotely possible. 

This book called the Bible is also the all-time bestselling book in human history. The words have been translated into more languages than we are able to learn or know completely. This means this book has the potential power to radically save more than 8 billion people on the planet.  This also means the Gospel is going forth into all the world and Jesus could be returning any second.

How can I make this claim that the Bible is so amazingly designed? I was a computer software engineer for many years.  Working in this environment, God taught me at least three things through this incredible experience. These are 1) the reality of every intelligent design only comes from an intelligent designer, 2) there is a critical need to give attention to every detail found in the design, even the most minor ones, and 3) there are requirements, laws, and rules to maintain order, so that any information and data can be created, understood and for it to be made useful.

For example, any language that will be written must have a basic alphabet. Each alphabet letter has specific rules of design, including shape, size, sounds, etc. These are just fundamental rules to create an understandable book. If you have been reading this website long you are discovering the great order and meaning of the Ancient Hebrew alphabet letters having very significant prophetical meanings about the Lord Jesus Christ.

First, just like a complex software system did not create itself, neither did 40+ non-collaborating men create 66 books within over 1500 years of spread-out time span, and this just happen by accident.  Neither could all these men have created a book that harmonizes and reveals the most amazing information that is possible without an unexplainable outside influence. This just could not happen by chance. When discovered this created book could have only come from God who created everything. This is why Satan, and his world hates this book and have been doing everything possible to eliminate it from being spread and taught. No other book has been so extraordinarily band from nations, schools, cities, governments, etc.   

Second, when you begin to pay attention to every detail of the Bible you begin to realize the extreme intelligence of the designer.  For example, in a computer software language that is used to create written programs and applications, they all have rules and details of structure. Every detail in the Bible’s design matters, exactly like every detail in a software design.

For example, a very old computer language called COBOL, created English like statements. For example, “ADD CURRENT-INPUT-VALUE TO TOTAL.” is a very readable English computer statement based upon simple readable and understandable rules. To be used by a computer it must be “compiled” into machine language to convert what we can easily read into what the designer of the machine’s rules can process. Uh oh? This sounds like the Bible significantly.  Do you remember these statements in the Bible:

Isa 55:8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 

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

Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 

What we observe in the Bible are two conflicting rule systems. God’s thoughts and ways are so much higher than a human. We can also see our natural thinking ways are an enemy to how the Spirit of God sees everything. God’s Laws and yes, God operates under self-imposed rules, limitations, constraints of behavior and moral character that a natural unsaved human does not normally conform to. For example, Numbers 23:19 says “God is not a man that He should lie”. This means humans potentially lie continually, where as God will never do this.

Therefore, understand that there are differences of rules, and laws found in the Spiritual design of the Bible that need to be learned with the help of God the Author, for us to begin to understand what was written.  Missing one spiritual rule, is like missing one specific “period” in one certain statement of the computer COBOL language that could cause the entire intended meaning to change. Therefore, like COBOL teaches us that every single letter and punctuation brought meaning to the designer’s design, so it is with the Bible.

Every computer system has imperfections and weaknesses. These are called “bugs” in computerese. But the Bible was written by God to give man the right of freewill choice. This designed choice gives unsaved humans the illusion of flaws causing those to not understand it, but to those who want to know the truth, the details are made known to us by God personally living inside of us to open our ability to understand. This alone proves it is the most amazing book ever.

The Bible is a book written from the level of an omniscient being speaking to people who know nothing in comparison. Yet we can grow in the knowledge of its content and meaning with His help through our very diligent study. This is why most people don’t have a clue what this book says or means, because it is written by the most intelligent Spirit, and we are all barely like 2-year-old children in comparison.

The third reality I learned from the experience with computers and with studying the Bible, is the requirement to understand there are rules behind everything that is written to make any of it understandable, useful, and working in our life. Think of a box of alphabet letters like the game Scrabble pieces. If you shook them out and scattered them on a board in random order, what words would you spell. In most likelihood, none. Therefore, to create understandable and meaningful words we must follow the rules of the language, and this requires intelligent design. So, it is with the Bible.

Just like an ignorant 2-year-old would not understand a complex software system written in Java, so the Bible is the same for someone that does not want to know God.

The Bible students that asked the questions and left the comments are like many others today that have the drive, hunger, passion, and desire to grow to know God’s actual truth. In comparison, there was another recent commenter that said the Bible studies on this website were not read entirely because they are too long.  This could be an example of someone that could be partially committed to learning God’s Word, because of being too distracted by the cares of this world.  To find the truth, Jesus said very clearly that we must “continue” in the Word, until we know the truth. This means no one but God fully knows the truth, and we must continue without stopping, making it our priority.

What I have noticed about successful Bible study are that people that were fully committed to know and hear from God spent whatever time was necessary to hear from God, because it was that valuable and necessary to them. Personal time spent has a much more valuable return on investment, than all the money that could be spent for materials. 

For example, check out in Matthew 15 when Jesus was teaching nearly 10,000 people. He stood there teaching them for almost three days and they were so hungry for the Words that He shared with them that they no doubt slept on the ground and had not eaten in three days.  And then notice how this spiritual hunger example, compares with someone that does not want to spend a couple of hours to read or listen to one Bible lesson. Who is hungry? Are you that hungry that if Jesus was speaking outside of your city, you would walk out to hear him teach for 3 days? Who has this deep desire to know God and His truth.  If you had any comprehension how many hours were spent hearing from God to write these lessons, and how much time it saved you from doing the same, a couple of hours is nothing to possibly learn one new thing that you have potentially never seen or heard before.

What are Good Bible Knowledge Sources?

What are some good sources for learning God’s knowledgeable viewpoint of His truth?  Where and how do I gain the knowledge of God’s Truth.  Number one is from the personal reading and studying of the Bible which is the source of all truth. But second is to be led by the Spirit because it is God who authored the entire book. And never forget that He is the Spirit of Truth (Jn 14:17) who leads us into all Truth (Jn 16;13). Without His help we will never find the truth because the human carnal mind alone is just like a two-year-old that is just incapable of seeing and understanding spiritual truth. Thank God, He gave us a helper named the Holy Spirit.  

Before I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit like occurred in Acts 2, I understood nothing that was written in the Bible.  After receiving this experience, He was the ultimate factor that changed me forever and He is our greatest asset to knowing the real Truth, because He is the Spirit of Truth that wrote the book (John 14:7).  

However, the revelation knowledge of the Word was not automatic just by being born again, and then receiving the Holy Spirit baptism. The Holy Spirit led me to ask for it, and this was what began an insatiable hunger and thirst for the greatest quest for knowing Him and everything that He has revealed for us to know about Him.

What happened one morning while I was praying in the Spirit. I found myself suddenly asking God for no reason to give me revelation knowledge of His word. Many months later I discovered this prayer was written in the Bible as a prayer that Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus. In Ephesians 1:16-23. I highly recommend everyone pray this prayer for themselves. Ask the Lord to give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.

After praying this prayer, I noticed while reading and studying the Bible, the words, phrases, and verses that I read would suddenly just come alive to my spirit and leap off the page. I began to see things, know things, and understand things that I had never seen or heard before. It brought such joy, amazement and wonder that it is truly indescribable.

Notice what I said. The same exact words on the page did not change, it was me that God was changing through living inside me and helping me to understand what they meant to Him.  Remember God says His thoughts and ways of thinking are much higher than any lost unlearned and ignorant human.

The next greatest source for obtains the Truth of the Bible is by reading and listening to God’s called humans that are anointed by His Holy Spirit to be teachers of His Word.  I have listened to hundreds of different teachers and have learned something great from them all.  

I am one of those many teachers. I will never claim to be the most important one or the only one that you should learn from.  I am not the all-knowing God. No human knows it all like our God. God purposefully does not give all revelation to anyone.

Bible teachers are like natural doctors and physicians. They are often gifted in certain specialties while others are like general practitioners that try to help everyone grow stronger in the basic knowledge of the truth.   

Remember that no one except God knows 100% of the truth.  Therefore, when we are learning the Bible, we want to judge what a teacher says using two sources of guaranteed Truth.  These are the Bible and the Holy Spirit author that lives inside of us. That is IF you have made Him your Lord and asked Him to come live in your heart.

My favorite non-Bible quote is by Will Rogers. He said, “We are all ignorant, only about different things.”  Keep this in mind when learning from every Bible teacher, including me.   Never accept everything said to be Truth.  But also, never reject anything they say because you have never heard it or don’t believe it is not the Truth.

Prove with your own individual study if it agrees with what you can see the Bible says and what the Holy Spirit inside witnesses to you about what is being taught. He knows whether you do or not.  Become a Berean Bible student like Acts 17:11. They were open-minded and ever willing to learn something new. But they also confirmed what was taught with their own Bible study.  One Bible teacher said be as wise as old cows, eat the good straw and spit out the sticks.  Using this wisdom will allow you to learn from anyone that is truly anointed by God.

Using Modern Bible Study Tools

I have used the eSword Bible study software for almost 35 years.  Is it the best tool?  Probably not. But I chose it because I believe this is where the Holy Spirit led me.  Is it perfect? Nothing is perfect but God. I have found several eSword flaws, bugs, and things that need to be fixed.   This is true for all imperfect human created tools. Yet it had this advantage for myself and for those that studied the Bible with me.  It was free.  

Because it was given away for free, this matched my belief of spreading the Gospel.  There should never be any charges for teaching God’s word according to Matthew 10:8 and 1 Corinthians 9:18. Giving away the Bible and the Gospel for free makes it available to anyone rich or poor.

My current favorite version of eSword now is the Apple version.  Unfortunately it cost about twenty dollars when I purchased it.  I don’t know why the change from free other than the fact Apple charges software developers to use their OS platform whereas Microsoft was free.

The Apple version of eSword is easy to use and it has easy access to an ancient Hebrew language lexicon which is not currently available on the Windows version.  

As far as which Bible I study and write using, you can easily see the KJV Bible is my first and primary study version.  This because of two reasons. The first is that the KJV Bible is free. The second is that it is highly accurate once you learn the old English style of language. It being free eliminates copyright conflicts for publishing.  

There are other Bible versions that I use but only a couple that I will pay for.  One is the NASB and the other is the Amplified.  I like the free Young’s literal version also, but there are many other free Bibles available on eSword. 

Studying the original languages of the written Bible is absolutely essential.  Translators have made many human errors.  We must understand which word was inspired by God, what it means and how it is used in the entire Bible.  But also know God’s definitions of His chosen words overrule human definitions. Lexicons like Strong and Thayer can have mistakes and human traditions imbedded within them.

Here is the basic overview of things needed to find truth:

  1. Being born again by the Spirit of God through hearing His Word, accepting it, believing it, and confessing Jesus as your Lord. Having Faith is the key to receiving from God in every step listed here.
  2. Being filled with the Holy Spirit the author of the Bible who will lead us into all truth.
  3. Asking God to reveal His truth.
  4. Get a good Bible study tool like eSword on Apple.
  5. Having a great hunger and desire to know the truth. This should be the drive for every search.
  6. Having great patience when learning the truth. Like a child going to kindergarten to understand simple basics, know that there is much more that you do not know than you do know. Real deep Truth builds upon layers of other basic truth.
  7. Make it a habitual desire everyday to spend time with God in His word.
  8. In all Bible study have faith to ask God to lead you to what you need to know today that will help you prepare for tomorrow. Then open your Bible believing He is doing it.
  9. Listen and learn from many called, anointed teachers of the Bible. But be led by the Spirit which one and when.
  10. Have an open mind to receive things in the Word you never heard before.  But verify what is taught using your own study and witness of peace given by the Holy Spirit.
  11. Know that all Bible teachers are not God and are ignorant of differing subjects.
  12. Know also that Bible teachers are gifted by God to know certain subjects very well.  Therefore, we can learn great revelation from many of them even when we don’t agree with everything that is taught.  Ask God what you need to know and then be led by Him where you need to go to find the answers.

Bible Schools

Investing money into yourself to attend a great Bible school can save you a lot of time, because of the already designed plan to learn step-by-step. However, like any individual pastor or teacher that we can learn from, understand every Bible school also carries, potential bias of extreme truths.  In other words some Bible schools emphasize “Grace”, and others “Faith”, and others can teach only specific basic truths of salvation only.

Balance is the key to understanding God’s Truth. What you may need to know today, could be missed by one Bible school. Therefore, be led by the Spirit of God. He knows what you should do, where it should be done and when to do it.

Therefore, while I could recommend Bible schools, it best that I do not cause my opinion to sway your decision apart from the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

Conclusion

Joh 8:31  Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

Joh 8:32  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Jesus gives us our final insight today on the most reliable source of “Truth”.  First, notice Jesus is speaking with “Believers” in Him. This means they have heard the message about Jesus and believed it to be “True”.  This fact brings about our first division to learning truth. Those that believe not in Jesus will never know the “Truth”.

Next Jesus further reduces the number that will know truth by qualifying that it will only be those that “continue” in His Word. This makes it very clear that “believers” can be deceived and not ever fully know the truth if they “DO NOT CONTINUE IN HIS WORD”. This is sounding a lot like the “Narrow” path that Jesus said led to life (Mat 7:14) and the wide path that led only to eternal damnation (Mat 7:13). Jesus made it very clear that there will only be a few that walk the way of seeking after life.  But there will be many that go to their own chosen way of destruction.

Now notice how verse 31 ended. Jesus said if you continue in my word then you will be my disciples indeed. The Greek word G230 translated as “indeed” of this verse is predominately translated as “truth”. This verse could have read “If you continue in my word, then you will be my disciples truly. This would be in opposition to “be my disciples falsely”. Do you see the severe consequences for not studying the Bible? This means the Bible is the only authority of “absolute truth”.  Do you see how our priority needs to change to become hungrier for the Word of God?

You should have learned today that I prefer “free” Bibles, “free” teachings, and “free” resources of truth. Paul confirms this belief in 1 Corinthians 9:18 when he said it would be an abuse of his power to charge for what he taught. This means go on the internet and search for subjects that the Holy Spirit is laying on your heart to learn. Take the time to read or listen to studies that offer an internal Spirit witness confirmation that this is someone that God has led you to learn from. Then trust that “peace” to continue to study more of their lessons and determine if they still bring you that same joy and peace. If they do this is the Holy Spirit agreeing that you are in the right place.

Remember what else Paul said about where he obtained his knowledge of the truth:

Gal 1:12  For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Notice that Paul who wrote 2/3 of the New Testament, claims he received almost everything directly from spending time with the Author of the Bible. Paul claims this knowledge of the truth did not come from any human, including the apostles. But obtaining this knowledge took Paul years to acquire and you can learn it much quicker by just reading the books that he wrote inspired by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. So, it is also today. God still anoints teachers, preachers, evangelists, etc.

Ask and then trust the Holy Spirit to lead you to the resources that are freely available today. There are too many available that can help save you hundreds of hours of isolated study. God has given “revelation” to so many on so many differing subjects. Many are available for free.

Thank you for taking the time to read this lesson. But also thank you for being led here first to find it. If this has been a blessing to you, share it with others. God Bless you and help you to hunger and thirst for the absolute truth of the Word of God.

Jesus in the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet Part 8 – Zayin – Jesus the Sower with the Sword

(Ver 1.0) This is “Part 8” in the surprising and amazing Bible study series focused upon searching, finding, and learning how God became a man and how He was hidden in many prophecies found in every letter of the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet. It is also interesting to see how every picture tells a part of the story about Messiah our Lord. We have been going through each of these letters of the alphabet (but not in alphabetical order) and today we are focused on the 7th letter called “Zayin”.

We have studied many letters in the Hebrew alphabet and one reoccurring theme is that most of the letters of the alphabet refers to something about the words spoken out of the mouth of God. Today’s lesson is no different. We are about to discover that the Zayin letter picture spiritually represents two fundamental purposes surrounding God’s spoken Words. One of the first purposes for God’s spoken Words was they were designed to be sent to create and maintain His spiritual garden (Gen 2:8, Isa 55:11). Next, this letter Zayin was chosen to represent God’s spoken Words designed as a weapon to fight against and defeat His enemies (Heb 4:12).

It is always noteworthy to remember that Jesus is given the name “the Word of God” in Revelation 19:13. Knowing this name of Jesus, ask yourself, what is a word comprised of or built upon? If you answered the Alphabet Letters, you would be correct. Isn’t it logical to therefore conclude that each alphabet letter that creates every spoken Word of God (Jesus), must also bring us to know Jesus Christ. Never forget, who God is, He is the incarnate Word and this appearance of God personified His true nature and character (Col 2:9, Jn 1:1-14).

As a word of warning, every lesson in this series, is for spiritually mature Christians. Each lesson can contain potentially offensive items because of the diverse things found in the Bible that have never been seen or understood. Therefore, please evaluate your spiritual maturity level. If there are things stated that you do not agree with, a spiritually mature person will at least check them out to see if there are scriptures that confirm what was stated. An immature new Christian would probably just become offended and leave a very rude comment or just never read any other lessons on the website.

Most Christians do not have a clue about the vast amount of information that they do not yet know and understand that is discoverable in the Bible. How do you know if you are spiritually mature? To determine our spiritual maturity, we all must evaluate our attitudes towards what we believe we know about the Bible. If we can conclude that there is more in the Bible that we do not yet understand, than we currently do understand, this is your first strong indicator of spiritual maturity. If we do not reach this conclusion, we are a very spiritually immature Christian. This would be like a two-year-old up to a 15-year-old that thinks they know everything and wants to only argue with their elder parent.

The lesson today will standalone, if you desire to only learn about this subject of finding Jesus hidden in the specific ancient Hebrew letter “Zayin”. But if you are new to this concept of the ancient Hebrew pictograph language, it is highly recommended that you please begin to study at the beginning of the series “Introduction to the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet”. Otherwise, let us get started learning about the letter Zayin.

Introduction to the Zayin

Notice the above pictograph of the ancient Hebrew letter Zayin and its font transitions to the modern text. This letter is very important in the descriptive life of God in Jesus Christ and His purpose for coming to the earth in the flesh. This is the 7th letter of the alphabet. Therefore, its numeric value is 7 and its gematria value is also 7 since it is below 10. Seven is a very profound number in the Bible representing completion and perfection. We will explore this topic later in its own section.

It is noteworthy to understand, that there are at least four different spellings of this letter “Zayin” using it as an English transliterated word. There is the 1) “Zayin”, 2) “Zain”, 3) “Zayn” and 4) “Zan”. But we have chosen the “Zayin” pronunciation for this lesson. The general sound of the letter in Hebrew words is like the English letter “Z” but that is not exactly perfect.

The ancient image of the Zayin began with a pictogram looking like a primitive metal tool that resembles a type of ancient farming instrument to be used for the plowing of earth. Then notice the middle Hebrew language looks like an H that has turned on its side. But it can also resemble the same type of farming plow.

The root word Zayin has the definition of “Mattock” and “Harvest”. This word is spelled Zayin + Nun and it is the picture of the plow or mattock farm tool, and it is joined with the picture of the seed bring the us to a meaning of “mattock the seed”. This is the concept of “harvesting” a garden. A mattock is a garden hoe if you did not know this. It is a garden tool with a blade used for the cutting of plant stocks at the ground level to sever it from the hidden roots.

Gen 2:8  And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

As we can observe in Genesis 2:8 God is stated to be planting a garden called Eden where He would place His newly created man named Adam. We should all be able to see How this letter Zayin as a garden tool is a sure part of the original plan of God for man.

Rev 2:12  And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;

The next transitional late Hebrew letter font looks like it could resemble a type of sword. And finally, the modern Hebrew letter resembles something more like an Axe or possibly a different kind of Sword. As we can see in the last book of the Bible Jesus claims He has the sharp sword with two edges. This Zayin sword type clearly corresponds to God’s end time plan for all humanity.

Therefore, the transition of the Zayin letter font images from beginning ancient to end modern, appears to speak of an initial garden planting that will be ending with, a final battle combined with the cutting and dividing of the earth’s harvest (Rev 14:15). But all these pictures apply to the concept of a blacksmith’s work in forging a metal tool for either food production on a farm or a weapon for a war. Therefore, the letter Zayin can have these basic meanings:

  1. Cut or Divide
  2. Plow -> (Divide)
  3. Sow -> (Plant Seed)
  4. Harvest (Fruit)
  5. Weapon, i.e. Sword

Farming concepts are the primary meaning of this letter picture. Therefore, the letter meaning carries the idea of plowing which can then be extended into the subsequent steps of sowing seeds, with desire to produce crops of fruits, and eatable food for humans or animals. The farming concept is further extended throughout the process of receiving the fruitful crop by harvesting it with Zayin types of cutting tools. Harvesting requires metal tools for the cutting of the ripe crops, fruits, grains, etc. Theses must be divided away from their vines, stalks, bushes, trees, etc. These actions are all accomplished by metal tools made from iron like substances.

Today in modern cultures most are not familiar with these types of farming tools and processes. Satan has removed the need for individual food production to transition us to greater level of dependence upon food production and distribution by others that we become dependent upon. Much of today this is done by large corporations that hold an extreme amount of power.

This shift from independence to dependence upon others for food will make it far easier for the anti-Christ to take control of the world’s population through easily cutting the food supply to starve people. It is a very deceptive process of creating dependence to eliminate independence.

Recently you may have noticed that McDonald’s Corp., has just eliminated all “Self-Serve” for drinks, condiments, napkins, etc. This too is the anti-Christ plan of conditioning people for a total subservient dependence on others for everything. It is a mind control programming of the masses. If you must ask for everything, instead of getting it yourself conveniently, quickly, and easily, you are now experiencing the beginning of “long lines” to wait for everything like they have had in communist and socialist nations having food shortages.

China now has this plan of ultimate control almost fully implemented using a social score rating system on your smart phone. If you rank with a score that is favorable to government established standards of behavior, you can get food, for instance. But fall behind in your social score and suddenly you are being punished and rationed or cut off. Are you prepared? It will begin to increase to occur soon, and it is described in the 6th chapter of the book of Revelation. It is guaranteed to happen.

This basic requirement to eat will force most dependent people to quickly take the mark of the beast to survive. Satan has made some great mistakes in the past, but he is still no dummy. He can and does read the same Bible that you do and is trying to leverage it to his advantage.

We can observe by viewing the modern font style of the letter “Zayin”, that the letter still resembles a type of metal tool, but it looks more like an “axe” or a “sword” for cutting. Nevertheless, these are simply tools that are made of various compositions of metal like steel, iron, bronze, etc., that are liquified or made malleable through the application of intense heat. Then these metals are either poured into molds or pounded by a blacksmith with a hammer to form the shape of the desired tool for the intended purpose. Thus, any agricultural instrument is a fair representation of this ancient pictograph.

This introduces us to the concept of strong metals, being made, or becoming different tools to be used for multiple purposes. It is very important to know that God mentions this in the Bible for two very specific purposes that we referred to earlier. For example, notice this verse in Joel.

Joe 3:10  Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

Notice how God speaks of taking farming tools of metal and changing them and their purposes into swords by beating on them. It is very essential to pay attention that God directly mentions a commandment to say something very applicable to our lesson on the Zayin. We will hopefully go into this more soon. But notice that the opposite process is being mentioned in Isaiah:

Isa 2:4  And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Wow, this is an amazing prophecy. We can again see how the same metal tools that were used for war, can now be transitioned back into farming tools. This is a future prophecy that will take place after the 7-year tribulation. We will hopefully speak more about this also very soon.

Therefore, we are learning that there are two fundamental uses for strong and powerful metal on the earth. The first is the “peace” time usages of the “Zayin”, for tools of building, other constructive trades, and for agriculture to produce food. However, we just saw the antithesis of “peace” is “war” in the prophecy of Joel. This is a time for fighting against an enemy as in nation or kingdom at war against another nation or kingdom.

What we should have noticed is that the natural metal Zayin tool picture primarily represents either a plow for producing “life” or a sword for “death”. It is interesting that if we stick out our tongue, it looks a lot like the tip of a double-edged sword by God’s design. Could God have been trying to teach us something spiritual by how He designed our physical mouth and tongue? It sure appears that this is exactly what is happening. Could it be that this is God’s way of saying when we speak the Words of God about who He says we are, that we are placing His Sword of “Life” in our mouth, and then vice versa, when we speak the negative words and lies of Satan, we are placing death in our mouth? Let us investigate these concepts deeper in the next continuation of our introduction.

Introduction to Zayin 2 – Peace and War
Life and Death

We have just been learning the basics in the introduction of this ancient Hebrew letter “Zayin”. We have found that it is like the pictogram image of a natural metal tool that resembles an ancient plow. Therefore, we learned the picture represents several associated farming concepts like plowing, planting, sowing, growing, and finally the reaping of foods produced.

It is obvious that foods were designed by God for life continuation, production, and growth, either individually or corporately (Gen 1:29). These foods were originally created by God through His spoken Words and that is very important to remember. Today, these original created food supplies continue to exist by the concepts of “seed” reproduction, and these would be grown in “fields”, “gardens”, “vineyards”, etc. Every pure seed today is a continuation of the original “seed” created by God (Gen 1:11-12).

One of the basic essential crops that was produced in the Bible was the planting and reaping of grains designed for usage to make bread. This is a basic food type eaten by most humans and angels (Ps 78:25). Bread is also symbolic for the Spiritual Words of God (Mat 4:4). This knowledge brings us back to the subject of spoken “words” as a representation for the image of the Zayin.

Remember farming tools were always made from metals. It is very interesting if we read Proverbs 27:17 where God says, “Iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens his friend”. Did you just understand the comparison God places on iron to people? God is clearly speaking metaphorically about iron being as spoken words representing types of metal tools. This goes along with us learning the Zayin letter is all about spiritual words coming from God’s mouth, our mouth, or Satan’s mouth. God call us a friend, so His Words are designed to sharpen us. But this verse implies strongly that words can also be used by our enemy to destroy us.

As sharp metal tools symbolize the strength and power that is necessary for the agricultural processes of farming, especially for cutting, we can see this application also applies in the spiritual realm. Natural farming is like fighting with the hard, rocky, and weedy ground to break it up, which is representative of the enemies that are trying to keep you from producing a fruitful crop. This hard work was a part of the curse placed upon the earth after sin entered our world. God said in Genesis 3:19 to Adam, “In the sweat of thy face, you shall eat bread”.

Therefore, we are learning a new concept. It appears that God is saying it is by our “correct Zayin plowing that allows us the easier planting of “seed” to enter the soil/earth. It is possible that you do not yet understand what this concept means for Christians in the spiritual Kingdom of Jesus Christ, but hopefully you will begin to see it more clearly as we continue.

Farming steps would always require the use of specific tools that cut, divide, and separate, as well as gather the “fruits” of their labor. Thus, this letter Zayin possesses these figurative applicable meanings. For example, notice these basic farm functions:

  1. Plowing (Zayin) – Cuts and divides the ground preparing it for “seed” (Nun) sowing.
  2. Hoe tools (Zayin) – Could dig up and remove weeds, rocks, and other potential crop hinderances for a fruitful production and outcome.
  3. Sickles (Zayin) are used for reaping. This is another specific type of cutting instrument, which was required for cutting away of the produced mature fruitful crop to create distributable foods to the family and to the nation’s population.

These are the basic usages for the “peaceful” application for the “Zayin” metal tools that cut, divide, and separate to harvest. This clearly teaches us that this letter’s primary application is founded upon “peace” (Shalom) times of farming concepts. But this letter “Zayin” also has an antithesis meaning from the actions of farming in peace time. We learned about this in the introduction in this verse written by the prophet Joel:

Joe 3:10  Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. 

Like most Bible concepts, a Zayin farming instrument for work in peacetime, has an opposite application for when our enemies come at us to destroy us. Therefore, during war time there was a completely different application for the letter Zayin metal tools. We can see this clearly written by the prophet Joel when God commands them to beat their peaceful metal farming tool instruments, into weapons for war. These wartime weapons included weapons like swords, spears, arrows, etc. 

But notice that the most basic meaning has not changed for the letter “Zayin”. Metal weapons for war are still used for cutting, dividing, and separation. But the targeted application to be cut has changed. Zayin in peace times is for usage in the dirt ground, for the making of positive grown plants, and crops. And Zayin in “wartime” applies to the same strong metals that have been reformed into weapons that would be used for dividing the flesh of the enemies. This of course resulted in death and the peace time purpose was for producing “life”. But never forget that the body of humans was formed from the dirt of the ground. You can read about this in Genesis 2.

Therefore, we are learning about the concept of “dual” purposes for this letter “Zayin”. The first is “cutting” and “dividing” earth for peaceful farming, and the second is “cutting” and “dividing” earth for wartime resolution and elimination of enemies.

During these times of physical and natural conflict, the “Zayin” takes on a completely different form and purpose. We should take notice that both purposes and usages are from the same strong metals, but the shapes and usages are completely different. However, these natural items and concepts transfer into the spiritual realm directly.

For example, notice how during the times for the usage of natural Zayin tools used for “Peace”, mostly “life” is produced. But in the times for the usage of the natural Zayin weapons for “war”, mostly “death” is produced. Let us transition this from natural into spiritual application. Remember what Proverbs 18:21 says!

Pro 18:21  Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

Again, we are finding that there are several very major connections of the “Zayin” tools that point us to the original Words of God in Genesis 1 and 2 that gave us “life”, versus the words of Satan that came to cause us to die in Genesis 3. Did you see what God wrote and said in Proverbs 18:21? Did you notice the God connection for the human mouth to produce “fruit”? Isn’t this the basic meaning of the Zayin peaceful plow to produce a crop of fruits? We will further learn this connection to our mouth in the study of the letter “Nun” as God’s Seed. Clearly, we are seeing how the same mouth can produce Zayin plowed “seeds” of life or Zayin “swords” of death to kill us. Let us quickly confirm this concept using another verse:

Joh 10:10  The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Do you see the major Zayin comparison spoken of by Jesus? Jesus is comparing the words and works of Satan to be for death and destruction, versus His words and works that were designed to cause us to live. This is very important to our study of the Zayin to gain a correct understanding.

Wow, this is amazing information that was created by God. Analyze these comparisons again:

Zayin @ Peace TimeZayin @ War Time
Zayin Purpose during Peace time is for tools, like building or farmingZayin Purpose during Wartime is for weapons for either offensive or defensive purposes
Zayin tools for work are used mainly during times of no fighting with EnemiesZayin tools for peace must be transformed by blacksmiths with tools using heat to produce weapons because of a fight with enemies
Zayin Plow is used to divide the ground to break it up by cutting through the dirt to produce a row for plantingZayin Sword is used to divide the flesh of an enemy which God made from the ground
Zayin application 1 was designed by God to produce and sustain nourishing substances required for natural human “Life” called “food” and “bread”Zayin application 2 was a re-design by God to bring about the death of enemies using a sword in the hand of the wielder or for the death of an animal to be slaughtered for sacrifice
Zayin positive purpose is to Feed and Continue Life both human and animal by producing foodZayin for war also Sustains and Continues “Life” through protecting the families of the nation from their enemies that desire to destroy them

Here is confirmation of what we are observing and learning. The Hebrew word for “War” is H4421 and the first time it occurs is Genesis 14:2. This word is spelled “Mem” + “Lamed” + “Chet” + “Mem” + “Hey”. It has the meanings of “war”, “fight”, “battle”, etc. and occurs over 300 times in the Old Testament. This word has a hidden implanted root word in the center of it. The middle three letters “Lamed” + “Chet” + “Mem”, spells the Hebrew word H3899, that is translated as “Bread”. Uh oh! We have found the amazing display of God’s design for a a metal “Zayin” used tool for a two-purpose application of peace and war found in one Hebrew Word.

It is also interesting that the concept of “bread” making comes from combining crushed grains mixing it with water. The combining of flour with water is a type of “war” or “battle” using the maker’s hands to knead the dough. This process only produces correct results after a lot of hard fighting like work and time.

We have just confirmed that a “Zayin” metal tool has the primary purpose for peace time farming to produce life, but it can be changed very quickly to a wartime usage to eliminate an enemy. However, both applications are defined to be for the usage of metal for “cutting”, “dividing”, and “separating”. This will become more significant to the application of the Zayin letter representing Jesus very soon.

It is very noteworthy to understand that there can be times when the Zayin tools of peace and war are used at the same time. For example, in the book of Nehemiah, God helps Israel to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. During this time there were surrounding enemies that would try to hinder the completion of the wall. Therefore, Israel chose some to build while others stood guard who watched for the enemies. Both the wall builders and the protectors were using Zayin metal tools, but one kind was for peace and the other kind was for war as it says here:

Neh 4:16  And it came to pass from that time forth, that the half of my servants wrought in the work, and the other half of them held both the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the habergeons; and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah

This too appears to be a prophetical message written to the church. There will no doubt come a time when we could be attacked by our spiritual enemies. During these times we would need to develop a dual “Zayin” toolbox set for sowing “seeds” to people while fighting our enemy Satan. We will still need to build up ourselves spiritually to grow while we are speaking against our enemies. Let us now move to learn more about the significance of the number 7.

The Number 7

The number seven in the Bible is very significant. It represents “completion” or “perfection”. The Hebrew word H7651 is translated “seven” and occurs almost 400 times in the Old Testament. The Greek word G2033 is translated as “seven” and it occurs over 85 times in the New Testament. The Bible begins with the first two chapters describing creation that takes place in 7 days which is equivalent to 1 week. The Bible ends with the book of Revelation describing two periods of the purpose of completion communicated by the number 7.

First there is a “1 week of years” called the “Tribulation” described in Revelation 6-17. This week of years is actually the 70th week that has not been fulfilled that was written about in the book of Daniel. These 70 years represent the completion of God’s works toward the natural nation of Israel. This last 70th week represents the last of the last of God’s prophesied weeks. Therefore, this Zayin 7 represents natural Israel’s “completion”. Many will view this as a type of Zayin harvest.

Then the next “7” completion that is described in Revelation occurs in chapter 20. This period will last for 1000 years and represents God’s 7th day of “rest” completing His works for all humanity on the earth. This 1000-year day is the last “Day” of God’s creation week dealing with human history and it is called the “millennial” reign of Christ by many.

The book of Revelation contains the most occurrences of the number 7 in the New Testament with approximately 45 occurrences. But 7 occurs throughout the Bible and in many cases it is a prophetical pattern for future spiritual events. Consider that “Cain” was protected by God avenging him 7 times in Genesis. Then notice in Genesis 4:24 Lamech will be avenged by God 70 times 7. Next notice that Jacob worked for Rachael for 7 years and was tricked into taking Leah as his wife. Thus, Jacob worked 7 more years for the younger sister Rachael, who was the wife that he loved and desired.

Another important concept of the number 7 is as it being a representation of making a covenant. When a man and a woman marry, they have committed to each other by speaking an oath of vows and promises. God intends this oath to remain intact and for them to remain committed to each other to be faithful until death separates them. For example, when Jacob agreed with Lamech to work 7 years for Rachel, he “seven-ed” himself into a covenant contract.

Who do you think God is going to “seven” Himself with, for His work of 7000 years of creation? It is the church, believe it or not. God has implemented an everlasting covenant in Jesus Christ. This covenant will stand, and all those that have believed by faith to enter into Christ and to remain in Him, will also be eternally secured in this covenant.

In the book of Daniel, God writes about there being 70 weeks of years that have been determined for the natural nation of Israel. Multiplying this out we arrive at 490 years of total natural created time. Every week of “years” has been fulfilled except for 1. This final week of “years” is the coming “Tribulation” that we just saw in Revelation.

There are way too many references for 7 to mention them all. But it is noteworthy to see in Matthew 18, Peter asks Jesus how many times it is necessary to forgive someone. Peter suggests 7 times, and Jesus counters that with 70 times 7 in one day. That is amazing because we found the number 490 (7×70) again.

There are also other significant sevens in the Bible. In the book of Exodus chapter 20 God gives His 10 commandments to Israel. The 4th commandment commands Israel to keep the Sabbath Holy. This represents the same pattern found in Genesis 1 and 2 where God worked 6 days and on the 7th day He rested. That is a prophetical pattern of all human history on the earth. In 2 Peter 3:8 God provides a major clue to understanding a lot of the Bible especially the books of Genesis and Revelation.

In 2 Peter 3:8 God says to Him, “1 day is as 1000 years, and 1000 years is as 1 day”. This does not mean every day in the Bible represents 1000 years. But there are many times found in prophecy, that it is very applicable. For example, the 6 days of creation with 1 day of rest is a prophecy of human history. God chose Abraham 2000 years after Adam making it two days of God’s timeline. Jesus came to the earth 2000 years after Abraham making it 4 days on God’s timeline. The church age lasts for the final 2 days of God’s working timeline and these 2 days are the age of Grace. These 6 days end God’s works being fulfilled in the full 6000 years on His timeline.

We are currently living at the end of 6000 years (6th day) and this will bring about the rapture, followed immediately by the tribulation (70th week of dealing with Israel) and then the final 1000 years of the reign of Christ upon the earth during the concurrent binding of Satan in hell. After this final day of human history, begins day 8 which is the letter “Chet”. This number 8 represents a “New Beginning”. This is when there is a New Heaven and a New Earth, and the old have passed completely away.

Some of the most significant things to know about this Zayin letter tool or weapon, is that it is forged from the substance of “metals” such as “iron”. The word “iron” in the KJV Bible occurs around 100 times. “Iron” is a symbolic representation for “strength” and “power”. Perhaps you have heard the terms he ruled with an “iron” fist, or the nation was controlled using an “iron curtain”. These concepts are found in Deuteronomy 4:20, 28:48, 33:25, Joshua 17:16, and many others.

This concept of “iron” is very significant to the life and times of Jesus being physically upon the earth. Let us just go over a few of the major things we must know.

In Daniel 2 the king is given a dream of an “image” of a man, that consists of 5 metal substances. The head of the man is “gold”, the arms and shoulders are “silver”, the torso is made of “bronze”, the legs are of “iron” and the feet are a strange composition of “iron and clay”. Each differing composition represented a different world kingdom for all human history. The gold head was Babylon, the next layer made of silver began the rest of the world’s kingdoms in decreasing levels of inferiority to the head of Gold moving to the weakest kingdom made of iron and clay.

For the sake of time, we will not interpret or explain the entire dream because we are only studying one substance “iron”. Just notice that Jesus when He was born in Bethlehem, it was during the time of the two legs made of iron. Therefore, the “iron” legs, are the fourth world kingdom ruled by Rome, and it was viewed as two separated leg parts. All of this can be viewed symbolically. God purposefully chose to come to the earth during this time of the “iron” rulership which was the Roman world empire. Therefore, the “iron” kingdom of Rome played a very significant role in the prophesied fulfillment of the birth, life, and the death of Jesus Christ.

Rome used a major form of capital punishment that was first used by Assyrians and Babylonians, like Dairus I that crucified around 3000 political opponents. Sounds a lot like what is trying to happen today, doesn’t it? But this method of death was perfected by Romans and the slow and most painful deaths took place this way to not only to cause physical agony, but also put fear into the people that were being ruled over, such as the Jews.

Take note of some of the important facts of the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus was nailed (Vav) to the cross using large “iron” spikes. Thus, His hands and feet were pierced with iron spikes the same metal types that we studied in the letter of the “Vav” and are still studying in the current Zayin letter made from iron for farming tools and as weapons. Now we are observing a new application of the weaponry usage of iron and how it can be utilized not just to defend oneself against an enemy’s attack but also to become an offensive weapon to kill someone that is hated for either good cause or for no reason at all, like Jesus.

Therefore, Jesus experienced at least 5 times personal attacks of “iron” on the cross. There were potential iron barbs set into the tips of the whips used to beat Christ with 39 strokes. There were at minimum 3 iron nails that hung him up on the cross. Remember that the letter “Vav” represents a nail, and this is the beginning of the name of God and Jesus. This letter “Vav” (6) is closely related to the Zayin (7). Finally, the sword tip that pierced the body of Jesus on the cross was probably also made of iron. This action by the Roman soldier was used to pierce His side into His heart to insure He was dead, but it also poured out from His body water and blood (Mem) onto the ground for our earthly redemption.

These were the major introductions to the substance of “iron” utilized in the death of Jesus. Also remember that the “Dalet” is a picture of a “door”, and this is the 4th Hebrew letter. Never forget the “door” represents Jesus being hung on the cross as our exit door out of the darkness of this world. Doors in ancient times were also hung by nails (Vav) and Jesus personally claimed to be the “door” in John 10:9. Hopefully, you are beginning to observe how the letters of the Hebrew alphabet were designed by God to tell us a story of Jesus.

But what about the 7th letter significance to iron? Educated Bible students are now looking intensely for the signs of the final world kingdom that will be ruled by the antichrist during the 7year tribulation. This dark kingdom has been attempting to be formed today, especially during the recent pandemic. There are prophetical signs being fulfilled today everywhere. For example, these prophecies would not have been possible to be fulfilled without the creation of the internet, digital media & currency and so much more that is being set up to number and control every human.

Remember this final kingdom of a king’s dream in Daniel was split into two feet with 5 toes on each and these are connected to the two iron legs. Therefore, the ending antichrist kingdom will be an extension of the Roman empire implemented using modern technologies. It will be like the first Roman kingdom but merged with “clay”. Clay has been interpreted in many ways but to many it represents the “flesh” manifestation of the literal Satan.

Satan is a copycat! But this end-time kingdom will be split into 10 sub-kingdoms ruled by the one top ruler called “antichrist”. The good news is that this is Satan’s downfall, because the entire image of the man in the dream in Daniel is brought down by the “Stone”, which represents Jesus Christ. Later we will try to expand this end of Satan’s rule over the earth and how it will be completely taken from Satan by Jesus for His 1000-year reign, while Satan is chained in hell. Remember, that God calls this His 7th Millenium or the 7th Day of Rest from Genesis 2:2 and Hebrews 4:8.

But never forget that iron is a working metal as well as a weapon metal. This is interesting because the image of the man began with wealth in the head, went to the cheaper metal silver, moving downward in the torso to bronze, yet a cheaper metal. The final metal iron legs, while very strong, are not that valuable unless we are working, planting, or fighting an enemy.

It is interesting to see the streets of the New Jerusalem are paved in “gold” one of the most valuable metals on earth, and God walks on this substance like it was our dirt, asphalt or concreate pavement. But let us quickly learn about the final significance of “iron” in the Word of God. It is very interesting that we can see Jesus Christ will rule during the millennium with a “rod of iron” and not one made of “gold”. This type of government rulership implies strict obedience with consequences for disobedience, but there are other verses in the Bible that must be balanced with this potential type of very strict rule.

God’s First Mention of Zayin

By the Law of First Mention, God establishes the fundamental definition of a “letter”, “word”, “concept”, “subject”, etc. in the remainder of the Bible. The first time the letter Zayin is to be found is in the 11th verse of Genesis 1 which is “Day 3” of God’s 6 total days of work in the creation of our current world. Please understand that a day represents 1000 years as defined by God in Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8. These 6 days of Genesis 1 are a prophecy of the 6000-year time of God’s and our human works on this earth.

Therefore, it is now important to note what happened during this time frame of human history from the year 2000 to the year 3000, which corresponds to the 3rd day prophecy hidden in creation. Most should understand that Abraham was engaged by God approximately 2000 years after the first Adam sinned. He gave birth to Isaac, who gave birth to the patriarch Jacob, who gave birth to the twelve founders of the 12 tribes of Israel. One brother named Joseph was sold into slavery and taken to Egypt. Over the course of time, he becomes the second in command, as leader of the nation of Egypt during two very critical 7-year periods of human history.

The first 7 years were foretold in a dream to be times of plenty, where God instructed Joseph to store up food provisions for the next 7-year period which would be a time of severe drought and famine where there would be no food that could be grown to eat. Wow, do you see any connections being made to our 7th letter Zayin picture representing a plow? This is more amazing than you might understand right now.

During the 7-year time of famine the family of Joseph’s father Jacob and his 11 brothers went hungry and were desperate to obtain food. So, they heard about food being available in Egypt and sent some brothers to buy food. This again was the fulfillment of another dream that God gave to Joseph about 11 stars, and the sun and the moon bowing to him. We will not cover the entire account of this message for the sake of time. But we must realize that this was when all the family of Jacob, 70 in total moved to Egypt to be favored by the sold into slavery son Joseph who rules.

After Jacob, and Joseph die they produced a lot of descendants that remained in Egypt for 430 years. The entire nation becomes slaves of Egypt because of new Pharaohs, that knew not Joseph. Adding up all the years we have gone over quickly, we get to the time that was prophesied to Abraham in Genesis 15:13. This was when God sends the people of Israel a deliverer named Moses who was also raised up as a ruler in Egypt like Joseph.

God performs 10 major signs and wonders that eventually resulted in Pharoah letting God’s chosen people go. After their release and while traveling through the wilderness, Moses was given the first recorded “Word” of God that began with 10 commandments that were written by the finger of God. During the next few years Moses is also given 5 books of the Old Covenant called the “Torah”. All these written words were also called God’s “Seed” by Jesus in Luke 8:11. All this spreading of God’s seed is occurring around the years of 2668 AC in the middle to the end of Day 3 of creation (aka 3000 years).

This is amazing since the first 6 occurrences of the letters “Zayin” spoken by God in the Bible were found in the written account of the description of Day 3 of creation. There are 3 Zayins found in verse 11, and 3 Zayins found in verse 12 totaling 6 in these two Genesis 1 verses. Remember we have seen that this 3rd day of creation since the beginning of Adam’s creation, represented a total of 3000 years of elapsed human time. This information on the timing of the first mention of the Zayin, corresponds prophetically with God’s first “sowing” of His written Word to man. God appears to have prophesied His Seed coming into the world exactly within the time of the 3rd day of elapsed time of the first 3000 years.

To confirm this reality notice that Genesis 1:11 is amazingly about the “sowing” of “seed” to produce “fruit” with more “seed” within itself. This is very significant since this verse outlines the entire plan of God for humans, beginning from Genesis 1 moving to the last book of Revelation. God’s plan was to “sow” His Seed (Word) into a created human garden (Heart of Man) that will eventually produce His desired “fruit” for a soon coming harvest (James 5:7). Here is the first verse containing God’s the first 3 usages of the letter Zayin.

Gen 1:11  And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

The first Zayin word was translated as “yielding” but this word H2232 means “to sow”.  This word is spelled Zayin + Resh + Ayin and can be transliterated as “Zawrah”. This word is translated almost exclusively as a form of the word “sow”, a verb meaning the planting of the seed (noun).

The Hebrew word H2233 translated “seed” is spelled with the same consonants as H2232; Zayin + Resh + Ayin. But these two words have differing pronunciations. H2233 (Seed) can be transliterated as “Zehrah” and H2232 (Sow) was Zawrah. This word H2233 was primarily translated as a form of the word “seed”.

But a “seed” in the Bible has multiple meanings depending upon the context. It is highly recommended that you go and study the series of lessons about “Understanding Seeds”. A “Seed” sometimes can be natural, meaning a male sperm, sometimes it can be a fruit seed or herb “seed”, and then it can also sometimes be a natural “child” that was born of a woman, etc. to name only a few examples.

The concept of “seed” is very important in the Bible, because we discover in the Life of Jesus, walking in the flesh, He spoke of Himself being a “Sower” that was “sowing” the “Word of God” (Seed). That is huge! This connects us directly between the natural usage and the application of the “Zayin” into the spiritual usage as the application as sowing seeds to be “words” spoken by a “mouth”.

This is why we just went through a quick introduction to the connection of the first “Zayin” letters written in Day 3 of the creation of “fruit” producing trees whose seed is inside the fruit that is produced. Trees are symbolically referred to as “people” in several references (Isa 55:12, Psalm 1:3, Prov 13:2, Rev 22:2, to name a few). The “seed” is symbolically representative of spoken words as revealed in Mark 4:14. There is much more but we need to continue with the Zayin.

Genesis 1 Creation Prophecy
7th letter Zayin God’s Beginning and Ending

Remember, Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis describe 7 days of God’s creation. There were 6 days of God’s “works” and one day of God’s “rest”.  This represents one week of God’s time. It is good to believe that these were 24-hour days of creative time. But do not just limit your concepts of what is being spoken of to that only. Rather begin to consider this week to be defined using God’s definitions of a day of time.

In fact, each of these creation days must be defined by God’s definition for us to begin to understand how they are a hidden prophecy of the duration of human time here on earth in our present created world system. Remember Isaiah 46:10 says, “Declaring the end from the beginning”. This teaches us that God’s endings are encoded within the words written of the beginning (Genesis).

What we should have already discovered is that each creation day is a prophecy of 1000 year length on God’s total duration of the complete 7000-year timeline. In other words, these 7 days are each a single 1000-year period. We will find that the last 7th day, is described to us in Revelation 20 which will be a 1000-year reign of Christ without any evil influences of Satan and his unclean spirits of the darkness. Many call this day 7, the millennial reign of Christ.

We achieve this revelation of one day as being a 1000-year period, and 1000 years is as 1 day to the Lord from reading Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8. Let us go back to the Beginning to get a quick new overview from the 7th “Zayin” letter viewpoint.

As we discovered in the last section, in chapter 1 of Genesis, we saw that God created plants, herbs, trees with fruit and other forms of eatable substances on Day 3 of creation. All of this describes a God who was working as a Zayin type of farmer, who is planting seeds in His garden. And then in verse 8 of chapter 2 of Genesis, God is specifically described to be planting a precise garden He called “Eden”. Therefore, the concept of “Zayin” is strongly being discussed by God within His creation work process. But God’s farming tools are not like human plows and hoes. Or are these natural concepts similar and are used in symbolic terms to describe unseen spiritual realities?

Psa 33:6  By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

Wow, how did God create everything?  We can read in Psalm 33:6 that the Words of God’s mouth was what created everything in our universe. At least 10 times in Genesis 1 it is recorded “God Said” and then it is written afterwards that “God Saw”. Therefore, God speaking words out of His Spirit mouth caused all of creation to manifest.

Notice that all these 6-days of the work of God appears to be a “peacetime” application of God’s Words which were described to be His “work” to “create” (recreate) our present world. Therefore, the 6 days of work and the 1 day of rest connects us to what we are learning about in the letter Zayin to the creation in Genesis 1. We are observing is the further confirmation that God’s primary “Zayin” tool to create is defined to be His mouth speaking creative “Words”. This occurred during an apparent peace time, meaning there were no enemies on earth to fight with during these creation days.

Now let us consider the last book of the Bible called Revelation. This book has 54 occurrences of the number 7. Is that a coincidence that the Zayin is the 7th letter, and it represents a farm plow and wartime sword? Here is a list of the key “sevens” in the book of Revelation:

There are Seven Churches, Seven Spirits, Seven Golden Candle Sticks (Lamps), Seven Stars, Seven Seals, the Lamb with Seven Horns and Seven Eyes, Seven Angels, Seven Thunders, a Great Dragon with Seven Heads & Seven Crowns, Seven Last Plagues, Seven Golden Vials, Seven Kings and Saven Mountains.

God appears to be emphasizing the number 7 in this final book making it of great importance. But it is also important to see how the book of Revelation ends. There is a very specific and significant mention of an ending final garden in chapter 22 which is being watered from the throne of God by a flowing river. Notice that this ending garden only contains the “tree of life” which produces 12 kinds of fruit continuously every month (implied 12 repetitions each year). Therefore, this garden has resulted in a never-ending supply of “fruits”, and we are told the leaves of the trees are good to produce healing for the nations. Remember the key reason for a Genesis 1 initial “Zayin” plow is designed to produce a food supply for the ending harvest.

Here is where it gets more interesting to our study of the “Zayin”. In the book of Revelation before the ending time of ending peace found in chapter 22, there is at least 12 times of either directly stated or strongly implied Zayin weapons of “war” being mentioned. This means God’s final plan before “Peace” comes a great war. It also shows us that this means there will be no further need for war after chapter 21 and only the “Zayin” applications of sowing and reaping food for life and peace will occur.

But before this final peace occurs, there are a very significant number of accounts of fighting and war taking place with weapons, especially “swords”. And the amount of blood (Mem) that will be flowing is way beyond our full comprehension. That teaches us that there will be a lot of bloodshed and warfare taking place during the 7 years of tribulation. Uh oh? There was another seven, and another application of the “Zayin” tools of iron.

For example, in Revelation 1:16 Jesus is described to have a “sharp two-edged sword” coming out of His mouth. This is clearly a reference to a “Zayin” war time weapon. But this is not a natural weapon, it can only be a spiritual weapon that is found within the spiritual realm. Notice, it is in His mouth meaning this is another reference to His spoken words. Words will be God’s strong and powerful weapons of War against His enemies. Notice this verse:

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Pay attention that these words were spoken before the crucifixion on the cross. Therefore, these words were spoken to describe the Zayin peacetime plow type of farming where Jesus was only there on earth to sow seeds to produce new life in humans. But in the Book of Revelation Jesus’ words are Zayin swords and they are not being spoken to produce life on the earth for those it is being wielded against, rather these spoken words produce death.

But notice that this “mouth sword” of Jesus is first directed at the church of Pergamos in chapter 2 verses 12-16. In Verse 12 Jesus is again described to have this sword in His mouth, and then in verse 16, the church is ordered to repent or else Jesus will come and “fight” against them with this sword.

Then in Revelation 19:15 we find Jesus coming to the earth to “fight” against all the nations of the earth with this same sharp mouth sword. Therefore, we have discovered the spiritual application of both planting and fighting of the “Zayin” tool and weapon are “words” that are spoken.

Rev 2:12  And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;

Rev 2:13  I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.

Rev 2:14  But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.

Rev 2:15  So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

Rev 2:16  Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth

We do not want our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ coming against us with the sword of His mouth if we are real Christians. Is this possible for Christians to die early because of sin? If you do not believe this is possible, this concept is repeated and written about in 1 Corinthians 11:23-33. This “sword” can be turned to prune those in the church, and it is a warning that is written to the church, not lost unbelievers. Soon we will learn that this same sword will be turned on the lost people of the earth, but He must first begin at the House of God (1 Pet 4:17).

Therefore, we have confirmed that this letter Zayin will represent something different to God in times and places of peace versus during times and places of judgment and war. Remember peace time usages were designed for agricultural “sowing” of “seed” to produce fruit for food to sustain life. But in times of war, the farmer is required to bring his same powerful “metal” tools of strength after they are reformed to engage in a battle to destroy and eliminate their enemies. However, remember that God’s weapons of war and His farming tools are not carnal (2 Cor 10:4). God is a Spirit (Jn 4:24) and all His power originates from His mouth (Heb 1:3) which releases God’s Spiritual force (Jn 6:63), that cannot be withstood by any angel or human (Heb 4:12).

If you have read the study lesson on the preceding Hebrew letter “Vav”, you were already introduced to many of the basic concepts of this letter “Zayin”. This is because the letters “Vav”, “Zayin” and the next 8th letter “Chet” are significantly connected as a prophetical picture of the end of human time upon the earth. These letter combinations are another example of the amazing intelligent design of the Hebrew Alphabet Creator and Author of the Bible, who is God (“Elohiym”).

Joshua and Zayin Pattern of Victory

There are clues hidden everywhere in the Bible for us to search for and discover. One very significant pattern of the “Zayin” is given to Joshua by God. This story is relating to the battle and war symbols of the Zayin as a “sword”. In this story Joshua is given specific instructions on how to defeat their enemy in the city of Jericho. Let us read the instructions given by God:

Jos 6:1  Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in.

Jos 6:2  And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour.

Jos 6:3  And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.

Jos 6:4  And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets.

Jos 6:5  And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.

God’s primary connections in this passage to the Zayin should be obvious. It involves the number seven being mentioned several times, and the fact that Israel was in a war to overcome an enemy in their promised land that was given to them by God.

But notice how God fights. God’s warfare tactics are very different than human thinking. God begins by informing Joshua they have already won in verse 2, even though there have been no battles fought. Next, God tells the army of Israel to march around the city one time a day for the next six days. Six days are a pattern of the 6000 years of human history as we have seen in Peter “a day is as 1000 years to the Lord”.

However, God gives them another very strange but Zayin connecting requirement. God tells them to put 7 priests ahead of the army with 7 trumpets and they will go before them around the city with the “Ark” of the covenant of God. Israel follows these instructions for 6 days, and then on the 7th day representing completion, God had already told them of a plan of increase.

On the 7th day they must march around 7 times and then the 7 priests will blow their 7 trumpets and all the army will shout very loudly like they have already won the war, and then the walls would fall flat. With the elimination of the walls, the enemy is easily defeated. Remember much of the army of Jericho was probably on the walls when they fell.

Do be believe God intentionally emphasized the number 7 on purpose? Hopefully, it should be obvious to everyone. God also connects the voice of victory with the number 7 of the Zayin causing another confirmation that victory is in the mouth of the one with the Zayin sword of war in their mouth. But this time it is the weapon of “praise” for the victory before they saw it fulfilled. That is very interesting, isn’t it? Could you shout for victory when it looked like you were faced with a great and strong walled city of armed warriors?

This is called “faith”. It is us hearing, believing, and obeying what God says even during a time of overwhelming odds. In our case, our Joshua is Jesus our Messiah. We are the kings and priests of God in this world. We are told to walk by Faith and not by sight in 2 Corinthians 5:7. This means we are to ignore the giants, the walls, the sword words of our enemies, and focus only on what God said for us to do. Then it is always good to shout and praise God even when you think it is impossible for you to win. Afterall, we know God better than anyone, and He has said, “You are of God little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you, than he that is against you” (1 Jn 4:4). We should learn that God has already given us the victory in Christ before we see the victory in the world. While we look not at the things that we see, but we focus upon the eternal that we cannot see, we know the victory is ours!

Jesus – God’s Seed Gift of Peace to Humans
And Our Sword Against Our Enemy

Let us continue the Zayin subject by looking at the life of Jesus and how he is fulfilling the prophecies found in the picture of the letter Zayin. Perhaps you have already begun to see it. Hopefully, you have thought of Bible verses, that have the characteristics of the plow in peacetime, and the sword in warfare and how Jesus fits both patterns to fulfill them. Let us start with what Jesus Himself claimed to be, found in John 6:

Joh 6:32  Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

Joh 6:33  For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.

Jesus is speaking to the Jewish people, and He begins to speak about “True Bread” that is coming down from His Father in heaven. He begins by telling them of miraculous “bread” called “manna” that was sent down from heaven because the people needed food in the wilderness.

If you recall this story, you will already know that this account took place every week. Each day the people were required to go out and pick up food for the day and they did this for 6 days. But on the sixth day they were required to go out and pick up food for two days so that they could honor God’s Sabbath rest on the 7th day. Wow! Isn’t it amazing that this pattern fits the fact that the 7th letter is the Zayin also by God’s design. There is no way, that this is a coincidence.

Joh 6:35  And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Three times in this chapter Jesus personally claims to be God’s Bread of Life that came to satisfy human hunger and thirst. But Jesus was not speaking of physical eating and drinking like many thought He was. What we are observing is Jesus’ personal declaration to be the fulfillment of the letter Zayin. Just apply what you know about natural farming and transfer it into the spiritual realm, and it should become clearer very soon. Let us begin this process with His physical birth.

The first physical appearance of God on the earth was in the body of the child Jesus born in Bethlehem. This baby that was born in a humble manger appears to be God’s reason to send a great announcement of peace as we can read in Luke 2:14. When this occurred the angels of God proclaimed, “Peace on Earth and Goodwill to men”. This birth announcement went out to shepherds near Bethlehem and to the world.

What we soon discover is that by God giving a humble birthplace to the baby Jesus in a manger and then quickly sending shepherds to see Him first, reveals to us that God came into the world as a harmless “Lamb”. His chosen peaceful symbol would become the sin sacrifice for all humans by shedding the “Blood of God” to pay the high cost for our redemption. This truly exemplifies the part of His Zayin peaceful intention for His appearance on the earth.

We also find that when Jesus came to John to be baptized 30 years later, John confirms this act of peace by saying, “Behold the Lamb of God” in John 1:29. Jesus lived on the earth for 30 years in peace, without sin, and without fighting His enemy Satan. This is the beginning of the pattern of a peaceful Lamb sacrifice on a cross on Passover for every human’s reconciliation to reestablish peace and to restore sinful humans back into the favor of God (2 Cor 5:19).

Jesus’ birth was designed as God’s Zayin planting seed time of “peace”. But this time was also the simultaneous continuation time of God’s Zayin sword cutting and dividing warfare against Satan, the adversary. Satan knew this and saw this new child to be a threat that needed to be killed quickly. Satan recalls the prophecy made against him in the garden. This was when God prophesied the “seed” of a woman would bruise his head (Gen 3:15).

Did you notice the emphasis upon a “seed” in the Genesis 3:15 prophecy? This is a clear connection to the “Zayin” plow and planting concept. Therefore, Satan has been attempting to corrupt the human blood line and to kill all males, and especially people that descended from the natural “seed” of Abraham within the nation of Israel for the past 4000 years.

Remember while Jesus was still a growing child under 2years old, Herod heard about a new king of the Jews that had come into the world through the news of the wise men (Mat 2:2). Herod became very angry at hearing this news after they failed to return to tell him where the child was located. Herod gave orders to kill every male child under 2 years old beginning at Bethlehem and all the surrounding cities (Mat 2:12-13). This was certainly not a time of peace between Satan and God or man. But it was as time of peace between God towards humans. But we still observe how Satan was using humans to fight against humans attempting to kill God in the Holy Child Jesus (Mat 2:16).

But God also warned Joseph to take the child Jesus to Egypt for a time until Herod was dead. Jesus continued to grow in wisdom, and He began his earthly ministry at about the age of 30 (Luke 2:40). Since Jesus grew in spirit and in wisdom, this proves Jesus was not on the earth as God manifested in His omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient powers. It is important to know that the Almighty God intentionally came to the earth in human form, temporarily stripping himself from his deity powers to show humans how to overcome as mortals. However, the key overcoming power would be that we would receive the Holy Spirit and His anointing like Jesus did (Acts 10:38). It is this partnership between God and humans that gave us the ability to win against Satan.

This time of the 3 ½ years of the ministry of Jesus was designed by God for one of many primary purposes being to fulfill the letter Zayin concept of sowing seed into the hearts of people (Mat 13:3, Mark 4:3, Luke 8:5). This peace time ministry of Jesus ended on the Tav cross with Jesus submitting to Satan’s power of death to destroy death for every human (Heb 2:14).

Jesus’ death was designed by God to initiate the end of Satan’s rule upon the earth (2 Cor 4:4). If you observe in 2 Corinthians 5:17, God writes that everyone that enters into Christ has become a “New Creation”. This plainly says Jesus began something brand new at His resurrection from the dead that took Satan by complete surprise. What was this? Read this verse carefully:

Col 1:18  And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

God is informing and describing what is happening in His newly created creation. This originates with Christ first as God’s firstborn Seed from the dead. Then in us who are being joined with Christ by us entering Him by believing in His Word (Seed), causing us to be spiritually born again from the dead (Jn 3:3). Wow! Did you understand those statements? Isn’t this what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3, and doesn’t it match with the concepts we are learning in the Zayin?

Joh 3:3  Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Watch what the “Son of Man” Jesus Christ just said to a mortal sinner man. Jesus places Himself into a prophetical statement about a coming new birth that has never existed before. This confuses the expert in the law Nicodemus who was thinking of natural births. Jesus was clearly not speaking of this at all.

Joh 3:5  Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Joh 3:6  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Joh 3:7  Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

Here in these statements Jesus is foretelling His natural and spiritual deaths on the “Tav” cross. This event was the initiation of the end of the “present” “old creation” that we are transitioning out of right now by believing in Jesus by God’s Grace through our “faith” partnership. However, the main point that needs to be understood in this section, is that Jesus became the “Firstborn from the dead” so that He could have preeminence in God’s New Creation.

This is clearly a new revelation for many disciples of Jesus Christ. This has been written in the Bible for two thousand years and many are just now finding out about it. Why was it necessary for Jesus who was God, to start a new creation that never existed before, by first experiencing a “death” and then to begin a “new life” system of existence? This cannot be fully taught today, but it all has to do with Lucifer/Satan who was a major part of God’s first creation.

It is purposefully designed by God that Satan can never become born again and this eliminates him from God’s transitioning new kingdom ruled by our personal Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. When we were born again, God delivered us out of Satan’s kingdom of darkness causing us to be translated into the Kingdom of Light ruled by the Son of God (Col 1:12-13). This is why all power in heaven and earth was given to Jesus Christ, but this happened only after He was raised from the dead (Mat 28:18) and making Him the first born from the dead. Five times in the Word of God, Jesus is called the “firstborn” in Rom 8:29, Col 1:15, Col 1:18, Heb 12:23, Revelation 1:5. Do you believe God is trying to get us to see something that you may have never seen before? This is huge if you can see it. Even in Romans 8:29 Jesus is called the firstborn among many brethren. These brethren are those of us that have been born again with Him into His Kingdom. But we were not born first, He was!

Did you know that Jesus had natural brothers on the earth? We can read about them in Matthew 13:55 and Acts 3:22. Did you know Jesus had spiritual brothers? Gentiles are not His natural brothers born of Mary or of the tribes of Israel, and that only leaves us to be a member of His spiritual family. Doesn’t this fact also eliminate Satan and all his angels from entering into Jesus, the Son of God’s Kingdom of Light? Yes, it does!

All this work of God in Jesus is God doing what God does best. He does things differently than us. If we were fighting Satan, and we were God, we would probably just go with a big angel and immediately cast him into hell when sin was found in him. But guess what? God is a God of “Peace” (Rom 15:33, Rom 16:20, 2 Cor 13:11, Php 4:9, 1 Thes 5:23, Heb 13:20).

God is also a righteous God (2Tim 4:8, Rev 16:5) and He is certainly a Holy God (Eph 4:20, 1 Ths 4:8, 1 Pet 1:16). This means He is “Just”, and He must “Judge” rightly. All these facts simply mean His ways of warfare and fighting an adversary are much different than sinful human or fallen angel ways. What are we learning? God utilized peaceful manners of activities without war to initiate the ultimate defeat of Satan. Check out the Zayin plan of God in Jesus Christ:

Joh 12:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

In the plan of God for Jesus, He came into the world as a “seed” to be planted (to die, and to be buried in a tomb for 3 days). Jesus claims it was God’s plan to do this because, if He had not done this, He would have forever been alone without His new spiritual family. But since He willingly died on a cross, He was planted by God as a “Seed” that would bring forth much fruit. Fruit to God, is defined as people (Jas 5:7). If we have been born again from the dead, we were planted with Him and have also been raised up with Him from the dead (Rom 8:11, Eph 2:4-6).

Do you see at least some of the “Zayin” prophetical types being mentioned in this example of peaceful victory over our enemy Satan through the “seed” planting of Christ? This sounds amazing and too good to be true. Can you see how God does things perfectly and different than us? Let us begin to see the part of the Zayin that is yet to come on the earth next, for this time it will be with a great display of power and might with a Zayin “Sword”.

The second time Jesus comes to set foot upon the earth, He will not be coming in “peace” against man or Satan. With this appearance He will possess a Zayin “sharp two-edged sword”, that will be coming out from His mouth”. This weapon is the fulfillment of Jesus in an image of the “Zayin” weapon of war, that will bring the final victory over all evil (Rev 19-22). Before we learn about this final phase let us discover how the peaceful works of Jesus on the earth as “seed” divided God from Satan.

The Peace Zayin Works of Jesus Christ as a Man Sent to Die

The fact that the “Zayin” farm implements are made of metal is very significant. For example, the “plow” design of this letter leads us to conclude this tool has the potential for great work when connected to great strength and power like the “Alef” ox picture. We should have already seen how the “ox” represented a strong servant and this represented God’s presence in Jesus. Please go and study this letter “Aleph” if you have not yet discovered Jesus’ connection to this “first” letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet.

As a quick reminder the letter “Aleph” is spelled in word form as “Alef” + “Lamed” + “Peh”. Placing the meanings of these letters together we arrive at the meaning “God’s Strong Authority is in His Mouth”. That is interesting since we have already been introduced to the fact that Jesus’ Zayin Sword will be in His mouth at the end of the book of Revelation. Let us remember how the natural plow works and how it is a symbol of the work of God in Jesus, the Son of God.

It takes both great authority and great power to accomplish work that will be used to “divide” the soil, also called earth. It is this work that will prepare the ground for the planting of seed (Nun). If you are not familiar with how a plow works, it has a blade of iron that is designed to “cut” through the soil to loosen it up and to create a row to receive “seed” (Nun). Therefore, we are learning that the “Zayin” letter made of iron has a very strong representation of “cutting” and “division”. This is amazing because Jesus makes this direct claim in Luke 12:51:

Luk 12:51  Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division

We can clearly see that Jesus has claimed that one of His main purposes for coming to the earth was to “divide”, and this strongly implies that there is a symbolic metal cutting tool that was brought into the world to accomplish this part of the plan of God. In Matthew 10:34, Jesus confirmed this weapon is a sword which is another type of metal cutting tool for war.

But do not forget that Jesus claimed to be a spiritual “seed” planter in Matthew 13:2 and Mark 4:1, and this too clearly implies the need for a plow cutting tool to prepare the soil (hearts of men). Yet the parable of the Sower appears to never mention this tool, rather it mentions sowing seeds upon 6 types of soil where three soil types fail to produce fruit.

There is no direct mention of a plow in the first two soil types. If you recall the first soil type was the hardened travel path where no seed could even enter it allowing the birds to easily eat it. We learn later that this soil represents people whose mind is blinded by Satan so that they are unable to understand the Word that was spoken to them. This clearly means there was never a plow to prepare that heart to receive “seed” (Word of God). This soil type also strongly implies that it is under the complete control of the foot of Satan who treads upon it as he wills (2 Tim 2:26).

The second soil type is explained to be “stony” ground. This is a heart that was shallow soil and it had big, hardened rocks that did not allow roots to develop. Jesus said, when the heat of the sun rose it dried the plant and it produced no fruit. This also represented soil that was never plowed. We can tell this because plowing would have found these buried rocks, to alert the plow handler to remove them. Reading the explanation of Jesus, these stones in the human heart were also the work of Satan placing a shallow mind unable to endure when persecution and pressures from Satan controlled people that caused them to turn away from salvation, to not produce fruit.

The third soil type is one that produces plants, but it is not well cared for because of the world’s distractions and this person loses focus off the Word of God to make it their fullest priority. Therefore, Jesus said this soil produced weeds that choked out the plant from the seed that was designed by God to produce fruit.

Because there is a mention of hard soil, rocky soil, and soil laden with choking out weeds, no plow was utilized to prepare their human heart. What was the plow that Jesus used to prepare the way for His seed planting? We should remember that God sent John to baptize people for their repentance. This appears to be God’s plan to make human hearts, open, tender, and receptive to receive the Words (Nun=Seed) of Jesus.

Therefore, those that never repented like most of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes this lack of true repentance caused their heart soil to remain very hardened and unfruitful. The other 3 soil types that produce “fruit” with either a 30-, 60- or 100-fold increase heavily implies it is well cultivated, prepared, and they all have repentant hearts to make them tender and open minded, to produce the fruit necessary for salvation that God desires to harvest.

Mat 3:1  In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,

Mat 3:2  And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Mat 3:3  For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 

As you can see John’s major work was speaking “words” to preach the need for repentance. Verse 2 declares this very clearly. John cried out “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is very near”.  Therefore, it remains that the Zayin plow was designed by God to plow people’s heart using “Words” of repentance. Repentance simply means to “change” the direction of thought in the human mind.

Notice John identified himself to be the one that Isaiah wrote about of a man that would come to “prepare” the “way” of the Lord. This simply confirms he was the first designed Zayin plow for God’s harvest field of human hearts. A term like the “Way” was what the early church called themselves (Acts 16:17, Acts 18:25). They were all followers of the “Way” of Jesus. This term according to John represented a “straight” path which is one that is figuratively based upon the “truth” as opposed to Satan’s ways that are dominated by falsehoods and deceptions. You may also remember that Jesus called Himself the “Way”, the “Truth”, and the “Life”. Or we could join these titles to say, “I am the only Way to True Life” (Jn 14:6), meaning all other ways are certain death.

As we are learning there are multiple Zayin applications and pointers connecting Jesus and humans to the plan of salvation division works of God’s Garden. We could go into a lot more detail, but this is only intended to be a strong introduction to the subject of the letter, Zayin.

Conclusion

We have been going through how Jesus fulfills the letter Zayin in the New Covenant in two ways. First se observed the peaceful use of the Zayin as the agricultural farming tools for planting, sowing, and harvesting the produced fruit of the ground for giving life. This certainly fit the work of Jesus precisely. But we have also seen the “Sword” of God in the mouth of Jesus that will bring about the defeat of Satan completely in Revelation.

We must understand that Jesus’ personal fulfillment of the Zayin took place in the natural realm but was not primarily focused upon a natural work. No, God is a Spirit (Jn 4:24) and Jesus came into the natural to fulfil the Zayin prophecies using God’s spiritual seed planting and weapons of Words to achieve spiritual fruits and victories over His enemies.

It is also very interesting to understand that in ancient times of plowing two sticks appearing the image of the letter “Tav” were placed at the end of the field that was to be plowed. The servant driving the ox plow would aim directly at these two sticks to plow a straight line. Sound familiar? This was a type of the work of John the Baptist to make the way straight for the LORD! If you have studied the letter “Tav” you know it is the image of a “cross”. This was God’s idea from His Son to go to the cross and to die. The typology found in plowing the ancient farm field is Jesus walking the plowed path to end his life on the cross.

For the church application of the Zayin, we must learn to do and say the same things as Jesus. Following His examples of sowing God’s Words of Good News will bring the increase of God’s Garden fruits for harvest (humans). Also, by placing the Word of God in our mouth to confess what He has spoken about us, places His powerful sword into our battle against the same enemy. Ephesians 6:10-17 describes the armor of God and He commanded us to put this on fully. In Ephesians 6:17 it is directly stated that the Sword (Zayin) of the Spirit is the Word of God! God makes things real simple for us to know what to do. Learn to say what God says, about the attack that the enemy is bringing upon you.

Thank you for readying and studying the Bible with us. Thank you for your faithful prayers. The time of the coming of the Lord is much nearer than most realize. Always stay prepared for His return. But while we wait, we continue to work to spread the kingdom of God and in doing this we cooperate with Him to put Satan under our feet before His return (Rom 16:20, Rev 12:1).

God bless you, and as long as the Lord is willing, we will continue this series to learn about the 22 letters of the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet. Hopefully, this has been a blessing. Please leave your comments and questions and we will be praying for you.

Intro Alef Beyt-1 2 Gimel Dalet Hey Vav Zayin Chet Tet Yod Kaf Lamed Mem 1 2 Nun Samekh Ayin Pey Tsade Qof Resh Shin TavAlef-Beyt Chart (Series updated as LORD directs and permits)

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

Is the Rapture of the Church a Reality in the Bible – Part 8 Jesus is Coming Soon

(Ver 1.0) There are many scoffers and rebukers of this Bible truth. Satan wants every Christian to not believe and have faith in the sudden and surprising return of Jesus Christ to catch away His bride. If you are a skeptic of this soon-coming reality it would be wise for you to go and read this series from the beginning. There are too many confirmations within typology and patterns given to us in the Bible for us NOT TO BELIEVE in this blessed hope (Tit 2:13).  If you have not read the entire series, please go to “Part 1” now.

Many Christians that criticize the “harpazo” catching away theological position found in the Bible. They instead accuse other Christians that believe in this reality, people who believe in “escapism” theology. Meaning we should never feel like we should be persecuted.  Yes, we are guaranteed “persecution” as promised by Jesus (Jn 15:20). However, we are NOT ever promised to go through the wrath of God according to Romans 5:9. God will never punish the righteous with the wicked as Abraham so pointed out speaking to God in Genesis 18:25. Jesus addressed this escapism condemnation by speaking to believers this statement:

Luk 21:36  Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. 

If you are Christ’s bride, called the church (ekklesia), then we are supposed to pray to God to be counted “worthy” to escape this world’s evils and this will happen when the “catching away” suddenly takes us up by sudden surprise a divine display of His great power.

Obtaining Faith for the Rapture

Today is Super Bowl Sunday in the USA. Wouldn’t this be a great surprise for the world to have Jesus catch away the church during the Super Bowl. Who would be looking for Him to come today? Who would go up in a rapture if they were not expecting to go? Many people believe everything happens in life automatically if it is the will of God. But is this what we are observing happening in the world today?

If 2 Peter 3:9 says “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance, does this mean everyone is guaranteed salvation? Absolutely not! There are thousands and millions of people going to hell every day and every month. If you believe rapture is not for you, and it happens, do you believe you would go? It would be shocking if this would happen according to the Bible. Jesus said very clearly “According to your faith, be it unto you.”

What we begin to learn from God in the flesh, is not everything that God desires to do is automatically becomes a reality to every human. God desires to save everyone, but everyone must receive the free gift. This logic requires us to also believe in a “rapture” event also. Think about it!

There are many people that believe in “Pre-Trib”, there are many others, that believe in “Mid-Trib”, there are others that believe in “Post-Trib” and finally, there are others that believe in in a No-Catching-Away. Could everyone be getting exactly what they believe? Could there be three catching away events? Could there be come that are not caught up at all? If you begin to view the Bible from this perspective, you might be surprised this would confirm why there are such conflicting views with each having scriptures to confirm their belief. Because everyone can view the same verses and select the one that they believe is truth ruling out all other verses.

Php 3:20  For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

The Greek word G553 is a word that means “To Expect Fully”. This very clearly teaches us that expectant “Faith” is our duty in awaiting our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ to appear in the clouds to take us up. Remember the angels in Acts 1, said “This Jesus that you have see go up will return in like manner”. This will be the rapture event when He stands in the clouds calling us up to meet Him as our bridegroom that calls out to His bride to bring us into the 7-year wedding feast in Heaven. This will be taking place while the wrath of God is being poured out upon the earth. Let us look at another rapture verse with the same Greek word G553:

Rom 8:23  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

This is a very interesting verse that is often overlooked as being related to rapture.  However, notice the Greek word translated as “waiting”. This is the same word to fully expect. What are we fully expecting to happen? We are waiting for the “redemption” of our bodies! When does this take place? It happens when we are caught up in a nano-second of time to meet Him in the air as described in 1 Corinthians 15:52 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

Only the Lord Jesus Christ has a fully redeemed and resurrected body in heaven right now. Everyone else already in heaven is awaiting this redemption and it will occur first. But then the redemption of the living people on the earth will immediately take place after the dead in Christ bodies go up first.

However, there is a requirement to believe in this happening just as believing to be saved is also a requirement. Believing must be fully joined and persuaded in our hearts with pregnant expectations of His coming as we are seeing in scriptures. We obtain faith for the promises of God from His word (Rom 10:17). Read these rapture verses out loud and get them into your heart. This will cause you to become ready.

Conclusion

I recently witnessed someone have a heart-attack with 99% blockage. If they had not been at the right place at the right time with access to help, they would be dead right now. Are you ready to meet Jesus? Are you expecting that He could appear any second? Is your mind on Him or on football? Today could be the day of His return, and yet who is ready? Who is looking for Him while they are partying and drinking their beers? God have mercy on us all and let us begin call out to God that we be made worthy to escape this coming tribulation. God make us ready to meet you. We love you and long for your return, but we also desire all our family and friends to also be ready. Even so Lord Jesus, come quickly.

If you have never received Jesus Christ as you personal Lord and Savior there is a link at the end of this post. This will be the most important decision of you life to begin your journey of salvation. Remember God loves you so much that He sent you here to read a way to know Him forever. Jesus died to make a way out of the darkness into His marvelous Light and today is the day of salvation, now is the time to accept Him before the time for all of humanity closes the door.

We love you all, Jesus Loves you all. Thank you for reading and praying for us. God will Bless us all.

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

Blessing of Christmas Joy and Peace — 2023

(Ver 1.0) It is amazing to think about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. The primary focus of this entire website is “LOVE” = “AGAPE” (G26). This is not the normal human type of selfish love, but rather it describes the God kind of Love defined to us 1 Corinthians 13. Human love is a feeling of loving someone because of what they can do for me. But God says in John 3:16 that He loved the unlovely sinful world enough to come to the earth in person to give His only naturally born Son, to die for us, so that we might be saved and not perish. Praise the LORD!

That should be the kind of giving Love that we choose to display for everyone that we encounter. It has been a great blessing to provide God’s messages of LOVE for over 14 years. The LOVE of God and His Word is the sole motivation for sharing with you what He gives freely to us all (Mat 10:8). Hopefully, you feel the same way.

While this month is not the actual time of season when Jesus was born, it is the time chosen to unitedly celebrate the event. Yes, it has become devil influenced and commercialized for corporate profit. The true meaning is being slowly minimalized with an emphasis of a man in a red suit coming down a chimney. Also, instead of telling people “Merry Christmas”, the politically correct greeting has been redirected by many people to only say, “Happy Holidays”. Nevertheless, a Christian can still choose to be a light to the world by remaining bold enough to hold fast to our confession of “HAVE A MERRY & BLESSED CHRISTMAS”. Please say it in love with a smile and if someone becomes offended, you are not to blame (Jn 15:18).

Many times, we have received the most negative comments about acknowledging and celebrating Jesus, on what they call a pagan day.  But we can choose to disagree without being mean and hateful to each other. Halloween is clearly demonic; Christmas is not a day where we dress as witches and goblins. No one should believe in Santa Clause or celebrate pagan traditions. But celebrating Jesus should be the number one focus for every Christian. Because God gave us the greatest gift, we are expressing His love to bless others with our gifts to them. Why does anyone have a problem with that? Do they dislike the giving, the receiving, or just the fact that it potentially costs money?

Ask God to open the door for you to share what this day is really about to someone else on this day. Share the “Gospel” that God chose to be born in a manager in Bethlehem as a male child (Mat 2:6). Tell them He was born of a virgin woman (Isa 7:14), and this will be miraculous unlike any other human entrance into the world. Tell them His Father was God in Heaven that created the heaven and the earth through Him (Eph 3:9). Tell them He died for the all-inclusive penalty for the sins of all humans by shedding His blood on a “Tav” cross (1 Jn 1:7). He did this as the greatest exchange in history. With Him becoming sin for us, so that we could become righteous to God (1 Pet 2:24). Thank you, Jesus!

What a blessing it is to have our names written in His “Lamb’s” book of Life (Luke 10:20)! What a blessing it is to have His Spirit living inside of us to help us, guide us and teach us everything that we need to know for every season of our lives (Jn 16:13). What a blessing it is to pray to Him every day and then listen to hear what He has to say back to us through His written Word and by the voice of His Spirit (Jn 10:3).

So, today you are being presented with a choice. A decision point within the short space of time of your existence in a temporary reality. You may choose to agree to celebrate with us in love because of Who He is, and What He did for us, and Everything this gift gave to us, or you may just choose to gripe, complain, about a post that is flawed with imperfect dates, and methods like you would prefer to choose. Or you could be apathetic and just do nothing.

But maybe some of you should consider another choice. Think back in time on what God has spoken to you to do in the past. Do the most significant something that He has always wanted you to do that was spoken to you many years ago when you heard but didn’t obey. Maybe it was fear that kept you from beginning the call? Maybe you believed you were not gifted, or smart enough to fulfill the call like Moses felt (Exo 4:10)? However, give God a chance and believe He will provide what you need to fulfill His plan, after you begin it by taking the first step. Wow! That is a Word for someone.

The time of the coming of Jesus is very, very short! Therefore, let us get busy in church serving others, preaching, and teaching the Word of God to anyone that will listen, going into the world to reach the lost before it is too late. Stop looking to correct everyone else because they don’t agree with you precisely to the letter of the law. Just teach what you know and believe to be the truth. Jesus did not tell you to go into all the world searching for false teachers and attack them. But rather Jesus commanded everyone to go into all the world and preach the Good News! Everyone that chooses to obey Him and give their lives, will and bodies to Him for His control, will be saved, and everyone that chooses not to believe will be damning themselves to an eternity in a lake of fire (Rev 21:8).

Here is one of our main emphases today again, Jesus Christ is coming back so much sooner than you know! What if it was in the next minute, after you finished reading this post and decided you still have time to get saved, so I’ll just wait.  Maybe you are saying to yourself, I am just having too much fun right now. But suddenly when you least expected it, Jesus appears in the heavens, and millions of people vanish instantly from the face of the planet. There will be some deceivers that will tell you, they were taken by aliens to cleanse the world of all the evil people and now the true humans were left here to save the planet from the coming “climate change” destruction of the planet. But it will be too late to then be saved from the most horrific time of human history called the Great Tribulation (Mat 24:21). Now is the best time to give your live to Jesus while the Holy Spirit is still speaking to your heart (Heb 4:7). There is a link to click below about knowing how to begin the walk with Jesus. Please click this link and leave a comment on it after you prayed the prayer. Thank you! It will be the best decision of your life, and we will meet again in heaven to share this experience with each other.

Conclusion

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

We are celebrating a baby child that was God in the flesh. What a powerful display of God’s humility to make Himself one of His creations to save us! This is the ultimate display of Love that anyone could possibly do for someone. God said, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!” (Rom 5:8). And Jesus also said, “No great Love has anyone, then He that lays down His life for His friends” (Jn 15:13).

My God has already richly blessed us all, with every spiritual blessing (Eph 1:3) and in doing this He gave to us everything that pertains to life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3). Remember if you have anything Good it is because God was the source of the gift (James 1:17). That makes this celebration a great time to “Give Thanks to God” for all His blessings. God has been faithful to us all and He will remain faithful (Heb 13:5), until He comes and takes us up, very soon (Rev 22:12).

Leave us a blessing today or share your prayer request so that all the readers will be able to pray and agree with you and with us at Agapegeek. Jesus loves you, and we love you more than we can express in words. Someday we will meet in heaven and have a lot to talk about knowing everything that Jesus has done for each of us. Praise the LORD Jesus!

This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. Have a very blessed and Merry Christmas. Amen!

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

Understanding the Sovereignty of God – Part 3 – Balancing Love’s Sovereign Power in Action

(Ver 1.0) This is “Part 3” in one of the most essential to understand subjects found in the Bible. Our subject series is about the “sovereignty” of God. This should be one of the first studies to be taught to every new believer because it reveals one of the major qualities of God being God. Every reader so far should agree with this belief that God is Sovereign to begin our study. This means not one of us had any say in anything that was created, how it works, or why it is here. We are all simply created beings existing for God’s sovereign purpose and will. If you would like to read this series from the beginning, please go to “Part 1“.

This subject should also be important to mature believers because it has often been taught in the past embedded with many traditions of human reason and philosophy. As you should now know our subject is about God’s eternal and omnipotent “Sovereignty”. But how we define the word sovereignty and apply this word to God and His creation makes all the difference to knowing the truth. For example, look at the words of Jesus speaking indirectly about this subject:

Mat 22:29  Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God

Apparently from this verse we learn that humans can possibly not understand the Words found in the Bible, yes, or no? Next, we can learn that any teacher of the Bible can also be in error, yes, or no? Jesus was speaking with the Jewish leaders that dramatically had two opposing views of this subject of resurrection.  The subject context of this statement of Jesus concerns the resurrection of the dead and what happens to a wife that had multiple husbands.

We know from basic common sense, that the subject of “resurrection” from the dead is a sovereign choice of God. No human chose this to exist, nor can any angel contribute to cause it not to exist. No, this is a prime example of God’s will and purpose to create concepts called “death” first but then also “resurrection” from the dead second. Both were God’s design, and His, alone.

Remember that there were two major doctrines of belief in Matthew 22. One is from the Sadducees that was asking the questions, these believed there was not going to be a resurrection. However, the Pharisee’s believed in the resurrection. Therefore, we learn doctrinal division is a common tactic of Satan, to attempt the divide the beliefs of those that God intended for unity of knowing His truth.

Jesus obviously rebukes these educated trained people saying to them, you neither understand the scriptures nor the power of God. The Greek word G1411 (dunamis) literally means supernatural power and this reference is applied to God the author of the Bible. In fact, it was God in the flesh that was speaking with them. Jesus directly confirms humans are fallible, capable of being in error. This is true of every modern Bible teacher that can be heard, including Agapegeek. This is exactly why we better do a lot of study with the help of the Author to guide us into what He really meant for us to learn. Nevertheless, doctrinal differences on sovereignty exist, and thus the reason for this lesson is to help resolve or at least reduce some of the reasons for divisions. Let us quickly analyze some of these differences.

Sovereignty has been defined by some to mean “God can do anything He likes, whenever He likes, and to whoever He likes”. But that is an extreme definition that potentially violates God’s revealed character which could produce wrong beliefs and deception. This type of belief attributes all evil to be part of God’s all-knowing plan. This brings some to believe Satan does not exist and has never done anything without God’s direction or permission.

However, a truer definition of the word “sovereign” should be viewed as “God has the highest and greatest level of authority and power, and there is none that is above Him”. This definition does not mean He is able to do anything at any time, even if He has the dunamis omnipotent power to do it. We know this because God says in Hebrew 6:18 that it is impossible for Him to lie. This simply means if God said something, it is this way and it will not change. And this teaches us God can never violate His spoken or written Words which have placed certain limitation upon what God is able to legally do and speak by His own sovereign choice.

Therefore, we must not study God’s “sovereignty” in isolation of all other related verses or by simply using only selected obvious or favorite scriptures.  All studies on any subject must balance every verse on the subject, and then combine these with the many other verses that reveal limitations to sovereignty like those that show the true nature and character of God as being, 1) Love, 2) Light, 3) Holy, 4) Righteous, 5) Patient, 6) Merciful, etc. We learned this principle in the first lesson of the series, but for added emphasis to its importance let us quickly review another list of God’s revealed unchanging character traits.

God is Sovereign
&
God is LOVE!

1Jn 4:8  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1Jn 4:16  And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

1 John 4:8 & 16 are very revealing verses, that identifies God to be LOVE! God declares that his truest and highest identifying characteristic is that He not only shows us love but He is LOVE! The Greek word G2076 translated as “is”, means “to be”. It is a very similar word to the Old Testament revelation spoken to Moses when God said, “say I AM sent you” (Exo 3:14). The Hebrew word H1961 translated as “I AM” is most often translated as “be”. In other words, God is declaring to “Be” LOVE, not just to choose to show love occasionally like humans do. Therefore, God is the Highest example of LOVE that exists. Wow! This sound important and this characteristic must be balanced with God’s true identity of being “sovereign”.

Within the 1 John 4 context, God states that if we desire to dwell in God (Love), and desire for God (Love) to dwell in us, then we must not only love God, but we must primarily love our fellow brothers and sisters, and this human choice qualifies us to be one with God. Wow, that is huge! It implies that if we are not walking in love with those that we can see in the flesh, how is it even possible for us to say we love God that we cannot see (1 John 4:20). Yet we see Christians today lying to each other, accusing each other, hating each other, etc. Yet they still claim to be a Christian, but we saw this contradicts God’s Word and this makes them hypocrites that are putting on an act for men but may be very surprised when Jesus returns.

The Greek word that God claims to be as “Love”, is G26 and this is the word “Agape” pronounced ag-ah’-pay meaning this is the type of God’s love. This type of love is not the human type or anywhere close to what humans call love. This is why this Agape love is infinitely higher and a superior type of “love” that dominates His every sovereign thought and action.  Since God has sovereignly chosen to be Love, He must correspondingly also sovereignly choose not to do anything evil, mean, or unfair to anyone. This simply describes another sovereign characteristic called “Self-Control”. This means even though He has the power and ability to kill you immediately when you do evil, He will not do it because it would be unjust and not according to His chosen nature and character.

We could easily debate the definition of love. This is because how we view love is normally very biased and perverted compared to God’s definition of love. Humans say they love their cat or dog. Humans say they love eating types of food or drinking some drinks. Humans say they even love their friends and relatives. Most spouses claim they love their husband or wife, until things get bad and then they suddenly leave them without warning. No human love like these stated above, represents God’s kind of spiritual love. Therefore, it is very fortunate for us that God gives us His definition of His type of love in 1 Corinthians 13. Let’s analyze this and compare what you have heard from other preachers teach you about God’s love and His sovereignty.

1Co 13:4  Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance.

1Co 13:5  Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense.

1Co 13:6  Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong.

1Co 13:7  Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.

1Co 13:8  Love never stops loving. (TPT)

These verses are taken out of “The Passion Translation”. But they are comparable with the KJV, NASB, the Amplified Bible or any other literal translation based on the original Greek text. These are extremely challenging statements. But this should be used for a direct comparison to how we love each other. Are you able to do this list of items to everyone that you know no matter how they act or what they do or say to you or about you? Does this list confirm the great job of love we can see in your words and actions despite how they treated you?

How do these described features and qualities of God’s type of LOVE exemplify or balance with your definition of God’s sovereignty? Then imagine how God reacts when humans treat Him unlovingly, or even blasphemously with their words and actions. Do you believe God will react to evil done to Him, the same as you would when evil is done to you. Romans 5:8 says, “God shows His love for us, (proving it) in while we were yet sinners (not loving to him or others) He died for us”. That means God does good things even when no one deserves it. That is the God kind of Sovereignty and Love.

Let us stop and ask, can you see Jesus’ example of love shown to us, in these descriptions? Go back and reread the Gospels and notice how everything that He did was “LOVE” based. Whether he was healing sick people, raising dead people, or dying on a cross, “LOVE” dominated every action and WORD spoken. Then recall Jesus said, “When you have seen me, you have seen the Father”. This speaks volumes, to describe God’s sovereign acts and the motivations behind them. Whatever, God sovereignly chooses to do to you, or for you, He will base His motivations on LOVE designed for our “good” (Jer 29:11).

Do you recall how the risen from the dead Jesus reacted to the evil acts of Saul of Tarsus killing Christians? Jesus took it very personally what Saul was doing to His saved body of believers (Acts 9). These are controversial thoughts to think. God permitted Saul to do evil to His people, but met with him suddenly to do what?

Jesus’ reaction was with LOVE, instead of fierce hatred, or anger. This was clearly not the normal human reaction. What would you do to someone that killed one of your children? Jesus’ heart was not to kill him and send him to hell, but rather to save Saul and change Him to Paul who wrote 2/3 of the New Testament. Wow! That was the real God’s kind of LOVE!

Many will quickly argue and say, “what about when this evil that happened to me, or my wife, or my husband, or my child, or whoever”. Why did they die, why did they get sick, hurt, and need to suffer? But did God really do evil to any of these people? Never forget there is an evil being that is a master at getting people to blame God for what he is doing to them.

Yet, this belief that God does not commit evil, raises a new question. If God did not commit the evils, He certainly permitted it all to happen as we just saw looking at Saul of Tarsus. However, don’t forget that there are too many other reasons why God “must” allow evil to happen based upon what He has said.

The number one reason for evil on the earth came when God sovereignly gave Adam the right to make his own sovereign choice to choose between life and death (Gen 2:17). Adam did this by choosing to know evil instead of rejecting it (Gen 3). It was this single rebellious action of Adam that caused evil (Satan) to enter the world (2 Cor 4:4) and gave him the sovereign right to rule our world. This single act by Adam (Rom 5:12), set everything else negative in motion in our world.

This evil continued to grow until God sovereignly chose to begin to intervene personally to judge sin (Gen 6:7). These works of God began the process of salvation. They continued until they were fully made available at the entrance of God in the flesh in the form of a man named Jesus (Mat 1:21), who came into the world to redeem man and to reverse his curse of death and hell, and to take back their keys (Rev 1:18).

Here is a major clue to knowing God in the truest way. Did you ever see Jesus kill anyone? Did you ever see Jesus make anyone sick or give them cancer? Did you ever see Jesus kill someone’s husband or wife or child? The answer to all these questions is “no”! In fact, we see Jesus doing the opposite of all these evils, healing them, and raising them from the dead. Therefore, God the Father and the Holy Spirit, have never done this either. None of these describe a loving God that is patient and kind. This literally, means God is not pre-selecting some to go to hell either, because this violates the definition of “LOVE”. Get it?

Common Sovereignty Beliefs – Review

We are moving towards balancing two subjects: love and sovereignty. Evey unbalanced Bible study and teaching on these subjects create highly controversial beliefs and they have initiated great theological wars. Brothers and sisters in Christ that should be walking in love towards each other have suddenly become hated enemies.

Each side of the debate claim victory because each believes they have the complete understanding of the subject and all others in disagreement are deceived. That is not a Christ centered resolution based upon His “LOVE” and it is not a right way to deal with any subject disagreements. Hopefully we will find a better way to study the Bible today based upon God’s kind of “Love” (Agape) in this lesson. Let us review a few of the common beliefs on God’s sovereignty next.

There are many that believe God is in ultimate extreme control of every minor detail in the universe and nothing happens without His sovereign involvement and approval. This is an extreme form of the doctrine of “determinism”. This simply states, God determines the outcome of everything, and this is also associated with the doctrine of extreme “pre-determinism” meaning nothing has ever happened without God pre-determining the outcome of every circumstance and situation. This belief clearly implies God has determined all good events as well as planned and implemented every evil event.

It further pushes the belief that there are no other factors of influence that can affect any result or ending, much less begin anything new or even help anything to develop good or evil. In other words, God is like the ultimate puppet master and only He pulls all the strings to cause anything to happen. In other words, you had no say in what time you woke up this morning, or even what you ate today. This means humans have no freewill. However, is this really what the Bible says?

There is also another position of belief for some. This belief is called “pantheism”. “Pantheism” is a belief that the created universe “is God”. Therefore, if everything created is “God”, then whatever is happening in the “God” universe whether good or evil, is also the will of God and the plan of God.

All these positions are extremes that must ignore significant scriptures in the Bible that teach us these beliefs cannot be remotely or entirely true. Therefore, what we must stop, and state plainly is that each belief type of determinism, pre-determinism and pantheism has some individual elements of truth. But none have the complete truth. To make a single or isolated truth, the only truth, is simply the exaltation of a human standing upon “isolationism” based upon the individual choice of extremism, that must ignore all contradictory truths or the attempt to balance them together to resolve conflicts. “Determinism”, “pre-determinism” and “Pantheism” are just a sampling of a “one sided” theological debate containing a position of extremism and error.

However, the other side of human belief is the extreme position that either there is no God, or God is not controlling anything just as if He does not exist. This could be called the beliefs of “non-existence” that preaches the religion of “humanism” and “evolutional creation” of life originating from non-living substances over massive time elements. We commonly call these types of beliefs “atheism” or “agnosticism”.

Then there is the belief that God is like a clock maker that created the universe as a self-winding mechanism, and He has no need to operate it but may just check on it occasionally. These types of believers represent humans that think of a God that exists, but he is not caring enough to be involved in His creation. This is a belief of “non-intervention” in all the affairs of angelic and human beings. These thoughts are called “deism”, a belief in a god but not one that is Love.  It has roots in paganism, idolatry and has transitioned through variations of many gods of Greek mythology, many Roman mythological gods, and Hinduism a belief in millions of gods, etc.

This is where we must agree, only God knows all the scriptures on every subject, what they all mean, and how they are balanced correctly. Therefore, “Agapegeek” would never claim to be the expert on any Bible subject compared to God’s infinite knowledge. Every human is learning and teaching based upon our individual ignorance. This is why we should extend to each other some mercy. You may have seen verses that others have not seen and vice versa.  But “Thank God” for Him living on the inside of us to help us all understand and agree, and He will guide us into all truth as Jesus promised that He would do in John 16:13.

Today we will be exploring God’s Wisdom and human foolishness but within the context of some verses that are not normally applied to the subject of God’s “sovereignty”. We would all be amazed if we search the Bible on this subject to discover that we will find the sovereignty of God being indirectly stated almost everywhere in scripture. This is why we are going to be studying chapter 15 of the book of Acts and a lot of readers will scratch their heads at first trying to figure out why we are here to learn about a “sovereign” God and how He works with humans in salvation.

Acts 15 – The Early Church
Salvation Conflict and Resolution
By God’s Sovereign Design

We are learning a very essential Bible subject that creates great theological conflicts in the body of Christ. Some believe they were “elected” to be a saved Christian by God’s sovereign selection and they personally had nothing to do with their salvation, implying there is nothing they can ever do to lose their salvation. This is a more common belief than you may think. Too many that have this belief are easily offended if there is ever someone that offers a differing thought found in the Bible. 

But guess what? This pattern of disunity happened in the early church, when there were some saved legalistic believers that said every one of the Gentiles needed to get circumcised to be saved. These legalistic Pharisee type of believers had Old Covenant scriptures written by Moses that appeared to support their belief and teachings very strongly. Remember at this time of conflict there was no major compilation of New Testament writings to review or resolve theological debates.

But it is obvious that these men believed they were saved because they were circumcised believers and this position plainly disagrees with the “once saved always saved” beliefs, as well as the sovereignly selected belief. They clearly placed human decisions and fulfillments of Old Testament “law” as their position of stance for being saved. That is very interesting!

However, there was also another group of bold men in the church that included the Apostle Peter, and the Apostle Paul both who were circumcised along with others that stood against the position for the need of circumcision to be saved. We are going to read through some of these verses about this controversy to see how it was resolved.

We will also notice in these verses that there are scriptures that are indirectly describing God’s sovereign will and His works that are being exercised in combination with the cooperative and agreeable sovereign will of humans. Remember what Amos 3:3 says about this relationship saying, “How can two, walk together, except they be agreed”. These types of verses, confirm the sovereign partnership between God and humans.

Let us just read through these verses and learn what God says about His “sovereignty” working with humans not to control us, but rather to allow us to willingly choose to work with His sovereign plan as united partners. We will soon notice that God is not forcing anyone to do anything. He is simply in His infinite characteristic of love, has offered and provided solutions for every problem of human conflict before it ever occurred. These solutions are based upon His “omniscient” foreknowledge. We will be reading from the beginning of chapter 15 of Acts about the Jerusalem Council that took place to resolve a church conflict of how to be saved:

Act 15:1  And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.

Notice the problem. The root of the problem occurs when saved individuals from Judaea were teaching the requirement for a “flesh” circumcision to be spiritually saved. This is based upon them following the customs found within the law of Moses, for every male to be circumcised as an 8-day old child.  For these men that argued this for others to be saved, had this done to them a long time before they were a believer in Jesus.

Remember babies that are incapable of making this choice are forced by these Customs of Moses to be circumcised 8 days after being born. Jesus was circumcised this way in Luke 2:21. As you can see the baby has no voice in participating. This is identical to the fact that the child had no say whether to be naturally born into the world or not. Is this the way the new birth occurs in the New Covenant? Hopefully, you will be able to see that the New Covenant circumcision that takes place for Christians is not a forced event as we continue (Rom 2:29).

Some believe salvation is based upon the extreme doctrine of election where only some are selected to be Christians and all others have been pre-chosen to go to hell without any personal involvement in hearing the Gospel, believing the Words of Salvation, or confessing Jesus as Lord. This is a belief based upon “determinism” as stated previously. This belief, as we have seen, violates too many other verses that we cannot ignore. For example, in Acts 2:21 God says, “Whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be saved”. This clearly places human salvation within the court of human responsibility. Also remember in a previous lesson, we learned of the Parable of the Wedding Feast for the King’s Son. There was clearly an invitation given to everyone to determine who wanted to come to the wedding or not.

Act 15:2  When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.

Act 15:3  And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren.

As we can read Paul and Barnabas were not supporters of the legalistic doctrine of circumcision to be saved. So far this is a good argument for the belief in “election” only salvation, where humans are saved only if God chooses them. But notice verse 3 places a challenge to those that believe in a sovereign God choice of salvation only.

Why is verse 3 a problem for election theology? It is because Paul went to everyone and everywhere so that he could “preach” the Gospel to them all. This means everyone that heard him preach was given the personal invitation to come to the wedding of Jesus. And, if they believed and turned away from their previous idol worship to come into relationship with the God that created them, they would be saved by their own personal choice.

Furthermore, notice how verse 3 ends. There are a lot of people in the church that are overjoyed to hear about more Gentiles being saved. Uh oh? This means they were previously not saved but became saved by what God who loved them all, was doing through Paul to get them saved. It is totally amazing to see how God sovereignly uses people to get other people saved. This is a great clue that this type of work to preach was God’s sovereign choice for the method to how salvation comes to people. It conforms precisely with the parable analogy of “servants” of the sovereign King being sent out to “invite” people to his son’s wedding. There was never a sovereign King mandate or command that required anyone to attend. Each had to accept the invitation, but many refused and gave excuses.

Act 15:4  And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them.

Notice in verse 4 we must all acknowledge that it was God that was working through Paul and Barnabas to cause these salvations. Yet we still cannot deny they person that heard their Gospel message was still required to belief it to be saved. The same is true for Saul who became Paul. He always had the right to refuse to obey what Jesus told him to do, this too would have been a foolish decision.

Act 15:5  But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses

Act 15:6  And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter.

Acts 15:5-6 is a review of the problem. Again, there were certain men of the sect of Pharisees which were saved that began to teach Gentiles they must keep the law of Moses to be saved. But we now know from reading the books of Romans and Galatians, that no man can be justified by keeping the law. These books were not written at this time of meeting to deal with this matter. The church leadership during this dispute was actually a very good example of how churches today should be acting. The number one perspective to learn from in dealing with doctrinal issues, is to notice these men were attempting to be led by the Holy Spirit and were acting out of love to discuss matters in a civil and orderly manner. However, there were deep discussions with contentious times as we can read in the next verse:

Act 15:7  And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe

This is where we see the will of God and His sovereign plan already in progress. Please read this verse over again slowly and pay attention to every word. First notice, a dispute is taking place. This is no different than today between those that see “election” to mean they were selected, and others were not. This is like those that were fighting for the Gentiles to be circumcised to be saved. These were opposed to those that were present to argue a different view of scriptures, like we are doing today.

 Then notice that after a time of argumentative discourse, Peter rose to speak and what He says is very significant and essential to understanding the truth solution to the dispute. Please do not forget that Peter walked with Jesus personally in the flesh for 3 ½ years. Then recall Peter was a circumcised Jewish male like the Pharisee sect. Therefore, Peter should have been on the side of circumcision like the others for it.

However, God knowing this dispute would arise in the church already spoke to Peter in a vision about clean (Jews in circumcision) and unclean (Gentiles in uncircumcision) beasts. God in this vision told Peter to kill and eat from all the animals explaining to Peter, “do not call unclean any man” (Acts 10:28). What we are seeing is Peter dealing with Old Covenant issues of the law. It was unlawful for him to go into a gentile’s house, yet God has sent him to Cornelius to get his family saved within the New Covenant and this is very significant. It confirms that keeping the law was not necessary for salvation to occur.

Peter continues to preach the Gospel to Cornelius and the Holy Ghost falls upon his house and they all received God’s Spirit the same as occurred on Pentecost to Jewish people. This utterly shocks Peter because God had sent him intentionally to an uncircumcised man’s house using supernatural events including the voice of the Holy Spirit, visions and even angels. In this light there could be no doubt what the God in heaven was teaching Peter and the church. God is very clearly saying what Paul wrote about in Galatians 5:6:

Gal 5:6  For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.

We should be able to see that it was neither keeping the law that saved anyone, nor by not keeping the law that prevented anyone from being saved. This simply meant that people are saved by “faith” alone in Jesus Christ alone. This was exactly the message being taught by God in the church to help them resolve this controversial subject and difference of opinions to what and how people are saved.

All of this applies to our lesson of the sovereignty of God. Because it is God that sovereignly chose the method of salvation through faith so that no human could glory in their flesh to how they were saved. Therefore, to even say “I was saved because God sovereignly chose me”, causes someone to look prideful that our creator God loved them more than someone else that was not chosen, and this would violate God’s law of not showing partiality to anyone. Let us continue to look at what else Peter said, and God inspired to be written:

Act 15:8  And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us

Act 15:9  And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith

Here is another quality of God being described. God is being stated to be “omniscient” meaning He knows everything that can be known. Therefore, He clearly knows the heart of every human down to each thought they think about Him and His freely offered His saving gift of the preached Gospel (Rom 1:16) which brings salvation when it is specifically chosen to be believed by humans. This clearly demonstrates it is the sovereign choice of each human to believe or not to believe to be saved.

It is this quality of “omniscience” that can be synonymously called God’s “foreknowledge” since God exists outside of the limitation of time. It is this quality of being “all knowing” that could easily be misapplied to give the appearance that God has chosen some and rejected others to be saved. After all God did nothing to stop someone from rejecting Him, right? However never forget what God did in Christ to save all of us (Jn 3:16)! God sovereignly worked and planned to save every human, by becoming one of us to personally be nailed on a cross and shed the blood that was necessary to relieve us from our sins.

Therefore, we must see that humans have been sovereignly given the “freewill” right to make their own independent daily choices. These choices must be made in their hearts and minds to walk and live by faith as believing in Jesus or reject the Incarnate Word of God and be damned. Now let us view the next verses which represent another human comparison between two sovereign choices on the way they choose to think, live, and act.

Act 15:10  Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear

Act 15:11  But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they

Act 15:12  Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them. 

Act 15:13  And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: 

Act 15:14  Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name

Act 15:15  And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, 

Act 15:16  After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: 

Act 15:17  That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things

Act 15:18  Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world

Act 15:19  Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:

We are not going to go through every verse in this passage for the sake of time.

But remember God’s key subject in this chapter is about the internal church’s fight on doctrinal issues concerning how to be saved. Is human salvation:

  1. only God’s sovereign choice, or is it,
  2. man’s sovereign choice, or could it be,
  3. both choices working and cooperating in agreement together?

From studying the Bible attempting to balance all known verses on this subject equally, it appears searching with the help of the Holy Spirit leads us to the answer of option 3. Never forget the parable of the “Wedding Invitation for the King’s son” (Mat 22:2). All were invited to come but only those that chose to come and were prepared were “selected”. This is the same place Jesus said, “Many are called, but few chosen”. Therefore, the Gentiles choosing to “Turn” to God are exactly like those that came to the King’s feast.

In Acts 15, this is a dispute between two groups of saved Christians about their personal “salvation” as Jews being circumcised and those that were Gentiles not having been circumcised, and if either of these external choices mattered to their salvation. The basic battle came down was salvation by “faith only” or by “faith combined with external humans works to keep the law of Moses” to be saved. So, we are learning about conditional or unconditional “salvation”. Are there conditions placed by God upon humans to receive His invitation to salvation? And worse yet, some believe God has already determined who will be saved by only His sovereign choice, regardless of the human participation, cooperation, or agreement? In other words, some believe in a “forced salvation” for the lucky and for the unlucky others “forced damnation”. Clearly this should be a problematic belief based upon learning what the Bible really says.

The book of Acts chapter 15 answers the early church’s dispute about whether to circumcise or not to circumcise. And it is a key clue to resolving our modern fight on “election”.  We should see this same battle pattern is taking place between those that believe in “divine sovereign election” without any human participation of belief or faith, opposing another view that believes in a “salvation” offered by God’s sovereign Grace to everyone, but salvation is only completed through the “human freewill choosing to believe and have faith in Jesus” to become saved. Both the Acts 15 debate and the modern “election” debate are very similar subjects having practically identical answers. Let us look at some of the verses that we just saw.

We can see in verse 14 of Acts 15, that Simon Peter helped them in the church to resolve their salvation conflict by reminding the elders how the sovereign work of God had sent him to Cornelius’ house a Gentile. Don’t forget that Peter was sent there to preach the Gospel so that they could hear, believe, and be saved. Also remember that Peter broke the law of Moses by entering Cornelius’ house as God had instructed him to do. Wow, God tells Peter to break the Mosaic Law to save Cornelius? Is this the right God? Or is there some Christians that are just confused?

What if Cornelius had chosen to not believe the message of Peter? The answer is plain, he would not have been saved and the Holy Spirit would not have fallen upon this Gentile house. However, God supernaturally gave the Jewish man Peter a vision to help him offer the invitation to Gentiles. But before this God had previously sent an angel to Cornelius, instructing him to send for Peter. This certainly was God extending great Grace and mercy to get the process initiated for Gentiles to take the invitation.

After God did all of this by His design, God had already simultaneously answered the questions that Gentiles were not required to get circumcised to be saved, neither was keeping all the law of Moses necessary for saved Jewish men to preach the Gospel invitation. Both acts only required obedience in “faith”.

It is highly recommended that you read the books of Romans and Galatians to see how Paul compares the Old and New Covenants. He goes into detail about Christians that are required to walk and live by Faith. He counters this New Covenant lifestyle, comparing them with people that are still trying to live by the Law. He at one point calls these people to be foolish.

Conclusion

1Co 13:13  And now belief, expectation, and love remain – these three. But the greatest of these is love. 

We will end this lesson with the conclusion that LOVE plays a huge role in the salvation of everyone. God is LOVE and God is sovereign, and both must be balanced together. It is very clearly stated in John 3:16, that because God loved everyone in the world, He sent Jesus Christ to die so that if anyone believed, they would not perish. It is very obvious that the most popular verse known from the Bible reveals God’s Love and human choices to accept His invitation. I don’t know about you personally, but I am now and will always be eternally grateful to God for saving me. Thank you, Jesus!

Hope and pray that every reader has already made that personal choice to believe in Jesus and ask Him to be your LORD! But if not, please click the link below to go to a page that will help you choose to believe. God bless you all during this time of our celebration of the birth of Christ into the world. If it was not for what God’s Love sovereignly chose to do, we would all be going to hell.

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

Giving Thanks to God in Every day of 2023 and 2024 to Come

2Co 9:11 Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God.

2Co 9:12 For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God;

(Ver 1.1) Even though the times look dark, the God who created us is our overcoming Light of Truth. Good will always prevail and triumph over evil. Satan’s future is already written and will be coming to him sooner than he thinks. For those that are following the darkness the LORD Jesus is nigh at the door ready to catch us away. The time is much closer than anyone knows for His coming. Therefore, today we look to God the Father of our LORD Jesus Christ. We give Him all honor, power, and praise. We give Him thanks for everything He has done for, given to us and will do through us. Here is a short list of things to be thankful for:

  1. He Loved us so much that He saved us.
  2. His Grace is sufficient for every day’s trying circumstances.
  3. His Power is available to save, heal, deliver us now and He will.
  4. His mercy is never ending.
  5. His Truth is greater than any lie of the enemy.
  6. His Spirit lives on the inside of us to guide, comfort, and help us.
  7. He will never leave us, forsake us, or abandon us, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper I will not fear, what can man do unto me.

The church is destined in prophecy to be an overcoming and victorious bride that has made herself ready for His appearance. Give Him thanks today for what He has given to us and then praise Him for He is worthy to be praised. For all those in the USA, celebrate being thankful every day, not just today. God continue to richly bless us, protect us, and He will deliver us from every plot of the evil one. Praise the LORD! Expect the sudden power of God to be seen at any and every moment and He will be there for you.

Jesus in the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet Part 7 – Vav – Jesus the Nail for Heaven to Earth Connection

(Ver 1.1) This is “Part 7” in the surprising and amazing Bible study series focused upon searching, finding, and learning how God became a man and how He was hidden in every letter of the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet. This series has been going through each letter of the alphabet (but not in alphabetical order) and today we are focused on the 6th letter called “Vav”. This ancient Hebrew pictogram is the image of a nail or a peg. Therefore, this letter represents the act of “connecting” two separated entities.

There are debates about the pronunciation of this letter, and some call it the “Waw”. But we have chosen the “Vav” sound as our preference. If you like another sound, that is fine, please just don’t fight us and cause divisions in the body. Simply change the Vav to the Waw as your chosen way of viewing the letter and learn what this letter means from the ancient Hebrew pictographic point of view.

If your interest today is just learning about the Hebrew letter “Vav”, this lesson is standalone. But if you are new to this subject of the ancient Hebrew Alphabet, it is good to learn the basic concepts of why the Ancient Hebrew alphabet is so important to know and how each letter was revealed by Jesus personally to represent Himself as a prophetical window into who He was, and what He came to do on the earth. Therefore, if you have not read the “Introduction”, it is recommended that you go back and begin there first.

Every time I go into studying a new letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet, I become more amazed at God’s ability to teach us using a single picture. With each letter, I conclude that this must be the most amazing letter ever of all 22. Today is no exception, because I was totally amazed with what God has revealed to us in the many hours that I have spent in studying the letter “Vav”. I pray that every one of you will feel the same after you read this lesson. Here is a list of the sections that will be covered in today’s lesson on the Ancient Hebrew Letter Vav:

  1. Introduction to the Vav
  2. Genesis 1:1 – Beginning “Vav” Prophecy of the Coming End
  3. Jesus is God’s Sure Nail
  4. How God Placed Us in Christ to Vav Re-Connect Us with God
  5. Conclusion

If you are ready, let us get started learning God’s Word and alphabet.

1. INTRODUCTION

As you can see from the picture of the ancient Hebrew letter “Vav” the orignal ancient image looks like a nail, or a tent peg, and thus the rudimentary meaning of the letter is something or someone that connects two things together of either like or differing composition or nature. We will discover more meanings and applications of this letter as we continue to learn.

The letter “Vav” is the sixth letter in alphabetic order. The number six concerns the linear sequence as well as the gematria value. The number six is significant in Biblical numbers, because it represents “man” and especially the first man “Adam” when created in a sinless mature state of innocence before the fall. As you should know Adam was created as God’s last works of creation at the end of day 6. Therefore, the number 6 will become a very significant part of this lesson, especially because of the essential fact that God became a man to die on a cross to save us from hell (Rev 20:13-14).

The letter Vav is also used as a prefix which is added to another Hebrew word. This addition to the beginning of a Hebrew word, inserts the word “And” to the sentence. This is grammatically added to connect the previous thought, words, ideas, phrases, etc. to what is about to be said. This confirms the basic meaning of the letter “Vav” is that of “connecting” or “adding” two concepts or even entities together. This is the same idea of joining two objects of wood together by connecting them with a “nail”.

The Hebrew matching word for the letter “Vav” is H2053. This word is the two-letter sound of the single “Vav” letter, just spelled out in word form as “Vav” + “Vav”. This is the doubling of the single letter “Vav”, and this will become even more meaningful soon. However, this word only occurs 13 times in the entire Hebrew text, and it can only be found in the book of Exodus.

The Hebrew word “Vav” (H2053) has a root definition of a “peg” as in a “tent peg”. This is exactly what the picture of the letter represents. A tent peg is designed to bring stability to the tent dwelling (house and family inside). This tent peg connects the dwelling to the ground with a rope and this will keep the tent secure during a storm of strong winds. It is interesting that this is exactly what is needed for the “House and Family of God” to be firmly grounded. We are going to discover that Jesus is this ultimate grounding tent peg.

Therefore, this word “Vav” contains the idea of joining or attaching two or more things together like the tent to the ground. But how does this work? If you have ever been camping in a tent you know you better bring tent pegs and rope because you do not want your tent to blow away. The tent is made secure by hammering a peg into the ground (earth) and then attaching a loop or rope to the tent peg that is “also” tied to the tent. This causes the structure to become secure from being easily moved.

We can find in the New Testament where it says God created a new family in Jesus (Heb 3:6). Isaiah 28:16 prophesies this house that is being built by naming Jesus Christ as the coming “corner stone” of the foundation. 1 Peter 2:4-5 describes Jesus to be a “Living Stone” that was rejected of men but chosen of God. Peter further describes the church body as being connected stones to Jesus in His “household of faith” (Gal 6:10). These are all “Vav” concepts of connection being described using synonymous terms with no direct reference to a “peg”.

This Hebrew word H2053 can also mean a “nail”, or a “hook” as in an object that is used as a “connector” to “hang” or “attach” two separated objects together. This is an amazing concept if we will begin to see and learn how this applies to Jesus. The works of Jesus are described with great precision as in the concept of Him being a living “nail” that is used to rejoin sinful humans to the Holy God, and vice versa. We can read about this work of God in Jesus in Colossians 1:20 and other verses.

Let us examine the O.T. word H2053 usage briefly. In the Hebrew text of Exodus in the KJV Bible this word “Vav” is consistently translated as “hook” 13 times. When first used in the book of Exodus in chapter 26 verses 31 and 32, this word is utilized in the construction of the tabernacle by God’s instructions for the hanging of the separating veil covering to enter the most holy temple location. God’s usages of the “hooks” (Vav) was specifically for the hanging of the separating “veil” (H6532) placed upon wooden posts. This usage is certainly a hidden image and description of Jesus hanging on a cross (Tav).

For example, the O.T. veils are a typology pattern of Jesus’ human flesh. We learn this concept in Hebrews 10:20 where God writes the veil represents the “flesh” of Jesus Christ. It should be obvious that the wooden posts of the temple are a typological pattern of the “Tav” cross, and the nails (Vav) placed in the wooden posts (Tav) are what hung Jesus body (veil) up on the cross (Tav). There are other things that we could go into here, but this is just an introduction.

Today we are going to discover some of the amazing facts surrounding the letter “Vav”. Here is one of the first amazing facts that we will see about the letter “Vav”. The letter “Vav” is the 2nd most used letter written by God in the Torah. The 1st most popular occurring letter is the “Yod”. The 3rd most popular letter found in the Torah is the “Hey”. And if you have read the other lessons, you already know these are letters used to spell the name of the LORD. LORD in Hebrew is spelled “Yod” + “Hey” + “Vav” + “Hey”. Therefore, our God has chosen the three most significantly used alphabet letters for His personal covenant name. Each of these letters are important, including this letter pictured as a “nail”, which is the “third” position of His name.

The first letter of the name of God was the “Yod”, the picture of an outstretched hand. This is very symbolic of God’s love reaching out for His lost creation. The 2nd and the 4th letters are the same letter “Hey” meaning “Behold” and “Look”. This double reference to the picture of a man looking at something amazing, places a strong emphasis upon this person that is unnamed, implying created humans should search to find Him. The third letter is our “Vav” nail and all these together give us a prophetical message of God appearing before man to be seen in the flesh of Jesus.

Therefore, we have found a prophecy of Jesus being hung (nailed) on a cross encoded within the primary name of God. These letters are speaking to us “Behold the hand, Behold the nail”.  This covenant name of God is clearly teaching us that God will become a man with human hands and His hands will be pierced with “Vav” nails when He will die for us on a “Tav” cross.

This brings us again to the fact that the Vav letter sequence and gematria value are both “6”. Remember this number 6 represents an upright “man”. This fact is well known because man was created at the end of day “6” of creation in Genesis 1. Since God chooses to select a “Vav” as the third letter of His name, He has foretold to us how His power will allow Him to become a flesh and blood man that will be “Vav” nailed through His “Yod” hands and humans will be able to behold “Hey” when it happens in amazement. This fact is proved correct in John 19:37 where we can see this was fulfilled the first time while hanging on a cross in Jerusalem. This will become of greater significance as we continue to study this letter and its position in the alphabet.

Now to conclude this introduction to the 6th letter of the alphabet the “Vav”, we will also need to know a little bit about the 7th letter of the alphabet called the “Zayin”. These two letters are intimately connected. You see the 6th letter “Vav” is a metal object as in the image of a nail that designed for connecting, but the 7th letter “Zayin” is also made of metal in the shape of a farming tool used for harvesting crops like wheat.

When harvesting crops, the wheat must be cut with a sharp metal tool (Zayin). Therefore, the letter “Vav” is a joining together of two things and the letter “Zayin” is the separating or cutting division of a single thing into two parts. These are antithesis letter concepts of opposition, but God chose to place them directly next to each other in the Alphabet as letters 6 and 7. Therefore, they are connected by God’s design. We will soon discover more about this connection later in the lesson. Now let us move into some Bible details that will begin to unfold all these topics.

2. Genesis 1:1 Vav Beginning Prophecy of the Coming End

There are several amazing hidden prophetical facts found in the words of Genesis 1:1; “In the Beginning”. These prophecies when they are known, reveal God’s personal coming to the earth as a man sent to die by being nailed on a cross. These “End” prophecies occur at the very “Beginning” of the Bible, and they involve our Hebrew letter “Vav”. Here is our key verse for this section to help you understand why we are searching Genesis, and it also reveals what we are looking for:

Isa 46:10  Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

As we can see, Isaiah reveals that God has declared the “End” from the “Beginning”. If you recall the beginning letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the “Alef” and the ending letter is the ‘Tav”. The “Alef” is a strong ox picture representing God as a Strong Servant (Jesus). The “Tav” is the picture of a cross the instrument of crucifixion for Jesus to die. Therefore, we are searching for the declaration of an “End” by returning to the very “First” (Beginning) verse of the Bible. According to the Word of God, in Isaiah we are supposed to be able to find something significant that will bring forth an “End”.

But let us place this search for the “End” within the context of our study subject of the Hebrew alphabet. We are going to approach this search with this strategy because it is not yet fully known what “End” will occur, and who it will affect. But also, it is true that we can read the translated plain text verse and find nothing about any kind of “End”. Therefore, this message of an “End” must be found in the alphabet letters that created the words that were written and translated into English. This seems very logical and obvious, doesn’t it?

The very first letter in the Hebrew alphabet is the “Alef” and the very last letter we should know is the “Tav”. The first letter Alef represents the number 1, and the last letter Tav represents numerically the number 22 the total numbers of letters in the alphabet. Also do not forget our current study is the letter “Vav” and this is the number 6. All these facts are given to help set the foundation of our Genesis Hebrew Alphabet search.

Therefore, let us look at the seven words found in the first verse, in the first chapter, in the first book that is in question. It is first interesting to determine if these verses are related to confirm we are at the correct location. We do this by looking for the Hebrew word H7225 translated as “beginning”. It is very simple to see with a search that this word beginning is found in both Isaiah 46:10 and Genesis 1:1 confirming the same word subject is being discussed by God in both verses.

— Hidden Vav Message Foundation —

For this study we will need to examine the Words of Genesis 1:1 in both the English KJV as well as the modern Hebrew:

Gen 1:1  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Gen 1:1  בראשׁית ברא אלהים את השׁמים ואת הארץ׃ 

If you are new to the Hebrew language, this verse is written from right to left in a modern font type style and not the ancient Hebrew pictographic font. This may mean that if you desire, you may want to learn the connections from the ancient Hebrew to the modern transition Hebrew font. If you do not care to learn this, that is OK, because the information being covered here is not about the modern font type letter styles or shapes.

Let us notice a few key facts about Genesis 1. This verse in Hebrew consists of 28 alphabet letters in total. It has 7 different words with the Hebrew word H853 (Alef+Tav) occurring twice in two different spellings. If we read the verse as it is literally written it would say and it has both the English words that were translated from the Hebrew words given with Strong numbers. You will also notice that there are three prefix letters given, the first is the Beyt, the second is the Hey that occurs twice, and the final prefix is the Vav. Prefixes may be a totally new subject for you, but it is important for this study.

“In beginning (Beyt+H7225) created (H1254) (AT=H853) God (H430) the heaven (Hey+H8064) and (Vav+H853) the earth (Hey+H776)”.

We are about to get very deep into the Hebrew language today, but don’t be discouraged if it is a challenge at first. There are only 22 letters to learn, but there are a lot of rules to how they can be placed together and what each letter means and what they sound like depending upon location within a word and other details that will not be covered today. However, please make the effort to learn the basic concepts, because they will help you more than you know, since they have for me.

I have learned a lot by just digging much deeper in the Bible. I have found the greatest hidden truths are found in the smallest unknown details. For example, adding the 2nd letter “Beyt” to the beginning of the Hebrew word translated “beginning” (H7225) adds the word “In” to the translation. The word “the” that was placed by the translators in between these two words (In the beginning) in the KJV should not be there and it should literally only say, “In beginning”.

There are four Hebrew words found in Genesis 1:1 that use three unique prefix letters. We already saw the “Beyt” meaning the word “In” (used once). Then there is the letter “Hey” meaning the word “the” (used twice). Finally, we have our study letter “Vav” meaning the word “And” (used only once). This gives us our very literal verse in English as the translation “In beginning created (A-Z) God the heaven and (A-Z) the earth. I hope you are paying attention because this information reveals, or you could conservatively say it implies a lot of new material that we are about to uncover with our study. But first let us look at the placement of the verb in the sentence.

In the English KJV translation the verb “created”, and the noun “God” have been reversed from the way it was written in the Hebrew. Notice the English translation says, “In beginning God created” and the Hebrew says, “In beginning created God”. This was a normal translation change that was done to produce a more readable English-speaking sentence.

It is very interesting that by reversing the verb and the noun order, it sounds more like how the fictional movie character “Yoda” spoke to Luke in Star Wars. For example, English would normally say “It will consume you”, but Yoda would have said, “Consume you it will”. Or Yoda would have said, “Found someone you have” and this would be plainer in normal English as “You have found someone”. This is the writing style found in many Hebrew sentences. It is interesting that this gives the Bible the appearance of sounding like a riddle, or a puzzle book and literally it is one (Prov 25:2, Eze 17:2).

We are about to discover that there are several amazing, coded messages hidden within Genesis 1:1. Several of these will be revealed today in this section of our study subject “Vav”. But not all the coded messages are even known by any of us, except God the creator. We will only focus upon 7 amazing facts today, in the honor of the 7 days of creation in Genesis 1 and the 7 words listed in Genesis 1:1.

Our subject “Vav” letter occurs for the very first time in this verse of the Bible. By the Law of first mention, this occurrence establishes the foundational meaning for the entire rest of the Bible on the letter “Vav”.

— Amazing Fact 1 —
The First “Vav” in the Hebrew Text

If you can read the Hebrew text, you will find the first occurrence of “Vav” is located at exactly the 22nd letter position (address) in the text of Genesis 1:1, removing spaces. We are about to discover a major hidden prophecy found at this 22nd letter address. Also please notice that we cannot find any coded message in the English translation, and this causes us to understand that only the God inspired original Hebrew language is able to support hidden prophecies. Let us get started at analyzing these letters and words of Genesis 1:1.

This “First” “Vav” (6th letter) is found in the Bible at the 22nd letter position and this is the “Beginning” of the 6th Word in the verse, chapter, and book. How can the “First” occurrence of the 6th letter, a “Vav” begin the 6th Word?  Was this by design?

What we have just discovered is the occurrence of two connected (Vav) numbers of 6 (Vav). Usually when God doubles any reference in the Bible, this gives the reference added emphasis and causes the reference to the letter or word to become significantly “greater”, or it simply places the God emphasis of truth upon what is being stated at this location.

There are many times in the Hebrew text that a Hebrew word is doubled. This means God states the Word and then immediately repeats the Word. If you search the English translation for when this occurs it is difficult to find. This is because many times the translators made the text to say “Surely” you will _____. Or it could be translated as something else like this. By adding the word “Surely” the translators have communicated this is what will happen “without a doubt”.

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

For example, notice in Genesis 2:17 the Hebrew word for death “H4191” occurs twice when God speaks the consequences of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was translated as “Surely Die”, but it could have been stated as “in dying you will die” or even “you will die once and then again”. This doubling of “die” implies that there are two different deaths that will be the consequence for this sin. This is God’s recorded way of saying this is “very important” to listen to me, because I know what I’m talking about. This is a warning, and it will certainly happen to you without a doubt if you disobey. Therefore, pay attention.

This double six reference connected with the first “Vav” strongly suggests that we are about to learn something worth paying attention to and that it will occur, guaranteed. For example, we should remember that 6 represents the number of a man, but because God doubled it, this man is no ordinary man. In other words, He is guaranteed to come and there is nothing you can do to stop this from happening. We are about to find that this “Sure” man is Jesus Christ (Yehoshua the Messiah).

This double six emphasis is only the first amazing fact whether you understand it fully now or not. But this single fact alone is not that amazing and almost any human author could do that, right? But we are about to find too many other combined facts of amazing circumstances that removes the human influence to cause us to only see all these facts added together can only come from God’s extreme intelligence and intelligent design and these will mathematically become impossible to occur without His participation and therefore, they cannot be a coincidence.

Let us consider a new additional fact of truth about a double reference. Take the 6th letter in English as “F”. If I wanted to create a sentence and make the 6th word begin with “F” that would be very simple, especially if we didn’t care what the sentence said.

We could write, “Let us go to south France”. Look, we just did it! We created a simple sentence with the 6th English word that begins with the 6th alphabet letter “F”, and the sentence sounds very readable. Notice that was not very difficult for anyone to do because there are nearly 30,000 words in the English language that begin with “F”. But will they each be readable? Or will the sentence be applicable and understandable? Does the double 6 have any special hidden meaning in our English example? And the truthful answer to all these questions is, No?

How many words beginning with “Vav” exist in the Strong concordance? There are only around 3 words. This significantly reduces the scope of sentences that can be constructed using the Hebrew alphabet without prefixes added. However, like Genesis 1:1 God just added the letter “Vav” to the front of another word and this added the word “and”, and this causes the addition of the 6th letter “Vav” at the beginning of the 6th Word to be simple. This is how a lot of people will explain away the first (1) fun fact of our discoveries. But we are not finished yet.

For example, in Genesis 1:1, notice how many “Alef” letters occur? There are exactly 6 and six is still the letter “Vav” sequence value meaning a man and a nail. What does the “Alef” represent in the ancient Hebrew alphabet pictographic form? It represents the strong “ox”, and this letter begins a key name of God “El” as the strong God of authority and power. Therefore, we have another key reference that our God will become a “man” by writing exactly 6 Alef’s in the first sentence.

That is interesting again, and this too could be easily accomplished by a clever author of English sentences. But notice would the created English sentence of six required occurrences of a chosen letter like “A”, being combined with the sixth letter beginning the 6th word, still answer the questions above? The answer is still no, and it is becoming even more difficult to occur even by intentional desired design with each additional fact that we find in this verse.

So far, we have found two clues concerning the number 6 with the first being a double reference of sixes joined with the sixth word that was written intentionally to begin with the 6th Hebrew alphabet letter. And the second being the inclusion of 6 Alef’s representing God becoming a man (#6). Both references certainly are pointing us to Jesus Christ who is a very Great Sure Man. Let us continue to search for additional fun and amazing facts in the first verse of the Bible.

— Amazing Fact 2 —
A Vav Man Who is Also the Alef and Tav

If you do not realize the extreme intelligence of God and His ability to weave several combined encoded messages and layers into the first 7 words, you are not very familiar with who God is, and what He is capable of doing. But add this to the fact that the first book of the Bible is a book that is called the book of “Beginnings” (Genesis) that adds new constraints and confirms the prophecy of Isaiah is being searched for in the correct location.

But also realize we are searching for this information in the first sentence, using God’s sovereignly chosen words that He also used to write a very profound and truthful top layer plain text statement (“in beginning God created the heaven and the earth”). Therefore, we are discovering several new facts within facts that add more conformations.

We will continue to learn by noticing again that this first occurrence of the 6th letter “Vav” that begins the 6th word, has been translated as “and” in the English translation. Remember “Vav” represents a connecting force between two objects, positions, places, people, etc. Therefore, we must ask and answer the question, what is God connecting with this first letter occurrence of the “Vav” meaning “and”, that also involves an emphasized Strong and Sure Alef God “man”?

We will continue our discovery by noticing that the 6th word of Genesis consists of three letters, beginning with the 6th letter of the alphabet a Vav, and these 3 individual unique letters create “one” Word. This sounds a lot like 1 John 5:7 that says, “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit and these three are one”. While this does not match the three letters, it establishes a principle and a pattern. We can clearly see that God has described Himself to be three unique named individuals and these three combined can be identified singularly as One.

It is also very interesting that this “Vav” in Genesis 1:1 is the “Only” Vav in the verse. This is another sentence construction requirement/restriction, and it also represents a new clue for us to potentially use to discover the identity of this man associated with the number 6 and the letter Vav.

Who is called an “only” in the Bible? One easy answer is Jesus who is called God’s “only begotten” Son. We can find this in John 3:16 a verse that can be quoted by many Christians. We know in this verse we have the reference of “God” (Alef) in both verses of Genesis 1:1 and John 3:16. We also have a reference to a “man” (6) who is an only occurrence.

This certainly appears to be a good first start to show us that Jesus written in John 3:16 as the “only naturally born son” of God qualifies to be our answer. But this single word connection of the “only” “Vav” gives us “only” the potential for a new connection for identifying Jesus to be the true man in Genesis 1:1. This is true despite Jesus being called someone who is “great” in multiple verses (Mat 4:16, Mat 24:30).

However, the English word “only” occurs over 250 times in the KJV translation of the Bible, and therefore this alone cannot confirm the identity of what we are searching for. Consequently, we must keep searching.

We all know that the number 6 represents “man”. And God connected this number to a picture of a “nail”. What are the other two letters? We will quickly notice that the Vav is only a prefix that is “added” (connected) to another very common word spelled “Alef” + “Tav” (AT) and this word is rarely translated into English anywhere in the Bible even when it occurs over 7000 times in over 5000 verses.

We have learned that this word H853 (Alef+Tav) represent two of the names that Jesus claimed to be in Revelation 1:8 when stating “I am the Alpha and the Omega” the first and last letters of the alphabet. Here is another connection to Isaiah 46:10 “I make known the end (Tav) from the beginning (Alef). But in the book of Revelation, we are seeing how God is showing us Jesus at the end of creation revealing His personal involvement and appearance in the beginning of creation and throughout the rest of the Bible.

This is our very interesting fact number two which claims the 6th word beginning with the 6th letter is connecting these three Hebrew alphabet letters (Vav+Alef+Tav) to describe One God called the “Word” (Jn 1:1, Rev 19:13).  By God combining each individual letter identity (nail, beginning, & end) into one Word, He has chosen to hide a message for us to find.

Remember Alef = God that begins the alphabet who also created the world (Eph 3:9), and this is being connected or joined to the “Tav” God/Man that will “End” the alphabet and His old/First creation (2 Cor 5:17, Rev 21:1). This has now brought forth a new beginning which was initiated by Him using the “Vav” nail as an upright man (6th letter Vav). This simply provides us insight that shows us the method of God (Alef) becoming a man (#6) that will be pierced by nails (Vav) and this will have to be done on a cross, since the third letter in this 6th word is the 22nd letter Tav, a picture of a cross.

Therefore, we have found an additional doubling of a word called the “Last”. The “Last” letter of our 6th Hebrew word is the “Last” Hebrew alphabet letter. This is just too amazing to consider how these three letters were selected by God to become the 6th Word at this single addressed location of the sentence.

Have you seen and accepted these as factual clues or are they just easily explained away as coincidence? Regardless, we have discovered how a nail represents an upright standing man that God places great emphasis upon, who has a unique name consisting of the beginning and ending of the alphabet, and this all is clearly pointing us to only one man named “Jesus”. But we are far from being finished from seeing the clues in this verse revealing Him. This is only the second (2) amazing, encoded fact that has been revealed so far.

— Amazing Fact 3 —
And the Two will Become One!

Next remember again that the letter Vav is a picture of a connecting “nail”, and it is used by God to represent the word, “and”. “And” is a designed connection (conjunction) between two words, sentences, phrases, etc. bringing the two thoughts into combined united focus together. This is the duplicate concept of a “nail” that joins two boards making them a stronger united single unit.

Therefore, our “Vav” in Genesis 1:1 is joining or reuniting two independent realities. As we know this letter “Vav” is only found once in Genesis 1:1. So we have a potentially new concept coming into the “light” that is addressed in Genesis 2:24 called “marriage” or “covenant”. In this verse God writes, “and they (two) shall be one flesh”. Wow!

Let us briefly establish what God has implemented in Genesis 2:24 using a “Vav” nail concept of connection of 2 into one, because this will become a critical part of the prophecy of the hidden great man in Genesis 1:1. In Genesis 2, God details the creation of a man named Adam, and how he places him in a sleep to open his side and remove a wife. This so far describes what happened to Jesus precisely while hanging “nailed” (Vav) to a cross (Tav).

Jesus literally died physically first and then He was pierced in His side with a Roman spear. It was this piercing that caused an outflow of blood and water (Jn 19:34). His natural body being dead, took on the appearance of sleep where He was then laid in a tomb for 3 days (Mat 12:30). Interesting how the 6th word in Genesis 1 begins with a Vav nail, Piercing the God/Man (Alef), ends with an ending letter Tav cross, and it is exactly 3 letters in length the time spent in a tomb. These parallels are very amazing to what we see happening to Jesus.

Back to Genesis 2, God then implements the heavenly concept of covenant upon the earth where the first man is joined with his wife, and they are both made from the one flesh of the first Adam. This also sounds like a parallel to what will be happening to Jesus and His spiritual bride the church. Look at this verse:

1Co 6:17  But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

Here is the exact same “Vav” nail concept joining two objects together being applied to two separate spirits, 1) Holy Spirit, being joined to the 2) human spirit. And these two separated spirits become one new spirit and new creation (2 Cor 5:17). This is amazing and is helping us to understand the prophecy of Genesis 1:1 and the fulfillment of it in the New Covenant marriage of the Lord Jesus Christ to the church.

Now remember a female is the weaker vessel according to God’s Word (1 Pet 3:7). This only means she is normally physically not as strong as the husband. Remember this pattern because this is also true for the church and Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ calls himself the bridegroom in Mathew 9:15, and the church is called His chaste virgin to be joined with Him in 2 Corinthians 11:2 and this results in the creation of one “Spirit + spirit” in 1 Corinthians 6:17 that we saw earlier. We should also know that Jesus as the male in the covenant relationship is far stronger than all Christians.

This is a quick introduction to what Genesis 1:1 can represent by showing us how a “great man” could come to the earth to bring about a new covenant which will joins Himself to a new bride which is identified in the New Testament as the church. This is the third amazing clue to consider, but we are not finished with the information that God has included in this verse.

— Amazing Fact #4 —
Who is the Vav Joining Together?

We were introduced to the Vav general meaning of joining 2 separate individuals together as in a marriage/covenant union in the amazing fact #3. And these were pointing us to Jesus and the church. Now it is time to further confirm what we were confirm the letter “Vav” using the concept of the “Vav” as being the word “and”. What is directly said to be connecting in Genesis 1:1? This should help answer a lot of questions that are remaining in the minds of many. This new information should help us to confirm the identity of the 6th word Vav man. We are going to do this, by asking the question “what two words does the “Vav” located in Genesis 1:1 connect as one thought? It is found directly between two very significant Words.

These words are 1) “heaven” (H8064) and 2) “earth” (H776). These are two disjointed locations that are being connected. One is called heaven and is a spiritual location of God’s throne, and the other is primarily the surface of the created natural realm of human inhabitants called earth. These people are called “earth dwellers” nine times in Revelation. But there are also spirits that are abiding inside this dimension that rule the kingdom of darkness.

Therefore, God appears to be revealing another very clear hidden prophecy. Because of the placement of the “Vav” between these two separated realities. There appears that there is a need for reconciliation between God in heaven and humans on the earth. It appears that our God is using a “Vav” (nailed man) named Alef+Tav to be His connector to humans on the earth. Let us observe a New Testament parallel verse concerning what we are finding in Genesis:

2Co 5:18  And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

It is very interesting to see what is happening to humans that choose to be joined in Jesus. Notice the subjects being named in this verse. First there is God in heaven that created all things. The next pronoun subject named is “us” representing all human earth dwellers. Finally, there is Jesus Christ. Uh oh? Could He be the connecting nail? Wasn’t He God that came down to earth and took on flesh to dwell among us (Jn 1:14), and be with us (Mat 1:23)? This appears to strongly match our 3 Word hidden prophecy found in Genesis 1:1. Do you see it?

We should begin to learn in this verse how God has “reconciled” humans back into favor with Himself by His work in Jesus Christ. This Greek word “reconciled” (G2644) indicates there is an exchange taking place. This is the “Vav” concept of God joining Himself to man so that we might be joined with His Spirit eternally. We find this concept being further described in 1 Peter:

1Pe 2:24  Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

This verse says more than we can teach today but notice again the similar subjects. The verse is about Jesus, who was God in the flesh, that came down from heaven to the earth to bare our human sins providing us an exchange to give us His righteousness. This truth says the righteous God came down to take (G399=bare) our sin penalty on His body while hanging on a cross made of wood from a tree. This strongly implies the heaven to earth connection with Jesus being the literal “Vav” connector that was said to be coming in Genesis 1:1.

Since “heaven” is mentioned first in Genesis 1:1, this strongly indicates heaven is the “source” of the man (Vav=6) that follows. But the next word beyond the “Vav” is “earth”, and this implies the destination location for this “connection” work of God.

Joh 6:38  For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

Here is a verse confirmation for what we are observing in Genesis 1:1. We can very clearly read that Jesus is claiming to have come down from heaven to the earth. He also very plainly states that this was done to accomplish the works of God that sent Him. There are many other verses like this but that is enough to help us see what is being prophesied in Genesis 1:1 and fulfilled in John 6:38.

Only Jesus appears to qualify to be our coming prophecy man “Vav” who remember is also being revealed as the “end” of this present creation. We know Jesus comes from a pattern of the first man Adam (Rom 5:14) and that He is specifically called the “Last Adam”. “and” also the second “man” making Him to be identified as a type of “Vav” single man.

1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

Do you see how Jesus is being revealed to have come from heaven again? Doesn’t this order match the Genesis 1:1 order of first mention? We can see very clearly how Jesus was God (Jn 1:1-14) that was made flesh and dwelt among us as a man for 33 ½ years.

Therefore, all these patterns and hidden messages appear to only point us to one man. These facts so far, appear to suggest very strongly that Jesus Christ is our mystery “Vav” man connection that we have been searching for, that is described to be a “nail”. All this information represents “keys” that are helping us unlock God’s beginning prophecy of the “end”. And God is giving us all this key knowledge to cause us to understand the answer to this mystery.

— Review of Facts Revealed So Far —

Up until now we have seen several clues of facts being uncovered in letters, words, and phrases Genesis 1:1. These messages indicate there is someone that can be called the “only”. This is because there is “only” one Vav in the verse. This Vav represents a man because the number 6 value of the Vav is the number representation of man.

We have also found that this only Vav is joined with two other letters that represent the beginning and the ending alphabet letters. This indicates this man was present at the beginning of creation as well as he will be present at the coming ending of this creation. Since this “Alef-Tav” represents the beginning and ending we know that there is a corresponding connection to Jesus being this identity in Revelation 1:8

This information is strongly indicating that the God that created in the “beginning” is the one that will become a man (Vav=Nail) and He will be made the “connection” between “heaven” (the spiritual) and earth (the material). Wow, if you only knew what this meant. This location implies there is a problem that needs to be resolved by an implied separation between God and man.

The informed Bible student will already know that there are two problems that God is solving by becoming a man. The first solution that needed a resolution is the elimination of Lucifer and all evil spiritual beings from heaven. And the 2nd solution that was on God’s heart was the salvation of His very loved sinful humans that resulted with the fall of the first man Adam. This occurred only 2 chapters from Genesis 1:1 in Genesis 3. It was this act of the first man Adam that required another man called the Last Adam and His name is Jesus. He had to come down from heaven to the earth and die to shed His blood to redeem us. We will talk more about this as we continue, but this is a summary of our initial four (4) amazing fact so far that were coded in the first 7 words of Genesis 1:1.

— Amazing Fact #5 —
The Nail and the Cross Intersection Point

Ok, here is our next very amazing fact that we mentioned quickly earlier at the beginning of the section. Remember that there is only one letter “Vav” directly found in Genesis 1:1, and it occurs precisely on the 22nd letter position in the verse removing any spaces. It just so happens that this 6th letter “Vav” also begins the 6th word in the verse. Therefore, we have two sixes that are intersecting and being joined together at the single letter address location “22”. Here is list of what we have found once again:

  1. There is “only one directly written Vav” in Genesis 1:1, and it is the 6th letter of the alphabet.
  2. This 6th alphabet letter Vav also begins the 6th Hebrew Word found in Genesis 1:1.
  3. And both intersect at the exact 22nd letter address position of the sentence.

Do you see anything important in this information? If you do, is this a coincidence? Or do you believe like many that these are signs of God’s infinite intelligent design?

We know that one six represents man (either the first Adam before the fall, or man in general) and we found a double 6 appears to represent an emphasized “Sure and True Man”, who we have learned can point us to the “Last Adam” also known as the “second man”. Now we are talking about the “Last Adam”. Don’t forget that Isaiah said, “declaring” the “end” from the “beginning”, and anything that is called “last” is certainly the “end” of God creating any more “humans” named “Adam”.

These facts appear to cause us to make Jesus the great man that has been encoded as the “Vav” at the 22nd letter position in the verse. Why did God place this Vav nail exactly on position 22? Many people might think it just occurred by chance, but God does everything by intentional purposed intelligent design. There is NOT one letter in the Word of God that has not been pre-planned and well thought out on where exactly to place it.

In fact, God goes to such extreme detail of design, that it would probably be impossible to find every meaning of every single letter’s placement. Therefore, let us consider why He places the Vav nail on top of the 22nd position of the verse.

Perhaps you already can see where God is taking us? How many letters are there in the original Hebrew Alphabet? Yes, there are exactly 22. This too is not a coincidence. God purposefully connects the 6th letter and the beginning of the 6th word to the exact position of where the “Last” alphabet letter in Hebrew should occur. Wow! This appears to be another clue to the identity of the single “Vav” man confirming this man is the “Last” of something. Hopefully, you already know what the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet is. The 22nd letter of the Hebrew Alphabet is “Tav”.

What is the picture and meaning of the “Tav”, the last 22nd letter of the Hebrew Alphabet? Hopefully, you have learned this answer from other lessons like the introduction. But let us ask again, what is the picture of the “Tav”? Once you have seen it, it becomes unforgettable. The “Tav” is the formation of two crossed wooden sticks that produce the picture of the wooden “cross” that Messiah was slain upon. Wow!

Let’s place these new puzzle pieces together.

  1. 6+6 = “a Sure True Man” who is also called the “Nail” represented by the letter “Vav” and He is the connector joining heaven “and” earth
  2. He will be hung (nailed) on top of a wooden tree forming a cross and this is symbolized by placing a “Vav” (6) on top of the 22nd letter position in the verse the address of an implied cross.

These are truly amazing facts that could not have occurred by accident. All these clues together are organized in such a fashion that would have taken an ancient human writer a lifetime to create without supernatural help. But because the Bible is written by 40 authors over hundreds of years, how could all the facts that can be found exist without separate supernatural coordination?  This is just too amazing for all the rest of the Bible to also fit together to reveal this man Jesus Christ. But we are not finished yet with this verse, let us go to the next new revelation that we can find to help confirm what we are observing so far.

— Amazing Fact #6 —
Jesus
The First and the Last
The End from the Beginning

We have already found a lot of very amazing information that was hidden in just 12 of the 28 letters found in the last 3 words of Genesis 1:1. Remember in the previous amazing fact we found an implied “Tav” because this was the position of the 22nd letter. Remember a “Tav” is the “Last” letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and it occurs as the 22nd letter. Therefore, the 22nd letter position of Genesis 1:1 would be the implied location if we just placed every alphabet letter in order from the beginning. Right?

Therefore, God has created at this implied 22nd letter “Tav” position a mystery, by sovereignly choosing to overlay this position with the Hebrew letter “Vav” (the #6 letter). This choice of the divine author has placed a man and a nail (Vav) on a cross (Tav). That was an amazing prophetical choice for God to hide this using only 2 letters. But the Bible says in the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word of Truth be established.

Therefore, go back to the “Beginning” of the Hebrew text and search for the “First” occurrence of a “literal” 22nd letter “Tav”. Guess what? The “First” time that the letter “Tav” occurs in the text it is found in the very “First” word of the Bible. It is also very significant that the “Last” letter (Tav) of the alphabet is also the “Last” letter of the “First” word.

Have we seen a pattern like this before? Uh oh? We have just found the “Last” letter in the “First” word is a “Tav”. This causes the “First” connection between the words “First” and “Last”. Hopefully you can begin to see where we are going in this amazing fact. Guess what else? This Hebrew word is translated as “In Beginning” also meaning “First”. The number of the occurrences of the words “First”, “Last”, “Beginning” and “End” may become overwhelming to some.

It is amazing how God places a picture of the “Last” letter “Tav” a “cross”, in the “first” Hebrew word that is translated “Beginning” (the chapter recording God’s “First” works). Doesn’t all this sound like the Isaiah 46:10 prophecy about God making known the “End” from the “Beginning”? Also isn’t this amazing that Jesus said He was all these in Revelation 1:8 and Revelation 1:11? Do you remember what He said,

  1. I am the Alpha (Alef) the “First” alphabet letter,
  2. and the Omega (Tav) the “Last” alphabet letter,
  3. the “Beginning”,
  4. and the “End”,
  5. the “First”,
  6. and the “Last”.

Did you just notice the number of claimed names Jesus identified Himself as? Yes, there are exactly 6 names, the same number representing the “Vav”. Is this an accident? We shouldn’t think it is.

These six claims represent the number of the letter “Vav”, and they parallel what God said to us in Isaiah 46:10 saying, “I make known the end from the beginning”. Since Jesus claims to be the end and the beginning and the first and the last, including the “Tav” ending alphabet letter, we will be finding Jesus over and over.

We have found the following facts and pay close attention to how many times there is a mention of “First”, “Beginning”, “Last”, or “End” occurs, which are the names that Jesus claimed to be:

  1. The Bible “Begins” with the “First” word phrase “In Beginning”, which we are now learning can be understood to say, “In Christ” because Jesus has claimed to be the “Beginning”.
  2. The “First” Word of the Bible is H7225 and it is translated as “Beginning” confirming Isaiah 46:10 has directed us to come and search here for the “End”.
  3. We have also confirmed that the Hebrew word H7225 which is translated as “Beginning” in Isaiah 46:10 is the same word “Beginning” found in Genesis 1:1.
  4. We searched for the “Last” letter Tav by “Beginning” our search from the “Beginning” of the Bible and we found its “First” occurrence in the “First” word, of the “First” verse, in the “First” chapter, in the “first” book called “Beginnings” (Genesis in Greek).
  5.  We have further discovered that the “Last” letter “Tav” (#22) was placed by God as the “Last” letter of the “First” Hebrew word which is translated as “BeginningH7225.

Do you believe God is trying to get a message across using all these repetitive occurrences of “First”, “Last”, “Beginning” and “End” that are occurring with the Last Letter of the Alphabet in the First beginning word of the Bible? Perhaps it will help us to see a verse in Revelation:

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

This reference to the “Lamb” is a direct symbol for our Savior the slain Jesus (Jn 1:36) and is referring to His death on a “Tav” cross. The Greek word G2602 is the word translated as “foundation”. But it can also literally mean “conception” as in a thought, idea, or concept (plan) from God or even in reference to a “pregnancy” conceived by the Word of God that will bring forth a birth. Conception is clearly indicating an event that causes a new “Beginning”. This undoubtedly describes Genesis 1:1 accurately.

We can certainly confirm there is an important “cross” found in the “First” and “Beginning” word of the Bible. This cross “Tav” is the “Last” and “Ending” letter of the “First” word. Therefore, this placement is strongly suggesting that this original “Beginning” will bring about and “End” utilizing a “Tav” cross which also must involve Jesus, since He claims to be this Alphabet Letter directly. Wow!

Now for some new additional hidden facts which can be found in this “Beginning” and “First” Word’s hidden message. Where in the 1st word of the 1st verse does the “Tav” occur? In other words, what is the “Tav” letter’s number location (address)?

If you look at the “First” Hebrew sentence and count the letters, the “First” “Tav” is found exactly at the 6th letter position. Therefore, the letter “Tav” (#22) overlays the 6th position for a letter to occur. Isn’t this the home address location of a “Vav” nail? Does this sound familiar? Do you think this is another coincidence?

Didn’t we find that the “First” occurrence of a letter “Vav” (#6), occurred laying on top of the 22nd open letter position? So, we have learned the “First” Vav has an “address” number of 22 the home of Tav. We have just found two super amazing combinations of either a 22 or a 6, overlaying the other, and it just so happens that one is a “nail” and the other is a “cross”. It is highly improbable based upon all the other amazing facts that this is a chance occurrence.

In fact, it is certainly mathematically impossible for all these to happen by chance because they all are communicating a common prophetical message about something that is not going to occur for almost four thousand years from when the first man Adam will be created on “Day 6” of the Genesis 1 beginning of creation account.

As we know we found the 6th letter of the alphabet laid on top of the 22nd position of all the beginning letters of the verse. This was our “First” direct nail to a cross relationship. And we have now just found the “Tav” 22nd letter on top of the 6th letter position an implied reference to the letter “Vav”. Why would God place a cross on top of the 6th position in the sentence? Therefore, both references of the “First” “Tav” and the “First” “Vav” indicate there is a “man” that will come from heaven to the earth to be nailed to a cross. Is God amazing or what? Now to help us confirm this with other verses let us check this verse out:

Joh 19:30  When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

Ok, this verse sounds a lot like what we have been reading about hidden in Genesis 1:1. Here in this verse of John, God has written about when Jesus was hanging nailed (Vav=#6) on a “cross” (Tav=#22). While hanging on this cross (Tav) using nails (Vav) they had pierced His body both 2 hands and His 2 feet with these nails (Vav). Therefore, Jesus a man (Vav=6) is being literally “connected” (“Vav”) to the cross (“Tav”) using nails (“Vav”) and this appears to be the exact prophecy fulfillment of Genesis 1:1, God’s description from the letters and positions found in the “Beginning”.

Then notice what Jesus says, “It is finished”. This Greek word G5055 translated as “finished” can be defined as “to end” and “to complete” as in the fulfillment of a maximum limit that has been reached. Doesn’t this sound like an “End” as in Jesus fulfilling and reaching the “Last” letter prophecy of the alphabet “Tav” cross?

Is it just another coincidence that Jesus is making a reference to the “End” of something while hanging on the “Last” letter of the Hebrew alphabet? I really do not think this could have been an accident. Therefore, we must ask our self, what has just concluded or has reached the “Last” position of fulfilled limit when Jesus died? Here is the short list answer:

  1. Jesus’ natural mortal life and ministry “on” the earth has just “concluded” by His physical “death” hanging by nails (Vav) on a cross (Tav).
  2. Since the “Tav” cross was the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet as it was written in the beginning and has been fulfilled, and this implies that a new beginning is required.

Now recall that the Bible calls Jesus the “Firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:18). This same verse further gives us the reason for becoming the “Firstborn” of the dead is so that He could have preeminence over all the old creation. This strongly indicates that God’s significant problem with Lucifer and evil in heaven has been solved with the death of Jesus on the cross. Could this be the reason God writes in 1 Corinthians 2:8, that Satan would not have crucified Jesus, if he had known the consequences? This appears to be at least one major thing that God is revealing to us.  But let us move to another amazing fact of Genesis 1:1.

— Amazing Fact #7 —
Genesis 1:1 7 Words and
the 7 Days of Creation Parallels

While there certainly could be many other hidden treasures yet to be found in this single verse, in the honor of the 7 words in Genesis 1:1 and the number 7 as being the completion of God’s work in creation, we will end this section with a “final” amazing fact #7 that is potentially revealing another hidden prophecy. This hidden prophecy also deals with the letter “Vav”, but this time it will be connected directly with the letters “Alef” + “Tav” that we also saw briefly before as two names for Jesus Christ.

The first occurrence of the “Alef” + “Tav” is found in the verse as the 4th word. Then the second occurrence of the “Alef” + “Tav” occurs as the 6th word of the verse. But remember the 6th word occurrence has the added “Vav” nail connector. This is very amazing since this 3-letter word occurs around 3000 times in scriptures. What does all this mean? There is probably more than one explanation for the existence of these two “Alef + Tav” joined letters.

Many modern Hebrew seminary scholars try to say these two letter untranslated words (H853 7000+ times, H854 1200+ times), were added for the purpose of representing “a direct object pointer”. This means its purpose was to show the part of the Hebrew sentence that receives an action.

But how do we explain the selectivity of why only certain verses contain this Alef+Tav pointer? Out of over 31,000 verses why are there are only 9000 occurrences of these two letters and in some verse sentences like Genesis 1:1 there is more than one occurrence? Do the verses that have no “Alef Tav” word need no object pointer, or do these have no direct noun object that is receiving any verb action? And do the verses that have two or more “Alef”+“Tav” words have multiple primary objects that need to be emphasized. These types of inconsistencies appear to add a great level of new complexities.

While this direct object pointer using an “Alef”+“Tav” is possible, it appears to mostly deny what Jesus said to us about the first and last letters being His identity. Plus, Jesus personally told the Hebrew people to search their scriptures because these words were about Him (Jn 5:39). Finally, as of today we should be learning God’s superior intelligence reveals His ability to teach us multiple things using a single letter, word, sentence, etc. Therefore, all these facts could be true simultaneously.

The simplest explanation for these word occurrences is my approach to understanding what they represent and why they are there. This explanation is based upon allowing the Bible to interpret itself and ignoring human reasoning (2 Pet 1:20). With this Biblical approach we have greater assurance and alignment to truth that the fact that Jesus claims to be the first and last letters of the Alphabet 4 times in the book of Revelation means He must be these letters in the Hebrew. This is clearly written in a book that begins “The Revelation of Jesus Christ”.

Therefore, if this book of Revelation is primarily about Jesus and it says this is the “Uncovering” and “revealing” (G602=Revelation) of Him, this indicates that we are being given new information in this book that reveals things that were hidden from us since the beginning. Therefore, if Jesus personally claims to be these two letters 4 times, that is good enough for me. You are allowed to do with it as you please.

Do you know why people never see Jesus in the Old Testament? This is mainly because they are not looking for Him. I guarantee that He can be found in some form in every letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and it is these Letters that make up every word that is written down. Let us get back to our Genesis 1:1 2 Alef+Tav words.

Remember there are 7 Hebrew words in total in Genesis 1:1. I believe these 7 words are a parallel to the “7 days” of God’s work in creation. I also believe these “7 days” represent 7000 years of total human history on the earth. According to God writing through Peter again, we read in 2 Peter 3:8 that 1 day to the Lord represents 1000 years.

Applying this revelation of 1 day = 1000 years and the proposal that each of the 7 words in the first verse is a parallel to potentially represent something happening on that day of creation, this would help us to see the following about these two Alef+Tav untranslated words:

  1. The first Alef+Tav appearance occurs as the 4th word of Genesis 1:1. This appears to be prophetical to imply the “First” physical appearance of the man Jesus occurs on the earth at the “Beginning” of the 4000th year (4th Day). (First Alef+Tav)
  2. Because the “Last” occurrence of the “Alef”+“Tav” in Genesis 1:1 occurs as the 6th Word, this appears to teach us that the next time Jesus will appear on earth is at the “End” of the 6th day, year 6000 from the beginning of creation (Last Alef+Tav).

But remember the 2nd appearance of Jesus is attached with the letter “Vav” nail. This can simply mean this appearance will be the fulfilment of the Zecheriah 12:10 prophecy:

Zec 12:10  And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

We can clearly read in this verse that Jesus will be returning to the earth as a man with “Vav nail impressions in His flesh”. These nails pierced His body completely through his flesh to attach Him to a wooden cross (Tav). Therefore, the second time Jesus comes to the earth He is prophesied to return on the “Last” of day 6 as a man that has been pierced.

It is also very interesting that the word “me” that was translated in Zecheriah 12:10 is our H853 “Alef+Tav” word. This literally means Jesus is being defined again as the Alef+Tav.  But not like the beginning of His 4000-year “first” public appearance, here in Zechariah 12:10, He is now returning as the man that has been marked by “Vav” nails in which He has become this prophecy of a pierced man. This is too amazing to not be true.

Also do not forget who this man is!  He is Jehovah (YHWH) the God whose name means “Behold the hand, Behold the nail”. Let us move to a new revelation about Jesus being called “the nail”.

3. Jesus is God’s Sure Nail

We are about to go over a prophecy written down by the prophet Isaiah about Jesus Christ. In this prophecy God is directly prophesying about the coming Messiah. But these verses point us to Jesus directly claiming He is to be a type of a “Vav” nail. Let us read two key verses from the book of Isaiah:

Isa 22:22  And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open

Isa 22:23  And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house. 

Here is another amazing coincidence, or not? Did you notice what chapter we are in? It is just too amazing that these verses are found in chapter 22 the same number as the letter “Tav” cross. It is also further amazing that these verses begin with verse 22 of chapter 22, a double reference to the “Tav” cross. Just out of curiosity how many chapters are in Isiah? There are 66 chapters which is 22 x 3. Now all of this cannot be a coincidence. God must be guiding this information and helping us to find the exact verses that we need to learn and study about a Vav nail.

As we can clearly read in verse 23 God is saying “I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place”. This is seriously too amazing to ignore. Can we apply what we learned in the previous section to this prophecy? Did we not just find a sure man “Vav” nailed to a “Tav” cross using the first reference of the Hebrew letter Vav a nail in Genesis 1:1? Isaiah was written a long time after Genesis 1:1, how could he have known and understood what he was writing without the Holy Spirit to help?

Now pay attention that this verse in Isaiah is written about a man that is referred to as “Him”. Who is HIM? We could debate who this is for a long time. But God answers this question for us, and this man identifies Himself in Revelation 3:7 in a letter written to the churches. In this verse Jesus is personally speaking and claims to have the “Key of David that no man can open or close”.

Therefore, if Verse 22 is clearly identified to be Jesus, there is no question that the next verse 23 is also.  This literally teaches us that God is directly calling His sent Son named Jesus to be His designed and purposed “Nail” connection to humanity. Let us now examine and confirm this fact using the Works of Jesus described in the New Covenant.

However, there is another amazing clue to help us identify the identity of these verses in Isaiah. In verse 23, there is a translated phrase “and He shall be” that needs to be clearly understood. This word is “H1961”, and it is spelled “Hey” + “Yod” + “Hey”, which are three of the letters of the name of God (Jehovah/YHWH). But wait, this word is prefixed with the letter “Vav”, meaning “And”. Interesting how this is our key study subject today.  Adding the letter “Vav” to the word as a prefix has now completed all the letters that are needed to complete the name of God. This word is now spelled “Vav” + “Hey” + “Yod” + “Hey”. These are the exact same letters as Jehovah, but the letters “Vav” and “Yod” have been switched. Using the ancient Hebrew pictographic letter meanings this word now says, “Behold the Nail, Behold the Hand”. There appears to be a shift of emphasis by leading with the Vav “Nail” first.

But wait, there is more, the word “H1961” is translated as “I AM” in Exodus 3:14. This powerful name is the identity that God chose to give to Moses to tell His people who had sent him to them. Therefore, Hey + Yod + Hey is “I AM” and now add the “Vav” to the front we get the name the “Nailed I AM”. Who is this? This can only be Jesus. We know in John 8:58 Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I AM”. This is spoken shortly before Jesus is about to be nailed (VAV) to the “TAV” cross. Don’t you think God knew this when He wrote Isaiah?

These are all too amazing facts to ignore. Jesus claimed to be every alphabet letter from the beginning to the end, from the first to the last, and He fulfilled them all and we are learning today about how the “Vav” was displayed and revealed in Yehoshua (Jesus). Now let us shift our focus to the application of the “Vav” Jesus works for the church.

4. How God Placed Us in Christ
To Vav Re-Connect Us with God

The scriptural prophesied work of God that was fulfilled in Jesus is so limitless that it is a great challenge to know, understand, and write about everything that was accomplished. It is truly amazing what God did for us by becoming a human man named “Jesus” (Yehoshua) (Mat 1:23-25). God sovereignly chose to manifest as flesh (Rom 8:3) and become a part of His “First” creation (Gen 1:1).

God accomplishes this work for more than one reason. The first reason that must be known was for the purpose to righteously separate Himself from Lucifer also known as Satan (adversary) and the devil (slanderer, false accuser) (Rev 20:10). Many preachers believe God sovereignly eliminated Satan from heaven the moment he sinned in heaven. But that belief does not align with scripture as we will soon see.

We are about to discover that this defeat of Satan took place by the death of Jesus while hanging on a “Tav” cross nailed by “Vav” nails (Heb 2:14, 1 Cor 2:8). It was His death that began the ending phase of God’s final plan to be initiated for the complete elimination of Satan. This “wicked one” is not cast down from heaven until Revelation 12:9. And Satan’s final elimination from influencing people that inhabit the face of the earth is not completed until Revelation 20:10. These final judgments will be happening very soon.

But the next primary dual purpose of sending Jesus into our world was to save His valuable humans from an everlasting separation from experiencing His sovereign Love for us (Mat 1:27, John 3:16). It was the “sin” of Adam that initiated this departure from the righteous and Holy God, and we required a connector to be re-joined in full righteous fellowship. Jesus became this “Vav” nail re-connection as we will read about in this section.

God accomplished this sovereign work as well as many other things that were performed in Christ as a display of His fulfillment of the letter “Vav” reconnecting with humans. This plan was carried out as a clear exhibit of the omnipotent force of His great power (Eph 1:19-20). God’s work to become a manifested part of His “First” and “Beginning” creation (Genesis 1:1) to die on a “Tav” cross hanging with “Vav” nails was a very humbling, merciful, kind, loving wise choice and it was clearly a major part of His plan of a “Zayin” separation from Satan by implementing a brand-New Creation (Isa 43:9, 2 Cor 5:17, Gal 6:15) which never existed before. God is doing all these prophesied Hebrew Alphabet letter works in Christ for the following reasons:

  1. To initiate and bring to fruition His New Creation and a New Beginning (2 Cor 5:17, Gal 6:15, Rev 21:1).
  2. To phase out and eliminate the cursed old creation (Gen 3:17, Rev 21:1)
  3. To save all humans that choose to believe in Jesus from an eternal separation by providing the ability to know God’s Love (Jn 17:3, Jn 3:16).
  4. To divide Himself from all unrighteousness and evil in both heaven and earth of the present creation (Eph 3:15, 2 Pet 3:13, Rev 21:8).

These works of God in Jesus are all actions of either joining (as a Vav) or cutting and dividing (as a Zayin). Both divine sovereign works are occurring simultaneously every day, even as you are reading. For example, as your mind is being renewed with these new Bible concepts that you may have never seen before, you are being invited to become joined to think a new way about Jesus and God’s work in you. These new concepts are either filling new space in your mind’s belief system like a “Vav” adjoining addition or they are cutting away with a “Zayin” type of hoe or sword the old contradictory beliefs that need to be uprooted and replaced with God’s new written Words of Truth Seed (Nun).

God’s plan in Christ was to produce a way of transitioning out of His First Creation and the present world’s “Old Creation” corrupted systems of governments (Rev 21:1) in heaven and on the earth. God accomplished this transition by Jesus’ death on the “Tav” cross. It was this death that began the separation from the old creation, and it was Jesus’ resurrection that initiated the New Creation making Him the head of every principality, power, might and dominion (Eph 1:20-22).

Both the original heavenly and earthly realms became “Vav” joined with knowing (in covenant) both good (God) and evil (Satan) simultaneously (Gen 3:5, Gen 3:22). However, Satan was the common part of the old creation that brought sin and wickedness into covenant relationship with both realms of the natural and the spiritual after Adam had sinned.

Satan now has a kingdom of rule (Lk 11:18), that is him currently governing the unsaved people of the world (Eph 2:2) as well as 1/3 of the angelic beings that were joined with him (Rev 12;4). This satanic kingdom is called “darkness” (Col 1:15). God is accomplishing this exit from darkness by providing a “Dalet” door named “Jesus” to make available and entrance into His Newly Created Son’s Kingdom of Light (Col 1:13).

This “Dalet” door transition was first made available after the death of Jesus on the “Tav” cross at the transition point of the end of Day 4 and the beginning of Day 5 of God’s Genesis 1 creation days prophecy (~4033 years after Adam). It is interesting to know the “Dalet” is the 4th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and this also appears to prophesy and show us what will be made available to us at the ending years of the 4th millennium.

The “Dalet” Door of salvation is entered by a human choosing to believe and act on the preached Gospel (Good News) message of salvation in Jesus by Faith.  Our faith belief in Jesus being raised from the dead and declaring Him to be our LORD (Rom 10:9-10) causes a spiritual “New Birth” (Jn 3:3) which is a personal human “New Beginning” and a “Vav” connection with God through Faith (Eph 2:8, 1 Pet 1:23). This never seen before “new spiritual birth” results in a completely “New Creation” system of existence (2 Cor 5:17). By joining this New Kingdom, we are living in Jesus Christ the Son of God’s realm of power and authority, that had never existed before in time past, and the result is His Holy Spirit living in us and removal from Satan’s darkness.

Jesus is the cutting Sword instrument of the “Zayin” that divides and cuts Himself and us away from the authority of evil (Satan), while concurrently driving a “Vav” nail to re-connect Himself back to all of those that choose the gift of His “Righteousness”. This work of God will be completed during a phase of work identified by the Hebrew letter “Chet” which is a picture of a wall without doors that separates God and His New Covenant Family from Satan’s evil darkness permanently.

The “Chet” is the 8th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the number 8 signifies a “New Beginning” as in the first day of a brand-new Week. This simply teaches us it is at the beginning of the 8th day that a “brand-new” creation will be completely transitioned into, and the old creation ended after the final completion of Day 7 of the present old creation (7000 years of human history). This will be taking place after Day 7 of creation representing a 1000-year millennium rule of Christ with a 1000-year period of temporary interruption of Satan’s evil influence upon humans on the earth. This is described to occur in Revelation 20:2-3.

And we may know the “Zayin” is the 7th letter of the Hebrew alphabet that signifies it is on this day that the final “cutting” of God’s Zayin sword will be taking place. It is at the beginning of this day 7 of creation when Satan is bound and cast into hell for 1000 years. This will temporarily eliminate Satan’s rule from the face of the planet. But at the end of the 1000 years, he must be released to attempt to deceive any of the people that were born during this time that had never had the choice to choose between good and evil.

Therefore, Satan will be released to deceive natural people again at the end of the 1000-year reign of Christ and the church (those Vav connected with God). Then God’s last phased plan of the “Zayin” division and removal of Satan (the root source of evil, sin, and temptation) will be initiated (Rev 20:10). Subsequently the plan of separation will be finalized with the permanent removal of all evil, including anyone that chose to sin by submitting to Satan’s deceptions and temptations. These all will be cast into the lake of fire with him (Rev 21:8). These are all the ending completions of the “Zayin” cutting away types of prophecies found in the Old and New Testaments.

Finally, God’s New Heaven and New Earth will come into being, with a total “Chet” wall of separation from all Evil (Rev 21:1-2). No, you may not have studied these letters “Zayin” or “Chet” yet, but this was a quick introduction of the concepts. This was added because these letters “Vav”, “Zayin” and “Chet”, can’t be totally understood without including them together in a single lesson to explain how God prophesied the order of events in the arrangement of the letters.

These decisions to enter the Door of salvation or stand on the outside in opposition to the Kingdom of Light, can be made at any moment of time by the sovereign choice of every human by selecting to believe or not to believe. But this choice is only available if you have breath on this planet to speak. People are either “Vav” uniting in harmony with Christ through right beliefs and confessions, or they have chosen to remain in disharmony with Christ by default or through wrong beliefs.

And by not making a choice or choosing incorrectly, they are becoming permanently “Zayin” separated by death from God by their own willful decisions. This is because when Adam sinned, he became “Vav” joined with Satan (Isa 28:15), and now every human that is born from the first Adam must die (1 Cor 15:22). However, all this is occurring for God’s single common good and purpose to separate God and His infinite good, from Satan and his never-ending evil.

For example, when a man marries a woman, the two become united and joined (Vav) as a completely new family and this is good. But simultaneously they have now been separated (Zayin) from all other families on the earth that now exist as independent units.  Also, on an individual level the man and the woman have now become separated from all other individual males and females, to only be in intimate relationship which each other. These two joined intimate people have simply excluded (divided) themselves from intimacy with all other humans. This was exactly a description of the plan of God for a New Covenant in Jesus Christ.

Hopefully, you can begin to see how these two concepts of 1) a joining together like a “Vav” nail can occur simultaneously with 2) a separating and dividing of a “Zayin” sword. It is essential to understand how these two opposites must be present to work together for God’s single design purpose and His greater plan. If you do not see it yet, please be patient and continue to learn, it will become clearer soon.

Perhaps this might help you embrace this topic more quickly. We know a marriage is supposed to be monogamous meaning they are not intimate with their old boyfriends, girlfriends, or anyone else they should meet after the union occurs. This is God’s primary created example of the foundation of a successful covenant marriage (Gen 2:24). Notice in Genesis 2:24 both the joining together and the dividing separation is stated. This is a God created and designed Law. But these concepts were also a necessary requirement for God in His Old Covenant marriage with natural Israel (Jer 31:32) and these will further be expanded to include Jesus and His covenant spiritual bride in the New Covenant (Eph 5:31-32).

God informed natural Israel that He was a jealous God in Exodus 20:5. God says very clearly that they were not supposed to be unfaithful to Him, to go and worship other gods (Exo 20:3). If they do this, they will make Him jealous, and this would bring about consequences for their evils (Exo 12:12, Exo 23:33). Therefore, Israel was supposed to be “Vav” joined with the LORD God only, and forsake, sever, and divide (Zayin) themselves from all other false gods and idols and nations that worship them. Remember the false gods and idols were parts of Satanic worship of the devil’s demons, sorceries, and witchcrafts.  These were all traps of Satan used to defeat the people of God.

This seems very easy to comprehend for anyone of a divine moral character that knows God personally and intimately. For God is more than capable of being faithful to us, but for many people it has not been that easy for them to be faithful to Him as was displayed in natural Israel (Isa 1:21, Jer 3:8). This is a key reason why God sent Jesus into the world to become His human “Vav” connector.

Remember Jesus Christ is the eternal fulfilment of the Old Covenant pattern of a man standing in the office of the high priest (Heb 2:17). Remember in the Old covenant the high priest acted as a “Vav” connection between God and natural Israel, by entering God’s presence with animal blood for the sins of natural Israel. He did this with sacrificed blood when entering behind the veil into the Holy of Holies. This also was what Jesus Christ performed once with His blood entering into the real temple in heaven. Praise the LORD! Jesus will continue this role between God and man forever. All these High Priest actions fulfilled in Jesus as our “Vav” reconnection to God can be studied in Hebrews chapters 2 through 13. Please go and read them and see what He did for us.

However, God still expects this quality of faithfulness in our decision to be “Vav” joined with Jesus Christ. This faithfulness must include the commitment to be “Zayin” divided from evil. As God said to natural Israel in Leviticus 11:44 “be holy for I am holy”, He says the same to the church in 1 Peter 1:16. Repeatedly in the New Covenant God commands us after we are united with Him, to not be “Vav” joined with evil and unrighteousness (2 Cor 6:14-17). Therefore, God is expecting us to learn from natural Israel and not make the same mistakes to become unfaithful (1 Cor 10:11).

Today we have been studying the concepts hidden in the ancient Hebrew letter “Vav” and how they apply to what Jesus fulfilled for us in the prophecy of this unique letter. This letter “Vav’s” primary picture represents a “peg” and/or a “nail”. We can understand from this picture that this letter symbolically represents a connector plan, process, object, or person that performs a work like a nail that can be driven into two individual objects to “connect” or “reconnect” them as if they were one. It is very much like the modern day “super glue” concept of joining together broken pieces of a vase so that they can be made bonded together again.

It is absolutely essential to understand this “Vav” joining together concept, in the manifestation of the Son of God, Jesus. God’s Holy Spirit intentionally chose to be joined with His favored woman named Mary (Miriam) (Lk 1:30). God’s spoken Word produced a natural seed that was “joined” with Mary’s human “egg” and these two God created elements 1) human egg (Mat 1:20), and 2) divine Word “seed” (Lk 8:11) produced a natural human body (Heb 10:5) that could contain and carry both the blood of God plus the Spirit of God (Heb 9:14). Then this new human body type was the “beginning” of God’s intentional design, creating a prototype for His new creation. This would make Jesus the “First” human temple pattern of the Living Spirit of God (Jn 2:21) and give God the ability to take up residence in future believers’ human bodies (Act 17:24). Now with this foundation built, let us move to other scriptures in the New Testament that teach what was accomplished in Jesus using the “Vav” nail concepts.

Please take note that just because scriptures do not say they are about a nail or a peg, does not mean they are not directly connected to our subject of joining. Rather than look for the obvious “nail” mention, search for the applications for what a “Vav” represents. Think of all the synonymous ways to say “join” and this will help your search. It will amaze us how often we can find these concepts when we are looking for them. This is what we will be doing in the remaining part of this section.

We have already been introduced to the prophecy of this nail connecting God in heaven back to created humans on earth and we will easily find how this was fulfilled in God’s work “In Christ” by reading several great examples of verses in the New Covenant. Let us begin with Ephesians.

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

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

This is a direct quotation of Genesis 2:24 that we briefly saw earlier in the lesson. Do not forget that this is God’s law of covenant union and connection with the simultaneous separation and division affecting two individuals. These are a husband and wife that are being joined to form a new family with them also being removed from their parent’s families and any other external temptations.

Remember we were connecting Adam and Eve to be a type and pattern of Christ (Last Adam) and the church (Bride). In that section we confirmed the function of a “nail” was to join two separated things to be like a marriage covenant union of a man and a woman. Concurrently both of these two “newly joined” individuals have also further committed and agreed to separate themselves from all others and this is called commitment and faithfulness. This is exactly what is happening in Jesus Christ and His bride, the church.

These natural marriage concepts suddenly become so much greater when viewed in the spiritual realm in Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:31-32 reveals God’s hidden intention for creating the union of two becoming one in natural marriage was designed for His future purpose of the marriage covenant between Christ and His wife, the church. This is clearly a “Vav” type of spiritual connection taking place between the church and Jesus, with the simultaneous separation of them both by a spiritual “Zayin” cutting away from all sin, evil and Satan.

Consider that the first woman in Genesis 2 was taken out of the First man Adam. Therefore, God made one man first and called both of their name “Adam” (Gen 5:2). Then He took out (a Zayin division) called a woman to create two separate and unique individuals from a single “flesh” (Gen 2:21-23). Then God rejoined the two (male and female) back together by the reunion of two becoming one again in covenant marriage (Gen 2:24). This amazingly describes God’s natural pattern of what is happening in the greater spiritual dimension between Himself and His New Creation (2 Cor 5:17), the church.

Next, we need to understand the spiritual problem of sin that entered the earth in Genesis 3 through the participation of the author of sin Satan coming down to earth from heaven. When this rebellion occurred, God needed a solution for sin in both heaven and earth. But before this sin had occurred on earth, God already had a plan to send another Adam, named Jesus to earth to save humans (Rev 13:8). We must begin to understand God’s purposes for His Works to reconnect (Vav) humans back to Himself. We will find one of the key reasons for Jesus as a uniting “Vav” connector for heaven and earth in 2 Peter:

2Pe 3:13  Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

If you have not yet seen the great significance of what God has accomplished in Jesus’ death on a “Tav” Cross pierced with “Vav” nails, this verse reveals His entire purpose was to make a new creation wherein only “righteousness” dwelled. What does this mean?

Doesn’t this sound like the “Zayin” sword concept of cutting and dividing by stating God is eliminating “evil” from the “righteous”? This “separation” must then also require that there be a simultaneous opposite of a “Vav” joining. To fulfill the verse this implied joining must represent the New Covenant (Heb 12:24). This New Covenant union that is implied to be taking place, must be between two previously separated individuals (God and the church using Jesus as their mediating connection).

Plainly this spiritual reunion must be a willing unification based upon agreement with each other to be simultaneously “Vav” joined together. Therefore, the church is choosing to be joined with God, His righteousness, His Holiness, and His goodness, while at the same time choosing to be “Zayin” divided apart from Satan, unrighteousness, and all evil.

As we can read in 2 Peter 3:13, there is certainly a God plan for a “New Creation”, which includes a “New heaven” and a “New earth”. This also means that God is 1) dividing and separating all His Old Creation, specifically the sinful evil portion from the righteous forever. We can confirm this reason of division (Zayin) for Jesus’ personal appearance on earth in Matthew 10:34-36 and Luke 12:51-53 which is based upon a prophecy from Micah 7:6.

Most of the natural descriptions in the Old Covenant have parallel and dual occurring spiritual applications that are based upon God’s chosen written natural symbolism. We are not going to be able to teach all these concepts of division today. There are other lessons on this website that speak in more detail about “Understanding Division” and “Understanding the Spiritual Family of God” to name two major sources for understanding what God is doing in Jesus to divide Himself from Lucifer and to join Himself to humans that were separated. Here is this significant prophecy declaring this division will be occurring in the future:

Mic 7:6  For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.

We can only give a rapid overview of one part of the prophecy about God’s division to introduce the subject to new readers. We know this prophecy is about Jesus, by Him personally quoting this verse. With this claim, He is clearly describing the dividing of God’s spiritual family was one of the key reasons why He was sent to the earth as a human. He claims in Matthew 10:34 that He did not come to bring peace but rather a “sword” (implying a Zayin cutting division is taking place). Then in Luke 12:51, Jesus is more plain speaking that His coming to the earth was directly to “divide”, and not to bring peace. This is obviously a hidden reference to God dividing Himself from Satan and the “unrighteousness” that is inferred in 2 Peter 3:13.

It is important to see that this prophecy is about dividing a family. First know that God has a family that is named both in heaven and on the earth (Eph 3:15). Second understand that before Adam, this God family only consisted of angelic beings in heaven (Heb 12:22). Please begin to understand that the first Adam was created to be a separated new part of God’s spiritual family that was not connected to the heavenly angels and especially Satan’s evil. This was God’ first “division” of His spiritual family. And this division symbolically occurs on Day 1 of creation where God creates “light” and divides the light from the darkness calling light “day” and darkness “night”. However, this Day 1 of creation was a prophecy for what was about to occur within this first 1000 years of human history.

It is most revealing when studying the Word of God to view what is written and spoken by God from His perspective of dividing Himself from Satan and evil in heaven. God is implementing a Genesis 1 re-creation of the planet earth to accomplish this. We can clearly see the first earth was destroyed in Genesis 1:2. God confirms this in 2 Peter 3:6. This creation has included many new things that never existed before as we are beginning to see. Of course, this work of God peaked with the creation of humans, a law, and a death consequence for disobedience. Hopefully you are seeing how all of this is working together to eliminate Satan with a “Zayin” type of division.

Then we know that we do not get very far past Genesis 1, until we find God’s kingdom purpose continuing to develop to separate Himself from Satan. As we should know Satan existed before Adam’s creation (Job 38:4-7). Since there is never a mention of Satan or anyone else on planet earth when Adam was created, we can logically deduce that Satan’s residence was in heaven. We must recall that Satan’s home in heaven will remain until after the War take place between Michael and his angels who will overcome Satan and his angels in Revelation 12:7-8. It is at this point during the tribulation that Satan and his angels are permanently cast out of heaven, and this takes place over 6000 years after Adam was created.

However, in Genesis 3, it appears that Satan’s interests have suddenly shifted from ruling in heaven and has move down to rule the earth. It further appears that Satan’s desires and purposes have been re-focused upon the corruption (Rom 8:21) of God’s sinless re-created good earth and its inhabitants (Gen 1:31). This intention clearly included his desires to “Vav” join himself to humans so that he could fill the earth with his evil and sin (Gen 6:5) that was then only found present in heaven (Eze 28:15).

Therefore, in Genesis 3:1, Satan suddenly appears in the garden on earth, to craftily tempt God’s newly created separated Adam’s family. However, please do not get confused, by the mention of Adam being called “separated” from God. This separation is plainly stated in Genesis 2:24 where God says the man shall leave his father’s house. Who is the created man’s father? We know from reading Luke 3:38 that Adam’s life came from God making God his father. 

But this implied separation of God from Adam, does not mean that God could not visit and talk with His creation as we can clearly read occurs in Genesis 2 and 3. This only meant that Adam was not a part of God’s heavenly spiritual family or kingdom and that he had been given by God a separated from heaven, earth domain. This domain included a new wife and family of his own, with his own God given authority to rule and manage the re-created earth (Gen 1:26).

This concept of a father to son separation has been passed from generation to generation. It is entirely true in the present earthly realm today, exactly as it was in God’s to His created first man Adam. For example, my son is the husband and father of his own house. He has been joined with his wife and they two are one flesh in the eyes of God. When they were married, they both left their parent’s house. This meant they both gained the independent sovereign abilities to make their own choices and rules apart from their parents’ homes. They are free to ask for their fathers or mothers’ advice, but the decisions are ultimately all in their power to make.

Therefore, this temptation to revolt against God that was brought down from heaven by Satan, was Adam’s sovereign choice to make. Satan directed this temptation intentionally at God’s separated newly created human family to join with them together in rebellion against God. It appears that in Satan’s mind this was an opportunity for him to gain greater power and control of all of God’s creation to exalt himself to be like God (Isa 14:13). But we will notice that this decision to come to the earth has moved him to also be in covenant with humans that must now “die” because of their sins. Uh oh. It is highly likely that Satan did not fully understand what this “Vav” joining with humans could include.

There appears to be a plan of God for moving Satan’s eternal domain found in the heavenly, down to the temporary earth’s surface domain (2 Cor 4:18). We could call this a part of the beginning steps of God’s transition for the separation from all evil from the righteous. This is where we are now and this temporary earthly rule (2 Cor 4:4) appears to be a part of the transitioning steps of God’s plan to eventually move Satan out of the spiritual eternal realm of God’s heavenly Kingdom into the eventual transition of being thrown down into hell finally and permanently separated forever from God and all the righteous.

Remember, it is the heavenly spiritual realm where there is no time, no death, no law, no sin consequences, and God plans for Satan to be brought down into the newly created world of Adam which will begin with a newly implemented concept of time, followed by a law with death consequences for committing sin.

Adam had been created and lived by God’s plan within a temporary separated natural realm of existence, involving the law of stewardship (Mar 12:1-11, Luke 12:42, Luke 16:1-13). This temporary creation involved a timed leased rulership of the earth. Therefore, it was never intended to last forever. The timed lease of the earth that was given to the first man, was to last for 6000 years of human work (Gen 2:5, Mat 17:1), and a 1000-year day of rest (Heb 4:3-11, Rev 20:6).

But after sin enters the world, Adam becomes “Vav” joined with Satan, and falls under the rulership of death (Rom 5:17) which was now within Satan’s power (Heb 2:14). Wow, do you see what has just happened after Adan sinned? Satan has become the temporary “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4), which is the temporary government systems that were given to Adam (Gen 1:26) but have now been transitioned to Satan’s rule according to Matthew 4:8-9.

This is a major shift from Satan only living within the freedoms of heaven where there are no laws (Gal 4:26). Please read the context of Galatians 4:26 to help confirm the heavenly Jerusalem above is called “free”, meaning there are no “laws” of bondage. This is very important to help us understand why Satan was never dealt consequences for his rebellion against God and why God is implementing a plan to transition Satan from out of heaven.

This rebellion of Adam then places him into covenant with Satan and this meant whatever was Satan’s is now Adam’s, and whatever was Adam’s, was now also Satan’s. This meant both Adam and Lucifer are bound by a limitation within a supernatural bondage to God’s newly created realm of time and laws. Remember Adam’s domain of earth’s stewardship was on a time limit that was set to expire in 7000 years. All this information is found based upon the Genesis 1 prophecies where God declared “I make known the end from the beginning”. But this will not be covered in this lesson due to an excessive increase in lesson length.

Remember that Adam and Eve, only knew God (light) and everything “good” that God had created, including themselves. There was no wicked or evil presence upon the earth after the 6 days of Genesis 1. It was not until Satan (God’s adversary) shows up in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:1, that evil had entered God’s newly re-created world. Remember from Genesis 1:26 we know that Adam had the authority to cast Satan out but chose rather to disobey God’s single commandment (Gen 2:17).

We can read about this temptation and rebellion occurring in chapter 3 of Genesis. As we know from scripture Satan implements his plans of death and destruction by primarily deception (Gen 3:1, Rev 12:9). In Genesis 3:1 we find how subtle Satan was above all of God’s newly made animal creation. Then Satan begins to speak to the woman and was able to deceive her in her mind to get her to disobey God’s only rule with the consequences of death (2 Cor 11:3). It is clear by Satan’s temptation that he nor Eve believed that a spirit being could die (Gen 3:4).

God then informs us in 1 Timothy 2:14 that Adam was not deceived during chapter 3 of the fall of man. Therefore, Adam’s sin appears to have been a willful and intentional rebellion (Zayin division) against God and an intentional joining (Vav) with Lucifer. Did you notice this was the “Vav” and “Zayin” concepts occurring in reverse from Jesus the Last Adam’s choices and works?

Nevertheless, Adam turned over his God given dominion of the earth (Gen 1:26) completely to Satan (Lk 4:5-6). And Satan became the “god of this world” until God’s appointed time has been fulfilled (Mat 8:29). Also, during this time of Satan’s dominion, “death” was passed upon all humans because we were all “in Adam” when he sinned (Rom 5:12). Now notice what else happened to Adam’s family on the earth:

Pro 25:5  Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness.

If the first Adam would have cast Satan out from the earth, wickedness would not have entered God’s created good world, and we would be living in the original creation state of only knowing “good” (Gen 1:31). But since Adam chose to “Vav” join Satan’s rebellion, darkness and wickedness has taken hold of the planet and according to Proverbs 25:5, righteousness departed from humans by the law of antithesis truth. If you are not familiar with this Biblical law, it simply states, that whatever is truthfully stated in any verse, the opposite unstated truth is equally true.

Therefore, Proverbs 25:5 also confirms that the state of God’s Kingdom of Heaven before Satan came to the earth to tempt man was not fully righteous either. This simply meant the state of heaven was a mixture of both good and evil, and unrighteous and righteous.

Too many people believe Satan was just cast out of heaven the moment he sinned. But because God is a righteous judge, He was not able to legally do this. Therefore, one reason for our current world’s creation was for us to learn that there is a “righteous”, “fair”, and “good” process that is being worked by God to eliminate finally and completely all evil.

God had purposefully created a “new” concept called “death” within His current world’s creation containing sinful humans. This concept brought about a separation for all that reject righteousness and God’s gifts of salvation. This part of God’s family by their own choices will be called “dead” to God as was the prodigal son in the parable found in Luke 15. God planned to use this newly created concept of “death” to separate Himself from Lucifer and all his wicked angels.

Therefore, we will say this is the beginning of the many steps of God’s “Zayin” plan of separation from evil began using the creation of our present world so that God in Jesus Christ could manifest to die on a “Tav” cross hanging with “Vav” nails. We know “death” was a major part of God’s plan by reading Revelation 13

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

This is an essential verse of truth that exemplifies the overview of the plan of God for eliminating evil. The end of the verse describes the beginning of the plan. Notice God had planned for the death of Jesus (called the Lamb) before our world was founded. Therefore, death is the key part of eliminating Satan and all evil.

This verse in context is about Satan’s manifestation as a man on the earth that will be worshiped by a lot of humans. In this chapter they will take his mark, and this will eliminate their names from the Lamb’s “book of life”. As we can see the Lamb’s purpose for death is two-fold. These are the two unified concepts of joining and dividing that will occur from God’s participation in Christ to die.

To all those that will join the faith in Christ their names are recorded in His book to remain, and this will give them life to know God personally forever. But all those that reject God’s free-gift of life through belief, will be “Vav” joined with Satan taking his mark, and “Zayin” cut away from God’s never-ending life.

For time’s sake we are going to jump forward past the cross to find and learn the ending phased strategies of God to permanently eliminate Satan and all evil from their union with the righteous. For example, notice these verses:

Rev 12:7  And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels

Rev 12:8  And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven

Rev 12:9  And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Rev 12:10  And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

These verses of scripture in the book of Revelation describe a war that will take place during the soon coming but future 7-year tribulation. This war will be fought between God’s faithful angels led by Michael, and they will be fighting against Satan and his rebellious angels. It is during this final heavenly spiritual war that Satan is finally cast down to the earth as we can read in verse 9. This verse confirms the future and final “casting down out of heaven” event of Satan and all his angels. This also amazingly teaches us that Satan still has access to heaven even today as we can clearly confirm in the following verses of the Bible:

  1. Genesis 28:12
  2. Job 1:6
  3. Job 2:1-2
  4. Luke 22:11
  5. John 1:51

Twice in these five references, angels are directly stated to be “ascending” and then “descending” between earth to heaven and vice versa. God does not say that these were just the “good” angels. It implies these are “all” angels whether good or evil. In Luke we find an implied reference of Satan going before God demanding to sift Peter like wheat. But in Job we find the direct mention of both good and evil angels presenting themselves before God in heaven twice in a very short time span.

This would imply they were going often and in Job 2:2 God directly asks Satan where he has come from. This question was not for God to gain knowledge that He did not already know, but rather it was for our benefit to teach us Satan goes back and forth from the earth to heaven. Satan’s answer was “I am coming from walking to and fro throughout the earth and walking up and down in it”. This sounds like a paraphrase from 1 Peter 5:8. “Your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour”.

What we are discovering is the clear fact that all angels have access to heaven today even as you are reading this lesson. And we can visibly confirm this statement by observing what we have just read in Revelation chapter 12.

Notice what Revelation 12:8 said. God says very plainly that before Satan and his angels were cast down, they had a place in heaven. The Greek word G5117 translated as “place” is an essential word to understand. This word literally states Satan, and his rebellious angels had dwelling places with implied addresses of ownership, as well as positions within the government including roles and titles. This is also confirmed in the book of Jude 1:6 where it also describes angels’ dwellings in heaven.

But after this final war in heaven, in Revelation 12, their access and living rights have been finally revoked and their places and positions of authority have been ended in heaven. Wow, this is a view of God’s final prophetic heavenly “Zayin” sword “cutting” plan of division, removing all heavenly evil from those that are called righteous in His heavenly Kingdom.

Next notice in Revelation 12:9 we find the heavenly war results and who it affected. In this verse God identifies the defeated beings as Satan called the dragon as well as the symbolic ancient serpent in the Garden of Eden. But don’t let it pass you by, that Satan is stated to have deceived the entire world and this also includes Christians at some time of human existence. Hopefully, only when they were not saved.

Now notice Revelation 12:10. This verse is amazing because it also confirms Satan’s future removal from heaven will occur during this soon coming heavenly war. Pay close attention to the words “Now has come salvation in heaven, because the accuser of our brethren has been cast down”. This is clearly stating a permanent Satan exit will be taking place and he will finally not be able to “accuse” Christian/righteous people anymore before God. This literally means this is what he has been doing for thousands of years.

We do not have the time to go into all the steps that have taken place to get us here. We can learn God’s major accomplishment to eliminate Satan was to come to the earth in the flesh to die on a cross being hung by “Vav” nails. We could call this the central part of God’s phased multistep plan for the elimination of “evil”. It was at this point that Satan literally believed he had prevailed over God. But Satan was not aware of the next step of God’s plan called the “Resurrection from the dead”. Here is a quick list of the major steps of God’s plan for the final elimination of evil:

  1. God foresaw the need to eliminate evil and decides to create a world with laws (Gen 2:16) and consequences of death for disobedience (Gen 2:17).
  2. God speaks to create this new world in Genesis 1:3-31.
  3. God then created one new man to rule this world (Gen 1:26, Gen 2).
  4. God knowing Satan’s ambitions, understood his desires to rule God’s new separated world and this would drive Satan down to the earth. God allowed Satan to temporarily “Zayin” separate himself from heaven to descend to the earth and become “Vav” joined to God’s new world containing laws, time limits and death consequences.
  5. After the sin and rebellion of Adam, Satan, sin, and death ruled over all humans (2 Cor 4:4, Eph 2:2, Rom 5:17-21).
  6. Now during the 6000-year time of man’s work on the earth, God and humans both were now joined simultaneously with good and evil (Satan). This meant Satan had rights to both the spiritual domain of God and the natural dominion of humans (Gen 3:5, 3:22). This is clearly a transitional plan of God to catch Satan with one foot in the spiritual and the other in the natural.
  7. The sin of Adam left God on the outside looking into His earth creation and Satan can practically destroy this creation by the time of Genesis 6.
  8. This brough God’s judgments upon the earth where only 8 righteous could be saved by an “ark” living through a global “flood” (1 Pet 3:8).
  9. This judgment places a fear of God upon the earth, and they begin to build a tower in Babel to save themselves from anymore judgements (Gen 11:5-8).
  10. This is when further judgments occur, and many new languages are implemented by God to divide the people on the earth. From these divided people come all the nations of the earth.
  11. In the course of time, God chooses one man from all the people of the earth, to create one new physical nation and one forthcoming planned coming new spiritual nation (1 Pet 2:9). This man named Abraham will bring forth “one” promised combined natural and spiritual seed named Jesus Christ (Gal 3:16). This man Abraham is now the spiritual father of everyone that has been and will be saved in Christ (Rom 4:16).
  12. During the next 2000 years of human time, God implements a significant marriage covenant (Vav joining) with the natural children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Jer 31:32).
  13. Further in the Old Covenant process these children of natural Israel are brought under the bondage of captivity in Egypt and God selects a man named Moses to deliver them.
  14. They are delivered by God implementing a final 10th plague on Egypt called the death of the “firstborn” and bypassed by the substitutionary “death” of an innocent sacrificial lamb (Exo 12). Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
  15. Next God implements more “laws” in natural Israel for humans to follow. This is done to establish a High Priest system of mediation between God and man using blood sacrifices. This is done because God desired to personally live on the earth in a temporary tabernacle with them. This is now a pattern of God’s coming New Covenant with Christ living inside of temporary human bodies (1 Cor 6:19).
  16. At the end of 4000 years of human history, God comes personally into the earth being birthed in Bethlehem (Mat 1:23). This birth places God under His given LAW (Gal 4:4). God does this to fulfill all the “Law”, but also to “die” a spotless lamb’s death to pay the penalty for all human sins redeeming humans from Satan using a Zayin cutaway. Finally, this death on the cross also performed another “Zayin” divide, separating God, Himself from all evil at another set future time.
  17. It was after 3 days in hell that God was righteously satisfied for the death of Jesus as payment for “All” human sins, that Jesus is resurrected from the dead.
  18. It was this resurrection that began God’s “New Creation” with Jesus becoming the “Firstborn from the dead”. This new birth brought about a creation type that had never existed at any time in the past. And this gave Jesus preeminence over all other creations in the past, the present and the future.

It was Jesus being raised from the dead that sealed Satan’s future destiny in hell. This is why 1 Corinthians 2:8 claims that if Satan would have known what was planned, he would not have crucified the LORD God on a cross. What happened that Satan did not expect?

God’s surprise is called the first “New Birth” of a spiritual being (Rev 1:5). Jesus reveals this mystery in John 3:3 when He said, “Except a man is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”. Wow, that is a major statement. It is also the exact same “Vav” joining heaven to some deemed righteous, while simultaneously performing a “Zayin” cutting away of others named unrighteous and evil that is taking place.

Was Jesus a man? Yes, He was! Therefore, this statement first applied to Him. If we can read in Colossians 1:18 Jesus is called “the beginning”. What is He the beginning of? It comes in the next connecting statement, “the firstborn from the dead”. Wow, again! A growing number of Bible teachers are beginning to teach what was accomplished in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. However, there are still too many that are leaving out that He became the “firstborn from the dead” while being resurrected. It was this powerful act of God that made Him preeminent (the FIRST, the HEAD, the alphabet letter “Resh”) in God’s never existing before, new creation.

This spiritually imminent New Birth is what Satan was oblivious to. It implemented a “New Creation” (2 Cor 5:17) that also brought about a “Vav” reconnecting “New Covenant” (Heb 12:24) with humans, which is resulting in a New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2), a “New Heaven”, and a “New Earth” (Rev 21:1), and all these new things will exclude (Zayin divide) Satan and all other evil completely. This New Creation is our current phase of existence in God’s plan of removal of evil and Satan. It will last for 2 days, or 2000 years called the church days of Divine Grace.

However, the church age will climax with implementing God’s next steps of His plan. This begins with the church being victorious over God’s enemy Satan. This will be the conclusion to Christ’s works on the cross that laid the foundation of Satan’s defeat and our Victory. This victory will result in the church standing upon Satan’s head with our feet (Rom 16:20). The church is the prophesied woman that will bruise Satan’s head under our feet in Genesis 3:15. Can you hear the screams of blasphemy that just happened? Please patiently put down your stones.

Yes, most teach Genesis 3:15 is about the “Seed” and not the “woman” crushing the serpent’s head. But both are true. Remember where the church came from and who the church is today. The church is called the bride of Christ and Christ is called the bridegroom. But the church is also called the “Body of Christ” like we can read in Colossians 1:18. We also know that Christ is called the “Head” of the corporate church “body” that is “Vav” united with Him to being in Him and Him being in our spirit. Therefore, we know that God says, “As He is, so are we!” (1 Jn 4:17). This appears to say whatever He does through us, is what He does. This would mean if we crush the head of the serpent under our feet, it is the same as if Christ Jesus in us has done it.

Therefore, where are the feet in the body of Christ? They must be in the church that is on the earth today. This is exactly why God writes to the church in Romans 16:20, “the God of Peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly”. This clearly is a statement of prophecy about a soon coming victory over God’s enemy. It is God’s sovereign choice to show Satan that it will be a newly created spiritual woman that will be the one that will crush his head, and not the Almighty God that created him. This appears to lower Satan’s pride significantly to not think that he is so high and mighty above all else. This is powerful if you will accept it.

Quickly, let us wrap this section of the lesson about the simultaneous “Vav” joining with God, and “Zayin” cutting away of Satan and all evil with observing the last steps of the plan of God for Satan’s permanent removal.

Rev 20:3  And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

This verse in Revelation 20 is when Satan and all his evil spirit servants are cast into the pit for 1000 years. This is the last 7th day of the creation account found in the Genesis 1 prophecy of man’s complete history on the earth during this present creation. This is called God’s Sabath day of rest, and this is very interesting. What we learn from this coming 1000-year day of “rest”, is that it is a time where all humans on the earth that there will be no “evil influences” for humans to be tempted with.

This information clearly implies by the law of antithesis truth, the preceding 6 days or 6000 years of man will be a time when they will be working for God and against evil influences or working with the evil to be against God. These 1000 years of rest from fighting Satan, will bring down the Kingdom of God from heaven which will be ruled with a rod of iron by the resurrected from the dead LORD Jesus, and the resurrected and raptured church overcomers (Rev 2:26-27, Rev 5:10, Rev 20:4).

There will be physical tribulation survivors that did not take the mark of the beast and were not killed by the antichrist, that will be left on the earth. These people would have survived miraculously throughout the entire 7 years of God’s judgments upon the earth, and Satan’s wrath. Now these people will be able to repopulate the earth for the period lasting 1000 years. But after these 1000 years have ended, we can clearly read in Revelation 20:3 that Satan must be loosed for a short time from his pit captivity (Rev 20:7) to deceive, tempt and test people again (Rev 20:8). None of these natural newly born people on the earth have ever experienced any direct temptations. Therefore, it appears God is allowing them to be tested by evil to choose between “Vav” joining with Satan or remaining in “Vav” union with God through Jesus. Let us look now at the final “Zayin” division of Satan and all evil from the righteous:

Rev 20:10  And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

We can clearly read in this verse that there is coming after the 1000-year reign of Christ, the never-ending separation of God from all evil. This is the last time that a “Zayin” cutting away will become final and the “Chet” wall of permanent division fully encloses all evil away from the righteous.

The “Great White Throne” Judgment will take place next after Satan’s elimination, and the unrighteous will be judged and whoever is not found written in the “book of life” will be cast into hell with Satan (Rev 10:15). This is the second death called the spiritual separation from knowing God and all His grace, goodness, mercy, love and forgiveness. This will truly be sad for these people since they could have accepted Jesus their entire life on the earth. Finally, God is completing the “Zayin” separation from evil and His “Vav” union with the “righteous” by ending His first creation after fully transitioning all righteous into His New Creation:

Rev 21:1  And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

Rev 21:2  And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

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.

Rev 21:4  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Rev 21:5  And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Rev 21:6  And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

Rev 21:7  He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

Rev 21:8  But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

These are amazing prophetical promises that will be occurring much sooner than you may imagine. Hopefully, these verses make a lot more sense to you now. We can clearly see the culmination of God’s plan being fully realized that was planned from the very foundation of the world. God has spoken this entire plan in outline form in Genesis 1.

Go back and see how the 7-day creation of our current world was an overview for His plan of eliminating evil and “Vav” joining with only righteousness. Five or six times “Zayin” divisions take place. The first three chapters of Genesis have significant amounts of dual meanings attached to them. They contain natural descriptions of what is happening in our world during creation, and these are also symbolic revealing spiritual things that are prophesied to happen in the spiritual world of God’s plan of man’s salvation and Satan’s elimination. However, this will not be covered in this lesson.

5. Conclusion

There are numerous verses in the New Covenant as well as prophetical verses in the Old Covenant that could have been included in this lesson today. Hopefully, you have learned enough to spend your personal time studying this subject on your own. For example, to conclude this lesson, we will only review a few examples of what we have learned that Jesus fulfilled as the “Vav” ancient Hebrew alphabet letter:

1Co 15:24  Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power

Here is another confirming verse that helps unlock the mystery of Jesus as the “Vav”. Notice it begins with then comes the “end” and this connects us to the end being made known from the beginning we learned in the Genesis 1:1 prophecy.  Next notice Paul writes “when ‘he’ shall deliver up the kingdom to God the Father. The “he” here in this verse is Jesus the Son of God that was raised up from the dead to “begin” a brand-new creation (2 Cor 5:17) and He in this process has “been highly exalted far above all principality, power, might and dominion” (Eph 1:21). This is a direct reference to Satan and all his kingdom evil angels. Let us include this verse of Ephesians in our conclusion.

Eph 1:21  Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:

It is essential to notice that the Greek word G746 translated as “principality” in Ephesians 1:21, is also translated as “beginning(s)” approximately 40 times. It is also the same exact Greek word that was translated as “rule” in 1 Corinthians 15:24.

Therefore, we have discovered that there was a “powerful” ruler that existed at the time of God’s beginning of His first creation (Gen 1:1) that needed to be put down and placed permanently underfoot. This spiritual ruler was “Lucifer” and God has been working His plan to remove Lucifer’s evil influence both in heaven and in earth through “Jesus’ death” being nailed (Vav) on a cross (Tav) (1 Cor 2:8) for the last 6000 years.

1Co 15:25  For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.

As we can confirm from this verse, God is implementing a progressive transfer of power and authority that began in God’s heavenly kingdom that was then transitioned to rule in the current temporary earth realm. Remember God personally came down in the form of a human baby in the middle of this process to “Vav” join Himself with His creation and to place Himself under His law (Gal 4:4).

It should be becoming obvious that this shift of power was a process and not just a one-time single event. We can see a major part of this transition was accomplished after Jesus was resurrected from the dead by reading Matthew 28:18. In this verse, Jesus the risen Son of God proclaims, “All authority in heaven and earth, has been given to me”. Clearly this is a profound statement of a shift in power and delegated authority.

It strongly confirms God’s need to eliminate Lucifer’s authority in heaven and then on the earth and it was accomplished when Jesus became the “First born from the dead”. It was through this “New First Spiritual Re-Birth of Jesus” that initiated God’s “New Creation”, including a “New Kingdom”, a “New Covenant”, etc. as we have learned.

God is amazing and we could have written many more volumes of information about this subject of a “Zayin” certain “Division” of Satan and evil from God and man, a “Vav” destined “re-connection” of all righteousness back to God, and a “Chet” final and permanent “wall of separation” being “built” between all good and all evil.

Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us. We love you more than you may know. Hopefully this potentially new information did not overwhelm you. Please, be an Acts 17:11 more noble type of Christian and learn to study everything learned here for yourself, looking up every verse reference given and confirm what is taught is what God is saying to the church today. There is too much deception taking place in the world today, and God’s Word is the only source of TRUTH for the sound knowledge of what He has done for us and given to us. Praise the LORD!

Intro Alef Beyt-1 2 Gimel Dalet Hey Vav Zayin Chet Tet Yod Kaf Lamed Mem 1 2 Nun Samekh Ayin Pey Tsade Qof Resh Shin TavAlef-Beyt Chart (Series updated as LORD directs and permits)

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

Understanding the Sovereignty of God – Part 2 – Who is the Sovereign Elect of God

(Ver 1.0) This is Part 2 in the series of lessons teaching us about the amazingly revealed subject of the “sovereignty of God”. If you have not read “Part 1“, it is highly recommended that you go back and start with this introduction. Too many Christians have manmade traditions or reduced doctrinal views of what “sovereignty” represents when teaching about the application of this word to God. Some of the popular mindsets that have been dominating a lot of these religious thoughts on sovereignty, align with the following types of Christian beliefs and confessions:

  1. You just never know what God will do next?
  2. Sometimes God heals some of us and other times He makes us sick to humble us, teach us, or to get some glory for Himself to help save others.
  3. God can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, to whoever He wants because He is God.
  4. God will open the doors to what I should do, be, or go into, and shut the doors that I should not do, be, or go, into.
  5. If God wants me to have it, He will give it to me!
  6. If God wants me saved, He will save me!
  7. If God wants me healed, He will heal me!
  8. If God wants to bless me, He will bless me!
  9. Lord, if it be your will for my friend, my family, my child, etc., to be healed, delivered, or saved, we ask for your will to be done.
  10. God loves me so much; He won’t let anything bad happen to me…
  11. If God made me this way (poor, sick, gay, crippled, blind, lame, etc.), therefore He loves me and wants me this way.
  12. If God allowed evil to happen to me, He has a purpose for it.
  13. God took my child to heaven because he wanted another angel.

These are just some of the examples of wrong ways people think about God and His sovereignty trying to explain why bad things happened to them. People take a part of the total known or unknown sound doctrine of balanced sovereignty and then only magnify a small section of it to an extreme position that leaves everything that happens to us in the world totally up to God’s will and power. When this happens, God can easily be held responsible for every evil work that anyone, including Satan or any evil person does or makes happen.

In other words, people believe that God causes, commits, or permits all the liars of the world, in politics and of governments to happen, and they must all be doing their evils by the will and purpose of God. This would include mass murderers and genocide in the world blaming it all on God’s will. This would include all the starvation occurring in the world is also God’s will. This would include all terrorism is God’s will, and we could fill up a book with other examples of evil to blame them all on a loving God? This just does not match the revealed character and nature of God in the Bible.

Today, we will only address one part of the subject of sovereignty that is taught in a lot of Christian churches. We are delivering this specific topic only because we believe the Lord desires us to respond to a comment that was received asking a question from the previous lesson. This questioned sovereign position holds the belief of Sovereign Election of certain chosen individuals to receive salvation by His Divine selection only.

This belief of course, strongly implies that all others not selected by God were “chosen” to live on earth, die and go to hell by God’s sovereign design and right of choice. This extreme belief disqualifies the view of any human freedoms to choose whether to be saved or to be lost. This position places all responsibility for salvation only upon God who they claim has sovereignly chosen them. There are also other variations of this belief, but all of these must attempt to explain the other Bible verses that appear to conflict or contradict with this doctrine. We will see several of these conflicting verses in this lesson, and then attempt to balance them all together equally.

If you are aware of another variation of your belief to how this God choice of being Elect is defined, feel free to share it in a comment. But please only comment after reading the entire lesson first, so that we can compare all your Bible verses with the Word of God that will be shared here today. Also, if you are unable to leave a comment containing a belief with Bible verses, please do not bother sharing any personal opinions, they will not be given any value or time to be responded to.

For those readers that have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of your spirit to be saved, what does the Spirit of God say inside to you about this belief so far? Does the Spirit of God inside you give you any witnessed assurance that this belief is correct? Or does He cause you to feel that there is just something not right about God electing to make your choice for you, without your participation to go to hell? The Holy Spirit is the only guide to all truth that we can depend upon. Therefore, stop here and now and ask Him these questions, and let us see what He says to you and then let the Spirit inside’s judgement be your guide with what will be taught today to see if there is any agreement.

There will be no disagreement from Agapegeek, that there are certainly scriptures in the New and Old Testament that seem to imply this belief of “Election” is on the surface accurate. But with deeper study, it just might change our opinions and views to show us that it can be understood to mean something completely different and even to an opposite position. This does not mean anyone ignores the verses taught on election or disagrees with their inclusion in the Bible. It only means once balanced correctly, the interpretations of these verses can be shifted to see something amazingly missed before.

Our primary goal today is to find the truth! We are only desiring to see God’s view on this subject of sovereignty. Therefore, we promise the Holy Spirit to approach the subject with an open-minded position of rest, to be led by the Spirit of God, to go wherever He desires to go and show us whatever He sovereignly chooses to teach us, and we will choose to receive it with a thankful heart and mind.

Could this position of God sovereignly choosing some for salvation and other for hell’s separation, be another example of someone taking a partial truth and exalting it beyond its scope of application to be the only truth, excluding all other truths? Remember this practice of one truth independence can usually lead us into error. This is too often caused when we do not balance all scriptures equally together. Let us dig into this subject to discover if there is something that we may have omitted or missed. Here is a list of the sections that will be covered in our lesson:

  1. Election Confirmed
  2. God’s Wedding Invitation
  3. Jesus the Only One Chosen?
  4. How and When was the Church Chosen?
  5. Resolving Scripture Conflicts for Being Called “Elect”
  6. Conclusion

Election Confirmed!

Let us quickly go over a few of the key verses on the doctrine of “election”. We will begin with the red-letter words of Jesus speaking in prophetical terms about the end of the world that is beginning to happen now.

Mat 24:24  For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect

It is obvious that Jesus is calling a potential person or a group or “set” of “like people” by qualifying and defining them using the term “elect”. This Greek word translated as “elect” is G1588, and it is defined by Strong as “select”, “favorite”, or “elect”. But it is also important to know that this single Greek word is translated as “elect” 16 times and “chosen” 7 times. Therefore, if we are only looking for verses that were translated as “elect” we will miss those that were translated as “chosen”.

This verse and God’s usage of the Greek word becomes our initial confirmation with the potential for somethings we could call “sovereign election”. It is important to note that the Greek word G1588 translated as “elect”, occurs 3 times in chapter 24 of Matthew. Therefore, this chapter seems to have an especially important emphasis on this subject. Here are the other verses in Matthew 24:

Mat 24:22  And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened

Mat 24:31  And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other

What we are observing is a new challenge to define being called “elect”. Most “elect” doctrines of being chosen for salvation, claim they were chosen by God and there is nothing they or anyone else could do, or anything that could happen on earth to not be saved. This means God’s sovereign election stands strong and unchanging, because He is God and He gets His way.

But notice verse 22 of Matthew 24. There is a timing of significant events that occur on the earth, where God describes the time must be shortened, or no one in the flesh was going to be saved. Therefore, God is speaking of elect people as those being saved, with the exception that it is not guaranteed salvation based upon something we are not told yet.

Now let us go back to verse 22, to see something that the translators may have missed in their KJV interpretation. The KJV translators must have believed in a form of the doctrine of guaranteed election, because of the way the verse was translated, and because they added specific italicized words that appear to support guaranteed election. But these italicized words do not occur in the verse. Here is what Dr Robert Young translated the verse to say in his very literal translation:

Mat 24:24  For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect(KJV)

Mat 24:24 for there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and they shall give great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, also the chosen. (YLT)

There are three major differences between these two translations. First, the omission of the italicized words; “it were”, before the word “possible” in the “Young’s Literal Translation”. The changing of the word “very” to “also” as it should be in the “Young’s Literal Translation”. The revision of the word “elect”, to the word “chosen” in the “Young’s Literal Translation”. All these changes help us to see some things much more clearly.

For example, what we are observing is how in these verses of Matthew, whoever these elect ones are, they could possibly be deceived as others were “also” deceived in verse 24 by the false Christ. And in verse 22 these “elect” ones, may not be saved unless God shortens the time of tribulation. What we are observing is a major discrepancy to viewing these “elect” to have a guaranteed salvation.

Therefore, many Christians must be assuming from these three verses in Matthew that these are speaking about the guaranteed pre-selected Christian church as being called the “elect” by Jesus. Yet that belief is even contradicted by what Jesus said in the entre statement, so which is it? Are they guaranteed saved or are they potentially saved based upon not being deceived by the false Christ and time being shorten for their sake to be saved?

What should be cautionary is that many times in the Bible, God uses the exact same word to refer to multiple like related beings. If you did not know yet, these “Elect” could be angels (1 Timothy 5:21), Israel (Isaiah 45:4), the church (1 Peter 2:9), or Jesus Christ (Luke 23:35, 1 Peter 2:6). Therefore, to be a wise Acts 17:11 type of Berean Bible student, we better do a lot more homework to study what is God really talking about.

As you can see this topic of study has suddenly become more complicated than most have thought. We have just been introduced to the potential of multiple identities as a condition to be determined for being called the “Elect”. Also, we have just observed two qualifying conditions that must be met to be in this group called the “elect”. Therefore, to assume each verse is about any single group or identity, is an assumption and must rather be proven with facts of scripture truth to reveal their identity.

However, we have identified and confirmed that Jesus spoke of someone as being the “Elect” that “if possible” could be deceived. And in another verse, He said “those days should be shortened, or no flesh would be saved, but for the elect’s sake, those days will be shortened”. Nevertheless, in the last verse with this Greek word we find the angels gathering the elect (chosen) ones off the earth. Therefore, there is someone that is called by this title.

Let us move to the next section to help us narrow down what this calling of someone as “Elect” means. Because God’s definition of the word will overrule man’s definitions 100% of the time.

God’s Wedding Invitation

Jesus teaches us a parable that could radically shift our focus on what being called “Elect” could be defined as. This parable is an amazing part of our study subject “sovereignty” even if you do not see it automatically at first. Let us please read carefully the story given by Jesus (God’s Son).

Mat 22:2  The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son

Mat 22:3  And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come

Mat 22:4  Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage

Mat 22:5  But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: 

Mat 22:6  And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. 

Mat 22:7  But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city

Mat 22:8  Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy

Mat 22:9  Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage

Mat 22:10  So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests

Mat 22:11  And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: 

Mat 22:12  And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. 

Mat 22:13  Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

Mat 22:14  For many are called, but few are chosen

We will notice in verse 2 that Jesus is speaking about the “Kingdom of heaven”. This simply means these coming statements are about God’s sovereign government within the spiritual realm of existence apart from the earth. But then Jesus reveals this hidden spiritual reality is said to be “like” a normal story of a king that could have lived upon the natural earth. Parables always use natural parallels to teach unseen spiritual concepts so we can understand it.

Then Jesus gets started revealing the spiritual kingdom is like a “certain king” and this is a reference to God the Father in heaven that sits on His sovereign Kingdom throne. Therefore, we have the “Most High” as the Sovereign ruler that chooses to have a Son, and then arranges a marriage for His Son. This certainly matches our subject of God as “Sovereign”.

This should be obvious to who the son represents. This can only be Jesus that was God’s Son, who was born of the natural woman named Mary in Bethlehem. Isaiah 9:6 says, “Unto us a child is born, and a son is given” and this was written about the coming Messiah named Jesus (Yeshua).

The next key word in the parable to understand is “marriage”. This is a radically misunderstood concept for a lot of Christians, not knowing how to define this word.

In the eyes of God, a covenant is a marriage and God defines this to us in the Old Testament in Isaiah 54:5, Jeremiah 31:32 and Malachi 2:14, to only name three verses. Therefore, if a covenant of God is a marriage in His eyes, the marriage of this parable’s son is Jesus’s New Covenant, to His bride (Mat 9:15).

Guess who the bride is. If you said the church is the bride, you are correct (Eph 5:32, 2 Cor 11:2). So far, we have defined the parable subjects of the king as the Sovereign God the Father in heaven, and the son as the Lord Jesus Christ the bridegroom. How then does His church bride fit into this parable of a sovereignly arranged marriage by the Father God in Heaven?

In this parable, those that are the servants going out to spread the king’s invitations are symbolic for those that have already believed on the Lord Jesus and are working for God as His Kingdom servants to spread the Gospel (Rom 1:1). These servants represent the bride. They are working for God to get more into the wedding. These believing ones, are going out all over the world (Mk 16:15) preaching to those that are not yet saved. The invitations being given out represent the words of the Gospel of the kingdom (Mat 4:23, Rom 1:15-16), which is the good news of the free gifts of forgiveness, healing, deliverance, and salvation.  

Those that are being invited to the wedding, represents all the people that are in the world that have not heard the Gospel. Notice in Matthew 22:5, that many of these receiving the invitation make light of it and offer excuses like they did in Acts 2:13 and Acts 24:25 to name two examples of this type of world’s behavior.

Then next notice how Jesus says in Matthew 22:6 that others in the world will take more extreme hate filled positions against the Gospel good news, to even beat and kill God’s servants (Acts 5:40-41, Acts 7:51-57, Acts 8:1). God very clearly in this parable says these people that rejected His invitation would be destroyed and their city burned down, and this literally occurs for the first time in 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem.

In Matthew 22:8 Jesus said, those that were invited were not deemed worthy to receive the gift of the invitation to the wedding, so the king sends out his servants again in Matthew 22:10 telling them to go out into the highways and invite everyone. This again is the great commission of the church to go into the entire gentile world to preach the Gospel to everyone that is living on the earth. This is the heart of God to save all that are receptive to the invitation.

Hopefully, you do understand this parable better now being a representation of spreading the Gospel and how this works. If not, we can read about the process in detail in Romans 10:

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

Rom 10:14  How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher

Rom 10:15  And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things

Please pay very close attention to the words selected by God. The first key word is “whosoever”. This represents everyone in the entire world, not just a few people that some Christians believe are the “elect” of the kingdom. This is very clearly our first confirmation that the Parable about being invited to come to the king’s son’s wedding feast is for everyone. But the choice to come is personally left completely in the hands of each one that heard the invitation to decide whether they would value the invitation, to choose to come to the wedding.

Romans 10 is a list of personal choices. None of these personal choices are the forced will of the Sovereign God. Please go and read the entire chapter. The first 4 verses are written about many people that were in the natural nation of Israel that corresponded to people that killed the kings’ servant men in the Matthew 22 parable about being invited to a wedding feast, by those that were sent to them preaching the Gospel.

But then in Romans 10:5, Paul begins to write the message of salvation is for “all”, by God’s sovereign choice to send forth the Gospel to the entire lost world and “only” those that “believe” and “confess” Jesus as Lord in Romans 10:9-10 will be saved. Wow, this is what Jesus was speaking about in the Parable. The invitations are spoken to everyone they encounter, and they must believe the good news message by faith and get dressed and go to the king’s palace for the feast (Rev 19:9).

We get the confirmation again in Romans 10:11-12 that this invitation to believe in Jesus is open to everyone in the world. Paul writes very clearly that it is to both the Jewish and the Gentile nations. This is amazing information about God’s sovereign choices and His gift of invitation is always given to anyone that will choose to come. But how do we balance this with the original “Elect” verses? That is a good question. We begin to understand the answer in Matthew 22:14, the last statement of the Parable of the wedding feast invitation:

Mat 22:14  For many are called, but few are chosen.

This is our key linked verse about the sovereign election of God. First, notice the Greek word G2822, that is translated as the word “called”. This word is defined and can be translated as “invited”. Therefore, to call someone to attend is an invitation. Next, notice the Greek word that was translated as “chosen” is the exact same word G1588 that was translated as the “elect”. Change the words “called” to “invited” and the word “chosen” to “elect” and reread it. “For many are invited, but few (choose to become) “chosen”. The italicized words are legally added because this is exactly what was taught to us in the parable. The entire parable is about those that choose to receive the wedding invitation, and it is them making this choice that causes them to be called “elect” (chosen).

Now let us shift to a totally new perspective that has been almost ignored by countless ministers.

Jesus the Only One Chosen by God

This is where we are going to potentially lose more readers. But this is what the Bible teaches us when we see it. If you do not understand the subject of “covenants” this is probably why you do not understand the title of this section. A covenant is between two parties or individuals. Any covenant is a lasting bond of unity exactly as a marriage was designed to be by God in Genesis 2.

However, a marriage like God’s covenants were completely dependent upon the weakest link in the bound contract. It only takes one party of the contract to break the covenant and if there is any imperfection in one, the covenant can be easily broken. This is what happened to the natural nation of Israel for 1500+ years. They were the weakest link in their covenant with God. They repeatedly went and worshipped other idols instead of the true and living God. God called this infidelity becoming a “whore” and God divorced these people in Jeremiah 3:1-8.

However, with God, He has no imperfections and is the strongest covenant partner possible. Israel in the Old Covenant was in a contract with God almighty, but they continually broke it making them the weakest link. This is why the New Covenant was not established between God and the church directly. Instead, our Father God sent His Son named Jesus to become a human and because He was equally God, He could become the God to man mediator.

Because the New Covenant was between God the Father, and God the Son who are both manifestations of God, they will never break this New Creation covenant that was first revealed to us in Genesis 15. Therefore, this covenant is eternally bonded between two ever living beings capable of not sinning to break it and it will never end (Heb 13:20).

If you go and read this story in Genesis 15, you will find Abram taking 5 animals and splitting three of them into two pieces and he places the bodies on the ground. Abram goes to sleep and sees a “smoking furnace” and “burning torch” walking through the covenant pieces. These two symbols represent God (the all-Consuming Fire Heb 12:29) and His Son, Jesus Christ (the Light of the World, John 9:5).

This information about Jesus being the one that is in covenant with God as the human representative, is very important. This makes Jesus the only one that was “chosen” as God’s “elect”, simply because He would remain faithful even when humans fail to remain faithful. We need to establish these assertions with more scriptures that claim Jesus is the only One God has chosen to be in direct covenant with Him. We will begin with Psalms first:

Psa 89:19  Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people

If you read the next verse, God is directly speaking of David, but by God’s repeated usages of double references between the natural and the spiritual realms, this verse is also speaking of Jesus. Remember Jesus is called the Son of David multiple times.

What God is saying is that He chose David to be King, and the future Son of David, named Jesus to sit upon his throne forever and ever in the future. Let us look at another verse that also points to the coming Messiah:

Isa 42:1  Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

God calls the future Messiah, His “elect”. This is very amazing. But was this fulfilled in Jesus? We can discover this is what the Jewish people were expecting reading in Matthew:

Mat 12:17  That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying

Mat 12:18  Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles

God writing through Matthew, claims these Isaiah patterns of Messiah were all fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, again calling Him the “chosen”. If you can see this, why are you calling yourself the chosen and elect one of God? Can both of you be the chosen one and the Messiah? The answer to that question is “Yes” and “No” but we will need to learn more. But we will look at one more verse about Jesus being the chosen one:

Luk 23:35  And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

This is a verse written about the time Jesus was hanging on a cross and all the people were watching and mocking Him. These people wanted Him to prove that He was the Messiah by coming down off the cross. But Jesus told them very clearly, no sign will be given you, except the sign of Jonah. As Jonah was in the belly for 3 days and nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for 3 days and 3 nights (Mat 12:40, Mat 16:4).

Do you see how these statements are moving in parallel to the prophecy of the wedding invitation parable? Yes, the parable is a prophecy about what is happening to Jesus. These Jewish leaders hated Jesus so very much, that they incited a riot mob to demand His death, but this was the plan of God all along.

The main point from Luke 23:35, proves that the Jewish population was expecting the “Chosen one of God, called Messiah” to appear, and Jesus did not match their expectations because of their ignorance of the scriptures. Most were seeing a “conquering Messiah”, while ignoring the “suffering Messiah” in Isaiah 53. Finally, we are going to talk about the church next and all the references that call us “elect”, “chosen”, etc.

How and When was the Church Chosen?

We have observed verses in the Bible that place the titles of “chosen” and “elect” upon Christians, and this is a great hidden mystery to the how and when we were given these names. How did the church achieve this title, if God’s Son Jesus was the one that He prophesied would be chosen? The answer is not that complicated, but it may be resisted because some have never heard of it before. Let us look at scriptures that reveal how we made a choice that qualified us to be chosen by God:

2Th 2:13  But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:

As we can plainly see, the church was “chosen” from the very beginning. The beginning of what? Is this the beginning of time, creation, the world, the church, or what? In Ephesians 1:4 we find where God has chosen the church before the foundation of the world. Therefore, this is long before humans existed and could go back to the beginning of time, and creation. So, we have established the “when” this plan to elect us was established.

Now for the “How” question. We have previously mentioned this reason of “how” it was planned to be accomplished for us to obtain being called His “elect”. But now we are seeing it from a God perspective teaching us how we became chosen even before we were created. Please recall the “wedding invitation” parable of Jesus because this is being restated and expanded here in this verse written to the church.

God writing by the hand of Paul to the church says very clearly, we have been “chosen” to (receive) salvation because God sanctified us (made pure) by His Spirit, and this occurred because we chose to believe God’s words (invitation) which was the (Gospel) truth. Wow! This is just further confirmation that what we did to receive and believe caused God to cleanse our sins and define us as His “chosen”. But this is further confirmed in the next verse that follows:

2Th 2:14  Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here is just more of the confirming process of what we just read about in verse 13. Remember this was God’s sovereignly chosen process for our salvation, that was planned even before the world began. Did you notice the word “called”? Paul says very clearly that God “called” (literally invited) us by our choice to hear the Gospel. This is the same parallel that we have been observing from the parable of the “wedding invitation”.

God has again connected the facts of Romans 10 with the parable of the wedding invitation to how we have been chosen to be called God’s “elect”. To be called God’s “elect” was designed by Him for us to first qualify to be called this by any human hearing the preached good news Gospel and to believe it. Yes, there is more to it than just that over simplified statement, but that is the basis for all salvation. Let us investigate this a little further to confirm it is true:

Eph 1:4  According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

This is a new way to say the same things that we have already learned. But specifically notice the new revelation that is being offered to us to help explain what is happening when we choose to believe the Gospel of Christ. This very plainly states that Christians were “chosen” only because we were placed “In Him” and this Him, is Christ Jesus. But remember who Him is again? He is the “chosen” one that God could depend upon to keep His eternal covenant. This is why we need to be placed “In Him” spiritually, to insure we never break the covenant by sinning.

Again, God says this was His designed plan of salvation before humans were even created. We must get a hold of what is being taught to us and what God has done to us and for us.

2Co 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (creation): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

This is one of the many (over 150) verses that claim we as believers have been placed “in Christ” by God’s sovereign choice after we choose to believe. Based upon the number of verses that describe this reality, this appears to be a major accomplishment to achieve our “salvation”.

Why was being placed “In Christ” so essential to God’s plan of salvation? This is important for at least two reasons. The first reason is that we were all “In Adam” when he rebelled and sold us into Satan’s kingdom of darkness. Because we were “In Adam” when he sinned, we all sinned, and we were all given the same “death” penalty (1 Cor 15:22).

But by believing in Jesus through faith we were saved out of the darkness of death to be placed “in” the living kingdom of God’s dear Son called Light (Col 1:13). Wow, now reread 2 Corinthians 5:17 to see the new light that is shining upon us being placed in Christ. According to this verse God has caused us to become a brand new, and a never existed before creation that has also made us a completely new person “In Christ”.

It is this sovereign new creation, that places us “In Him” by faith, that is the chief part of God separating Himself and us from the evil influence of Lucifer/Satan and all his angels that have sinned. Let us consider a verse that maybe some have not understood before now:

Joh 10:9  I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

Notice what Jesus is saying here. He is claiming to be a “door” for someone that is going somewhere. In John 10:7 we find that He is saying that He is the door for the “sheep” and being a “sheep” is a symbol for the saved Christians. What is Jesus saying them? Could it be that to be saved, you better enter in this door named Jesus? Could this be another way of saying that by us choosing to “enter” Christ the door, we will be saved by being “in CHRIST”? I believe it is. There are too many verses that confirm what we are learning, but we will end this section with this one:

Rom 16:13  Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine.

As you can see Paul writing about a random saved man in the church name Rufus, confirms again that anyone in the church is also chosen by God in the same way of choosing to enter the door of salvation named Jesus Christ. Because we that are saved, have chosen to get out of (exit) the first Adam and enter into the Christ by faith, we were all chosen and have become His elect “in Christ”. We accomplished this, not because we were God’s individual choice that was chosen for our personal salvation, but rather it was because we chose Him by believing the invitation of the Gospel, then we were placed “In Him” who was “the Chosen”. Wow! Praise the Lord!

Resolving Scripture Conflicts for Being Called “Elect”

There are countless scriptures in the New Covenant writings that conflict with a “sovereign God election” theological position where only a few people will be saved by a God only sovereign choice. If there were only 2 or 3, that would be enough to raise serious concerns that somebody was in error. But because there are literally dozens of verses, that is too many to ignore. We will only select a few to help limit the size of this lesson.

There must be a balanced approach to interpreting every scripture that God inspired to be written to ensure any confidence that we have found His intended truth. Remember according to God in 2 Peter 1:20, there is no private interpretation of the Bible that is allowed. This simply teaches us that the Bible will always interpret itself.

Also, it is impossible for God to lie, therefore, if we find any apparent contradictions in scripture, we are in need to hear from God to find how to resolve the conflicts using His Word as the only solution source. To do this we will apply what we have learned in the other sections to find out how they resolve the dispute with the “Sovereign God” only salvation belief.

It is only this interpretation of scripture about a human acceptance and belief in a divine invitation, that balances with all the other verses of the Bible on this subject of being called “elect” to represent our union with God’s plan of “salvation”. This was sovereignly chosen for us to believe in what He has done, to be placed in Christ, His chosen one. Here are just a few verses that would directly contradict with only a select few humans being chosen to be saved and all others in the world rejected to go to hell by God’s will:

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

This is the most popular verse in the entire Bible, and more Christian can quote this verse than any of the others. Yet this verse contradicts with the sovereign God only choice of human salvation. God says very plainly that He loved the entire human race in the world and wanted to save them all. But again, we see the problem it is only for those that “believe” the invitation of the Gospel that will not perish. Belief is a sovereign human choice. This again confirms that only that choose to believe that become the “elect”. Check out this verse:

2Pe 3:9  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

First, notice that God is called “long-suffering”, this is a divine characteristic of God. It strongly suggests that God is still waiting for humans to “come” to not perish. This places the responsibility for humans not perishing upon those that choose to repent, and not God.

Also, notice that this verse says, God is not willing that any should perish. Why then if God is sovereign, isn’t everyone saved? If God is waiting for some to repent, this means, they were not first chosen either. If we believe that it is God’s will that he has “chosen” some to go to hell, this makes this verse totally false. It is a major conflict of too many scriptures to believe in only a select few that are chosen by God for salvation, and God is not the one that is confused and needs to change His Word. Therefore, it can only be some Christians that have not seen God’s truth that need to change.

1Ti 4:10  For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.

God is very clear in this verse that it was His desired intention to save “All humans”. But then God clarifies that it is only those that “believed” the Gospel invitation that will be saved. This is only what fits the parable of the Wedding Invitation. In this parable, the king’s servants went out to invite “everyone”. But it was only those that chose to receive the invitation that went into the wedding feast for the king’s son. Remember many were “called”, but few chose to attend to be called the “elect”.

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

There are too many verses to include them all that say the same thing. This verse claims “whoever” calls on the name of the LORD will be saved. So, either God is forcing someone chosen to call upon Him, or humans have the choice to call and if they do, they will be saved and chosen of God as His “elect” being placed “in Christ”.

Conclusion

Thank you for taking the time to read and study the Bible here with us. We are a fast-growing family of believers that are hungry to know and learn the truth. If you are struggling to believe this lesson over your teachings of your denominational doctrines, it is strongly suggested for you to study the subject of “Human Freewill”. Go through the Bible and look for verses where God gave humans’ choices. Notice the first human choice sovereignly given, was to Adam eating from two selected trees. One choice brought Adam life, and the other choice brought Adam death. Adam disobeyed God and chose death, and we all died because of it.

There are so many verses that represent choices being sovereignly given by God to humans in the Bible that they should overwhelm you and help overcome your sovereign only belief that God is forcing all human decisions. There is a great need to balance the sovereign God given human freedoms to choose, with His desire to save everyone, and potentially your belief that He only selected some to be called His “elect”.

What we should have learned today, is that God gave us choices to make. He has sent His servants and His Son to make a way of salvation out of the automatic penalty of death and hell. We accept this way out of the world, by hearing about His Good News (Gospel) invitation to come to the wedding of His Son. Here is another example of God’s two choices being offered:

Deu 30:15  See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
Deu 30:19  I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

God has placed a binary choice before every human of two possibilities and outcomes. One is a human choice for life and good by accepting His invitation, and the other is a choice for death and evil by rejecting His invitation. Could it be any simpler? You can live by believing and saying the right words.

Pro 18:21  Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

Yes, this verse is true and is literal. There is nothing misleading in the verse. It is plainly stated and is accurate to the infinite degree. Please don’t ignore it anymore. Memorize it and think about it every chance you get. Then apply it to your life. By us believing the Gospel we can do what God has invited us to do and be saved from our death to live eternally “with Him”, “In Him” and “Him in us” as part of His creation strategic plan of salvation:

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

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

Rom 10:10  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

These are not difficult instructions for beginning your journey of salvation if you have never done this. If you do this for the first time, please leave a comment and this will help place you on the path with the Lord as your lead Shepherd to help you and guide you each and every day. Jesus is the Good Shepherd (Jn 10:14) and He said, “if you confess me, before men, I will confess you before my Father” (Mat 10:32). This is why it is important to leave a comment before the world, to read.

What we have learned is that God has sovereignly chosen the method of salvation, but not the ones that were to be selected. Yes, God is all knowing, all seeing, and understands the end from the beginning. Therefore, He knows who will be saved and who will not. But this does not mean that He chose them to be that way. God has sent out His servants with a wedding invitation to the entire world. Therefore, every human must make their own choices to attend. If you are too busy for Him, you may regret this decision, eternally. However, God wants a bride that wants Him as much as He wants you, not one that is forced to be with Him.

Thank you and again, and we will pray for you all. Jesus could be coming back any day now. Hopefully you are all prepared and ready to meet Him. When this coming occurs this will be when the bridegroom Jesus, comes and gets all of those that accepted the invitation to the “wedding feast” and have made themselves ready by putting on His wedding garment of the “Robe of Righteousness”. This will take place in heaven for seven years. Ready or not it will happen much sooner than you think. God Bless you.

If you would like to read the next lesson, select “Part 3“.

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

Bible Answers: Understanding Spirits – What is Spirit Life and Spirit Death – Do Babies in the Womb that Die Go to Heaven?

(Ver 1.1) This is a Bible response to some awesome reader questions, concerning spiritual life and death. This may be one of the most important Bible lessons you can find on this website. There are too many Christians that are unlearned in spiritual basic truths. It is interesting that there has been growing number of unsaved people in the world that know more than a lot of Christians about spirits, but primarily the evil spirit Satan. There has been a growing worship of evil spirits, but my God is greater than all of these.

Christians today, need to know and understand that they are a “spirit” first and a human body “last”. This helps us identify and change our priority of focus. We also need to know our enemy is a “spirit” also and this helps us know how to deal with Satan. But most importantly we need to know about the Greatest and Most High Spirit that is God who created us all and trust Him to help us get through all of life’s unplanned events. Therefore, the reason for this Bible lesson.

A certain reader asks some very deep and relevant questions concerning the meaning of spiritual life and death. Here were the basic questions:

  1. Where does the human spirit come from?
  2. Is there “spirit life” in a human, and if so,
  3. When does spirit life begin?
  4. Is there “spirit death” and, what is it?
  5. and if spirit death exists, when did or does it occur?

From these questions about spirit life and death, we can also derive some other fundamental implied questions that many Christians are asking about today. There are countless numbers of women and men today that have known or personally experienced the death of an unborn child. Whether this was the intentional murder of the child through abortion, or an unintended miscarriage or other unexpected birth complication, we are going to answer these and other questions using only the Bible, which is the Word of God (Mat 4:4), also called the Word of Truth (2 Cor 6:7). Here are the applicable questions that come from the reader’s questions that will also be answered today:

  1. “Does a child that died in the womb, have a spirit?”
  2. “Was a child that died in the womb or out of the womb spiritually alive?”
  3. “Does a child’s spirit that died naturally or was killed intentionally, go to heaven or to hell, or just cease to exist?”

These are all great and thoughtful questions. It must be stated first that I do not desire to give my thoughts, or opinions on anything of this extreme importance, if possible. I will try to avoid sharing my thoughts because my opinions are as worthless as anyone else’s. However, I will share what the Spirit of God has taught me about this subject today based upon the Word of God.

I will also share with everyone at least one key God life experience. This relevant experience is the fact that my wife had a miscarriage over 30 years ago. This was a traumatic unexpected experience for us both. This occurred at a time when I had felt like the LORD had said He would give us another child. My wife had a difficult and drawn-out time of not getting pregnant. But it finally came to pass, and we both felt happy that God had answered.

However, an unexpected miscarriage was a shocking and saddening surprise. There is not much anyone can do once the conceived baby passes and is lost. This pregnancy had ended. It took years of Bible study and listening to the Holy Spirit to try to figure out what had happened and if we would ever see this child again.

It was only in the last few years that God gave me a dream about this loss. I saw a vision of this child in heaven. I saw it was a little girl. From this dream we can have confidence that children that die prematurely can be assured to be seen again in heaven.

However, this night vision while it was a great reassuring comfort, is not sufficient evidence and still must be further confirmed by what God has already taught us from His Word. Therefore, today we will use the Word of God to be assured and confident that unborn children go to heaven, and not by us just experiencing a night vision only. If you are ready to learn what the Word of God says on this essential subject concerning understanding spirits, and their life and death, let us open our Bibles and study.

Introduction to Spirit Basics

We will begin learning the spiritual basics with the straightforward question, “Are spirits eternal”? We will begin to understand this answer by first observing God’s revealed Spirit characteristics:

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

The most fundamental truth about God is found in this verse of John. Here it is revealed that God is a “Spirit”. This establishes the foundation for knowing all other truths about God. This means God before creating the natural universe in Genesis 1:1, existed only in an unseen Spirit form and dimension.

But this verse also establishes that humans must worship God in spirit and in truth. This is your first clue that humans have a spirit, but it also reveals a lot of humans are not aware enough to know about their own spirit. Now let us look at the revealed nature of God’s Spirit:

Psa 90:2  Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God

This is a very plainly stated verse that God existed before the universe was created and will still be God after it. Therefore, God is clearly described to have existed from everlasting to everlasting, claiming God Spirit is an eternal Spirit. This is very logical to understand because time was not created until Genesis 1:1 also. But we will look at another verse to confirm His eternal existence:

1Ti 1:17  Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

We have now observed references from both the Hebrew Old Covenant and the Greek New Covenant that the Spirit of God is eternal. This means God’s Spirit will never cease to exist. It also implies that God’s Spirit has no beginning nor any ending. Therefore, we learn it is impossible for God’s Spirit to cease to exist, die a death, or to be destroyed.

Hence, we have established a basic truth about the Creator God of the heaven and the earth being an everlasting Spirit, without beginning and without end. But this is different apparently from all other spirits that are mentioned in the Bible. This is because the Bible reveals to us that humans and angels have a single point of origination that causes their existence.

Whether we call this a spirit birth (Jn 3:3), or a spirit creation event (Deu 4:32), or some other term, these types of spirit beginnings certainly happened. We will now continue with the “first man” named Adam and when and where his spirit came from.

Gen 2:7  And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Let us establish a few other essential spirit basics on this subject from Genesis. The Eternal Spirit of God formed the physical body of Adam from the dirt of the ground. Then as we can observe in Genesis 2, God breathed into the nostrils the “breath” of life and the man became a living soul (Gen 2:7). From these stated truths we learn the body of man was made and formed from pre-existing created red “clay” soil before there was a spirit or life present in the body.

God says very specifically that man’s body was “formed” from this previously created earth substance. The Hebrew word H3335 translated as “formed” describes the work of a “potter” that is squeezing wet clay to make Adam’s human form. This means this work of God was extremely personal and hands on. It also demonstrates divine artistic design and composition.

Even modern science can find and name the basic dirt-like characteristics of the human body. Just some of the significant elements found in the human body are elements like “oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorous”. But there are also found trace elements of minerals like iron, iodine, zinc, fluoride, selenium, copper, chromium, etc. All these elements and minerals can be found in basic earth composition. Yet none of it is “alive” in and of themselves alone. Uh oh!

Therefore, after completion of forming Adam’s body from dirt, he only had a lifeless human shell that had no spirit or any ability to live. We know from reading James 2:7, “that the human body without the spirit is dead”. Therefore, the body of Adam was a lifeless corpse until God breathed into him a spirit that came from God’s breath (Spirit)!

This Hebrew word H5397 translated as “breathed” is a word that comes from a root word meaning “to blow” as exhaling a strong wind of air. This is difficult for some to comprehend since God is not a man (Num 23:19) that has natural lungs to exhale from. Also, as we have seen He is clearly described to be only a Spirit in John 4:24. Therefore, we can easily conclude that Adam’s “life” source and his internal “spirit” came from the eternal Spirit of God.

In fact, Adam’s blood also came from this breathing out of the Spirit of God. How do we know Adam’s blood came from God? We can know this for several reasons, but we will begin by knowing that it was necessary for the “Blood of God” in the body of Jesus, hanging on a cross, that was required to pay for the sins of humans.

God says in Hebrews that it was impossible for the blood of created bulls and goats to pay the debt of man’s sins (Heb 10:4). This verse proves that sinless created animal blood was not sufficient payment for the debt of human sin. This literally means man’s blood was of a much higher value than all other created beings and can only point us to Adam’s blood having come from God.

This fact makes the redemption of humans a very costly purchase price as we can read in 1 Peter 1:19. This verse says that our redemption required the precious blood of Jesus to buy us back, indicating the loss that was given away when the first Adam sinned, was of such great value to God, that it was enough for Him to die personally for us to get us back. This fact demonstrates God’s immense love for His created human children.

The second reason we know Adam’s blood was from God is found in Leviticus 17:11. In this verse of the Law, God reveals the life of the flesh is in the “blood”. Therefore, if Adam had no life before God breathed into his nostrils a spirit, he also had no blood, or he would have been alive already, like all other created animals. You do understand that no other created animals have a spirit? Not a fish, not a bird, and no other land mammal has a spirit. Nothing was made in the likeness and image of God except for “man” (Genesis 1:26). This simply means Adam was not created like animals and that both the “spirit” and the “blood” had to enter Adam’s body for scripture to be truthful.

The third reason is the name that God gave to “Adam”. This name is comprised of three Hebrew alphabet letters. The first is the letter “Alef” and in the ancient Hebrew lettering is an image of an ox, a strong symbol of God. The next two Hebrews letters is the combined “Dalet” + “Mem”. These two letters spell the Hebrew word we translate as “blood”. Therefore, combining these meanings, we have the hidden message from God that Adam means “God’s blood”. Wow! That is amazing!

What we have just discovered is that Adam’s spirit originated as a gift from God. Without God there would have been no life in the formed body of the man. Therefore, what kind of life did Adam have in his spirit after creation? It had to be God’s sinless Spirit that held His nature of eternal life, the man being made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26). God is also perfect in purity and holiness (1 Pet 1:16), and this was also transferred to Adam by God’s Spirit breath. This was God’s original design for man and as we know after Adam “sinned” this caused a new problem for God to solve.

We have quickly established the human beginning of the first man was God giving Adam, His own life, spirit, and blood. But let us now look at some verses concerning an angelic beginning point next:

Eze 28:12  Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

Eze 28:13  Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

Eze 28:14  Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

Eze 28:15  Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

These are an essential set of verses to learn and know. They are written by a prophet of God, that viewed some long past ancient events that transpired before humans were created. These verses are speaking of only one angel in particular named “Lucifer” who is further described in Isaiah 14. This description reveals this being was angelic in nature, being called an anointed “Cherub” in verse 14. This being was certainly created as revealed in verses 13 and 15. We have discovered angels were created. This information teaches us clearly that angels were not in the eternal everlasting past, like God’s Spirit was. But rather that they were also created beings with a very specific beginning point, like the first man Adam. We have confirmed that Adam had a spirit, so now let us confirm angels are also spirit beings:

Heb 1:13  But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?

Heb 1:14  Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

This verse teaches us that angels were created by God to have “spirits” and that they were designed by God to minister to those that are heirs of salvation. Therefore, these angelic beings have spirits. But what about a physical body like the created man? Are they bodiless or do they have an everlasting physical body housing their spirit? If they have a body, are they everlasting or are they mortal, like man?

This would take a lot to answer these questions completely. But please understand that angels do have physical bodies. We know this because of several stories found in the Bible. For example, please see what Psalms 78:24-25 says. In this verse God claims the manna that He sent down from heaven for the children of Israel to eat in the wilderness was made from heavenly corn that God called angel food. If humans and angels can eat the same bread, this shows us that they are both designed with very similar body types. Therefore, there are important similarities and differences to the bodies of angels and humans and they both were designed as internal “spirit” containers.

Hopefully we will confirm whether these created human and angelic “spirits” have an ending point soon. But for now, the assumption appears to teach us that man and angel spirits have no ending of their spiritual life/existence since their spirits came from God the Eternal Creator Father of spirits (Heb 12:9).

Let us now shift to a very important new subject within our main subject of “spirits”, called “sin” and find its effect upon angels and humans. We will begin with the subject of angel spirits first because they existed before human spirits. If you did not know this fact, it is revealed to us in Job 38:7. In this verse God reveals when the earth and heaven was created, “the morning star sang (Lucifer) and the sons of God (angels) all shouted for joy”. Notice what God writes to us about Lucifer in the account of Ezekiel:

Eze 28:15  Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

This verse reveals when Lucifer was created (began to spiritually exist and be alive in a body), he was absolutely created as perfect and without flaws. But then God writes “iniquity” was found and this was a major problem for God, causing God to speak some very profound prophecies.

Eze 28:16  By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

This is an amazing verse of information concerning Lucifer the created anointed cherub. Notice this verse further names him to be a “sinner” that is filled with violence. But God then begins to reveal His plans for this angel. God says, “I will cast you out as profane out of the “mountain” of God. First understand “mountains are significant symbols for governments, like God’s Heavenly Kingdom”. Therefore, God is prophesying the future removal of Satan (Lucifer turned into God’s adversary named Satan) to be cast down and out from the Kingdom of God.

This is your first clue to the concept of spirit “separation”. This would be defined as God removing a sinner from His Holy presence. Whenever God says He will cast Lucifer out, indicates that this means this will be a coming event, and that it did not happen instantly when Lucifer sinned. This also strongly implies to us that Lucifer has a right to be in God’s presence for him to be forcibly cast out. Why would God allow Lucifer to stay in His presence? Here is one potential good reason:

Eze 28:13  Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created

Here we find Lucifer being described to be covered with stones. These 9 stones mentioned can be found on the High Priest’s breastplate that Moses made for God’s earthly tabernacle. This strongly implies Lucifer was the High Priest of the Heavenly temple. If you did not know there was a heavenly temple, please take the time to read the book of Hebrews. God plainly states that Moses’ temple was patterned after the heavenly one.

Just this information alone implies a lot. First there is never a mention of Satan ever being “destroyed” as in our definition of obliterated never to exist. The Hebrew word in Ezekiel 28:16 that is translated as “destroy” is “H6” and this word simply means to be “separated from”. In fact, this Hebrew word is spelled “Alef” + “Beyt” + “Dalet” and placing the ancient Hebrew letter meanings together appear to say to us “God’s House has a “Door”. This door in God’s house swings two ways. One way is for an “Entrance” and the other way is for an “Exit”. Guess which way Satan is headed for in the end?

Isa 14:12  How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

Isa 14:13  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

Isa 14:14  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Isa 14:15  Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

Wow! We are seeing the prophecy that was written over 2500 years ago about the soon coming prophesied “end of Satan”. However, pay attention there is no prophesied death ending (as in cease to exist) speaking of this created angel. God is rather only speaking of Lucifer about to “be separated” from the Kingdom of God. When we say “soon” this is potentially a point of confusion because God teaches us this ultimate end won’t happen for at least another 1000+ years. Read about it in Revelation 20:

Rev 20:2  And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

Rev 20:3  And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

Rev 20:7  And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

Rev 20:10  And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

As we can observe from these selected verses the “spirit” named “Lucifer”, “Satan”, “the serpent”, “the Dragon”, and “the devil” is eventually and totally going to be separated from the “Kingdom of God” forever and ever. This verse 10 confirms angelic spirits live forever, without any way for God to kill them. Thus, spirits once created, live forever!

This is our first clue to finding the definition to what “spiritual death” is to God. What we are learning is that angel spirits that have sinned will be permanently separated from all other spirits being thrown into a “pit” as God said would happen in Isaiah 14.

Please take notice that according to scripture there are at least 1/3 of the angels that have followed Satan. These are rebellious, evil, and appear unrepentant. Therefore, God needed a way to separate Himself being Holy and Pure. This strongly indicates that there is no salvation for the sins of angels probably because they had and have no “blood”.

Remember Adam was created with “blood” intentionally by God’s planned design and purpose. There is no mention of angels having blood in the Bible that we know of. We also know after Jesus was “resurrected” from the dead, His eternal physical body housed His Spirit which returned His physical life, and this body only had flesh and bone (Lk 24:39) and was absent of blood becoming like the angels (Mat 22:30).

Yet please notice in the Bible that there is also no immediate separation from God mentioned for their vast sins. We could explain why this is in great detail, but it would take too much detailed information for this lesson. However, we need to mention a few things to prove this to help us understand that even fallen angels can approach God’s presence even until today. We know this first because we can read the book of Job:

Job 1:6  Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.

Job 1:7  And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

We have already seen where the “sons of God” sang for joy when the world was created in Job 38:7. Therefore these beings called the “sons of God” are the created angels. This knowledge helps to understand Job 1:6 much clearer.

Job 1:6 says there was a “day” when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD. The LORD is a governmental authority title for God as the Supreme Judge. Notice that Satan is in this massive presence of angels also and the LORD directs all His words to Satan. This again strongly indicates that Lucifer is the chief or head priest of the heavenly group of living beings.

This is amazing information. Please recall that Lucifer has already committed sins, rebelled against God, and has 1/3 of the angels under his authority. This means all these heavenly angels are in the presence of God as a preplanned event and that after sin, there was no casting down of any of them because they are moving back and forth from the earth as Satan mentions in verse 7 and we can read about in Genesis 28:12 where God describes a ladder that allows movement from heaven to earth.

But let us look at the time after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It is a fact that Jesus defeated Satan when He was crucified and was raised from the dead. But I have heard a lot of preachers claim that this means Satan no longer has access to go back to heaven for any reason. But this teaching violates and contradicts other verses that teach us differently:

Rev 12:7  And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

Rev 12:8  And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

Rev 12:9  And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Rev 12:10  And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

These are some of the most important verses you can learn about Satan’s soon coming demise and ejection from heaven. These verses have NOT occurred and will not occur until after the rapture. In Revelation 4:1 the voice from heaven told John to come up here, so that he could be shown things that would happen here after. This confirms this chapter 12 happens after chapter 4 and it is happening during the 7-year tribulation.

The first thing in Revelation 12:7 we find a spiritual war taking place between Michael and his angels, and Satan and his angels. Satan is unable to prevail in this war and he and all his angels are cast down. Sound familiar? This is the prophesied removal of Satan being cast down from heaven and the Kingdom of God and in verse 8, God says very clearly “Now was their place and position in heaven ended”.

Verse 10 confirms this by saying “Now has come salvation, and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ”. Wow, that is an amazing statement about the final defeat of Satan. Do you remember reading in Hebrews 1:13 where God says to Jesus, “sit at my right hand until I make your enemies, your footstool”. Apparently, Jesus while defeating Satan, is still awaiting a coming time while seated in heaven for every enemy to be placed “underfoot”. Guess when this occurs. We are reading about it right now in Revelation 12!

But the main reason we are here is because of how verse 10 ends. This is the final confirmation that Satan has access today in heaven. This ending verse clearly states, “for the accuser of our brethren, is cast down, which accused them before our God, day and night”. This is a literal statement about a spirit being named Lucifer going to heaven to accuse Christian brothers and sisters on a 24-hour basis. This heavenly visitation continues until he is cast down permanently.

Therefore, we have observed a lot essential Bible truths about angel spirits from just these few verses.

  1. Angels are created “spirit” beings having a physical body.
  2. Angelic bodies have no blood, are not mortal and do not die.
  3. Angels and humans can eat the same food.
  4. The angelic spirit also does not die or cease to exist.
  5. Sin had no immediate consequence for removal of angels from heaven. We see this from Satan appearing before God in Job 1, and we see this again in Revelation 12 when Satan is finally cast down to the earth after accusing Christians day and night before God for at least 2000 years.
  6. There is coming a single appointed time of separation from God for all sinful angelic beings.

We have only touched on this subject but have established the basic facts on angel spirits. Therefore, let us analyze the sin effect and consequences upon Adam and all humans next.

What happened when Adam sinned? Let us first go to Genesis 2 and notice what caused Adam to sin and why there were any consequences at all:

Gen 2:16  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die

God has just given man a “law” from a spoken commandment to not eat from a tree called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. If this “law” of commandment is broken, God says in the same day you eat you will die. Uh oh! What kind of death is God speaking of? Hopefully, you do understand that there are “two” kinds of death mentioned in the Bible.

But before we go to this part of our lesson, let us discover, what God says happens to the “spirits” of men and women that experience natural death on the earth? Do they cease to exist? Or do they remain eternal like the Spirit of God and angels. We will learn this answer from reading a real story that Jesus taught us about spiritual life after physical death.

Luk 16:19  There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

Luk 16:20  And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,

Luk 16:21  And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

Luk 16:22  And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;

Luk 16:23  And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

Luk 16:24  And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

Luk 16:25  But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

Luk 16:26  And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Luk 16:27  Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:

Luk 16:28  For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

Luk 16:29  Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

Luk 16:30  And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

Luk 16:31  And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Please do not show your ignorance and be foolish to leave us a comment that this is a “parable” and does not teach us anything about life after death. That is a deception and a lie from Satan to believe that. This is a literal real story of three men that lived upon the earth and died a natural death.

Two of these men have real names. Remember that Jesus never said this was a parable, and if He uses real names in a story and if it is not truthful, this makes Jesus a liar and God does not lie! Therefore, this story literally happened and is a warning to everyone to what could happen to them.

As you can see, the story is about a real man who was a beggar named Lazarus who sat outside another unnamed real rich man’s house. This beggar was in very poor health and appears to be completely disregarded and ignored by the rich man living well inside the house.

Lazarus died and his body was buried, but his spirit departs the earth to go down into an underground area which is called “Abraham’s bosom”. “Abraham” appears to be chief resident in charge in this area before Jesus died on the cross. There are good Bible reasons in Romans 4 and Galatians 3 to name two references that give us clues to why Abraham is of such importance to God and even us, now after Christ died.

However, notice the facts about the rich man after he died physically on the earth. His spirit also descended the surface of the earth, but he was not in Abraham’s realm of temporary existence. He makes the direct claim that he was in a place of fire and torment and even desired for Abraham to send Lazarus to dip his finger into a drop of water to cool his tongue.
Wow, if this story does not scare you into turning your life over to Jesus, there are no other ones in the Bible that are as graphic and plain. What we clearly discover from this real story is that “human” spirits live forever. But there are two direct after-life possibilities of eternal existence. One is a spiritual life after our natural death in an eternal torture in fire, and the other is an eternal life in a place Jesus called “paradise” to the thief that was hanging next to Him on the cross (Lk 23:43).

Also please notice that Abraham claims these two after-life realms of existence, are completely “divided” apart from each other and there is no traveling between them available. This is exactly what we saw was happening in the story of Lucifer and his destined dwelling in a pit. The pit is not the location of the Kingdom of God. These are just some of the basics of human spiritual existence. Let us review:

  1. The human spirit has a spirit origination point.
  2. Despite what some people try to teach, the human spirit is not “reincarnated” from a prior existence.
  3. From God’s description of the first man Adam, this human spirit origination appears to come from God’s Spirit
  4. Also, we have found that human spirits, like angels, have no ending point where they cease to exist or die.

There are many verses that teach us that spirits do not cease consciousness or existence. For example, Paul when speaking of his soon physical death, claimed for him to be absent from his body, is to be present with the risen from the dead eternal Lord Jesus in heaven (2 Corinthians 5:8).

However, we have also seen where human spirits that are alive forever, have two potential destination points for eternal existence after physical death. This appears to be divided into one group figuratively called the “sheep” versus the other opposite group called the “goats” (Mat 25:33).

We have not yet confirmed anything that is called “spiritual death” so far in this lesson. We have only established something called “spiritual separation” after natural death. But this is going to get a lot more interesting as we continue to learn what the Bible says. Let us go and explore the subject of the human spirit’s origination next. This should be very interesting.

Where do Spirits Come From?

This is probably one of the more difficult questions to answer. But God does give us clues in the Bible to help us understand enough to draw a sound conclusion. For example, the Bible strongly indicates by omission, that before the creation of angels and humans, there were no other spirits that were admitted existing, at least that we can find easily in the text. This fact alone points us to God as the source of all “spirits”. Therefore, the first clue given to us by God is that he chooses to write “no clue” about the existence of any other spirits. But there are also other relevant clues.

Clue number two, we can clearly read about the creation of the first man and see plainly that Adam’s spirit originated from the “breath” of God being blown into him. This is another direct reference that spirits come from God’s Spirit. Therefore, we have two witnesses that teach us the source of spirits can only be God. If you can find any contradictory verses that claim otherwise, please feel free to share them and we will look at their truth and application to our subject.

Next, we can read a New Testament verse that also indicates God to be the source of spirits. Let us turn to the book of Hebrews and read this:

Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live

As you should be able to see and understand, this verse is a contrasting comparison between two father types. The first father mentioned concerns “fathers of our flesh”. This of course the male that contributed the sperm to form a child in the female womb. This father is a totally natural reference, but it is amazing what it says and does not say.

For example, this verse does not give the sperm contributor any involvement in the baby’s spirit existence. In fact, it completely refutes the baby’s spirit coming from the natural father based upon a comparison to God who is a Spirit (John 4:23) and He is being called the “Father of spirits”.  This statement implies “ALL” spirits come from God the Father of spirits.

Therefore, we have two types of “fathers”, one is physical, and the other is spiritual. We can also take note of words that Jesus spoke in John 3:6 when speaking with a natural man about a new birth that has been prophesied. In this verse Jesus said, “That which is born of flesh, is flesh and that which is born of spirit, is spirit”. While this statement does not attribute the spirit origination being from God, it clearly says a spirit can only create a spirit. That sounds important and this confirms that since God was the only known Spirit to exist before any creation takes place, He is the only Father that can point us to their existence. This also helps us understand why angels are called the ‘sons of God” in the Old Testament.

These concepts are confirmed in another reference found in 1 Corinthians:

1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

This is a potential new controversy. The Greek word translated as “soul” in verse 45 has a larger scope definition than just a “spirit”. From this Greek word G5590 (psuche) we get the English word “psyche” having the synonyms “spirit”, “soul”, “mind”, “ego”, “essence”, etc. This Greek word has its roots in a word meaning to “blow”, and this simply means exhaling of breath, or to breathe. Therefore, the word “G5590”, figuratively means to have “life” and this goes along with Genesis 2:7, “Adam became a living soul after the breath of God entered the formed earth made body”.

Ok, we are going to quickly give an overview of the triune nature of man for the ever-increasing numbers of new readers and subscribers. Every human is a spirit, has a soul, and lives in a body (1 Ths 5:23). If there is breath in this body, there is physical life and there is access for the unseen internal spirit to communicate with God and the created world simultaneously. If the spirit leaves the physical body, the body is dead and natural communication with physical people ceases and that is not a good situation for those that have not given their lives to God to believe in His Son Jesus Christ. We will get into this more soon because this is what God is calling “spiritual death” as in the process of separation.

What we are learning is the first Adam was a human body created from dirt, and then a spirit was given to him by God, and this caused the combined spirit, soul, and body to be a natural living human able to communicate in two realms. We can see this very clearly in Genesis 2 and 3 when Adam is speaking with and listening to God’s spirit voice, and later he also hears his wife’s natural voice, confirming two realms of communications were taking place simultaneously.

This has only been a quick overview of this part of the subject of where spirits come from. But from all these clues given to us, God appears to be the only viable and powerful enough source to create all spirits, whether human or angelic. This would be a good time to mention that there are no new angels being created that we can easily find in the Bible.  But we know humans are having new babies every day. Therefore, there are still potential new spirits being created today. Let us move into this part of the lesson next and speak about babies that have spirits.

Baby Human Spirits

We need to go and find specific verses concerning naturally born babies on the earth that came out of the loins of the first created man Adam. Here are the basic questions that need answers:

  1. Where do human baby spirits come from?
  2. When is their spirit present? a. before birth or b. after birth?
  3. Are baby spirits alive or dead (separated from God)?
  4. If the Baby physically died before birth, do they go to heaven or hell?
  5. If the Baby physically died after birth, do they go to heaven or hell?

These are a lot of great questions. Does God answer them? The answer is “Yes”. God anticipated every question a human could conceive and places the answers somewhere for us to find in His Word. Are you ready? We will address the questions next.

When is the Spirit Present in a Conceived Baby?

This is a very important part of this topic that Satan does not want you to know about. Satan using cooperating humans living in the darkness of this world, has dehumanized conceptions in the womb, calling them just a blob of tissue and flesh. They have placed upon a real child, the degrading term of calling them just a generic “fetus”. This term causes a desensitized removal of thought that they are a child with an identity and personality that can be named, and that they have no “life” that can be killed.

This plan of Satan facilitates an access way for removing an unwanted pregnancy and makes the decision easier to agree with. This attempts to remove human guilt or regret for eliminating the created growing child and permits a reduction of shame and any temporary pain of conscience. This is where they have killed millions of children in the world convincing people this is not a child, but is this the TRUTH?

This is absolutely, not the TRUTH, and God speaks to this issue over and over and over in His Word. Even modern science is afraid of the TRUTH getting out. They have 3-dimensional sonograms today that show all the details of the new human and their life, a heart that beats, movements of torso, head, arms and legs, feelings, expressions, reactions to sound and pain, and sucking their thumbs and many other things that can be seen easily with modern technology.

Another modern science development has photographed the process of conception and fertilization. This is a truly amazing photo and video to observe. When the “sperm” cell encounters and enters the female egg, there is a significant flash of “light”. Scientists are trying to explain this as only a release of “zinc”, but according to scripture God is Light (1 John 1:4) and this is just a way to explain away God’s involvement in conception and the human spirit creation event at the time of conception.

From a Bible perspective, God is trying to communicate with us that this small light explosion that is clearly visible, appears to be God bringing into the single combined cell a “spirit” that obviously must come from Him (Light). This video is available on the internet when you search “spark of light fertilization”. It is easy to find, and you can judge for yourself.

Let us stop and think about the evidence of just DNA. The mother contributes half of the DNA necessary to conceive. The father of the child contributes the other half of DNA, including the sex determining chromosome either “X” or “Y”. Separated they have no ability to produce a child, but joined together they produce a single cell that is completely alive, and it begins to double itself, over and over until in a very short time, the exponentially increasing number of cells have formed a full featured child. This combined DNA of the egg and the sperm are “Life” and it is alive. Any educated scientist if they found this cell on “Mars” would claim we have found life on Mars. Why is this not considered the same here on earth?

After going through the physical evidence, let us move to the highest authority called the Word of God. God will either contradict the natural claims or agree with them. I believe True Science and the True Word of God Understanding will Always Agree! Let us find out what the Bible says on this subject:

Gen 25:21  And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.

Gen 25:22  And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.

Gen 25:23  And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

Here we have the real story of a promised son of “Abraham” named “Isaac”, who married a wife named “Rebekah”. She was barren and unable to conceive a seed. But Issac seeks the Lord, and she becomes pregnant. Uh oh, what happens next is amazing. Rebekah is pregnant with twins. There are two sons, and they are fighting against each other within her womb already. She also seeks the Lord to find out what is happening to these two womb children inside her.

In verse 23, the LORD God says to her, “Two nations are in your womb”. Let us stop immediately and analyze this statement. God has already placed an identity upon them and said each will create a different nation of people. What would have happened if Rebekah had aborted them? There would be no two nations, and no Jesus Christ since He was in one of the children to be named Jacob.

All this discussion is based upon foreknowledge. We can see that God even knows who will be born first and second, and that the elder firstborn son will serve the younger son that will be named Jacob. God obviously knows all children in the womb, believe it or not. God obviously has a plan for all children in the womb. This literally teaches us that these developing children have a spirit, and a planned life, long before birth.

This story of two brothers in a womb simultaneously teaches they are aware of each other. This is true, because they are already fighting each other, and this war makes their mother very physically aware of what is happening. Therefore, these are confirmed to be living humans that have at least some limited awareness and consciousness. They were not blobs of lifeless flesh. Any woman that has endured pregnancy has experienced this life movement inside. They can kick fairly strong, and this can be irritating, but it proves they are living. If they are living this also means they have a spirit, because the body of Adam had no life or movement until after God places a spirit inside the body.

Let us look at another example:

Jer 1:5  Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

This is one of those amazing hidden verses because a lot of people do not read the Old Covenant prophets. Here in the book of Jeremiah God makes a declaration about the man Jeremiah. God says very plainly that before Jeremiah was even conceived in his mother’s womb God already had a purpose and plan for his life. This is called “foreknowledge” and it is recorded in multiple verses of the Bible. But then notice what else God says.

The next statement is about Jeremiah in the womb. Remember this is a human male that is a descendant of the original human sinner Adam. Therefore, this man should be dead to God according to a lot of preacher beliefs and teachings. Yet God says I have already “sanctified” you while you were in your mother’s womb. This sounds a lot like the twins we just read about again, with God knowing them personally before they were born. This demonstrates God’s awareness and personal involvement in every child that has been conceived.

The Hebrew word H6942 that is translated as “sanctified” is defined as “to pronounce or observe as clean”. This is an amazing concept if you think about it. This is giving us the appearance that God is viewing humans a lot differently than religious minded humans view them. God literally, “knew” this future man, “chose” this future man, and made him “clean” long before he exited the womb of a woman. If God did this only for Jeremiah, He would be a respecter of persons, and the Bibles says God is not this way (Rom 2:11). Let us look at another human conception and birth about another prophet:

Luk 1:13  But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. 

Luk 1:14  And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth

Luk 1:15  For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb

Luk 1:16  And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God

Luk 1:17  And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord

God sent an angel to a man named Zacharias that ministered as a priest before the Lord. This meant this man was from the tribe of Levi that allowed him to be in the presence of the LORD in the tabernacle. The angel sent from God gives Zacharias a lot of information that only God could provide based upon “foreknowledge”.

The angel tells him that His wife will conceive, so it will be a natural conception and a natural birth process of 9 months of development. It is also amazing that God knows it will be male, since the father determines this by which “sperm cell” reaches the egg, either an “X” or a “Y” Chromosome will determine the sex of the child. Yet God knows exactly which one will arrive.

Now here is where it really gets interesting. The angel informs Zacharias that the developing male child will be “filled with the Holy Ghost” even while in the womb. Wow, if that is not amazing, what is? God is going to fill a developing baby’s body with His own Holy Spirit to be in full fellowship with the already present John’s spirit even before birth. This information shocks people who say abortions are just a lifeless blob of tissue and flesh. God does not view it this way at all and knows the child and their destined plan and purpose for existence long before they are born. Wake up! Let us read further down in this chapter to see what else is happening to the child John while in the womb:

Luk 1:39  And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda

Luk 1:40  And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth

Luk 1:41  And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: 

Here is another example of the internal womb “life” of a “living” human body that is alive being connected to a living human spirit. Remember what we learned from the story of Adam. There was no life, no movement, no ability to respond or communicate if there was no “spirit” in the natural body. Uh oh?

When Mary, the future mother of Messiah comes to visit her cousin Elisabeth the baby John “leaps” inside of her when sensing the presence of Messiah. This action of a child in the womb proves human life is present and a human spirit must be inside the flesh. These children in the womb can do things, sense things, and know things, much more than you can possibly imagine, and this is exactly why the devil wants to kill them all.

We have fully confirmed based upon scriptural and scientific evidence that developing babies in the womb have life and a spirit. One popular movie called “Unplanned” documented the life of a woman that previously worked at abortion clinics. This woman was asked to help a physician perform a procedure on a woman. She was tasked at holding the sonogram paddles in place so the doctor could see how to dismember the developing child to kill it.

This woman saw the reaction of the baby at each doctor attempt to pull off its legs, arms, and head. The baby could feel the pain and even moved around to try to keep it from happening. This alone proves there is life and a fighting spirit awareness in these developing children. Please do not allow this to continue taking place.

Is a Womb Baby’s Spirit Alive or Dead?

We have already seen strong evidence in the last section that babies have a spirit, and that they can be known by God and even can be filled with the Holy Spirit before birth. These types of interactions lead us to conclude that human baby spirits are alive unto God like the first Adam was before and after sin. Uh oh! What did I say? Please put down your stones until you learn what else the Bible says, first.

We have also already seen some key answers to know about the spirits of babies in the womb entering at the initial fertilization union of the two joining cells that were designed by God to become one new flesh and spirit life. This strongly implies that these babies in the womb are also fully alive and able to fellowship with God as in the case of John the Baptist in the womb of Elisabeth.

Therefore, we are entering some potential new grounds for beliefs that could certainly be controversial or even contradictory with the world, but also with many churches, pastors, and teachers of the Word of God.

In this section we are going to explore some additional scriptures about children that may rock the religious boat and mind of many Christians, especially those that tolerate or are completely passive for allowing abortions to occur.

This is our first clue that God still creates every human spirit at conception. As the reader questioned, if God gives the spirit, then it must be still made in His image (Gen 1:26). This is exactly a very true fact found in scriptures. We are about to go through some new verses that maybe you have never focused upon to see some things that will potentially change your ways of thinking about what some claim is a dead spirit as defined to be completely separated from God by the sin of the first Adam.

In 2 Samuel 12, we find the story of Bathsheba and David who had an affair and she got pregnant from it. We will not focus on all the sins that David committed during this episode. But rather we will only focus on the child that was produced and what David told us about him.

We know when this child of Bathsheba was born, David was told by a prophet that he would die because of the sins of David. David fasted and prayed hoping for mercy from God, but the child still died. After the child’s death, David said the following:

2Sa 12:23  But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.

As you can see, David is speaking of two realms of human existence. One is the natural body life of the child and the other is the after-natural-life experience of a continuing eternal spirit life. David could clearly see that the body of the dead child was still present with him, but now the spirit had departed from the body. This was the opposite of Adam’s body being formed dead and then the spirit entering to give life. In this example, the baby was born with a spirit that left the body causing the body to be dead.

David said some amazing things in this experience that is essential to see and understand about human spirits. David says, “I cannot bring him back to me (here in the natural realm), but I will still go to him (in the spirit realm when I die)”. Also note that David is not talking about him or his child going to hell here in this statement, believe it or not.

Despite Davids’ obvious imperfections, let us help to establish his righteousness. In the book of Acts, David is called a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22). If you read the Psalms that were written by David, you can find a lot of his repentance and beliefs is an eternal salvation based upon God’s righteousness. We can also see in Psalm 23, that David called God His LORD and Shepherd. Jesus Christ is also called the “Seed of David”, meaning Messiah and we find Jesus comes to the earth being called the Son of David (Mat 21:9). God had a very special relationship with David, and it looks guaranteed in scripture that David will be in Heaven when we get there.

Therefore, we can understand when David is saying “I cannot bring him back”, he is speaking of bringing his son’s spirit back from a place where righteous people are all presently gathered. Let us confirm the reality that unborn babies and even children not of the age of accountability will be taken to heaven if they die a physical death. We will only look at one statement that Paul wrote about himself.

Rom 7:9  For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

If you read the context, you will find Paul writing about the Law. In fact, in verses 1 through 8 Paul is speaking about the binding of the law to people that are under the law and have knowledge of the law. Paul also writes about how “death” separates the human from their bondage from the “law of sin through death”.

Paul makes it very clear in verse 7 of this chapter that he would not have known sin if he had not known the law. Continuing, he says he would not know that “lust” was sinful without first knowing God said “Thou shalt not covet”. Wow, this is more amazing information than you can possibly understand without God enlightening it to your spirit. Your carnal mind is not going to be able to understand this without God’s Spirit helping.

However, this chapter applies to children, and even unborn children. God is saying without the knowledge of “law”, there is not an impartation of guilt, and therefore no sin can be held against a child. Every child in the womb has an almost zero % chance of knowing what is good or evil, right or wrong. This is because they cannot speak or understand these types of complex concepts without maturity and training.

This is why Paul writes in verse 9, “I was alive once without (the knowledge of) the law”. Once Paul grew to the age of accountability, which is normally for Jews at the age of 12, they are considered able to judge right from wrong. But this is because they have all memorized the Torah before this age occurs. It is this knowledge that makes a child accountable for their sins. Once this occurs, they must choose Jesus as Lord to be saved. If this salvation decision is not reached when natural death occurs, the child/adult departs to go to hell.

This is why my wife and I’s miscarried daughter, was seen in a vision being in heaven. This is also why every aborted baby from the womb goes to heaven also. Any death of an unaccountable child will be a transportation into the presence of God automatically. This is because God is loving, just, and must judge righteously about every human the same. If you are still struggling with this information, let us confirm it again with a new set of verses spoken by Jesus:

Mat 24:15  When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) 

Mat 24:16  Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: 

Mat 24:17  Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: 

Mat 24:18  Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. 

Mat 24:19  And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days

These are verses about the rapture of the church to be taken out of the earth by a very sudden departure. These verses are written with warnings to those that have missed the rapture. But will only focus upon verse 19, because this is one about our subject of children and accountability.

In this verse Jesus said, “Woe to those (women) that are “with” child (pregnant), and to those (women) that have breast-feeding children in those days. Why does Jesus warn women about this time? It is not very complicated. This is because these two groups of children in the womb and those born below the age of accountability “WILL be taken up in the rapture”. This again is fair, just, and righteous judgements from God to save them from a certain death. Those humans that were left on earth after the disappearance of children and ready to go Christians, are warned to run away quickly without even taking any food or clothes with them. This means something is about to happen that is at any moment certain destruction.

Wow! Hopefully, this information is convincing you about the truth, that children have spirits, and they are not “dead” or separated from God until they obtain an age that they can know and make a conscious intentional decision to accept or reject Jesus.

This information also brings to question special needs children. What would happen to an autistic child that is not all there mentally? Could they seriously be held accountable to understand everything about what is right or wrong? Many do not believe so. This sounds like an opportunity for a loving God to demonstrate great mercy and compassion. I believe this is God’s heart. You can choose for yourself what you would like to believe.

We have just discovered in two sections the following scriptural facts of truth:

  1. Babies have a spirit at conception.
  2. God knows the baby, plans their destiny and purpose.
  3. God can even speak with the baby in the womb.
  4. All of this means a child’s spirit is viewed as innocent in the eyes of God.
  5. Therefore, baby spirits go to heaven if a death occurs before the age of accountability and sin awareness takes place to give the child the fair right of choice.

This was good news for those that have lost a child. If you have chosen to believe in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection and you will confess Him as your Lord (Rom 10:9-10), you will be saved to go to heaven and see your child again standing with Jesus’s loving arms around them. Let us shift to the last and another essential subject of how to define “spiritual death”.

Is there Spiritual Death?
What is “Spiritual Death” and
When Does it Occur?

Here is another popular misconception that is preached all over the church. People are widely taught that Adam spiritually died immediately after sinning. But everyone must still acknowledge that Adam lived 930 years until physical death occurred. But when does the Bible say his spirit died? Or does it say? We might be surprised what the Bible says about this subject.

In fact, this belief of spiritual death as it is taught by many pastors and Bible teachers, just does not balance with the rest of scripture when we take the time to study. Remember Paul wrote to us and said, “Study to show yourself approved, a workman, that does not need to be ashamed” (2 Tim 2:15). Therefore, we need to study this subject for ourselves, using a deeper understanding of “all” scriptures on the subject. We will begin this section on spiritual death by using verses that Jesus taught us on the existence of the “spiritually dead”.

Mat 8:21  And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. 

Mat 8:22  But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

This is a short but radical conversation between Jesus and a disciple. A certain disciple came to Jesus and asked Him, “Allow me to go bury my father”. Therefore, we have a man that has just died a natural death and his natural son has a desire to bury him, and Jesus’ reaction is more than significant.

Please let us use some spiritual common sense and see that Jesus is speaking of two different states of humans. Or more precisely two types of “death” and the “dead”. The first death type being referred to by the disciple is only “natural” death which is common to all humans after the sin of Adam (Romans 5:12). But the second type of death must be a spiritually viewed type of death because Jesus said let these types of natural people bury their own physically dead.

Jesus is implying to this disciple that he is not a spiritually dead man, therefore, Jesus was telling Him to continue to follow Him. Uh oh! Remember Jesus is speaking to a man that was not yet born again, because Jesus had not died and been resurrected. This means neither were born-again. Not the “dead” that would bury their “dead” (physically) nor the disciple that is following Jesus could be saved. Therefore, Jesus’ definitions of what a living man is, and what a dead man is, is completely different than what we have thought or heard taught before.

What was the difference between these two people types? The disciple that was following Jesus was in face-to-face personal relationship with God in the flesh, and all those not present were not known by God and did not know or speak with God. Could this be what Jesus is referring to? Does a relationship with God make the difference whether we are called living or dead to God?

This is where new controversy begins, that not too many people have ever been taught. What made this disciple spiritually alive, and other humans spiritually dead is something that we need to learn. How can we understand this based upon the fact that we have already seen clear evidence that “spirits” do not ever die or cease to exist?

Remember, we learned this concept from a story Jesus gave to the disciple about a rich man and beggar named Lazarus. In this story, both men died physically and then their spirits were carried away departing to an under the surface of the earth existence in two separated and eternally divided realms of after natural life existence. Do you remember this?

This story is essential to understanding how to differentiate those people who are spiritually alive and dead on the face of the earth while they were both physically alive simultaneously. Then knowing what happens after their natural death where their spirits departed the earth and are then divided apart from each other under the earth. Of course, this was taking place before Jesus was crucified and resurrected from the dead. This means in this story there was not, an access door named Jesus who would facilitate the human access to the Father in heaven.
This is only the beginning to help us understand what is taking place. What we are seeing, are these facts:

  1. Human spirits never die or cease to exist.
  2. However, Jesus labels some living humans on the earth as “dead” even while naturally breathing air in the flesh.
  3. According to scripture these people called dead did not have a relationship with God, speaking with Him and listening to His voice for directions.
  4. Jesus further implies there were some naturally living people on the earth that were already alive in their spirit and we have seen this more than once before in this lesson. These types of people appear to be those in intimate contact with the living God.
  5. From the story of the rich man, he was designated as “unrighteous” type of spiritually dead on the earth that continues to be separated in a lake of fire called the “tormenting” realm. According to Abraham he, must not have read and studied the Torah. Therefore, he did not know God intimately.
  6. But simultaneously the poor beggar named Lazarus is designated by implication to be “righteous” after natural death that departs to be with Abraham in the side of existence called the “comforting” realm. No doubt Lazarus had a lot of time to pray and ask God for help and assistance. There had to be some relationship with God for him to be in the righteous side of the natural dead humans.

That is a lot of new information but let us stop and go back to the beginning and work our way back up to this point of reference with Jesus walking the face of the earth in the flesh.

Please take the time to read Genesis 1, 2, and 3 again. These are all essential basics to understanding life and death both from the spiritual and natural parallel views. Take note in Genesis 1:26 God says, “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness”. Therefore, God is a speaking Spirit that is capable of the highest level of intelligent conversation and speech.

The first mention of God speaking to Adam occurs in Genesis 1:28-29. In these verses God “blessed” them by speaking the first words to them saying “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth”. Then God gives them dominion (authority) over all the works of God’s hands. This is all pre-sin conversations, and there is no mention of Adam responding. There is a presumption that implies that he heard and listened. This is first indicator that God and His man Adam had fellowship and relationship. This appears to be the plan of God for all His humans, and not just the first two.

Man was created in the same pattern of God, with the same features, characteristic, and capabilities as their Creator God. This means man was also a speaking spirit made on a slightly lower order than God (Psalms 8:4-5). Then we find in Genesis 2:15-17 God places the created man Adam in the garden that the Lord has made. Here God commands the man saying it is good to eat from every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not surely eat, for in the day you do, you shall surely die”.

Therefore, we have God being seen in the garden and again we see He is talking with Adam and giving Him one law to not eat from one tree that will cause him to die. Notice there is no mention of two deaths. Also notice God does not define death and what that means. Adam had never seen death before; how could he understand what this was? But he obviously asked no questions causing the presumption that he must have understood enough to not ask any questions.

Next in Genesis 2:19 we find God bringing to Adam every beast and bird for him to give a name. God says whatever the man calls them, that will be their name. This proves Adam knows and understands a language, has an intelligent and capable mind to understand and remember what he is doing. Clearly Adam understood the commandment that God had spoken. All of this confirms there was a relationship with Adam before sin entered the world. This according to the words we saw from Jesus meant Adam was not spiritually dead.

Next in Genesis 3:1, we find the introduction to another spirit being other than, God, Adam, and Eve. God describes this being as a symbolic “serpent” which is defined in Revelation 12 to be a representation for Satan. It is this serpent that tempts Eve and deceives her into partaking of the tree that God commanded them not to eat from. Next, we find Adam taking of the same tree being with her during the entire event. Therefore, sin has just entered the world and death by sin. Yet no one is dead. I wonder why? Did God lie or did we just misunderstand? I vote we misunderstood.

Next, we find God coming to the earth again to walk and talk with His creation in Genesis 3:8. Don’t forget who we are dealing with. God is the Creator of the heaven and the earth (omnipotent). He knows everything (omniscient). He sees everything (omnipresent). Therefore, there is nothing God does not see or already knows what has happened. But we find God the Highest and most Holy Spirit in the presence of 3 spirits that have all committed differing sins.

Do you see a problem here? How is it when preachers say that Adam died immediately in the spirit realm, that God is found in the presence of these dead sinners to be even asking questions to each of them and speaking with them all? This reality is a major problem to defining man or Satan as being spirits that were separated from God immediately after they sinned. We have already seen that Satan will not be cast into hell until at least another 1000 years from now at a specific appointed time. Does this concept of an appointed time for Satan’s spiritual death also apply to men? The answer is Yes! Let us continue to learn.

Here is what the Holy Spirit said to me this morning. God said, “Do you remember that I am the Good Shepherd?” What does a good shepherd do to save one lost sheep? He leaves the 99 and goes to find the lost sheep (Lk 15:4). Uh oh! Do you see that the first Adam was now a lost sheep that has chosen by reason of fear to depart from the presence of God and hide himself, covering his nakedness?

When God came down to the garden to talk with His lost sheep God knew exactly what had happened. God could not forgive the sin because Adam had the “blood” of God and there was not a sinless blood that could be offered to eliminate this sin permanently. However, God already had a plan knowing Adam would fail, He preplanned a Son of Adam who was also the Son of God, that could take away with His sinless blood every human sin from Adam downward.

Remember Jesus claimed to be this “God Good Shepherd” in the flesh (John 10:11). He was God (John 1:1-14), and the High Priest of God (Heb 2:17), the Temple of God (John 2:19), and the Sacrificial Lamb of God (John 1:36) in one combined package. Remember the parable of the lost sheep is found in Luke 15:4. And Jesus said He was only sent by God to the lost sheep of Israel in Matthew 15:24.

So, we have a major problem developing with the definition of spiritual death as being an immediate separation from God caused by human or angelic sin. We can find this problem continuing throughout the entire Old Testament. We find God speaking with human after human that is supposedly been separated from God by spiritual death. For example, the next time after Adam, we find God speaking to Cain after killing his brother Abel. Again, we find God dealing intimately with a lost sheep sinner man one on one. Let us look at another man that was truly amazing:

Gen 5:21  And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: 

Gen 5:22  And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 
Gen 5:23  And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:

Gen 5:24  And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

Enoch is one of the most amazing men in the Old Testament. He only has a select number of verses, but these words contradict the belief of immediate separation from God after sin is present. Notice God writes that Enoch walked with Him for 300 years.

This sounds a lot like Adam with God walking in the garden to fellowship. It should be becoming clear that man was created to have fellowship with God, and this continued even after sin.

Therefore, there is no separation from God if man is willing to communicate with God as we are discovering. It appears man is considered alive to God, if they speak to Him and walk with Him following His directions being in relationship with Him.
But here is the most amazing fact about Enoch. Genesis 5:24 says, that Enoch walked with God so closely that God just took him from planet earth in a rapture like event. This means Enoch’s spirit, soul and body were all removed from the earth simultaneously. This fact alone refutes the belief that all humans were eternally lost and separated from God.

What made Enoch so special to God. We are given to clues to this relationship God to man, man to God relationship. Let us look at the first to realize what causes God to be able to fellowship with some sinners and not others.

Heb 11:5  By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

This verse is found in the Hebrews 11 “Hall of Faith”. This literally means Enoch pleased God by walking with God in faith. We know this because the next verse after this one says, “But without faith it is impossible to please God, because he that comes to God, must believe that He is (exists) and that He is a rewarder to those that diligently seek Him”. This is the major reason why Enoch was raptured off the planet long before Jesus ever died to save anyone. This is the most significant reason we have that contradicts why humans are not dead spiritually until the appointed time that we have not yet learned. The only other N.T. reference to Enoch is found in Jude:

Jud 1:14  And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

Here we have another amazing statement that Enoch prophesied about the LORD coming with ten thousand of his saints. This proves Enoch walked with God so closely that God gave him future prophetic visions of Jesus coming back to the earth in the 2nd Advent. These examples, show why God was so pleased with a man that He took him without seeing natural death.

There are countless other O.T. opportunities to view God speaking with human sinners that supposedly had dead spirits. There is Noah in Genesis 6:8-13. There is God speaking to Abraham in Genesis 12-17 and beyond. We find God speaking with Jacob in Genesis 35:1. We find God speaking with Moses in Exodus 3:14.  In Numbers 22:12 we find God speaking with “Balaam”.  We find God speaking directly to Solomon in 1 Kings 3:11.

There are other examples of God speaking with David, Joshua, and many other prophets, priests, and kings. These are all problems for defining man to have a dead spirit that is implied to be separated and unable to hear from God! Let us observe one modern definition for their modern view of spiritual death:

Spiritual death: is the separation of the soul from God. In Genesis 2:17 God tells Adam that in the day he eats of the forbidden fruit he will “surely die”. Adam does fall, but his physical death does not occur immediately; Therefore, God must have had another type of death in mind – spiritual death.

This was a very classic and traditional attempt from human reasoning to define what spiritual death is. This definition uses human thinking and terms with complete disregard for God’s definitions and thoughts. Therefore, we need to refocus what was written, what was said, and what happened to a new God definition and viewpoint for spiritual death to remove the carnal human reasoning factors that can only produce error. Here is the verse as spoken by God to Adam:

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Here is a new way to view this verse that eliminates the erroneous explanation for why Adam did not die the moment he partook of the deadly poisonous fruit. The key word that is being defined wrongly is “day”. This is because to a human we live every 24 hours as one day. This is not how God is defining or applying this word H3117 that was translated as “day”. There are literally several different ways this “word” is used in the Bible. Here is a list of some of them:

  1. A Day = The Sunny Hot 12 Hours of a Day from Sunrise to Sunset, and the opposite would be Night! (Genesis 1:5, called Light Day)
  2. A Day = 24 Hours of Time from One Sunset to the Next Sunset including evening (night) and morning (light) (Genesis 1:5, the First Day).
  3. A Day = Meaning a Single Connected Period of Time describing an event, as in “the Day of the Lord” when God created the heaven and the earth (Gen 2:4).

These are just three examples of the definition of a “day”. But there are others, and the key one that we need to learn from to apply is found in Psalms:

Psa 90:4  For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

The Hebrew word translated as “yesterday”, is the same Hebrew word H3117 that is found in Genesis 2:17 used to describe “the Day you eat”. Notice what this verse in Psalm 90:4 says, “A thousand years in your sight, is a day”.

The Hebrew word translated as “sight” is H5869 (Ayin) and this word is normally translated as “eyes”. Therefore, we are getting a new God defined perspective to how He views and sees what a “Day” represents. Instead of us trying to define a “day” to be 12 hours, 24 hours, or the time of an event, let us see if this God view works out better.

Gen 5:5  And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. 

God writes and informs us that all of Adam’s days that were lived was 930 years. It is interesting how God used the same Hebrew Word H3117 this time translated as “days” in a count of years lived. Let us take out the “plural” form from the verse and say it using the literal “Day” translation:

Gen 5:5  And all the day that Adam lived was nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

That is amazing when you see it. God has just written to us and said, of the “Day” (1000 Years, Ps 90:4) that God had spoken of in Genesis 2:17, Adam only lived 930 years. Now let us go back and see how this fit in to the words spoken in Genesis 2:17:

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day (1000 years) that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (930 years).

Here is another nugget of meat to chew on. If we take 1000 years as 1 Day and subtract 930 years of total Adam lifespan, we get the remainder of 70 years. Therefore, 70 years is the remainder of God’s Day definition that Adam live short of fulfilling one day of God’s existence limit for sin. In other words, Adam living short of 1000 years matches God’s Word of warning. It appears that God was speaking of only natural death, so far.

Did you realize that in Psalm 90:4 God used the word Ayin which is the spelled out Hebrew word for the Hebrew letter “Ayin”. This letter and word both mean “eye”. But the Ayin alphabet letter, also has a gematria value of “70”. We are confirming how it was God’s view of a day that was used to define what He spoke when He told Adam when he would die. This Day of death for sinning was within a 1000-year timed maximum God calls 1 Day. God foresaw this happening and now we have eliminated the confusion of the need to define what a spiritual death represents to God also using our own human reasoning.

Therefore, we are still in need of knowing what spiritual death more fully represents to God’s view, omitting our opinions. Do you recall that we found there was an exact time of separation of Satan from God? We found this in Revelation 20. If spiritual death is a separation from God, there appears to be an appointed time when this event begins and then it continues to occur without a course of reversal. Therefore, true spiritual death appears to be a separation from God but only from a timed beginning with a never-ending separation experience apart from God. If this was true for Satan, could it also apply to humans? It appears so, based upon what we learned from reading Luke 16 with the death of the rich man and Lazarus. Let us look at a new scripture that helps us understand this better:

Heb 9:27  And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Notice what God says and reveals to us in this verse. This verse plainly states, “man is guaranteed once to die, and after this comes the judgment”. Wow, this sounds important. Please never forget, that God is LOVE (1 Jn 4:8)! Also, we must remember that God is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

Can you see where God is taking us? Remember earlier what the Lord said about “Him being the good shepherd that would leave the 99 saved sheep to go out and find the single lost one”. We are discovering that all humans even, those that commit sins like Adam, or differently than Adam have an opportunity for relationship with God. This would include humans submitting to God, as well as fellowshipping with Him. This as we saw in 2 Peter also involves human repentance for sins.

In other words, God has not closed the door for any human to know Him. He desires us all to be saved. He seeks us out and looks for ways to get our attention to cause us to come to Him and want relationship. This was true from Adam to Jesus, and is still true for the church from Jesus, the Last Adam to the end of this age. Those in the O.T. were given opportunity to gain righteous relationship with God and be saved on credit, waiting for the blood payment of all sin by Jesus on the cross. But us after the death, burial and resurrection, can just hear about Jesus, and turn to believe in Him and confess Him as Lord and we are brought in completely by Faith in His works. Let us end this section with God’s definition of “spiritual death”:

Rev 2:11  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

Here Jesus is speaking to the church a warning. Jesus is very clear that those in the church that overcome, shall not be hurt of the second death. Therefore, there is a second death that occurs after the first natural and physical death.

Rev 20:14  And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

Here is God’s definition of “spiritual death”. It occurs when people and angels are cast into the lake of fire in the heart of the earth. The rich man that died in Luke 16 was thrown there and is still there now. He asked Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers on the earth so they would not come to this place where he was. But Abraham said, they have the Word of God to read so they may not go there. Uh oh? This appears to say reading and studying God’s Words are a part of having a relationship with God.

Here are some basic rules to help us learn the truth to what spiritual death represents.

  1. Spirits do not ever die or cease to exist. Therefore, once a spirit comes into existence, they are alive for ever.
  2. Spirits of humans can choose to walk with God and live being in relationship with Him causes spiritual life.
  3. A human spirit if it is in a human body can be in relationship with God to be saved.
  4. A human spirit in a human body, without any relationship with God is considered dead already.
  5. It is only the spirit that leaves the body of a human without remaining in relationship with God that will be apart from God eternally in the Lake of Fire, called the 2nd death.

Conclusion

Thank you very much for taking the time to read and study the Bible with us. We love you all more than words can describe. The hundreds, and thousands of hours spent here to provide these Bible study lessons is our complete pleasure to share with the body of Christ as well as anyone else that is willing to read.

Hopefully you have learned a lot today, that you never saw before in the Bible. This subject was significantly shortened because of the amount of information that is given to us by God on these subjects. This subject of Jesus coming to the earth to give us spiritual and physical life to saved us from the everlasting spiritual death separation demonstrates His infinite love. Thank you, Jesus! Hopefully you have learned that every human spirit is spiritually “alive” and capable of being saved as long as they are abiding in their mortal body. Any human on earth has the ability to cry out to the LORD and He will answer them. This can become the beginning of your relationship with God.

Do you remember the parable that Jesus taught on the “Prodigal Son”? In this story of Luke 15, Jesus taught about a young son that left his father’s house after demanding his inheritance. This son went out into the world and had a party with all the money until it was gone. Then the desperate son while feeding pigs, came to himself and deceived to repent and return to his father. The father saw him returning a very far distance off and ran to him and kissed him.

In Luke 15:24, the father in this story told by Jesus confirms what being dead represents. While the son was apart from his father, there was no relationship together between them. The father calls this a son who is dead. But it was when the son returned that the father threw a party to welcome his son back into relationship to the family. This is very profound. I taught us death (spiritually) is being separated from Father God. We choose to do this of our own will. Therefore, to return to father is also our choice. This helps us significantly to understand what spirit life is and what spirit death is. by God’s definition.

If you have had an abortion or have lost a child, they are alive and waiting for you in heaven. They are not mad at you. They actually love you very much. There is hope for an eternal reunion in heaven. If you have not forgiven yourself, God loves you so much that He sent someone to write you a letter to help you get through this life. God has already paid for all sins, but we must humble ourselves and go to Him and receive His forgiveness. It is a free gift, just ask and take it by faith. If you have not ever accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, to make a relationship with Him, this is a perfect time to do so. Please go to the link at the bottom and click on it to find out how to be saved from hell.

God bless and keep you all, the day of the Lord’s return is closer than ever. Get ready for His return, and stay ready, it could be today!

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

Understanding the Sovereignty of God Part 1 – Introduction

(Ver 1.1) This will be “Part 1” in a series, concerning one of the essential subjects in Understanding God’s “Sovereignty”. This is a Bible Basic topic that is needed to be understood so that we as Christians know what is happening to us and why. But this lesson will attempt to teach new Christians and continuing disciples of Jesus that desire to know God’s Word of Truth, the basic concepts of balancing God’s “sovereignty”, with His revealed, integrity, nature, and character written in His Holy Word.

Today’s lesson is specifically and entirely focused on introducing the controversial and massively misunderstood subject of God’s “Sovereignty”. The Bible has a substantial amount of information on this subject. We can find examples of God’s sovereignty from Genesis to Revelation. But many times, people take these concepts as the only truth, ignoring all other truths.

There are numerous beliefs to what this word “sovereignty” means, and many range from one extreme of error even continuing to the opposite realm of extreme error. In today’s lesson will learn a little bit of what God’s sovereignty represents, but mainly focus a lot on what God’s sovereignty is not. Here are two major extreme areas of certain error:

  1. The first extreme area of error is that God is absolutely “sovereign” and is in control of everything that happens in the world down to the smallest detail. This belief states God plans even evil to achieve an ending good result for the goal to win the final game. It is like sacrificing your pawn in chess as a necessary evil, to later gain a more significant advantage over your enemy. This is commonly based upon the Book of Job and an incorrect interpretation of what is revealed to be happening.
  2. The opposite extreme of error is an atheistic viewpoint that there is no God that is helping or doing anything to stop evil and therefore everything that happens is an accidental fate, or chance. Many call this Murphy’s Law, being based upon the humanistic “bad luck” theory of existence. This belief conforms to “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong” or even saying, “Whatever, will be, will be”, both not involving the existence of a God that created us, loved us, and wants to help us.

Both extremes are ignorant realms of belief that were intentionally designed by Satan, to potentially lead humans to their demise (Hosea 4:6). Too many Christian minds have been vastly influenced to be deceived into believing corrupted meanings of God’s definition of this word “sovereign”. These tricks of deception can cause some people, even the real saved Christians to believe that everything that happens to us in the world, whether it be something good, or evil, it must be a “sovereign” work of God’s powerful, forceful, and controlling hand. But is that what the Bible teaches us when we want to see God’s actual rightly divided and balanced TRUTH?

In this lesson we will be looking at a lot of Bible verses that may not normally be taught on this subject of the Sovereignty of God. Some of these things we will be looking for our answers to how we address the difficult questions asked by too many people in the church and in the world. For example:

  1. Is God only good? Or is God only evil? Or is God both?
  2. Is God’s Will Always Done?
    • If “no”, why not?
    • If “yes”, does anyone else have the free will to choose anything? Does God override the will of others?
  3. Does God intentionally use evil to achieve and ending that is “good”?
  4. Does God use evil to correct or train His creation?
  5. If God is “good” and “sovereign”, why does He permit “evil”?
  6. If Satan is the source of evil, why didn’t God throw him into hell instantly the moment evil was discovered?
  7. Why does God warn us about people who call good evil and evil good, if His will is always done?

These are all great questions, and you may have others that need to be addressed. If this is true, please leave them in a comment.

Always know that there is a real God, who created everything, He is a God who is very concerned with saving people out of going to hell. This is a major fact of scripture. After all, for our God to come to the earth to become an intimate part of His own creation to personally die on a cross to shed His blood to save us, was the ultimate display of Love from anyone! We can also see that the choice to become a human to die is one of the greatest examples of the “sovereignty” of God. But even this choice must be balanced with the motivation of God’s “Love”, as being one of the primary reasons for this divine sovereign choice. Let us begin to go through the Bible to study this subject, to find if God is to blame for all “evil”.

Here are the topics that will be covered today:

  1. Our Most Basic Question. Is God Sovereign?
  2. Knowing and Balancing All of God’s Divine Characteristics
  3. What God’s Sovereignty Is Not
  4. Rightly Dividing God’s Word. Balancing Sovereignty in the Bible.
  5. Human Ways are Not God’s Ways
  6. Another Deception: Is Lucifer the Sovereign God’s Servant
  7. Conclusion

Our Most Basic Question
Is God Sovereign?

No one should ever claim that GOD is not Sovereign. If this is done, this is the first indicator of deception taking place. For example, teaching evolution without the inclusion of God’s intelligent design and hands on involvement is a major extreme lie. Nothing comes into intelligent order as our universe is, without the involvement of a far superior designer.

Therefore, when God created the entire perceivable universe without obtaining our permission or advice to how it should be made, as we know He did (Ps 33:6), this clearly demonstrates His highest ability to do anything that He pleases.

Then for us to know that He adds humans one by one onto the earth today, in certain locations born to very specific parents without asking permission of any of us that are here, this again signifies the sovereign nature of God. We can clearly see that God did not ask any human if they wanted to participate in His creation, to be born into this combination of a good and very evil world.

Not even the first created human that God called Adam, was a willing participant (Gen 2:7). Nor was Adam’s wife called Eve, asked if she wanted to become the mother of all the living on the earth (Gen 2:18). Neither Adam nor Eve participated in how they were created. No human has ever been asked about their opinion if they desired to participate within creation or that they should have a say in God’s callings, giftings and talents that were given to each of us (1 Cor 2:11).

No human was asked how tall they wanted to be. No human was asked what color hair, what shade of skin, what eye color, what sexual gender, etc. These are all visible signposts of God’s sovereign works. These can be easily found everywhere, and in everyone.

Let us go back before humans were created and enquire were any of the angels asked about their participation before they were created to serve God? Were any of the angels of God asked what role they would play in the Kingdom of Heaven? Were they also created without asking for their approval to cooperate or obey their Creator? If you can find a verse in the Bible that says God needed to check with anyone before they were created, please share it with everyone.

All these facts demonstrate that God is sovereign, and He has far superior abilities and knowledge over any of us. Therefore, if everything came from Him, this logically makes Him greater than everything else that was made by His hands.

This would be analogous to a human creating a rocket ship. The created ship would be of no ability to create itself without the maker’s involvement. Therefore, the created rocket ship would be subject to its sovereign human creator because it had no say for its existence or purpose to be created without the creator’s participation to design it.

But there might be some difficulty or challenge for us to be in complete unity and agreement when we are trying to define the word “sovereign” in the created human relationship with our creator God. This is because humans are not inanimate objects like a rocket ship that is void of emotions, memories, mental reasoning abilities, freewill choice rights, strength, power, etc. Humans were created far differently than a rocket ship that is only capable of an artificial intellect.

Humans were made in the “image” and “likeness” of their creator God (Gen 1:26). This means humans are more like God than any other part of His creation. A human is not a monkey, nor a whale, nor a cow, nor a bird, nor an insect, etc., nor like any of those that cannot comprehend, understand, create, speak, love, or believe. Humans were even created on a higher level than angels (Ps 8:4-5). In these verses the word translated as “angels” should have been “God” (Elohim).

God made us to be and to act exactly like Him (Ephesians 5:1). Therefore, whatever God is, we were made to be of the same class and pattern of similarity with Him but on a slightly lower order (Psalm 8:5).

Knowing and Balancing
All of God’s Divine Characteristics

To define and understand God’s “sovereignty”, we must also know that God possesses other major qualities that are as strong and/or equal as being sovereign. Every one of His God revealed qualities must be balanced together with each of the other qualities. In other words, one God quality is not going to conflict, contradict or oppose any other of God’s personality characteristics. Here is a quick list of some of the major reveal characteristics describing God. He is:

  1. Holy
  2. Eternal
  3. Immutable
  4. Omnipotent
  5. Omnipresent
  6. Omniscient
  7. God is LOVE
  8. Reigns as Sovereign

This list represents the basis of absolute “truth” concerning God’s unchanging personality and characteristics. Each of these qualities could be a separate lesson series. Therefore, they will only be mentioned in a very short introduction of each sub-topic of our main subject of “sovereignty”.

First notice that God is said to be “Holy”. This is an essential topic to know about God. Revelation 4:8 describes 4 created beings that surround the throne of God and day and night, they cry “Holy, Holy, Holy” to the “Lord God Almighty”. This verse also says they are crying “to Him that was, is, and is to come”. This verse is amazing because it mentions 3 of God’s qualities at the same time. Did you see them? These were Him being “Holy”, Him being “Almighty”, and Him being “Eternal”.

Notice that these creatures are declaring with the emphasis of saying it three times, God is exceptionally Holy. Holiness appears to be one of God’s most awesome qualities of needed focus and emphasis. Therefore, this word and description can never be omitted when discussing any other divine characteristic like the concept of what is “sovereignty”.

To be “Holy” must include at the minimum, that God is “Pure”, “Sinless” (Morally Blameless), and it certainly implies that God is of the Highest order of “Perfection” apart from “sin”. This simply means God would never desire to do evil, be evil, or be judged as evil. He is clearly so “Pure” that there is no possibility of evil intents or desires to be in Him.

Next, God is eternal with no beginning and no end (Ps 90:2). Placing this together with God’s Holiness that teaches us there is no existence of “sin” or “evil” in Him, in the past, present, or future. This is more important than you know when defining the word “sovereign”. This simply means there are possible “evil” sovereign rulers that people try to imagine God to be like, and this is impossible based upon His Supreme Holiness.

Next, most agree that God is not shifting, variable or ever changing, and this is called being “immutable” (Mal 3:6, James 1:17). This quality of being unchangeable, combined with God’s quality of Holiness means we can depend upon and trust in what God promises us. If God promised us anything in His Word, it is a violation of divine moral character for God to change His mind. This makes it impossible for God to break a promise unlike humans. We confirm this by reading Hebrews 6:18 where it is clearly stated that it is “Impossible for God to Lie”.

Therefore, we just learned another “limitation” to what it means to be “sovereign” when applied to “God”. We have discovered that God will never “Change”, “Sin” or “Lie” even if He could, because it would violate His true unchanging character and moral values.

Next, God is said to be “omnipotent”, meaning He has supreme power (Col 1:16, Ps 19:1-4, Heb 1:3). This simply teaches that with ultimate power, God is certainly capable of doing anything. Again, this supreme power must be confined to the self-imposed limitations that God has placed upon Himself by His sovereign will. This reveals another quality that God possesses. It is called “self-control”. This means God has enough power to not get angry and say and do things that He would regret later.

Next, most agree that God is “omnipresent”, meaning there is no place where we can be, that He is not already there.  Proverbs 15:3 says, “God’s eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good”. This simply means there is no location whether the created natural realm or the spiritual eternal realm, where God is not, which brings us to the next quality omniscient.

The next quality is about God being called “omniscient”. This word means there is nothing that God does not already know (Ps 139:1-6). This means, He sees all, hears all, knows all and is the only one that can always judge righteously in all matters. This literally means that God knows all the internal thoughts and intents of the human mind and heart, even if they are not spoken. Wow!

Next, let us consider what 1 John 4:8 teaches us. In this verse of scripture, God claims Himself to be LOVE. This does not say He has Love; it is more direct to be used as a noun and not a verb. Love as a verb denotes a potential emotional state of varying degrees and potential to shift to the opposite extreme of “hate”. But this would contradict with the immutability of God.

Therefore, every other characteristic of God must be defined in relationship to what Love is as defined by God. We can learn this type of divine love by reading 1 Corinthians 13:1-8. These verses describe a supernatural experience of a type of LOVE that few if any humans have fully attained. This type of LOVE is always patient, always kind and that causes most people to fall short immediately.

This type of LOVE only thinks good God thoughts towards every human, again what human has attained to this? But word descriptions like this give us a picture of a much different type of God than most know or understand. Therefore, we must apply all these words in this verse to our definition of the concept of God’s sovereignty.

Finally, God is considered “sovereign”. Meaning He does not answer to any higher authority. But as we have discovered God has implemented self-imposed limitations upon His desires, thoughts, choices, and actions, that will reduce the scope of God’s choices that He is willing to make. Let us talk about this subject more next.

What God’s Sovereignty Is Not

We are about to discover one variation of a wrong type of sovereignty that is being cast upon God to violate His character and nature that we have just learned. Remember whatever our understanding of “sovereignty” is, it cannot corrupt God’s Good character or standards of moral values.

What does it mean to you, for God to be sovereign? How exactly would you define this word? Does this word mean to you that God is making everything that happens to you whether good or evil to happen? Does God’s sovereignty mean that He is making the angels do everything that they do? Does God’s sovereignty mean that He is controlling every moment of your day, your thoughts, your actions, what you say, what you eat, when you sleep, etc., and that He has made you to be an unwilling participant to not be able to choose anything for yourself?

We could not agree with that type of definition of “sovereignty” in any way. That would make God the creator, a maker of mechanical angels and humans that were only made to be game pieces in a complex game for God to sovereignly move around and control. This would further cause us to believe that we were only made to be like mindless robots, and God was the string-pulling puppet master and our programmer, controlling us all through methods of divine robotic programming.

However, this is what many preachers preach. We have heard preachers say something like, “God has everything under control”. This phrase can be heard on many popular Christian television networks and ministry teachings. But is this a true statement as it is believed? Does God have complete control over the thoughts, motives and acts of every human, angel, devil, or demon within His creation? If He does, then God has a severe problem for us to understand His true nature, characteristics, and moral values based upon what we see all His creation doing to each other.

If God has everything under His full powerful control, and He causes everything on the earth that people claim to happen, our God comes across to us as looking to have a shifting an ever-changing set of values based upon favoritism to be good to some and evil to others. Wouldn’t this cause our God to appear to be double minded or to have a schizophrenic personality? The word schizophrenic comes from two Greek words meaning “split” and “mind”. This sounds like the word “double-minded” we have read about in the Bible.

Would God tell us to not be double-minded (James 1:8) and it would be fine for Him to be this way? If this is correct, then this belief contradicts with being made in His image. No scripture when correctly interpreted is in contradiction with any other.  James 1:8 informs us that a human that is double minded is unstable in all their ways. Then take what God says in James 2:1 and learn that if we have any respect of one person over another, we are committing sin.

Apply what God says to us (His creation made in His image) back to Himself as our Creator. Being made in His image and after His likeness, it is logical to conclude that as He is, we should be the same. Therefore, God must not be double minded or show favoritism, since this is what He instructs us to do. If God is double minded, He also would be unstable, unreliable, and we could not depend upon anything that He would ever say or do. If God has one respect for one person over any other, He too would be guilty of the sin that He told us not to do.

Therefore, to kill some people and then to save others clearly is both double minded and a respect of some people over others. This is very troubling to see that this is how some people believe God is. Consequently, if being made in His image, we are instructed to be single minded and no respecter of persons, that must be how God is also.

But this wrong definition of sovereignty to mean controlling everything, is exactly what people claim God is doing, without realizing it, when they say God creates earthquakes, tornados, cyclones, tsunamis, floods, rockslides, avalanches, etc., that can potentially kill thousands of people instantly. What about plane crashes, automobile wrecks, buses going off a bridge into a river, boats being capsized by a storm, trains that derailed, wildfires started by a man or lightning, terrorist bombs, etc. What about wars between nations where there are many deaths of the populations?

If God is creating situations to kill people today, after He personally came to the earth 2000 years ago, to save all these people (Jn 3:16) that are claimed to have died by an act of God, this is the type of behavior of a split personality like a Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of God. This type of God would cause us all to ask, “Whose personality will manifest today?” If you do not know the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde it is based upon a fictional story about a single man that takes the appearance as being two kinds of men. One appeared evil and the other was good.

Are we not living in the church age of divine Grace and favor? Most educated Bible scholars agree that we are in the “Dispensation of Grace”. If so, can we trust in and depend upon a loving and caring covenant God to continue in this covenant until the end? Or do we need to fear the hand of God to kill us and throw us into hell suddenly and unexpectantly because we have had a bad day or have made a mistake and lack His perfection? Or maybe we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, where an evil was happening? Were these God’s doings?

In insurance policies and on news programs, they claim many types of natural disasters are “Acts of God” implying sovereign control and intentions. In church funerals some claim that a premature death of a child was for God’s unknown purpose and plan, and it was known by God’s will and purpose to be for good, and it will work out all for our good also eventually. Therefore, God gets the blame for killing innocent children.

Too many preachers claim God’s ways are mysterious and beyond our ability to comprehend so that we are unable to know or understand why our spouse died young. But they claim after we die and go to heaven, we will suddenly be able to understand it. Other preachers just say, “it was just their time to go”. These types of statements imply to us that every death that has occurred on our planet was a “God” designed, planned, and timed event.

We have only begun to see that none of these types of works should be found in the definition of God’s sovereignty. We are only beginning to see what a one sided and perverted definition of “sovereignty” is. Now let us begin to learn what the Bible says about how to rightly divide God’s word.

Rightly Dividing God’s Word
Balancing Sovereignty in the Bible

We have just briefly discussed one area of extreme “sovereignty” where God is accused of doing every evil type of work against His creation. But “Extremism” is just one potential way to bring error into understanding God’s Word. There is a second major popular source for “error” and “misunderstanding” of the Bible called “exalting one truth to be the only truth” of scripture.

Do you know how many truths are given to us by God in the Bible? There are more truths given to us by God than we can know or understand completely. This knowledge teaches us that what we know about a subject is far less than what we need to learn about the subject. It is pride to believe that any of us are experts on any subject. Only God understands it all.

What does it mean to “exalt” one truth. This simply occurs when a person takes a single verse of scripture to be the only truth, in exclusion to every other verse of scripture truth. This practice of “making a truth” the highest “truth”, promotes one limited amount of truth to be the only truth that is needed to understand the subject fully. But this is a major cause of wrong interpretations and understandings.

God’s book of truth is comprised of limitless threads of precisely chosen words containing specifically selected alphabet letters where each word is very exactly placed in what many people would describe as being in random order. But that belief of randomness is wrong. Every single letter, word, sentence, paragraph, and book has infinite wisdom hidden in its design. This book was written by the “All Knowing” God. He knows exactly why every word was chosen and why it was placed at its location in the Bible.

But we still know that any Bible subject can be found anywhere in the Bible, from the beginning to the end. Any word and subject can be defined, explained, and commented upon by God anywhere else in the Bible He chooses. God can describe ending future events in the first chapter of Genesis. God can describe pre-creation events before humans, in Ezekiel and Isiah or anywhere else He selects. Therefore, not everything in the Bible is in “chronological” order. In fact, most things are not in exact timed order.

Also, God can teach a subject, by providing just a living example of it, without ever mentioning the subject being described or taught. For example, Hebrews chapter 11 is what many call the “Hall of Faith”. In this chapter God describes that each of these mentioned people exhibited significant levels of faith yet reading the stories in the Old Testament in isolation, you would never know this was one of the key subjects being taught.

But one of the most essential elements of understanding scriptures is to understand they are “ALL” about Jesus Christ in some way, even if it is hidden from plain view (Jn 5:39, Rev 1:8). These are just some of the examples of God’s “sovereignty” to how He chooses to lay out truth in the Bible. Not everything is obviously stated, God has sovereignly chosen to hide many truths (Prov 25:2).

This simply means when we look at one verse of scripture, in one book of the Bible, and we are not seeing the other threads on the same subject we are omitting some potentially valuable information to understand our desired subject.

However, each thread of truth overlaps other threads of truth to bring even more revelations of truth connections. Always remember that the ultimate big picture of the Bible will reveal and lead us to Jesus, including every alphabet letter, word, sentence, scripture, chapter, and book, will only guide us to the masterfully designed big-picture image of the knowledge of Jesus (Eph 1:17).

The Bible is like an intricate woven fabric of Truths with many of them placed in what appears to be random order of diversely scattered patterns. God can even in one single verse cause an overlap of multiple threads of truth subjects to be discussed and revealed. These threads can tell a natural story on the surface and a hidden prophetical spiritual story in the same words. This is why we need the Author of the Bible to live in us, to help us and guide us into what He wants to teach us about any given subject.

2Ti 2:15  Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth

Why is it necessary for us to rightly “divide” God’s Word? This is a great question. It first teaches us that there are many potential ways to wrongly divide it. We can hear many conflicting viewpoints on scriptures concerning the subject of “sovereignty”, but we must realize that only God’s viewpoint will prevail if we accept it.

Does this mean this lesson on sovereignty is the only right one? Absolutely not, every Bible teacher is ignorant of the complete truth that only God knows. This lesson while not perfect will present how God has revealed the subject to one teacher. You are required to study to show yourself approved as we have just read, to verify everything that is taught here is what God shows you to also be true (Acts 17:11).

We have just explored some basics about one extreme position of authority, that many believe is in error, including us. This belief system discounts human responsibility and participation in the plan of God for our lives. There are too many people that are blaming God for something bad that has happened to them, and we are about to further see in this section that it was not God that was doing it. Let us begin to analyze how to rightly divide the subject of God’s sovereignty.

Are words spoken by people blaming God for evil, truthful? Does any of these types of words that are blaming God for evils and deaths, help us to be comforted in our times of grief? No, they do not. This is because they are not based upon the fuller balanced truth. These types of beliefs and descriptions of God committing evil to kill children, men, women, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, etc., conflict with the real Bible when discovered, rightly divided, balanced, and understood. Look at this Bible verse to learn a set of necessary new subjects that will help us begin to understand God’s truth on “sovereignty”:

Joh 10:10  The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Uh oh! The concept of “sovereignty” or being “sovereign” is never mentioned in this verse. Therefore, what does it have to do with our subject? This is just one example of how a subject can be hidden within words that never mention a study subject directly.

What we should first know is that this verse came from words spoken by Jesus Christ while on the earth. Therefore, this is the sovereign God manifested in the flesh who is speaking. Knowing this fact alone, it must have something to do with our subject even if it is not directly stated.

Let us begin by asking a basic question. If God is completely sovereign and His will is always done, why is there a thief on God’s created earth who is stealing, killing, and destroying His creation and his created people?  Why doesn’t God do something about this part of His creation while He is encountering him in person?

Based upon what some people believe about God they are claiming God is either the thief or He must be allowing the evil one to do these evil works. Is this “thief”, God’s manifested evil sided personality and mind? If so, this means He is committing evil. But did you ever see Jesus commit any evil acts while on the earth? Jesus very plainly stated, “When you have seen me, you have seen my Father”. Therefore, whatever Jesus did on the earth is a revelation of the true nature of God. Consequently, this teaches us that God is not doing evil from heaven to anyone.

Or is God who is described to be abundant in goodness just allowing evil to occur? If He is allowing evil to exist, why? Does this mean the omnipotent and omniscient God who certainly had the power, ability, and the knowledge to stop all evil has chosen intentionally to ignore evil and just allow it to go uncontrolled?

We also know that God is not this thief because Jesus (God in the flesh) is comparing Himself in John 10:10 to be the life giver, and this is described in direct contrast and opposition to this thief that kills. Therefore, they must be two separate “living beings”, one that is God/Good, and one that is the devil/evil.

It is interesting to see even the words are connected to show what each are. One adds another “o” to “God” to reveal Him as “good”, and the other removes the letter “d” from “devil” to reveal him as evil. Therefore, God “adds”, and the devil “subtracts” and takes away. This is very profound to see. If you apply this knowledge to understanding the book of “Job”, you will figure out who to blame for what.

We must also logically conclude that since God has not fully dealt with this being that is the source of all evil, there must be some reasons why God has not ended this wicked one’s involvement from human life completely. In fact, if you study this out in the Bible, this devil will not be permanently removed until over 1000 years from now. There will be a 1000-year period that he will be confined in the pit, but God releases him for a short time after this to deceive people again (Rev 20:7-8). Wow, there is something going on here that too many Christians are completely ignorant of.

We may get into these reasons later, but the basis of the answer is based upon God’s character that we learned about earlier. God is also the “Righteous Judge” of all His creation, and whatever He does must not violate His standards of “Holiness” or “Righteousness” (Gen 18:25, 2 Pet 2:23). Since many do not understand what this is, they assume incorrectly that God can do anything, anytime, in any way He desires. But as we have seen God has placed self-imposed restrictions based upon His nature and character that limit His “sovereign” involvement.

Let us look at another verse to confirm what we are learning in John 10:10:

Act 10:38  How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.

We also can know from reading here in Acts 10:38 that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Ghost and power so that He could go around doing “Good” to heal all those that were oppressed of the “devil”. This verse is the same contrast given to us in John 10:10 comparing two works of opposition. The one true God is described to be “good”, and the “other” created spirit called the devil is contrasted to be “evil”.

Acts 10:38 further confirms that Jesus the Son of God is “good”. Jesus did good because His heavenly Father anointed Him, with His own Holy Spirit who must also be the source for all “good” (James 1:17). This additionally teaches us a new overlapping truth to why Jesus was not able to do sovereign works as God on the earth. It would not be necessary for Jesus to be anointed if God was manifested in His Son Jesus in His full deity powers, and abilities on the earth.

We learn from reading the book of Philippians that God chose to be manifested on the earth as the man Jesus in the normal likeness of other humans. He was able to do supernatural wonders on the earth only because He was anointed by God to perform these miraculous signs (Acts 10:38).

Philippians 2:7 declares an essential truth to us, about this sovereign God decision. God in Heaven sovereignly chose to become a human on the earth and specifically selected to remove Himself from manifesting His Sovereign powers and abilities while here. He did this to specifically live a life like us, to show us what we would be capable of doing with His anointing upon us.

This was certainly a “Sovereign” right of God to do this, wasn’t it? Please do not try to tell anyone that the “sovereign” God can’t do this if He chooses to do so? No one was asked by God for their permission. No one was consulted about it being ok. Therefore, to try to say that God can’t or won’t do this would violate many people’s definition of what it is to be sovereign, or it would make the Bible a book of fiction to contradict Philippians 2:7. According to many, God can do anything he chooses at any time He chooses, right? If not, God is not sovereign.

What some of us have just discovered is that there are two opposing spiritual forces of; 1) God who is good, and 2) the devil that is evil. No Satan is not a match for the Creator God, but he appears to not know this. Nevertheless, Satan is here on the earth and Paul called him the “god of this world” even after Jesus died (2 Cor 4:4). We can then see that we have a lower case “g” “god” that is opposing the “upper Case “G” “God”. But technically there were no capital letters in the Greek language and the same Greek word G2316, is describing them both.

Therefore, we need to learn more about why the “god” Satan is legally here on the earth, and why God reveals to us that He can’t or won’t do anything about him until a certain time in the soon coming future. Most do not understand how God has sovereignly designed the concept of “time” to work. We may be able to touch on this more later. But for now, let us move to another way people incorrectly define God’s Sovereignty.

Human Ways are Not God’s Ways

God has chosen to sovereignly do some things that appear very foolish to the religiously wise of the earth. 1 Corinthians 1:27 plainly states that, “God has chosen the foolish things of our world in order to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of our world, to confound those that think they are mighty”.

Remember that Acts 10:38 additionally confirmed that Satan, aka the devil was the one and only source of the evil works that made all people on earth to be sick and diseased, which must have been intended to potentially kill these people. But Jesus came into the world to reverse this evil by healing them and restoring them to a life of health (Jn 10:10). But look at this verse and what God reveals about His ways that can appear “foolish” to some.

Isa 55:8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

Notice what God says about the differences between created humans and their creator God. He very plainly says that His thoughts and ways of thinking are not like our natural human ways. Neither are our ways of doing things close to how God chooses to do things. This simply means if we are applying our biased thoughts to the definition of His “sovereign” acts, we are probably very wrong.

We can see many examples, of God doing things in ways that are not normal according to how a human would do them. For God to offer His righteousness, salvation, grace, and mercy to us for free when we have not earned it, causes the religious mind to bend.  Religion wants to earn their salvation, deliverance, and healing, but this would give humans a right to brag and be proud (Eph 2:8-9). God is not going to allow that to happen.

This was only a reminder to not think carnally when attempting to understand how to define “sovereign”. God’s idea of being “sovereign” is very far from a religious mindset. If we attempt to define God’s sovereignty to be like human examples, using human governments standards or religious definitions, we are far from His perfection.

Another Deception: Is Lucifer the Sovereign God’s Servant
who Obeys
Consistently?

There have been some Christians that have believed a slightly differing variation of potential deception. These mostly claim that the John 10:10 “thief”, and the “oppressor” of Acts 10:38, is the devil (aka Lucifer and Satan), but they believe that the devil only performs works “for” God as He sovereignly commands. This type of belief the acts were God initiated and Satan is performing works of evil because of God’s purpose and plan.

Others further believe that Satan desires to do evil to everyone but can only do these evil things to God’s creation, after he can obtain God’s directive, or permission to kill, steal and destroy humans. This type of belief is another variation of extreme “sovereign” control of God over everything that occurs in creation but shifts part of the blame to it being Satan’s desire to ask for permission and God’s agreement that it would work out something for good for His usage also.

However, this type of belief violates the basic laws of correct interpretation of all balanced truth. It has elements of partial truth that are being mixed with untruths, resulting in a drink of potential poisonous belief. Remember that we have already seen verses in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 that described the beginning of Lucifer. It is revealed plainly that Lucifer revolted by His own freewill choices to cause pride and sin to be formed inside of him. He was created with neither of these characteristics.

Now, let us just use some basic common sense to begin to understand how this belief is false. For example, no thief on earth would ever ask anyone for their permission to steal or rob from anyone. That just violates the known operandi of a thief. Thieves are lawless by nature and will ignore sovereign governments. They are normally self-centered and motivated by greed. They have no value system for the care of other’s lives or property. They love to work under the cover of darkness and God is only light (1 Jn 1:5).

Can you find a verse in the Bible that informs us about Satan asking for permission to revolt against the Kingdom of God? Can you find a verse of scripture in the Bible where God caused the sinful revolt of Satan against Him? This is the downfall of too many people’s belief about what it means that God is “sovereign”. People are ignoring the sovereign design of God to create beings that have their own “freewill” to make independent choices apart from His sovereign will and desires. Don’t believe this? Look at this verse:

Joh 4:23  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

What does it mean to “seek”? This word represents an act of “searching” for something desired. Do we ignore this definition and word choice because God is sovereign and always makes happen what He wants to happen, when He wants it to happen? This logically does not make sense and directly contradicts this truth of the scripture.

This verse in John 4:23 is very clearly stating that God is looking for people (who have a freewill choice), to decide to come after Him with their whole heart (spirit). This is the heart’s desire of our Creator. At the time when Jesus spoke this, there were obviously few to none of these types of people on the earth. In fact, Jesus confirmed this when saying, “This people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their heart (spirit) is far from me.” (Mat 15:8). We can very clearly see that God wants people that want Him and is not forcing us to do what He desires us to do. Let us look at another verse in the New Testament concerning the subject of human responsibility:

1Pe 5:8  Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

God is warning Christians of providing the devil a point of “access” like an unlocking or the “opening of a door”. This is exactly what 1 Peter 5:8 warns us about. In this verse God says, “Be sober and vigilant, for your adversary the devil, goes about seeking whom he may devour”. The fact that God warns Christians to be sober (not drunk) and awake (not asleep), indicates that we could be living today in a state of unawareness God calls “darkness”, that opens the door for Satan to gain an advantage over us (2 Cor 2:11).

Can we agree that 1 Peter 5:8 is about humans being awake because the devil who rules the darkness is trying to destroy us? Remember normal natural people only sleep in darkness. God appears to be alerting us (the saved spiritually awakened) not to fall back into Satan’s territory of evil within the kingdom of darkness. The Lord is saying that when we leave the Kingdom of God, to drift back into Satan’s domain, we are very easy to be devoured.

Col 1:12  Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:

Col 1:13  Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

See what God confirms to Christians saying, God has made us able to become saints in the light. This is God’s New Covenant Kingdom in Jesus Christ. We can clearly see this in verse 13 where God says, He has sovereignly delivered us from the authority of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.

Now we are learning something very essential for us to know. There are two spiritual kingdoms of authority upon the earth. We can see them described in these two verses of Colossians. There is the Kingdom of the dear Son of God which is called “Light” exclusively. Versus the kingdom of evil that has only those that are spiritually asleep or drunk in darkness.

Kingdom of Light heirs are the saved saints, that God has sovereignly translated and moved out of the authority of darkness (Rom 13;12). These are the believers in Jesus. Are you in God’s Kingdom of Light and Day (1 Ths 5:5)? If you are, remain there! Submit yourself to God daily and resist the devil and the devil will flee from you (Jas 4:7).

Did you notice in the last paragraph we had God’s sovereign choices to how we were saved taking place? But did you also notice there was an implied human participation to us being saved? This necessitates us balancing several scriptural truths to obtain a higher truth understanding. We saw this in a previous verse of John 4:23 where God desired true worshippers but needed humans to have the same desire for Him.

There is a very significant sovereign God side to human salvation, but He does not force us to be saved. This means humans are required to choose what they “hear”, and “believe”. We either believe in God and His Word, or we reject it and are lost (Mk 16:16).

But we know that once we choose to believe and receive His sovereign gift of Salvation, this clearly means God (Light) is not our enemy and is not working with or controlling Satan (darkness) to direct him how he is to come against us. Remember what God reveals about Himself in 1 John 1:5. Here God says, “God is Light, and Him is No darkness!”. This clearly states Light (God) does not associate or cooperate with darkness (evil).

Ask yourself, why would God warn His people in the kingdom of light, if He is the one that is sending this enemy of darkness to teach us a lesson? No, this verse 1 Peter 5:8, clearly reveals our adversary the devil, is not sent from God! Therefore, Satan is not working for God. And there can be “no” covenant, cooperation, or agreement between them.

These verses concretely confirm God is not in total “sovereign” control of humans or the devil, or the events that occur on the earth. We have freewill choices that must be made in obedience to determine our outcome of being devoured or not. God has very clearly written to Christians; to “Fight” (1 Tim 6:12), to “Resist” (Jas 4:7), to “Overcome” (Rev 21:7), to “Reign” (Rom 5:17), “Hold Fast” (1 Ths 5:21) and many other commands. Do you see how God is assigning humans responsibility to be saved? In other words, God still desires humans that want to know Him.

Wouldn’t this make sense that the sovereign God has made a sovereign choice to delegate authority and responsibilities to His creation, and if we choose to not do them, He won’t? God would not warn the people about the devil coming before He sent the devil. If He had sent the devil, we would be watching out for God to devour us.

Those that believe Satan works for God to do His evil, attempts to cause us to accept that Satan does this to fulfill God’s hidden evil purpose on the earth to achieve some kind of divinely designed ending “good”. This belief asserts that God created this “thief” and “oppressor” deliberately for His greater unknowable intentional plan and purpose to achieve a culmination of something positive.

It also teaches us another potential lie, that God’s plan of creation for a perfect Lucifer was only a ruse for the intended real plan to cause Lucifer to sin. But is this logical? Does this type of logic adhere to the known character of a good God? Would any human ever make all perfect new auto parts to first destroy them before they then attempt to build a new better car? This would be an example of someone doing something needlessly destructive so that they can construct a better car rather than using parts that were completely flawless to begin with.

What we are needed to ask, is 99% truth mixed with another element of 1% harmful substance, ok to swallow and believe as the whole truth? Not if the 1% is completely deadly poisonous being enough to kill you. A 100 % T-bone steak is what a canine would love to devour. But insert into it or dust it with poisonous strychnine and it is still enticing enough to deceive because it appears good, but ultimately it can be deadly. This is why we need to do our best to seek and know only what God determines is truth, and not a message of poison from any human or devil.

We have already seen where God made angels and humans in a state of “perfection” and “very good”, and it was their bad choices that caused them to fall (fail). Therefore, this logic of using evil to achieve good sounds like a deceptive trick of this thief named Satan to shift the responsibility off himself to help steal the truth away from us to blame God for doing evil. Can you see this?

CONCLUSION

Why do people love the extreme sovereign God false message? When someone believes this way, (that God is causing all the evil in the world with occasional times of goodness), it completely absolves them and makes them not responsible for any participation to do what God has told them to do. Therefore, when the will of God is not done in their life, they can say it is not my fault, God must have had a hidden reason for the apparent evil to occur. However, that is a deception, and not the truth. Their belief that they will not be held responsible because of their ignorance, non-participation and full cooperation for obedience is the plan of the devil to possibly send them to hell. It also causes people to never fight against the devil and allows Satan another victory.

It is Satan’s plan to cause people to believe God is to blame for all the evil in the world. This belief shifts the truthful focus for all anger to be redirected away from him. Have you ever met people in the world like this? One man says, “I hate God, for killing my son”. Another lady says, “Why God did you allow me to be beaten up so badly?” Others say, “Why didn’t God stop that from happening to us?” These are classic thought types given to people by Satan. His words are usually “first person” accusation, like it is the person themselves having the thought about God. This is truly a tricky way to deceive people by playing on their emotions to cause them to have a thought to blame God. But they are so very effective thought strategies that come to place the blame upon God or His people, or anyone that is not their spiritual enemy that was working to cause it to happen.

If you have ever felt this way, hopefully you understand the reason why now. Realizing this was a deception from Satan, is one of the first steps to healing and reconciling with God. By repenting before God, a mind renewal occurs and this changing of thought then opens the door for God to help bring about more healing and help to you.

So why do bad things happen to good people? Who says there are any good people? In Matthew 19:16-17, Jesus is confronted with a rich man saying, “Good Master what must I do to have eternal life?”. But Jesus responded to Him saying, “Why do you call me good? There is none good but one, that is God!”  Jesus just taught us that every human is far from God’s perfection of good. Therefore, we all deserve to die and go to hell. But conversely Jesus also said very plainly that only God is fully and completely “Good”.

When we choose to blame God for evil, we are doing so because we are very ignorant to know who God really is. Remember Jesus also said, “When you have seen me, you have seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). We can never see Jesus ever doing anything but good to people because He was anointed with the Holy Ghost and power (Acts 10:38). Therefore, Jesus never killed anyone. Jesus never made anyone sick, weak, or ill. Jesus never made anyone poor. Jesus didn’t even condemn anyone for being a sinner. Jesus simply offered forgiveness, healing, and blessings to everyone that was willing to receive it.

If Jesus manifested the presence of God in heaven upon the earth as it says He did in Colossians 2:9, then humans for the first time were able to see the actual true character and nature of God personally face to face. This true nature of God was hated by Satan and the religious people of that day. Yet Jesus still offered to them “forgiveness” saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. What an amazing display of LOVE!

If you do not know God’s love personally, and the Son of God who was sent into the world to make God known, it is a great time to believe in Him and ask Him to be the LORD of your life. There is a link at the bottom of this page to receiving and beginning the salvation process. This will open up a new way for living and knowing God. You will be able to talk to Him personally, and He is more than happy to talk to his new child and help you to grow in spiritual maturity. Please do not let this opportunity pass you by. For those that are not in the Kingdom of God, there is no guarantee of any tomorrow. This could be your last invitation, please do not take it for granted.

Thank you for reading and studying this Bible Essential subject of knowing and understanding the “sovereignty” of God. It is very important to know that after we are saved, God desires us to grow up to be led by His Holy Spirit that is living on the inside of our human body (Rom 8:14). He has come to live inside of us for us to know that He will always be near to us to help us (Heb 13:5-6). Satan may try to attack you a fresh again, and again, but God is our ever-present help to always cause us to “overcome” our spiritual enemy (1 Jn 4:4).

Hopefully this has been a blessing to you and clarified some things taught to us in the Bible. We learned that:

  1. “God is Only Good” (Mat 19:17).
  2. “Satan” is only Evil and is a thief that has come to only kill, steal, and destroy people (Jn 10:10).
  3. God is Sovereign (Ps 115:3).
  4. However, God has sovereignly chosen to place character limitations upon Himself to restrict what and how He can do things.
  5. Angels and humans were created good but were also sovereignly given a freewill by God’s sovereign design, to disobey and to choose to become evil (Eze 28:15, Gen 3:11).

Thank you again for taking the time to study God’s Word. May God continue to richly bless you, knowing that He adds no sorrow with any of His abundant blessings (Prov 10:22). The Lord be willing there will be more lessons coming soon. There is just so very much to learn from God’s Word. Thank you for sharing these lessons with those that you know that will be blessed by them as the Holy Spirit leads you. Thank you again for being led by the Holy Spirit to study with us.

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

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

What is Communion/Eucharist – What does it mean to Drink my Blood and Eat my Flesh?

(Ver 1.0) This Bible lesson is a response to a comment that was received recently from someone that caused us concern about what the content of the message contained. It was felt that this comment should not be handled privately but should be made into a public Bible lesson. This lesson will not be a long study, but it is still an essential truth about who our God is and what He has sovereignly chosen to do and to be. This lesson may not be for everyone. But hopefully it will be a blessing to some that may have the same question in their mind about the loving and infinitely good God that created us all.

However, this is a WARNING UPFRONT to caution readers that this Bible lesson may be offensive to some. It may not be considered politically correct which none of the Bible truly is. It is God’s Word that brings us Light, and this is highly offensive to those that love the darkness (Jn 3:19). But this lesson will be given in a spirit of Love, speaking the truth intended to only bring a gentle healing (Eph 4:15). To those that desire to know the True God and see His truth, this lesson should be easy to receive. Potentially others could be offended.

We will divide this lesson into the following sections:

  1. Introduction
  2. What Happened to the physical body of Jesus?
  3. Knowing there is Spiritual Realm and Natural Realm
  4. Can God Lie?
  5. Absolute Truths Come from the Mouth of God
  6. Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

Our commenter was responding to a lesson on what Jesus taught us in John 6 about we must drink His blood and eat His flesh to receive eternal life. There was a significant amount of discourse in this comment given on the subject of “the differences between literal and figurative” expressions spoken by God and by Jesus while in the flesh on the earth.

It was obvious our commenter took the words of Jesus to be literal and they claimed that this is how the Holy Spirit entered into them by them literally eating and drinking the physical body and blood of Jesus Christ. But what does their definition of “literally” eating His flesh and drinking His blood, mean to them?

Was this 1) a literal cutting from the flesh of the body of Jesus Christ piece by piece as Jesus’s words implied in John 6? Or was this just 2) a “figurative” sampling of man-made bread and wine that is representative of the actual reality of flesh and blood, as some believe in a ceremony called “Communion”? Or there are even some that believe 3) these naturally created human elements of bread and wine, when ingested in a religious ceremony called a Eucharist, become the literal flesh and blood of Jesus by some miraculous wonder. That is a tough lesson and is far more complex to be fully taught completely today. But we will go through some of the key thoughts today to try to understand how to view this subject from the eyes of God.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE
PHYSICAL BLOOD AND BODY OF JESUS?

What happened to the literal physical naturally born body of Jesus? We know He was nailed to a cross (Jn 19:18), after being beaten by Roman soldiers (Jn 19:1). He hung on the cross approximately 6 hours (Mat 27:45) and died after His spirit left His body (Jn 19:30). The physical body was then buried in a tomb and sealed with guards standing outside for three days (Jn 19:38-42). On the third day the LORD Jesus was raised up from the dead and his physical natural physical body was glorified by God to be changed into an eternal resurrected body.

However, there are important facts to take note of. We know from John 20:17 that the resurrected body of Jesus and His Spirit, was on His way to see His Father in heaven when He saw a woman that was at the tomb. He told her not to touch Him because He had not yet ascended to His Father (Jn 20:17). In Hebrews 7:27 we learn another fact that Jesus was being made a High Priest for all of humanity on this first trip to heaven. We further learn that He was going up to offer up His blood to His Father in heaven, for it to be poured out in the Heavenly Most Holy Tabernacle (Heb 9:12) as the onetime payment for all sin.

Finally, notice what happened after Jesus returned from the Heaven Spirit realm back to the earth realm of natural humans. He appears to the disciples behind closed doors without opening one door. He looks at them and says “Behold, my hands and my feet and see that it is me”. This clearly means that His resurrected body still had the marks from the nails while hanging on the cross. Then He said, “See a spirit has not flesh and bone as you see I have” (Lk 24:39).

Pay close attention to see that Jesus never claims to have any blood in His body after His post-resurrection trip to heaven. This would be a problem for a literal interpretation of eating His flesh and drinking His blood after being raised from the dead. From Bible evidence there does not appear to be any blood in His resurrected body.

Plus, there is the Bible fact that Jesus did not ever offer His resurrected body as food to anyone to be saved after His resurrection. After all He did appear to humans for 40 days in the flesh and we can only find Jesus eating natural food with humans and never His flesh (Jn 21:12-14, Lk 21:41-43). Therefore, we are beginning to have some major problems with the commenter’s reasonings and interpretations of scriptures in John 6.

Finally, please notice that the physically resurrected body of Jesus went up to heaven in fulness being completely intact in Acts 1:9. The disciples witnessed this fact and the angel that was with them said to them “You men of Galilee, why are you staring up into heaven?” in Acts 1:11. Then the angel said to them, “this same Jesus which was taken up, shall return in like manner”. This simply means the literal physical resurrected body of Jesus went up with Him and will also return fully intact upon his return.

Therefore, the statements by Jesus to eat His flesh and to drink His blood appear to mean something completely different than a literal interpretation.

KNOWING THERRE IS A SPIRIT REALM
AND A NATURAL REALM

Therefore, we need to find the true interpretation of eating flesh and drinking blood. From the comment that was the implied meaning to the commenter. But is that what God said or meant? Does it really matter if we think what was written, meant something that God did not really say? Do remember what God said in Isaiah?

Isa 55:9  For as the heavens (the spirit realm) are higher than the earth (the natural realm), so are my ways (Spirit) higher than your ways (natural), and my thoughts (Spirit) than your thoughts (natural).

Wow! Isaiah wrote a very significant amount of truth for us to learn from. Within parentheses were added the God concept that is revealed in other parts of the Bible. It is absolutely essential for Bible students to interpret the Bible using the other words found within the Bible, and this will help eliminate the problem being addressed with the reader’s comment and analysis of what was spoken.

What was God saying in Isaiah 55:9? Our God who is the highest and greatest intelligent being ever, is explaining how His Spirit eyes sees things differently and His omniscient mind thinks things from a higher perspective of ultimate truth, than the limited human natural eyes and carnal human mind reasoning. The Apostle Paul emphasizes this problem in this verse:

1Co 3:1  And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

Do you see the Isaiah 55 connection? Paul could have said “Brothers, I could not speak unto you using “heavenly” words, ideas, concepts, and descriptions, because for now you are far too “earthly” focused. This is the exact same concept that Jesus spoke of in John 3:

Joh 3:12  If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

Do you see the same principles being taught by Jesus in this statement? Jesus is saying the same thing that Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:1. And this John 3 statement was certainly based upon what is exactly stated in Isaiah 55 about God’s spiritual ways being way above the comprehension of childlike naturally thinking people. Jesus is literally saying “I am speaking to you using natural things, to point you to the far higher and greater spiritual dimension that you are unable to comprehend.

It is very easy to see how there could be a lot of confusion surrounding these words spoken by Jesus in John 6 about eating flesh and drinking blood until you see that Jesus is attempting to teach the greater spiritual truths using easier parallel God created natural realities. What we are being introduced to is an awesome concept for learning the truth in the Bible.

One God given rule of correct scripture interpretation is found in these statements above. Humans before being born-again are wholly natural thinking people. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:14, that the natural thinking man can never receive the things of the Spirit of God. Paul continues by saying, for these spiritual things are “foolishness” to the earthly thinking human. Finally, Paul reveals, Spirit Words from God are only discerned from spiritual minded humans. Do you see the problem being presented? This was a sovereign God design of hiding spiritual information from people who are not really committed to know the God that is speaking.

We were designed by God to only be able to fully view the spiritual truths hidden in scriptures correctly, only after being spiritually born-again (Jn 3:7), from God’s higher Spirit perspective and viewpoint. We can only do this by renewing our minds with His truths and rising above the natural realm of normal human thinking. This can only come from spiritual growth by reading His Words and being led by the Holy Spirit to see what they mean (1 Pet 2:2). Next, as a part of this study, we are going to focus upon one part of the comment to answer an important question.

DOES GOD LIE?

The commenter is unknown to us and everyone else, we will “in the spirit of love”, not identify the commenter. We also will not provide the entire comment and only address the most shocking points that insult, slander, and defame the character of God who made us all.

Here is the opening of the longer comment that was submitted:

The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.
Jesus is not subject to OT laws like not eating flesh with the blood in it.
He made them. He can break them. He is God after all.

Suppose. Suppose God wanted us to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood. Would that be okay with you? Or would he need special permission?

Wow, these are very sad, hurtful, and offensive allegations, accusations and statements about the revealed character and nature of God who describes Himself to be “Love” in 1 John 4:8. Is it possible for God who is LOVE, to break His own commandments and laws? What is the character and nature of true “LOVE”? In other words, does the Creator God command His created man to do something that He would not do?  Does God give us a commandment and then make exceptions in certain cases for Himself to do otherwise? Is any of this fair and just? The commenter’s reasonings teach that God could be completely immoral and disobey whatever he told us to do simply because He is God. Is that the kind of God you know?

For example, if God instructed man not to eat any flesh with blood remaining in it in the Torah Law of Moses (Gen 9:4, Lev 17:14), then the commenter is saying that God must have changed His mind while Jesus was speaking to people on the earth when He told them to eat His flesh and drink His Blood? From this, the commenter is saying that God can do any of the following:

  1. God made the Law; therefore, He can break His Law.
  2. Jesus was never “subject” to the O.T. Laws (Torah) like eating flesh with blood in it.
  3. The final statement was “If God desired us to eat flesh with blood, does He need to ask any human if that is ok to do”?

Many human statements given without deep thought and allowing God’s personal involvement and participation with His Holy Spirit to instruct us and help us understand what is written, can bring about confusion with other unknown truths that could be found in the Bible, if searched. There are No Rightly Interpreted Bible verses that contradict with any other Bible verse. That would make the Bible just a human book of mistakes, instead of what it truly is, a book written by a far superior Spirit intellect attempting to communicate with people that know very little about anything spiritual as we ought. But since God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, He is smart enough not to forget what He says nor contradict what He meant. Today, we are about to discover that the Bible teaches us the following essential facts concerning God’s divine nature and character:

  1. Num 23:19 “God is not a man that He should lie”. This verse reveals whatever God says is a true statement and it cannot change.
  2. Mal 3:6 “I am the LORD and I change not”. God being unchangeable and Immutable are two other ways of saying that He will not say and believe one thing today is true and a completely opposite thing tomorrow is also true. Nor will He say one thing today and do the opposite tomorrow.
  3. Heb 6:18 “It is impossible for God to lie.” Here is another challenge to the claims that God does not need to always do what He says.  If God said He would do something and then changed His mind, He would be called a liar. This truth further binds God to do exactly what He says by His own sovereign choice and design.
  4. Duet 1:17 “You will not respect person in judgment”. Rom 2:11 “There is no respect of person with God”. Here is an example of how God commands man to be like He is. God is described to not respect any person, and He commands people to do the same. This teaches us God’s intent is for humans to do exactly what He says and does.

In these descriptions of our God, He is “Truthful”, “Honest”, “Fair” and “Just”? Perhaps some do not believe that God is “truthful” (Jn 15:26), “honest” (Num 23:19), “fair” (2 Chr 19:7), or “just” (1 Pet 2:23)? Perhaps some may not believe the Bible is God’s spoken words that instructs what He does and what we should do also. Or that it also teaches us who He is, what He does, and that neither of these will ever conflict. In other words, who God is, is what God desires for us to become. Then also what God does, must be exactly what God wants us to be like (Gen 1:26).

If some do not believe God has these qualities that proves these people may know a little bit about God, but they probably have never experienced a personal close relationship with Him. That should be truly concerning. Now let us go deeper into the Word of Truth to learn more about if we should drink His natural blood and eat His natural flesh:

Joh 13:34  A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

We can find multiple commandments written to humans to do things that God has described as His character. For example, notice in the verse above.  We know in 1 John 4;8 God says He is LOVE. Then Jesus said in John 13:34 that we should love each other on the earth exactly as He personally demonstrated and showed us His love to us. How many people fully do this? Can you name one? Many people can act very kind to someone for a short time, until they are enraged and suddenly, they become a totally different personality with unimaginable changes in character.

People must redefine the true nature of God’s character of LOVE that is clearly described to us in 1 Corinthians 13 to justify their ability to not be held accountable for doing what He commanded us to do, Himself. According to the definition of the God kind of Love called “Agape”, people are supposed to rejoice in truth in verse 13. Therefore, God claims in His word that He will never lie to us as we previously saw in Numbers 23:19 and He will always do exactly everything that He has said.

If this part of the Bible is not true, then this would be easy for us to say the rest of the verses in the Bible is not true either. Either God must obey His written revealed Word, or He has suddenly become a liar and we better know we learned in Hebrews 6:18 God says it is “IMPOSSIBLE for Him to LIE”. This simply means if He has said it, He must also do it, or His character has changed to become like a human sinner. This would appear to teach us that we are following a book of fables that we cannot trust. But that should not be a description of His Word or His character. We can find it written over and over that we can Trust Him (Prov 3:5).

This is troubling for many religiously minded people in the world that define the word “sovereign” to means God can legally do anything and it is ok, because He is God. But we better be seeing things differently in the Bible because this is not truly stated as the definition of God’s sovereignty. There are many places in the Bible where God has said things, and He must place Himself personally under the words, commandments, and prophecies, to fulfill them.

Gal 4:4  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

Notice what God said in this verse about His personal appearance upon the earth. God declares that there was a predetermined set time for His arrival, and if he would not have appeared at this set appointed time, it would have demonstrated to us that He was not powerful enough to fulfill exactly what He said would occur.  But we all know, this did not happen.

The next part of this statement makes it perfectly clear that during God’s manifested presence in human flesh (Heb 2:14), He purposefully chose to place Himself under His own written LAW (Torah) fully and completely. This chosen placement of being under the LAW of Moses forces the truth that if He would have violated any of the written LAWS, He would have become a sinner like the rest of humanity (Rom 3:23). This simply teaches us that Jesus fulfilled every requirement of the law while here on the earth in a physical form. Why did the sovereign God choose to do it this way?

Mat 5:18  For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Here is another statement from the mouth of God the creator of the heaven and the earth. Jesus personally said, “Not one jot or tittle of the law will pass away, until ALL BE FULFILLED”. That should cause us to believe something differently than what our commenter said. Since it was impossible for a human to keep the LAW, we know that only God could do this, and this is exactly what He chose to do. In other words, if God does not follow His own commanded LAW, He would be unable to fulfill it. Or are we going to redefine what “fulfillment” means next?

The Greek word G1096 translated as “fulfilled” means to “come into existence”. Wow, that changes a lot about how we should view these scriptures. They are not suggestions; they are all things that will come to pass and will be accomplished by God personally. In other words, they must ALL be viewed in the light of Jeremiah 1:12. In this verse God says, “I watch over my word to perform it” (NASB). This verse simply confirms the truth, that God will do everything that He has said.

Therefore, if He commanded a man not to eat flesh with blood, God as a man, would not do that either by His own choice of fulfilling the commandments. This would also mean that Jesus would never contradict the law by telling others to disobey the law either. This shows us that this would only be God sovereignly abiding by what He said, and He needs no one’s permission to make His spoken words good, and these words will never change.

We all know from scripture that the LAW was given to Moses directly by God (Neh 10:29). This makes the “LAW” the words from God’s mouth. According to Jesus, He claimed all these words were a divine prophecy that MUST be FULFILLED. This simply means God CAN NOT DO ANYTHING ELSE but make sure everything that He said completely happens as He said it would. This teaches a potentially radical need for a shift of focus to what was said. God is not declaring that we should all still be sacrificing offerings of animal sacrifices. No, we should change to learn that Jesus came into the world to accomplish the whole law for us, to save us in our inability to fulfill them for ourselves.

But we should know for 100% fact that the Bible is the inspired Word of the Living God according to 1 Timothy 3:16. This verse simply means the Bible came out of the mouth of God and was given to us by His Holy Spirit. This should make it simple to know that a Holy God is not someone that can lie and if we think He can say something and it does not restrict what He can do, we are potentially amazingly deceived. Him being a “sovereign” God does not make it acceptable for Him to lie, to steal, to murder, to be unjust or anything else that violates a pure definition of His character of LOVE, or His spoken words of LAW.

Did Jesus ever lie in the Gospels? Can you find a verse containing a lie from the mouth of Jesus? No, there are no lies from the mouth of Jesus. This also means that there are no lies from His Father God either.  Jesus made it very clear that “He only spoke what His Father said to speak” (Jn 12:49). Therefore, when Jesus said, “if you have seen me, you have seen my Father” (Jn 14:9), we can know what we see Jesus doing is what we know God does.

This teaches us that Jesus is the manifested true nature and character of the God who created us (Col 2:9). Therefore, if we cannot see Jesus do what you claim, then His Father could not do it either. Both manifestations of God are NOT LIARS. God must do exactly what He says, and He is bound to His spoken words eternally because His Words are Him. Remember what John 1:1 teaches us. In this verse God said “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This simply means the Word of God does not ever change like we learned in Malachi, where God said that He never changes.

Yes, there are still spoken words that have yet to be fulfilled, because Jesus was also a prophet (Mat 13:57), and He told us of things that will soon come to pass at the end of the age (Mat 24). But unfulfilled words are still not words that are untruthful. Time does not cause words to be lies because they have not occurred. It only means we are supposed to expect them to happen at any moment, because they were spoken by God who can never lie. Isn’t this easily understandable? If God said it, the words were the truth, and they must happen to eliminate the possibility of a lie.

God’s words will always come to pass, and He will not violate them, and He must do whatever is necessary to make them occur. This is a better definition of being “sovereign”. No matter what the opposition, rebellion, lack of cooperation from humans, or the devil’s works to try to make them not happen, God is committed to make sure everything that He said that will happen, to happen. This completely contradicts a belief that God can say something and then not be bound to make it happen or follow it, that is not what “sovereignty” means, it is more like insanity to believe that God is an unreliable example for us to follow.

We can also find verses like Ephesians 5:1 where a human Christian is commanded to be “an imitator” of God. Therefore, if God does not have to keep His word, and can violate it, we are free to do the same by human logic. This would make us all “liars” (Rom 3:4), and on our way to hell according to Revelation 21:8.

Our commenter claims that since God sovereignly created His law, it is within His right of further sovereign choice that allows Him to violate the same laws. The commenter claims, “After all He is God”. Let us evaluate this reasoning by using basic morals that should be found in human relationships.

If a man marries a woman and they both promise to love, honor, cherish and be faithful to each other until one die, is it OK for them in 6 months or even 60 years to change their mind? In today’s Christian church this is the casual lie that has been embraced as acceptable. This is the same attitude that is being projected upon the God that created us. The logical reasoning is that if God can change His mind and it be OK, then all humans also can simply do the same. We are suddenly changing out the real God to be made into the image of a lost sinful human and ignoring His original designed intent for humans to be made into His image and conformed into His likeness (Gen 1:26).

This is the danger of not knowing the real Creator God or His written Word, people can be easily deceived into believing things that are baseless and unscriptural about a subject of critical importance. If we do not understand the very basics about God’s character and nature, we can be carried away to believe almost anything.

ABSOLUTE TRUTHS COME FROM GOD’S MOUTH

Continuing, let us learn that God is a Spirit of Truth. Psalm 31:5 describes God to be the God of Truth. This simply confirms whatever God says can be received by us to be unchangeable “Truth”. Then in John 14:6, Jesus said, “I AM the “way”, the “truth”, and the “life”. Jesus confirms that He is the God of truth in personal manifestation, using simple God created algebraic laws within mathematics. Then in John 15:26 we find a prophecy that Jesus will ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit who was also called the “Spirit of Truth”. So, we have one God in three manifestable personalities and presences, and they are ALL Named and called the TRUTH.

Therefore, no matter who is speaking, whether it be God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, none of His spoken words will ever contradict any other past, present, or future words spoken, since Truth cannot be changed. This was confirmed when God said in Malachi 3:6, “I am the LORD and I change not”. By placing an unchangeable God with His unchangeable Words this is the definition of “Absolute Truth” coming from God’s mouth. Because the Bible comes from a God that can never tell lies, His written Words are the most reliable and highest forms of never-ending truth that are available to humans.

There is a modern-day culture that is attempting to transform the Christian belief system based upon unchangeable Words of God, into an absurdity of relativism of there being “No Absolute Truths”.  In other words, whatever I want to believe about God, or the non-existence of any God is my choice, and it must be acceptable to everyone.  Then multiply this single person belief by 8 to 9 billion people and we have only chaos, confusion, and disorder.

This has been a slowly encroaching plot over the last 60+ years, to get people to accept one single lie as a normal truth after the next. But suddenly since 2012, the pattern of deception has increased and grown exponentially to lie after lie, every day of the week and almost a new lie every minute of the day. We cannot watch modern television news media and hear much if any, truth whatsoever, no matter what network you are watching.

But the removal of absolutes, is a perversion attempting to sway society away from a common unified set of truths, is a planned attack to destroy humanity and send them to hell. What are we being taught today in schools that violates God’s written fixed Truths?  We are seeing this happen more today than before in our lifetime. Here is just a short list of insanity ignoring absolute truths:

  1. One internet article from an intellectual PHD has been published in 2023 and has said that there are at least 81 identifiable genders of the human species. It is interesting that God who created us, said there are only 2 (Mat 10:6). That is a major problem, but who is correct? Romans 3:2 says let God be true and every other man a liar.
  2. People in the world claim that there are massive racial biases and hatreds in much of the population. This is being taught as absolute truth in schools and by governments. But God’s Word says we are all one race from the same two parents Adam and Eve (Gen 2-3).
  3. The world says now that a marriage can be between two women, or two men and this must be called normal. But Jesus said in the beginning God only made two humans, one male, and one female and God called them a husband and a wife. (Mat 19:4)
  4. A biologically confirmed male can be a female by human choice is normal and acceptable. This is being taught in schools ignoring scientifically irrefutable evidence of DNA, and the Absolute Truth of the Bible saying God formed us in our mother’s womb (Jer 1:5).
  5. A biologically confirmed female can be a male also ignoring scientifically irrefutable evidence of DNA and the Absolute Truth of Bible.
  6. Children can be murdered up to and even after birth now in more than one state. This is refuted in the Bible very clearly. First, the sixth commandment written is, “Thou shalt not commit murder” (Exo 20:13). A child is someone known by God before they are conceived (Jer 1:5). Babies are given a spirit at conception, that can hear, that can feel pain, that are aware (Gen 25:22-23, Lk 1:41). And this same internal developing body, soul, and spirit in their mother continues to grow and mature for years after being born. Modern 4D sonagrams are displaying the truth that these children inside the womb are the same as those outside of the womb. Please search and see for your self.
  7. Children are the responsibility of the state, and the parents have no rights to determine their children’s future or what they are indoctrinated with by the state. It is interesting that this is exactly what Nazi Germany did in the 1930’s. This is another attempt at the same agenda that removes God’s designs of family and places easily brainwashed children into doing whatever the governments want them to do. This is clearly a design of Satan to turn children against their parents to commit the sin of breaking the 5th commandment so that children do not honor their father and mother (Exo 20:12).

Humans, especially the youth, are being indoctrinated with ever changeable values to not know any of the “Absolute Truth” of God.  They have been taught that they came from apes, and now it has moved into the lie, that if I desire to identify as a monkey, that is my choice and you must accept me and support me, as I have declared and call me by whatever label I have chosen, regardless of evidence or facts. This philosophy is a very dangerous cliff to be walking to near to.

Isa 5:20  Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

God warns of this coming change in culture in this verse of Isaiah 5:20. God says to us all, “Woe, unto those that try to call “evil”, “good”, and “good” “evil”. These same people will try to pervert “light” can call it “darkness” while calling “darkness”, their “light”. God goes further to say that these same people will begin to train people to call everything that is “bitter”, “sweet”, and everything that is “sweet”, a new type of “bitter”. This is complete insanity to those that have any common sense and know the truth and refuse to change to believe their lies.

This perversion of cultural shift has become dominant in the entertainment industries, like movies, television, and music. We have popular number one songs that claim, “I’m Bad” to mean something that should figuratively be a symbol of being “good” or “great”. We have government laws and mandates that claim women’s healthcare rights when it is really nothing but an agenda for “abortion” murder rights. There are examples after examples of these types of wrongs ignoring absolute truths of God’s written Word.

Regardless of what people think, say, or believe, there are “Absolute Truths”, and there will always be unchangeable laws of created truth that will never fail, and they all come from God! Nothing you can say or do, can overrule any of these God given and established laws (Heb 4:12). God has said in Deuteronomy 30:19, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life…”. We are going to be faced with this choice every day of our lives, to choose the lies of the devil, or the truth of God. God was smart enough to tells the right answer. He said very plainly “Choose Life”.

CONCLUSION

One of the most interesting things about the commenter’s written words about a Bible lesson found on this website, is the fact that there are “No SUPPORTING” verses used to confirm and verify the given statements. This places the commenter’s opinion in isolation apart from the written Word of God, our only source of Absolute Truth. Do you recall what God said in Amos 3:3? Here God says, “How can two walk together, unless they agree?”. Please pay attention to find if there are supporting scriptures to agree with God in any lesson, and who is not providing any scriptures of agreement with God, and therefore only speaking an opinion.

This simply means that any words written or spoken without Scripture references are merely worthless personal opinions. I DO NOT CARE ABOUT MY OPINION OR YOURS! YOU SHOULD NOT CARE ABOUT EITHER ALSO!  THE ONLY FOUNDATION FOR ABSOLUTE TRUTH IS FOUND IN THE BIBLE, AND IF IT DOES NOT SAY WHAT YOU OR I ARE TRYING TO SAY, IGNORE THE TEACHING OR THE OPINIONS COMPLETELY!

What the commenter claims was, that if Jesus said for us to eat His flesh and to drink His blood, then it must be literal. It did not matter if the spoken words of Jesus the Son of God, violated the commandments of His Father God, that were given to Israel because He was God and could do whatever He wanted. They reasoned that because Jesus said He was the LORD of the Sabbath that therefore He could violate His Father’s own laws. We have hopefully learned from scripture that this is pure foolishness.  We have already seen the facts in the Bible that Jesus was completely born under the LAW and He said He came to fulfill the LAW and not to ignore it. You can never in any verse of the Gospels find where Jesus violated a single LAW. NEVER!

If He had violated His written LAW, this makes Him a sinner of the Commandments of God. Paul wrote in Romans 4:15, “that where there is no LAW, there is no violation of the law”. But we previously learned in Galatians 4 that Jesus Christ was born purposefully to be held accountable “under the LAW”. This meant any disobedience by Jesus is a violation of the written LAW and this would cause “sin” to have occurred. Hebrews 4:15 testifies that “Jesus was tempted in every way to sin like we are, but yet without any sin having occurred”. This literally means Jesus kept the LAW!

Therefore, Jesus Christ was unable to break a law to sin, for this would also make His Father a liar. God is the source of all truth. God must fulfill and keep His truth and is therefore bound by every word that comes out of His mouth and these words will never pass away. They are forever absolute truths.

What we have learned today, is the fact that Jesus used natural substances like human flesh and natural blood to teach us about far greater and higher spiritual realities. This simply means it was never God’s intention for Jesus to give His literal physical human body for an eatable substance for anyone to consume naturally, to obtain their spiritual salvation. This would not make a lot of sense for God or for us.

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

Eph 2:9  Not of works, lest any man should boast.

The book of Ephesians is very clear that natural works will never save any human. God says to save the spirit of a human it takes “faith”. Faith is of the heart (spirit). Therefore, we do not get spiritually saved by doing natural human work and especially by physically eating anyone’s touchable physical body or blood and placing it in our natural physical stomach. There is too much flesh involved in this process.

But what was the body of Jesus Christ made from? We can read in John 1:14 that the “Word” of God was made “flesh” and dwelt among us. We previously learned that the Word was God (Jn 1:1), and we should know that God is a Spirit (Jn 4:24). Now we are beginning to learn more about what Jesus was speaking of.

Jesus’ salvation offered to us in the New Covenant comes from us receiving the spoken Word of God into our hearts (spirits) by faith and then confessing the risen from the dead LORD Jesus to be our LORD (Rom 10:9-10). Therefore, the symbolic flesh of Jesus is representative of the Word of God. This was the short answer to the much deeper question of what the blood and body is being told to us to be consumed.

We get a deeper application to the understanding of spiritual things in 1 Corinthians 11:24-25 where Paul describes the last supper that Jesus partook together with His disciples. Notice this was the “Passover” meal that is being participated in by Jesus and it was written to do this in the Old Covenant Law. Then Jesus said after taking the unleavened bread, this is my body. Next, He took the cup and said this is the New Covenant in my blood, this do often in remembrance of me.

Wow this can be a separate lesson by itself. However, notice that Jesus said we are eating and drinking this bread and blood many times, not just once? How many times do we receive the Holy Spirit to begin our walk of salvation with Him as our helper? Guess what, it is only one time. The Bible does not tell us that we eat and drink over and over, to become saved, again and again. After we receive the Holy Spirit once by faith, He comes in and abides and we become joined as “one” spirit, the Holy Spirit with our human spirit (1 Cor 6:17). This only occurs once.

Therefore, eating physical Passover elements of bread and wine, are NOT our salvation, only the refreshing of our spiritual remembrance as a memorial for what Jesus did for us 2000 years ago and a continual reminder for what we received by our faith once in our present natural life.

The Old Covenant was the natural pattern and a prophetic pointer for the coming New Covenant spiritual reality. The New Covenant partaking of physical elements of Communion or Eucharist is a spiritual memorial or monument found in our mind, for us to remember what was accomplished in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

Thank you for taking the time to read and study the Bible at “Agapegeek”. God loves us more than we can imagine, but He will only take those with Him, that have accepted Him fully. Jesus is returning to catch away His Church Bride, and the wise virgins were ready when He came. The foolish virgins, who were not prepared, were not let in when He came. Which kind are you? It could happen much sooner than you think. Jesus said very clearly that it would happen at an hour when you think not.

If God wills, we will get back into other subjects that we have been learning previously, unless He directs to teach something new like today. God will continue to richly bless each of us, and His grace and peace will be multiplied to each of us through our growing knowledge of Him.

Jesus in the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet Part 11 – Yod – The Hand of God

(Ver 1.1) Today is Part 11 in the amazing study of the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet. This is an incredible subject containing infinite amounts of hidden information contained within the pictures of each letter of the ancient Hebrew pictographic Alphabet. We can easily find with study how each of these letters point us to the God that loved us so much that He chose to become one of us to save us from ourselves and our enemy. Many of us after studying this information have confirmed that each letter of the alphabet is a living “sign” post that reveals and points us to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

These lessons were paused for a short time. But it seemed good to the Holy Spirit for these lessons to continue in the series for those that want to learn it. We believe that there are many today that want a deeper relationship with our creator God. The truth is always the truth, and Jesus told us that us coming to know the truth would set us free (Jn 8:32). We are trusting God to bring the right people in that will receive from these informative lessons. Thank you, Jesus.

This is a friendly Christian warning at the beginning, that this is a highly spiritual lesson series containing potentially offensive materials that are not well received by carnal immature Christians or the religiously indoctrinated person that is closed minded and unwilling to see and learn anything that is outside of their tiny boxes of traditional denominational teachings and backgrounds.

Therefore, please do not become angry or insulted if there are scriptures references given in this study that you disagree with as applying to or not applying to our study subject. No one here is going to argue with you, debate you, or fight you over any truth given. If you disagree, you are welcome to disagree in love, and choose to believe whatever you like. But please know that this lesson is covered with love and a lot of Bible verses that should not be ignored. As always if you have any significant knowledge that would be a blessing to others, or if you see any mistakes or typographical errors, any positive and constructive comments are always welcome.

Today’s lesson will focus primarily upon the ancient Hebrew letter “Yod”, also pronounced by some as “Yud” or “Yawd”. You may recall that we have seen this letter in previous study lessons about “Jehovah”, spelled “Yod” + “Hey” + “Vav” + “Hey”. Hopefully you learned the pictures of these 4 letters represent one of the most significant names of God (Jehovah), and they declare a prophetic message saying, “Behold the Hand, Behold the Nail”. This name is clearly a prophecy of Jesus after being nailed to a cross.

The “Yod” is the 10th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet, and it is by far one of the most significant letters of the entire Alphabet for many reasons, but we will focus upon three of them for now. One reason for this is that it is this letter that occurs the most frequently in the entire God designed Hebrew text of Genesis to Malachi. Another key reason, is that many of the important names of God begin with this letter, JEHOVAH, JAH, YESHUA, JERUSALEM, ISRAEL, etc.

Another major reason why this letter is so significant is what the picture of it represents. The ancient Hebrew letter “Yod” is a picture of an extended arm with a hand reaching out doing work with their implied power. Thus, this letter “Yod” picture matches the revealed description of God very well.

2Ch 32:17  He wrote also letters to rail on the LORD God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of mine hand

Proud and arrogant men and women today still stand in defiance of the powerful Yod “hand” of God as this king was doing. He was opposing God’s people who were being led by Hezekiah. This king thought much too much of himself, by believing that his hand was more powerful than the Hand of God that created him. If you read the subsequent context, you will find that this defiant king was put down and brought to nothing by the hand of one angel, sent from God. This is just an example of what we will be learning about today.

As you should be aware in today’s world, we should be standing in faith to believe God’s Yod Hand is at work to help us overcome our enemies led by Satan attempts at a surprise plan for a premature takeover of the world through his anti-Christ agenda. If you have been awake and aware it is self-evident concerning the events of the bold in your face pride based forceful silencing and takeover of everyone that knows the truth. This is why this lesson is more relevant than you may understand.

If we are ready, we will get into more of this letter in our study using the following outline of topics:

  1. Introduction to the letter Yod
  2. Yod = Number 10
  3. Essential Yod Words and Basic Concepts
  4. Hand of God = Power of God
  5. Yod Hand of God in Creation
  6. The Mouth of God Activates the Hand of God
  7. Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

As previously stated, this is one of the most significant letters of the entire alphabet. It has vast amounts of meanings, and applications to describe and reveal God to us and how He chose to manifest in human form in His Son named Jesus. This letter, as you can see from the picture of it, resembles an outstretched arm extending the hand as when someone is working, throwing, taking hold of something and other like uses.

We are learning now about the ancient Hebrew letter “Yod” and the primary meanings and applications to knowing God. As you can see from the picture of the letter above, the very literal meaning of this letter pictograph is the extended open “hand”.  A hand is designed for grabbing, taking, gathering, picking, working, and holding things. Therefore, this letter represents creative works, planting and harvesting agricultural labor, actions performed to fulfill plans, tasks accomplished to achieve goals, and any primarily good job performed when used in relation to God who is “Good”. Therefore, the letter “Yod” can figuratively represent God’s power and strength on display or in movement to affect others, in the positive God nature to bless, save, deliver, and to heal.

The letter “Yod” is the most prolific letter found in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. This single letter is used by God over 31,500 times, more than any other letter. This appears to show God’s emphasis and importance of the letter. Jesus while walking the face of our planet confirms this letter’s importance by saying the following:

Mat 5:18  For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

This is a strange verse until you research it and study what the words mean. We need to realize two things immediately, that 1) Jesus is the one doing the speaking and 2) that He is speaking of the Hebrew written Law. We find out quickly that we are in the need of a translator because we know that Jesus was born a Jew in Israel, and He was inspired by the Holy Spirit what to say everywhere He went. This makes His words, God’s words. But Jesus was most likely speaking in the Hebrew tongue to these people (Mat 15:24).

But the writer of the Gospel of Matthew is being inspired by the Holy Ghost to write the original Hebrew spoken words in the Greek language. Any inspired words in the original written languages makes them the Word of the Living God.

But finally, today we are reading another translation into the English language. So, we are potentially losing a lot of important information because of the Hebrew to Greek which is then being moved into the English language. Every modern translation that has been written has the potential for being heavily influenced by their human biases and their lack of full understanding of the languages and words, not to mention the potential for knowing little about the original author God. No doubt Mathew was inspired correctly which Greek words to write, but the English translators are doubtful to be fully inspired by the Holy Spirit because of the numerous errors that are presented in the translation.

We can look at a concordance and find that the English translated word “Jot” is written in the Greek New Testament text as the Greek “alphabet” letter “Iota”. Yes, God uses the Greek alphabet letters to teach us things, in the same way as He has done in the Hebrew alphabet letter designs. We have already seen this fact when God writes about Jesus saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega”, which are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet and we know this applies to the Hebrew alphabet letters “Alef” and “Tav”. We just must become smart enough to make the language transitions correctly.

Then guess why it was written in Greek text as Iota and where it came from? The Greek letter Iota has been transliterated from the original Jesus spoken Hebrew letter “Yod”. It is also interesting that the letter iota is the 9th letter of the Greek alphabet, but in the Greek system of numeral meanings, iota has the value of “10”.  

The English letter “I” is also the 9th letter of the alphabet. The letter “J” is the 10th letter, and this was chosen as the name of Jesus in more modern transliteration forms. But the letter “J” did not even exist until around 1600 AD. Before this addition the name Jesus was written like the Greek transliterated name “Iesous”. Therefore, the letters “I”, “Iota” and “Yod” are all language sounding equivalents.

Wow, all this knowledge changes everything we see in Matthew 5:18! Jesus just said that heaven and earth would pass away, but not one letter “Iota” (Greek) which is the equivalent to the letter “Yod” (Hebrew) would be removed from God’s written Torah (Law). Please also consider that at the times of Jesus, the Hebrew letter “Yod”, had been modified from a picture of a hand and an arm to be written as one of the smallest letters of the entire alphabet as י. This Hebrew letter look more like an English symbol called an “apostrophe” than anything else.

Nevertheless, the fact that in Greek the name of Jesus begins with an Iota further establishes this letter to the “Yod” and His Father’s primary name “Jehovah” begins with this same letter.  and this letter represents the “hand of God”, and “His Power”, and we can see how this applies to the validity of what Jesus just said. We can confirm the none of these “Yods” (Hand of God) will ever disappear from existence, because God will never cease to be God. Therefore, the “Yod” like the rest of the letters will never change, be removed, be erased, or cease to exist.

It is very important to know that each alphabet letter in the Hebrew language has multiple layers of essential knowledge built into it. Remember each letter was an original pictographic drawing and each picture contains the basis for the other layers of meanings. The picture is like the foundation of a house. The old adage, that a picture tells a thousand words can be literally true in the ancient Hebrew letter picture. But this is just the initial foundation to something much larger and more complex.

Each letter is at least two numbers, 1) the order of sequence and 2) an assigned gematria value. As we have seen many times the number values have very specific meanings only found when we choose to search for them in the scriptures. For example, in today’s letter the value of 10 is very specific and there are many verses where God selected the number 10 to apply to new meanings that we will learn about later.

Each letter is also a “word”. Therefore, the spelling of the equivalent word of each letter and its arrangement and joined meanings of the combined formed word letters provides us with several new layers of application and meaning. Then there are the multiple layers of usage and context selections by the designer of the text and word arrangements for a specific order, that causes the never-ending abundance of information that can be hidden around one letter of the alphabet. This is called intelligent design by a very intelligent designer.

The Hebrew word equivalent of this letter Yod, is the word H3027 spelled as “Yod” + “Dalet”. This Hebrew word is used in the Bible over 1500 times and is translated over 1000 times as “hand” and over 270 times in the plural form as “hands”. Therefore, the primary and basic meaning of the word is the same as what is found in the individual letter picture representation. These two meanings agree and are used to confirm the definition of “hand” as being the truth (Mat 18:16). Remember the Bible says in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses let every word of Truth be established.

Let us quickly analyze the spelling of the word H3027 sounded as “yawd”. This word begins with the letter “yod” meaning “hand” and ends with the letter “dalet” meaning a “door”. But here is where we need to see the applied application for a door to understand the more complete meaning.

A “door” allows movement out of the walls that keeps out what is outside or keeps enclosed what is on the inside. Therefore, the combined meaning of these two letters represents the “moving hand” or the “hand that moves”. Thus, this applies a figurative symbolic meaning to the word as someone that moves their hands for the positive actions to “throw”, “work”, “correct”, “plant”, “make”, “create”, “invent”, “save”, “heal”, etc.

But like other letters, it also has multiple evil associations depending upon the character, morals, attitudes, values, intentions, etc. of the person that is moving the hand (Yod). There is almost always a positive versus negative antithesis to every letter and word in the Bible. The Bible is an amazingly binary book of choices, meaning there are always left versus right, good versus evil, right versus wrong, friend versus enemy, truth versus lie, etc.

This brings us to understand that it is just not God that has a hand (Yod) as we were introduced to in the opening statement. We will confirm in this lesson that Jesus as a human man had two kinds of hands, one set being natural and the other being spiritual with both working together in operation simultaneously for God’s purpose and plan. That means humans were all created with “hands”, referring to the two literal attached parts of the arms as well as power and ability to work with them for either good or for evil. As Christians today, we all have the capability to access and utilize our spiritual hands for “good”, through exercising our Christ given delegated authority (Mat 28:18-19) to bring order back into the world.

But we must also know that there are other heavenly beings that were created with hands that contain power to work, serve, or even to do evil. God’s creative class of angelic beings were made to have hands that were pure and holy in the beginning (Eze 28:15). But after sin was found in Lucifer when he rebelled against God’s hand, he took with him 1/3 of the created angels (Rev 12:4). After angelic rebellion, God had hands that were against Him, and they only wanted to do evil to exalt themselves into power (Isa 14:12-13). Clearly this was a great angelic mistake and underestimation of God’s hand, but they must have believed that it was possible at first.

Therefore, we have three major categories of beings with hands in scriptures:

  1. God our Creator (Exo 13:3)
  2. Created Angels (Job 1:27)
  3. Created humans made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 3:22)

Then we must understand, that within two of these three kinds of hands we have the potential for further division:

  1. Good Hands – Hands working for or with Good (Eph 4:28).
  2. Evil Hands – Hands working for Evil against God (Deu 31:29).

What we are learning is that there are many created beings that resided both in heaven and on the earth that had hands meaning ability to do work, exert power and perform and carry out purposes of design either for “good” or for “evil”. This means God designed us all with “hands” to carry out and perform internal choices or external instructions. God was the original model of this feature.

The phrase “hand of God” occurs 16 times in the KJV Bible. The phrase “hand of the LORD” occurs in 38 verses. The phrase “Lord’s hand” occurs 5 times. Therefore, that is more than enough references to understand that God has defined Himself to possess a quality or feature called “hands” in the spirit realm. This will be one of the main focused subjects today, but we will also try to cover the effects of other created hands that can do either good or evil.

YOD = Number 10

The letter Yod is the 10th letter of the alphabet and is also assigned the numerical value of 10 in gematria. The number ten as you may recall is the number that represents ordinal perfection and/or completeness. There are numerous occurrences of this number within scriptures that are extraordinary to know. For example:

  1. There were 10 recorded creation of God statements in Genesis 1. Each statement was God revealing a place where, “God said” something and that which was spoken was then manifested and God calls these types of things the works of His hands (Isa 45:12).
  2. God creates Adam forming his body with His hands from the dirt of the ground and places on him 2 hands, one left and one right and having 10 total fingers (Gen 2, Ps 119:73).
  3. There were 10 generations from Adam to Noah when God’s flood judgment came upon the earth (Gen 5).
  4. Abraham pays tithes (10%) to Melchizedek in Genesis14:18-20.
  5. God agreed to not destroy Sodom if 10 righteous were found. (Gen 18:32)
  6. God Judges Egypt after 400 years of Israel’s bondage and uses 10 plagues in Egypt to free them (Gen 15:14, Exo 6:5-6).
  7. First Passover in Egypt was the 10th plague, and it began when the lamb was selected on the 10th day of the first month. (Exo 12:2)
  8. God gives Moses 10 commandments carved on two stone tablets by His finger on Mt. Sinai. (Exo 31:18, Deut 4:13). This is a repeat of the two hands of man containing 10 fingers pattern.
  9. Israel in the wilderness tempted God 10 times and were judged and did not enter the promised land. (Num 14:22)
  10. Boaz takes 10 men to witness and judge the purchase of Elimelech’s possessions and the taking of Ruth to be his wife (Ruth 4:2).
  11. Job rebukes his friends for vexing his soul and breaking him into pieces ten times, with their words (Job 19:1-2)
  12. Daniel and the 3 Israelites were tested for 10 days to see if God’s diet would be better than the King’s diet and were justified. (Dan 1:15).
  13. Daniel and the 3 Israelites, when tested by the King, were found 10 times wiser and more understanding than all his magicians. (Dan 1:20)

These are just a few occurrences of the number 10 that are significant. There are certain patterns given to us in these few occurrences that need our attention. For example, we can see parallels between the ten fingers on 2 hands concept of man in creation, to be like the 10 commandments written on 2 tablets of stone by the finger of God. Therefore, we can see how the Law given to Moses represents God’s extension of His hands to bring order back onto earth. It was this concept of God’s order that was given to Adam when He was told to dress and keep the garden (Gen 2:15), meaning God intended Adam to use his created hands with 10 fingers, to work it, guard it, protect it, etc. We can arrive at several implied conclusions from this information next.

The number 10 appears to be further confirmed to represent power and authority. It is through God’s Laws written with His hands, that were designed to bring back order to man’s dominion with His 10 written commandments in stone. But the created world’s power and authority was originally transferred from God’s Hands to His created man Adam’s hands (Gen 1:26). This delegated authority that God gave Adam, assigned him the responsibility to maintain the created order of God’s creation pattern of being and remaining in a state of being only “Good”.

It also was intended to remove or prevent any chaotic influences and consequences from entering or occurring on the earth if wise choices were continuing to be implemented. But Adam chose to take with his “hand” (Yod, = power and authority) to eat from the tree that God had commanded him not to take from or he would die (Gen 3:11). If Adam would have chosen correctly, he could have kept sin from entering into the world, that was before man’s sin “only” found in heaven in Lucifer’s rebellion (Eze 28:15).

Notice we are discovering 3 “hands” of power and authority that are working in this previous description of creation. We have the Yod Hand of God’s power and authority working from within heaven, that created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1). We have the delegated power and authority (Yod = hands) of man that was supposed to be utilized to not allow Satan’s entrance into the newly created world (Gen 1:26, Gen 2:15). Then we have the hands of Lucifer that rebelled before Adam was created, and because of Adam’s bad choices he causes all humans to come into agreement together with Satan against God (Isa 28:15, Eph 2:19).

We find the number 10 multiple times, having the meaning of power and authority and we should also notice in this list the patterns of 10 for bringing God judgments. For example, the sins of the earth were tolerated by God for 10 generations between Adam and Noah. With Noah’s generation, God sees the filling-up of the chaotic corruption cup of sin in the world.

This concept appears to teach us that God sets limits of evil and in Noah’s day it had reached an overflowing level of His limit (Genesis 6). God’s end point came when the “sons of God” began to work to “take” (yod hand action) the daughters of Adam, and they begin to produce a corrupted line of perverted giants within human creation (Gen 6:4).

It appears that this act of Satan was done to destroy God’s creation by corrupting the blood line and DNA of originally created Adam. Satan implements this plan by assigning some of his subservient rebellious angels the task to have sexual relations with human women. But we can see that these evils brought further judgements that have taken place to remove these evil angels from earth, being revealed to us in verses like Jude 1:6 and 2 Peter 2:4. These are just further examples of God’s judgments even upon the angelic class of creation, when lines are crossed.

What we are observing is the fact that it took 10 generations before God said, “enough is enough” and this caused His judgment from heaven to fall upon man upon the earth (Gen 6). This will be a repeated pattern. For example, we know that natural Israel was held in bondage as slaves for 400 years. It is noteworthy to remember the number 400 is the value of the letter “Tav” which represent the “Cross” judgment of Christ, the lamb of God slain for mankind.

But these 400 years of bondage brough about another of God’s judgments upon the nation of Egypt for all the evil that was done to Israel (Gen 15:13-14). Please remember this concept of “bondage” because it will reoccur soon. We will see this prophetic pattern being repeated when Jesus comes into the world after 4,000 years of human bondage to release us all from Satan’s captivity. This event of the “cross” was also God’s judgment upon His only begotten Son after He took all our sins upon His body (1 Pet 2:23).

But God brought upon Egypt exactly 10 plagues by His hand (Yod) for judgment. But it was the 10th plague that was the ultimate great judgment of “death” upon rebellious humans to kill their “firstborn” (Num 33:4). Families without the blood of a lamb placed upon wooden doorposts of their house experienced the death of their “firstborn”.

Finally, we can see another key example of God’s judgment upon humans in Israel in the wilderness. God says in Numbers 14:22 “that these people have murmured against me 10 times and have not listened to my voice”. Therefore, God’s judgement fell upon them, and all of Isreael 20 years and older died while remaining in the wilderness for 40 years (Num 14:28-29), except for Joshua and Caleb who were of a different spirit and made the right faithful choices.

What we are finding is a concept that many parents do to their children. When their children are ignoring them, they begin to count to ten, and if the children do not obey them, then there should be disciplined consequences. Since God is the ultimate Father (Heb 12:9), who is extremely loving, merciful, patient and kind, we still find that He must utilize limits and boundaries to eventually bring about human judgments through His hand.

We are discovering this power of God is revealed in His “hand” (Yod) and how it has been connected to the number 10. The fact that we have 10 fingers is significant because there was a race of giants created by angels that had 12 fingers (2 Sam 21:20). Then when we see the 10 commandments being written by the finger of God into two tablets of stone, this implies there were 5 laws in each stone.

This was just a rapid introduction and overview of some of the applications of the Yod value of the number 10, and it is not possible to cover everything that it represents in a single lesson, much less one section. But please remember what God says in Proverbs 22:15. In this verse God says, “foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but a rod of correction, shall drive it far from him”. Then remember it takes a Yod hand of judgment to hold this rod of correction.

Essential YOD Words and Basic Concepts

There are several essential words that begin with the letter “Yod”. Let us only focus upon a few of these key words to learn some of God’s important usages of this key letter of the alphabet and how it applies to Jesus.

  1. H3029 – YDH = Give Praise, Give Thanks, (Gen 29:35)
  2. H3045 – YDAh = Know by Seeing, experiencing, covenant terminology (Gen 4:1)
  3. H3050 – YAH = Jah, short form of Jehovah name of God (Ps 68:4, 18)
  4. H3054 – YDH = Jew, one from the tribe of Judah, comes from the name Jehudah (H3063).
  5. H3063 – Judah aka Jehudah the fourth son of Leah and Jacob, a key father in the lineage of King David and his Son King Jesus (1 King 9:5, Jer 33:17)
  6. H3068 – Jehovah – LORD, Name of God spelled Yod Hey Vav Hey
  7. H3070 – Jehovah Jireh – The LORD Sees (Gen 22:14)
  8. H3091 – Yehoshua – Joshua = Jehovah is salvation (Hebrew name of Jesus) (Exo 17:9)
  9. H3124 – Yonah – Jonah = Dove (Jonah 1:1)
  10. H3130 – Yoseph = Joseph = Jehovah has added, 1st Son of Jacob and Rachel (Gen 30:24)
  11. H3290 – Yaaqob = Jacob = Heel Holder or Catcher, 2nd son of Isaac (Gen 25:26)
  12. H3327 – Yitschaq = Isaac = He laughs, Son of Abraham and Sarah (Gen 17:19)
  13. H3371 – Jehovah Nissi – The LORD my banner (Victory) (Gen 17:15)
  14. H3117 – YWM – the name God calls the 12-hour time of Light = Day (Gen 1:5)
  15. H3220 – YM – the name God gives to water = Sea (Gen 1:10)
  16. H3308 – YPY – Beauty (Ps 50:2)
  17. H3313 – Yaw-fah – YPAh – Shine Forth Light (Deu 33:2)
  18. H3373 – Yaw-ray – Fear of God (Gen 22:12)
  19. H3389 – Yerushalaim = Jerusalem “The teaching of peace” (Jos 10:1)
  20. H3478 – Yisrael – Israel = He will rule as God (Gen 32:28)

Here are a few things we can learn from our short list of words beginning with the key letter “Yod”. God emphasizes this letter by beginning these words and names by choosing the letter Yod (His Hand) to be first. This fact of being first appears to indicate an emphasis upon them being “hand” selected names and words. In other words, God chose them specifically for a specific job or purpose. Many of God’s essential covenant names beginning with the Yod are very revealing to teach us about His caring and loving personal “Works of His Hands”.

We have learned before in other lessons, that the name of God “Jehovah” (LORD) is spelled Yod + Hey + Vav + Hey, and these letters mean “Behold the hand, Behold the nail” a clear prophecy for Jesus who was God and LORD, to be hung on a cross. Many of the names of God are related or describing His habitation as in “Jerusalem” begin with this letter Yod. It is also very interesting that God is called the God of Peace (Rom 16:20) and He lives in a city named Jerusalem meaning “founded on peace”.

We can remember that Jehovah God appears to Abraham and promises Him a “Seed” that will be as the stars of heaven (Gen 15:5). God promised this seed to come from Abram and Sarai. But they were very old and did not know how this could happen since Sarai had been barren from a young age. But we know nothing is impossible with God (Lk 1:37). God said it would happen and it did happen after God changed their names to Abraham and Sarah.

What happens when God changes their names is amazing. God took the two “Hey” letters from His name Jehovah and places one in Sarai’s name to become Sarah, and the other in Abram’s name to become “Abraham”. The name Sarah now meant “princes” and the named “Abraham” now meant “Father of many nations”. These two letters shifted from God’s names into Sarai and Abram, left the letters “Yod” and “Vav” in Jehovah. As we know these two remaining letters, represent the “hand” (Yod), and the “nail” (Vav). So, we can see who was receiving the nail in the hand was God, and who was supposed to “behold” Him being nailed through His hands, was the children (seed) of Abraham and Sarah. This is exactly what happens approximately 2000 years later with God personally appearing on the earth to be crucified.

Abraham and Sarah were 100 and 90 years old, respectively, when this promised lineage of Abraham’s “seed” began to be fulfilled. God instructed Abraham to call this first promised “seed” and son “Isaac”. Again, we can see the “work” of God to hand-select a man and his name (Gen 17:19). God says my covenant will come through him. The name “Isaac” begins with the letter “Yod”, and this cannot be a coincidence because we can see the works of God’s hand in it clearly.

Abraham goes and takes a wife for his son Isaac from his brethren. But this only occurred after God told Abraham to sacrifice his son. Within Biblical typology this story of Isaac represents a shadowed pattern of the coming work of God to sacrifice His Son Jesus on a cross and after being raised from the dead to take a wife for His Son called the church.

It was then Isaac that had two sons, like his God chosen father named Abraham. Remember God chose “Isaac” over the first-born son “Ishmael” because Isaac came through the correctly chosen older woman Sarah. Isaac had a son named “Esau” which was his first-born and then came out his twin brother named Jacob. Jacob is a very strange name meaning “heal catcher”, but he has the chosen hand of God letter “Yod beginning his name. So, we have a pattern developing where God hand-selected two younger brothers to create His covenant family, the founding fathers of “Israel” are named Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exo 2:24).

But then do you remember the name that God gave to Jacob by an angel from heaven? Wasn’t this name “Israel”, and we know that it obviously came by the Spirit of God’s heavenly instructions (Gen 35:10). What happens when a wife marries a man? She usually takes His name. Many now believe this is the reason for this name change of Jacob. This appears to be the reason why God says over and over in the Bible, “the people that are called by my name” (2 Chr 7:14, Dan 9:19). Thus, Israel is the name of a “hand-selected” natural nation of people (Jer 31:32), but it is also the name of their covenant making God (Deu 28:10).

Many of the key men that were selected for use by God, begin with this letter “Yod” and this displays God’s “hand” of influence, guidance, assistance, and direction upon them. There are several other names that we did not cover, because of the length of this lesson, but please feel free to do some homework to study these on your own and share your findings with others in a comment. Let us look at a new name of God that is often overlooked next.

There are also many root words that have the “Yod” as the middle letter and this too is very significant. For example, another key name of God is found in Exodus 3:14 as the words “I AM”. which God responded to Moses when he asked Him, “Who do I say sent me?”. God speaking to Moses said, “Tell them I AM that I AM sent you”. Wow, this is an amazing word.

This word H1961 occurs over 3500 times in the Old Testament Hebrew. Here are just a few of the ways it was popularly translated; “be”, “came”, “come”, “been”, “become”, “became”, and “was”, to name a few. It is a powerful word that has been selected for creation in the term “Light Be, and Light was”. Both the words “Be and Was” is the Hebrew word H1961.

As you can see the Hebrew word H1961 is translated into many words but the name of God “I AM” is also this same Hebrew word and this name is of ultimate importance. Remember Jesus responded to the Jews when they spoke to Him by saying, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (Jn 8:58). Jesus was obviously admitting He was the God that spoke to Moses and existed a long time before Abraham. This highly offended the Jews and they wanted to kill Him for making claims like this.

The Hebrew word H1961translated as “I AM””, is spelled “Hey” + “Yod” + “Hey”. It is only missing the letter “Vav” (Nail) within the name of Jehovah to having the same letters. But notice the reoccurrence of two “Hey” letters that we just saw in the letters added to Abram and Sarai’s names. Here again we find the identical letters that in this word surround the hand of God. What God appears to be saying in this word is the following:

I WAS WHAT I WAS,
I AM WHAT I AM, and
I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE

By God making this declaration with these three letters, He is claiming to be eternally existent with no beginning, and without end, amazingly all powerful and we can see this by the letter combinations and order of mention. The hand in the center represents God’s amazing power available right now in the present, and the two pairs of raised hands (Hey) on either side of God’s hand of power letter “Yod” are in amazement and wonder signifying before Him He always was in eternal past, and moving forward into eternity, He can be trusted and will always be there for us. In shortened form it says “Behold, the Hand, Behold”. The Hey letter is being emphasized to be amazed and to be standing in awe beholding the “Hand” of God at work.

Another key meaning of the “Yod” is as a suffix added to other Hebrew words. This addition makes the word “possessive”. For example, when the “Yod” is added to the end of the Hebrew word “EL” with the meaning of the shortened name of God, it becomes “My God”. This name is exactly what Jesus cried out on the cross saying “My God (ELI), My God (ELI) why has thou forsaken me”. As we are learning the usage of the letter “Yod” is very profound in the language.

Another key suffix occurs when the letters, “Yod” + “Mem” are added to masculine nouns and this addition causes them to be plural words. For example, adding “YM” to the end of, “cherub” meaning one angelic being, causes the word to become “cherubim” meaning many of these types of angels.

We could go on with this for a long time, but that was another quick introduction to some basic concepts and words that will help us as we continue to learn this awesome language and its hidden letter pictographic meanings and applications of truth.

Hand of God = Power of God

This will be a new section that describes the relationship between the Hand of God being a figurative representation of the Power of God.  This Hebrew word H3027 is translated as both “hand” and “power”. Let us begin with verses in the book of Joshua:

Jos 4:23  For the LORD your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over:

Jos 4:24  That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever.

Notice how Joshua is describing two mighty “works” of God by comparing the opening of the Red Sea to the opening of the Jordan River.  Next notice that Joshua calls both great works, examples of the “hand of the LORD’s” power on display. The Hebrew word translated as “hand” is again H3027 our spelled-out letter Yod word.

Finally, notice that Joshua is giving us one of the reasons for this work of God’s power (Yod), was for the people of the whole earth to know that His hand is “mighty”. When people see how strong God is, they should come to a point of “fearing” Him. In other words, if God can make a great body of waters divide and stand up as walls and the surface of the bottom to be instantly dry to be walked upon, how much easier would it be for this power to take anyone of us out as He did with Pharoah and all his army.

Too many Christian people in the world today have a very extreme attitude about God’s grace and a very casual attitude about His holiness and our need for the fear of His judgments. In most extreme Grace churches, there is an absence of the fear of God with an implied belief that there is nothing anyone can ever do today, to be judged by an all knowing and all-powerful holy God. But this is not true whatsoever. Please do not forget what happened in Acts 5 with Ananias and Sapphira. Please go and read this chapter and know these two people were saved Christians that both fell dead in a church service. If you believe this cannot happen today, please become aware that it can and that it will!

Also remember what Jesus said in Matthew 7:1, “Judge not and you will not be judged”. Uh oh! Jesus just gave us “one” condition of an implied many, that judgement could still come upon us. These words confirm we can still be judged in the church age of Grace. We know this is true, because it is the covenant maker, the head of the church body, that is doing the speaking.

Paul confirms this in 1 Corinthians 11:32 writing, “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged”. Uh oh, again! But these words are easily misunderstood. This does not mean Christians judge themselves with human moral standards or popular worldly values of the current majority opinion. No! Christians must judge themselves with God’s standards of moral character as written in the Bible. Following His laws and His commandment does not save us by our works, but it does keep us from being judged and giving Satan legal access to steal, kill and destroy us (Jn 10:10, 1 Pet 5:8).

It is very interesting how God teaches us about His works using physical featured descriptions that possibly help us to learn about how much power was used to accomplish a specific named work. We just saw one example of this work and power analogy being described as “the hand of the LORD” in Joshua in dividing the Red Sea. Hopefully, this is already a familiar subject to us all. For example, the “Yod” is a picture of the entire extended arm including hand and fingers. Each of these named components displayed represent an increasing or decreasing amount of power that can be used by God to accomplish a specific goal.

For example, someone’s little finger cannot do as much work as one of their larger and stronger fingers, like the index finger. But also, two fingers, three fingers, four fingers and all the fingers combined with the thumb can do more as increasing numbers are joined in unison. These all working together provide more strength and power and can do so much more together. This is an excellent time to understand again, that the number value of the “Yod” is 10. How many fingers does a normal human have? Yes, it is still 10. This is not a coincidence that God ordered this letter at this position in the alphabet. Everything in the written Word is intelligently designed this way.

Now think about what it would mean if God used His entire hand in some works, verses just one finger in other works. Then imagine what it means if some works of God required Him to use His entire arm to accomplish it. But then there are other verses that claim God used two hands to do some works. Other possible greater works could occur when God uses two arms and two hands. This is an amazing concept because it teaches us some enemies, tasks and objectives are greater than others, and some works are so small or minor that they do not require but a small amount of divine power to accomplish. Let us look at this concept further.

Exo 8:19  Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

In the third plague of God upon Egypt, the LORD causes lice to manifest upon man and beast. The Egyptian magicians called this work “the finger of God”. This means that they believed this plague to be only a very small and minor thing for God to do to them. But it implies about the God of Moses, if He could do this, He has a lot more power that could do an extraordinary amount of other work from His unused greater power. In other words, this was a warning message to Pharoah, that this was a little power display of God, and we have not seen the worst yet.

Exo 31:18  And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

While Moses was up on Mt. Sinai, God gives Him two tablets that were inscribed with the “10” commandments. Uh oh! There is the number 10 again. This simply means these are the “10” laws of “Jehovah” that are critical. But notice that God only needed His finger to inscribe this law upon tablets of stone. Who is our “cornerstone” that kept these laws for us? We should know it is Jesus Christ (Ps 118:22). What we are observing, is that this act of God was considered a very minor display of His power. However, it also implies again that there are greater power displays that could occur if the law was disobeyed. Let us look at another example of the finger of God in the book of Daniel:

Dan 5:5  In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
Dan 5:6  Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.

This is an amazing comparison to the attitude of too many modern churches. God has written an entire book of things, and this king only saw Him write one phrase and he was shaken so much that it caused him to have a bowel movement because of his fear of God.

This is just another example, of how two men’s view of the finger of God can be different. The Pharaoh of Egypt was hard hearted and ignored the finger works of God, but the king of Babylon had a different more respectful attitude. That is an amazing example for the church today, because in Daniel chapter 4 even Nebuchadnezzar concluded that God is powerful and is the judge of people and He can bring down proud people with only a minor effort. Let us move to Jesus in the Gospels next:

Luk 11:20  But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you.

Notice what Jesus said to the Jewish people of that day? This is a very profound revelation. Jesus had just cast out a demon that caused a man to be “dumb”. Jesus after being accused of casting out this demon through “Beelzebub” says very clearly, He had just done this working with the “finger of God”. Wow, that is amazing information.

Too many people think their enemy the devil has such great powers over them, and they do not realize how big God is. We are no match for the devil in our own human strength, but a real Christian is never alone, and we are not without God’s power being available to help us. In fact, 1 John 4:4 says, “We have overcome them (the devil), because greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world”. If it only takes a flick of the finger of God to get the devil out and on the run, that does not take a huge amount of faith or power. Praise the LORD! Now let us move to some of the greater works of God:

Isa 53:1  Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

There is given to us in this verse a new revelation of the greater works and power of God expressed with the usage of the phrase “the arm of the LORD”. This verse is written to the church because this chapter describes Jesus our LORD, and this verse is quoted in Romans 10. God is declaring to us that He does not share or make known His greatest works or power to people who DO NOT BELIEVE! Wow, this sounds important!

Remember that Isaiah 53 is the description of the “redemptive” works of God and these works required the much mightier power of the “arm of God” to accomplish. Let us look at verses in Ephesians that also describe what happened as a mighty work:

Eph 1:19  And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,

Eph 1:20  Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,

We will only cover this one great and probably the most significant work of God, briefly in this lesson. There are a select few works that God describes His having required God’s greatest and mightiest displayed power. This one mentioned in Ephesians is one of the most significant things that is revealed to us. In the previous verses 17 and 18, Paul is praying that God will give to the Church at Ephesus, the spirit of wisdom and revelation to know Him (Jesus) and for their eyes of their understanding to be opened so that they might comprehend what God has done for them in Christ.

This is truly an amazing prayer and one that every Christian needs. Too many Christians do not have a clue what extent that God went through to save them from an eternal separation from Himself. When we begin to see a little of this revelation, we will want and desire to know more that was freely given to us. But we will also begin to see that it took God’s strong extended arms and hands to accomplish this for us. Here is a short list of some of the things that were accomplished in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

  1. Jesus saved us by giving us freely the gift of salvation through faith (2 Tim 1:9, Eph 2:8)
  2. God gave to us His righteousness as a gift (Rom 5:17, Isa 54:17)
  3. Jesus reconciled us to God in Christ (2 Cor 5:18)
  4. God now resides on the inside of our body to help, guide, teach and cause us to overcome our enemy (Jn 14:17, Jn 16:13, Gal 3:14)
  5. God delivered us from the authority of darkness (Col 1:13)
  6. Placed us into the Kingdom of God in Jesus (Col 1:13)
  7. Made us a part of His New Creation in Christ causing everything old to pass completely away (2 Cor 5:17)
  8. He has given to us all things that pertains to life and godliness in Christ (2 Pet 1:3)
  9. He has given to us His authority (Luke 10:19, Mat 28:18-19)
  10. Through the works of God in Christ, we can reign in this life as God’s Kingdom representative (Rom 5:17)

This was only a short list of some of the amazing accomplishments God performed with His “Hand” and “Arm” in Christ for us and for our benefit to bless us. There are literally many other things that God did in Jesus for us that need to be learned and embraced by Christians.

So, we have seen that God says there are varying degrees of His power that can be used depending upon the situation that we are facing in life. According to Ephesians 3;20 God says, “He can do exceedingly abundantly more than we can imagine, ask or think about, but only according to the power (Hand of God) that we permit to work in us”. That was a paraphrase of the verse, but it conveys the intent of the verse’s meaning. This statement appears to say to us that we are limiting God’s ability to do things to us, for us, or with us unless we allow His power inside of us to be released. How do you do this? The answer is found in 2 Corinthians 4:13, “We, having the same spirit of faith, as it is written, I believed and therefore I have spoken, we also believe and therefore, speak”.

What are you saying today? Is it death and defeat, or is it the Words of God that gave us His victory?  Whatever you are agreeing with, is what will be accomplished in you. There is so much more to learn about human cooperation to release God’s fuller power, but this introduced the topic to you enough for you to go and study it more.

YOD the Hand of God in Creation

We will begin this section of our study with a verse found in Psalm 119. Hopefully, you already know this Psalm is an Alphabet revelation of information. Each set of 8 verses begin with the same letter in alphabetic order beginning in verses 1 through 8 with the “Alef” and ending in verses 169 through 176 with the last letter “Tav”. Eight verses each, times 22 letters in the alphabet equals 176 total verses. We will only focus upon verse 119 to begin:

Psa 119:73  JOD. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.

As you can see in this verse, it contains our key word “H3027” (Yod) translated as “hands” in this verse. God has just confirmed to us that it was the “hands” (Yod) of our God that formed the human body during creation events described by the book of Genesis. This is significant because it displays this was a greater work of Jehovah God, than His finger works we looked at in a previous section. Let us look at another verse about God’s works in creation:

Psa 102:25  Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.

This verse has both an indirect reference and a direct reference to the “Hands” of God. First, know the word translated as “hands” at the end of the verse is our key study word H3027. This confirms we are on target with the alphabet letter “Yod”.

The verse begins by speaking of God “laying” the foundations of the earth. This is our first indirect reference to the working hand of God in creation. While this word “laying the foundation” does not directly state it was performed by His hands, it is implied because of our knowledge of how we would lay down something or take up something. We know logically that someone would lay something down with their extended arm and hand after first picking it up and then moving it by extending their arm to lay it down.

But that is not the only way we know this is what is happening. The Hebrew word H3245 that is translated as “laid the foundation”, is the word “Yawsad” and it begins with the letter “Yod”. This word is defined by Strong as “to set” or “to found”.  One ancient Hebrew dictionary defines this word as “to lay a foundation of a house, place, or plan”. That sounds like the work of someone that is using their hands to build something brand new. That is exactly what God’s creation was, and it involved His hands (power).

Then the verse ends with an amazing confirmation. Notice the beginning of the verse was only about one planet where man lives, but the rest of the universe is of the same types of works but on a much larger scale. God is simply saying to us these were the works of my hands and it took more power than just a finger to accomplish it. In fact, it is implied that it took both hands and 10 fingers to create our world and universe. That is a significant amount of divine power that was extended, yet it is by far less power than what was available in reserve that was not utilized. Can we agree?

But we are missing something that is hidden in this verse of Psalm 102:25. In actuality, we are missing a lot of things that have been hidden in this single verse, but we will only focus upon one that is significant to our current study subject of the hand of God in creation. The verse begins with the Hebrew word “H6440” (Paniym) that was translated as “of old”. That is a potential correct translation but only from a single viewpoint of being from God in the past.

You see, the Hebrew word H6440 (Paniym) is also translated as “face”. This word literally means from the “face” and the verse could have said “your face has laid the foundation” of the earth. This word Paniym is spelled “Peh” + “Nun” + “Yod” + “Mem”. This is a fascinating word that has the Peh = mouth added together with the Nun = Seed and ends with the “Yod” + “Mem” to make it plural so it means multiple or many “mouth seeds” laid the foundation of our universe and planet. Wow, that is exactly how our universe was created.

God spoke selective words that would create His thoughts and plans, and the natural things we can see, taste, touch, smell and feel came to be. We know this by reading Mark 4 and the parable of the Sower. In this parable God’s Words were the “seeds” that were sown into the hearts of humans to save them. Therefore, the mouth of God that could create us, is the same mouth that can save us. If you do not think this is amazingly important, we need to pray for you. 😊

What we are learning is essential. We are beginning to see that there is a hand and mouth of God connection. When the Bible says “the hand” of God has done something to create or make, God is teaching us that in the spiritual realm this is performed by “speaking” words of power. Let us keep learning more to confirm this:

Isa 45:12  I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.

This will be our last verse for this section. We are just not able to cover this topic in the fullest depth today. But notice we have just reaffirmed by the Word of God written by Isaiah, that God utilized his hands to stretch out the universe, create an inhabitable planet, and to make a man to live upon it. Remember that modern scientists can only estimate the vastness of our universe. It is expanding faster and faster by the moment, and it is currently estimated that when we look in one direction to the edge of our universe that it can be up to around 46 billion light years away.

But found in this verse, we can begin to confirm a new relationship being made between “the work of God’s hands” and how they are connected to “His spoken words to command”, that cause things to happen, change or come to be.  This is so important that we will continue with this again as the subject of our next section.

The Mouth of God Activates the Hand of God

This is now a brand-new subject that most Christians do not have a clue to know what we are learning today. This however will be a very powerful section of the lesson and it will help us to understand a lot about the spiritual things of God.

Have you ever read Genesis 1? This is God’s description of His creation of our present world, and how it was accomplished. Ten times it is written “and God said”. Uh oh? What is the value of the “hand” Yod alphabet letter? You’re right, it is 10. What did we just read about in the previous section about creation? We read multiple times that God created man, earth, and the universe with His “hands”. Do you see the connections again?

Genesis 1 describes God speaking commands and natural things changing. For example, the world was dark in verse 2 and God said, “Let there be light” and then “light was” in verse 3. So, we are beginning to learn and confirm creation took place by both the hands of God and the mouth of God. Either these are two completely different things, or they are the same thing only using different figurative analogies to describe the action and works of God. I believe it is the second and we will soon confirm this further. For example, look at this next verse very carefully:

Rev 1:16  And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

Judgment is one of the central themes of the book of Revelation. As you can see in this verse it came from the book of Revelation and is written about the LORD JESUS CHRIST. But more specifically this verse describes the “mouth” of God again using the symbolic terms of it being a “sharp two-edged sword”. What is this describing? Let us find the answers in Bible.

But first, notice again that this verse describes Jesus as having a sharp two-edged sword coming out of His mouth! Wow that is an amazing connecting (Vav=Nail) topic to our study subject about God’s hand. How does God or any created being, whether angelic or human wield a sword as a weapon or a tool? Uh oh? The correct answer is they “hold” the sword, “in” or “with” their “HAND” (YOD). A sword without a hand is powerless. Therefore, the power of the sword is coming from the “Hand” that is holding it.

Here we begin to see one of our first confirming connectors to the mouth of God being the same as the hand of God that is holding a sharp two-edged sword. However, what does this symbology represent? We can obtain the definition of what this symbolic sword represents by reading in Hebrews 4:

Heb 4:12  For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Did you see our “hand to mouth” connection being expressed again? God says, “His spoken Words are alive and powerful (Yod), and they are sharper than any other two-edged sword”. This is very amazing information. Remember “Yod” is the representation of the extended “hand”, and it also represents “power” that the hand possesses. Now connect this back to this verse in Hebrews.

We can see the Word of God that comes out of God’s mouth (Peh) as being described as “very powerful” and being figuratively compared to an exceedingly sharp two-edged sword. We just answered the question, “How does one hold a sword in their mouth?” And we found the correct answer is still with their “HAND”. Therefore, the mouth of God with powerful Words coming out of it are potential “piercing” weapons that have great ability to overcome all other mouths with their words that attempt to fight against His Words. God makes this connection between words as powerful weapons in in many verses of the Bible. But we will only focus on a few. For example, notice Ephesians 6:

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

In this context God is telling Christians to put on His whole armor. The only key offensive weapon against our spiritual enemy (Satan) is the “Sword of the Spirit”. This is amazing. God is teaching us as His children, we better be saying what He said in His Word. In fact, this is exactly how we get saved. In Romans 10:9-10 God says, “If we confess with our mouth, the LORD Jesus, and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved”. Therefore, it is our believing and speaking that God uses to take us out of the darkness of Satan into the Kingdom of Light.

The Greek word G3670 that is translated as “confess” in Romans 10:9, is a compound word of G3674 and G3056. The Greek word G3674 means “the same” as in identical. And then the Greek word G3056 means “words” and placing these two words together we are instructed to say the same things God says. Wow!

This is becoming an essential topic of becoming a Christian and operating later in God’s Kingdom authority as a Christian. When we say what God says, we become it. We also agree with Him, and we are not acting like His enemy. When we say what the world says being influenced by Satan, we have just become an enemy of God (Jas 4:4). Therefore, does it matter what we say? Do you see how this works when we are told how to overcome the devil now?

When we place God’s words in our mouth, we are fighting against the enemy and resisting the devil (Eph 6:12, James 4:7) by acting like Jesus during His forty days fast in the wilderness. Every time Satan came to Jesus to tempt or test Him, Jesus’ response was to say, “It is WRITTEN” (Mat 4:4) and quote the verse. This action of placing God’s Word in His mouth cut the devil every time He spoke, and Satan got tired of this pain and left Him. Let us end this section with one more verse:

Pro 18:21  Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

Ok, what a strange verse, and some may wonder why it was selected by the Holy Spirit to be here in this lesson about the “hand” and the mouth connection. But this verse has much more to do with our subject than you know. For example, notice the beginning antithesis word selected by God as “death” and “life”. Weren’t these the two trees that were placed in the midst of the Garden by God? Isn’t this the choice He gave to Adam and told him not to eat from the tree that would cause him death? Uh oh!!!

Yes, it is all true. We are finding some very essential realities being taught here. Humans today still have the power to eat from two trees, the first one called the “knowledge of good, and evil”, will still kill you. The other one called the “Tree of Life” will cause you to live forever. What God is teaching us today, is this fact of basic truth, if we choose to speak what God says, we will live forever, and if we choose to speak what Satan says, we will certainly die. But let us go back and see why we selected this verse about a tongue having control of life or death is included in this section.

If you look up the Hebrew word that is translated as “POWER” in Proverbs 18:21, guess what word you find? Hopefully the Spirit of God has already witnessed that this word is our Hebrew word H3027 that is primarily translated as “hand”. Translators may have been very confused to how to change this word into a message that English readers would best understand and chose to make it “power”. But in doing this they possibly hid the true God intended meaning of the Word. Yes, this word does apply to someone having “power”, but only in the connected based context of the “hand” that is wielding the power.

So let us see this verse in a literal translation of the words, it would say, “Death and life are in the hand of the tongue”. Now do you see that the “Sword” that comes out of a mouth, comes from the words that are produced and released by the speaking tongue? With your tongue you have the power to “kill” others with words containing lies, slander, hurt, deceits, untruths, which are all the words of Satan. But conversely, we can give someone “life” through words of God extending His Words of love, truth, encouragement, edification, blessings, etc.

This knowledge now takes us back, to help us better understand God’s words. In Genesis 1, God spoke words of good to bless humans and to plant seeds for a coming future fruit harvest. But in the book of Revelation, we see words of a sharp sword coming out of His mouth to bring judgments for those that ignored His blessing.

If you will get a hold of this truth, and not let go or let it slip out of your hand/mouth, you can change the world with God’s Word.

CONCLUSION

We have only barely touched this subject of the “Yod” hand of God and how it represents our Lord, Savior, and God, Jesus in this lesson. There could be many more volumes written on this single letter subject. We have not covered, the spoken words of Jesus in-depth that shows Him extending His spiritual hands of power to save people. We have not covered the many times that Jesus extended His physical hands and laid them on people to bless or heal them. In today’s conclusion let us end by looking at just a few scriptures about the hands of Jesus and His works:

  1. Mat 4:17 – Jesus begins to preach “The Kingdom of God is at Hand”.
  2. Mat 8:3 – Jesus puts forth His hand and touches a leper and makes him clean.
  3. Mat 8:15 – Jesus touches Peter’s mother-in-law’s hand and her fever left her.
  4. Mat 9:25 – Jesus takes a dead maiden by the hand and raises her back to life.
  5. Mat 14:31 – Jesus stretches forth His hand to save Peter from sinking into the water.
  6. Mat 19:13 – People bring their little children to Jesus for Him to lay His hands on them and bless them.
  7. Mat 27:35 – Jesus is crucified on the cross made from a tree being hung by nails through His stretched out “hands”.
  8. Mar 6:2 – People begin to marvel at the mighty works done by His hands.
  9. Mar 7:32 – People ask Jesus to touch a deaf and mute man with His hands to heal him.
  10. Mar 8:23 – Jesus takes a blind man out of a city and spit on his eyes and then touched them.
  11. Luke 4:40 – People brought the sick to Jesus and He laid His hands upon all of them, and they were healed.
  12. Luke 24:39 – Jesus appears to His disciples after crucifixion and tells them, “Behold my hands and my feet”.

What is the church’s role in being used by the “hand” of God in the last days? This is a very important part of this subject, but it also is unable to be covered fully in this lesson. Why is it so essential? It is critical to know, because of who the church is in prophecy. This was another hidden mystery in scriptures, but it is being released for us to know in these moments before the return of Christ to catch us up to be with Him.

Who is the church?  In Romans 12:5 God uses a reference of a natural human body to reveal who we are in the spiritual realm. In this verse God teaches through the revelation given to Paul, that every believer is like one cell in a greater body named Christ. The church is informed that we are all individuals but simultaneously we are combined joined members to the body of Christ. Like some cells in our body die, they are replaced with new cells. Like a newborn baby child has certain number of cells, this total cell count grows as their body increases in size. So, it is with the church.

Therefore, if we are His body on the physical earth right now, we represent His hands that are being used to save, heal, teach, and spread the Gospel. That makes us all an incredible part of His mission for the end time revival and awakening of the planet before the tribulation. So how do we see this beginning in the early church body as recorded in God’s Word?

We can find in John 20:22 the beginning of the church occurs with the disciples that were left after the resurrection. Jesus appears to them and breathes upon them and says, “Receive the Holy Ghost”. This was the beginning of the body of Christ on the earth. Then right before the ascension of Jesus, He tells them to wait in Jerusalem until they be endued with power from on high (Acts 1:8). So, the disciples gather the faithful to wait in Jerusalem and there were 120 meeting together in one accord, when the Spirit of God was poured out (Acts 2:2-4).

Immediately after being filled with the Holy Ghost, Peter preaches a message about what is being witnessed by around 3000 people outside where they were gathered. These 3000 that heard the message and believed were then added to the church that day. Do you see the rapid increase and growth in the body? This growth continued but at the same time Satan influenced people to fight against this growth, because he understood now why it was such a huge mistake to have crucified the single God/man Jesus (1 Cor 2:8). Now instead of one man with the Holy Ghost, Satan had thousands that would soon grow to millions of people filled with God’s power. What evidence does God reveal to us about the church being God’s hands upon the earth, let us find out quickly.

We can find in the book of Acts, where the Apostles and even the disciples of Jesus laid their hands upon people to cast out devils and deliver them from sicknesses, diseases, or even to give to them the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here is a short list of verses about God’s spiritual Hand working through the Church body of Christ:

  1. Acts 3:7 – Peter took a lame man by the hand, and he was healed by faith in the name of Jesus.
  2. Acts 4:30 – The apostles pray for boldness to preach the Gospel and for God’s hand to be continued to be stretched forth to heal.
  3. Acts 5:12 – God continues to answer their prayer to perform many signs, wonders, and miracles through their hands.
  4. Acts 6:6-7 – The word of God increased in the area, after the apostles laid their hands upon men that were chosen to serve.
  5. Acts 8:17 – Peter and John lay their hands upon new believers in the Word of God, and they received the Holy Spirit.
  6. Acts 9:12 – Jesus instructs Ananias to go and lay hands on Saul to receive his sight.
  7. Act 11:21 – Informs us that the “Hand of the LORD” was with them as they ministered.
  8. Acts 14:12 – More signs, and wonders done by the hands of the church.
  9. Acts 19:6 – Men are filled with the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands of Paul.
  10. Acts 19:11 – God works special miracles by the hands of Paul.
  11. Acts 28:8 – Paul lays his hands on a sick man, and he is healed.

These are just some of the major examples of great works of God’s hands flowing through human hands on the earth. It is very clear to see that “Hands” are still a key part of the church’s life. We can read in Hebrew 6:2 about the “doctrine of the laying on of hands” as being a fundamental truth for the church. Furthermore, in Hebrews 10:31, the church is warned that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. This subject of “hands” is interwoven throughout the New Covenant, and it is an essential teaching.

It is highly recommended that you go and reread the Gospels and notice how much Jesus utilized His “Words” to heal and His “Hands” working together to heal. Both were clear applications of the letter “Yod” bring forth God’s power upon the earth.

Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us. We love and pray for you all, and appreciate your love, prayers, testimonies, and comments.  God bless you until the next time we meet to study the Words of the Living God, God be willing, and He does not return for us before then. Please agree that based upon the world’s increasing levels of great darkness the eminent return of Jesus could be at any second, but until then we WIN and stand in victory with the devil under our feet.

Intro Alef Beyt-1 2 Gimel Dalet Hey Vav Zayin Chet Tet Yod Kaf Lamed Mem 1 2 Nun Samekh Ayin Pey Tsade Qof Resh Shin TavAlef-Beyt Chart (Series updated as LORD directs and permits)

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

Jesus Our Kinsman Redeemer Part 2 – Redemption Types and Shadows Pt 1

(Ver 1.1) This will be Part 2 in a series that answers a very challenging Bible question using the Word of God to interpret the Word of God. As you can tell by this series title, these lessons are about “Jesus our Kinsman Redeemer”. This will be the second lesson that is designed to help us further establish what a “Kinsman Redeemer” represents and why God elected to create this role and then why He chose to personally use this established role to save us? This lesson will be focused upon the subjects of Redemption, and a Redeemer found within Old Testament Typology. It is highly recommended that you go and read this series from the beginning “Part 1” first.

Typology is very similar to allegory, and both apply to today’s lesson. A type is a natural pattern of a place, a person, or an action, that represents a greater spiritual reality.  An allegory is a story of actual timed events happening to real people that reveal a hidden greater spiritual reality. All of this simply means that there are real-life accounts written in the Bible about actual historical people, places, things, and their uses, purposes, and actions, that reveal to us a much higher hidden spiritual reality about Jesus and His life and purpose.  These concepts are revealed by inspired New Testament writers like Paul, Peter, and John.

For example, the concept of typology is very clearly stated by Paul in Romans 5:14 where Paul writes the first Adam was a “patterned type” (G3667) of the Last Adam that was Christ to come. Remember this Greek word G3667 because it comes from G3666, and we will be seeing this word again soon.  Then Paul in Galatians 4:21-31, describes the lives of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and their children, and then Paul claims these people and their stories are an “allegory” (G238) of Jesus.  

The Greek word G238 is transliterated from the Greek word “allēgoreo“. The word means to “allegorize”.  An allegory is defined in Bible terms as an actual living account of people, places, and things that describe and teach a greater spiritual truth, usually about Jesus. These Truth concepts are stated by Jesus to the Jewish people when He told them to “Search your scriptures, for in them you believe you have eternal life, but these are they that testify of me” (Jn 5:39).  This simply means we can find Jesus if we search for Him in practically every story of the Bible.

Today, we will be studying the God created and authored allegorical and typological patterns found within the Book of Ruth using just a quick overview format of the information. This means we will not cover every possible detailed type, natural pattern to spiritual, or even every verse and every word that points us to Jesus. Hopefully you are already familiar with this book.  It is about five named men and one unnamed mystery man. The first named man is (1) Elimelech a father of two named sons, (2) Mahlon, and (3) Chilion. Then there is the very key named man (4) Boaz who is our recognized main story’s “Kinsman Redeemer”, the type of Jesus. Then there is an unnamed man mentioned in chapters 3 and 4, who appears to be an older brother of the man Boaz. Finally, there is a seventh key named male that is the heir of Elimelech, named Obed. It just so happens that Obed is the grandfather of David the King. Here is a list of the significant male names and their definitions that are found in the story of Ruth:

  1. Elimelech = H458 – My God is King (Occurs 6 times)
  2. Mahlon = H428 – Sick (Occurs 4 times)
  3. Chilion = H3630 – Pining (Occurs 3 times)
  4. Boaz = H1162 – Fleetness (Occurs 24 times in 22 verses)
  5. Obed = H5744 – Serving (Occurs 3 times)

There are three key named women found in the plain text story of Ruth. But there is also one very key female, that is not mentioned in this book of the Bible, but the book of Ruth could not have occurred without her direct contribution. This hidden woman is mentioned at least 10 or more times in other parts of the Bible with some using different spellings of her name. The most prolific occurrence is found in the book of Josha, which is also the Hebrew name of our Lord, Savior, and Messiah, Jesus. That is an important clue to understanding the typological meaning of the study of Ruth. Who is this ignored woman in Ruth? Her name is “Rahab”, and she is called a “harlot” in more than one verse of the Bible. Why is she important? It is because she is the named mother of “Boaz” in Matthew 1:5.

The wife of Elimelech is the first named woman in Ruth and she is called Naomi. She is one of the key female types found in the story. The second named woman is called a daughter-in-law of Naomi and she is named Orphah. Orphah is a very insignificant character due to her personal choices. She is only mentioned twice in the entire Bible. But we know that Orphah was a Moabite gentile wife of Chilion and she becomes a widow after his death.

But the central female figure being named 12 times in the book who represents name of the book, Ruth. Ruth is also a daughter-in-law of Naomi, and she becomes the wife of Mahlon and then his widow after his death.  Remember Orphah and Ruth are both Moabite Gentile women and that is very important to the typology application and our understanding. It is interesting to see that Orphah and Ruth are like the two men that were hung on crosses with Jesus. One of the men asked Jesus to remember him, and the other man wanted nothing to do with Jesus. This is very analogous to Ruth choosing to remain with Naomi and Orphah choosing to leave her. Here is the list of the key named and unnamed women in the book of Ruth:

  1. Naomi = H5281 – My Delight (Occurs 20 times)
  2. Orphah = H6204 – Gazelle (Occurs 2 times)
  3. Ruth = H7327 – Friendship (Occurs 12 times)
  4. Rahab = H7343 – Wide/Pride (Occurs 0 times)

So, we have one woman named Rahab that is not directly mentioned other than her husband being named in the genealogy that occurs at the end of the book and three named women who were all wives and then became widows. We have Naomi that had two sons, but they both died following the death of Elimelech her husband and the sons’ father. This story leaves these three women in need of a Kinsman Redeemer after the death of all the males in the family. It is very significant that the name of Ruth is mentioned 12 times in this book, since that is the number of apostles chosen by Jesus, fitting the pattern of the church as being a type of Ruth who marries Boaz a type of Jesus. Do you believe that god is smart enough to place clues like this in the Bible? We hope so. That was the very high-level overview of the main characters.

Again, this is a warning up front that this study is a series of lessons in a format of progressing deeper spiritual topics that has the potential to offend new and immature Christians. Many people who call themselves Christians are not spiritually mature enough to handle growing strong spiritual subjects like these. The series began with just some of the fundamentals of God’s truth that provide us the foundation of the study. But we will continue today by building upon this basic foundation, as we move into the deeper controversial spiritual concepts that will be used as continuing building blocks of greater and deeper spiritual truths.

Therefore, if you feel you are new to the faith in Jesus, it might be best for you to go and read some lighter soft subjects that are required to understand the advanced subject matter. This is the same concept as trying to teach a two-year-old advanced calculus when they have not even begun to learn to count. Please judge yourself and make the personal determination to act mature no matter what you are feeling about the subject today and going forward. Thank you and may you continue to receive what God has blessed you with in Christ Jesus.

Jesus Hidden in the Type and Pattern of Boaz

If you have read our series of lessons on the book of Ruth revealing the types and patterns found in this story, you already have a great understanding of how this story matches Jesus role as the Church’s spiritual Redeemer. But for those that have not studied this book of the Bible this will be a rapid overview of the typology revealing Jesus. 

The book of Ruth is only 4 chapters long and it is highly recommended that you go and read it all before continuing to read this lesson.  In Chapter 1 we have a famine taking place in Bethlehem. This is your first clue to show you this book is about Jesus, since Jesus was birthed by Mary in Bethlehem.

Next the story continues with the family of Elimelech leaving Bethlehem of Judah to go into the land of Moab to find food. The family consisted of a father named Elimelech, his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion.  Both names of the sons relate to mortality, sickness, and death.

The father Elimelech died first and Naomi the widow is left with her two sons.  Both sons take women of Moab to be wives. It appears from reading this story that Mahlon appears to be the elder son and he marries a woman named Ruth. Chilion appears to be the younger son and he marries a woman named Orphah. They live there for 10 years and both sons died also having no children, thus leaving only the three women.

Rth 1:8  And Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return each to her mother’s house: the LORD deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me.

Naomi goes to her daughters-in-law and tells them to go back to their father’s houses because she has no ability to bear them anymore children to become their husbands. If you did not realize it yet, Naomi the Jewish woman in speaking to them, was focused on God’s designed law, written about a brother’s role of being a good Kinsman Redeemer for his dead brother.  This law was given to Israel by God through His prophet Moses who wrote the Torah. If Naomi would have had another male child, he would have been required to take his dead brother’s wife to marry her for the cause of raising up an heir for the house and name of Elimelech to continue. This was the role of the Kinsman Redeemer who must be a blood relative to the dead man that has left his family in a debt which they are unable to payback of themselves.

Rth 1:16  And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
Rth 1:17  Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

As women in that culture, Naomi and her two daughters-in-law were unable to work to make enough money to repay any family debts. Do you see where this story is taking us?  The Gentile women Orphah and Ruth would not normally be able to help Naomi their Jewish mother-in-law without someone to be a Kinsman Redeemer. Naomi tried to send them back to find another husband from their own people. The woman Orphah left Naomi, but the woman Ruth was more noble and faithful and told Naomi, “Where you go, I will go, where you live, I will live, your people will be my people and your God will be my God”. Then Ruth says, “where you die, I will die and be buried, the Lord do so to me, until death separates me from you.” This was Ruth making a covenant in a language that God noticed. God respected her words of faith in Him and her commitment to His people and He watches over such words and faithfulness to bless them. It was this confession of Ruth that opened a door to welcome God’s blessings upon her and for God to work out another Kinsman Redeemer to save both women of the family named of Elimelech.

Rth 1:19  So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?

Rth 1:20  And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.

Naomi and Ruth returned to Bethlehem which is called the city of David the King (Luke 2:4).  Remember it was David that will be promised by the LORD that one of his “seeds” will sit upon his throne forever (2 Sam 7:12-13). We should all know this was God’s prophecy of the promised Messiah named Jesus who would be born in Bethlehem a long time to come after Ruth.  This is actually a very important part of understanding the book of Ruth is about Jesus because Ruth is one of only a few women that are mentioned directly in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. Let us continue with the story of Boaz next.

Rth 2:1  And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband’s, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech; and his name was Boaz.

As we can see in chapter 2 that Naomi is mentioned to have a “kinsman” of her previously dead husband named Elimelech. This implies this man was a brother of Elimelech.  Here is another direct mention to God’s written law of the “Kinsman Redeemer” which we will get to in a future lesson, the Lord be willing.  In this verse we see the name of the kinsman as “Boaz” and a couple of his key features that gave him the ability to be Naomi’s redeemer. Here is a short list of his key parallel features to Christ:

  1. Boaz is a known close blood relative of Elimelech, likely to be a younger brother.
  2. Boaz was a strong and mighty man.
  3. Boaz was also a very wealthy man.

These are three key ingredients that allow Boaz to qualify for the role of the “Kinsman Redeemer” of the family of Elimelech. What we learn from this is that no doubt Boaz is the younger brother of Elimelech. However, we will learn later that there is another closer relative. This term “closer” has the meaning that this male was born before Boaz making him older, and he must be given the chance to fulfill the role of the “Kinsman Redeemer” first.

The key factor of Boaz is that he is a strong/mighty man which means he is capable of procreating children. The final mentioned quality in this verse is that Boaz is very wealthy, and this simply means he has the financial means to buy back or redeem the debt that was incurred by his brother Elimelech. In verse 2 we will find a part of Boaz’s wealth was that he owned fields that were planted with crops for good food sources. Wow, all this information is a typology of God and Jesus.

For example, we know Jesus was God in the flesh (Jn 1:14), He was anointed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38), and therefore He was backed up by the strength and power of the “Most High”. That makes Jesus strong like the mention of Boaz. Next, we find Jesus was wealthy. Uh oh? Here goes a controversial subject matter. For example, in 2 Corinthians 8:9 we find Paul writing about Jesus Christ that though He was rich, he became poor for our sakes. We should realize what this means by now. This meant God who lives in heaven with streets that are paved in gold, when He chose to come to the earth, His financial state on earth was far below what He was richly blessed with as normal in heaven. Yet heaven’s wealth and power were still backing Him up. Remember when He was about to be crucified, Jesus said “Do you not know that I could call for 12 legions of angels” (Mat 26:53).

Finally, we are noticing that Boaz owned land and planted food crops and we can see how this compares to Jesus also in spiritual terms. It should be becoming obvious that this is also a parallel to God. God as we know created everything in the physical universe, therefore it all belongs to Him. He also created all the food sources that Boaz was raising to sell and eat. After creating our world in Genesis 1, God creates a garden called Eden in chapter 2. It is this symbolic garden that is finally bearing fruit unto God in Revelation 22. But first Jesus had to come to the earth to plant “Seed” (Words of God, Mark 4) to cause God’s original designed garden to come to fruition. The parallels are amazing in what we are reading in the few descriptions of Boaz.

We will not be addressing the blood relationship of humanity to Jesus as a type of the near relative “Kinsman Redeemer” fully in this lesson. We will only be introduced to the need for Jesus to be a blood relative to redeem humanity. This is where the story becomes extremely controversial amongst religious indoctrinated believers. But we must begin to realize that this is a major part of the story of Ruth and the Law of the Kinsman Redeemer. It must have happened this way in the natural for it to have been repeated in the spiritual reality. That is the reason for God’s usage of typologies. Because we can more easily understand and accept how things work in the natural world, we can more quickly see how it might apply in the spiritual world of the unseen God.

As we can continue to read in chapter 2, Naomi sends Ruth to Boaz’s field to glean from whatever crop was left over after harvesters had picked. God’s written law also provided for the needy and hungry by allowing others that were poor to glean from intentionally left crop corners and leftovers (Lev 19:9). Boaz followed this intentionally to help the needy as God commanded.

Boaz also notices the maid Ruth who caught his eye in the field (Ruth 2:5). It is interesting to see, that God says in 2 Chronicles 16:9, “that His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong to those whose heart is perfect towards Him”. We can clearly see this is what is happening to Ruth because of God’s favor upon her. It is also interesting to see how Boaz appears to know God’s Word and follow God’s Word. This too is a direct parallel to Jesus who only did and said what He saw His father do and speak (Jn 5:19-30).

The servants of Boaz informed him that this woman that caught his eye, was Ruth the Moabite that returned with Naomi. Boaz then goes to Ruth and tells her not to go to any other field to glean. This is Boaz beginning to show his great favor to her (Ruth 2:8). This too is a pattern of Christ that exhibited great love, and compassion to show God’s grace to redeem, save, help and heal people.

This is the start of an amazing example of covenant “Grace” that God provides to His people. Because Ruth had entered the covenant of God by words spoken from her lips and then by her actions through coming back to Bethlehem with Naomi, she obtained God’s grace and favor, and He began to bless her through the man Boaz, a type of Christ. But this is just the beginning of God’s blessing upon a gentile woman representing the church as we will further confirm very soon.

Next Ruth is told that Boaz has commanded protection over her. None of his young men working in the field will touch her (Ruth 2:9). She is even told to come and drink from the waters that the servants have drawn. These are just more types and shadows of God’s covenant blessing upon His New Covenant people. In Old Covenant types, if the people obeyed the commands of God, they were protected and given drinks of waters by the hand of God’s servants. In New Covenant terminology water represents the Words of God spoken freely to save us, heal us, bless us, etc.

Then in Ruth 2:10, Ruth is found falling on her face due to Boaz’s kindness to inquire why such a stranger has found such grace. Please tell me you see the picture of the church which was broadly a gentile stranger to God, His covenant, and His grace? Remember in Ephesians 2:19 where Paul writing to the church says “We are no longer foreigners and strangers…”  If you have not felt this way before about your relationship with God, and His goodness to you, then you need salvation.

Boaz responds in Ruth 2:11, saying how he has heard of Ruth’s kindness and loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi.  Ruth is praised for leaving the lands of her birth, and for leaving behind her mother and father’s house to come into a land that she knew nothing about. Do you see the “faith” that it took for Ruth to do this?  This is again a parallel to entering a covenant with God. The foundation for this entrance into covenant with God is established in the Law of marriage written in Genesis 2:24. In this verse, a man is instructed to leave his father and mother and to be joined with his wife. This is exactly what Ruth was doing in the natural realm, as a type of what the saved church has done in the spiritual realm.

Again, we see a clear picture of salvation for people of the lost world to leave behind their natural ways to begin a new journey that will cause them to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7). Ruth is a perfect type of the pattern of the church in the age of divine Grace. Remember she is living in Bethlehem now, and this name means the “House of Bread” and Jesus calls Himself the bread of Life (Jn 6:33-35). The matching parallels and patterns are very profound.

In Ruth 2:14 we again see Boaz inviting Ruth to eat with them and to partake of his bread and dip it in his vinegar. Then for her also to partake of his corn and other morsels.  The servants of the harvest field are told to show her favor and they bring her food like she is already Boaz’s favored wife. All of these are patterns of Jesus and His bride the Church (Eph 5:31-32). Let us quickly review what harvest and harvesting servants represent in the church’s future next.

Remember, that Jesus when walking the earth in the flesh, He taught us of a coming world end-time harvest of souls. Jesus makes the claims that the servant reapers of the harvest are His angels (Mat 13:39).  The wheat represents the good people of the earth that received God’s seed/Word. While the evil seed producing tares amongst the good wheat were the people that followed the devil’s word seeds. These patterns are all found in this story of Ruth.  Ruth works all day in the field of Boaz. Ruth represents the church that preaches the Gospel to bring forth new fruit unto God. Boaz is of course representative of the Lord Jesus.  The harvest field represents the world (James 5:7). In this story of Ruth, the reaping, the harvest and the threshing floor activities are all parallels of end-time events.

After Ruth finishes her labors to gather, she returns to tell Naomi of her blessings. Naomi’s response follows:

Rth 2:20  And Naomi said unto her daughter in law, Blessed be he of the LORD, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said unto her, The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen.

We can clearly see that Naomi in this verse is reaffirming the law of the Kinsman Redeemer.  She confirms to Ruth, that Boaz is “one” of our next of kin. This indicates Boaz is a very close relative like a brother and not a more distant uncle, or cousin. And this simply means he is directly eligible to “redeem” them both and to raise up an heir for the dead husbands.

These concepts should be becoming very familiar to you by now, but there are many other things to learn from the Bible on this subject. Nevertheless, please take away the fact that we have again seen the “need’ for a close family blood relative that is required for there to be anyone or anything that is able to “redeem”.

Chapter 3 of Ruth is the marriage proposal. Naomi instructs Ruth to not go to Boaz until after the work on the threshing floor was finished and the feasting was completed. After this Boaz would lay down on the threshing floor and Ruth would come and uncover his feet after he was asleep.  Boaz awakens early to realize there is someone laying at his feet, and he asks her who are you?  Ruth explains her presence.  Now Boaz confirms his intent to approach the nearer “kinsman” to offer for him to repay the redemption price of the dead brother’s house and to marry the widow, Ruth.

We find the legal business of God’s earthly court system taking place at the gate of the city the next day in Chapter 4.  This business dealing is between Boaz and the unnamed nearer kinsman which is witnessed by 10 elders of the city (Ruth 4:2-3) gathered by Boaz. It appears that God is leaving us a mystery to solve by not naming the nearer relative. We can still learn a lot about him even from this intentionally designed omission.

We then learn in Ruth 4:4 that these two men are the last two brothers of Elimelech that remain and that there are no others that can lawfully redeem the parcel of land from Naomi. This is a very interesting detail to God’s story of redemption. This one fact has great potential for controversy. If Boaz is a younger brother and is a type of Jesus Christ our redeemer, who is this other unnamed nearer (older) brother of Boaz, but still a younger brother of the dead brother Elimelech? Notice we have a new pattern of three brothers, and this will be repeated in other typologies.

This is clearly a puzzling type of mystery. But this is what the Word of God says, and God is using this typology to teach us what is happening in the spiritual realm. What we can logically conclude is that Elimelech is the dead eldest brother that appears to be a type of the “first Adam” who died causing us all to die (Rom 5:17). Remember Adam’s sin caused every human to die because we were “ALL” in him when he rebelled.

If we read in Hebrews 7:8-10 we learn about a concept that goes over the heads of many Christians. Christians need to get a revelation about whatever their father did, they did, because they were in their father when he did it, whether it be for good or for evil. Read these verses in Hebrews 7 and see how God writes of Levi paying tithes in his great-grandfather Abraham. This law applies to every human today. We are all dead because of what Adam did. But there is good news because we can get into the second Adam who is Jesus Christ to live eternally forever (1 Cor 15:45).

Therefore, tracking the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3 we find how Jesus was in each of these men going all the way back to the first Adam.   Wow, we have just opened a massive can of controversy, but we will not attempt to solve anything completely here today in this lesson.

Let us continue in the book of Ruth in chapter 4, with verse 5. If you read this verse again, you will find that Boaz has just offered the purchase of the dead brother’s land to his elder brother. But Boaz then reminds him that he must also marry the widow Ruth to ensure the raising up of an heir for this dead brother’s name to continue. As we are becoming aware this is a major part of the law of redemption which was God created and not man created. Therefore, family names were important to God, and they must continue to be passed down to the next generation so that their name would not be blotted out. 

Remember, Ruth was the widow of the son Mahlon. Do you still recall the law of marriage from Genesis 2:24 that we read earlier? In this law of covenant marriage God declares the man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and these two will be one flesh. Do you see how this law of covenant marriage potentially causes God’s other law of “redemption” to work also? Take notice if Mahlon and Ruth became one flesh, if he dies Ruth has been legally separated from him but is now still able to be called Mahlon’s flesh because of her previous marriage. Therefore, if Boaz married the widowed “one flesh” wife of Mahlon and he has a child by Ruth, Mahlon has in effect been given a child heir even though he was not the male father “seed” contributor. This appears to be a wise and very logical solution to a natural family problem. Could this also be a solution in the spiritual realm of God? We will possibly consider this later.

Next in Ruth 4:6 we can see that the unnamed elder brother of Boaz refuses to redeem the land to build up the name of their dead older brother. This too is a pattern we will find repeated in typology on this subject in the Old Testament. Notice what takes place in Ruth 4:7 to finalize the legal transaction that was taking place in the city of Bethlehem. After rejecting the offer the law required that the man that refused to do his brotherly duty, he must remove his sandals, and this is exactly what happened in Ruth.  This appears to be a clue to who the elder brother can represent.

Do you recall when John was baptizing in the river and Jesus came to him to be baptized? John made mention to everyone, that he was not worthy to unlatch the sandals of Jesus. Uh oh? That fact should not be rejected. What in the world is John referring to? What does John know that we don’t? How is this statement connected to what we are reading about a man removing his sandals in Ruth to follow God’s Law of Redemption? Interesting questions to consider for later. Especially because Jesus is soon to redeem humanity by His death on a cross three years after this baptism.

Do you see how this lesson has suddenly become a major controversial subject that could offend a lot of people, and we have done nothing but read through the scriptures in the book of Ruth to determine the mentioned typology characters? Please just think through what is being heavily implied so far. Was the mortal Son of God that was going to die on a cross the man that would redeem us? If He would have wanted to redeem us before His cross’ death, it would have been impossible because there was no blood that was shed to pay the purchased price for our redemption. That would be a major problem. But ask yourself is the mortal man named Jesus considered a potentially totally new man after being raised from the dead? We find out as we continue that He was the beginning of a brand-new creation, and the old natural and mortal man Jesus was an intimate part of God’s old creation. God did this intentionally for several reasons, that you probably do not know or understand right now.

Please keep this in mind as we continue to learn. We are going further into this typology than was originally intended, but please notice this verse in Romans 7:

Rom 7:4  Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

Notice what Paul has reminded us about legal matters written down in the Law of Moses. In this chapter it begins to describe how a woman is bound to God’s Law of marriage, if her husband is alive.  But after he dies, God says she is freed to marry another. God has just given us a major clue to what we were studying about in the book of Ruth. We should be able to see how since Ruth’s husband died, this is exactly what Paul is writing about in connection to the church in Romans.

Who is Ruth a type of? Remember, she is a type of the church.  Who was the church in covenant with prior to the New Covenant? Uh oh? This is an even deeper controversy that cannot be fully covered today. However, please remember that Ruth’s dead husband was named Mahlon, meaning “sick”. This appears to be an interesting clue. But for now we will go through some other interesting facts to know and learn about.

God never designed for a mortal human man capable of death to enter an eternal covenant to save or redeem anyone. No, God designed His plan of salvation and human redemption strategy to purposefully experience death for every human to make the full payment of the first Adam’s sin, including every other human that was “in him” and came from his “body”. Remember Eve was the physical body of the first Adam, as we can read in Genesis 2:23.

In Genesis 2:23 Adam says, “this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”, meaning this woman is my wife and she is my body. Then Adam says “She shall be called woman because she was TAKEN out of man. Have you ever wondered why in most marriage ceremonies, the minister asks, “Do you TAKE this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”. Uh oh, how many take this vow of commitment seriously? Notice what God says that He did to the natural people that came out of Abraham’s body and were being held as slaves in Egypt:

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:

First, remember Abram was commanded by God to leave his father and mother behind and to leave all his people, gods, and idols to go to a land that God would show him in Genesis 12:1. Here we see the parallel reality of Ruth leaving her land and family. It was from the natural man Abram after being renamed Abraham that bring forth the people that would produce the Messiah that would redeem all of mankind. Therefore, we are still deep into our study subject of a “Kinsman Redeemer”.  But let us get back to Jeremiah 31:32.

In Jeremiah 31:32 we can again see the term how God “took” the hand of the people held in bondage to the nation of Israel and God reveals in this verse that He became a husband to this nation. Uh oh, here is something many Christians do not understand. In the Bible a covenant is a marriage, and a marriage is a covenant. What we are learning is how marriage covenants relate to redemptive works of God. But here is an amazing fact of truth that must not be ignored. God the Father was in covenant to a natural nation of people that He was married to as their husband. This is the same God the Father that was the procreator of Jesus calling Him the Son of God. Wow, this is getting very, very deep now. Do you see any parallels that have just happened in the book of Ruth?

Remember in Ruth there are three Jewish men that died leaving three widows. There was first the man Elimelech the father that died. The name “Elimelech” means “My God is King”. Wow is that a major clue or what? Wow, we are getting into some more infinitely deep waters. Could the name of Elimelech be a clue to point us to the first Adam in typology? When Adam was created was God the Creator, his original King? That does appear to be logical. However, we find out that after Adam rebelled against His Creator’s commandment and died, Satan became the god of this world system under death (2 Cor 4:4). So we have a new pattern developing that has significant built in controversy.

Remember the first Adam was created alive to God and fellowshipped with Him in the Garden. But after first Adam sinned, there appears to be a major transition taking place for Adam involving God kicking him out of the Garden and there being no more fellowship with God that was recorded. Uh oh. Now take this description to Jesus the Last Adam (1 Cor 15:45). Jesus was in complete fellowship with God His Father until the cross. It was Jesus hanging on the cross that cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34). What happened on the cross? Most scholars believe Jesus was made to be our sin on the cross and this taking of our sin caused God to turn away from Jesus. This was a picture within typology of Moses making a serpent hanging it on a wooden staff to cause the death of the people in natural Israel to stop. Jesus claimed in John 3, that just as Moses lifted up the serpent, He too must be lifted up. Wow, this was an amazing claim in the light of who the serpent represented in Biblical symbolism (Rev 12:9).

We have just gone down a side trip of information that needs to be understood, but that is not entirely on our subject of Boaz today, so let us begin on the path to get us back on track. Notice how God further describes the work of taking the natural nation of Israel out of their bondage in the land Egypt:

Exo 6:6  Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:

Do you see the connections being made in this verse? The natural people of Israel that were slaves of Egypt were literally owned as property by the ruling nation. Therefore, this property must be redeemed to be set free from captivity. This is exactly what God describes in Exodus 6:6. God says very clearly that “I will bring you out of the burdens” again a synonymous term from taking you by the hand to lead you out from the debts that you are under and cannot pay of yourself and your own works of the flesh.

Wow, this is a major typology that we are observing with parallel truths woven in the book of Ruth. It prophetically proclaims very clearly, what Jesus will do for all of humanity in the world on a cross. We all should be able to see that the Pharaoh ruler of Egypt, is a type of Satan. The nation of Egypt is a type of the world system of bondage to sin, and the blood of the lambs were the type of the redemption price that Jesus would pay with His blood to buy each human under the bondage of the kingdom of darkness ruled by Satan.

All the slain lambs we can read about in Exodus 12:7, were to be used by God for their blood to be sprinkled on the doorposts of each natural Israel’s family’s houses. This blood saved and protected each of the people in the house from their own deaths, while simultaneously paying the legal price of redemption out of the hand of their Egyptian owners. Wow, please reread Exodus 6:6 and notice the end of the verse.

At the end of Exodus 6:6 we are revealed the working outstretched arm of God representing His power and strength was required to redeem them. Do you recall what happened to Jesus hanging on a cross? Wasn’t His arms outstretched for the nation of Israel, as well as the rest of the world? Isn’t this a demonstration of the works of God and His infinite love for us all?

Finally, notice that there were legal judgments made that caused the heavenly redemption of God to take place for the natural nation of Israel’s redemption from Egypt. We again see that this is exactly what we can find in the book of Ruth in chapter 4, when Boaz came to the gate of the city to meet with the unnamed brother before 10 witnesses.  Then notice how many plagues were placed upon Egypt to redeem them? Were there not 10 plagues? Were these 10 plagues, God witnesses for His plan of natural redemption of His people Israel from Egypt?

None of this can be accidental or chance or random events that just happen to sound alike. All of this describes to us in detail exactly what Jesus would do for us all on a cross as our “Near Kinsman Redeemer”. Let us further verify this again with our study subject of Ruth:

Rth 4:13  So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bare a son.

It is the Hebrew word translated as “TOOK” in this verse that is the same Hebrew word used by God in Genesis 2:23, where Adam said she (Eve) was “TAKEN” out of man. Therefore, this word connection helps us to see how a “kinsman redeemer” named Boaz was also confirming that he was “taking” a gentile woman to be his covenant wife and he is accomplishing this by paying for her debts that she could also not pay for by her own natural human works. All of this is still pointing us prophetically to Jesus Christ.

But please pay very close attention to the fact that Boaz had to be a blood relative of the dead man to legally qualify to be Ruth’s “redeemer”. Does this mean Jesus must be in the same type of relationship within God’s creation works to all of us humans as was described to us in the Ruth relationship to Boaz? It should be becoming obvious that it is a requirement for the law of redemption to work as designed by God. The evidence for this will become more overwhelming after we find the other references to this subject in the Bible. However, believing in this truth can still be very challenging for religiously minded people.

Some Bible teachers have tried to ignore the controversial detailed subjects found in the story of Ruth. But this is very selective interpretation and denies God’s choices of which words, which names, their roles, and what were their characteristics that were written about by God’s choices. Please let us not ignore anything even if we will not cover them all today. Let us go back to verse 10 of chapter 4:

Rth 4:10  Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day.

This is another verse directly related to the role of God’s future prophetic “Kinsman Redeemer”, named Jesus.  We are told that Boaz has agreed to “purchase”, which is another synonymous term for someone that is to “Redeem”. Then as a part of this redemption, the woman “Ruth” who was the widow of the apparent first-born son “Mahlon” must also be taken into covenant marriage. And Boaz as we can see has paid this price to both redeem the land and to make Ruth the Gentile woman, his wife.

We can easily confirm that this pattern of recorded information does fit the church today very specifically. For example, we can read in 2 Corinthians 11:2 where Paul is presenting the church to Christ as His covenant bride as a pictured type of Ruth that was the purchased wife of Boaz. However, this marriage of Ruth was not a slave auction of the highest bidder. Ruth desired the marriage as much or more than Boaz did. They were both desiring this union as well as we in the church should be to our covenant with the LORD, Jesus Christ.

Also, we can read where Christ paid the redemption price of the church through a purchase payment of His own blood in Revelation 5:9 and Acts 20:28. Right now we are only focused upon the purchase of the wife Ruth as being the church, but what about the land that was owned by the dead, what does that represent in New Covenant terms?

This will be another potentially controversial subject. What does a land purchase have to do with us today in the redeemed church? We can find this answer in another very interesting New Covenant fact about how we in the church are still awaiting the “redemption” of our physical bodies in Romans 8:23. Remember our key subjects are that of “Redemption” and a “Redeemer”. Wow this is another significant amount of new controversy that can take a lot to explain, but please begin to solve this mystery by understanding where our physical bodies came from.

Didn’t God create the body of Adam from the dust of the ground in Genesis 2? This means the human body of every man, woman and child came from Adam’s dirt body. Even the body of Eve came from Adam’s body. There is no denying we are clay vessels as is stated in Isaiah 64:8. Scientific evidence proves we all came from a single woman named Eve. Therefore, our bodies are all made from this same God created dirt we find in Genesis 2.

But what happened when Adam rebelled and committed sin? Didn’t Adam’s sin sell us (Isa 52:3), and allow Satan the lordship and ownership of mankind (Rom 6:16) causing a debt that we were unable to repay without a Redeemer (Mat 6:12)? Didn’t death also enter the world through the sin of the first Adam (Rom 5:12)? Who had this power of death until Jesus came and died? The power of death was in the hands of Satan according to Hebrews 2:14. Didn’t Satan obtain his title as the “god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4) when Adam sinned? Doesn’t Jesus call Satan the “prince of this world” in John 16:11?

Doesn’t Satan claim to have ownership of all the physical kingdoms of this world in the temptation of Jesus found in Luke 4? Could this legal technicality be the reason why God is waiting to redeem our physical and natural human bodies?  It appears to be this way. We can further learn this detail by the parable of the leased vineyard where Jesus describes a Garden that is let out to farm workers in Mark 12:1.

In this parable there are very specific details given to us about things that can only describe our planet as being God’s Garden put into the hands of the first Adam. Please go and read this to see that the far away landowner is representative of God the Creator. The land workers represent the first Adam and all his children throughout time.

But we all know this Garden was handed over to Satan’s authority (2 Cor 4:4). Now we also know by reading scriptures that Satan used human people to beat and kill God’s servants and prophets that were sent to obtain God’s fruitful offerings (Mat 23:31). The payment offerings sought by God represent people’s sacrificial praises to God for His goodness and His mercy (Heb 13:15), but instead people did only evil in the eyes of God (Rom 3:23). Then the distant land-owning man in the parable representing God says, “I will send my Son”. “They will respect my Son”.

We know the Son is Jesus the Christ/Messiah and He was sent to the earth and obtained zero respect from the people of the world (Isa 53:3). In this parable those that were in control of the Garden are representative of Satan and they said to themselves, “this is the Heir, let us kill him so that the inheritance will be ours” (Mat 21:38, Mar 12:7).

There is no way that this parable should be ignored because it demonstrates God’s commitment to be a fair and just Judge and God and for Him not to overthrow Satan without sound legal grounds. It also demonstrates that God was infinitely wiser than his enemy Satan. We know from reading Revelation 13:8 that God planned the death of Jesus even before He created our world. Therefore, for the Son of God to die was God’s plan and Satan fell for it and regrets it every day now (1 Corinthians 2:8).

Therefore, how long was this described earth lease given to the 1st Adam that was subsequently then handed over into the hands of the devil? We know from reading in Revelation 12:12 that there is a soon coming time when Satan realizes that his time on earth is growing very short. This end of his timed lease on the surface of the planet will cause his rule over humanity to cease and when this happens it causes him to be in a rage against the people left upon the earth during these last 7 years. But how long is the total time of the earth lease?

We can learn from reading in Isaiah 46:10 that God has declared the end of human time from the beginning of human time on the earth. Therefore, we can discover the layout of all human history encoded within the first chapter of Genesis 1, hidden within the description of God’s 6 days of creation. By placing the definition of a day of creation with God’s prophetic timeline we can conclude that human history lasts for 6000 years which is equivalent to 6 days (2 Peter 3:8). Guess how long it has been since Adam was created? We are nearing the completion of the 6th day defined as 6000 years to God.

Therefore, at the end of the 6000 years of human history, there is another court case that begins to take place after Revelation chapter 4 with the rapture of the church in verse 1, and this is immediately followed in chapter 5 when God begins to open legal seals upon a document that looks like the title deed of this planet to take back full and complete ownership. That is enough of these subjects to give you some more vital new spiritual things to think about but let us move back to the book of Ruth.

But the reason given in the book of Ruth for Boaz’s redemption is so that he could raise up the name of the dead relative from among his brothers. Remember Ruth is a gentile and not a woman born from within the tribes of Israel like her dead husband “Mahlon”. But as we have been learning before, the child produced by Ruth and Boaz will still carry forth the name of the family line of Elimelech and Mahlon. Wow, that is all very important typological information to apply to our Redeemer Jesus, but probably not today.

But consider another amazing fact. The heir being produced by Boaz is in the family line of Judah. This tribe Judah will produce God’s chosen King named David. It is David that is promised a future seed that will sit upon his throne in his stead forever. Now pay attention to the fact that David will replace the natural nation’s chosen king named Saul who was from the tribe of Benjamin (1 Sam 9:21). Then do not forget that Judah was the 4th son of Jacob born of Leah, the wife he was tricked into marrying after working to obtain Rachel for 7 years.

Jacob worked another 7 years to obtain the wife that he truly loved named Rachel, but she was barren unable to have children for a long time. Rachel became very jealous of her older sister that is having many children for Jacob. However, eventually God has pity upon Rachel, and she conceives and has two children, Joseph who is also a type of Jesus, and Benjamin. What we will see by studying this topic in the Bible is that there are many types of sibling rivalries that take place between two or three or more brothers. Many times, one brother will kill or betray another brother, steal from his brother, even sell his brother into slavery after desiring to kill him. We can see this pattern repeated in the stories of Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his 11 brothers, David, and his brothers. We need to begin to accept and to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal how all these types and example patterns can and do fit into the life of our redeeming brother Jesus. But that is too much to get into fully today.

However, remember that the name Benjamin (H1144) means “Son of my Right Hand”. Also remember that Benjamin was Jacob’s last (12th) and youngest son, and he was born to his favored wife Rachel. All this information applies to help us identify, define, and understand who our near kinsman Redeemer is, and what is His relationship within the rest of God’s creation. Never forget it is God that became an intimate part of His own creation to legally redeem His bride, the Church. Then recall who is sitting at the right-hand of the Majesty in heaven today? According to Hebrews 8:1 it is Jesus who is presently seated in this position of highest authority.

But were there any others that ever held this position? Wow that is a loaded question full of more controversy. To give you some more home self-study work, please notice that Satan is mentioned in Zechariah 3:1 to be standing at the throne’s right hand to defy and resist Joshua the High Priest. Uh oh! This is another court challenge of the highest order being described that is happening in heaven. But this case is between Jesus our High Priest that we just read about in Hebrews 8:1 and Satan is directly challenging Jesus’ right to redeem us. This sounds very similar to our Ruth 4 study of two men standing at the gate of Bethlehem in court to figure out who will redeem one woman and own all her land.

We will not be going into any more of these details today, but you are welcome to do your own study, research and come to your own conclusions using the aid of the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth (Jn 16:13). Then if you would like to post your conclusions to share with others, please be brave to do so. Let us return to the book of Ruth and continue.

Clearly the only Redeemer that can make all this happen in this level of great design and detail, is God Himself, manifesting in the form of a man named Jesus Christ.  Now notice who the raised from the dead Jesus is named to be? Look at this verse:

Rom 8:17  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

We can learn so much from parallels and typologies hidden in the Old Covenant. Romans 8:17 makes the claim that Jesus the Christ is called the “firstborn from the dead” in Colossians 1:18, and here in this verse of Romans He has just been named “joint heirs” with the church (His body, and His bride). Wow, we have just found another amazing set of parallels to the recorded story of Ruth and Boaz about events in the natural realm. But these natural realities are leading us to understand that there are far greater realities of application about Jesus and His bride in the New Covenant. Who died for Jesus to become an heir? How did the church also become a joint heir with Him? Again, this is too deep to be fully explained in this lesson and it might take a book of lessons by itself to better understand.

This type of knowledge can cause more controversy and debate for some that choose to close their minds to be set in their beliefs. While being set in our beliefs is a great quality to not be deceived, it is also a tool of Satan to keep some deceived and not see the entire truth. Only you can choose to make that choice.

Finally, in this verse we again see the confirmation that there were 10 men that we are given that met with Boaz and the nearer unnamed kinsman to be witnesses to the legal procedures that were taking place. This court natural system is a pattern for the superior High Court system of heaven where God makes all final transactions binding in the spiritual realm. We just saw one of these cases taking place in Zechariah 3. Remember what God writes about Jesus in 1 Peter 2:23:

1Pe 2:23  Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

We can learn from this verse that when Jesus was being tried, He kept silent to allow the judicial system to bring about the plan of His Father. This verse in 1 Peter 2:23 can certainly apply to both the earthly and the heavenly realms. We notice that Jesus set an example for us to also trust in our heavenly Father the supreme Judge of heaven and earth to allow Him to rule righteously. Jesus did this for us to be condemned to die so that He could then trust His Father to raise Him from the dead. This simply meant that Jesus knew that He came to die for our sins, and He would choose to make Himself a willing participant to be crucified as God’s Lamb, to shed His blood to take the penalty of all human sin upon the earth for our redemption payment. It was this death of God in the flesh on a cross that paid the required price of God’s blood to cause our “Redemption” to be possible. This is exactly why we see Joshua (Jesus) our High Priest before the throne clothed in a filthy (sinful) garment. He has just paid for the sins of humanity and Satan appears to be doing everything that he can to stop it from coming to pass.

But is everyone “Redeemed” and going to be saved?  That would be nice but that is a false doctrine called “Universal Salvation” where God’s works, and His will, can override all other’s freewill choices, and their personal participation to receive salvation by faith. With the removal of human freewill that just violates scriptures to teach what the Bible does not reveal. Remember Ruth made the personal choice to return to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law. She also made the personal choice to work in Boaz’s field for her harvest. Finally, she could have refused the kindness of Boaz and never married him. All of this teaches us that humans have a right to choose and the choices that we make will either join us in covenant with God or against God by default.

CONCLUSION

We have only touched on a tiny bit on this story of Ruth and the revealing typologies within the approximate 2,039 words, 85 verses, and 4 chapters.  It is amazing how much information God can place in only one small book that some claim is not a major part of the Bible or a significant reference to Jesus. These types of people see the book as just historical and not prophetic.

But let me reemphasize that this story is included in the Bible both as the historical account of How God brought His Son, Jesus into the world, and as a type or pattern of what Jesus will or now has done for all of humanity. Remember the capital “T” is a modern picture of the ancient Hebrew letter “Tav”, representing a cross.  So had this “T” to the front of the name “Ruth” and we get the word “Truth”. Wow, that was an amazing bit of God’s intelligence being displayed. God is simply confirming “Truth” is found in this book connected to the Cross work of Redemption for humanity.

We have discovered from reading the book of Ruth is that there are definite parallels between Boaz and Ruth and Jesus and the church. Just as Boaz was a near brother of Elimelech to allow his work of natural redemption, so also must Jesus be a near brother to all of humanity to qualify Him spiritually to redeem us as His blood covenant wife. This is where many religious minded people begin to choke and scream “heresy” and “heretic”. But these are not the teachings or words of a human. All these concepts that we are learning are found plainly in the Word of God.  The Word of God and what He said about His redemptive works for us, and how it was legally accomplished were all His ideas, not ours. Let us look at, at a few scriptures that confirm what God has done through Jesus:

Heb 2:16  For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.

Heb 2:17  Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

Hebrews is a book of the Bible that contains amazing spiritual truths. Notice in verse 16 God describes Jesus as not taking hold of an appearance likened to angels. Therefore, Jesus was never an angel like some cults try to teach. But rather Jesus literally became the promised “Seed” of Abraham (Gal 3:16).  This is a clear reference to Jesus being from the flesh of natural Abraham. Then we begin to get into how God accomplished this in verse 17.

In verse 17, God says Jesus was “made like His brothers”. Uh oh! What did God just say? The Greek word G3666 that was translated as “to be made like” is referring to a new creative work of God. This Greek word G3666 is very interesting especially because Strong gave it the number G3666. As we should all know 666 is a number for man and more specifically it is used for the man that will appear as antichrist in Revelation 13. But 3 is the number for God as a triune one divine being represented by Father, Son (Word), and Holy Spirit.  What we are seeing is an amazing prophetic picture of God becoming a human man (6). That must be just a coincidence, but it is one that is amazing.

Nevertheless, the Greek word G3666 means to “assimilate”. Wow, who knows what this means?  Does anyone remember the Star Trek series? In this series there were these aliens called the “Borg” and they would assimilate into the species of beings that they encountered. Borg did this to take over the species and control them. This does literally describe the Satanic anti-Christ agenda that is being attempted to take place today. This goal of Satan is to also be a copycat of God to pervert and discredit what God has already done in the past. This causes people today to more easily reject the real works of God as false teachings also.

In a natural God created parallel, it was the digestion concept of how food is consumed into the human body and is broken down into particles to be assimilated into feeding the body. In other words, the food consumed by the human mouth, literally becomes their body, and this is the concept of assimilation used by Star Trek probably by Satan’s influence of design who stole from what God created and did their own version to discount and discredit what God did in Jesus to become a human.

When God appeared to Mary through an angel, he told her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her to cause her to conceive a child. This is an amazing supernatural occurrence. The Spirit of God through spoken words would do this work to cause the spoken Word of God to assimilate and become a flesh male sperm cell to be joined into the egg cell of Mary and these two would be joined together to become one complete human and God combined male child. Doesn’t this sound a lot like what Star Trek wrote about and put into entertainment shows? These shows must have been supernaturally inspired.

All of this is an amazing description of assimilation that we just read about in Hebrews 2. Remember that John 1:14 says “The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us”.  We know the Word is defined to be God in John 1:1. Wow, that was a lot of new controversial Bible information that may have turned off a lot of readers. But please just look up the definitions of words and figure out what they really mean. What we are confirming is that God became a human for the purpose of redemption, and He accomplished this by His designed and created work of “assimilation”.

However, let us move back to Hebrew 2:17 to not ignore the Greek word G80 that was translated as “brethren”. This key Greek word G80 literally means a “brother”, and it is applicable to a man being another’s “near kinsman”. What we are seeing is that God became a human male to become “our God in human form Near Kinsman Redeemer”. What we are observing in this reference is a fact of truth within the natural realm of creation. God literally chooses to participate within His own creation, by becoming a man and this is why Jesus was called “Emmanuel” meaning “God with us”.  Let us quickly examine more verses that claim the naturally born Son of God had human brothers:

Mat 12:46  While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.

When Jesus was speaking to a group of people, His physical mother Mary with her other born male children come with her to speak with Jesus.  In this verse of Matthew, it again uses the Greek word G80 defined as “brothers”.  These brothers had the same natural mother, but a very different father. In the natural realm Joseph was the other brother’s father, but as we should know, Jesus had the Father God as His Abba. Yet they are all still ½ brothers by the flesh and DNA of Mary. This is very much like the pattern of Jacob having twelve sons from 4 different wives. They are all still called brothers and are the completed 12 tribes of natural Israel.

If we read in Mark 6:3 we will find that the people of Nazareth believed Jesus to be the son of Joseph, and in this context, they named that He had 4 physical brothers and while also claiming that He had at least two unnamed sisters. Therefore, there are these verses and many others that confirm Jesus had natural family members upon the natural earth. In other words, Jesus was a human male within God’s Old Covenant nation of natural Israel and He was a brother to several of these natural humans by the common mother Mary.

Remember that there must also be a spiritual dimension that God reveals in His Word about how Jesus was formed in the womb of Mary. How God chose to manifest upon the earth in a human physical form does greatly matter and He reveals how it was accomplished using hidden descriptions that we are learning about today.

God’s spiritual dimension contribution to the birth of Jesus is revealed to us in the description of God’s Spirit Words (Words=Seeds, Mark 4:14), that were sent to Mary through an angelic heavenly messenger (Lk 1:26-38). It was the Words of God given to Mary and accepted by her faith in her spirit, that made her a willing participant to be joined into the making of Jesus as a human male child in her womb.

Because Mary believed the Words of God sent to her, she conceived the child Jesus in her spirit first and then the Holy Spirit came upon her, and the child Jesus was conceived physically within the natural realm with God’s Word becoming the flesh male sperm contribution. This formed the natural body of Jesus, after this conception God immediately places His Holy Spirit inside of the new forming and growing cells of the conceived fetus. Do you see how this description matches the word definition of the making of Jesus in Hebrews 2:16-17?

Remember verse 16 said God took on the form of the “seed of Abraham”. Mary was the legal human seed contributor descended from the physical man Abraham.  Then in verse 17 we found the Greek word G3666 translated as “him to be made as us” and we learned this word meant to “assimilate” as in something or someone that becomes a part of something, that they were not originally an intimate part of. We learned this was like a man, that is eating a piece of bread and the bread is digested and it becomes a part of that man adding energy and strength to him, vitamins to him, minerals to him, etc. That is the concept of assimilation literally created by God’s design.

What we are learning is that the natural woman Mary was the human contribution to manifest Jesus, and the Spirit of God was the spiritual contributor to causing Jesus to manifest. Without both of these two contributors joining to become one male child, Jesus could have never legally been called the “Son of Man”, simultaneously with being called the “Son of God”.

There have been people that have believed that God’s Holy Spirit was the only contributor to the making of Jesus’ spirit, soul, and body. They believe God became the complete flesh as an already combined single cell embryo called a zygote. The zygote then divides to create a ball of cells called the blastocyst. That is enough technical details. But please realize that if this was true, this would be a completed invasion of God’s Spirit within His chosen female named Mary. This would mean that Mary contributed nothing but volunteering to be the carrier and delivery service of God into the world. This would make Mary out to only be the Fedex or UPS service that delivered God’s package and there would be no humanity to Jesus at all, other than God being in the form like us and not actually be one of us. Believing this causes vast amounts of scriptural conflicts.

For example, remember that Jesus was born from the natural woman Mary who is confirmed by the Luke 3 genealogy to be a daughter of Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David. These are all people that are majorly involved contributors to the manifestation of Jesus. Do not forget that Jesus is called the “Son” of David and Abraham in Matthew 1:1. We already found Him called the “Seed” of Abraham in Hebrews 2.  Jesus is also literally called the “Lion from the tribe of Judah” in Revelation 5:5. Therefore, if Mary never contributed a “seed” to the manifestation of Jesus, God lied repeatedly in His Word to claim otherwise. Finally, recall that G3666 meant to be assimilated as in God who is a Spirit (Jn 4:24) must have assimilated His Holy Spirit into His own physical creation to make the body of Jesus, and this would require Mary’s “egg” contribution.

We can see that for the rest of the description of Jesus to be true, God had to have been spiritually joined with the natural human female egg in the womb by His spoken word seed to become a joined God/human being representing a man that was 100% man and 100% God. Only this interpretation aligns with the fact that Jesus called Himself the “Son of Man” more times than He called Himself the Son of God. He did this on purpose to firmly establish the truth that He was fully human. In the Gospels Jesus is referred to as the Son of Man approximately 88 times.

Then pay attention that this Greek word G444 that was translated as “Man” in the term “Son of Man” is the Hebrew word H120/H121 that God gives as the name of Adam many times in the Old Testament.  We can confirm this truth by observing Jesus’ words in Matthew 4:4 when He is quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 that says “Man (G444) shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God”.  Going to Deuteronomy 8:3 we can easily find that the word “man” is the Hebrew word H120, and we now have established a God designed confirmation of the exact word equivalency between the two dominant written Bible languages, of Hebrew and Greek.

Why did we need to do all of this? We are confirming the revealed humanity of the God/Man named Jesus. This information will confirm that Jesus was then when He was born on the earth, and still is now seated in heaven, the 100% Spirit of God that was assimilated into a human egg that was produced and carried by Mary. This union proves God as 100% God who became a 100% legal human male.

But what else does this information establish? This information establishes the human relationships that Jesus was manifested to be and because He possessed these relationship qualities, He was qualified to be a legal God/Man Kinsman Redeemer for the first Adam who sold us into bondage under the kingdom of darkness ruled by Satan.

Let us stop here now, because that was a lot of new controversial information that many will need time to go and study to see if they are what the Bible says happened. Please be a faithful Bible student disciple of God’s Word and verify everything that is taught here. Don’t reject it automatically just because you never heard of it before. And do not accept it just because you read it here, and it seemed good logical human reasoning. Please do your own homework and dig deeper to confirm it or prove it wrong with at least as many scriptures as you were given to prove that it was true. Then pray about it and ask the Holy Spirit living inside of you to confirm it or prove it wrong using Bible verses that He knows.

God richly bless you and keep you in these last days before He returns to take us to be where He is to judge the world that remains. This is going to happen much sooner than you can imagine. Either become ready to go or prepare to suffer in a time that will never be like any other in human history.  Please make yourself ready. There is a link at the bottom of this study that will help you get started in your walk of salvation. Jesus said very plainly that “You must be born again, to see the Kingdom of God” (Jn 3:3).  Get born again as fast as you can to begin your walk into salvation.

Thank you and until the next time, remember that Jesus is LORD and He is coming very soon! But until He comes, let us make it our priority to occupy this world to spread the Gospel to the whole world. The Harvest is great, but the Laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the Harvest send forth more laborers. Amen.

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

Jesus Our Kinsman Redeemer Part 1 – Introduction

(Ver 1.0) This will be Part 1 in a series that answers a very challenging Bible question using actual Bible verses. The series title is about Jesus Our Kinsman Redeemer.  This will be the introductory lesson to help us establish what a “Kinsman Redeemer” is and why did God elect to fulfill this role to save us? There is a warning up front that this is again a deep spiritual topic that has the potential to offend people. Many people who call themselves Christians are not spiritually mature enough to handle strong chewy meat subjects like this one. Therefore, if you feel you are new to the faith in Jesus, it might be best for you to go and read some lighter soft milky subjects. Please judge yourself and make the personal determination to act mature no matter what you are feeling about the subject today. Thank you and God bless you.

INTRODUCTION

Most Christians have heard the terms “redeemer” and “redemption”, from Bible study and teachings. But we will start with this word to find out what this means in Biblical terms first.  To redeem someone is a term relating to the purchase or the buyback of someone that was previously sold for a price.  In modern times this is like a Pawn Shop where someone takes their expensive piece of Jewelry to sell permanently or temporarily, and they offer them money in exchange for the item. But the value of the item is always far greater than the sum of money that was given to acquire the item.  

This exchange of item for money is always in favor of the buyer of the item and not the seller. The seller must return with more money than was paid to them to regain possession of their sold property. If they never return to “redeem” the item, then the buyer can sell it to whomever they choose for more money.  This is the simplicity of “selling” and “redeeming” and it is clearly taught to us in the Bible.  Let us continue by looking at the Strong’s definition of the Hebrew word translated as “redeemed”.

The Hebrew word H1350 Gawal is translated as “redeem”, “redeemed”, “redeemer” and “kinsman” primarily.  Bible redemption relates to the subjects of a “family”, their heirs or lack thereof, and their possessions. This concept of redemption also directly relates specifically to family deaths and the remaining living family members.

This is a very interesting Bible concept. It takes place when a male family member dies leaving a widow without having an heir. The dead male kin’s property is made available to be bought or redeemed back into the original family ownership by a redeemer close relative. This relative would normally be a brother and he must also marry the widow of the dead brother to have a child heir for the dead. This concept is mentioned multiple times in the Bible, but we will leave that to future lessons in the series. For now, we will look next at a verse that relates to what we have just learned:

Isa 52:3  For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money. 

The Bible is not written in chronological order.  There are clues of truth spread out all over the Bible many times in random order.  This verse is one of these types of clues. God reveals through the prophet Isaiah that Adam sold humanity into bondage but obtained northing of value from the deal.  When Adam sinned, he gave every human over into the bondage of Satan. You see Adam was given complete dominion rulership over the entire planet (Gen 1:26). But he gave it over to the hands (authority) of the devil and we learn this in Matthew:

Mat 4:8  Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

Mat 4:9  And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Notice what Satan says when tempting Jesus to worship him. Satan tells Jesus very plainly that every kingdom (king’s domain) in the world was given to him. Then Satan says he will give this realm back to God (Jesus) when He worships him. Hopefully you understand what is happening here. God gave the earth to the first king of the earth named Adam. World ruler Adam sinned willfully and died, and the world’s kingdoms were transferred to Satan’s ownership. This is the financial transaction that was spoken of in Isaiah 52:3. The first Adam sold himself into captivity under the rulership of the darkness of this world and Satan. This made Satan the ruling god of this world (2 Cor 4:4).

This is very essential Bible knowledge to help you understand what God has done to get us back from the hand of God’s enemy Satan. It should be obvious that the first Adam and all his descendants were unable to buy themselves back from this eternal spiritual transaction because everyone sinned (Rom 3:23). This information teaches us why it was necessary for God to implement a different plan to accomplish this human redemption buy back.

But God had a provision of redemption thought out long before He created our world and man sinned (Rev 13:8). Praise the LORD!  We have only briefly touched upon this topic, but we can see it is humans that need redemption from the kingdom of darkness. Therefore, we know that it was by God’s design to redeem us to Himself, but who did it and how as it accomplished. Let us find out next.

Who is our Human Redeemer and What Price was Paid?

We first learned about our need for redemption. We have also seen that it was impossible for man to redeem himself because we were all spiritually dead due to Adam’s sin (1 Cor 15:22). However, this is where God comes to our rescue. Guess how He accomplishes this?  He becomes a new sinless man that contains the untainted pure blood of God and enters the world as God’s 2nd man (1 Cor 15:47) and the Last Adam (1 Cor 15:45). This will become amazingly important as we continue.  Let us go through some selected few verses to help confirm what is being said:

Luk 1:68  Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people,

This is a prophetical statement from the mouth of Zechariah in Luke 1 after the birth of John the Baptist. Notice Zechariah is claiming the LORD God of Israel is being brought forth into the world to visit His creation personally. Then it is clearly stated that the reason for this visit is to “redeem” His people.  This is the plan of God transpiring in the natural realm. But when was the plan made by God? Read this verse to find out:

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

This is a very strong verse of scripture revealing the plan of God was laid out before Adam ever was created. Our God by His omniscient knowledge outside of time already knew the first Adam would sin and we would need a redeemer. Therefore, God Himself, became a man to die and by being slain on a cross, He would shed His blood. Why was shed blood important? That is a great question and let us find the answer:

Rev 5:9  And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; 

As we can see clearly that God’s plan of redemption was for Him to shed His own blood to “redeem” (buy back) people out of every human family, every language, and a people from every nation of the present created world. This is a very strong statement.  This is God claiming not everyone will be saved. Please keep this in mind as you learn. We can find another confirmation for God’s blood sacrifice in the book of first Peter:

1Pe 1:18  Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

1Pe 1:19  But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

This is a verse that teaches us the fulfilment of the previous prophecy found in Isaiah 52:3 about Jesus. Do you remember what Isaiah wrote? This verse said humanity sold themselves (to Satan) for nothing, but they will be bought back without paying money. As we can see in Peter, the world’s money, like silver and gold, is called a corruptible substance. This Greek word translated as corruptible simply means a substance that is decaying away. In other words, naturally created things are not capable of buying back God’s given human spirits from their death resulting from their spiritual sins.  People are infinitely more valuable to God than anything that was created (Mat 10:31).

We can clearly learn from verse 19 that it was the “precious” blood of Jesus Christ that was used by God to “redeem” humanity. This is a very challenging statement for religious minded people that claim they are unworthy sinners. If this was true, God would not have needed to use His own life and blood to buy us back. Think about this for a while. Let us begin to see ourselves as God sees us, as being very valuable and precious.

We have established the fact of truth that it was Jesus who was God in the flesh (Mat 1:23) who paid for our redemption to take us out of our captivity and certain doomed eternal death in hell.  It was God’s own blood that He used to make this purchase. That teaches us God loved us so much that He personally died to save us.

Act 20:28  Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood

CONCLUSION

This was simply the introduction to the main subject of God’s word about Jesus Christ being our “Kinsman Redeemer”. In this part of the lesson, we were simply introduced to the basic concepts of “what is redemption”? What caused the need for redemption? Who was it that needed to be redeemed? Who fulfilled this role of the required Redeemer? What was the purchase price for the buy back out of the human condition that the first Adam sold us into?  If you can’t answer these questions, it is highly recommended that you go back and restudy this introduction and take better notes.

If you are struggling with understanding any of these answers, it is OK to ask questions. This subject is absolutely a necessity to understand what God has done to show His love through extending His great hands of power to be nailed to a cross (Act 5:30, Col 2:14), to die (Rom 5:10, 1 Pet 2:24), to go to hell for three days to take the punishment for all human sins (Mat 12:30, Eph 4:9), and then to be raised up from the dead to begin a new creation apart from evil (2 Cor 5:17, 2 Pet 3:13).

The Lord be willing in the next lesson in the series, we will focus upon the subject of a Redeemer also being a near relative “Kinsman”, because this was God’s plan and design of our redemption. God becomes a male human baby on the earth born into a manger of a virgin woman named Mary. This woman was a descendant seed of the first man Adam. Mary was also a seed of Abraham and a seed of David. This made Jesus the same as His natural mother. But this baby had a different Father called God. This made Him a new unique type of human that could be called 100% human and 100% divine simultaneously. We will get into this much deeper soon.

Thank you for taking the time to study God’s Holy Word with us.  There are not any other books of writings, that are as amazing as this one called the Holy Bible. The infinite intelligence of its design displays the handywork of God in every word choice. There is more information in this book than you will ever be able to fully grasp in many lifetimes.

If you have questions or comments, please feel free to leave them. As the LORD leads us, we will do our best to read them and possibly address them. Thank you again and God Bless you all, we love you and pray for you continually.

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

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