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Understanding the Collapsing Timeline of the End of the World!

Nov 17

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver. 1.2) This is Part 1 in a series of advanced Bible Lessons about the signs of the end times. Many people in our world do not understand that we are at the end of the end of our age. A time called the end of the “last days” on earth. The door to this Age of Man’s dominance upon the earth in conjunction with the works of Satan is closing rapidly. Most of the world proceeds in the darkness and grows more evil for they do not know the signs of the time. It is true what the prophet Hosea said “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. No doubt if people only had the right knowledge, they would also be able to see the times of God’s seasons are concluding quickly. However, I heard a TV preacher the other day make a statement that I agreed with 100%. This pastor of a church here in the U.S. prophesied a coming reveal of God’s Word; his statement said every mystery of God will be revealed in the next 2 years. While I do not know if 2 years is the time frame for Christ’s return or not, I believe that there are countless numbers of mysteries in the Bible to be discovered by God’s people and that God will reveal them by His Spirit to His people before Jesus returns. I mean think about it, why would God hide information in His book if it was not going to be revealed? What do we need with mysteries and hidden information from the Bible in heaven? I had a commenter say that it will sure be nice when we get to heaven and God can teach us all the things that we missed out on down here. Why can’t God teach His people the truth, here and now? Do you think that God is incapable of teaching His people what the truth is in the Bible? All it takes is for God to show us some little keys and suddenly the whole book could unfold right before us like a giant puzzle solved. You see when we get to heaven, there will be no enemies up there, no evil, no crime, and no deception and then what will we need with the truth? From my vantage point on the earth, the church needs to know the truth now so that we can become one body in harmony and accord with each other. That means we have a lot to learn in a very fast time frame. If you are interested in learning these secrets of God with me, then get involved with what God is doing in these last remaining days on the earth.

1Th 5:1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

Why did God not have to write about the times and the seasons to these His people? What the Bible does is reveal something that implies we will be able to see these times and seasons and understand that the coming of the Lord is at hand. You can certainly look at the world around us and see many of these things mentioned in the Bible about the end are happening all around us. There have been earthquakes, wars, rumors of wars and many going here and there saying peace, peace! The signs of the times surround us every day. Technology, computers and the internet have made it possible for the Anti-Christ to take control of the world’s finances like never before. The Arab nations are building nuclear weapons and the nation of Israel is in perilous times. There are terrorists and people killing people and people dying all around us. In our calendar year, the seasons are used to determine the times of planting and reaping. God has been planting seeds for the last 2000 years. The knowledge of God has exploded like never before, but there is also a coming time of harvest, where God says that’s it, it is finished! How do you tell people this and not sound crazy in our world today? You sound like a chicken little saying the sky is falling! You come across as a fool, but at least you can be a fool for Christ.

1Th 5:2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

So we have a verse that contradicts the previous verse. This verse says the coming of the Lord will be like a thief in the night. You just never know when a thief will show up. But, what we have here is the same event from two perspectives. Those who know Christ will be able to see the coming times and for those who do not know Christ it will happen suddenly without any warning.

1Th 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

We certainly see everyone today in the world calling for this illusive peace. What they do not understand is who is behind these wars, the spiritual forces that manipulate and control people in doing the evil that they do. This verse is again given in contrast to other verses in the Bible that reveal the church is not appointed to wrath. Sudden destruction is not coming to the church, if you think it is then you are very confused in who wins this spiritual war. Sudden destruction will come upon the evil people in the world who do not want to see the coming of Jesus. The church of Jesus will be taken up and out of this destruction before it happens.

1Th 5:4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

Here we have the previous verse to verse conflict resolution given to us very clearly. We the church, are not those who are in the darkness. The destruction is only for those in and of the darkness. Those who walk in the darkness are those who have been blinded not to see the truth of God. These are those who have been deceived into believing lies. These verses in 1 Thessalonians 5 are contrasting the end events from two perspectives, one is light and the other is darkness. Do you understand this?

1Th 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

We again see that the church of God is those who walk in the light of God. Anyone who has light can see what is happening in the world because of the light that God is shining upon us. This is in stark contrast to those in the darkness who cannot perceive the times or the seasons.

1Th 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

God says let us therefore be awake while we are in the light of day. This is a spiritual statement and not a physical statement. People still sleep at night and work during the day physically. But, these natural realities correspond to spiritual realities that we must understand clearly. To watch and to be sober is another contrasting statement to those who like to party during the night and get drunk. These concepts are not that difficult to grasp if you have eyes that see spiritual things.

1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

For God has not appointed us to wrath. I spoke of this verse earlier because I wanted to show you that God is not angry at the church. Wrath is a coming time of punishment for being evil and rejecting the truth. Wrath will never be given to anyone who has been delivered from it by the blood of Jesus. Jesus became sin that we might become the righteousness of God and this makes us saved from the impending doom of the world. The Bible says that we (the church) have been reconciled back to God. That means to be brought back into right relationship with Him. I do not understand how people ignore verses like these in order to teach a mid-tribulation or post-tribulation rapture of the church. The church will not be here during the time of wrath and that means we will be taken out of here very soon. Jesus almost 2000 years ago said this about the times that we are living in:

Rev 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

In being able to recognize the times and seasons, it requires that you understand the Bible and what it teaches on these subjects. If Jesus could make this statement of coming soon almost 2000 years ago, how close do you think that we are today to the return of Jesus? How could Jesus say this and it be a truthful statement? To human perspectives 2000 years is almost an eternity. But, we of course understand that God lives outside of the dimension of time in an eternal self-sustaining mode of existence. God is called the ancient of days in the Bible, so time to God must be completely different than time to us. To man 2000 years is a very long time since man only lives to be a 100 years old, but to God, it is just a yesterday. If I said to you today, “I’ll see you tomorrow”, is that a long time to you? To most people, tomorrow is not a long time. We are simply talking about at the most 48 hours. So when you see Jesus speaking of 2000 years as a short time you must find God’s definition of what time is in order for you to understand the real truth of the Bible. This is called letting the Bible interpret itself:

2Pe 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

So by God’s definition of time on the earth, one day can represent a time period of 1000 years to Him. What God is doing is changing our definition to His definition so that we can see things from His perspective. This is one of the most important concepts for correct Bible interpretation that you can find. This definition gives us a reference to time that was hidden in the Bible. When you start analyzing the Bible using this information you can begin to see why Jesus could say that He would see us at the end of the day tomorrow and it be nearly 2000 years on our timeline. Therefore 2000 years would not be a long time in God’s eyes. Seeing things the way God sees them is one of the most important keys to understanding the Bible. Let’s break down this information we just read for a future point of reference:

1000 / 24 = 41.6667 years = 1 God Hour. So One hour in God’s timeline would be just over 41 years of our calendar.

41.6667 / 60 = 0.6944 years = 1 God Minute. One minute to God would be approximately .7 of a calendar year to us.

0.6944 * 365 = 253.47 days = 1 God Minute. One God minute is just over 8 months of our calendar.

253.47 / 60 = 4.2245 days = 1 God Second. 101.388 hours = 1 God Second. 6083.25 seconds = 1 God Second.

While I have not found a reason why these numbers are significant, the concepts behind them are what I am trying to convey. To hear when God tells you to wait a minute, that it could mean wait up to 253 days for the answer. Even God’s Wait a Second, could be over 4 days long. It is a radical shift in our perspective of time concepts. It causes us to come up to a higher dimension of spiritual understanding. It forces us to renew our minds with some new spiritual facts and knowledge. What I am attempting to show you is that many times in the Bible God is defining words differently than we do. Do you understand that any verse in the Bible can change dramatically depending on the definitions of the words found in the verse? If we use man’s definition of the word found in the verse, there is a high probability that we just got it wrong.

By the law of first mention, we must go back to Genesis 1:5 to see the first time the word “Day” is used in the Bible. God goes through a series of 7 days of creation, doing something new every day that is unique to the world that we live in. This is a God week by definition and according to the definition of what a day is it means a period of 7000 years. However, we must also change our perspectives to see what else is hidden in this information. I do not believe that it took God 7000 years to create our world; I believe that God is trying to teach us something else about these days of creation. If you have read my other blogs, you already know that these 7 days of creations are prophetic statements of the history of man on the planet. Every day of the creation account has symbolic meaning of something that transpired in the earth during that millennium. The 7^th day is a representative pattern of the coming millennial reign of Christ. This is God’s day of rest upon the earth where we have no enemy to fight or defend against. The first 6 days of creation are days of work for man, where we definitely have a great challenge presented to us by God. Our enemy Satan has come with great fury knowing that his time is very short. So while we do not know the exact day or hour for Christ’s return we can clearly see that the harvest season is fast approaching. There is no way to know how long of time that we have exactly on the planet. Our year 2010 is a corresponding year of 5771 in the Jewish calendar. The Jewish people have supposedly calculated from the time of Adam’s creation to today and they think it has been just under 6000 years by a few hundred years. I think that they are close but that it is much closer to that magic number of 6000 years than we think. There is no way that God is going to wait over 200 years to come back to the earth, people would not survive that long. If I had to guess a number I would say that the Jewish year is closer to 5985 to 5991. But, that is just me pulling numbers out of the air that mean nothing. It is only logical to see that Biblical prophecy is falling into place very rapidly around us. I do not think that the coming of the Lord can wait more than a very few years. If God does wait, then we are in trouble. The world’s economies are declining and the wickedness in the world is increasing at rates that are off the charts. I’m not going to explain the 6 day time line of creation like I have tried in other blogs. So please if you do not understand these concepts go and search my website for additional information on this subject. Using this information let’s look at some Bible verses that certainly apply:

Mat 17:1 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,

When you realize that Jesus did nothing by chance or accident, you begin to see important prophetic verses in the Bible with hidden double meanings within them. In this verse it says Jesus went up to a mountain top and took with him Peter, James and John. The symbolic representations in this verse are very clear. If a day is as a thousand years then after 6000 years (6 God Days) of time on the earth Jesus will come to take His church up to be with Him. This is what I see that this verse implies, you of course can believe whatever you like. While on the mountain top Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah. These are also two symbolic representations of those who were dead (Moses) and those who were caught up alive (Elijah) to be with Christ. This whole story in this chapter of Matthew is giving us a prophetic confirmation of God’s timeline on the earth in hidden terminology. I hope and pray that you can see it and how it fits together with other Bible verses.

Mat 24:37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Here Jesus is telling us some more secrets about His impending return. It says that as it was in the days of Noah it will be again in the coming of the Lord. So how was it in the days of Noah? In Noah’s day, the people mocked Noah for building an ark. They laughed because they knew not the impending coming disaster nor could they discern the times or the seasons because they were in darkness. They lacked “knowledge” of the truth and perished because of this lack of knowledge. Jesus says in this chapter of Matthew that they ate and drank and had parties. They married, built houses and went about their ways ignoring the coming disaster. This is a very important lesson for the coming of the end of the age that we are living within. Noah was considered righteous and is a type of the church family of God. Noah knew exactly when the disaster would start and how it would end. Noah was prepared for the disaster, so Noah was saved from the disaster. Noah escaped the wrath of God, and so it will also be with the church. This is a clear pattern of the true church in the world today. These are those who can read the signs of the times and understand the seasons. The Lord’s coming will not come as a thief in the night just like the rain did not come as a thief in the night to Noah. If you are prepared for Christ’s return then you will know and see His return clearly. In the parable of the 10 virgins, there were 5 who were foolishly not prepared and went away for oil. These are types of the people in the world who do not know God. They will not perceive that the time is too short to try to get more oil. While you are away Jesus will come back and those who are ready will go up. This parable is an attempt by God to tell you to get ready now before you realize the time is too close at hand to get more oil. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, do you think that this could be a symbolic indication of the coming 6000 years of Christ’s return? I certainly do. Let’s look at one more verse about the end of time in relation to a historic type:

Luk 17:28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;

I take these verses very literally. When Jesus says the coming of the son of man will come like it happened in the days of Lot, what does that tells us? The righteous were taken out and the destruction began to rain down immediately upon those cities. This again gives us a picture of the pre-tribulation departure of the church. God does not appoint the righteous to His wrath. This verse says those in the earth will be eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building and their consumed focus on these activities will cause them to miss the coming of Jesus.

Joh 2:1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:

God gives us little clues in the Bible in vastly spread out verses. Here we have a reference to a real event that occurred during the days of Jesus on the earth, but God uses it to inform us of a spiritual event that is coming. These types of verses are allegorical and they are real events that happened on the earth, but they show us a spiritual reality. After two God days (2000 years) there is coming a wedding feast that will occur in heaven on the third day. While the earth is experiencing the vials of Revelation, the church will be in heaven getting ready for a wedding feast. Verses like these are very interesting and potentially controversial because it appears that I am pulling something out of context to teach a spiritual prophecy. However, God uses this technique throughout the Bible in symbols, types and shadows and allegories. I mean think about it, God could have used any number of days in this verse and it could have been accurate, but God chooses to use 2 days and then Jesus went to a weeding. Do you think this is an accident? I certainly do not!

Joh 4:43 Now after two days he departed thence, and went into Galilee.

Again we see that Jesus could have stayed however many days that he wanted, but it is recorded that Jesus stayed here 2 days and then the departure occurred. Is this another coincidence or is this a prophetic picture of the coming departure of the church? Only you can decide what you believe, it is. I will believe that it is a prophecy.

Joh 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Approximately four times in this chapter, Jesus uses the term the “Last Day” in conjunction with a time of resurrection and new life. What is the last day of the week? The “Last Day” of the week would be to the Jewish people the Sabbath, also called the day of rest. The God Sabbath is also called the Millennial Reign of Christ. We can very clearly see that Jesus is saying that there is coming a God Last Day where some things will change dramatically for us. There are a bunch of verses like this one in the Bible that make much more sense when viewed in the context of the prophetic creation week. When you apply God’s definition correctly you can understand how they are telling us our time on this earth is closing to an end, when we return to reign with Christ on the 7^th day.

Joh 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

Wow, there are so many verses that we could go into that give us this repetitive clue of the coming “Last Day” when the feast will come. This of course will be the covenant marriage feast of the Lamb of God to His bride, the church. You must search your Bibles for these little hidden clues and then you will begin to understand them. God uses some very tricky methods of hiding information in the Bible in plain sight.

Joh 12:1 Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.

Again we see an amazing coincidence of 6 days and then a feast. The Passover was a representative symbolic meal of covenant between God and Israel. This is a pattern of the coming Marriage Supper when the church eats and drinks with Christ. So God could have put any number of days here in this verse but, chooses 6 as being significantly important for us to see. This verse also speaks of being raised from the dead after these 6 days, so that is again too amazing to be an accident. These are just more prophetic pictures of the coming to the end of our current earth age.

So while the Bible does not give us exact dates and times, it gives us enough information to discern the times and seasons that we are living in. I hope that you are beginning to understand the concepts being taught and can see the references to the soon return of Christ. God Bless!

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

Posted in Advanced Topics, Bible Study, Understanding

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Salvation, Satan, Symbolism, Truth, understanding

People Generally Don’t Know That They Know Something Important!

Nov 15

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.1) I was watching the news on TV and there was a policeman speaking about a crime that had just occurred. He was on the news asking for people who were near the crime scene to come forward. He then made this statement, “People don’t know what they know”. In other words he was saying you might have been a witness to the crime and not realized that you were because you did not know it was a crime. Maybe you happened upon the crime right after it happened and saw the culprits walking or running away from it. Maybe you saw a car drive away from the scene and this is the key that will unlock the identities of the guilty parties. He was clearly saying that someone saw something and that if they would come forward with this information it might be very important to solving the case. When he said that statement, God spoke to me and said this is the way the Bible is. People will read something in the Bible and not realize how important it is because they do not understand what it says and how it relates to other subjects in the Bible. I wrote a very similar lesson a long time ago called “People Generally Don’t Know What They Don’t Know”. If you did not read that article you should go back and review the concepts given. They are very profound revelations. Today’s subject while being very similar to this concept is also diametrically opposed to it. In the first lesson you have the concept of not knowing the bridge is out and driving off of the missing expanse in the dark to your death. If you would have just known that the bridge was out, then you would have been spared the tragic outcome. This is a concept found in the prophet Hosea. In this verse God reveals some very significant Bible truths to us:

Hos 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

It would appear to me from this verse that “Knowledge” is the key to not being destroyed in this world. While this could apply to natural knowledge, this verse is speaking of spiritual things as being what is important to know. The Law of God at the time of this writing represented the Words of God. The Words of God are what is important for us to know. Knowledge of the Word of God is the opposite of Ignorance of the Word of God. A Lack of Knowledge is totally related to your current ignorance level. So in the one case God says people perish from this world because they do not esteem the Word of God and count it as valuable to know. They in effect kill themselves because they have rejected the truth. This in effect, is not knowing what you do not know. But, we also have the lesson today, which is very similar in nature. You might know a little bit, but not understand the importance or significance of that knowledge because you lack the knowledge of how important it is to know or to share with others. In the case of the policeman on the news someone held the missing link to identify the perpetrators but did not know that they had it.

Take for example, the virgin birth of Jesus. There have actually been churches who have taught that the virgin birth is not important to know to be saved. However, if Jesus was not born of a vrigin then He was just a man like me. If you have read my lessons on “Understanding the Virgin Birth” then you already know this is not true. To listen to an ignorant preacher who teaches something is not important in the Bible, is a very foolish thing to do. You should never let any preacher do your Bible study for you, and that includes me! If you hear me say something from the Bible then go and read your Bible and study it for yourself to see if it is true or not. It is only the Bible that you have seen for yourself that will do you any good in life. Your pastor’s Bible knowledge will not do you any good when Satan comes and attacks you. If you are a Christian then the Spirit of God is also inside of you and if I say something wrong the Spirit of God inside of you will bear witness that I am wrong. So you will have two witnesses that will always agree to show you the reality of every truth in the Bible. The Bible says the Word of God and the Spirit of God will always agree and bear witness to the truth (1 John 5:7).

So today’s Bible lesson is not a long or complex something to do or understand. It is actually a very simple concept of seeing what you have seen and then going back and figuring out if it was important. I do this all the time when I study the Bible. I constantly review my past Bible readings and notes for things that I may have learned but not fully understood. I then use these little facts to build a greater knowledge of the truth when reading today’s Bible studies. I think I have said this before, but it bears repeating for those to remember, that truth always builds upon truth. When building a house of truth if your house is built upon false teachings then these are weaknesses that will cause your house to topple like a house of cards. If you build your foundation on the rock of the Word of God, then your foundation is firm and unshakeable. God’s Word is Truth, Jesus is Truth, but yet the Bible is written in a complex spiritual way that forces us to divide the truth correctly. I wish I could say this was easy, but after over 20 years of studying the Bible, I am only a little bit closer to understanding everything that the Bible says. So learn the lessons given today about recognizing that what you don’t know is important. Then go and continue in your Bible studies to learn more.

Posted in Bible Interpretation, Rules

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Knowledge, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Truth, understanding

Understanding the Concepts of Deception in the Bible! Righteous vs. Evil Deception! Part 4

Nov 12

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.2) Today is Part 4 of a series of very advanced lessons on Understanding Deception in the Bible. We have covered a lot of important information about this subject, so please do not start reading here in the middle of the series, go back and start reading with “Part 1” so that you can better understand what has already been covered in more detail than what I can do today. The church world has widely been taught that Satan is the initiator, instigator, mastermind, leader or distributer of deception in our world and that this deception is always evil. I of course concur with these facts whole heartedly. However, in the last lesson in this series I introduced you to the concept of “Righteous Deception” and I will carry this lesson further today so that you can better understand these new concepts revealed to us in the Bible. What I have discovered by Studying the Bible is that there are several types of deception mentioned in the Bible and some are positive and some are negative. By the Bible definition we can understand that evil deception is when someone comes to you with hurtful or harmful intentions and lies to you to get you to do something that you should not have done. However, I also showed you in the last lesson that the Bible speaks of “Self-Deception” as being a condition where a man or woman has deceived themselves into doing something that they should not have done. You should have gone and looked up the verses that I gave you so that you can better understand this situation so that it does not happen to you. So I gave you several brand new concepts about deception that you should at least be a little bit familiar with by now. According to God’s definitions, a deception in order for it to be a sin must be directed at a person to cause hurt or harm or an expected evil outcome. We clearly saw in Genesis 38 that Tamar used deception for a positive outcome and for the good of God, Judah and the nation of Israel. Tamar was exalted by God for what she did so that she was included in the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1. Without Tamar’s intentional deception of Judah there would have been no King David, no Solomon and no Jesus. I know these statements rock your religious boats to no end. I totally warned you in these lessons that I was going to upset you evil deception apple cart so that you would have to see this subject in a new more complex and different way going forward and I hope that you are doing just that.

I’m going to start today’s lesson by giving you another natural example of the use of deception for a good or more positive outcome. Say you are working late at night at a restaurant and about to close up and go home. You hide the majority of your daily money and receipts in the hidden vault in your office and you put the rest of the money in your petty cash drawer. Say you have $5000 in the vault and $500 in the petty cash drawer. Then suddenly an armed robber comes into your business to steal from you. He demands your money or your life so you hand him your petty cash drawer and tell him to go. He asks for more money and you say I gave you money now go. You are clearly attempting to be deceptive while not telling a lie and you convince him to finally leave. You call the cops and they show up and so on. So was what this man did a sin of deception in the eyes of God and the Bible? You see I do not think so, because it matters who are trying to deceive and why. You are not trying to harm this thief you are just trying to keep him from taking everything that you have. This is the way Satan is in the world also. Satan is an evil thief that has come to “kill”, “steal” and “destroy” your life’s work (John 10:10). So how do you handle an evil spiritual thief like Satan if you are God? I believe that sometimes you have to deceive (trick) these evil people into doing the right things. I know there are religious people who are just having fits right now because I implied that God can legally use deception. To deceive someone without sinning requires great wisdom to do and God is the ultimate authority of all wisdom. Why am I giving you this example? I want to show you what the Bible says that God did and then you can better understand this concept of “Righteous Deception” a little better. Read this next Bible verse very, very carefully using your eyes and your brain:

1Co 2:8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

In this verse it declares a concept that right “knowledge” is the key to doing what is best for you. What we learn is that if we would have known that the highway was closed, we would not have gone that way, for example. The Bible says in Hosea 4:6 that my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. So again knowledge is the key to not being destroyed in the world. Here in this verse, we have an instance of implied active righteous deception being taught to us. The princes of this world are references to Satan and his demonic angels. They are the rulers of this world that God is speaking of. If you look up the Greek word translated as “Prince” it means “ruler”. This verse then tells you that if they had known what was going to happen to them by killing God on a cross, they would not have done it. Do you understand this very complex concept being given? Satan hung Jesus on the cross because he didn’t know what was going to happen and he thought if he killed Jesus this would just get Him off of his planet. It appears to be a clear case of the lack of information from God and wrong assumptions on the part of Satan. This sounds exactly like what Abraham did in Genesis 12, doesn’t it? Abraham withheld information and the king made wrong assumptions and thus the wrong choice. It is very clear that God withheld important information from Satan and as a result Satan did the right things that God needed done. This is really an amazing example of God’s ability to control information in order to get a powerful spiritual being like Satan to do the right thing for God but the wrong thing for himself. You see it was God’s death on the cross that ended His covenant relationship with Satan and the angels forever. Satan is now only in covenant with the humans on the earth, the sons and daughters of Adam. I cover this in other blogs so I cannot repeat everything here. So just understand that the death of God on the cross caused something to happen to Satan that he greatly regrets today. Do you understand how God used deception because He had an evil enemy and how God is justified in using this deception because he was deceiving a deceiver. You can clearly see that this type of deception is a potentially powerful tool when used properly and not for evil. What I am trying to do is to get you to think outside the box and to see that not every deception in the Bible is an evil or a sin. This of course represents a two-edged sword in what I am trying to teach, because there will obviously be some who try to use what I say to justify their evil intentions and only God knows your heart better than you, so you will never get away with using this wrongfully.

So let’s go back to Genesis and look at another example of “Righteous Deception” used for the good of God’s chosen people. In the story of Isaac in Genesis 25-27, Isaac and Rebekah have two twin sons. They however are not identical twins because they look and act completely different. Esau comes out first and becomes the first born in the family who is slated to inherit everything that his father Isaac owns. However, the implication from the birth is that Esau did something underhanded to come out first and Jacob stuck his hand out and caught his brother by the heel. These are clearly symbolic types being given to us of what was going to transpire in the future. So Jacob the “heel catcher” was born second and he is in the natural line to serve his older brother. I’m sure that you are familiar with this story because it is widely taught, but it has probably never been taught in the context of it being a “Righteous Act of Deception”. Jacob’s mother Rebekah comes to him with a plan and here are some of the concerns that Jacob brings up in this chapter of Genesis:

Gen 27:12 My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing.

The mother’s plan was for Jacob to get his father’s blessing by the use of deception. You can clearly see that Jacob is concerned with being labeled a deceiver by his father, so we are definitely talking about a clear case of the act of deception in this story of Genesis. In this story you see that Jacob’s mother comes up with this plan of deception for her husband and two sons. I don’t know why this is the second story concerning the righteous act of deception by a woman. Rebekah tells her son Jacob to go and kill some animals that she can fix his father favorite meal. Then she tells Jacob to go and get some skins to cover his arms, hands and neck with. Why did Rebekah instigate this deception and for what purpose was it done? You might have to go back to chapter 25 to see part of the answer to this question. When the children were still in the womb of Rebekah, she noticed that they were already fighting inside of her. She went to God to find out why and God spoke to her some inside information (literal pun) that was very relevant to this lesson of deception.

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.

God says these are two nations of people and only one will be called by my name. Not good news for one of them, is it? Here we have a story that is very difficult to grasp and accept. Esau is clearly a child of Isaac and the firstborn from him, the rightful heir of all of his father’s wealth. But, God said that the elder firstborn would serve the younger second born. You should understand the concept of “Analogies” from the Bible if you have read my other Bible lessons. This is a concept that a natural real story gives us spiritual information about two spiritual brothers that I just cannot get into today. Just understand that there is more information hidden in this story than is on the surface and then go and dig for it. I will help you and tell you that the younger son is a type of Jesus so now go and figure out who is Jesus’ older brother.

Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

So God knew the sons of Rebekah before they were born and God also knew what they would do in this world before they were born. So God let Rebekah in on a secret and this was why she could do what she did and be justified in the eyes of God. So why was Jacob justified in doing what he did in deceiving his father for the blessing?

Gen 25:31 And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

In Genesis 25 Esau comes home very hungry and not thinking and asks his brother for food. His brother says “sell me your birthright”. The birthright is the right of the firstborn to own everything of his father. So Esau reasons in his mind that unless he eats his birthright will not do him any good and says this:

Gen 25:32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?

So then Jacob tells his brother to swear that the birthright will be his.

Gen 25:33 And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.

So you can clearly see that Esau sold his birthright to his brother for a bowl of soup and some bread. Esau also gave his word to his brother and in the eyes of God your word is your legal commitment to do what you have said. If you did not mean it you should not have said it, the Bible says. It could be that Esau was playing Jacob for a fool because he clearly still expects to go and inherit the blessing from his father later in this book of Genesis.

Gen 25:34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.

You can see that God says the man Esau “despised” his own birthright. This Hebrew words means to NOT Esteem or to disdain, scorn. It is the act of a vile person the definition says. This is certainly not a positive confirmation for what Esau has done in the eyes of God. It also gives legal justification for what Rebekah and Jacob did to deceive Isaac for the blessing that now rightfully belonged to Jacob. There is a lot of things to learn from this story, and one thing is that even though Jacob was justified in what he did, the Bible says that God is not mocked whatsoever a man sows that will he also reap. So Jacob planted the seeds of deception and these came up when he was working for Laban for his wife Rachel. Laban deceived Jacob 10 times it says in the Bible changing the terms and conditions of his employment. Jacob thought he was working for 7 years for Rachel and ended up working 14 years for her. So while you can be justified in doing deception, it usually always comes back to bite you later in life. God however, did not abandon his man Jacob and continued to bless him even though Laban was attempting to steal from him and to use him.

So it is interesting to note that Esau was legally the heir of his father Isaac, but God caused this blessing to go to his younger brother Jacob who became the father of the nation of Israel. So we learn that not everyone that came from Abraham can be called Israel, only Jacob’s descendants. This is an example of righteous division or separation. The sons of Esau were not the chosen ones. What we have seen is a clear use of deception initiated by God. God told Rebekah about the sons in her womb before they were born. I do not know if you like everything that the Bible says or not. Many of these types of stories are very difficult for many to accept. I sure if you wanted to you could come up with alternative meanings and interpretations to everything that I just have taught on this subject of deception. But, I hope that you can see who God was dealing with and why deception was used to cause a positive designed result. I think that I will end this lesson here today. God Bless!

If you would like to continue reading in this series about deception, please go to “Part 5“.

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If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?

Posted in deception, Satan

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, deception, Genesis, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Satan, Symbolism, Truth, understanding

Understanding Spoken Words in the Bible! Elijah’s Words and Prayer for Rain! Part 11

Nov 6

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.3) Today is Part 11 of a series of very advanced lessons on Understanding Spoken Words in the Bible. You may have noticed if you read my Bible lessons that I teach a lot on this subject and one reason is that the Bible says a lot about this subject. I figured out that any subject that God emphasizes this much must be an important one for me to learn about and to know. Therefore, I spend a lot of time looking at these verses on this subject and they have shocked me into changing what I say dramatically. If you understand this subject just a little bit you will know this is true for you also. I will warn you that today’s lesson is potentially very advanced and only for mature spiritual Christians. This is because the topics and things said may be hard to swallow for younger immature Christians. So please judge yourself before you continue reading this Bible lesson. If you are not comfortable with controversial topics then please just go read someone else’s blog for today. If you have never studied this series of lessons on Spoken Words, I would strongly suggest that you go back to “Part 1” and start your reading there first.

When you study the Bible, you do not read but 1 chapter in Genesis and you can see that God speaks words in order to create our world that we live in. At least seven times in this chapter of Genesis it says “And God said” and God would say something and then shortly it would come to pass. It is interesting to note and to analyze what God said and then to see who He was speaking it to. Did you ever realize that in Genesis 1 you cannot find where it says that God was ever speaking to anyone in particular? In other words God was not speaking to someone specifically in a conversation like we have them between ourselves. God would speak words directed at no one but a problem that He perceived and then things would change based upon what He said. Therefore, no one had to hear God’s words spoken for them to be effective and to cause something to change. It’s kind of like the old saying if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? According to what the Bible says, the tree heard it even if no one else did. For example, God would look at the darkness that covered the earth and say “Light Be” and then light was. So obviously the darkness heard what God said even though we did not. So we learn from this that your words have the same potential and they do not have to be directed at or heard by anyone in order to effect changes in your personal world. God spoke the answer before the problem and then the answer was made manifest. Read Genesis 1 and see what God says “Let there be light”, “Let there be a firmament”, “Let the waters be divided”, “Let the earth bring forth grass” and on and on. Every one of these cases represents a problem followed by a spoken solution. This is a concept taught in the Bible where God describes as “calling those things that be not as though they were”. Do you understand this concept? If you do not understand this concept you should go and read Roman 4:17 and the surrounding verses to see what God says about this subject of speaking words before you see them happen. The concept of calling for what is not seen is exactly what God did in Genesis 1. God saw there was no light and said there was light and then the light came in. You can see this principle demonstrated in Genesis 1:3, 1:6, 1:9, 1:11, 1:14, 1:20 and 1:24. It is a very powerful lesson from God being given to us. God plainly sets us an example of what we should be following in the world today. Then in Genesis 1:26, God said “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness and let them have dominion…”. So if God said this, did this happen like the other 7 times God said? You can clearly see that everything God said in Genesis 1 came to pass exactly like he declared it, so these words spoken about man would be no different. If man was designed by God to be like God, then we would have to be open to operate like God does. We of course do not always have to believe this, but this is usually just because we have not been taught these concepts from the pulpit.

Today’s lesson is concerning prayer and spoken words; their relationship and their essential unified association to each other. It is usually self-evident to most people that prayer should involve speaking words to God. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray like John taught his disciples, Jesus gave them some example words to speak to God. Many times people take this example prayer that some call the “Lord’s Prayer” and just parrot the words back up to God like this is being effective. However, this was not what Jesus was teaching us to do. You can teach any parrot to say these words and that would not be praying at all. God is not stupid; He has heard these words before, so these words are not intended to replace your words that you normally speak. Also, Jesus taught more than one set of verses on the subject of prayer so we must try to put all of them together and then learn from them all. Here is something else that Jesus said about prayer:

Mat 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

As you can see Jesus says for us not to be vain in repeating the same words over and over to God thinking that we will be heard. This verse implies that it matters what we say in prayer. If you pray the Lord’s Prayer repeatedly in your prayer life, are you not being vainly repetitive? So that sounds like a problem to me. Do not use a model prayer as the only basis for what you pray. You may certainly at first use this prayer as a model construction for your prayer and then change it to your own words. The Lord’s Prayer starts with praise to God and the acknowledgment to who God is and then the prayer asks for God’s will to be done in the earth. Finally, the prayer gets to us asking for what we need in our lives and the forgiveness of our sins is one thing that we should ask for. But then you should also understand that this prayer was taught to the disciples before Jesus died on the cross. Therefore, this was a model of an Old Testament prayer to God and not necessarily a New Testament prayer to God. For example, Jesus said to pray that the Kingdom of God be established in the earth; and guess what the Kingdom of God is inside of me right here and right now, so this prayer has been answered, so why would I pray that again? I’m smart enough to know that the Kingdom of God has come inside of me already so I do not need to ask for this to happen again. If God has already fulfilled it, then you do not need to pray for what has already occurred. Do you understand this? You might can pray that the kingdom of God be expanded and grow, but technically speaking Jesus never taught us to pray that sinners would get saved. The only verse that I have found about praying for sinners in the Bible is when Jesus tells His disciples to “Pray the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest”. This is the salvation principle of God sending sowers, a preacher or worker to speak the truth in love to an unsaved person so that they can hear and believe in Jesus and then be saved. So prayer is an awesome subject to study in the Bible and we will get to more of this subject later. But, today I want to speak on specifically about spoken words in relation to prayer. You cannot technically pray without using words, but we also speak words all day long and how do these words affect what we pray?

I cannot find anywhere in the Bible where God honors silence or silent prayer. In fact when I was studying about angels it would appear that the scripture says if the man would have been silent, the angels would not have been sent. You can read this in Daniel very clearly. Daniel prayed to God and fasted for 21 days until the angel of God finally showed up with the answer to his prayer. So Daniel’s silence would have resulted in no angels being sent, the angel Gabriel told Daniel for your words I was sent (Dan 10:12). This is a problem in many religious circles where they hold a moment of silence for some individual that maybe has just died. This might be considered giving someone respect or honor but your silence is doing no good other than that. What if when Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus and stood before it in a moment of silence and then left? Would Lazarus had been raised from the dead? No, I do not believe that he would have. So we can then see what Jesus did to cause Lazarus to be raised, can’t we? Jesus makes the statement to God, “I thank thee that you have heard me”. Jesus implies something that is very important to our lesson today, and that is God is listening to your words. You then see Jesus speaking to the dead man and calling his name “Lazarus come forth”. Was Jesus calling Lazarus alive with his mouth and the words that just came out? So silence would not have brought the answer to Lazarus. To give honor or respect to someone is probably not a bad thing to do, but it will not change the situation. It is like here in the south when we see a funeral procession going by we normally pull over in our cars and stop out of respect for those who are driving by. This is a common practice in the southern parts of the United States and I believe it promotes an attitude of Christian love towards those who have just lost someone from this world, so I believe it is a positive thing to continue doing even though there are no Bible verses that say to do this.

Jas 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

This is one of my key Bible verses today that introduces the rest of the subject of prayer to come. You can clearly see that God is instructing us to pray and not just for ourselves. This verse ends in the statement that the prayers of a righteous man or woman have great power in them. Because Christians do not believe this, they do not do it. Many times it is a self-image problem; they do not feel like they are righteous enough to ask God to do anything. Fortunately for us it is not our righteousness that we are depending on; if it was we would all be in trouble. It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that permits us to come boldly before the throne of God without guilt or shame (Heb 4:16). So here is the next verse that follows this one about your prayer:

Jas 5:17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.

So here I go today with the basics on this lesson about prayer and words. As you can read in this verse, God says that Elijah was a man just like one of us. What people should understand is that the people that God uses in the Bible were not special or different or unique in their appearance, characteristics, problems, situations, challenges or life’s little nuances from us today. Too many Christians think in the terms that prophets like Elijah possessed something special that we do not have that allowed him to accomplish great things in the Bible that we simply cannot do. However, that is certainly not what this verse is saying, is it? Elijah according to God and James who is writing this account is said to have prayed to God and this caused it not to rain on the earth for a period of 42 months. This is actually a very interesting statement that God makes to us, since if you have ever read the story of Elijah you can’t find where Elijah ever prayed this in a way that we would call prayer. So what is God trying to teach us from this statement? I believe God is saying sometimes we need to expand our definition of what prayer is.

Jas 5:18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

So here is another verse that says Elijah prayed and God caused it to rain again. We have now seen two verses that said Elijah prayed and God answered the prayers because they were effective. It sounds like to me that this would be a good subject to go back into the Old Testament and see what God says to us about how Elijah accomplished these miracles of no rain and then rain again. You can find this story of Elijah starting in chapter 17 of 1 Kings:

1Ki 17:1 And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.

Here is the beginning of some words that Elijah spoke that almost floored me. This is the exact same Elijah that James wrote about so get that first and foremost into your head. Then realize that this verse is the very first verse in the Bible that mentions the name of Elijah. So therefore, we can conclude that there are no prayers of Elijah to God that are mentioned in the Bible up to this point. So we have a major problem that needs a resolution; either God did not record Elijah’s prayer in the Bible or Elijah did not pray the way that we would consider prayer to be performed. I personally believe the second is true and God gave us the exact information in the Bible that we needed to know to learn about what prayer is and what prayer is not. Remember what Jesus said “Father I thank thee that you heard me”. Do you think that God was listening to the words that Elijah said to Ahab? Let’s reexamine what Elijah says; God tells us that Elijah was speaking to Ahab and Elijah said “The Rain will obey my Words!” I know this was my paraphrase of what he said, but it is very close to exactly what He says to Ahab. I mean did you see it? Elijah had to believe something in order for him to make this kind of statement; the drought had not started yet so these words could be considered to be a prophetic prediction of something that has not occurred. Or as we have seen in Genesis 1, John 11 and Romans 4, it could be that Elijah was calling those things that be not as though they were. We of course know that Elijah was a prophet of God, but remember what James said, the New Testament says Elijah was man just like one of us. In other words what Elijah did, we can do. Wow, I don’t know if you believe that or not, but I do. I know that just blows the minds of religious people to think this way, but I’m just reading the Bible.

In reading this chapter of 1 Kings you can see that God speaks to Elijah and tells him what to do only after he has spoken to Ahab. God tells Elijah to go to a brook where God will sustain him and Elijah goes there and stays until the brook dries up for a lack of rain on the earth. God then tells Elijah to go to a city where a widow woman has been commanded by God to provide for him. The widow is obedient and God blesses her and even when her son dies, the prophet of God raises the child back to life. So God is definitely heavily involved in this chapter of the Bible and this is how this chapter ends:

1Ki 17:24 And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth.

The Widow woman says “The Words of the Lord in your mouth are true”. It is very interesting to see what this woman saw and says. Keep in mind that James said this was a man like us, and then reread this chapter with this in mind, looking for what he says. Are the words that come out of your mouth, can they be considered the truth of God’s Word? The words that you speak, will a stranger woman that you just met see that they are the words of God? Your words that you speak are much more important than you can possibly imagine. I believe your words help to identify you.

1Ki 18:1 And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth.

Here is the first time that God tells Elijah to go back to Ahab and tell him that it will rain again. You cannot find where Elijah asked God to do this, can you? This appears to be a God initiated conversation and not Elijah’s prayer for God to send rain, doesn’t it? So how did God tell Elijah this? Was it some loud audible voice from heaven or is this not how God speaks to you? God only spoke to me once in an audible voice so I believe this is not how God normally speaks to His people in the earth. Every other time that God speaks to me it has been as a still small voice in my spirit and I believe this is how God spoke to Elijah in telling him what to do also. Otherwise God is doing something different or something special for Elijah that he doesn’t do for us today and this is not what James told us in the New Testament. It is also special to note and to understand that prayer is not about just you speaking to God. If you are the only one speaking in a prayer conversation with the Almighty then you have a major problem on your hands. You should be quiet enough to let God speak back to you since He is so much smarter than you are. It would be much more valuable to hear what God says at prayer time than for Him to hear what you have to say constantly. Do you understand this concept of listening in prayer? Just pay attention and give God the opportunity to speak, you might be shocked at what He says for you to do.

1Ki 18:41 And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain.

In this chapter of 1 Kings, Elijah goes to king Ahab after God told him it was going to rain and makes some more statements that are absolutely faith based words. In this chapter Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to a Godly duel of power exhibitions and demonstrations. This was an exhibited display of the confidence that Elijah had in his God’s ability. Why were there 450 prophets of Baal in the camp of Israel? Why did Israel put any of their confidence in these false religions and religious leaders? That is a very good question to consider! In this chapter Elijah calls down the fire of God to consume the sacrifices that were drowned in water first. Keep in mind we have just had a drought of over 3 years long and Elijah is pouring water on his altar. Does this sound like the actions of a man in a drought? Here we see in chapter 17 that Elijah told the king that it will not rain for my words and then in chapter 18 and verse 41 Elijah says that he hears the sound of the abundance of rain. Yet it has not rained a drop in over 3 years. Is this a problem? Or can you see that what Elijah is doing is what God did in Genesis 1? I’m going to ask you this more than once today; are you a man or a woman that is also like Elijah? You should really read James 5 a few hundred times before you answer that question.

1Ki 18:43 And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times.

These lessons found in the life of Elijah are very profound. Elijah told Ahab there was a sound of rain when there was no rain. Then Elijah tells his servant to go and look for the rain and the servant comes back and reports he did not find any rain and Elijah tells him to go and look seven more times. What is Elijah doing? Is there anything that you should learn when faced with a drought in your life?

1Ki 18:44 And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.

So the seventh time the servant went to look to the sea, he comes back to Elijah and tells him that he saw a small cloud coming out of the sea. Do you understand how rain is formed? These are the water cycles of the earth’s evaporation from the seas that forms clouds and then the weather patterns that carries this moisture in the atmosphere to then fall back down to the earth as rain? Here we have Elijah knowing how this weather phenomenon works before there were any modern weather forecasters. What was Elijah doing? Do you remember what Elijah said in 1 Kings 17:1? Elijah told the king that the rain would obey his words. Elijah said that it would not rain for these years until he said it would rain. The prophets of Baal and the things that God did to them were some of the reasons that Elijah could make these claims that God could back his words, but this is the lesson that Elijah and God is trying to teach us today. I believe that this lesson applies to us in the modern world. Elijah said he heard rain when there was not rain then said go and look for the rain until they say a cloud form.

1Ki 18:45 And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel.

So what is God trying to say to us? Elijah said it would not rain and it did not rain, Elijah then said it would rain and it did rain a bunch. I did not see one time in these two chapters of 1 Kings, where it said Elijah prayed for no rain or rain. Only James calls what Elijah did prayer and that is a very profound revelation. I only saw one time where it could be implied that Elijah may have asked God for rain and this was in verse 42:

1Ki 18:42 So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees,

You can clearly see in this verse that Elijah assumed a position of humility and this is associated with an attitude of prayerful inclination towards God. However, I’m going to be really picky and tell you that it does not say Elijah prayed and it does not give us any words of prayer that Elijah said to God. So what do we do with this lack of information? We can assume that Elijah prayed and God thought that this prayer was not important enough to include in the Bible or we can assume that Elijah didn’t pray like we think of prayer and then we have to go back to James and figure out how did James know that Elijah did pray since God does not say he did in 1 Kings? Did James assume like others or did God teach James a greater definition of what prayer was? You also have to understand that God told Elijah that it was going to rain in 1 King 18:1 so why pray for what God has already said will happen. Do you understand this concept? I believe that these two chapters of 1 Kings should expand our definition of what prayer is in the eyes of God. Your words are heard by God and then God uses these to fulfill what you have said. I know that does not go over big with everyone, but I believe this is what God is saying.

So how do you apply this story of Elijah to us today? I believe that it crosses over into many things that we do in many ways. A couple of years ago the region of the country where I lived was going through a drought situation that was becoming significantly greater. Over the course of a few months, the lake levels had dropped lower than they had been since I lived here. Water rationing was mandatory and you could not water you grass or outdoor plants, wash your cars or do things to waste water. It was getting crazy here so I finally decided to do something about it. That sounds pretty arrogant doesn’t it? That statement makes me sound like I am God or something. However, I learned from the story of Elijah the principles given to us from James that I could do what Elijah did. So one day during the drought I looked out at the clear blue sky and started talking to the weather patterns, jet streams, pressure zones and the climatological situations to change in order to bring us rain on my house and city. So did it change overnight? Like the story of Elijah I went out and looked at the sky several times before it finally rained but then the drought was over and it rained a bunch. You see I believed the Word of God was true and that what God said Elijah did, I could do. I never prayed a prayer and asked God to send rain; I only looked out at the problem and spoke to it to change to bring me rain. You of course could say that this was just an amazing coincidence that I did what I did at just the right time before it rained or you can look at the Bible and declare with me that God is not a liar. After over 3 years of no rain Elijah said he heard the sound of an abundance of rain and after a few more days it occurred. So either what happened to Elijah was an amazing coincidence also or you are just stupid and don’t want to see what God is saying in the Bible to us. Here is a verse found in the Bible that directly applies to what we just read about in the life of Elijah:

Mar 11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Jesus makes a radical statement here that most religious people readily reject. Jesus says if you speak to a mountain and believe what you say will come to pass, it will happen. So is speaking to rain any different than speaking to a mountain? Are they not both inanimate objects without the ears for hearing? However Jesus clearly implies that they can hear in this verse found in Mark. This is a paradox of Biblical proportions. You see if you are a commander in the army and issue an order you just expect it to be obeyed and carried out. This is the same type of reasoning that Jesus is giving to us in this verse in Mark 11:23. Jesus is implying that the mountain is waiting for an order to obey in order to be moved. If no order is given, then no movement is made. If you speak to it and tell it to go and believe what you say will happen, then Jesus clearly said the order will be carried out. You are not concerned with how it is carried out, only the fact that it happens like you said. Mountains can be symbolic representations of problems in your life, even like a real drought. Can you see how this verse applies to what Elijah said in 1 Kings? Everything that Elijah said was what happened in the earth, because he believed it would happen. Elijah obviously believed in his words and they came to pass just as he had spoken. God called this prayer in James 5 and you should understand this drastically changes what we should be saying in our daily lives. Too many Christians pray and ask God for help and then go around speaking the opposite of what they prayed. It would sound like to me based upon what we learned from Elijah that these words cancel each other out. If you pray for God to help pay your bills and then look at your bills and say I can’t pay you, then you have canceled your prayer out. What we have learned in the story of Elijah is God’s definition of prayer is much greater than our definition of prayer. Your words of prayer could be the words that you speak to a king in the earth and tell him that it will not rain for your words. These are powerful concepts that are being transferred to us from God and if you get a hold of them they will change what comes out of your mouth. So I’ll end this lesson with this question again; Are you like an Elijah? God Bless!

Posted in Bible Study, Understanding, Words

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Revelation, Symbolism, Truth, understanding, Words

Understanding Seeds! Planting Financial Seeds! Part 12

Nov 3

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 2.2) Today is now Part 12 of a very important series of lessons on Understanding Seeds in the Bible. We have covered a lot of very significant information that will not be repeated so I would highly recommend that you go back and start your reading with “Part 1”. I almost purposely left this part of this subject of seeds out of the series because it is so popularly preached on TV that it gives many a negative perception on a positive subject. However, money and finances are clearly found in the Bible so I will touch on it today. I believe if you study the Gospels you will see that Jesus taught on money more than any other subject. I have heard many preachers, especially TV preachers, jump all over this subject and it appears to come across that they do it because they are only after your money. Of course I do not judge them because I do not know their hearts, only God knows a man’s motivation for doing what he does. It could be that God told them to teach this subject with great emphasis and I would sound like a fool if I would criticize what God does. So, I cannot say or will not judge if this is true or not, I just said it just appears to many to be this way because of the emphasis that they are placing on a minor part of a much greater subject about seeds. It would seem to me that to only pick one part of a subject and teach that causes the wrong perceptions to be given and to many people it is true that perception becomes reality and this is not a good image to portray to the world. So far, I have given you eleven different lessons about seeds in the Bible and have not mentioned money or finances even once. I guess since I do these Bible lessons for free and never ask you for money, is the one reason that I can include this lesson on money in the series today.

In searching the Bible for any form of the word “seed” I found approximately 257 verses in the KJV that directly mentioned this word. Out of this total I counted less than 20 verses that speak about money or that can be applied to money directly. Of course this is a subjective number of verses depending upon your desire to try to apply verses from one topic to another. This is certainly a legal method of Bible interpretation; God does it all the time. You can find that God used the same word seed to describe at least 10 different things in the Bible and the laws and principles that govern them are universal truths that cross over into each topic area. But, it is always difficult to teach some subjects like money and not sound like you are asking for money, especially in light of what the Bible says on this subject. That is just the inherit problem with this subject and I will do the best that I can in spite of this appearance. I hope that you can see the difference in what I say since there are no names or ministry names attached to this website and no donate buttons anywhere that allows you to give money to me. If you are a Christian you should be giving your money to where you go to church and are being fed spiritually; we’ll see more about this as we go into this lesson.

So even though seeds of finance are a minor part of this subject in this entire seed topic realm, it is still a valid concept that applies to your money. First, off think about this, farming and agriculture were common methods of income in Bible days. The seed concepts of sowing and reaping applied whether you planted corn or raised sheep. If you farmed then you raised crops or animals that could be sold or traded to others. So the seed concepts found in the Bible about farming must also apply to modern day money and finances directly, also. Farmers used seeds to grow crops and these crops produced more food than the originally planted seeds. So the principles of sowing seeds into good ground, seed increase and multiplication are clearly applicable to our modern money. In the world of finances money would represent the seed. Today we can take money and invest it in the stock market or whatever expecting it to grow over time. This is a seed principle that works when you plant your seeds in good ground. You see good ground in the financial world are the companies that are going to be profitable. If you place your money in a company that is foolish then it can go out of business and you lose your investment and that is the definition of planting your seed into bad ground. In America we have many people who buy lottery tickets. These are people who are hoping to hit it big and win millions of dollars overnight. I have not found that concept in the Bible. In the Bible if you want millions of dollars you must start with what you have and plant it to cause it to grow into millions of dollars. This is the Bible concept of financial seed planting and reaping an increase. These are clear Bible farming concepts that you need to learn and to apply to your life and what you do in the world. If you are expecting to hit it big and get rich over night the odds are that it will not happen. Yes, the lottery does occasionally reward someone with a large payment that gives the appearance of the possibility that it can happen to anyone. However, mathematically speaking the odds of it happening to you is extremely low; in fact it is more likely that you will get hit by lightning and die than to think that you will win the lottery. So let’s examine some scripture that can apply to money and finances in relation to seeds.

Gen 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

While this scripture does not directly mention money it can be applied to money very easily. This verse states a Bible law that establishes the concept of planting seeds and reaping harvests as long as the earth exists. This would seem to imply that this principle will exist in the new earth to come also, so it seems to me to be a concept that we need to learn. God tells us that our world was designed to be a seed world of sowing and reaping. If you plant your seeds in good ground you will always harvest an increased crop or return on your initial investment. Your seeds sown are always your initial investment that you risk losing. The same enemies that you find in the natural world of natural seeds also apply symbolically to the financial world. The concept of weeds, insects and the birds of the air that eat your seed; these are all symbolic enemies to financial dealings. Before you can invest money anywhere you should first determine if this is good ground to plant in. Too many times people put money somewhere and then change it to something else before they make anything where it is planted. This would be like planting corn seed in the ground today and then digging it up tomorrow to take it to another field that you heard was better ground. If you think this is stupid to do, you are right, but in the financial world people do it everyday.

Lev 26:16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

What I wanted to do was to show you that every seed sown can have an enemy. Here we have God telling the children of Israel that the seeds they have sown will be eaten by their enemies. This was usually caused by a reckless disregard for obeying the Word of God. Whenever the children of Israel disobeyed God, this would open the door and allow enemies to come in and take what they had worked for. So this is a lesson for Christian to learn from as a bad example of what not to do.

Deu 28:38 Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.

So you can see another verse where insects can come and eat your seed. Here God says that you will take a lot of seeds into your field and harvest very little of them because they were all eaten by an enemy. In our world today, financial enemies abound all around us. There are false investment schemes that take your money and you can lose everything. A man in the U.S. is serving jail time right now for taking billions of dollars from people and spending it on himself and his family. His lavish lifestyle lasted for several years until it finally caught up with him, but most of the people that put their money in his false funds all lost their money. These are some of the potential enemies to financial transactions and many of them are backed by satanic influences that causes you lose your money.

Deu 14:22 Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year.

So here is another verse that does not mention money directly, yet clearly applies. The word tithe means to give a tenth. The word increase is a numerical financial term of positive results. This verse also says that your field brings forth year by year. So this is a principle of being faithful to do what you know to do in a consistent manner. Being consistent is a seed principle. There are many factors to planting seeds in the natural that apply in the financial world. For, example, one key factor of correct seed planting is timing. Did you know you can plant the right seed in the right ground at the wrong time and totally fail and lose everything? So knowing when to plant is a key to getting positive results. There are of course other seed concepts that also apply to money. You can under seed a field and not reap what you should have. You can over seed a field and also cause your crop to be unprofitable. There are really too many factors to consider about seeds that apply to investing that I cannot go into them all. It is not my goal to teach you how to invest your money; it is only my goal to introduce you to Bible concepts and to note the things that God has created in the world that give us views into spiritual laws. I’ll take you to one more Old Testament verse before I move to the New Testament:

Isa 55:10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

Here is a verse that is speaking of natural things and spiritual things simultaneously. It can also clearly be applied to financial things. The blessings of God are many times manifested in the natural realm in financial blessings. You can see this concept in the Book of Job when God blessed Job in the end with more than he had in the beginning. You can also see the concept repeated in the life of Abraham when God blessed him exceedingly and abundantly so that his herds could not coexist with his nephew Lot’s herds because the land would not sustain them both since they were so blessed. You can see the blessing of God on the life of Jacob when he worked 7 years for Rachael and his father-in-law tricked him into seven more years. Jacob’s father-in-law saw that he was blessed because of Jacob’s presence and tried to manipulate his income and cheat him out of his blessings from God. So we can see this pattern repeatedly found in the Bible that God blesses people financially with an increase in the natural realm. So the verse in Isaiah can be applied to natural seeds, spiritual seeds, and financial seeds and so on. If God gives us seed and bread these are clearly symbolic of financial things that represent income producing and life sustaining factors. Let’s look at some New Testament verses about seeds and money:

2Co 9:6 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.

Here we again find a verse that crosses subject topic boundaries. This verse applies to many things and it represents a spiritual law of God. The basic law presented to you is this; you will always reap what you sow. If you sow a little bit, you get a little bit back. If you sow a lot you get a lot back. These are just basic seed laws found in the Bible. You can see that this verse does not mention seed directly, however to sow is to plant seed; therefore the seed is indirectly related. Let’s see what else this chapter says about seeds of finance:

2Co 9:7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

What is a cheerful giver? You can again apply this to many things, including money. Being a cheerful giver involves primarily your attitude. If you have a right positive attitude you will be blessed in what you do. Have you ever read the story of Joseph in Genesis? Here is a man that was handed some very rough set of circumstances in life and he maintained a great attitude through them all. Joseph always expected God to fulfill his words that were spoken to him, so even though his brothers sold him into slavery he continued to believe in the best outcome. Joseph spent a great amount of time in prison, but wherever he was, the blessing of God was upon him and he was raised because of his attitude. This is a very powerful example for Christians today. It tells us that we do not always have it exactly the way that we would like it to be all the time, but we can still expect God to work it all out to cause it to be good for us in the end. So this verse is all about your positive attitude and your faith in God. You can read the other verses in this chapter and hopefully see the connections to money and finances, but I’ll end this chapters’ discussion with this one more verse:

2Co 9:10 Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)

As you can clearly see the term seed sown is self-evident. The term increase is also self-evident. The “fruits” of your righteousness is of course symbolic of your harvest. So this verse clearly applies in the spiritual realm to our effort to grow in spiritual maturity. However, this verse will also cross over in the context of the natural realm and must be related to our financial blessings from God. It can also mean emotional blessings. It can further apply to our seeds that we plant in the lives of other people that allows God to grow them and produce fruit in their lives. There are just a wide variety of applications for almost every verse on seeds. This is why I teach that money is just a small part of the bigger picture of seeds given to us in the Word of God. So let’s examine another chapter of the N.T. about seeds:

1Co 9:7 Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?

As you can see from this verse, God is comparing several similar concepts of financial matters. God says nobody finances their own war. God says nobody plants a crop and not also eats from it. Nobody raises sheep and not drink the milk of the flock. These are all symbolic representations of a spiritual set of realities found in the Bible. We the church are in a spiritual warfare with a spiritual enemy named Satan. Then Paul was a sower of the word of God and he says that anyone who sows will eat from that which he has sown. Then sheep are a widely symbolic representation of the people of God in the Bible. So the clear implied meaning is Paul fed the sheep and the sheep fed him back. This is not rocket science so grasp these simple concepts and learn to live by them.

1Co 9:9 For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?

Here we have a Bible concept that is very profound being explained. Many times God writes a Bible verse about natural things that cross over into the spiritual realm and this is a prime example of this. Paul is saying that God wrote about oxen and corn but that these apply to him and to us. In other words God did not write this verse for the benefit of the oxen, it was written for our benefit so that we can learn from it. Oxen when treading corn are said to be partakers of the corn and this is a Bible principle given to us from God. If the oxen are working then they should eat from their labors of work.

1Co 9:11 If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?

So this is a popular TV preacher verse found in the Bible. However, Paul is not writing this asking for their money he is only explaining a very powerful concept of sowing and reaping. Paul was sowing spiritual seeds into their lives and Paul said it was good for them to give back carnal or natural things back to him. In this verse Paul is claiming to be like the oxen that was working and that he should be a partaker of his own labor. However, what we see here are two principles being exercised simultaneously. To give to Paul would cause Paul to receive a harvest from what he has previously spiritually sown from the Word of God. For them to give financially to Paul is a concept of them planting back natural seeds into good ground; therefore they can also expect a harvest for what they have planted. In other words if they wanted Paul to continue to bless them with spiritual things it was good for them to give to Paul of their natural things like money, food, etc. so that Paul could live on the earth to continue to preach and not have to work to eat.

1Co 9:13 Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?

As we continue to read in this chapter, Paul and God is giving us a key principle that ministers of the gospel are partakers of those which they minister to. In other words this was a designed system of church government by God. It promotes a minister who is focused on you and not himself. If your minister had to work for a living in the world, you and the rest of the church would be a secondary thought to his primary time taker of working for a living. However, if the church pays for his wellbeing and financial needs then the minister can focus on God and the church and ministering to the sheep of God and not have to worry about where he will eat tomorrow.

1Co 9:14 Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.

God again says what I just tried to say. The minister of God should be paid by the people who he ministers to. This is clearly the concept of sowing and reaping for both participants. The minister should minister in faith that the people will meet his financial needs and the people should give to the minister in faith that the God of their salvation will give them increases from the seeds that they have sown. So here is the flip side of the coin that also goes with this subject of sowing and reaping:

1Co 9:18 What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.

God in this verse clearly says that anyone who preaches and charges you money for the information is being an abuser of God’s designed plan. Paul very clearly says that he should not charge anyone to preach what God has given to him for free. This is what discourages me about many TV preachers that I listen to. While they say good spiritual things for 20 minutes, they end their show with a request for you to buy the rest of the message on CD or DVD and it always costs much more than it does to produce these and to send them out. A DVD can cost $20 plus postage and handling fees and this is clearly outrages for a piece of plastic that costs maybe 20 cents in bulk. Clearly these ministers of God are looking to your purchases of their messages to fund their TV ministries. So I understand and I am not stupid that TV cost a lot of money, but yet in what they do and the way that they do it, it gives the appearance of being an abuse of power that God says was not acceptable. It also promotes a philosophy that only the rich can afford to know the truth of the Gospel and that is not a fair thing to do. As you can tell this bothers me a great deal and I think it is very wrong. Here is what Jesus said on the subject:

Mat 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

Jesus tells us that God did not charge us for the information that we learned to preach, so we should not charge others to hear it also. That is why I do a free blog on a free website and I never ask for money or request you to send me a donation. Money is not a motivational factor and why I do what I do. However, that does not mean you should not do what God says to do either. Wow, this is a very complex subject that involves the participation of everyone doing what they should do, when they should do it and then everything works according to God’s designed plan. So that is why I did not want to include this lesson in my series about seeds, because it can very easily be taken wrong. I probably ended this lesson and sounded like you should give me something for the spiritual seeds that I have given to you; and that is not what I said at all. I said that I do these lessons for free because I love being a blessing to others. So I try to do the right things according to the word of God and you should do the same. If you noticed this blog is called the “Agapegeek” Blog and not my name. That means I am anonymous and you do not know me or my address to send me anything. I do this on purpose also. How you can bless me is to tell a friend about what you have learned and increase the traffic on my web site. That would be one of the greatest ways that you can be a blessing to me. If you learned anything about giving and sowing financially then you should give to your local pastor to help support your church to grow. We have just briefly covered a much broader subject of sowing and reaping financially from the Word of God. This is a complex subject and one that is not easily understood by many. Many people find it very difficult to relate their money to be like a seed that can be planted into ground to grow and increase. However, you can certainly find this concept in the Bible therefore you can personally choose to participate in it or to ignore it. Thanks for reading my Bible Study and God Bless!

Posted in Bible Study, Seeds, Understanding

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Money, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, seeds, Truth, understanding

Understanding Seeds! Seeds and Weeds! Part 11

Oct 31

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.4) Today is Part 11 of a very important series of lessons on Understanding Seeds in the Bible. We have covered a lot of very significant information that will not be repeated so I would highly recommend that you go back and start your reading with “Part 1”. Today is a follow up to some concepts that I have talked a little about before. However, today we will get into the aspect of weeds in a much more in depth study from the Word of God which will certainly challenge you to think. I will probably introduce you to several brand new concepts found in the Bible on this subject so be prepared to learn. Let’s start by stating the basic concepts of weeds. Weeds are plants that you did not plant! This is the basic concept that is critical to understand. If you wanted thorns and thistles growing in the front yard you would have planted them. But, if you are like me you put out weed killer to eliminate these types of plants so that your grass will grow and be healthier. Weeds grow in the same soil as plants from good seeds and in fact weeds also come from seeds, but just not the seeds that we plant intentionally. I personally believe that weeds are a result of the sin of man and God’s curse and we will probably talk about this more as we go. I would venture to say that weeds are a caused effect. Nothing happens by accident in the world. There are always causes and effects to everything. These are basic laws of physics implemented by God’s design. If you see waves in a pond of water you know that something caused the waves. So you must realize that God when He created our world and looked out on it and said “It was very good”, that God did not create weeds. I do not consider weeds to be good, but maybe you do. It is a highly subjective topic. Regardless, if weeds are present we know that something caused them to be here. So let’s review some things that we covered before and then go into more details in other parts of the Bible.

If you recall we covered several parables on seeds and one that Jesus taught that said the Kingdom of God is like a man who planted wheat seeds in his field. This parable is often called the parable of the Wheat and Tares. In this parable, while the man was sleeping an enemy came and sowed the seeds of tares among the seeds of wheat. It is interesting to note that by only looking at the ground at this point in time you cannot tell this was done. The implication was given to us that this was done secretly when the owner was away from the field and the owner only finds out about these weeds after time goes by and both kinds of seeds come up and grow together. In this parable the owner of the field is clearly God. The field can be viewed as the mass of humanity which is a type of the soil of the earth that we live in where seeds are planted. The good seed is again the Word of God. The weed seed was sown by God’s enemy Satan and these are the words not from God. The good seed produces the desired crop of righteous people on the earth; these are those who have chosen the narrow path and the weeds are those people who have been deceived and chosen the evil wide path to destruction. In this parable the servants (symbolic angels), go and ask the owner if they should pull up the tares, but the owner says let them grow together, or when you pull up the tares you also take out some of the wheat. So the harvest is representative of the end of the age that we are currently living within and the time for this harvest is extremely short. The harvesters are the angels of God who will gather God’s crop into God’s barn in heaven and then cast the weeds into the fire to be burned. You can read this parable in Matthew 13:24-30 if you would like to, but I covered the greatest parts of it in enough detail that you should understand these concepts pretty well. What we learn from this parable is a fact that God did not plant the weeds. God did not cause the weeds to be planted and in fact this parable states that God had nothing to do with the weeds. That is one of the key pieces of information from this parable to understand, so get a hold of that.

In the parable of the Wheat and Tares God introduced us to the concept of both seeds and weeds and this is my primary subject today. How are they related, where did they come from and who is responsible for each. It is clear in this first parable that the weeds are the evil people who have bought into Satan’s deceptions and are not saved. The wheat plants are the good people who have been saved by accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior and these are called the righteous seed in the Bible. So in this parable the concept of weeds is related to people. However, in another lesson the concept of weeds is potentially something completely different. Maybe you recall in the Parable of the Sower that Jesus taught us some more seed concepts that were extremely important to know. In the parable of the sower, the soil was the hearts of men and women in the earth. The good seed was of course the Word of God still. The sower was the preacher that would proclaim the Gospel of Christ and the Word of God. This parable also contained the concept of weeds being introduced in it, but this time the weeds were not specifically people, they were the things that caused people distractions in this world so that they did not produce fruit unto to God. It is critical to understand the difference in these two parables and to also put them together correctly so that you understand the similarities and the differences. Both parables are about the primary subject of seeds and both parables contain the concept of weeds. However, if you look at the first parable you could attempt to claim that the weed people were predestined to be weeds and the wheat people were predestined to be God’s harvest, but that interpretation contradicts the information given to us in the parable of the Sower. We must balance both parables to understand the subjects being taught. In the Parable of the Sower, everyone had the same opportunity to hear and understand the word of God, but clearly only three out of six soil types produced any fruit unto God. Here was Jesus’ explanation of these weeds:

Mat 13:22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.

The first thing that you need to understand from this verse is that thorns are weeds; something that was not planted by the original farmer. So we can see that Jesus calls seed among the thorns to be those people who care more about things in this world than they do the eternal things that God says in His Word. Part of the root of this problem is given to us as being the deceitfulness of wealth and money. Often when people get a hold of money on the earth, they think they are in need of nothing including a savior. You can read about this parable of the sower in Matthew 13: 3-9. So we have two different parables with seeds and weeds using two different perspectives. However, they have more in common than you can imagine. They are actually the same people from two points of view. Those who are the tares in the first parable are those who have let the weed seeds of Satan dominate them. In fact the first three types of soil are all tares in the first parable that we looked at. These are those who have rejected the truth, refused to hear the truth, let others in the world talk them out of the truth or as we have seen love things in the world more than they love the truth. Both of these parables resulted in the same two separate groups of people, those who are weeds and are burned and those who produce fruit unto God and are harvested into heaven by the angels. So let’s examine this subject in other areas of the Bible and see what else God says to us about weeds and seeds. Where is the first mention or implied reference to weeds in the Bible? I will give you a clue and tell you that it can be found in the Garden of Eden.

Gen 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Here we have the description of God’s creation. God planted a garden and caused to grow every tree that was good for food the Bible says. This subject so far sounds very similar to the two parables that we just read about where Jesus told us of God’s attempts at planting seeds into His gardens from two different perspectives. Both of these parables involved planting good seeds that came from God to produce good crops and an enemy comes into the garden to cause weeds to try to overcome God’s garden. Isn’t this what happened in Genesis 2 and 3? I believe that it is exactly what happened in these two chapters and we will begin to see that more clearly as we go. In Genesis 2:15 God describes the man’s purpose for being in His garden was to “dress” it and to “keep” it. Both words denote delagated human resposibility and accountablity. The first word is a word that means “WORK”! To work a garden implies one thing, that there are potential enemies and weeds that may come in and therefore you must do something about them to keep them out. Work involves two aspects in gardening, first caring for the plants that are good by feeding and watering them and eliminating the enemies and the plants that are bad to protect the good. The next Hebrew word translated as “keep” is very similar to work and it means to “watch” and “protect” the garden. A watcher or protector is someone who is given the task and responsibility to not only work the garden, but is required to protect it from any enemies who could potentially come and destroy it. Wow, two words of instructions was all that is necessary from God and they say so much to us in light of the parables that we have just seen about seeds and weeds. What we begin to understand now was that it was not God’s responsibility to keep the enemy out because that was given to Adam for him to do.

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Here in chapter 3 of Genesis we now are deeply into the subject of an enemy coming into God’s Garden where he should not be. Therefore, we are currently entrenched in the middle of the parable of the wheat and tares that we have looked at in the beginning of this lesson. We see this enemy, the symbolic “serpent” coming to Eve and he begins to plant weed seeds into her mind that caused the doubts of deception to grow. These are examples of the weed seeds of the enemy that God was teaching us about in the two parables we just reviewed in Matthew 13. God places a man in His garden and then leaves him in charge and goes away and now the man is responsible to “dress” and “keep” it. Satan brings the evil seed of the tares to Eve and she speaks them out for her husband to hear and he willfully hearkens to the voice of his wife and they are now captive to the deception of their enemy. Adam had the opportunity to guard and protect the garden of his heart, but he allowed Satan’s words through his wife’s voice dictate his decision to intentionally sin. I hope you understand what I just said as an overview of this story. If not, you can go and read my detailed lessons on Genesis 3 and hopefully you will grasp these subjects more clearly. I will drop down in Genesis to help you see a part of what I just said:

Gen 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Here is a key verse that reveals to us God’s actions for the intentional sin of His man Adam. You can clearly see that God says Adam listened to Eve’s voice and not to Satan’s voice. There is no mention that Adam ever heard Satan speaking directly. Do you understand this? Probably not, because of the erroneous teaching of many tells us that there was a physical talking snake in the garden and if Adam was there he would have heard it all. However, that is not what the Bible says at all. You should go read my lesson on “Was there a Talking Snake In the Garden?”. Then you can see that God says something else about the ground being cursed for Adam’s sake. God then says that Adam will eat from it all the days of his life in sorrow. What was “IT” that Adam is said to be eating from. You can potentially say the ground that God just cursed, but I do not see it this way in the light of other verses found in the Bible. I believe God was saying because you Adam chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will eat from it all the days of your life. Isn’t this what Adam was just found guilty of partaking from? So what was the ground in the two parables that we looked at? The Garden soil was clearly the hearts of men and women. So what does all of this mean? If you search your Bible and read the references for this Hebrew word that is translated as “cursed” they almost always have something to do with someone who disobeys the Word of the Lord. God says something for them not to do and they do it and a curse is brought upon them as a consequence for their sins. However, curses are just the opposite of blessings. So how does God or people for that matter bless someone or curse someone? If you have read my other lessons you know that you bless people with the words of your mouth and you also curse people with the words of your mouth. James 3:10 said “blessing and cursing from the same mouth, this ought not to be”. So curses are spoken words that produce negative results in our lives or in the lives of those the words are spoken to. I think I will continue to the next verse in Genesis just to show you the connection to weeds again in this story.

Gen 3:18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

Thorns and thistles are clearly both weeds produced from evil seeds. They are not produced by the Word of God so we can assume that these are produced from the seeds that Satan has just sown in God’s Garden of man’s heart. In the parable of the sower God repeated “thorns” for us to make the connection to this story in Genesis. What were thorns in this parable? God said thorns represented “the cares of this world” and the “deceitfulness of riches”. Do you think these apply to Adam in this story? I certainly do. I believe that God had just given the man and his wife the earth and Adam now believed that he was self-sufficient and did not need God’s help anymore . Adam at this time thought he had everything under control, but soon he would find out that he did not have anything under control when his Son Cain would kill his first born son Able. This was the beginning of Adam’s realization that what he had done was not so great after all. The sin that Adam introduced into the world was only beginning and the evil seed influence was only going to get worse before it got any better.

So God tells Adam that “IT” will produce thorns and thistles. So let’s back up and determine what “IT” is? If you recall the Bible says that Eve spoke words to her husband and God said that Adam “hearkened to the voice of his wife”. To hearken means to obey or do what she said to do. If Adam did something that he should not have done because his wife said for him to do it, what was this thing that God is talking about? Let’s back up and see what the Bible says Eve said.

Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

These are the only spoken words of Eve recorded in this chapter. So either this is the key to what she said or it is not. I believe that it is! If Eve said to the serpent then she spoke words that potentially her husband could hear. These words were partially correct but yet they contained some subtle differences to what God had said. God did say you could eat of the trees of the garden, but God never said that you cannot touch it. God simply said you shall not eat it or you will surely die. So how is the middle of the garden different than the garden? If God plants a garden and tells Adam every tree that is good for food I have given you for food but says this one in the middle of the garden is not for you, what is God saying? If you read my other blogs you already know this answer, but I’ll go into some new perspectives to help you see it a new way. I believe God was differentiating between two gardens in these statements. There is a major difference between natural things and spiritual things and you should understand this if you are a Christian. God gave man natural things as food and Jesus said that it is not what you put in your mouth that makes you unclean, so we know it was not anything that Adam physically ate that caused him to sin. If you do not understand this you should go read my lessons on “Does Eating Fruit Kill You”. So where is this middle garden that God is talking about where the tree of knowledge of good and evil is present? Let’s do a word search for the Hebrew word translated as “midst” and see what we find. I’ll start with one that I like in Proverbs because it is definitely related to my subject today:

Pro 4:20 My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.

Pro 4:21 Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.

Remember that the Word of God is the Good Seed of God. So what does God tell us to do with this seed? God starts by saying “attend” and this is a critically related word that can mean to “hearken”. Sound familiar? This is an intentional act of listening, hearing, understanding and doing. God then follows this up with “incline” your ears unto my seeds (words). Then God says for us to keep them before our eyes and then to keep them in the “midst” of our hearts. The word “midst” is the exact same Hebrew word used to describe the location of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2 and 3. Do you get a hold of what God is trying to say here? It is the heart of man that is the location of God’s garden. It is the heart of man where God wants His seeds to grow. It is also the heart of man where weeds grow from the enemy of God, Satan. You can read about the heart of man being the middle of man in Psalm 22:14, 40:8, 40:10, and 143:4. Some of these are difficult to see because the same Hebrew word is translated as “within”. But, you should be able to find it if you look for it and see that within you is the spiritual heart location of God’s garden. Knowing this fact you can now begin to see that where spiritual fruit comes from as well as where spiritual weeds are also grown. These are spiritual concepts of seeds and weeds and are completely relevant to our discussion today.

Please allow me to take you to some more words of Jesus that are clearly and directly related to the story of Adam and Eve in the garden and hopefully this will help us to see the connections a little clearer of seeds and weeds. You might recall that I spoke these next words in connection to two groups of people in the world and here is what Jesus said to us about them:

Mat 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at:

Mat 7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

So we can clearly see that these two groups of people are traveling separate paths. Those who are not of God are going down the easy path through the wide gate and the broad way to destruction. Those who God calls saved are those that are traveling down the narrow path and way through the narrow minded gate of righteousness. These are two distinct groups, two ways and two paths; one leading to life and the other leading to death everlasting. These are symbolic representations of either seed paths of good or the seed path of evil. There are many more opportunities in the world for evil seed than there is for the good seed. God only wrote one book of Good Seed and the internet, libraries and book stores are full of millions of books that you can choose to read that distracts you from the good seed. So let’s examine the next verse and see how it fits with what we are talking about in this lesson:

Mat 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Here is a word of warning from Jesus our God that we need to watch out for certain types of people in the world. The people specifically mentioned in this verse are called “false prophets”. A False Prophet would be the opposite of a True Prophet. A prophet is always someone who prophesies so we learn that not everyone that prophesies is from God in this verse. What are prophecies? These are spoken words aren’t they? Spoken words are a type of seeds, get it? God says beware the seeds of the false prophet and do not allow them to grow in your heart. These types of people will come in the form of harmless looking sheep, but they will secretly be wolves. So they disguise themselves to appear harmless and this is the first part of deception that you should become aware of. Now learn the connection in the next verse that I was attempting to get to in the previous 3 verses of Matthew:

Mat 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Jesus says you will know people by their fruit. In other words when people come to you in sheep’s clothing and speak subtle words to you, stop and observe them for a time period to see what kind of fruit they are producing in their life. In this verse Jesus connects or technically disconnects real fruit from weeds. Jesus says that you do not get grapes from thorn bushes and you do not get figs from thistles. Why did God use the exact same words in speaking to Adam that ‘it” would produce for him? God clearly tells Adam that thorns and thistles would result from something that he has done and now we are clearly given the location of these weeds and as we can see from what Jesus said these are spiritual weeds and they are the opposite of bearing spiritual fruit. Are you beginning to see and understand the connection that God is making to us in the Bible? Do you understand spiritual weeds better today than you did before you read this? I pray that you take this and continue to study the subject and go and find more verses that reveal and confirm this spiritual reality. I hope you enjoyed my advanced Bible lesson on Seeds and Weeds and please go and tell a friend what you learned. God Bless!

If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on Seeds you can go to “Part 12“.

Posted in Bible Study, Seeds, Understanding

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, creation, Genesis, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Religion, Revelation, seeds, Truth, understanding, Words

Understanding the Difference Between Being the House of God and Being In the House of God!

Oct 26

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 2.2) Today I will teach on a Bible basic truth that every Christian should know. There is an interesting difference between being in the house of God and being the House of God that many preachers that I have heard must not clearly understand. I have been in numerous church services where either the pastor or the worship leader gets up behind the pulpit and says “It’s good to be in the house of the Lord”. I guess I know what they are trying to say, but technically speaking that is a very false statement and directly contradicts what the Bible says in so many aspects. That statement also portrays a false reality to unsaved people that is easily taken wrong or misunderstood. Those types of statements leave people with the impression that if they come to church, they have satisfied their religious obligation to God. However, the Bible says that the church building that you are meeting in is not the house of God! You see the Bible clearly says that God does not dwell in the buildings made by the hands of men anymore. We know this is what God use to do in the Old Testament when God told Moses to build Him a temple and the Ark of the Covenant. Jesus in Matthew taught that David entered into the house of God to eat the show bread. But, these were all natural symbolic representations for a much different spiritual reality that was to come. Here is one of my key verses for today’s lesson and I hope you can see what it says:

Act 7:48 Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,

So here we have a major problem with the statement that too many preachers make. God clearly tells us in the Bible that it is impossible for man to build or make anything that is worthy of God’s dwelling place. If you read the next verse and the context you will see what I am talking about. God does not dwell in your man made church building; so when you say He does you leave a very false image in the minds of your listeners. However, there is another reality that God may show up at your church service if you invite Him in and then choose to let Him come in. I’ve heard ministers describe the presence of God at their meetings appearing like a cloud that would roll in over the people and then amazing things would happen. However, some people saw the cloud and others did not see the cloud. There are many examples of this type of cloud in the Bible if you look for them (Exo 16:10, Exo 19:9, Exo 24:15). I gave you 3 instances found in Exodus but God appears as a spiritual cloud several other times in the Bible as well. Then there are also literally many church buildings around the world that God does not ever show up in, because He is not welcome. Oh, sure they pretend that they are doing the right things and singing the right songs and acting out the parts pretty well. However, they neither know God nor are known by God so they worship with their lips, but Jesus said their hearts are far, far away. Jesus warned some religious people like this in Matthew 23:27 calling them “whited sepulchers that are beautiful on the outside but inwardly were unclean and full of dead men’s bones”. So God is not interested in your external religion or your outward religious ideas of being righteous. Just as God did not show up in the Jewish temple anymore, God will not show up at your church if your heart is not right before Him. These are examples of how important it is to be precise in exactly what you believe and to know what the Bible says. So where is the house of the Lord now? Or maybe I should have asked who is the house of the Lord now? If you study your Bible you will find that it says the people in the church are now this house of God:

1Ti 3:15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

As you search the Bible you find verses that read much differently than what some men preach and teach. Here is one of those examples. You of course can take this verse literally or figuratively. I believe that this temple is symbolic based upon the scriptures that I will show you in a minute. First, let me ask you what is the church of God or again I should say who is the church of God? Let me give you a few quick scriptures that hopefully will make my point that you can see for yourself:

Rom 16:5 Likewise greet the church that is in their house. Salute my wellbeloved Epaenetus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia unto Christ.

Here is God calling the people that meet in the house the church and not the building where they meet. This can get more complex than this, but this is the basics of the lesson today. You see the people that meet together in a building can be holding church services, but technically this is not the church. God clearly calls the people in the building the church and never is there any physical building called by this name or title in the Bible. This is really a very important difference to recognize.

1Co 1:2 Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:

Again we have the people living in the city of Corinth being called the church of God and not a building. It further qualifies that not everyone in the city is the church, but only those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. So it is much more important to be in Christ than it is to be in a building with a name on the outside. This is the mistake that pastors are leaving people with when they tell them they are in the house of the Lord today. They should be saying it is good to be in Christ Jesus and be the house of God.

1Co 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

This is the last verse that I will show you today that says the church are the people that Paul persecuted and Paul did not burn down buildings or deface a building. When Jesus appeared to Saul on the road and said “Saul why do you persecute me?” Jesus was telling him He took it personally because these people that he persecuted were the church and the body of Christ where God lives today:

1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Here is the main reason that I wanted to get to today that clearly tells us where the Spirit of God is today. You can clearly see that God is not living in the buildings that are made by the hands of men anymore. God has designed and created our bodies to be His temple and dwelling place. So wherever we go God goes. Where ever we are the church is, if you are a true Christian. You see when you become a Christian the Spirit of God comes inside of your body to live and to bear witness with your spirit that you are now a child of God (Romans 8:16). This is exactly why when you tell people they are in the house of God a building made by man’s hands that it contributes to a lie. You can hold church in a hotel and God will be there if He is inside of you. You can hold church in a tent and God will be there if God is inside of you. God is not interested in your building projects, however God will help you build one if that is what you like. I have to say that it is much nicer meeting in nice churches with climate controlled environments than sweating or freezing outdoors. Just build your church building and don’t call it the house of God. I am the house of God and you are the house of God we are a spiritual building made of living stones being built up into an eternal spiritual city of the Most High God. Here is a Bible verse that says what I just tried to say:

1Pe 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

The term “lively stones” literally means stones with life in them. This makes us complexly a very unique chosen building material for God’s house. You can clearly see that we are being “built up” to become a spiritual house for God. This is one of the key accomplished works of Jesus Christ. Why was it necessary for God to build a new spiritual house? I have taught on this before, but I’ll say it again for those who do not understand it yet. You see you only build a new house if you have something wrong with your old house. Heaven was the previous spiritual house of God where there were an enumerable number of angels dwelling. So what do you do when some of your angels have been found with sin in them? You should really think about that before you try to answer it. God is a just God and God is God who does not lie and break promises with those in His family. So God’s old spiritual house and family has a major problem occurring internally within it and this causes God to decide to build/create a new House through His Son Jesus Christ. I’ll talk and teach more on this subject soon, so please keep a look out for it, the Bible says some very important things on this subject for Christians who desire to understand.

Let’s get back to God’s new spiritual building project where you can clearly find in the Bible that Jesus is building this new house for God using us the church. We know in 1 Peter 2:5 that it says we are being “built up” a spiritual house. This implies a foundation and then subsequent building layers. Who is the spiritual foundation for this new spiritual house? Of course it is God Himself to some degree who is our foundation as well as a few other chosen individuals that are mentioned in this verse:

Eph 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

Again we can clearly see that we the people of God in the church building are being built upon a foundation that consists of three spiritual entities. Jesus Christ is clearly called the most important stone in the new building and He is described as the “chief corner”. This was usually in ancient building projects the first stone that was laid and one that all other stones are aligned from. So the first thing that you should grasp is that Jesus Christ is also a stone in this new spiritual house. God became one of us so that we could be made again like one of Him. The next thing that you should observe in this verse is that the Apostles of Jesus and the prophets of God from the O.T. are also living stones that makeup the foundation for this new building. Do you understand this? This is very important that you see. Here is another verse that gives us an additional perspective on the subject:

Rev 21:14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

In this chapter of Revelation God describes another place or actually the same place that we have been discussing but in different terms. In this chapter God describes a spiritual city called “New Jerusalem” and “Holy Jerusalem”. Both of these are the names given to the new spiritual dwelling place of God. If you noticed in this verse that this city contains a foundation of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ. That sounds very similar to what we just read in Ephesians 2:20. What we can see are some amazing parallels that are certainly not found here by chance or accident. Both Ephesians and 1 Peter spoke of a building project that is being created by God. We are called the temple of God in the letters written to the church, however in Revelation God speaks of us in terms of being a city. Both are structures with walls and foundations and are built with stones. Here is another verse that certainly applies to our subject today concerning this city found in Revelation 21:

Rev 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

This verse is pretty amazing. It speaks of us as being the tabernacle of God. Tabernacle is a term meaning God’s tent. Isn’t this what Moses built God in the Old Testament? Moses built a tent which clearly meant a temporary dwelling place. What Moses made was a temporary dwelling because it was made by men. Anything that a man makes will be temporary. However, we are now found to be an eternal dwelling place for our God made not with the hands of men. When we leave this planet we will be given eternal glorified bodies like the one that Jesus possessed after His resurrection. This will be a body that will never fail or fade. Therefore it will be a permanent dwelling place for the Spirit of God. God is saying in Revelation 21:3 that God’s new house will be “with” men. The term “with” in this verse means to be joined to Him in marriage and become one flesh with Him. What we see today is a small taste of what we will see in eternity. The Spirit of God being in us today is a pattern for what we will experience forever in eternity. Therefore, God’s New Jerusalem is a spiritual city of People in covenant with Him where He lives and dwells throughout eternity. We will be His people and He will be our God and according to the Bible no eye has seen nor have we even begun to imagine the great things that He has planned for us (1 Cor 2:9). I hope and pray that you enjoyed my short and basic Bible lesson on God’s spiritual building project and have learned that we are that project here today and right now. So the next time when you go to church remember you are not going to the house of God, YOU ARE THE HOUSE OF GOD who is going to a building to meet with the rest of God’s house for fellowship, praise and worship of Him who is In US! God Bless!

Posted in Bible Basics, Bible Study, Understanding

26 Comments

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, lies, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Salvation, understanding

Understanding Angels! Protecting Angels! Part 7

Oct 23

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 7 of a series of studies about the spiritual reality of angels found in the Bible. We have covered a lot of information that is not going to be repeated, so if you have not read all of these lessons from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1” and read forward to this lesson. In the past we have been discussing the physical makeup of angels, where angels come from, the dimensions of angels, the assignments of angels and we have learned that they are intended to be a beneficial spiritual force that works for us and with us. Christians and the angels of God are on the same spiritual team and we have the same God. But, we have also seen battles, conflicts and the realities of other angels that are not working for God. These evil or unclean angels are God’s enemies and we will discuss them more in the future. Today I want to discuss a different purpose of angels of God found in the Bible. I believe that God has assigned specific tasks and responsibilities for angels to follow. These are generally followed for our benefit, but angels never override your will unless there is eminent danger. If you recall we studied the story of Lot in Sodom and God sent two angels to his house to get him and his family out before the city was destroyed. These angels practically had to drag this family away from the city by the hand, because they did not want to leave. I do not know if it was a case of core unbelief or just the fact that they thought they belonged there in the city. We did see that Lot left two daughters in the city that were married and they would not leave with them, so this might have contributed to the hesitation. However, if they would have stayed in Sodom they would all have been killed that very day by the falling fire and brimstone from heaven. Of course the only reason they were saved was because God talked with Abraham and Abraham asked God to spare them. So really Lot had nothing to do with his salvation other than allowing the angels to guide them out. He was very fortunate that he had an uncle that knew a God who was merciful. Many times angels will do this for your unsaved relatives also if you ask them to. So what we learn from God’s story of Sodom is that angels can protect people from a pending disaster, either natural or supernatural. Therefore, one of the key assignments of angels given to them by God is to protect those who are heirs of salvation.

Of course it is always much more complicated than trying to make that simple of a statement trying to say that an angel’s job is just to protect us. We can clearly see in the world that even Christians die in plane crashes and terrorist attacks. In fact children are killed every day in our world and they have not yet come to the age of accountability to make a decision for Christ. So where are all the protecting angels for these children? These are very difficult questions to try to answer since we do not know all of the facts or circumstances surrounding any one’s death that occurs in our world. So how can we attempt to explain why something happened if we do not know all of the information necessary about what caused this to occur? That is our challenge, since the Bible says that we are looking through a glass darkly and only see partially the spiritual realm, we must do the best that we can from what information God hsd given to us. I do not believe that we can know everything unless God somehow shows them to us and many times these things are personal items between God and that person and God will not tell you their secrets just because you want to know them. God says in Deuteronomy 29:29 “that the secret things belong to the Lord” so don’t go asking God to reveal to you things that do not concern you personally. So today I ask the question do people have guardian angles assigned to them by God? Here is an interesting statement that Jesus said about angels:

Mat 18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

Here we have a verse where Jesus is speaking about the little children that have been brought to Him to be blessed. Jesus tells us that these little children all have “their” own angel. These angels go from here to heaven and when in heaven they check with God and see what God says for them to do. Since God does not show any favoritism to anyone we must logically conclude from this information that every child born on the earth has an angel assigned to them. The population of the earth is currently less than 7 billion and in the book of Hebrews God tells us that the total number of the angels in Heaven are innumerable. Men can easily count to a billion and even a trillion if they had enough time or could just use a computer. According to Revelation 12 we know that 1/3 of the angels have been cast down with Satan to the earth. Therefore, we can clearly observe that even taking away 1/3 there are potentially more than enough angels to go around to watch over 7 billion people.

Let me tell you about some personal experiences that I believe that angels have come to my aid in my past. One day as a young man I sat in my car at a red light in the left turn lane waiting for the light to turn green. I was the first one in line and just sat waiting for a green light to go. Suddenly a dump truck ran over the front of my car and crushed it. It seems this truck was coming down the hill to my left and lost his brakes and the driver of the truck could not get it to stop when the light was changing. I never heard anything or saw anything that was about to happen. So the driver came down the hill without brakes, without sounding his horn and he was trying to weave and dodge everyone as he came down the hill without any brakes. He missed most everyone except my car. However, if I was 5 or 6 feet closer into the intersection or the light had turned green I would not be here today. A man I knew saw me right after the wreck of my car and stopped to talk to me. He said I was very lucky to have escaped harm and he was right. You see I did not see any angels present that day, but yet looking back on it I can see the hand of God that spared me so I conclude that an angel was at work that day doing something to help me. It could have been just to cause the light to stay red long enough for me not to go forward. It could have been to tell me to stop and not inch any closer into the intersection. It could have been helping the driver of the truck to know how to turn and when to turn the wheel to keep from killing anyone. I mean we do not know all of the possibilities that could have been affected by an angel’s help. It is very difficult to know when something like that happens all of the factors that went into that day’s activities for everyone involved. I mean I could have been a few minutes later and missed everything or I could have been a few feet forward and been killed.

Then later in life I was attending a church gathering at a large convention center in downtown Dallas Texas. It was very late at night and the service was still going on, but I decided to take my kids home to get them into bed. So we left early and started for where I parked my vehicle about three blocks away. I noticed as I walked down the sidewalk that there was no one else around anywhere and that concerned me. We had to go close to 3 blocks to get to my car and it was very dark except for street lights. Suddenly I noticed two teenaged punks up ahead of me nearly a block away on the other side of the street. Then I noticed them looking at me and taking something out of their ankles like knives or weapons of some sort. I knew this was not a good situation to be in with two small young children. I was carrying my youngest child and my eldest son walked by me. I saw that the punks crossed the street so I crossed the street at the same time in the opposite direction. They suddenly realized that I had changed my course as they were coming towards me. I remember praying to God and “pleading the blood of Jesus” over my situation. I grabbed the hand of my son and we turned to walk back towards the convention center down the middle of the street. Suddenly a group of people appeared out of nowhere. There were probably four of them, two men and two women so I started walking towards them and arrived at them at the same time as the two teenaged punks so I turned and stood by them and we all stopped to look at the punks. The teenagers were outnumbered at this point so they asked some dumb questions acting all innocent and then ran off. I walked with this people for a little while never saying anything to any of them about what just happened. Suddenly again one of the women turned to me and said “Thank you” and they went on into the night and disappeared. So why was someone that I did not know telling me “Thank you” with me not saying anything to them at all? I have asked myself that question many times and can only come to the conclusion that it was because I prayed and ask that God cover us with His shed blood. So were these angels sent from God or were these just people who happened to be at the right place at the right time for me? I don’t know! I just believe that God answers prayer and how He does it is not up to me. I cannot tell this story without tears coming to my eyes thinking about it.

So those were just two examples of how angels could have affected a positive outcome in a potentially negative set of circumstances. One time I saw nobody and the other time there were people involved that I saw. I have heard many times a minister of God say this, “People are looking for the spectacular and all the time missing the supernatural”. In other words they read their Bibles and want God to do something like part the Red Sea for them or appear in a burning bush and God does not have to do something like this to cause a supernatural event to transpire and save your life. I’ll give you one more example of someone I knew. He was working very late one night at the office and he had his little daughter with him there at work. They decided to go home and of course it was dark and everyone else was already gone. As he loaded his daughter in the car and put her in her car seat a man with a gun came up and told him let’s go back inside the office building. This man that was being robbed with his daughter was the type of man that carried a licensed firearm with him for protection, but it was in his brief case in the front seat of the car. So he told the gun man I have my wallet in my brief case and reached in and his hand fell on the gun in the exact perfect way so that he just grabbed it and pointed it and began to shoot it at the robber. The man was hit several times but did not go down. The robber pointed his gun at the window of the car where the daughter was and pulled the trigger and guess what, the bullet bounced off of the window. The car did not have bullet proof glass and this should not have happened. So was this a chance accidental occurrence that everything just worked out like it did for the child? You have to be pretty blind to think that it was. I am confident that the angel of God was present there to help and to save the little girl who is still our friend today as a 13 year old young lady. Can angels stop bullets? I believe that they can, what you believe is your choice.

Psa 34:7 The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

So God tells us in the Bible that the angels of the Lord are present around those that have respect for God. Therefore, those who do not fear God might have a problem. It would be good to hear God say that we have an angel that is with us, but it also much better to hear Him say that one of their assignments is to help deliver us from something? What we need to figure out is what it is that they deliver us from? I believe that we only need deliverance from something that is intended to do us harm or hurt. Do you understand this? What is this trying to tell us? If angels can deliver you then other angels can also do things to you to cause you harm. That is just a basic reality found within the spiritual realm. Satan wants to kill you and God wants to save you and we have the classic battle of good vs. evil in our world transpiring all around us every night on the evening news. So how does Satan cause things to happen to take you out of the world? Many times Satan influences and uses people to hurt other people. Just as good angels can influence good people to do good things, Satan can influence and suggest that evil people do bad things to hurt other people. We have not discussed demons and evil spirits yet, but the Bible says they exist and we will definitely talk about them later.

Exo 14:19 And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:

You can read another story of angelic involvement with the children of Israel leaving Egypt. In this story God says that an angel appeared before them to help guide them. The children of Israel make a camp and the angel moves to the rear of them for protection. We can clearly see that angels give God’s people a layer of protection from their enemies of Egypt who were pursuing them to take them back. This is not ministering “to” them; this is another example of angels ministering “for” them. We can clearly see that “protection” is one of the primary responsibilities for angels. You can also assume that Satan was influencing Pharaoh to pursue God’s people to do them harm. This is another example of how angels can affect the outcome of what happens in the world.

Exo 23:20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

So I hesitate to mention this verse, because it says the angel was guiding Israel in the way that they should go. However, it will be a good opportunity to teach you something about the role of angels in the church. Angels can clearly give people direct messages from God. We can seen this happening repeatedly in the Bible. These words from God can be considered guidance. You can even see this in examples found in the New Testament. However, many times these angels brought news from God about pending disasters. For example, Paul’s ship wreck in Acts 27:23 was foretold to him by the angel that he would live through it. But, here is the problem; I have not found a verse of scripture that tells us to pray for angels to lead us. The Bible in the New Testament says that those who are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God (Rom 8:14). So it appears to me that today we are to be primarily led by the Spirit of God that lives in us. This does not mean that God cannot still send you an angel if He chooses to do so. However, it is God’s choice and not yours. Do not put God in a box and think that an angel is the only way God can do anything for you, just leave the option open if God so desires. I have heard stories of people who prayed for angels to appear and Satan shows up to give them a message like it was from God and this was nothing but a way to deceive them into doing something not in line with the will of God. The Bible clearly says that Satan can disguise himself to appear as a messenger of light (2 Cor 11:14). So if you pray and ask for angel and are not promised one in the Word of God, then you are asking and praying for something out of the line of God’s purpose and plan and this normally just opens the door for Satan to come in to deliver his message of deception.

There are many verses in the Bible where angels are used by God to protect and deliver His people, so I will not go through all of these. I will briefly talk about Peter being thrown into prison by Herod in Acts 12:5. In this chapter you can see that Peter was being persecuted for preaching the truth. Thus we have Satan influencing Herod to do God’s people harm and Herod later finds out this was a mistake that he should not have made. In verse 5 of Acts 12 you see that the church was praying for God to deliver Peter and they continued to do this until Peter showed up at their door one night. God ends up sending an angel to wake Peter in the jail and this angel walks him to the house where the church is meeting. The angel is able to bypass the guards, release his physical bonds and open doors supernaturally to get Peter out of prison. This is a supernatural event of the divine intervention of God of how an angel can be used to deliver anyone from harm. Peter would have been executed the next day if not for the angel of God and the prayers of the church. This is another example of how angels are sent for the words of people on the earth. If there had been no prayers or words spoken there would have been no deliverance for Peter and we would have a few less books of the Bible to read today. Please notice that spiritual angels can affect an change physical things and outcomes.

I’ll end this lesson with another example of how angels can potentially work in the earth and you not see them or know of their involvement. In an earlier lesson I told you that the towers in NY on 9/11 were amazingly empty compared to normal capacity. My wife knew one man in NY that was supposed to be in the tower giving a presentation for his company. This was a very important meeting and one that he should never have missed. However, something transpired that day that was not expected at home and he was forced to stay home with his family that day. Because he stayed home we can only assume that this saved his life. The company that he worked for and the company that he was presenting to both vanished that day and do not exist anymore. So what appeared to be important that day turns out was not very important in the grand scheme of life. Were angels involved in this one case, again we do not know but yet something happened out of the normal course of life that caused a dramatic different result. I personally believe it was an angel, but you can believe whatever you like.

So I am personally convinced that angels do supernatural things to help people when someone asks God to help them. It doesn’t have to be you praying for yourself either. It can be like Peter when it was the church that prayed for his deliverance or Abraham speaking to God for Lot’s benefit. Ask God to get involved in the lives of your friends and relatives and see what happens. I am a firm believer that we are not done with evil in the world. I believe the terrorist and evil people of the world are hard at work coming up with new ways to hurt people. By releasing the angels of God to help protect us is one of the best defenses that we can possess against this spiritual evil. If you have personal stories of how angels helped you out of a bad situation I would be very happy to hear about them. I’ll end this lesson here for today and pray that you have a very blessed day.

If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on angels you can continue with “Part 8“.

Posted in Angels, Bible Study, Understanding

Tags: angels, Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Salvation, Satan, Truth, understanding

God and Computers! God Challenges the Kings of the Earth!

Oct 22

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.1) Today I’m going talk about a subject that I have taught before. This is a very important subject found in the Bible and it helps us to explain many of the challenges we are faced with in the church today. This subject helps us to understand why there are literally thousands of church denominations in the world and why some believe so radically different than others. So today I am going to talk more about the hidden mysteries of the Word of God. Do you like to solve puzzles? To me the more difficult the challenge the more interested I am in trying to solve it. This doesn’t mean that I am the most intelligent or the highest I.Q. person in the world; I just like to solve problems. But, maybe that is just me as a problem solver type personality that comes from my computer programming experiences. As a computer programmer, I was constantly challenged with difficult problems to come up with solutions for writing computer programs. If you did not know it, computer programming is simply a computer programmer’s attempt to solve a very specific definable and repeatable problem. Sometimes we are creating new solutions and sometimes we are just inventing fixes for existing older problems. Problem solving is a Godly principle that makes humans vastly different from the rest of creation. Humans generally want to learn and are curious to want to know things and how they work. People also generally like a challenge and whether it is just doing a simple puzzle or solving a complex riddle we like the sense of accomplishment that comes with solving these types of enigmas. Did you know that God is a problem solver? If we are made in the image and likeness of God then we have His problem solving ability built within us in a lesser degree.

Problem solving can either be positive or negative. If you create a code system it is different than if you figure out how to break the code. However, both of these actions are creative problem solving abilities from a different perspective. You can see this in a computer hacker’s mentality. People are constantly trying to invent a new more complex code but, that just becomes a greater challenge for someone else to try to break into it. So let’s shift gears and talk about the Bible code system. God has actually come up with an ingenious system of message hiding in a plainly written word arrangement. I believe this was a demonstration of His ability to create an ultimate encoded word system that hides many spiritual truths using natural ideas, words, symbols, types and terms in the Bible.

An enigma is of course a strange word that some may not understand what it means. It means a perplexing or mysterious coded puzzle; something that is difficult to understand and almost impossible to explain on the surface. Did you know this is how God designed and wrote the Bible? God purposely designed the words in the Bible to hide a vast amount of spiritual information that we in the church still fight over daily trying to figure out what they all mean. Why do we fight over this information so much? It is primarily because too many men and women want to take natural things spoken of and try to interpret these words with their own natural human understanding. This method will not work and will only result in confusion since God is not writing at a man’s natural level. I guess I should rephrase that statement, I believe that God is writing about highly complex spiritual things at the level that a natural man cannot understand.

I believe that natural people do not understand spiritual things until their spiritual eyes of their understanding have been opened to see it by the Spirit of God. This is one of God’s guarantees of making His Word known at the exact right time that He wants it to be known. Did you know that God has thrown down a challenge for all humans on the earth? I guess technically it is not a challenge to every human, only those who want to know the truth. There are many, many people in the earth who are not interested in the truth; they are too consumed with their version of reality to care about what is really true. So you must decide today which category of people you fall into. Are you one that wants to know the truth? If so then here is God’s challenge to us in this verse:

Pro 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

You can clearly see that God has purposely hidden and concealed information in the Bible for us to find before He comes back to the earth. Are you diligently looking for it already? What does it mean to “search out a matter”? It means you have to “WORK” to find it. It also means it is not easily found. It also means you don’t know it already. Uh oh? That goes over really big with a lot of religious theologians who think their doctorate degrees give them an advantage over the rest of humans.

I believe these concepts of God hiding information in the Bible for us to find with all of my heart. Jesus when He walked the face of the planet close to 2000 years ago told us that if we would continue to study the Word of God that we would eventually come to know this truth that God has hidden for us (John 8:32). Verses like these two that I just mentioned tell me that we do not know all of the things that God has hidden yet. Here is another statement that Jesus made that had direct bearing on our subject today:

Luk 8:17 For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.

You can clearly see that Jesus is speaking of hidden and concealed secret heavenly information. This has to be valuable spiritual knowledge for us to know before we go to be with the Lord. This has to be something that will help us now in our spiritual battle against Satan. You may recall that I did a blog on “Understanding Spiritual Warfare”. In this lesson I told you that the battle was over the Word of God. Satan is doing everything that he can to keep you from knowing what God wants you to find out. Satan thinks if he can stop you from finding the truth, he has a chance of survival and I think that is a partial truth. Fortunately for us we have God on our side who is our guide and teacher, so we cannot fail. Here in Luke 8:17 Jesus said everything that God has concealed will be made known. The deep spiritual secrets of God will be revealed so that we can understand them. I strongly believe that the time is very short for us to find these hidden truths but, that God is also doing things in the earth to help us to see and know these hidden truths, like the invention of computers. I am convinced that computers are a tool given to us by God for His good and His purpose of learning and spreading the truth to the world.

When I was a computer programmer many years ago I remember a time that I was faced with a difficult challenge. It seems one of our system’s programs was missing the source code and therefore we could not make any significant changes to this program. You might not understand computer programming, you always first start coding and create a source language file and this is compiled into the machine’s object language code and this is what the computer uses to execute the instructions that you wrote it to do. Programmers never write programs using the machine’s language anymore like they did with very early computers. Today’s computer programming languages are much higher level than machine language. A single line of program code can be compiled into a whole bunch of machine instructions. Back to my story, we lost the source code to a key part of our system. But we were fine without the source code as long as we did not want to make any major modifications to the programmed operations that we previously used to create the executable. I’m going to show my age a little bit here and tell you we use to do something called “ZAP” the object code to make minor modifications to it. You could change the machine’s operation by changing instructions or addresses or eliminating the instructions all together with NO OPERATION replacement codes. So I would do this to our IBM main frame operating system so that it would not roll over the date when midnight came along, for example. You see IBM didn’t give us their source code so if we wanted to change it from rolling over the date we had to change the executable machine codes and that is what I did. It amazes me what we could get away with back then. If auditors would have been smart enough to understand the power that we had they would have had a cow! Today is of course a little bit better and different more secure world to some degree. So back to my story about losing the source code, this was a challenge to me and I was bent on solving it. So I took the object code and reverse engineered it back to the original source code as best as I could make it out to be. Of course I had learned a few things about the programming standards that were in place so that made it easier to reverse engineer it back to the original source code. This of course would be a much more difficult operation in our modern world, since most programmers only use very high level object oriented languages that are not as easy to create source from the executable programs.

So why did I tell you a story about old time computer programming and solving problems? God taught me so much from my computer programmer experiences that applies to the Word of God that it is incredible. You see God knows computers better than we know computers. I am convinced that God gave man computers for a purpose of the end times. Therefore, God knew that we would have computers in these final days before He returns and we could use them and their principles in our attempts at understanding the Bible. So I believe that God used computer laws and principles to help hide information in the Bible. One principle that I have blogged on before is that there are established spiritual laws that govern everything that God does. I called this a “Rules Based Approach” to Bible interpretation. God implemented and created the laws that govern correct Bible Interpretation and we are required to first discover them and then to follow them in order to understand what is written correctly. Another computer design principle used in any valid application development is called “Application Standards”. These are generally speaking repeatable patterns that occur in a uniform fashion or approach that can always be counted on to be followed. We live in a world full of standards. They make standard bolts and nuts, the large portion of the world has adopted weights and measurement standards around the metric system, there are also standard bar code systems that are used in our grocery stores to help speed out check out and other inventory control systems and we could go on and on about standards and that they are around us everywhere. In my early programming we had “Naming Standards” and other standards that are probably too technical to talk about in a Bible study that goes out to many who are not that computer literate. However, the concept of standards is a design concept that is also encapsulated or employed by God in the Bible. For example, there is the Bible concept of Types and Shadows found predominately in the Old Testament stories and the Gospels. These are real stories of real people, places and things in the world that exhibit a view into a spiritual reality that we cannot observe with our natural eyes. The Bible is full of repeatable patterns in many aspects and dimensions. Take the concept of “seeds” if you have not read my blog on “Understanding Seeds” you should. Seeds are repeatable standard found within the Bible that applies across the board to many aspects including complex spiritual things that you did not know of.

So if you are a computer programmer, today I challenge you to begin to study the Bible using computer science laws and knowledge. Examine the Bible using object oriented concepts of encapsulation, inheritance and abstraction. Take your computer knowledge and apply it using God’s methods and knowing God understands computers better than you do. See if you cannot find new things by using this new approach to Bible study. If you are not a computer programmer fear not, do not be downcast or feel inferior, I believe that God will use what you have and what you know to get you to see new things also, maybe even things that I do not see.

Today’s lesson was a reminder to you that God’s word contains many, many hidden spiritual secrets. That is the most important thing that you need to take away with you today. Then you need to figure out how God has hidden these things in the Bible. God did not use an unreadable code system like governments do to try to guard secrets, so that means that God used some very difficult different methods to conceal the truth in plain sight. I started writing a series of blogs of “Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight” which reveal some of the techniques used by God in hiding information in the Bible. If you have not read this series I would suggest that you go and read them as an introduction to some very basic techniques used by God. These are not a complete list, so do not expect them to tell you every secret utilized. If I knew them all I would already know everything that I need to solve every Bible debate that exists today and no one is at that point yet. However, I am a firm believer that before Jesus returns the church will make herself ready and will become one in harmony like Jesus prayed and asked to happen. If you are interested in making this happen then stay in the Word of God and continue to study to find the truth. God Bless!

Posted in Bible Interpretation, Keys to Understanding

1 Comment

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Rules, Standards, Truth, understanding

The Predestination Fable vs. Freewill Theology!

Oct 17

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.3) This is now Part 3 in a series of advanced Bible studies concerning the erroneous doctrine of extreme “Predestination”. If you have not read from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1“. It seems that there is not a shortage of ignorant people in the world or on the internet. Today I will address a very deep topic that I have addressed previously but I will do it today in a more detailed way for these people who refuse to believe the truth. There are so many levels of deception in the world. There are so many variations of the same lies that it is almost impossible to address them all. I had a reader write me a new variation of an old deception about “Predestination”. His claim was that everyone will be saved who wants to be saved, but God still predestined some people for hell because the Bible says Jesus chose Judas to betray Him. I guess according to this man’s reasoning Judas didn’t want to be saved and this was why Jesus chose him. I really do not know what people are thinking when they say some of the things that they do. Hopefully by writing this I can help someone in the world not to fall into this level of deception, for you see I do not believe that you can help people who do not want to be helped. It is very difficult and even impossible to help everyone. If you noticed while reading your Bible even Jesus could not help everyone. That statement might shock you, but you do realize that some of the Jews hung Him on the cross? Did Jesus not preach and teach the same words to these people as He did everyone else? How is it that some accepted and others rejected and the same words were spoken to each? I guess according to this guy it was because of God’s predestined purpose that everyone did what they did. After all God controls what every human on the planet does every minute of the day. We are all just God’s puppets and we only do His will. That is why there is so much good in the world and love towards each other. Heck, I haven’t seen enough love in the church, much less in the world. Why does the church bicker and fight within their own ranks so much? I guess it was all just God’s will and Jesus doesn’t get His prayers answered. Remember in John when Jesus prayed and asked His Father to “Make them one as we are one”? Has this ever happened in the last 2000 years? I think one of the few times that I saw it was in the Bible in Acts 2:1 when there were only 120 in the upper room and they were all in one accord. It seems to me that once the church grew beyond the 120 it became increasingly more difficult to remain in harmony. Why is that?

Today I’m going to speak about “Predestination” vs. “Freewill”. What is predestination? According to definitions that I have found it is the theology that states God has foreordained every event in the course of human history including the end result of salvation for every man, woman and child. This was a popular teaching that originated from “Calvin” I believe and it has continued in many ignorant and deceived churches to this day. This teaching has many problems and ignores many other Bible verses. It promotes a theology of “Limited Justification”, where only those selected by God have been atoned for by the Blood of Jesus. Therefore the Blood of Jesus is not all encompassing or powerful enough to save everyone. It further promotes the theology of “Once Saved Always Saved” where a God selected Christian can do nothing to lose their salvation. This philosophy is based upon the fact that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent and can do whatever He desires, so therefore they make the erroneous leap that God controls everything that happens to us in the world. Just because God can they think that God does. If it happens in the world then that is or was the plan of God in manifestation. This teaching comes from the minds of heavily deceived individuals who do not see or understand the Bible. Why do they not understand the Bible; primarily because they do not know the author of the Bible who is God! To understand the Bible you must first and above all else come to know Him (the Author) and allow His Holy Spirit to guide you into all of the truth (John 16:13). By knowing God you learn His character, His Integrity, His Nature, His Ways and His Personality. God’s integrity and character is the highest moral standard that exists above everyone else. For example, the Bible says it is impossible for God to lie. You can clearly see that makes His character way beyond mine. It is entirely possible for me to lie to you. It is entirely possible for any human on the earth to lie to you. In fact I do not know of another being natural or spiritual that exists that cannot lie. The existence of Satan proves that even angels can lie. That is why we MUST see what God says in His Word in order to find the truth.

Whether you realize it or not we have a significant problem within the Body of Christ, a major conflict, a battle of theologies between the “Predestination” Theology and the “Freewill” Theology. Many may have never heard of either of these teachings. Therefore they do not understand what they mean or know that there is a conflict being debated. If you do not understand these subjects then you need to learn quickly which one is the truth and which one is a fabrication. But, hopefully you will better understand them as I go through the rest of this lesson. What we have on the surface is the theology that God is in control of everything that happens vs. the theology that man has a freewill to choose his own destiny. This is the root of the battle.

So this reader of mine who ignored everything that I said in the last lesson on the subject of predestination (“Many Called and Few Chosen”), wrote me a long comment why I was so wrong giving me lots of his misunderstood Bible verses about how God prophesied every major event in the Bible before it ever happened in the world. Therefore according to his brilliant reasoning “Prophesy” proves “predestination” or a “predestined plan” that cannot be changed. I have written in other Bible lessons that God lives outside of the boundaries or constraints of time. Do you believe God is limited to time? If you think God is limited to the dimension of time where was God before the “beginning”? Scientists clearly understand that our known universe had a beginning, a clear starting point in time called the “big bang”. We must logically conclude that if God created time God existed before time. Can we agree upon this factual conclusion?

Jesus said “I am the beginning and the end” and this clearly tells us that God pre-existed in a self-existent perpetual state before and after either of these two points of reference in time. Let’s consider the nature of prophecy. The Bible clearly says that “I make known the end from the beginning” (Isa 46:10). Therefore God definitely knows the end before it happens. We are therefore at a crossroad point of decision to choose to believe one of two paths of opposing theology. The first path is the belief that just because God knows the end and everything in between that also means God orchestrated and caused it all to happen this way. This belief alleviates all other source or influences of freewill choices. Or the second path that we could take is that God did not cause it all to happen this way but rather only reports to us in the Bible what will happen based upon foreknowledge. This approach keeps the positive or negative influences of human freewill and other spiritual beings. Just because God knows what will happen does not mean God causes it to happen that way. Let me ask you this, do you believe that God is in control of everything that happens? Can you show me a Bible verse that says this? I simply do not know one and if you do then I would be happy to learn about it. However, you cannot take a prophecy and say God caused it to happen unless you see the words “God caused Judas to betray Jesus”. Otherwise your theology is based upon assumptions of human reasoning and that is a very dangerous place to put your confidence. The Bible says many things that will counter this theological theory that God controls everything and we must see these clearly to understand the real truth. I mean can you read? Here are some Bible verses that you should pay very close attention to:

Mat 13:25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

Jesus is teaching a parable that relates a spiritual truth about the Kingdom of God. The first thing that you need to note is the fact that God says He has an enemy. Not an evil puppet, an enemy. You can find this reality multiple times in the N.T. God says in Hebrews “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies thou footstool” (Heb 1:13). Do you know the definition of an enemy? According to God your enemy never does what you want them to do; if an enemy did what you desired then they would not be your enemy. We are fighting terrorism in the U.S., because why? Terrorists call the U.S. their enemy. Therefore, we are forced to defend our nation and to try to defeat them because they called us the enemy of their god Allah. Do you have a different definition for an enemy? You should go through the Bible and see the references to what God calls an enemy. An enemy is never one that under the control of those they are opposed to, unless they have been totally defeated. In this parable of God’s garden or farm, God is said to have sown wheat seeds and an enemy has come along in secret and sown “tares” in God’s garden. It doesn’t sound like God is in complete control of His own garden, does it? You cannot read a story like this and believe in “predestination” unless you twist it to believe that God’s enemy is just a part of God’s planned design. If you believe that, then you have to change the definition of what an enemy is. If Satan is doing exactly what God wants him to do, then he is a friend of God and not an enemy. You can clearly see this is true or it makes Jesus Christ out to be a liar. You see in John 15:14 Jesus said this to His disciples “You are my friends, if you do what I command you”. So if Satan is doing what God wants he would not be called an enemy he would have to be called a friend of God. I mean are you blind or can you read? Go through your Bible searching and tell me where it says that Satan is a friend of God? Knowing this fact alone blows extreme “Predestination” out of the water. There is no way to believe in predestination unless you change God’s definition of a friend and an enemy. By clear definition it is impossible for God to have enemies and be in total control of everything. You really need to study your Bible more before you make wild theological statements like God has predestined some to hell. Let’s see another new perspective that counters the theology of extreme “Predestination”.

Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

In the book of Genesis God is telling us of a time when man was morally corrupt. It is easy for me to understand that this is why America is in the dilemma that we are in today. Liberals want to remove God from our government and our schools and then expect things to get better. However, the Bible proves this is not what happens in our world without God’s involvement. Without churches, a Bible and God being intimately involved you can see what God says happened in the world. The rise of “wickedness” and “evil” in the thoughts and minds of humanity in our country has caused a generation of people who are not better than we use to be, but much worse. If you take God out of your schools you teach ignorance, children grow up without any moral character, standards and integrity. Therefore, they do what they want to do to who they want to do it and whenever they think they can get away with it. Take a look at this next verse in Genesis:

Gen 6:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Ok, I’m going to ask you again, Can You READ? What does this verse say? It says “God was sorry that He made man because He saw the wickedness that was running rampant in the earth. I thought God caused all of this wickedness to occur by His designed plan? After all how would God use Noah to save humans if God had not caused the evil in the world to be present in the first place? So this is the reasoning of predestination theology that you have to say that God purposely caused the “Evil” so that He could implement a plan of “Salvation” for us all. That is what extreme “Predestination” is preaching. But, how can you cause something to happen and then regret that it happened? Does that make any logical sense to you? You see you cannot do this if you have any morality and integrity at all. You do not ever go to your car in the drive way and purposely break it just so you can fix it, that would be called insanity. You see this is a major problem for extreme “Predestination” theology. If God wanted something different than what was happening on the earth, God would have controlled it to make it occur differently. God would not have allowed “wickedness” if it was all up to God. You can see that, can’t you? These verses just don’t make any sense in the extreme “Predestination” world that God caused it to be this way so that God could regret that He created man to be evil. Wow, this is some very powerful stuff if you can accept it as the truth!

Let me give you another verse of scripture that is directly opposed to the exreme philosophy of “Predestination”. You see according to “Predestination” theology God has foreordained that some people would go to hell and some people would be saved. If this is true, man would have no choice to ever make to obtain either one of these end results. So how do you deal with a verse that says something like this?

2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

I have heard many opinions to what this verse means and most of them are wrong. There are those who claim this verse teaches that everyone will be saved because God always gets His will done both in heaven and on the earth. This is the theory of “Universal Salvation” and it is another lie from Satan. Then there are others who must ignore this verse to teach “Predestination” theories. This verse very clearly says God desires everyone to be saved. This verse countermands the philosophy of “Selective Atonement” that other deceived Christians want to buy into. In the “Selective Atonement” philosophy God only paid the price for the sins of those that were chosen. The others have their sins carried with them to hell forever. But, you can read and see that God is speaking in this verse about being patient towards us on the earth because His will is for “everyone” to be saved. If it is therefore possible for everyone to be saved by the shed Blood of Jesus then Jesus paid the price for ALL sin with His onetime blood sacrifice. Where many Christians get confused is in the fact that salvation is not totally up to God. The reality is found in the Bible that God saved everyone but this does not mean that everyone is saved. For those who want to leave salvation totally up to God is how they created the belief of extreme “Predestination”. For those who can see the truth, they know that man has a part to receive through faith everything that God has given to them by His grace. Can you help explain to me what God needs to have patience if He is controlling what is happening in the world? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Here is another popular verse that “Universal Salvation” teachers try to exalt to the total truth. Since everyone was condemned to die by Adam, we can now clearly see that by Christ everyone will live again. But, the problem with that is this is not what it says. This verse says only those “IN CHRIST” will be made alive and that is totally different. If you do not understand what it means to be “IN CHRIST” you should go and read my lessons on “Understanding Seeds”. What we have seen in these two last verses that I gave you is that the Bible says it is possible for everyone to be saved, but that it is not an automatic occurrence just because this is the will of God. So we are uniquely challenged by God to take every verse we can find in the Bible on a given subject and then to balance the information given to us in order to come up with the correct interpretations. One of the keys to doing this is by allowing God and His Word to interpret itself. This means getting God’s definitions for every word. This means reading God’s commentaries on the given subjects that we are learning. There are many factors to understanding the Bible and one of the greatest errors that men make is to take a single verse or two and try to make a single truth found in the Bible the complete truth and this is a major mistake.

Let’s go into another Bible verse that is often overlooked by “Predestination” teachers. In the Gospels the disciples of Jesus come to Him and ask “Lord teach us to pray as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1). If extreme predestination was really true, then Jesus’ response should have been “You don’t need to pray and ask God for anything because God’s will is always done”. However, this was not Jesus’ response was it? This was Jesus’ response to His disciples:

Luk 11:2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

Obviously Jesus thought praying to God was important enough to teach His disciples how to do it. This fact alone discredits “predestination” completely. Why do you pray to God? Do you pray to find out the will of God for your life and that is all? If you pray and have to ask for the will of God to be made known to you so you can do it then you are obviously not doing the will of God already. Do you understand that logic? In this verse Jesus is teaching His disciples to “pray” that the kingdom of God should come. Wow, that was a very heavy duty statement for God to make. If God’s will is always done on the earth then there is absolutely no need to pray for the Kingdom of God to come. Jesus then continues to pray that the “will” of God be done on the earth like it is performed already in heaven. Right there we have another MAJOR conflict to the extreme “Predestination” theology. Jesus who is God in the flesh is speaking to us and teaches us to pray and ask Him for God’s will to be done on the earth. This clearly means the will of God is NOT currently done on the earth if we have to pray for it to be done. Jesus says very clearly that in heaven the will of God is done, but on the earth we have a different situation occurring. Do you understand this? Is God stupid? Did God lie? Many must think that God is either confused or that He just wants people to believe that they are praying for something that is already going to be done on the earth to make them feel important. I tell you the deception occurring in the people who do not know how to read, seeing what it says and to those that try to explain verses like this away to hold on to their fantasy reality is just so incredible to me.

Let’s talk about foreknowledge next. Since God obviously did have a laid out plan for man, does that mean God must control everything to make it happen? Extreme predestination means that God is in control of everything that happens in the world and nothing happened unless it was part of God’s plan. This means Adolf Hitler was God’s plan. This means the terrorist who flew into the World Trade Center was part of God’s plan. This means the death of little children in the world was a part of God’s plan. The level of deception and ignorance to believe in something like that borders on insanity, if it does not cross well over that boundary line. If you believe that God is killing people in the world as a part of His divine plan for man you are a fool. You first off do not know the definition of what “LOVE” is. God who is LOVE (1 Jn 4:8) must demonstrate this highest level of LOVE as an example to us or we are following the wrong God. If God does not abide in LOVE then we are all in major trouble! If people want to redefine LOVE as it if it is permissible to kill people in mass, then we should all be taking up guns and doing exactly like God does. However the Bible says “Thou Shalt NOT Kill” (Exo 20:13). This Hebrew word translated as “kill” means to commit murder. So according to many ignorant theologians God is in clear violation of His own governing laws that He gave to man to follow. When Jesus Christ was born a man through a virgin named Mary (Gal 4:4), God placed Himself under the very laws that Theologians claim is Ok for God to violate. Completely foolish people think that God is some how separate from His Word. In other words God can say one thing and do something that is completely opposite to what He said and it is OK because God did it. Can you tell how much I dislike ignorance and stupidity?

I do not think I ever got to talk about the “foreknowledge” subject in the last paragraph. “Foreknowledge” is the specific knowledge of an event, planned outcome, or schedule before it happens. However, this is very different than man’s definition of “foreknowledge” and let me tell you why. Humans even have a variation of foreknowledge in limited degrees based upon planning. You see you might know that there is supposed to be a party tomorrow at 2:00 PM in the meeting room where you work. You know this because someone planned it and invited you to it. We can clearly see that just because this event is scheduled and planned that it does not necessarily have to occur, because in this world unexpected STUFF still Happens! The day the terrorists flew into the World Trade Center probably caused many parties to be canceled un-expectantly. We need to take this example and apply it to God, if we can. Extreme “Predestination Theology” wants us to believe that everything that occurs in the world is because it was “God’s Planned Event”. Then they have to further say that God does not allow anything else to interrupt His plans since He is in ultimate control of everything. Wow, these are really deep thoughts! What confuses many Christians is trying to determine the difference between foreknowledge and predestination. Just because God knows what will happen, when it will happen, to who it will happen and where it will happen does not mean that God caused it to happen or that someone cannot do something to change it from happening? What does the Bible teach about this?

You might recall that in the O.T. the prophet comes to the King and says get your house in order for God says that you shall surely die (2 Kings 20). Who said this and is it set in concrete? If understand the Bible you know the prophet was just a messenger for God and that God said it therefore God knew what was going to happen before it happened.. Is the king being told the set firm willed plan of God? Or is the King being told one possible outcome? Isaiah leaves the King and the King gets in prayer with God. God then sends Isaiah back and tells the King God has heard your prayer and you shall live another 15 years. So here is where people come up with more stupid interpretations. I have heard ignorant people claim that God has a secret will and God has a revealed will. So God’s secret will was for the King to live another 15 years because this is what happened. But, this is more crazy human reasoning trying to makeup explanations for spiritual things that they do not understand. I tell you stories like this just baffle me to how people can believe in the concepts of extreme “predestination”. Either God changed the predestination of the King or the King did something to change his outcome in life or God just lied. God said you are going to die and the King lived another 15 years after he prayed. So what is it?

Let’s continue to look at what else God says in His word and see if we can determine the truth. By the way “Freewill” theology is one that teaches that man has a freewill choice in their destiny of going to heaven or to hell. “Predestination” means God has already determined who goes to heaven and who goes to hell and therefore man has no clear choices to make. If “Predestination” was true why get up in the morning and do anything that day? Why preach the gospel to anyone? Why even eat food and live? What are we doing here? Let’s go back to the beginning in Genesis 2 and 3. In these two chapters God reveals the fall of man. The Bible says God has created a Garden called Eden and has placed His created man in this location. God tells the man that it is OK to eat from every tree. But, then God says “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you do, you shall surely die”. Right there is a major problem for predestination theorists. Why would God tell the man anything if man was already going to eat from the tree and fulfill the real plan of God? You see according to “Predestination” the man Adam has no choice in what he does, so obviously when Adam fell it was God’s plan all along. So the warning of God to Adam makes no logical sense and is incompatible with the doctrine of “predestination”. Why warn someone they are going to die if they eat this fruit, if this is what God wanted them to do anyway. So that is the basis of the major downfall in the theology of “Predestination”. Why does God write us this book called the Bible to every human that is full of warnings? If man has no choice in fulfilling their destiny, this makes no logical or theological sense? The existence for the entire book of the Bible makes no sense in the theology of “Predestination”. God does not have to speak to people who are already programmed to do what they were created to do? You see in order to believe in true absolute “Predestination” you have to believe in a “preprogrammed” humanity. If man has no choices to make then whatever they do in life is what they were designed by God to do, good, or bad or in different. This is just a real philosophy that is not found in the Bible:

Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Bible verses like this one have to be totally ignored by “Predestination” deceivers. God who writes this verse for us, says “I have set before two choices, one is Life and the other is Death, therefore choose life so that you can live”. Why would God give a choice to a man who had no choices to make in their eternal destiny or earthly existence? That is clearly very STUPID to think that man does not have a choice to make!

Pro 1:29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:

Here we have another example of how ignorant people fail in our world and teach errors like “Predestination”. Because they “hated” knowledge and ignored the truth they have not chosen the fear of the Lord. Does God say we have a choice to make? Does God say we can choose to be ignorant? Does God put the ball in our court as being our decision to make? It sure looks like that to me.

Isa 56:4 For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant;

Does God again say that these men had a choice in what they could do? Doesn’t it say that they could have done like others and not pleased God? “Predestination” says man has no choice to make. They are pre-designed to please God or to be thrown in hell. If this is the case why does God not believe this? Didn’t God know He just lied to us in the Bible? What is God stupid or are people stupid?

Php 1:22 But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.

I have blogged on this verse before. In this chapter Paul is in a quandary trying to decide to stay on the earth and continue his ministry to the people or to leave the earth and go and be with Christ which he called “FAR BETTER” for him. Paul says very clearly that this is his choice to make and that he does not know yet which way he will decide to go. Wow, there are hundreds of verses found in the Bible like this one that throws “Predestination” into a downward spiraling airplane that will soon crash and burn. If man has no choices then why does God say that we do in the Bible? No, you see the problem is that people want to take part of the truth of the Bible and exalt it to be the complete truth and this is just a huge mistake. Yes, God has a plan for man! Yes, God know the destiny of every man! No, God did not intend you to go to hell if that is where you end up. In my first blog on this subject I clearly showed you that God had written everyone’s name in the Lambs Book of Life and that the Bible says that God was forced to blot out those who would not receive His free gift of salvation. So if God had predestined you to hell already from the beginning, why would your name be recorded in the “Lamb’s Book of Life” and then be blotted out? Do you understand the problem in that question? Doesn’t God already know who makes it and who doesn’t? After all if God “Predestined” you for salvation then He would just have a book of names that He predestined to be saved and would not have to blot out anyone else’s name who was not predestined. Predestination and foreknowledge are very similar but yet totally different concepts. If I know that you are coming to my house tomorrow, that is different than me making you come to my house tomorrow without inviting you to come. So God can very easily get accused of doing things that He is not guilty of doing. Just because idiots want to teach “Predestination” does not mean it is the truth.

Then there is the difficulty of the fact of “prophecy” found in the Bible. Clearly, God has prophesied many things in the Bible that will happen even in future events to come. I can understand if God prophecies something that He is responsible for fulfilling. This only makes sense to me. God says I will do this and that in this time frame and then it happens. But, when God prophesied things concerning other people, places and things it makes you think that God is controlling these people, places and things to cause them to also occur. However, we have the factor of “foreknowledge” that is not being taken into account correctly. Because God knows how you will react to something, can mean that He can use this knowledge for something that He needs accomplished in the earth. You see a reader pointed out to me that Judas was “predestined” to betray Jesus and to die. In the “predestination” mentality they believe that God created Judas so that he could betray Jesus. Did you know you can’t find that statement in the Bible? If God does this then He is the master designer of a Heavenly Matrix system that puts every man into the specific role they are destined for. The necessary level of control is beyond our imagination for this to occur; God would have to use the power of suggestion, mind control and even mental and physical manipulation would not be off the table for predestination to occur. Is God capable of this, yes I believe that He is? However, is this the God that you know? It is not the God that I know and it is certainly not the God found in the Bible.

So we have covered a lot of different angles found in the Bible that to me clearly dispute the philosophy of predestination. I have given many verses that states man was given choices to make in life. You must therefore decide which way you want to believe. You cannot believe both ways like some would think. You must either choose to believe in the fantasy of predestination and ignore all of the verses that I gave you today or open your eyes to what I have tried to clearly teach from the Bible.

If you want to continue to read the follow-up to this lesson series on Predestination you can go to “Understanding Sheep“.

You can also go and read “Part 4” of the lesson series to study this subject further.

Posted in Advanced Topics, Bible Study, Understanding

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, lies, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Salvation, Satan, Truth, understanding

Understanding Angels! More About Put Your Angels to Work! Part 6

Oct 13

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 6 of a series of studies about the spiritual reality of angels found in the Bible. We have covered a lot of information that is not all going to be repeated, so if you have not read these lessons from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1”. I was planning on talking about the negative side of angels today, but God seemed to say that I wasn’t done teaching on the last subject about angels being servants of God. You see I seemed to imply some things that could be taken wrong in my last lesson. I seemed to say that you could tell an angel something to do and they would have to do it. But, that is not the entire truth; usually you find that the truth is always more complicated than your first impressions. In the last lesson I showed you where God said in Hebrews that angels are ministering spirits sent “for” those who are heirs of salvation. The meaning of the word “ministering” meant a servant. We have seen several times where angels were sent from God because of the words of men and women on the earth. So obviously angels are not our personal servants, they are actually the servants of God who do things for us when we speak right words. How do you know you are speaking right words? That is why we need to learn more today. I always like to think that you learn what God says in the Bible and speak what God says in order to be on the safe side. You are much more likely to think and say the right things when you do this. Do you recall what God said to Joshua? God gave Joshua a formula for success. I have heard many people try to preach against taking formulas from the Bible, but yet you must be spiritually blind to think that God would tell one person the way to be successful and this rule not to apply to everyone else also. Read the words of Jehovah God and see what they say:

Jos 1:7 Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.

To be strong and courageous is the opposite of being fearful and weak. God is revealing a faith principle to Joshua without calling it faith. God tells Joshua that by doing the Law of Moses and not deviating from it, he would be prosperous in whatever he did. To turn to the right or to the left means to depart from going straight down the path that God has instructed you to go in. This gets more Christians into trouble more than many other things. To depart from God’s Words is sin. However, God does not put any restrictions on how you can prosper unless you try to prosper by violating God’s law. In other words you cannot lie, cheat or steal and think that God and the angels will cause you to be a success in life. You see God always gets back to the basics. The basics are always found in God’s Word. If you can follow God’s spiritual laws you will succeed in the natural realm. Apparently this is what Abraham did in our last lesson without having the Law of Moses to follow. Because Abraham did the right thing before the eyes of God by finding a wife for his son among his own people God was able to send an angel to help make it happen. So how do we insure that we do God’s Word? God gives us some more clues in the very next verse in Joshua:

Jos 1:8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Did you see what this verse says? It says the Book of the Law will not depart from your mouth. Where is the key to your success? It is in your mouth according to God. By reading, learning, memorizing and speaking God’s words constantly, God said you will make your way prosperous and always have good success here on the earth. The term “meditate” means to murmur or mutter under your breath; to keep it in your mind by speaking it with your mouth. It is very difficult to teach any subject in the Bible and not get back to the reality of the importance of your words that you speak. So was the servant of Abraham successful and prosperous in his attempt to find a wife for Isaac? He obviously was, so Abraham followed God’s law of success given to Joshua in order to make this happen. Do you see and understand the connection that I just made and why this applies to a lesson on angels? Do you also remember the verse that I gave you in Psalms?

Psa 103:20 Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.

Does this verse make any more sense to you now? You see this verse does not say that angels only obey words. It says angels hearken unto His Words. But it does not say that God has to speak them? It says “the voice” of His Word and that is totally different than the “voice of God”. What if you begin to say what God says about you, are you now the voice of His word? I believe that you become the “voice” of His word when you say what He says. If you say what God says, I believe that allows angels to do what God said to do for you. So what is the key to success in life? It starts with first learning what God said and then saying and doing that whole heartedly in faith. Remember God said to be strong and courageous and not weak and fearful. There are just many factors in life that we need to learn about in studying this subject. If Abraham was fearful that his servant would not find the wife for his son, guess what there would have been no wife found. So you have a major part to play in being successful in life and you just cannot speak a command to the angels to do something that God has not already told them to do.

Here is another aspect about angels that I have already alluded to that you should learn. While angels have been sent to the earth to minister for those who are heirs of salvation, they are not our direct servants. As we have seen they work for God and only do what He says for them to do. However, if we say what God has said then we have the ability to give voice to God’s commands and they will normally hearken to our words. Here is another key factor to consider in this discussion on angels being servants. Jesus in speaking to his disciples said the following:

Mat 10:24 The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.

Jesus was calling his followers both disciples and servants. Meaning Jesus was the Master and Lord that this verse is referring to. Paul in Romans 1:1 says “Paul a servant of Jesus Christ”. If Christians are servants of God also, what does that make our relationship to the angels of God? We are about to learn another key factor to angels:

Rev 22:8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.

John in writing the book of Revelation says that an angel came to him and he fell down to worship him. However, the angel stops John from doing this and says the following statement to him:

Rev 22:9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.

The angel of God says very clearly not to worship him, for he is a “fellowservant”. In other words the angel says we both have the same Master and Lord. The word translated as “fellowservant” means co-slave. It can also mean “ministrant of the same master”. You can clearly see that the correct order of things is that God is always the highest one over all others. What we discover from this information is that we are all working for the same cause and good. Angels can certainly do things that we cannot do and in many ways they have an advantage over us. However, once you see that it is God’s purpose that we are working for, then we realize that both angels and Christians have a common enemy with God. God’s enemies are now our enemies and we are working and fighting against these spiritual beings. We who are Christians are also working to get more people into the kingdom of God, but that is not an angelic assignment to preach the gospel. Preaching the Gospel is a human assignment from God. So our roles are different because we are dominated by different realms of reality. Humans are resident in a natural realm and angels primarily stay in the spiritual realm. I have seen where men can cross into the spiritual realm in the form of a vision and see things that they normally do not see. We of course in our studies have seen where angels can cross into the natural realm and do things for those who are heirs of salvation. So the lines between these two realms can be blurred to some degree, but yet we still have specific primary responsibilities that have been placed upon us by God. These roles will further blur in the future. After the church is taken up to heaven, then who preaches in the earth? Apparently according to Revelation, the angels will be allowed to preach to men on the earth:

Rev 14:6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,

So today there are no angels preaching in the world that I know of. But, later I believe you can see that this verse says that will change.

Today I’m going to end this lesson from a story that I learned from a preacher that I consider one the greatest men of God in the past century. This man said that God told him to stop praying for money and to command his angel to bring in his finances. God gave him the verse in Hebrews that we looked at about angels being a minister and other verses that said the laborer was worthy of his pay (1 Tim 5:18). He was struggling financially before this revelation from God and he read a verse in the Bible that said I “If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land”. He realized that he was not eating the good of the land so there must be a problem. So this man was a full time minister of God and traveled to church to church speaking and teaching the Word of God. He used to totally depend upon the pastor of the church to treat him fairly and pay him according to the offerings that were supposed to be given to him. Sometime this worked and sometimes men were not as good of Christians as they appeared on the surface and withheld from him. So this minister when he would go to a church would determine how much money he needed to meets his bills for the week and then place a demand on the angels of God to go and cause the money to come. He would not pray to God and ask for any amounts of money, he would not tell the pastors of the church that he expected any amounts of money specifically; he would just say to his angel to go and work for him and they did it every time. God was teaching this man a principle that is found in the Bible and it works regardless of your profession. If you can find the same Bible verses and believe them, the angels will hearken to your voice also. Just as Rebecca was influenced by an angel to come and minister to the servant of Abraham and all of his camels, the angels of the Lord can cause people to give to you also. Angels will of course never make anyone do anything that they do not want to do already. God will always use people to be a blessing to others who want to be a blessing. In return God can bless them further. You may recall in Genesis that God told Abraham that I will bless you so that you can be a blessing to others (Gen 12:2). This is also not a license to steal or even a get rich overnight scheme. You can take any truth found in the Bible to the extreme and make it a lie. There are also many other truths in the Bible that apply; your heart condition, your attitude, your willingness, your obedience to God and His Word and I could go on and on. This is the problem with many Christians, that they hear one good thing and jump on it like that is all there is. God is not a lottery and we are not pulling a Heavenly Vegas slot machine trying to hit it big. Keep balanced at all times and stay in the Word of God and allow God to teach you what else you need to know.

So here is the next part that you need to know. This will not work if you only try it! This preacher knew God’s word and believed God’s words and then he did them and spoke to the angel. You better get the scriptures in your spirit so that they are resident and firmly set within you before you begin to say them and expect them to happen. That was a very basic lesson in faith and believing God’s Word. There are many who do not understand it in the world but yet there are also many others who do this every day. I am not here to convince you of anything that you do not want to believe in. If you read the Bible and see things differently than I do, that is fine with me. Just do not criticize me like you are God and know everything. How you believe in angels will not affect your salvation, but it might affect your finances. If you have a story about how an angel has helped you, I would very happy to hear about it. Later in these lessons I will try to give you some examples from my personal life of how I believe that angels have helped me in life. I thank you for taking the time to study the Bible with me and pray that it was a blessing to your walk with God.

If you would like to continue to the next lesson you may select “Part 7“.

Posted in Angels, Bible Study, Understanding

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Tags: angels, Bible, Christianity, Church, Genesis, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Truth, understanding

Understanding Spiritual Warfare! The Battle within and the Battle without!

Oct 12

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.3) This is “Part 1” in a series of lessons on the subject of “Spiritual Warfare”. This is a new subject for me and a lesson designed for the benefit of those who have been attacked by Satan and do not understand why it has occurred or what to do about it to keep it from happeing again. Many new Christians are immediately attacked and persecuted because Satan wants to stop God’s Word from developing in their spirits and becoming mature and fruitful. New Christians are the most vulnerable and usually do not know what to do about this and do not generally understand why God even allows this to even happen to them. There are many complex factors involved in understanding this problem and I will attempt to at least give you an overview of what is happening in the spiritual realm and why it can occur and what you can do to overcome it.

Within any battle that we face it is always best to first recognize that we are in a battle. Not knowing that we are in spiritual battle is the number one reason why Christians do not fight the enemy. This is the basic fact that allows us to prepare and face this enemy that we cannot see with our physical eyes. Since we are born physical beings on this planet and we grow up dominated by our flesh realm senses we are forced to learn about the reality of spiritual things in order to become effective in this hidden unseen realm. Too often we find that our senses rule our world and guide our lives. If something hurts you physically you learn not to do that anymore. If something feels good or tastes good you learn to do that again. However there is an unseen part of you that is the real you and this being is your spirit inside your physical body. If you are a Christian this is where God resides also. The spirit world is more real than the natural world the Bible says. God tells us that the natural world is “temporary” and the things that are unseen in spiritual world are those that will be eternal (2 Cor 4:18). One of the first things that you need to understand is that we are in a spiritual battle and not a physical battle. People many times want to protest abortion clinics or homosexual events and act like this is doing some good. These people who are doing these ungodly things are just deceived individuals who are being guided by spiritual forces that are behind them. Therefore, your picket signs and protests are not doing anything to solve the real spiritual problem. It is like a doctor who is treating the symptoms and ignoring the cause of the disease. Your focus is on the wrong things.

2Co 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

You can clearly see that God tells us that we are in a war. However God does not tell us that it is a physical war with guns and swords. We as Christians should be fighting this war differently than people in the world fight wars. This is the greatest deception that Satan has over many Christians, they are focused on external things and ignoring internal things. God tells us in this verse that “terrorism” is not our war as Christians. The United States has been in a war against terrorism for almost 10 years now. We will never win that war with guns. If you go and kill a few terrorist, there are soon 10 more to take their place. This is because of the spiritual forces that are backing them.

2Co 10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;

God tells us that we have spiritual weapons of war at our disposal. However, God tells us that these weapons are clearly NOT physical weapons like guns. Your gun will not do you any good against a spiritual enemy that you cannot see. Satan has too many ways of fighting you supernaturally and no physical weapon will do you any good against these spiritual war techniques used by Satan. I recently heard about a man in the U.S. that was obtaining natural guns and weapons to help Jesus fight the devil when Jesus returns. This man’s ignorance of spiritual things will only make Christians appear as extremist fools to the world. Let me give you a scripture that informs us when this spiritual battle that I have been talking about begins.

Heb 10:32 But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;

God tells us a key battle technique of Satan. Satan attacks you when you are the weakest and most vulnerable. Sometimes it appears to you to be seemingly overwhelming opposition and this is by design. Since new Christians do not understand why they are being attacked many times they give up and turn back to their old life styles and ways of thinking and then Satan has won. This verse in Hebrews tells us that a new Christian when first given “illumination” is attacked the hardest. This is when they are the weakest, simply because they do not know how to fight this enemy. Jesus tells us in Mark 4 that Satan comes immediately to steal the word of God from the hearts of people who have just heard the good news (gospel) of Jesus. By attacking them early and often with overwhelming force they are many times easily overcome. Mature Christians should be smart enough to know this and help new Christians overcome these attacks, but many Christians are too self-centered to see what is going on beyond their four walls. Ignorance is a Christian’s greatest weakness. Keep Christians ignorant and they will be no threat to Satan. Let’s research the spiritual weapons at our disposal in this battle that I mentioned earlier. I’ll begin with a verse Romans 13:

Rom 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

One of the other most important things to know is that there are two kingdoms of operation in our world today. This is the root of all spiritual battles that we face. There is the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. These are the kingdoms of Satan and God respectively. As you can see God tells us in Romans 13:12 to put on the armor of light. Light is of the Day and darkness is of the night. I wrote a series of lessons on the subject of “Understanding Night and Day” and if you do not understand these spiritual kingdom concepts you should go and read them quickly. The weapons of Light are the spiritual weapons of our warfare being spoken of in this passage. It is important to realize that Christians are no longer within Satan’s kingdom of darkness, but yet we still war against this spiritual kingdom daily. When this transfer of spiritual kingdoms occurred was when you believed in Jesus Christ and confessed Him as your Lord as it stated in Romans 10:9-10. Because of the transfer of kingdoms we have a new ruler and Satan no longer rules our life unless we permit him or allow him to do so either intentionally or unintentionally. Being in the Kingdom of Light gives you new power over the kingdom of darkness. Light always conquers darkness in the natural realm but you need to learn how this works in the spiritual realm. We fight this kingdom of darkness in the spiritual realm by taking up God’s spiritual weapons of light which we will now get into in more depth:

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

God again commands us (Christians) to put on His armor so that we can fight and win this spiritual battle that we are clearly in ALL together. I want you to go and read 1 John 1:5. This verse declares that God is Light and in Him is no darkness. Therefore when we put on God’s armor we are putting on the armor of Light. Do you understand this? Satan is the devil and the lord of the darkness that we are arrayed against and it is clearly not the people of this world that we fight against. However Satan does use people to get to us and we may talk about that in more depth in the future. This verse in Ephesians teaches s me why killing terrorist is not the complete answer to our evil problem in this world. You see God wiped out everyone in the world 4500 years ago in the flood of Noah except for 8 righteous people and because we still have Satan in the world, evil and wickedness is almost as great as it was in the days of Noah. However, do not make me out as a pacifist either. I believe that we must defend our country with guns and weapons at the same time that we use these spiritual weapons of God to attack the root causes of the problem. If you want to be a pacifist you will soon discover that evil doers will not be afraid of coming to your city to do you harm.

Eph 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.

Again God tells us very clearly that people are not the root cause of the evil problems that we face on the earth. God again tells us that the rulers of the darkness of this world are those that we are at spiritual war with. These are clearly spiritual enemies and not physical ones that we can perceive with our 5 senses. If you notice this verse says that we fight against the rulers of the darkness of this world. Those are simply Satan, his demons and the fallen angels that rule kingdom of darkness. I would also like you to notice the Greek word “powers”. This Greek word is G1849 and it literally means superhuman force or power. This is obviously not any natural or physical strength or power and must be considered to be a spiritual power of great ability. Not knowing that your spiritual enemy has any spiritual power is probably a good reason why Christian people are not fighting against him. If we keep reading in this chapter we find out what these spiritual weapons of light consist of that we are to put on to use against our spiritual enemy Satan:

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

The first weapon is the weapon of truth. This means you are at least required to learn the truth. Only by you knowing the truth, will you not be easily deceived. To know the truth is more involved than you just reading your Bible. It requires you studying the Bible and you digging into the deep things of God’s Word. You can very easily know some basic truths and not understand the more advanced things that will get you out of the jams that you are in right now. Learning always starts with reading, but study is necessary to gain understanding. Only by you gaining understanding can Satan never steal the truth that is in you. The next weapon on the list is called the “breastplate of Righteousness”. This first involves you knowing who you are in Christ. You need to go through your Bible and read the New Testament letters written to the church and see what you have and what you are in Christ. Christ is your Righteousness! It is only by His Righteousness that we have any righteousness. Go through the letters written to the church and learn and memorize the words that say “In Christ”, “In Whom” and similar words of association. This will help to identify your position and the free gifts of association being given to you as an heir of salvation.

Eph 6:15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

Every weapon of our warfare if you haven’t noticed goes back to the Word of God in some form or fashion. God’s Words are always at the root of everything that we do, say and live. I think I said this already, but the spiritual battle is over the Word of God being resident in you. Look at this verse speaking of your feet. God says put the “Gospel of Peace” on your feet. The Bible tells me that God waits for His enemies to be made His footstool (Heb 1:13, Heb 10:13). Where are God’s feet in the earth today? These feet are in the Body of Christ who is the church and the spirit of God is within us. So if God is going to “bruise the head of the serpent Satan” with someone’s feet today, how is God going to do that?

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.

This verse written to the Church informs us that it is our feet that God will use to bruise Satan’s head before Jesus returns for us. This implies we are to go out from this world as victorious. How is the God of Peace going to do this? Only by us putting the Gospel of Peace upon our feet will He do this. You can see that we are back to the Word of God again. The Gospel of Peace is certainly the Word of God being preached to the world. The message of salvation, the message of deliverance, the message of emotional and physical healing and the message of safety. These are key definitions of the Greek word “Sozo” (G2982) that is translated as “make whole”, “save”, “deliver” and “heal”.

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

The next weapon in the Armor of Light is the shield of Faith. This is supposedly the most important weapon to defend off the satanic attacks. Faith is probably one of the top three subjects to study in the Bible in my opinion. But, what is Faith? Faith is based upon believing the Word of God. So we are again back to reading and studying the Bible. The Bible tells us that “Faith” comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God” (Rom 10:17). When the devil attacks you God says you should be firmly grounded in the Word of God for all of your defensive armor of God. We can now look at the final two items found in the Armor of Light and one of these is the only offensive weapons we possess if you exclude the Gospel of Peace on our feet.

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

To take the helmet of Salvation means to “receive” salvation which was freely given to us. I’ve aready told you the definition of “salvation” from the Greek. Again we are back to the basics of the Word of God. You heard the Gospel which was the Word of God preached for Salvation and you accepted it and believed the truth and now you are saved. Finally, the last weapon is called the Sword of the Spirit and this is plainly called the “Word of God”. You have to study the Bible to figure out what this means. Jesus said the “Words that I speak they are Spirit and they are Life” (John 6:63). So the words that Jesus spoke were the Sword of the Spirit from his mouth. In Revelation 1:16, 2:16, 19:15 and 19:21 Jesus is described as having a sword coming from His mouth that He uses to eliminate those that oppose Him in the end of the world. We can clearly understand that this symbolic sword represents the Words of God being spoken. To take the Sword of the Spirit in our armor means to speak what God has written in His book called the Bible. When you speak the Word of God your words carry the same power as if God spoke them. For example, if someone is coming against you in an attack, you could say “No weapon formed against me will prosper” (Isa 54:17). This is putting the Word of God in your mouth to counter what Satan is trying to do against you. You do not go up and say this to a human being, remember they are not your problem. You say this in the privacy of your home to Satan who is the root cause of the attack. Do you understand this?

Eph 6:18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

The very next verse in this context is also a key part to the successful spiritual fight that you are in. When immersing yourself in the Word of God you also pray the Word to get God’s wisdom and assistance on the matter you are facing. This next verse in Ephesians says “Praying Always”. That means never ceasing to pray. Pray when you study the Bible, and pray when you are not studying the Bible. There should not be a time during the day when you are not open to pray to God or open to hear from God. I have been doing a series of lesson on Angels and today I stopped that to answer a reader who was being attacked by Satan. But, there are multiple times in the Bible, where God sent angels only after people prayed. This means that if they had not prayed, there would have been no angels sent. I believe prayer is an essential part of your continuing relationship with God. This verse also places special emphasis on a particular type of prayer that is called “Praying in the Spirit”. This of course is not a popular subject in some churches in America and they have no clue what this even means. Some think it is just an extra praying with added emphasis, ability or time. However, this is not what it means. Praying in the Spirit is praying in tongues and if you have never done this you are missing out on one of the most powerful ways that God has to communicate through you the perfect will of God. You see God is smarter than you are and since you do not know everything and do not know how to pray perfectly in every situation that you face, God gives us a method that will never fail. You of course have the choice to not believe me and do it your way and remain at the level that you are at right now. However, if you want more of God and to know Him better, then ask Him to fill you with His Spirit and see if it does not radically change your life, like it did mine.

I guess that is enough for one day on how to counter the attacks of Satan. I know I did not cover everything in complete detail and I did not include everything that you should learn. However, I try to do the best that I can in the limited time and length format that I have. Please allow me to quickly recap the spiritual weapons of your warfare:

The Belt of Truth (The Word of God is truth John 17:17)
The Breastplate of Righteousness (Jesus the Word of God is our Righteousness)
Gospel of Peace upon our feet (the Word of God given for our salvation)
The Shield of Faith (Rom 10:17 Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, there get faith in God’s to build your shield).
Helmet of Salvation (By grace ye are saved through faith Eph 2:8 again pointing us back to hearing God’s Word).
Sword of the Spirit (plainly defined to be the Word of God).
Praying in the Spirit.

Understanding that you are in a spiritual war is the first place that you need to arrive at. Understanding who your enemy is, is the next place to step up to. The next thing is for you to take up the armor of God that you has been given to you and make good use of it. The next thing that you should clearly understand is that the Battle is all about the Word of God. Satan is attacking you to take the Word of God from you. If he allows the Word of God to get in you, then you are an extremely dangerous person that can use this Word to come against him. Therefore, spiritual warfare is fought with spiritual weapons against a spiritual enemy. Finally praying is another key element to the spiritual fight that will allow you to be successful in life. I hope and pray that I have given someone out there some level of help in what they are facing in life today. It would be the greatest testimony of all if I can do that alone. God Bless!

Posted in Bible Study, Spirituality, Understanding

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Tags: angels, Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Religion, Revelation, Salvation, Satan, serpent, Truth, understanding, Words

Understanding Angels! A Bible Perspective to the Reality of Angels! Part 1

Sep 30

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.1) This is “Part 1” in a study series on the subject of “angels” found in the bible from cover to cover. People generally do not believe in things that they have never seen or that they do not have any proof of existence. It is very much like the subject of God who is a Spirit (Jn 4:24) and many people do not believe in Him either. However, the Word of God known as the Bible says a lot about these spiritual beings, we call angels, and it informs us that they definitely are real and that they do certainly exist. The rest of this lesson will cover things found in the Bible about angels that you should know. Who are they, what are they, where did they come from, when did they come into existence, what is their purpose and whatever else God leads us to discuss about them. I personally know people who claim to have seen angels and their descriptions of these creatures are not like the fat little baby angels you see in many picture books or art diagrams. These creatures are generally very strong, large and tall. Their strength is so much greater than the strongest man on the earth that there is no comparison that can be made. In this lesson we will discuss a lot of scriptures and many of them you might or might not already know. However, I will probably say some things that you probably have never heard or thought about before, so you should read the entire lesson series before you pass final judgment. So let’s look at the first occurrence of the Hebrew word “H4397” that is translated as word “angel” in the English KJV Bible. The Strong’s definition for this word is “messenger”. In the ancient Hebrew lexicon this word is defined as “one who walks for another”. That appears to define one of the primary roles of angels in simple terms. If we search the Bible, we will find that the first direct mention of this word is found in verse 7 of Genesis 16:

Gen 16:7 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.

The Hebrew word translated as “angel” is used 213 times in the O.T. so that is a lot of scriptures to read and learn from. But that is not all of the references that can be found in the Old Testament. This is because these beings go by many other names, titles, descriptions, symbols, etc. For example, the first time I noticed a reference for angels was in Genesis 1:16 as the mention of “stars”. This symbol for angels occurs especially in Revelation 12:4 where the tail of the dragon sweeps 1/3 of the stars from the heaven. Most wise Bible scholars agree these stars are references to angels.

There are at least two references to angels in Genesis 3. In verse 1, Satan is referred to as a symbolic “serpent”. Most should know this is the fallen angel Lucifer, but we will hpefully go into this more later. Then in verse 24 of Genesis 3, we find God placing “Cherubim” with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life. This is a speciality ranking order of that angels that appear to have a different assignment other than being a “messenger” class of God’s angelic creation. We will discover that God is a very organized creator. There will be angels of differing ranks and responsilbities.

All of this introduction information tells us that angels were widely active in the O.T. times and that these creatures are still implied to be active today based upon what we will find the book of Revelation described future. While not every occurrence is translated as “angel” of the Hebrew word, there are enough that are this way that I cannot mention them all.

As we learned, the word “angel” means “messenger” in the Hebrew; they are spiritual beings that are normally sent from God to deliver a message to man. So, an angel could be viewed as a “Word carrier”. You could also say a “Word courier” or someone who delivers God’s Words to the people on the earth. You could compare angels to an earthly company like “Fedex” who delivers messages around the world, but of course angels are much more than that as we will find out. It is interesting to note two things found in this verse. First is that God qualifies the word “angel” with “of the Lord”. Meaning there are other types of angels that are not “of the Lord”. We will discover more about this shortly, but note that God claims some angels to be His and others that are clearly not His. Later we will also see that within the organization of angels, there exist ranks, classes and orders.

The next thing that is interesting to see in this verse is the Hebrew Word translated as “found” in this verse. This word does not mean the angel had to search for Hagar to finally locater her. According to Strong’s this word means “to come forth”, “to appear” or “exist”. Did you know that you cannot normally see angels in the world, but that this does not mean they do not exist around us at all times? It is critical to note that this “angel of the Lord” came forth and appeared in the natural realm so that Hagar could see him and hear him with her physical eyes and ears.

What we will learn soon are that Angels are normally not visible, probably because they were created by God on a higher frequency of movement/vibration. All physical substance contains vibration frequencies. Some are more easily seen, and some are impossible to see with the unaided eye. But according to this verse and some other verses that we will look at later, God may cause or permit some angels to slow their spiritual frequency so that it allows them to become visible in the natural realm. This means that angels can be visible at times or be invisible at other times. How they do this, and it is accomplished, I have no idea?

There are many details in the Bible that we are not informed of directly and this is one of them. We have to assume that they have some power or ability that allows them to do this. You can read further in this chapter and also see that this angel of the Lord brings Hagar a message from God, and he informs her of what will happen to her and her son Ishmael in the future. God who sees the end from the beginning can tell you this information, but this is not the normal way that God does things most of the time; I believe that this is an exception to the way God does things.

So, we have just looked at the first direct reference in the Bible about angels, however this is not the first time they are mentioned in the Bible so we will back up in Genesis and read some new very important verses about angels. What you must realize when reading and studying the Bible, is that God calls the same things in the Bible by multiple names, titles, descriptions and each of these reveal new qualities or features of that person or object being referenced. So, let’s read a verse that reveals angels to us in a totally brand-new way:

Gen 6:1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

God starts this chapter by informing us that the children of Adam and Eve began to multiply upon the face of the earth. There were both males and females born to them and then these children married and had more children and thus continued the multiplication of the earth’s population. This is of course what God told Adam and Eve to do; to be fruitful and multiply, and to replenish the earth’s population. So, they were being obedient in this part of God’s commandments, I wonder why? Now we are going to get into the part about angels, for the preceding verse was put there to set up the next very important verse:

Gen 6:2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

In the next verse in the Bible, we learn some very valuable information about angels. I’ll start by giving you the time frame for this information. These verses are occurring within the first 1000 years of human history. Since Adam lived to be over 900 years old, he must have come close to witnessing the beginnings of what was taking place on the earth during these verses. The very next thing that you should recognize is that angels are called “sons of God”. We know that Jesus was the Son of God, but notice angels are also called “sons of God. It is the same designation of title, but in an entirely different context. However, we know Jesus was God, but angels were never God. We know in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 that Lucifer was a created being. We also learn Lucifer was “anointed” by the Spirit of God. This would appear to indicate angles to be very similar to humans.

Notice this fact that the Bible calls us (the church) “sons of God” also (1 Jo 3:2). Why is this? This is directly attributable because God is called our “Father”. In Hebrews 12:9 God is called the Father of spirits. Angels are definitely spirit beings and people are spirit beings also, so God qualifies to be Father of both.

The next important thing to recognize about angels is that they can manifest themselves physically in this world as we saw with Hagar. But Genesis 6 provides greater details. It appears that angels can appear in the same form apparently as human males on the earth with the same sexual reproductive equipment. Some try to explain that these “sons of Gods’ are not angels, but you can see that they are by other verses in the Bible. This term “sons of God” is used only a very few times in the O.T. Other than twice in Genesis 6, the term “sons of God” can be found only three times in the book of Job when Satan appears before God and the “sons of God” come with him. Most knowledgeable Bible scholars will agree that this reference to “sons of God” is speaking of angels also.

It is very apparent in this verse that angels have physical bodies as well as spiritual bodies. I still believe this is just one body that is able to transition to slower frequencies that are visible in the created natural realm. However, angels are clearly not mortal like sinful fallen humans. Even angels that have sinned like Lucifer travel from the earth realm to the heavenly realm daily (Rev 12:10) I believe from what I have read in the Bible that angels are spiritual beings that are capable of traveling between the earth and heaven where the throne of God is located at their own will. I also believe that these angels can manifest themselves in a physical form on this earth when given a divine assignment. But Genesis 6 is an example of unlawful angelic manifestation in the physical realm as we will learn soon.

So, this verse in Genesis 6 says the angels of God looked at the women on the earth and thought they were “beautiful” and they took them for their wives and as we continue reading this caused a perverted race of human and angelic beings to come to be in the earth. It is interesting to note that it does not sound like these women had much choice in this matter. To me it sounds like a victory of the spoils of war type of mentality that came upon the angels. They clearly thought they had a right to these women. Knowing the strength and power of angels we can understand why. Read this next verse:

Gen 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

So, this is a very hard saying indeed. One that is truly difficult to comprehend. The “sons of God” are said to “come in unto” the daughters of men. This is a very interesting concept being given to us by God. It is spoken of in the terms of Noah “entering into” the ark (Gen 6:19). This means God views the woman’s sexual organ as a door into her body. In fact, it is designed by God as a two-way door; a man or angel enters in, and babies come out. These exact same words are used in Genesis 16:2 when Sarah tells Abraham “go in unto my maid” so that I may have children of her”. We can clearly see that this is natural sex using God’s perspective. So, we know that the angels (the sons of God) had physical sex with women on the earth and they created a race of giants.

I wonder sometimes, if there are male angels which clearly there are, do female angels exist? That is a question that I do not know the direct answer to yet. I do not ever recall reading any description of an angel in the Bible that resembled a female. But the Bible says that there are an innumerable number of these creatures in heaven, so we do not know everything, do we?

From my Bible studies I have to conclude that there are female angels but the only proof that I have found so far, is that the Bible says Heaven existed first and it is called the “Heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb 12:22) and this city seems to be a pattern of the one that God created on the earth that I call the “earthly Jerusalem”. If the earthly Jerusalem has females, I can only conclude logically that this was a repeated pattern of the original heavenly city Jerusalem also. So, in my opinion there has to be female angels, but I do not yet have a direct Bible verse for that yet, so you do not have to accept it.

Gen 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

So where did all of these giants come from that were in the earth? They had to come from the sexual union of Adam’s daughters (female descendants) and the angels (sons of God). It is very apparent to me that this union between God’s new creation and the angels was an illegal sinful act and a perversion of creation, that God would have to do something about. I can see two potential reasons for this union by angelic beings with humans. It appears to be motivated by their hatred of God and humans, using their willful and intentional act of rebellion to try to destroy God’s new creation. Some can try to say that Satan and the angels were attempting to pervert the bloodline of man, and this is the only reason for what they did. It is very easy to assume or jump to the conclusion that they were in effect attempting to eliminate the pure blood line for Christ to come into the world. However, I’m not convinced that Satan or any of the angels knew Jesus (God in the flesh) was coming into the world at that time. Remember there were no Bibles written when all of this was taking place. Moses wrote about this many years later for the first time.

So ,their motivation for taking human women could have been just a conquest or sexual desire and the fact that they thought and believed that they could get away with it. Angels, Satan and demons are not “all knowing” beings and God has not yet prophesied the Messiah to come in writing at this point of human time. It is true that the plan of God was already in place before the foundation of our world. However, there is no written word, no recorded law of God, no divine prophets speaking the word in the earth other than Enoch, that I know of. We do know that there were a few statements of God being spoken directly t Satan, Adam and Eve about the seed of the woman bruising the head of the serpent. And that is certainly motivational information that Satan knew someone was coming, because what is the seed of the woman? So, unless Satan understood what God was saying about the seed of the woman, how would Satan know to start corrupting this bloodline? We can assume that Satan understood the words of God and that is why the angels did what they did to the women on the earth, but I have no verses to confirm either of these motivations at this time.

In this same chapter of Genesis is the beginning of the story of Noah. I do not believe that this was just a coincidence. I believe that Noah was chosen by God to preserve the bloodline and the seed of Adam. God decided that He must intervene into this perversion by wiping out the human race with a universal flood. God selects Noah and his 3 sons as those who would preserve the seed of Adam. Looking at the genealogy of Jesus given to us in Luke 3, God shows us that Jesus mother Mary lineage goes all the way back to Adam through Noah and Shem who have preserved God’s plan. In other words, there are no angels in the line that Jesus came from. So, what happened to the angels that sinned and took the women of the earth as their wives? We are actually given a clue to this event in the N.T. when Peter writes the following:

2Pe 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

God tells us that the angels who sinned were forcibly thrown into hell and bound with “chains of darkness”. It is interesting to note that this verse informs us something very important for you to understand. Angels, demons, and Satan have never been to hell, do not want to go to hell and are trying everything in their power to stay out of hell. Hell is not a good place that anyone that is halfway normal wants to be. Too many people think that Hell is Satan’s dominion or kingdom, but you can clearly read in Revelation that even Satan has to be forcibly thrown into this place. So, Satan and demons are not normal people, but they do not want to be in hell any more than I do. Think about it, Satan was used to walking streets of gold in heaven why would he want to go to hell? Did you notice that this verse said that these angels who sinned were cast into hell and chained so that they could not leave? Does that sound like they wanted to be there, it does not! The sin of the angels is not directly named in this verse found in 2^nd Peter, but the next verse starts talking about Noah so we can clearly assume that the sin was having sex with the natural women on the earth when they clearly should not have in Genesis 6. It is not rocket science to read Genesis 6 and 2 Peter 2 and figure this out.

So here we have Genesis 6 the first occurrence or mention of angels in the Bible, or is it? You see I believe that the first mention of angels in the Bible is a symbolic occurrence way before this in the first chapter of Genesis. The first two chapters of Genesis is the account of the creation of our world. Within the first chapter of Genesis is a prophetic timeline of the entire history of mankind on the earth. If you do not understand that statement, you should read some of my other blogs on the subject. God uses symbolism in the first chapter from the things that are mentioned, and these things occur in a very specific ordered timeline that reveals a lot of great information to us. I believe the first reference to angels occurs in verse 16 of Genesis 1:

Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

Where are the angels you ask? That is the tricky part of the mysteries within the Bible; God has hidden significant information within verses that we do not understand until He reveals them to us. In this verse God speaks of three heavenly objects found in our sky. Did you notice I said “Heavenly”? Where is God’s throne? God’s throne is in “Heaven”. So, we have three natural symbols that convey spiritual beings and meanings. I will not discuss the sun or the moon in this lesson, if you need to know who these objects represent you should go read some of my other lessons. However, the “stars” are innumerable in our night sky. That is a key word that describes the angels in heaven.

Heb 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

God tells us in Hebrews that Heaven contains an innumerable number of angels. This means that God only knows the number of them, and we just do not have the time to count them all. In other words, the number of angels is not an infinite number; it is just a very big number. So here is the reason that I bring “stars” into today’s lesson. If you read later in the Bible in Revelation, you will see how important it is note:

Rev 12:4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

As you can clearly see the tail of the symbolic dragon who is revealed to be Satan causes a 1/3 part of the stars of heaven to fall to the earth. These are not real stars in our night sky; these are only symbolic stars that represent angels. In the Bible “stars” many times represents angels symbolically. This is definitely true in Genesis 1 and Revelation 12 and many other places also. In this verse of Revelation, it clearly tells us that the number of the angels is not an infinite number because a specific fraction 1/3 of them is fallen from heaven to the earth. If you can divide a number by 3 you have to know what that number is that is being reduced. Again, this is just basic logic and the laws of mathematics.

This has been a basic introduction to the subject of angels using the Bible. I have only speculated about one thing and that is I believe that there must be female angels but that I have not found a direct Bible verse to prove that. The other facts in this lesson definitely are scripture-based teachings found in the Bible. We have learned that there are many angels that exist, in fact more than we can count, however not as many as God can count. We have learned that some of these angels do not belong to God anymore. Those that are faithful to God are numbered in terms of 2/3 of the total population of angels. The other 1/3 of the angels we are told are cast down to the earth. We also learned from Peter’s writings that some angels have already been cast into hell for creating a perverted race of beings in an attempt to corrupt the seed of Adam. So we have seen two witnesses so far that say that angels can manifest themselves in physical forms in our world. That is a very important fact to keep in mind. Here is another witness to this fact:

Heb 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

I’ll end today’s lesson with this thought, God says for us to treat strangers like they could be a heavenly representative from God. It is very clear to me that God is saying you never know who you are entertaining and that they could potentially have a message for you from God. I base this on the fact that I believe that an angel’s number one assignment is to be a messenger of God since that is what the name “angel” means. We will discuss more scriptures about angels in my next lesson and hopefully see what else the Bible says that they can do. God Bless!

If you would like to continue reading this series about angels, you can go to “Part 2“.

Posted in Angels, Bible Study, Understanding

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Tags: angels, Bible, Christianity, Church, creation, Genesis, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Satan, Symbolism, Truth, understanding

Understanding Hard Sayings in the Bible! Eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood!

Sep 28

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.1) This is “Part 4” in a series of advanced Christian lessons on “Understanding Hard Sayings” found in the Bible. This lesson today is not a new subject for me to teach on, for I have covered parts of this topic of hard sayings in at least one other lesson. But, I want to back up today and introduce you to the general concept of “Hard Sayings” found in the Bible before I teach any more about them. The Bible contains many sayings that are very difficult for people to accept, so in many Christian churches they simply ignore them. You see I did not invent the term “Hard Sayings”, it came from a teaching that Jesus directly gave to His disciples and in doing this, Jesus taught us that the Bible contains many “Hard Sayings” within it. There are other Christian books and authors on the market that are available with this title about “Hard Sayings” in the Bible. I have not read them, but some of them must be good. What I want you to realize is today’s lessons came directly from God and the Bible and not from the teachings of another man. So what is a hard saying? A Hard Saying can be described as any words or verses that are very difficult to understand or to accept because of what is being taught or stated within them. Many times hard sayings in the Bible are natural controversial subjects which have a hidden spiritual message that is being conveyed. Jesus actually gives us the classic difficult or hard saying Himself in the Gospels and in doing so teaches us some very significant things about this subject that we should all learn. Here is what the disciples said about the lesson that Jesus gave to them:

Joh 6:60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?

As you can see the disciples listening to the words of Jesus said that this teaching was very “hard sayings” to accept and they asked “who could hear them”. They are in effect saying the words of Jesus are very difficult to believe, comprehend, accept, grasp or even understand. What were these words that Jesus was teaching on that were called “hard sayings” by His followers? I mean if His followers had trouble accepting them, what about us? What made the words of Jesus so difficult to grasp for these inner circle of disciples? I guess we should start by reading what Jesus was teaching about that the disciples called “Hard Sayings”.

Joh 6:53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.

These are truly very “Hard Sayings”. If you try to take these words literally you will attempt to say that Jesus was teaching cannibalism. However, one of the key elements to correct Bible interpretation is knowing when something is symbolic and when something should be taken literally. . This is something that is not always as easy as you would like it to be. Symbolism is a key element used throughout the Bible to conceal and reveal spiritual information to us His disciples. Jesus is speaking symbolically about spiritual things in this verse and we will need to explore several other Bible verses to get the correct interpretation to these symbols. But, this verse is the prime example of how the natural mind of man can get easily confused when reading the Bible. The Bible says this about the natural mind of man:

Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

What is a carnal mind? A carnal mind is one that thinks 100% naturally. To apply natural things to a spiritual book is said to be an enemy of God. I see blogs on the internet about Bible studies and they are clearly the enemies to God. They are applying human logic and reasoning to explain away the true spiritual meanings and that is a major problem. So the important lesson from this verse is for us not to think like men, but to renew our minds and change to think like God. God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thought are not our thoughts, but that does not mean we cannot come up to God’s way of thinking. It only means that we do not know how to do this until we learn it from God. God did not give us a book that we could not understand ever. He only wants us to change in order to see the real truth. This change involves a higher level of spiritual thought and hopefully you are growing in this area.

What we discover from Jesus’ statement are that two major components are being spoken of. These are the “Flesh” of Jesus and the “Blood” of Jesus. Then we are instructed to eat and drink these two elements. I purposely chose the word “elements” because many Christians know these are symbolic representations for our communion services where we take bread and wine and partake of the Lord’s body and blood. Christians do this as a symbolic representation of a greater spiritual truth that I will discuss in more depth today. Jesus actually taught us some very profound things while partaking of the “Passover” meal with His disciples. Jesus breaks the unleavened bread of Passover and says “this is my body” eat. Then Jesus takes the cup of the covenant and says this is my “blood” drink. Jesus in doing this was not saying this is my literal body and blood; he again was just using symbols to convey spiritual meanings.

In the Old Testament Psalms, it says “Taste and see that the Lord is Good” (Ps 34:8). So how do you taste anything naturally? In order to taste something you usually put that something in your mouth and then swallow it, if it is good or spit it out if it is bad. God appears to be using more symbolism in this verse of Psalms. We know that God is a Spirit (John 4:24). How do you then taste a Spirit and see if He is good? For that matter how does the real you, the spirit inside your body taste the Lord and see if He is good? That is exactly why Jesus uses these natural things to help you to understand the spiritual things that you have no experience with before you are saved. You have plenty of natural experience with eating if you are a healthy human being. Jesus chose to teach us using these natural things to give us a view into the spiritual things that we do not see. These things obviously have to be similar in characteristics even if they are totally different from comparing natural to spiritual things. God using His vast intelligence created natural things for us to get glimpses into spiritual things. So Jesus is saying in order for you to be healthy spiritually you must eat my flesh and drink my blood and in doing this you will have spiritual life. Our problem right now is we just don’t know what this means and that is where we are going now. I will explain the symbols given to us by Jesus to help you to understand these spiritual things.

What is the “body” of Jesus Christ made of? Where did the body of Jesus Christ come from? These are two key questions to discovering the true meaning of what Jesus was teaching when He taught us to eat His flesh. I will start this lesson with a description of the flesh of Jesus from the book of John:

Joh 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

You can very clearly see that God tells us that His Word became “Flesh” and walked among us. In fact, if you backup to verse one in this chapter, you find that it says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. You cannot separate God from His Word in this verse. God and His Word are “One” in the same. This is one of the reasons why it is impossible for God to lie. God is saying that He became Flesh by sending His Word to join or unite with the egg of the virgin woman Mary. God’s Word became the spiritual and natural Seed that became the flesh that was crucified on the cross. Do you remember when the angel told Mary that the Holy Spirit would “overshadow” her and that she would become pregnant? What was Mary’s response to the Words of God sent through an angel? She said “Be it unto me according to thy Word” (Luke 1:38). The angel tells Mary that God will “overshadow” her. This term means to supernaturally envelop. Mary could have said “I don’t believe that” and God would have been forced to find another woman. But, Mary says “It will be as you have spoken”. So the Words of God were accepted into the spirit of the woman Mary and she believed them and then the Holy Spirit came upon her to conceive the child Jesus. God sent His Word to a woman to become Flesh and this is why Jesus was speaking to the disciples that you must eat my flesh. The flesh of Jesus was the “Word of God” made manifest in this world. The Flesh of Jesus was the Word of God Visible to your natural eyes. This was what Jesus was trying to teach us using these natural symbols that exist in the world. Of course at this time when Jesus taught this, the disciples lacked the keys to the knowledge to understand this truth and therefore this was a “hard saying” for them to accept. We still have this problem in the body of Christ even today. We have many Christians who do not accept things because they do not understand them. For example, speaking in tongues is a prime example of this. Because some do not understand it they criticize it and even teach against it. That is a very foolish thing to do. God excuses your ignorance for a while then it may come time for judgment when you attack your brother. I would dare not teach against anything that I do not fully understand to the best of my ability. What I have hopefully shown you is that the Flesh of Jesus is the Word of God so let’s look at the blood of Jesus and what this represents.

Jesus was not teaching you that you should drink His actual blood; there are laws in the O.T. that say that you should not eat meat with the blood still in it. So Jesus has to be speaking figuratively or symbolically. So what is the “Blood of Jesus”? What does the Blood of Jesus represent symbolically? These are another two questions that are critical to understand if you want to understand what Jesus was teaching when He says to “drink His Blood”. We know from the Bible that it is the Blood of Christ that has paid the price for our sins (Heb 10, Rev 1:5). But, what made the blood of Jesus of sufficient value to accomplish this and not some innocent sinless animal like a real lamb? A real lamb has no sin and it certainly has blood. God told Israel in the Old Testament to sacrifice these animals as a type or a pattern for the real “Lamb of God” who was to come. Jesus Christ is called the “Lamb” several times in the N.T. (Rev 21:9, 21:14, 21:22, 21:23, 21:27 to name a few). Here is another verse that speaks about Jesus being the lamb of God:

1Pe 1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

This verse informs us that the Jesus was our sinless Lamb and that His blood was precious. What made Jesus’ blood precious? To be precious means to be very valuable. Anything that is very valuable costs a lot. The Blood of Jesus is said to be a “Mighty Cost Paid” for our sins. So what made the blood of Jesus more valuable than that of a natural lamb? Isn’t blood just blood? That is the million dollar question for the day and if you can answer that question you will understand many things about the Bible that are also hard to accept. Let’s look at a clue that God gives us to this answer in the O.T.:

Lev 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

So here is a clue to the answer to the million dollar question. God tells us that the “Life” of the flesh is in the “blood”. Without blood your flesh has no life. People know this fact fairly well in our world. If you are injured badly and bleed excessively, you will die. So no blood means no life. This of course is a very interesting paradox being given to us. It would appear that after Jesus was raised from the dead that His “blood” was no longer necessary for His continued bodily functions to operate and to exist; after all most of His blood spilled out onto the ground on the hill of Golgotha while hanging on the cross. Then after His resurrection Jesus told the Mary Magdeline not to touch Him (John 20:17) until He went to heaven to present His remaining blood before God’s real temple in heaven (Heb 9:12). After Jesus returned to earth from heaven it was OK, to touch Him, because He told Thomas to “touch me, a spirit does not have flesh and bone” (Luke 24:39). Notice that Jesus never mentions His blood again, why is that? So I do not know if the resurrected Spiritual Body of Jesus has blood in it today or not. It is an interesting question to consider. After Jesus was resurrected he ate food with His disciples, but yet could walk through walls and appear in a locked room. So what will our resurrected body be like? I can only guess it will be like Jesus’ body. I think that I got off the main subject so I’ll continue with what the Blood represents now.

The Life of the Flesh revelation that we just read about in Leviticus 17:11, we now know that the blood represents Life. We can now ask, whose Life was it in the body of Jesus Christ? We know from the Bible that it was “God’s” life that was in the body of Jesus (Heb 10:5). So when they crucified Jesus the man, they crucified God. God gave us His life in exchange to buy our lives. That was an awesome display of a loving God. No one else qualified to pay the price for our salvation. No one else had the sufficient sinless qualities. No one else could pay the price of such great value that was necessary for our redemption so God came Himself and did what we could not do. I do not know about you, but I am extremely thankful that He did this.

1Jn 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

The Bible is a highly complex book of spiritual information and putting it together correctly is one of our greatest challenges. If God who had no beginning or ending, could come to the earth and experience pain, suffering and death for our benefit then who are we to question was this necessary. If God did not think it was necessary He would have done something else. God experiences death for a reason and you should be smart enough to know that it was just not for our benefit alone, but also for His benefit. God is smart enough to multi-task like no one else that I have ever known. God can accomplish many things with one designed act of love and mercy. So if you want to think that God came only to die for your sins, you can think that and be wrong. Death is a legal separating force for covenants. Do you understand why God had to break covenant with Satan? First, you probably did not realize that God was in covenant with Satan, but this is a Bible fact if you look for it. I guess I’ll get back to my real subject today about flesh of God and the Blood of God. In 1 John 5:20, the True God is spoken of in conjunction with a direct connection to eternal life. One reason that God died was so that we could partake of His Eternal Life. Before God died on the cross, no man on the earth possessed God’s Eternal Life. I know that God took men in the O.T. on credit like Enoch and Elijah to heaven. But, even these men were looking forward to what God would accomplish in the future through Jesus Christ.

1Jn 5:12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

He that has the Son of God now has this eternal life of God. This is what Jesus was talking about when He said for us to drink his blood. Jesus was speaking of His blood as being the life of God that we should be able to spiritually drink and become a part of us internally in our spirits. What happens when you drink natural water? It becomes a part of your natural body. If you do not have water to drink you die physically. These are all symbolic representations of what happens to you in the spiritual realm when you drink the Blood of Jesus. So what is the Blood of Jesus? It was His Life, but what is that to us now on earth right now?

1Jn 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

I have already shown you scriptures that told us that the Body of Jesus was the Word of God. Now we see another revelation concerning the Blood of Jesus. If the life of the flesh is in the blood then you can substitute Life and Blood interchangeably and still be correct. It would appear to me that everything reverts back to God’s Word. If you want God’s Life you better study God’s Words and get them into your spirit. This was the key to the lesson that Jesus was teaching on when He said “eat my Flesh” and “drink my blood”. Spiritually speaking we would not be able to do this any other way but by eating and drinking the Word of God and the Word of Life. You may recall the Words of Jesus, when He said “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mat 4:4). Jesus is again giving us clues into the “hard sayings” that He was teaching in John. Jesus is comparing natural bread that we eat with our physical mouths to the spiritual bread from God. God’s spiritual bread is His Word and we can only eat this by getting God’s Word into our spirits. Jesus said by partaking of the spiritual food it will bring life to us. God’s words are that spiritual food that we need to eat and to drink in our spirits.

So if nothing else today I hope and pray that you learned two things. The Bible contains “Hard Sayings” that are difficult to grasp and accept on the surface only reading of the text. But, then you should have also learned that God has provided explanations in His Word to what these Hard Sayings mean. You have to study, you have to search the Bible for the key words and then you have to allow the Holy Spirit to direct you to the truth. In doing this you come much closer to knowing the truth as Jesus taught us in His Word.

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

Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

God Bless,

If you would like to continue reading in this series about “Understanding Hard Sayings” found in the Bible you may go to “Part 5“.

Posted in Bible Study, Hard Sayings, Understanding

Tags: Bible, blood, Christianity, Church, flesh, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Symbolism, Truth, understanding

What you should know about the Truth in the Bible? How will you know it when you see it?

Sep 25

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.5) This is Part 2 in a series of lessons on understanding truth in the Bible. If you have not read from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1” first. I have had way too many people try to tell me that the Bible is the truth, but yet none of these people can agree what it is that the Bible says. Isn’t that a problem to you? We have one group of people who profess only we know the truth ad another group who believes the opposite who say only they know the truth. This makes it very difficult for you to convince anyone that is not a Christian that the Bible is true and that they should become a Christian. Of course this is what Satan wants to happen and that is why he works so hard at confusing Christians and potential Christians. Truth is a very complex subject and an extremely advanced subject for any Bible study. Truth is such a complicated concept simply because there is no one but, God who knows it all. That leaves the rest of us in a state of varying degrees of ignorance and nobody likes to admit they are ignorant of anything. So as a result we have churches standing up in pride saying only we have all the truth and the rest of you are just a bunch of heretics.

There are many Christians who profess that the Bible contains God’s “Absolute Truth”. This is technically not a true statement if we base it upon a complete dictionary definition of the word “absolute”. The term absolute dictates both “complete” and “perfect” truth. But we should realize that God knows many other truths that were not yet recorded or made known to us. Instead of calling it absolute truth I would prefer to call it “ultimate” truth and I will try to explain this more clearly as I continue in the lesson. The Bible is clearly the only source for any ultimate spiritual Truth from God. Even if the Spirit of God speaks to someone a truth it will never contradict what He has given to us in the Bible already. I believe this and I preach it. I will also define the term “ultimate truth” as being truth that never changes or a truth that can not be overruled by the knowledge of any new truths. But the stated existence of even “Ultimate Truth” would also imply that there are other types of truths that are not at this level or truths that could be trumped by new knowledge. This would mean there could exist levels of potentially changing truths depending upon human perspective, understanding or even knowledge and you need to understand this. I believe that our perspective of truth changes even when God’s truth stays constant and that both of these occur at the same time. God’s truth will never change but our knowledge will change or at least it should.

Then there are those who look into the Bible and claim that every word in the plain textual natural meaning is the complete truth that needs to be known and they imply that that there is no other hidden spiritual truths within the plain text that can be found. Others say that everything written in the book is 100% the truth. But, I do not believe that is completely accurate according to what the Bible itself teaches us. Some people will automatically think that I am preaching some kind of heresy to say that the entire Bible is not 100% truth. But, they fail to understand the complexity of God’s Word so they make wrong assumptions and say things out of religious ignorance and I forgive them. You see I certainly do believe that the Bible is God’s inspired word and that it does contain the truth, but this truth is not all that easily visible on the surface only readings of the Bible that most Christians do. You see the Bible clearly describes to us numerous times that this book contains spiritual parables, proverbs, mysteries, secrets, puzzles, riddles, hidden wisdom, and many things that are not clearly self-evident without God showing us what they say and what they mean. That is why we have over 22,000 different Christian denominations in the world today and everybody thinks they know what is important.

So the first thing that you should learn about truth is that you do not know it. I guess I should qualify that statement and say you do not know it “all”, because you might know a very small part of it. I personally believe the amount of the truth that we all know combined when compared to God’s knowledge of the truth is like a thimble full of water being compared to all of the water in the oceans of the world. I mean come on, you do not know the number of hairs on top of your head and God knows the number of hairs on top of over 6 billion people in the world today. We all know just little bits and parts of the complete whole truth and too many times we think that we know way more than we do. According to the Bible, God is the infinite holder of all knowledge and all truth. But, the Bible also says that God’s ways are not our ways and that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts (Isa 55:9), and this is one of the human’s greatest problem and weakness. So if we know anything that is actually a part of God’s truth it is usually a result of God’s grace giving us insight and revelation into this information. Without God opening your understanding you will fail to see or know the truth. One of our biggest problems as human beings involves the fact that we are not God, but try to act like Him on many occasions. Do you understand that statement? Since only God knows everything, we are extremely limited to know only what He has revealed by His grace. Fortunately for us, God has revealed a lot of valuable information to us in His Word for us to know in these last days. But that still does not mean we know everything by far. Here are my foundational scriptures for today’s Bible lesson:

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

Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

In this statement by Jesus concerning us knowing the truth are some valuable clues of us understanding this subject of what truth is. First off it says or at least implies that you do not yet know all of the truth and I will talk more about that soon. The basis of this statement almost implies that we can never know all of the truth, but at the same time it seems to imply that we will at some given point in time come to know what the revealed truth is by God’s grace. It is almost a paradoxical puzzle being presented to us. According to this verse, in order to know the truth, we must continue in the Word of God. To continue in the word implies an ongoing or even a never ending process of learning, or so it would seem. But by continuing in the Word of God we are further implied to come to an end or reach a level that God called “Know the Truth”. Have you arrived at this level of “Know the Truth”? If you think you have you have probably been deceived. The reason that I say that is because this verse says that this “knowledge of the truth” will set you and I free? Are you free? What does it mean to be free? Free from what or who? Those are extremely good questions and more difficult to answer than you might think. According to Jesus and the Bible, you are not 100% free right now! Meaning you are limited or controlled by something that is holding you captive today. What is this speaking of? I personally believe it is our ignorance that is holding us captive and when we learn what God has hidden for us to learn we will then understand what we need to do to become free. I would venture to challenge you to do some Bible study and find out what you need to be freed from. The reason that I say that is that no one ever escapes to freedom from captivity who does not first know that they are captives. What I learn from this verse is that Jesus teaches us that there will come a time when we learn and understand enough that will cause us to be free from someone or something and we will be able to clearly see when this happens. So if you think that you are already free you do not know that you are a captive. If you think that you have arrived at this “know the truth” level what are still doing here in this world?

So I alluded to a statement that there were different types of truth in my introduction. I believe that there are many types of truth in the world and that this truth changes based upon two things that I will attempt to introduce you to today. For example, 150 years ago it was impossible for man to fly and that was the known truth. However, today people fly everyday all over the world and that is the new or changed known truth. What changed to make this new truth of flying available to everyone? Does anyone in the world today still believe we can’t fly? It was our knowledge that changed. The real truth never changed, the real truth was that man could always fly. It was just what we thought was the truth because of our ignorance or lack of information forced us to believe the wrong truth. However, 150 years ago it was true, but today that view is not true. Do you understand these things that I’m telling you? Since our knowledge has increased in this area we have learned that the laws of aerodynamics overrule the laws of gravity and this allows us to fly. 150 years ago we only understood gravity and this was only a small part of the truth and we based all of our beliefs of the truth upon our limited knowledge. We never invented aerodynamics, so the laws of aerodynamics are not new, we just didn’t understand them and how to use them 150 years ago. So it was our ignorance of these existing laws of truth that kept us from flying 150 years ago and nothing else. Do you understand this? This is actually very important information to see and to apply to what you learn and know from the Bible. This is a prime example of how studying the Bible is today and why some people believe this way and others believes the complete opposite. There is always an absolute truth, but based upon your current level of knowledge you may not understand it and therefore still don’t believe that people can fly. There are way too many Christians like this in the world today.

God is so much smarter than we are that He can write things in a book over 2000 years ago that we do not clearly understood and yet the words are right there in front of us this whole time. I have just demonstrated to you that knowledge matters to determine what the truth is. Another example that I could give you is that men and women in the world today are more like 4 year old children when compared to God’s infinite knowledge level. If a college professor came to teach a 4 year old child some advanced calculus would the 4 year old grasp any of it? This is another major problem with modern Christianity found in the world today. Their spiritual maturity level is not sufficiently increased so that God can teach them anything about what is the real truth. So I mentioned the fact that there are different types of truth in the world and I will talk briefly about that. There are changing truths, inter-related truths, dependent truths, independent truths and universal truths to name some that I have discovered while studying the Bible. I’ve already discussed the changing truth concept based upon our level of knowledge so let’s talk about another factor that helps us to determine truth.

Let’s take a look at the concept of gold. Gold has great value in our world and that is a truth based on the way we see it. But, the actual value of gold is not known because it is viewed as an ever changing commodity that is manipulated by the markets of the gold traders on the earth. So the true value of gold is an unknown quantity and probably impossible to determine in our world. Why, because the quantity of available gold is tightly controlled and the prices are artificially manipulated to be high. I would dare to say that God knows the true value of gold but unless God revealed this, it would be only our best guess. However, I have read in the Bible that God paves His streets in heaven with gold, so that would mean that since we paved our streets on the earth with asphalt that God views gold to be His asphalt. So God’s perspective on gold is entirely different than our perspective on gold and this is why the Bible is so entirely difficult to understand. Gold must be so abundant in heaven that it is used for paving roads and here on earth it is viewed as a rare commodity. So your view of the truth is totally dependent upon your knowledge level and then your perspective of the subject being studied. I just showed you an example of how God’s perspective on something is vastly different than ours, so let’s adjust to see things like God sees them. Knowledge and perspective are two things that are critical to understand when studying the Bible. My current level of knowledge of the Bible may be more or less than your current level knowledge of the Bible, but my perspective of the Bible can be more accurate if I choose to see things the way God sees them. I have known many people who knew the Bible much better than I did, but understood practically none of it because they had the wrong perspectives. They viewed things naturally instead of seeing with God’s spiritual perspective. Therefore, correct Bible interpretation is dependent upon your level of knowledge and your perspective of the verses being studied. What happens if you do not agree with my beliefs? Nothing, but this just proves that at least one of us is wrong and possibly both of us are wrong and only God is right based upon what I have just taught you. As we continue to study in the Word of God we should be converging to the top of a spiritual pyramid type organizational or knowledge chart. We should be coming closer together to the agreement of what is the truth and the knowledge of the truth, to reach the upper point that God called “know the truth” pinacle point.

In my last blog about heaven I talked about the city called Jerusalem in the Bible. Let me ask you a new question about this city. Since most people do not know that there are three different cities called Jerusalem in the Bible, how can one man teach about Jerusalem from the Bible when they do not know this information? Does it matter what we teach if we are void of some of the key facts on the subject? Does it change the real Bible truth because someone teaches something that they think is the truth, but is not? You see you might believe something with all of your heart and you might be totally wrong because you do not know a couple of key scriptures that will solve your ignorance problem. You see that is the problem facing every Bible teacher, our ignorance forces us to teach a subject based upon our current level of knowledge and our current perspective. But, the mistake some Bible teachers make is when they teach at the level that they know like it is the complete truth and everyone else is totally wrong. You see the Bible contains more than one truth and all of the truth must fit together correctly. The Bible also has numerous hidden truths and these must be revealed by God in order to understand other truths. You cannot ignore one truth to teach another truth, all though people do this all the time. I’ve used this example before; I have heard more than one preacher read how the church is the body of Christ in the Bible. I believe these verses whole heartedly, but then they jump to wrong conclusions and say that means we are not the bride of Christ. Their ignorance causes them to criticize those who teach things contrary to what they believe. They say that if Christ has a bride we have a bride since we are the body of Christ and that is very wrong. What these men of God lack is knowledge of how the church became the body of Christ and this would solve their problem and their view of the actual truth. To them what they teach is the truth or they would not be a Christian. However, ignorance and knowledge levels play a huge role in us knowing the real truth. This is the basis for the majority of all of the problems faced within the church today; those who do not know much teach like they know everything and they cause nothing but vast confusion.

What have we learned today? The primary thing should be that “absolute truth” doesn’t change. But, our view of the truth changes as we change based upon the two primary factors that I have taught you about today. As your knowledge increases of the Bible, your understanding of the Bible should also be increasing. If your understanding of the Bible is not increasing, then check up on your perspective on the subjects that you are studying in the Bible. Could it be that you are seeing things in the Bible from your perspective and not God’s perspective? You should be smart enough to be able to judge yourself and determine if you are doing the right things that I have just discussed. It is only by the church of God making the right adjustments that God can accomplish what He has planned for us. I am a firm believer that before Jesus returns for us that the church will become one unit in one accord, victorious overcomers over Satan our enemy. This I believe is the clue to Jesus statement of “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”. There must come a point in time when we know the truth, in order to experience this freedom that Jesus described. This is what I am working towards; this is my goal for you and me today. Continue learning the Bible and continue growing in the knowledge of Him who is faithful and true and I will be back with more of the knowledge of God in my next Blog.

Posted in Bible Interpretation, Keys to Understanding

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Truth, understanding

The Most Important Things You Should Know About Heaven!

Sep 23

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 2.0) Today is a new subject for me, even though I have taught on parts of this subject in other lessons. I believe that it is so important for people to clearly know about heaven; that I have decided to talk about it again using new terms and perspectives to give people another chance to grasp these concepts found in the Bible. Does God exist and if so where does He exist? This of course is an extremely complex subject for humans to comprehend since we are a naturally born people limited to the constraints found within a physical world and the Bible clearly says that God is a Spirit (John 4:24). So how do natural people come to understand spiritual things? Spiritual things are not the same as natural things. God lives outside of time constraints and space constraints. There are many people in the world who do not believe there is a God. They base these beliefs on the fact that they have never seen God, cannot see God, do not ever hear from God or have any other proof or evidence that He exists. They further expound that since God does not do anything to stop the evil in the world, He must not exist. Of course, the flip side of this extreme is another extreme of people believing that God is causing all of the evil in the world and therefore they do not want anything to do with Him either. But, all of this is purely by God’s design in order to give man a free and fair choice. God purposely hides Himself from our view, if He did not do this you would have no choice but to believe that He existed. All of that said, God has spoken to us directly in a written book form called the Holy Bible. I have studied this book for close to 25 years and have determined that there is no way that this book did not come from God directly. There is just too much complex information for it not to have a very intelligent designer and an author who could be no one but God. However, there are certainly many others in the world that view this book as a collection of fantasy and made up stories because they do not understand anything that is in it. This is again by God’s design; and it gives people who want to see the truth the opportunity to know Him and those who refuse the truth the right to go to hell. It is a very perplexing method of operation, yet I cannot question God’s ways since He is entirely smarter than I am. So today I want to discuss some very important things found in the Bible about Heaven, what it is, where it is and what do we need to know about it? We might talk about some of the characteristics of heaven like the existence of many mansions being there and how the streets are paved with gold and God’s throne is surrounded by angels, but I do not think these are the most important things to know about heaven so if we do talk about them, they will be later or in another follow-up lesson. I want to start with a verse found in the N.T.:

1Pe 3:22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.

Why is it necessary for all the angels and spiritual powers to be made subject to Jesus, the Son of God? That is a very interesting question to consider. The Bible certainly has some very difficult statements to try to explain and this is certainly one of them. I will state what I believe and say that if every spiritual force and angel was already subject to God, I do not believe it would have been necessary for God to put them under His Son Jesus. Wow, I just got off the subject for a quick side trip to get you to think about something you may have never thought of before. So let’s go back to the beginning of this verse and notice that the Bible says that Jesus has gone back into heaven and is now located at the right hand of God. This verse very clearly informs us that there is a real place called heaven and that Jesus is there right now. We know from reading the Gospels in verses like John 3:13 and 6:51 that Jesus said before He was came to the earth that He came from Heaven. So heaven is where Jesus came from and heaven is where He went back to after He died and rose from the dead. Since the Bible says in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses let every word be established, I will give you another witness to this fact that we just read:

Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus, again is very clearly described to be at the right of God at this moment in time. Where Jesus is now is also the location of the throne of God. A throne is always a place where a King rules His Kingdom. So heaven was the Kingdom of God, before Jesus came and died on the cross. However, God tells us that now the kingdom of God is within us (Luke 17:21). So it appears to me that God is said to be moving His Kingdom location and I will talk more about this later.

Heb 9:24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

The word “heaven” appears in the KJV Bible more than 550 times. However, it is not always in reference to the spiritual location of God’s throne. The word “heaven” can refer to at the minimum 3 different realms or dimensions and you must be smart enough to figure out which one God is talking about by the context of the verse being read. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:2 that he was caught up to the “3^rd heaven” where he saw things that he could not verbally describe to us with human words. That makes heaven sound pretty awesome if you can’t even describe it. We can see in this verse in Hebrew 8:24 that Jesus is said to enter into a “Holy Place” not made by the hands of men. So God is now telling us about heaven as a spiritual place. This verse informs us that heaven has a temple that is the original pattern of the objects made on the earth by the hands of men in Jerusalem. This heavenly temple is called the “true temple” which would imply to me that the earthly temple in Jerusalem must be the “false temple”. But, I guess I won’t go there either today!

2Th 1:7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,

As we have seen Jesus ascended into heaven after His resurrection and is now at the right hand of God. However, the Bible informs us very strongly that Jesus is coming back very soon. Not long from now this Jesus who went up to heaven will come back down the same way that He ascended, the angels told the disciples this in Acts 1:11. This verse in 2 Thessalonians tells us that when Jesus returns He will bring with Him many mighty angels. So we have just discovered a revelation that heaven is the home or a house that is full of the angels of God and that these spiritual entities are not insignificant beings. They clearly are said to be very mighty, meaning they are very strong. Here is another witness to this fact:

Heb 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

So heaven is not described to be a small place. This place also has a very specific name and is called the “Heavenly Jerusalem”. This spiritual place is described to have a mountain named “Zion”. This place is clearly described to be the “City of the Living God”. This does not sound small or insignificant either, especially since you cannot number the population of this city. This city “Heavenly Jerusalem” is said to be the home of an innumerable number of angels. This is the mighty spiritual force army that will return with Jesus when He comes back. It is also critical that you note the name of this spiritual city. This city is called the “Heavenly Jerusalem”. Did you know that heaven had a name? This is another reference to the “true” heaven that we just read about previously. Why does God have another city called Jerusalem? I guess I should ask, why did God name the earthly city Jerusalem the same as His heavenly city Jerusalem? You do understand that the heavenly city Jerusalem certainly existed before the earthly city came to be. Isn’t that an interesting question to consider? This spiritual city seems to be called the real or true city of God. This is what I believe, God created a covenant with Abraham to bring forth a natural nation called Israel who would build God an earthly city that would be a pattern of His spiritual city Jerusalem in heaven. I believe that God did this for several reasons and I will probably not be able to get into all of these today. But, one of the reasons I believe was to show us a city that was like another city that we can’t see. Why is there just one city in our entire world that has the focus of every eye on it? Why does this city “earthly Jerusalem” gain so much attention? It is because it is a pattern of the “heavenly Jerusalem”. Just as the earthly city Jerusalem has had numerous attack and people come against it, I believe the heavenly city of Jerusalem is being attacked. Just as the earthly city of Jerusalem is being forced to stop building and expanding, so the heavenly city of God was attacked in the same way by Satan and his army. The majority of the world governments are proposing that the earthly Jerusalem be divided. If you study the Bible, God is also being forced to divide His heavenly city. So let’s look at another witness to this heavenly city of God called Jerusalem:

Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

Here is another verse of scripture in the Bible that describes Heaven as a place that is somewhere above. Again it specifically names this city and calls it “Jerusalem”, but this time it qualifies it by calling it the Jerusalem Above! So we automatically know that it is not the Jerusalem that is on the earth or the Jerusalem below. Heaven is again said to be a city called Jerusalem, where the throne of God resides with an innumerable number of angels. But, this verse in Galatians tells us another major clue to a puzzle we didn’t even know was a puzzle. This city is called the Mother of the church. You do not understand yet how important that statement is, unless you understand God’s spiritual family structure. What we have just learned, is that the Heavenly Jerusalem is called the “Mother” of all of those in the Church of Jesus Christ, so this means the heavenly Jerusalem is not the Church! Did you understand what I just said? I’ll show why this is important to note very soon. What is a mother? A mother is a woman who has had a child or children. Wow that is one of the most important things you can learn today, if you can grasp this concept. A city is a woman, a woman is a city. A spiritual city is a spiritual woman and she can have spiritual children. But, remember that this heavenly city Jerusalem was comprised of a spiritual nation of angels which included Satan. Uh oh? I just let you in on some more information that I’m not ready to discuss yet. Let’ me shift gears and talk about another woman briefly that is said to also come from heaven:

Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

First take note of what this verse says. A city came down from heaven and this city is called a woman, a bride and the wife for a husband who we will see later in this chapter to be the Lamb. This woman has the same name as the other two cities that we have already been looking at. This name is of course the “New Jerusalem”. Why is all of this that I am trying to teach you important to know? Because it helps you to know who you are in Christ and where you fit in God’s New Kingdom which I am attempting to reveal to you. In Revelation 21:2 we either have the same city Jerusalem or a new and different city called Jerusalem being described to us. From my current understanding of the Bible this is clearly a different city than the one that I just showed you in Hebrews and Galatians called the Heavenly Jerusalem and here is why I believe that. First off did you notice that this woman in Rev 21:2 comes down from heaven? Did heaven come down or did the city called New Jerusalem come down from heaven? Wow, you see heaven did not come down it is still there. What happens when a woman gives birth to a baby? Does the baby come down the birth canal and out to the waiting doctor? So we just read in Galatians 4 that this heavenly Jerusalem is our mother, meaning she gave spiritual birth to us. Let me ask you a basic question, do you have babies first or do you get married first? I guess I should ask which one should come first and not how it works in our world many times. If the heavenly Jerusalem is a woman who gave birth in Galatians 4, then she should not logically be the woman who is getting married in Revelation 21. Get it? You see the woman called Heavenly Jerusalem must already be married in order to have had children. This is not rocket science so you should be at least following my logic a little bit. If you continue to read Galatians 4 and see what it is describing to us, you will hopefully see that it is using the life story of Abraham as an allegory for a type of God. So let’s review the story of Abraham. As you may or may not recall, Abraham had two wives and two sons. One was from the much younger Egyptian slave girl Hagar and Galatians says this is a type of Jerusalem on the earth (Gal 4:25). The woman Hagar is called a “bondwoman” and she gives birth to a slave son who is not the heir with the promised son. Sarah who is not named directly in Galatians 4 is the type of the “Freewoman” and is called the Jerusalem that is above. This means that Sarah (the Heavenly Jerusalem) existed prior to Hagar (the Earthly Jerusalem) and they both now have children, but Hagar’s son came first and then Sarah’s son came after. We should know that Abraham represents God in this allegory since the Bible tells us that He was married to natural Israel (Jer 31:32). What you must see is that both of these cities called Jerusalem existed simultaneously and are called women who are in covenant with and married to God. Why is God telling us this information? It must be very important for us to see and to understand clearly. What you should notice in Galatians 4 is that God is quoting an Old Testament prophecy found in the book of Isaiah.

Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.

As you can see God is quoting Isaiah 54:1 in this verse. This verse tells us that there are two women, one a barren woman (Sarah) and one a married woman (Hagar). As we have seen God is using the allegory found in Genesis 16 of Sarah and Hagar to reveal this information to us in Galatians 4. Sarah the older barren woman as we have seen is the one that is said to now have more children than the bondwoman Hagar. So the Bible tells us that these are two covenants and you automatically jump to the wrong conclusion that this is the Old Covenant between God and Israel and the New Covenant between Jesus and the Church. However, that just doesn’t make any sense based upon the information we have just read about these women. The Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) existed prior to Israel’s covenant with God on Mt Sinai (Hagar). This city had to exist prior to Jesus coming to the earth, dying and establishing a New Covenant. Then in Galatians 4:26 it says very clearly that this “Heavenly Jerusalem” is the mother of the church and not the church. So whatever covenant this is referring to, it is definitely not the New Covenant between Jesus Christ and the church and it is also not the old covenant between God and Abraham in the Old Testament. So that complicates things tremendously since no one has ever taught on the fact that the Bible mentions three different covenants and not just two. You see, this third hidden covenant has to be God’s covenant with the angels in heaven that existed before Adam ever came along.

Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

So let’s go back to Revelation 21:2 and notice that God is describing a city coming down from above that is called the “New Jerusalem”. What does the term “New” mean? It means it is not the Old Jerusalem. Which one was the barren old Jerusalem (Sarah), it was the Heavenly Jerusalem that was above. Are you beginning to see and understand the concepts being given to us? God has problems with the “Heavenly Jerusalem” and the “Earthly Jerusalem” so He creates a “New Jerusalem” to replace them both. Let’s look at the verse that comes right before this one in Revelation 21:

Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

Again why replace the old heaven and the old earth with new ones if there are not problems with the old? What you do not realize is that God is a just God. He does everything in a decent legal ordered way. If God does not follow strict rules He would be no different than Satan the thief who comes to kill steal and destroy what you have. I have often asked myself and God this question, “If you found sin in Satan why didn’t you cast him into hell and get rid of him?” The only answer that I got back from God was that He could not legally do this and I do not have time to try to explain that statement in this lesson. You can go read some of my other blogs where I give you some clues to the answers to that question. But, it has something to do with this hidden third covenant that God had with the angels and I’ll leave it at that for today.

So getting back to Revelation 21:2; we can review that this verse is also describing a city called “New Jerusalem” who is also described as a woman who is to be married to the Lamb of God (Jesus Christ). A marriage is also a covenant defined to us in the Bible, so we know this is God’s New Covenant with US! So what have I taught you so far? We have three women, three covenants, three cities all named Jerusalem. One is called “Earthly Jerusalem”, another is called “Heavenly Jerusalem” and the last one is called “New Jerusalem” or “Holy Jerusalem”. This implies that the other two women were not the Holy Jerusalem of God and were definitely older than the “New” woman Jerusalem. Why is this important? Because God tells us that this city will come down from Heaven to be reestablished back here on the new earth. In this new city, God tells us that there will be no unrighteous people, no uncircumcised people and no ungodly people, only those that have been purchased by the blood of the Lamb. Finally there will be no Satan, no hurt, no harm, no thieves, no robbers, no murderers and no rapists, no one to do evil. There is where the Bible describes that we will spend eternity with God.

2Pe 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

So even as Peter wrote about looking forward to this “New” heaven and “New” earth so we should also look for the coming new city of God that dwells only righteousness.

Many people want to know, where is this heaven that now is located? We have clearly seen in the Bible that it exists and that Jesus is there right now at the right hand of the throne of God. This place is large and holds an innumerable number of angels. It also holds the spirits of all of those righteous people that have died on the earth. They are there as witnesses (Heb 12:1) that are rooting us on in our spiritual journey. The people in heaven do not see what we see on the earth. Spiritual people are oblivious to natural things. Natural things are not important to spiritual people anymore. So people in heaven do not know what kind of car you drive, what kind of house you live in or how much money that you have in the bank. They do not know if you are married or single, and they do not care. The angels and people in heaven are only concerned with your eternal destiny. Have you made Christ your Lord and will you spend eternity with us. Whenever a sinner comes to know Christ, the Bible says that heaven rejoices. So heaven knows about spiritual things.

So where is this Heavenly Jerusalem located? The Bible actually does not specifically tell us, primarily because we would not really understand its spiritual location. As you recall this Jerusalem was said to be “Above”. But, since we live on the earth which is a round ball, every direction you are standing on has an up direction. So is heaven all around us? We are actually given some clues in the Bible and I will end this lesson with the information about the location of heaven:

Psa 75:6 For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.

Psa 75:7 But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.

Many times God gives us direct information in Bible verses of specific things like God is a Spirit. However, other times God gives us indirect information and we learn from what is not given in the verse. This is the case here in Psalm 75:6. God tells us three directions that promotion does not come from. That only leaves one direction called “North” and that gives us an implied location for the direction of heaven. As you can see clearly God leaves this direction out of the statement and then in the following verse we have a contextual statement that God is the one that promotes one person and puts another person down. So I take these verses to indicate to us where we can find the location of heaven to be from God’s perspective. I assume this to mean you go to the North Pole of our planet and look straight up and this would represent the nearest proximity of the location of heaven.

Isa 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?

So we have another verse in Isaiah that seems to indicate the direction of the throne of God to be an implied North. If you can see that the North Pole could be considered the top of our planet, the earth is said to be the location of God’s footstool. So God is sitting on the throne up above us.

I have covered a lot of new information from the Bible about this place called Heaven and shown you many things for you to think about. These are some of the most important things that I have found about this place in the Bible. However, I believe that if you read Revelation 21 you can see that heaven is not our final eternal destination. It would appear that God is preparing a new heaven and a new earth that we will live within eternity on. The Bible says that our eyes have not foreseen the things that God has prepared for them that love Him (1 Co 2:9). So it sounds like a really awesome time in store for us. I don’t know why anyone would not want to go to this place?

Posted in Bible Study, Heaven, Understanding

4 Comments

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, Covenants, God, heaven, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Truth, understanding

Are there Any Rules in Life to Follow? A Rules Based System To Life!

Sep 19

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.3) This Part 1 in a series of lessons on modern computer concepts that are found in the Bible. If I learned anything from being a computer programmer for over 20 years, I learned that everything in this life has very strict rules or it is useless. In this life you do not get to do everything that you can do just because you can do them. You do not get to drive on any side of the street that you want to. You do not get to drive through any intersection as fast as you want to when you want to. You do not get to do many things because rules exist to keep you from hurting yourself and others. This is the basis of the majority of the problems in this world today. The problems of the world are caused by people who do stuff to other people just because they have the ability or power to do them. It comes from a self-centered ME mentality! The world is all about ME! What I need, what I want, what feels good to ME! People then use their attitudes of Me to take what they need or want from others without thinking about what they are doing to the ones that they are hurting. If everyone takes this attitude, then only the strongest survive to live. This attitude of ME is a self-centered absence of the feelings of the God kind of “LOVE” for anyone else. As long as people care more about themselves than they do about others, they will remain apart from the life of God. Today I want to talk about a computer programming concept called “Rules Based Systems” in relationship to what God and the Bible say about the concepts of them or the absence from them. Why are rules important to live by? Why do rules exist? The Bible is a highly complex book of spiritual information and it cannot be interpreted correctly without knowing God’s rules for interpretation. I’ll start by giving you a definition of this term from the internet:

rule-based systems are used as a way to store and manipulate knowledge to interpret information in a useful way.

I believe that God taught me about rules based systems as I learned computer programming. A rules based system is one that adheres to a strict set of laws in order to work correctly. When I first started learning computer programming in High School, I started with the Basic programming language. I also played with another early computer language called FORTRAN. Then I started working for a company and going to night school to learn mainframe programming. I learned Mainframe Assembler and COBOL and became an expert in both of these languages. This was of course way before there were any PC’s in the world. What I learned from programming languages, is that they have very strict rules that must be followed, or guess what they do not work. You create your program and then compile your program and get nothing but a long list of errors back. This is not fun, when this happens, but it happened a lot until I learned to follow the rules more closely. As I became more detailed oriented, I learned to pay attention to the little things that use to be where I made most of my mistakes. I would just automatically learn to look for them and try not to repeat them. I do not think that I ever got so good that I wrote a new program that complied cleanly the first time, but I did get much better. So why am I describing my work experience to you? Because it helps me more with Bible interpretation and understanding the Bible that you can imagine.

Did you notice two key words in the definition of what a rules based system was? The two key words are “knowledge” and the “interpretation” of the knowledge. A rules based system helps us to process vast amounts of information and then come up with the correct interpretations of that information. So what is the Bible? The Bible is the Spiritual knowledge of God written down in a book for us to read. However, the Bible is widely interpreted in many different ways resulting in contrasting and conflicting points of view. That is probably the major problem in the church today. Everybody has their own opinion to what the Bible means. Why is that? It is because of a complete disregard to the rules of Bible interpretation. Some people know one rule and they sometimes follow it and then sometimes they do not. They are very inconsistent. Other people know of no rules and they are all over the board with their interpretations. Only a few know more than one rule to Bible Interpretation and try to adhere to them consistently.

While I read and studied the Bible, I started to recognize patterns of a rules based system. Since God does not give us a list of the rules in any one place in the Bible, the correct understanding of the Bible must start with figuring out what are the rules that God has established for us to follow. You see I know that every computer language has their own individual set of rules to follow. However, I also learned that many of these rules cross languages and apply to other languages. Even though each language was uniquely defined, the application of the rules applied across the board. So in order to even begin to understand the Bible, you must first establish God’s rules for interpretation and not your rules. This is the first step of understanding God and the Bible.

Do you realize that God follows the rules that He has established? That is the beauties of God; He is a highly intelligent being. His ability is so far beyond our most powerful computer. I see the world around us and I recognize an intelligently designed world full of natural laws, systems and sub-systems. This is the basis of any large complex computer programming system also. Anything with an intelligent design has organization and rules. So why do people not recognize that the Bible is also an intelligently designed rules based system? Obviously they do not understand the importance of rules and following them. If you are a Christian you should be following rules in everything that you do. Following rules does not save you; it just helps you live the life that God intended for you on this earth. Christians who do not follow rules are no different than unsaved people who rob banks because they want money or rape women because it feels good to them. I know that is an extreme examples of bad Bible interpretations, but yet I feel that strongly about the subject. I do not mean to reduce rape and robbery to minor offenses, I hope you understand the point and forgive the analogy.

So what ire my main points today?

Start by Recognizing that the Bible is a Rules Based System.
Then find out what the rules are!
Next follow the rules with all diligence!

When I was computer operator, on the top of our mainframe CPU, there was a big sign that said “THINK”. Wow, if more people would do that one word! To think before you act or speak is a widely ignored talent of many people in the world today. I have many blogs on the subject of Bible Interpretation, I hope you that you will go and read them and then learn to follow them. Life is a rules based system of existence. This is the intelligent design of God. If you learn the rules and follow them there will be great benefits to being a doer of the word of God and not just a hearer only. By learning the rules and following rules I believe that the Body of Christ will finally come into agreement to what the Bible says. So I challenge you today to apply what you’ve read today. By learning rules and living within their guidelines you make the Bible useful as God had intended it to be. You take the words of an intelligent God and you can finally begin to understand them. There is no greater benefit than knowing the real God.

If you would like to continue reading in this series you may go to “Part 2” now.

Posted in Bible Interpretation, Rules

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Truth, woman

Psalm 1: Learning the Secrets to Success In Life!

Sep 18

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.4) There are more subjects in the Bible to study than there is time to study them. Today I want to discuss the first chapter of Psalms. The book of Psalms is a series of thoughts from God written down by the prophets of God for his people. Moses is known to have written some of the Psalms, and David is known to have written some of the Psalms. The book is a vast wealth of information and has many very profound revelations and prophecies within it. The Book of Psalms is written like the other parts of the Bible, in a seemingly random pattern of unrelated thoughts, but yet Jesus said these are those that testify of me (John 5:39). So we should be able to see Jesus in every book of the Bible and practically every chapter. Today I’m going to go through a few thoughts on the first chapter of the Book of Psalms. This is not a long chapter so it will not take a long time for us to review it and see what God says to us:

Psa 1:1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

What does it mean to walk in the counsel of the ungodly? What is counsel? The word translated as counsel is a word that means “advice”. Advice are words of guidance or the suggestions on what you should do in life. There is no shortage of “free advice” on TV and the internet. However, for God’s people we are not supposed to get our advice on what we should do or where we should go or even what we should invest in from ungodly people. If you are looking to your unsaved friends, co-workers, newspapers, magazines or TV shows like Oprah for your counsel or guidance for your life you are being deceived. Then this verse says Christians should not stand in the way of sinners. That does not mean we are obstacles to them, it means don’t do what they do. Just as we do not follow the advice of people who are ignorant of God, we do not observe them and do what they do. Jesus put it this way, if the blind lead the blind, they will both fall into the ditch (Luke 6:39). This is just having basic good logic, common sense and is sound judgment to follow. God’s Word is the only truth that you will ever need to help you make every decision. Of course this gets more complex than that, but the Word of God is the foundation for building your life and there is nothing else that can replace it. If you base your decisions upon anything else you have already been deceived and you cannot blame God for what happens to you, even though many people still try to.

Psa 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

You see this verse says exactly what I just tried to say to you, but in a more direct way. The basis of your life is the Word of God. The Bible says “I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me” (Isa 26:3). Isn’t that saying the same thing that this verse in Psalms just said? How do you delight in the Law of the Lord? It tells you that you keep it in your mind both day and night. That is a mental exercise and a thought process that is easier said than done for most people. There are just too many distractions in life to fulfill this verse completely, or at least this is what many people think. Their mind has been cluttered with many worthless things that do not mean anything, nor do they have any redeeming value to them. These are the designed distractions of the enemy used to get your mind off God and His word. Why do you think there are so many mindless TV shows on today? They are intentionally designed distraction of the blind leading the blind. Reality TV has gotten so immoral that I refuse to waste my time with it. However, there are so many people watching these TV reality shows, it drives more of them to be created every year. This generation appears to be consumed with the trivial mindless words spoken from people who do not know God or even want to know Him. I was watching Jay Leno the other night and he had a Jay Walking on that had people from off of the street being asked basic questions on American History. Nobody could answer any of the basic American History questions, but everyone of them could answer and tell you who was on the TV show Jersey Shores. What a mindless generation we have allowed to be raised in this country.

Psa 1:3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

Here is why I like the Bible so much! It has verses like this in it and ignorant spiritually blind people do not have a clue what it means. If you have ever really read the Bible seriously you know that people are often times symbolically called trees in the Bible. For example, people are the symbolic trees of the field who clap their hands in Isaiah 55:12. As you can see in this verse, people are only prosperous in life if they have done the verses prior to this verse. Are you interested in being prosperous? Some of the secrets to prosperity are found right here in this chapter and that is why I am talking about them today. This verse is a parallel verse to one I always associate with it found in Revelation 22. We can read in Revelation 22 about the “tree of life” standing on either sides of the river flowing from the throne of God and we can see that these trees produce their 12 kinds of fruit every month forever. God is making a connection here and hopefully you can see it. The people in the church are the trees being described in this verse. We are to produce our spiritual fruit for God here and now in this life and forever throughout eternity. It is a never ending process of spiritual replication.

The last three verses in chapter one are in stark contrast to the “Trees Planted by the Waters”. The last three verses speak of the ungodly who do their own things, their own way and do not care for others. They are described to be “chaff”. This is found to be a descriptive term for that which you consume with fire. I do not like to think about people going to hell, but yet it clearly says in the Bible that people go there who do not want to follow God’s ways. So it comes down to a decision on every human on the planet and many of them do not understand the severe consequences of the choices they have made. I use to be one of those who rejected Christ and thought the church was stupid. Now I have learned that I was the one that was stupid and have been able to see finally that I have made the correct choice. More than likely I have told you nothing new today from this chapter study, but have only helped to remind you that if you are a Christian you also have made the right choice. God bless you today!

Posted in Bible Study, Psalms

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Psalms, Revelation, Truth, understanding

Myths about Jesus in the Gospels! PT 2 An Omnipotent Jesus vs. an Anointed Jesus?

Sep 17

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.2) This is Part 2 in the series of advanced Bible Study lessons discovering the real Jesus of the Bible. These studies also spend time countering the myths of the false Jesus taught in many churches today. If you have not read the first lesson in the series I might suggest that you go and start with reading “Part 1“. There are a number of things taught about Jesus from the Bible that are clearly fabricated by Satan to discredit the real Jesus found in the Bible. In my last lesson on the real Jesus, I discussed a poor Jesus vs. a Jesus with money. I know I did not fully cover the subject, but I gave you some key scriptures that are very important to note when discussing the subject. I believe that Satan wants to portray the Jesus of the Bible as a homeless man who owned nothing and then he tries to use this image to imply that the followers of Jesus are never supposed to rise higher than their master the teacher. So if Jesus owned nothing Christians are supposed to own nothing and I do not follow that religious philosophy simply because that is not the Jesus of the Bible. I believe there are many scriptures in the Gospels that dispel the fact that Jesus owned nothing and I gave you many of these for your consideration. Please do not accept anything that I teach without you seeing it in the Bible. Verify everything that I say using your own Bible to confirm it. This is the only way that you are insured that someone is not deceiving you.

Today I want to attack another myth taught in many churches using the truth in the Bible. These churches teach that Jesus came to the earth as God in His full omnipotent Godhead power and they claim that He proved it by demonstrating to us countless miracles and supernatural signs like speaking to the wind and waves and walking on water to name a couple of prominent examples. I am going to start this discussion with a scripture that you probably do not associate as being important to this subject of Jesus’ omnipotence found in the book of Acts:

Act 10:38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.

So I will not debate that Jesus was God in the flesh, if you do not know this already you should go read and study your Bible to find this for yourself. I have written about it in other Bible lessons, if you want to go read them. This verse in Acts is very clear, yet totally ignored by those who profess an Omnipotent Jesus theology. Omnipotent means “all powerful” capable of doing anything in His full Godhead strength. Was this the Jesus of the Bible when he was born in a manger and grew to be a man? If it was why did God have to anoint Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and Power? This verse implies that if God had not anointed Jesus, he would not have been able to heal anyone. It clearly says that it is the spiritual anointing power that healed the people and not the man Jesus of Nazareth. If Jesus is God in the full manifestation of omnipotence there is no need for any anointing, is there? If you do not see this, you do not know how to read. It just isn’t that difficult to see.

Do you know what “Christ” means? Jesus is called the “Christ” in the Bible. This is the Greek word for a Hebrew word translated as “Messiah” in the Old Testament. Do you know what “Christ” means? What is the definition of the word “Christ”. This word “Christ” means “anointed”, to rub or smear with oil. When David was anointed to be King by Samuel he poured oil over David’s head (1 Sam 16:13). This was an outward symbolic representation for an internal spiritual process that was taking place. This is also what happened to Jesus. Do you remember when Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan by John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit in the form of Dove descended from heaven? (Mat 3:16) This was God anointing Jesus of Nazareth the man with the Spirit of God and Power that we just read about in Acts 10. So why was it necessary for God to descend from Heaven if the Spirit of God was already in the body of Jesus in full omnipotent power? I hope you are seeing the problem with the erroneous teaching of many ignorant people in the church. Let’s verify this belief based upon the words of Jesus himself:

Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

Here we have Jesus speaking to the people in the temple. Jesus opens the scroll and finds the place it is written about Him in Isaiah 61:1 and He begins to read. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”. In this verse Jesus is claiming using prophecy what we just observed in the Baptism of John. This claim was given that the Holy Spirit had descended upon him from the heavens in the form of a dove to rest. Jesus is very clearly stating that God has anointed him to do certain things and He begins to list these things that He is anointed by God to do. So if Jesus could do everything using full omnipotent deity power, Jesus must have lied and He did not need to read a verse about being anointed, does He? I thought God could do anything, especially an omnipotent God in full Godhead power. I hope you are beginning to see the falsity of what many try to teach you on the internet and in some churches. It is absolutely critical to see and understand the real Jesus so that you can understand the real you. God used this anointing power throughout the Old and New Testaments to give His power to men. God still anoints people to do things today in the world. But, my lesson is not about God’s anointing on us, it is about why it was necessary for God to anoint Jesus so let’s continue.

There are many things in the Bible that are difficult to explain with a single lesson because there are more than one inter-related subjects to also discuss or we do not understand what is being taught. In the Gospels we find that Jesus went around and healed many people but, what was the “determining factor” for why some got healed and some did not. First let me ask you did you know that Jesus did not heal everyone that was sick? I will prove this to you as I go. Was it God’s choice on who to heal and who to leave sick, lame and crippled or was there other factors involved that we do not yet understand? The Bible says very clearly that God does not show “favoritism”.

Lev 19:15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.

Act 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:

Jas 2:9 But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.

Does God ask people to do things that God does not do Himself? I don’t think so, if it is a sin to respect one person over and above another, then God commits sin if he heals one person and does not heal another. So we clearly have a problem, when reading the Gospels, since Jesus did not heal everyone. So there must be another factor that can explain this situation and not leave us confused. Do you recall when Jesus was walking in Mark 5 with one of the rulers of the synagogue named Jairus? Jesus was on the way to his house to heal his daughter and there was a very large crowd of people following Jesus and touching Him. In this chapter is an incredible story within a story. Why is everyone touching Jesus on every side? Was Jesus just a man with rock star status to them or were they all after the healing Power that Jesus told everyone that He was anointed with? You are going to have to make up your own mind why people are touching Jesus, because the Bible does not directly tell us. However, while everyone is touching Him and He is walking to the house of the sick girl, a woman with an issue of blood comes up and forces her way through the crowd and touches the hem of His garment. Jesus stops and turns and asks a very funny question for an omnipotent and omniscient God to ask, “Who touched me?”. Was this a blunder by Jesus or did He not know who it was that touched Him after all the disciples said “Master the crowd is touching you on every side”. In other words the disciples see people touching Jesus everywhere, but they did not understand what just happened and only Jesus and this one woman knew what just transpired. However it is clear that Jesus felt the power leave but did not know where the power went based upon the question.

So I am going to make a longer story a shorter story for the sake of time. The woman with the issue of blood feels the power of God go into her and heal her and Jesus feels the power of God go from Him and heal her, and yet Jesus does not know who it is that got healed. Why is this? It only make sense if you understand the Bible correctly, otherwise it is just a point of confusion. Jesus we have seen was anointed by God with the Holy Ghost and Power (Acts 10:38). Jesus told us that the Holy Ghost had anointed Him in Luke 4:18. We also saw the Holy Ghost descend upon Jesus like a dove in Matthew 3:16. So we have 3 witnesses that say that Jesus was anointed with the Spirit of God. So Jesus had the power of God clearly upon Him with the anointing. But what was it that caused one woman in the crowd of hundreds to receive this power while the others did not? That is a very important question to understand the answer to. Fortunately Jesus gives us the answer:

Mar 5:34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

Jesus gives us the answer to the million dollar question of why this woman received her healing and the hundreds of others who touched Him did not. Jesus said that the determining factor was her “faith”. So now we have a new problem what is “faith” and why did she have it and the others did not. Since that is not my primary subject, I’m not going to get into that fully in this lesson today. What I want you to see is that yes Jesus had Anointed Power, but that this power was only accessed by one woman with her individual “faith”. So apparently it was not all up to sovereign God in what happens in the world, is it?

My primary subject today is the myths concerning Jesus’ deity power, so I’m going to continue with teaching on this line of thought and leave “faith” to another day. I told you earlier that Jesus did not heal everyone and we clearly saw an example of this with the crowds touching Him in Mark 5 with only one woman getting healed. So now I’m going to show you a much stronger witness to the fact that Jesus was not God in His omnipotent power on the earth. If you continue reading in the book of Mark you will find starting in chapter 6 verse 1 that Jesus is said to come into his own country. This is the home of Jesus, the place where He lives in a house like I showed you in the last lesson in this series. He enters into the synagogue and begins to teach the people and the people automatically begin to question, him saying where did He get this wisdom? You see all of these people saw Jesus grow up and watched Him from a time of a child and knew Him and his family intimately. Why is Jesus teaching the people? I think people who do not understand “faith” don’t understand that before healing comes, teaching comes first. Jesus would always teach the people from the Bible, that God has anointed Him to heal and if they believed it, they could be healed and if they did not believe it they could remain as they were.

Mar 6:4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

Jesus is the prophet in this verse that is without honor in his home city. The people were too intimately familiar with Jesus and His natural life to allow the new “anointing” to work. These people let the old natural Jesus influence who He was to them today. Little did they know that this was the Messiah spoken of in their Bible. These people let their ignorance rob them of the blessings of God. They did not know He was born in Bethlehem and they did not know His father was God. They just assumed they knew him and they made the wrong conclusions. This is one of the greatest danger that many people face today. I see this attitude in and out of church.

Mar 6:5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.

The Bible does not say that Jesus would not do any mighty works there; it literally says it was impossible for Jesus to do any mighty supernatural healings in this setting. In other words, no blind people came again seeing, no crippled people walked again, no deaf people could hear, nothing occurred but Jesus laying His hands on a few minor sick people to be healed. So obviously the Omnipotent Jesus was on vacation during this chapter of the Gospels or people just ignore the real Jesus to make up their fictitious version of Him. You can clearly see that Jesus was not omnipotent in this verse or He would have been able to heal everyone regardless of what they believed.

Mar 6:6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

When Jesus saw their unbelief He was amazed. So what is the opposite of “faith” that got the woman healed in the chapter before this one? You can see that the woman with the issue of blood believed what she heard and these people in the Jesus home town did not believe. That is probably the most important thing that I will teach today, but that is not my primary subject, so I will continue.

What I have demonstrated to you is a version of Jesus that the Bible depicts as being the real “Emanuel” God with Us! This was a man who was God, but clearly was not God in His full Godhead power. Do you understand that it would be impossible to kill the man Jesus if He was here in His full Godhead power? If Jesus was the omnipotent God in person on this planet no would have been able to crucify Him and no one would be saved today. It is very clear to me that God stripped Himself of His divine powers when He choose to manifest on the earth as a human being like you and I. I am going to end this lesson on this note about the resurrection of Jesus. Did you know that after Jesus was raised from the dead He never did any more supernatural signs or wonders here on the earth? Jesus walked the planet after being raised from the dead for nearly 40 days and never did one single supernatural act to prove His divine nature. I mean why didn’t Jesus appear to everyone that just crucified Him and say look I told you so? You see after Jesus was raised from the dead He was again the omnipotent God. But then He told His disciples “that all power in both heaven and in the earth had been given to him”(Mat 28:18). So why is it that people teach that Jesus already had all power before He was crucified if Jesus said it was given to Him after being raised from the dead? Can’t you read and see that Jesus said this power wasn’t fully given to Him until after He was raised from the dead? You cannot have it both ways! Jesus had to be a man with human limitations before the crucifixion and then the power was returned back to Him after His resurrection or you just have to ignore more parts of the Bible that do not agree with your ridiculous fantasy. If Jesus had all power before His crucifixion then there is nothing to give to Him after His resurrection and Jesus is a liar. Wow, I don’t know if you really understand the things I teach or not, but it would be great if you did! God Bless!

If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons about the Myths of Jesus in the church you may proceed to “Part 3“.

Posted in Jesus

Must Women Keep Silent in the Church?

Sep 12

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.6) Some may have noticed that this website does not avoid controversy. I believe we need to learn everything possible about every subject and take on even the difficult or controversial Bible subjects that many like to ignore or abuse. The Bible has some very difficult things written in it and on the surface the subject of a woman teaching and preaching in the church, is certainly viewed as one example of those. Vast numbers of people with limited knowledge of the Bible, have long proclaimed their dominant doctrine over allowing women preachers and teachers, in the church. This is a very legalistic Old Covenant approach to understanding the rest of the Bible and the New Covenant age of Grace. Hopefully everyone understands the Bible is divided into two major divisions of covenant relationship. The Old Covenant is dominated by laws, commandments, rules, and words that were to be followed to the letter. But Jesus came to fulfill this law and He has accomplished this, and in implementing the New Covenant relationship with mankind, He has brought about a brand-new creation that never existed before. Please keep this truth in your mind as a foundation when studying this subject of women’s roles in the church, to avoid extreme legalism.

The Old Covenant legalism viewpoint and attitude is placing all women in only subservient roles that appear to be based upon prejudiced or biased legal opinions. What causes alleged Christian people to think this way? The answer to wrong extreme legal thinking and believing, is not knowing who we all are, “In Christ”.

We should all know and understand that in the Kingdom of God there is always order. God is not a God of chaos, disorder or rebellion. What we will find with diligent Bible study, is that many people that believe women must always be silent in the church forever, only read a very few select, and limited number of scriptures that they whole hardly embrace, proclaiming them as the final basis of all their beliefs on this important subject. This of course forces people to ignore vast numbers of other scriptures that do not align with their desired doctrinal outcome or definition of their beliefs. We must understand that the Bible is a book of more than one scripture, and one truth. One of the greatest errors in understanding the correct interpretation of any subject, is to not take a single truth and make it the only truth higher than all others.

In studying the Bible on any subject, it is very wise to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us into the fuller knowledge of His truth on any subject before we begin to read and study it. Then we must also ask the Holy Spirit to help us balance every verse on the subject, that He leads us to study. Finally ask the Holy Spirit to show us things that we have never seen before on this subject to grow our understanding of His truth.

If in our deep study of any Bible subject, if there is ever one scripture that He leads us to that we have never seen before, and this verse disagrees with our current beliefs, or one verse that we do not completely understand enough about the subject of women, then we must pray and ask again for the Holy Spirit to help us better understand what He wants us to know about that verse. It is only the Holy Spirit that can reveal something as truth, and He can resolve any and every conflict or controversy that we can encounter with other church members. God is the author of the book, and only He knows every verse, and every word and how they apply to the subject of women’s roles in the church.

Let us begin today by asking the Lord, have we ever studied the Bible on every scripture reference on the subject of women in the Bible? Then ask yourself and the Lord, “Do I totally understand every scripture in the Bible on the subject of women?” We should all believe and say that there is no way that any of us have studied and know everything about this complete subject enough to call our self an expert on the subject. The Bible is way too complex for anyone to say they know it all, except for God.

So how is it that there are some people in the church that can get up to teach and claim that women are not permitted to preach or teach in the church based upon their very limited knowledge on the subject? Please ask the question, who died and made these people higher than God to judge anyone else? Is not God the only person living that completely knows and understand the entire Bible to judge anyone? Be as wise as the man in Acts 5:39 “If this be of God, we cannot overthrow it, lest haply you be found to even fight against God”.

It would also be wise for these types of judging people to learn a lesson from the book of Job. God asked Job, “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words with no knowledge?” When people teach that a woman is incapable of teaching or preaching the Word of God, I believe that this implies that they believe women do not have the brains or mental capacity to know or understand the truth of the Word of God. It would also imply that they believe women cannot ever hear from God and therefore should not even be praying to God. In other words, it comes across that women are not able to go directly to God to listen for His leading because they should only go directly through their husbands or the other men in the church first to hear God’s voice. Is this how God operates?

What a potential arrogant, and superior attitude of pride that attitude could possibly represent! It should remind us of the church in the dark ages, when only a trained priest was believed to be capable of understanding the Bible. In these days no one else was even allowed to read the Bible. What controlling spirit in that time of the church age, were they dominated by? Do you remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees? In Luke 11:52, Jesus said “Woe unto you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You have not entered in yourself, and you have hindered those that were entering in”. Perhaps we need to also read Jeremiah 31:34 that is quoted in Hebrews 8:11. In this verse, God writes to the church, that “everyone” will know Him, from the least to the greatest”. This would certainly include women. Therefore, we all know that women hear from God as well as any man.

People can be too dogmatic when it comes to a deep Bible study discussion like this. Please do not be so engrained into a deep trench of traditional human beliefs, that you are dug in too deep to get yourself out of it. What we are going to do is go through some key Bible verses that are often ignored or purposefully overlooked to examine what else God says in regard to references of His usages of women in the Bible and His selected roles for them.

Have you ever had a Godly woman influence you? I can only personally speak a testimony about women that have influenced me. I will tell you that if it were not for good Christian women in the church, I would probably not be here today teaching the Word of God. I believe that it was only because of their direct prayers, help, involvement and their leadings from God in ministry that I am even here today to write this lesson. So, I appreciate whoever God uses and I refuse to put limitations on what God can do through anyone. Let’s focus upon the root scriptures of controversy first:

1Ti 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

So here we go with the first doctrinal classic verse, about shut up and just learn silently in the church, speech. However, perhaps we need to know some basic facts. The Greek word G1135, translated as “women” is predominately speaking to married wives in relationship to their husbands sitting under the teaching of the Lord’s Word together. This verse must be applied to this application first. With futher study we will discover that Paul is addressing a very specific cultural issue in this verse for the time of the early church. In that culture women sat on one side of the church and men on the other side of the church. This would cause a great number of issues during the church service causing disordered distraction to everyone present. Therefore, Paul wanted everyone to be silent while the Word was going forth.

If anyone is distracted, talking to others while the Word of God is being taught, is anyone learning anything? No, of course not! This was the situation in this letter. Paul was addressing a very specific problem of distraction in a very specific Church, and he was not establishing a broader New Covenant law that women can’t ever talk. If the problem was that it was the males were talking in church, then I believe Paul would have said, you talking and distracting men keep quiet and learn. Humans both male and female were designed by God with a mouth, a mind, and the ability to talk and communicate intelligently, so to say a woman can’t ever talk in church, is very ignorant and domineering.

So now this verse ends in the word “subjection” and this is not a bad word. It means you are “not in control” and you are “not the head”. Everyone on this planet is in subjection to someone or something. This word applies to men equally and as strong as to women. If you have ever been in the military, you understand “subjection”. You follow orders from the day you join to the day you leave. You are not there to do anything but to follow orders. The corporate business world is very similar, but some people do get paid to be creative and come up with new ideas. However, this does not mean they can do whatever they want, whenever they want and to whoever they want. They still have to be submissive to those that they are working for. To be submissive is a normal way of life; it promotes order and a chain of command for authority, and this further designates who has responsibility as well as accountability.

Even the CEO of a large public company is accountable to the stockholders. There is really no one on the earth that is in complete control of anything. Submission is not a negative thing, and it should never be used to force anyone to do anything that they do not want to do or keep them from doing what God calls and desires them to do. Learn from God’s example, the utmost highest Spiritual Being who came to the earth in the flesh and while He was here, He washed the feet of His disciples. Please don’t make yourself better than God. If you are not serving someone else, you have become deceived.

1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

So here we go with another “Thus saith the Lord”! Oh yea, it doesn’t say God said this, it says Paul said this using the personal pronoun “I’ and that knowledge could make these words mean something very different. Did you know that it is possible, that Paul could have a personal opinion or belief, that could be his own and potentially biased or even wrong? Was Paul God? Did Paul know everything? Remember in 1 Corinthians 13:12 that Paul wrote that he and all of the rest of us are currently only seeing things through a glass darkly, and he personally said, that we only know the truth in “part”. Wow, that is an amazing revelation to apply to each of us personally. We need not think too highly of our self, and we believe that we know and understand everything about any Bible subject.

I would like to give you something new to consider. Did Paul when He was writing his letters, know that his personal words written in letters to his believing friends in churches, that God usee him to establish, were going to be taught in the future as God’s Holy Word and even combined and compiled together into a new greater “New Testament” with other 7 other writers? I personally do not believe that Paul had any knowledge that his personal letters, that were written to his friends in a few churches would be compiled and bound into a new book called the New Testament. If Paul considered these letters to be the official Bible, why would he not have written this in these letters? Also, why are there so many personal references to names of his special friends? Why in 2 Timothy 4:13, does Paul write and ask for someone to bring him his Coat that he left in Troas. He also asks for some special books and parchments to be brought to him. I find these types of personal references, to show us that Paul did not understand that what he was writing was God’s inspired Word. That does not mean it is NOT God’s inspired word, it only means, it is possible that Paul did not know that it was.

If God would have told Paul directly that this was happening, Paul would not have been living by faith, or walking by faith. Paul very clearly said, “the just shall live by faith”, quoting an Old Testament verse. In Acts 17:11 when Paul was preaching, he called the church at Berea more noble because they showed the diligence to verify what he was saying by finding it in the Old Covenant Hebrew writings. This tells us, that Paul believed those written Hebrew words were to be considered God’s inspired scripture containing God’s Word. But it should also tell us that even Paul needed the Old Covenant writings to confirm what he was teaching to the churches. DO NOT misunderstand what is being said, Paul’s words are certainly inspired words, but not all of them are to be considered, “Thus saith the LORD”.

Let us look at some other translations of 1 Timothy 2:12. The Modern King James Version says, “I forbid a woman to teach”. Again this represents a personal opinionated choice of Paul. The New American Standard Bible says, “I do not allow a woman to teach”. No mention of God’s command here either. The American Standard Versions says, “I permit not a woman to teach”. These are all common translations that harmonize together. There is no contradiction between any of the translations that it was only Paul’s opinion being given to the church for that specific day and that specific culture.

Were Paul’s personal views and words shaped by his life’s experiences and the culture of the surrounding world influences? I believe they were just as our views have a basis of our own cultural surroundings and influences. Please do not misunderstand me. I have no doubt that these words were inspired by God to be written down, but I believe that does not mean God said them. If we believe that every word in the Bible is a commandment from God, then we need to understand the Bible a lot more. There are quotations given by Satan who we know is a liar. Therefore, these are not instructions to follow or obey. Then there are a lot of quotes from men like Job, that we should know that he was rebuked by God for saying.

There are literally too many examples to teach them all that are found in the Bible. But I will mention a great example to learn from found in 1 Corinthians 7:6-12. In these verses Paul was very clear to teach us how he literally flipped into writing about his own personal opinion on the subject of marriage and divorce. Uh oh, this is speaking of husbands and wives again like we were reading about in Timothy. Please go and read these verses carefully and observe how Paul said, “I say, not the LORD” and other times “not I, but the Lord says“. This is just one great example that we need to learn from, to show how we must rightly divide the Word of Truth, and how easy it could be to wrongly divide the Word of truth.

Before we continue any further, please go and read the surrounding contextual verses to see what they say and how they fit with women being silent. Notice in verse 9 of 1 Timothy 2, Paul writes that women should dress moderately. So far so good for a lot of church women, but for others even this Pauline suggestion is not followed. But then Paul writes that women should not be wearing gold or pearls. Uh, oh? What just happened, how many women are following these as commandments. All of the sudden we have a Burger King religion of have it our way, or only eat selective doctrines we like from a larger buffet containing some choices that we don’t like. We eat from the words we like and the words we don’t like we leave alone. But to give notice, there are no quotations of “Thus Saith the LORD” in these words either. But we can still learn things to apply to us from them all.

Let’s talk about the Bible cultural influences that could have been used to contribute to the meanings of the Words written on the pages. In ancient days, were women ever in charge of anything when Paul wrote this? You can find a few instances of women like Esther, Jezebel, and Cleopatra who were in the world realm of royal power to have some very significant influence, power and authority for God and the devil. But for the most part, it was a total male-controlled world. There are many religions in the world that still hold to this domineering male philosophy, and I like to watch what the devil does to people in the world to learn from how he wants to pervert things to oppose God’s ways. Satan’s ways are usually the opposite of God’s ways. Satan seems to either want to keep women totally ignorant in a slave type of relationship or exalt them to the top of the food chain and make them run everything independently of male partnership. It is either total submission like in countries of Afghanistan or Iran, or total women’s liberation and independence like in Europe and parts of America. I believe both are perverted wrongs of extremism and the truth of God must be somewhere balanced in the middle. What I would like to say is if Satan uses women for his perversion, who says it is not possible for God to use women for His glory, righteousness and Holy purposes? If God is doing anything that resembles what the devil is trying to do in the world to women, that should raise a concern in our spirit, for us to ask when did God and Satan begin to agree on anything?

Only a few Christian churches seem to have the correct perspective of a balanced approach of the truth being somewhere in the middle. So here is another problem, I have heard from many extreme preachers and teachers that these verses written to Timothy should be interpreted that all women must not teach but rather to sit and keep silent in the church. According to correct Bible interpretation rules I need another witness that says this is the law of truth and so far I have not found it. The Bible says in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses let every word be established and here we read one passage and people want to make it the rule of their doctrine and force everyone to adhere to it.

I searched through every N.T. verse that had any form of the word “teach” and this is the only verse that I found with the word woman used in this regard. I find that to be a major problem with some people’s interpretation. If anyone is trying to take one verse out of context and make it a rule of law, that does not work for me. So let’s look at some other verses in the Bible and see what God says about women and see if we can come up with a balanced approach to this subject. Let us turn to the book of Acts and see how the early church is described.

Act 2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:

In this verse in Acts, Peter is quoting the Word of God from the Prophet Joel. Right there we learn that this means we will possess two direct witnesses to what this verse says. So we are clearly on a much safer and firmer ground for our interpretation. Do you understand that concept? It is so very important. According to this verse, God will in the last days pour out His Spirit upon “ALL FLESH”! This verse would certainly include both women as well as men as you can clearly see. This verse continues to say that both your sons and your daughters would “prophesy”. So, let’s stop right there and ask the question what does it mean to “prophesy”? Can you or I prophesy in silence? No clearly this verse involves women opening their mouth and making audible sounds that can be heard by anyone present.

What is the difference between teaching people with the spoken words from the Bible which were given by the Spirit of God and prophesying with the words potentially inspired by the Spirit of God in a church? Can you think of any differences? Isn’t prophesying the act of speaking words out loud to someone else so that they can hear them? Then what is the definition of teaching? Isn’t teaching speaking out loud words for other people to hear? It would be useless for a woman to prophesy without someone present to hear her. Uh oh? You can automatically and quickly see that this verse directly conflicts with Paul’s declared command to keep silent. You also have to remember that Paul did not really tell women to keep silent, he said to “learn in silence” and that is something completely different than to never say anything. Let us see another example in the book of Acts that brings further confirmation:

Act 21:9 And the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy.

These 4 daughters were the children of Phillip the evangelist. We are clearly told that they were able to prophesy to others. This clearly means speaking out loud in an audible voice that can be heard and even directed at the men that were there in the house. Did you know that the early church met in houses? They did not have any synagogues, temples or church buildings to meet at, so they met in houses. If the daughters of Phillip prophesied in the house they were probably doing it during a church service. So we have a huge issue with should a woman always keep silent in the church. Please allow me to ask again, what is the technical difference between teaching and prophesying? Is there a difference? Are not both spoken words directed at listeners? I will also say this, if you do not have women prophesying in your church services, you do not have a complete New Testament church. You have deviated from God’s original plan observed in the book of Acts in favor of your ideas of order. Let us now approach this subject from a new direction and see how God teaches us something new to consider.

Gal 3:26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

According to the Bible, God says that we are all His children. So, does God play favorites? Are the male children preferred above the female children? If you think that they are you are clearly in need of learning the truth. Let us keep reading:

Gal 3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

We can continue down this chapter and see that every Christian has been baptized into Christ and that makes us ALL one with Him equally. This is an all-inclusive statement that includes both males and females. Then notice what God says about us all:

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

So here we go with another paradox and puzzle being presented. God says to us, that In Christ males and females are not different. But in the world, we can all clearly see that males and females are quite different, and even treated as such. This teaches us a new foundational difference, between Christians who are natural thinkers versus Christians who are carnal thinkers. We know in the world there are both males and females, but God claims in the spiritual dimension in Christ, we are all just members of one body. There is no difference within the Spirit realm from each other. I personally believe that men who teach male dominance usually are just very carnally minded individuals who look at external things and do not try to see things spiritually as God sees things.

If ignorant Bible teachers would just please read and study their Bible’s to see things within the Spirit and not in the flesh and how God sees them, they would discover that the church is called the “Bride of the Lamb”. Jesus is plainly revealed to be the Bridegroom of the church in the Spirit realm New Covenant (Luk 5:34-35). If you are a male preacher, does that bother you, to be called a spiritual woman bride of Christ? I think it does to many carnal naturally thinking people. But this means we (the church) are all collectively called one woman in the eyes of God. This is not something new. God did the exact same thing with the natural nation of Israel, calling Himself their husband, implying they were all His wife. So we are all in covenant and in subjection to our Head who is the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 5:24).

So how can Paul write that women should not teach in one place in the Bible and then write there is no difference between men and women in Christ in another place? If you do not understand the major conflict between these two contrasting and opposing statements, then you do not realize that we have a significant problem that God can only resolve.

Here is my opinion and I usually do not give you my opinion so you do not have to take anything to heart that I say next in this paragraph. I think from a natural perspective that men counseling women or women counseling men privately should never be done under any circumstance. There are just too many potential problems that could occur. I have seen the best married pastors get into physical affairs with women because of this natural physical and emotional attraction that God created within us. Women should counsel women, and men should counsel men. This just makes the most logical and common sense approach to me. So, I believe firmly that counseling between opposite sexed individuals in the privacy of an office type setting should never be done under any circumstances. By avoiding the appearance of evil, men and women will not fall into these types of traps that Satan can use against them. However, what people do in a public church service is not limited by these natural types of rules. That was my opinion and there is no extra charge for that. So let us see what else the Bible says about women:

Tit 2:3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

This verse is directed at mature women, but I was shocked at how it ended. To be a teacher of “good” things implies strongly that women have the ability and can teach. In fact, it clearly implies these women should be teachers. It further implies that these women have gained some wisdom that is worthy to be taught to others. Obviously, we have another verse that goes against the broad concept of a “keep silent” verse that some like to focus upon. So, we have another potential conflict of whether women should teach or women should never teach.

Tit 2:4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

Here we have the follow up to the previous verse and it clearly says that it is OK for women to teach other women. Now it is interesting that this verse directly contradicts again that a woman should keep silent that some try to teach as the only gospel truth. If a woman has the ability to teach another woman, then she must also have the ability to teach anyone (PERIOD)! Any teaching ability is a gifting from the Holy Spirit, and it represents a special anointing given to her from and by God.

I would like you to go back and read chapter 1 of Titus, because in this chapter it is talking about Bishops in the church. God and Paul are clearly talking about women teaching in a church setting and not in a private setting. So instead of denying women who are called of God the right to preach and teach, we should be smart enough to recognize when God is doing something and we should not fight against God. If God is not behind it, it will not matter who it is that is teaching or preaching because there will be no anointing from the Spirit of God and it will eventually fail. My Bible says that unless the Lord builds the house, those that build it labor in vain (Ps 127:1). So if God wants to use a woman, we better bow to the wisdom of God and keep our mouth closed while we learn. Please learn the lesson that people try to only apply to women, learn in silence and we might be amazed at what God says through a woman.

We could go through the Bible from the beginning to the end to find that women play an essential part of the design of God’s purpose for humans. God promises the first woman that it will be a woman and her seed that will bruise the head of Satan with her heel. Wow, that sounds significant. Then at the end of the Bible we find a “Wonder Woman” standing on the moon which is a symbolic representation for Satan with her heels on top. Wow, again! We are seeing that God chose to use a woman to do this job!

Then read through the rest of Bible in between Genesis and Revelation and you will find other women used by God for very significant purposes. To name a couple notice Esther. Without her fulfilling her purpose to become a Gentile king’s wife, there would probably be no nation of Israel. A woman was the center character used by God to accomplish this. Then without Ruth a Gentile Moabite who decided to have faith to leave her nation to join in covenant with her mother-in-law to move to Bethlehem, there may have not been a Grandmother to King David. Read the account about Deborah who was one of the Judges (rulers) during the book of Judges. These are just a few of the women that are noteworthy to from. But there are other noteworthy women of faith like Sarah. Sarah was directly mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11, the Hall of Faith of noteworthy examples of Old Covenant people.

CONCLUSION

Let us review our key verse again that causes many to stumble in the light of what we have just read from other parts of the Bible:

1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

Let me ask you again, how can a woman keep silent and still prophesy? She can’t! How can a woman teach other women in the church and still keep silent? She can’t! Did you know the word translated as “usurp authority over” is only in the entire Bible this one time in this verse and no other places? According to Strong’s it means “a worker” who acts of themselves. Do you know this is wrong for anyone to do regardless of gender? To act of yourself means to be self-appointed and self-sufficient. This means to promote yourself and raise your own ability to a level above where you should be. Men are guilty of this more than women are guilty of it. So I do not know of any verse in the Bible that says that a woman cannot be called by God, appointed by God, promoted by God and made to be a blessing to others in the church? Today, God has already raised up and promoted several women in the church with large ministries that are way beyond many of the ministries of men on the earth. So please, let us become wise and recognize God’s perspective of truth and please LORD, help me not to judge the message given by the gender of the person delivering the message. Help me LORD, to study what is taught and just see if what is said was what You said in your Word! Help me to learn to see people as You see people and I believe You will be able to cause Your servants to stand or fall.

I’ll end this Bible lesson with an important instruction that God gave to one man and you see if it is something that applies to you also today:

1Sa 16:7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

Please do not become legalistic and bound by laws of limitations that put God in a box that claims a woman is unable to be used by the Almighty. Thank you for reading, studying and leaving me a comment if you care to. I love you all and I pray for all my readers that He will give unto you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Amen.

Posted in The Church

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Tags: Bible, Bride, Christianity, Church, Covenants, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, woman

Understanding the Book of Job? An overview of what it is and what it is not! Part 3

Sep 10

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 2.1) This is Part 3 in a series of advanced Bible study lessons on understanding the book of Job. I have been attempting to give you some new perspectives on the meanings behind the book of Job by showing you how it fits into other verses found in the Bible. Only by using the Bible to interpret the Bible can we really see what God says in any other part of the Bible. If we attempt to interpret a verse, chapter or book in isolation, we are forced to rely on our own opinions and natural thoughts to figure out what it all means. But, I have noticed while studying the Bible that God was not stupid, He didn’t leave us in the dark with us trying to figure out what He said. However, I believe that we are required to search and dig deep in order to find out what His definitions and comments are on the subjects that we are studying. God says the natural man receives not the things written by the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14). So, if you do not understand the Bible, it is because you are either not saved or it is simply just the fact that you are thinking naturally. So if you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1” since I cannot repeat everything I teach in each lesson. What I have been trying to emphasize in these lessons is the fact that God is the originator of blessings and that Satan is the author of the curses encountered in this world. What I haven’t taught is why this transpires.

I will briefly make an attempt at a quick explanation of the origination of good and evil in the world before I continue with Job. When Adam was created, God placed Adam in the Garden with his wife and told Adam that he may freely eat from every tree except one. Everything created by God called “very good” by God’s own admission. There God did not create anything evil, bad or harmful and Adam knew only the goodness of God. There was one tree called symbolically the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that God say do not eat from. God told Adam that the day that he ate from this tree he would surely die. I personally know that this was a symbolic tree that represted a hidden spiritual reality because of what I have studied and found that the Bible says in other parts. In the past I did a couple of lessons on this subject and if you are interested you can read them by going to “Does Eating Fruit Kill You?”. I will not attempt to repeat these lessons here, but I will tell you that Adam made the wrong choice. Isn’t it funny how we keep coming back to people making choices in the world? If you recall I told you that Job made some wrong choices that opened the door for Satan to come in and attack him. These choices of Job involved wrong spoken words, wrong believing, fear, and no peace or rest. This attack of Job was a repeated pattern found from when Adam was given a choice by God and made the wrong selection to let Satan into this world. Adam’s choice resulted in him knowing the evil of Satan’s power. Adam already knew the blessings of God so this was nothing new. It was only Satan and evil that Adam gained or obtained by letting Satan into the world. So if God gave Adam a choice, he must also give every man the same choice after Adam. God does not control the choices of men. God gives each man the freewill to make their own selections. Job therefore had a choice between blessings and cursing. Job allowed Satan to continue working evil in his life. Both Adam and Job experienced the loss of children. I’m sure that both men regretted their decisions, but yet it was too late to take them back.

In the first two lessons on Job, I went through chapter 1, verses 1 through 19 on all of the bad things that happened in rapid succession to Job and his family. I also spent time in trying to reveal the actions that opened the door for Satan to attack Job. It is obvious to me that this was a staged planned attack by Satan to take away everything that God had blessed him with. So what was Job’s reaction? That is where we are going to start today?

Job 1:20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,

Job goes into a state of mourning and anguish; after all he just lost all of his children. I do not know of any normal parent that loses their children that is not devastated. To tear your clothing is a sign of sorrow, to shave your head is sign of mourning but, then Job still worships God. This is one of the only good things that Job still does and it describes why he was blessed by God in the first place. What we will find by reading is that even after all that has happened to Job, he does not turn against his God. If you learn any lesson from Job you should learn this lesson, always stay on God’s side no matter what happens to you. If you blame God and start to curse God, you are just digging your hole much deeper. God did not kill Job’s kids, Satan did. You see in the Bible it says this about kids:

Psa 127:3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

What would it mean to be a reward? Children are clearly blessings from God. I told you earlier if God blesses you with children and then kills them to take them away, His house is divided. God would be both the author of the blessings and the author of the curses. How would you ever follow a God who was so crazy and inconsistent? I’m sorry but I could not. I also tried to teach you that the Bible says God is a constant and does not change. These verses prove that God is not the give of life and the destroyer of life simultaneously or God would have to change to do each. God is truly only a giver of life and the devil is the taker of that life, but only by the allowed access of man’s choices do either happen. So let’s see what Job was saying after all of this occurs to him and his family:

Job 1:21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

Here we have the famous classic Bible verse widely used at many funerals. This is clearly a misguided application of the words of a man in sorrow. If you just lost 10 kids, what would you be saying? I am probably going to get some ignorant Christians mad at me, but I am going to tell you that not everything you read in the Bible is true. These words of Job are truly in the Bible. These words of Job were truly spoken by Job. However, both of these facts together do not make his words the truth. Job was a man without a church, a man without a Bible, a man without a spiritual leader or a pastor and a man who tried to blindly follow his God the best that he knew how to do under these circumstances. It is true that Job had heard about God, but yet at this point in time no one knew that much about God. God had not yet given man any written words to read about Him and to learn from. The only words that Job could have had are the past experiences of Adam and the other descendants of Adam. So why would you think that anything that Job says came from directly from God? Did God come to Job and say I took your kids? I took your possessions? Did God say this or did Job say this? What people say out of their limited state of knowledge and ignorance can be what they believe whole heartedly to be the truth; however, does that ever make it the truth because they believe it to be the truth? Nowhere in this chapter does it ever say that God took anything from Job, only Job says this.

Here is where I should briefly discuss the fact that the Bible says that the Word of God was given by inspiration of the Holy Ghost (2 Tim 3:16). The Greek word in this verse literally means the Bible was God breathed. However, that does not mean everything in the Bible is true. It is like watching the evening news on TV, the newsman is speaking and telling you things and events that were reported to happen that day, but does that mean everything that he says is the truth because it is on the news? What if a news man quotes another man that says “I did not have sex with that intern”. Does that make it the truth because it was on the news? Obviously we learned that it does not. This is the way the Bible was also written. There are quotes in the Bible from men that were clearly ignorant or intentionally lying. For example, in Acts 5, there was a man named Anainias and his wife that fall down dead for lying to the Holy Ghost. Is what they said recorded in book of Acts the truth? Again, obviously not. I hope you can begin to see the struggle with reading the words of men in the Bible versus reading the words of God that were given to men. If the Bible says “Thus saith the Lord” you can count it being the truth. If the Bible says “thus saith Job” you are going to have great difficutly in convincing me this is the complete truth and I talk about this more in a minute.

Let’s talk briefly now about a hedge and the reason for a hedge to even exist. Chapter 1 of Job clearly says that God had placed a hedge of protection around Job. Therefore, who was God protecting Job from? There are only two reasons to build a fence. You do realize this yes? First, you only need a fence around your property if there are animals, enemies or things that can come in and steal from you or hurt you. Second, the only other reason to build a fence is to keep something in, like a prison. I personally believe that both of these were true based upon my knowledge of the Bible. I mean this is not rocket science; you just have to use your brain and think a little bit. So let’s talk more about the first reason on keeping someone out. Who is God guarding Job from? It has to be from Satan! Satan is a created spiritual being and he is capable of coming and going from the earth back and forth to the spiritual realm in heaven. Satan is free to come and go and Job is not. Job is definitely hedged into the earth’s natural and has never seen God or been to heaven. For that matter Job has never seen Satan either, so clearly there is a hedge that prevents this view. So what is a hedge by God’s definition? This is where it really starts to get more interesting. You see our definition is usually not’s God’s definition. This word hedge is only found 3 times in the whole O.T. This Hebrew word occurs twice in the book of Job and I personally believe this second usage of the word was the key to the definition:

Job 10:11 Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.

Let’s briefly discuss the context of this verse. Job is speaking and he is describing his body and God’s intelligent design of it. Notice what Job says, Job is telling us that he is clothed with a body and that this body of flesh and bones is a “fence” around him. The Hebrew word translated as “fence” is the exact same Hebrew word that was translated as “hedge’ in chapter 1. Wow, I find that fascinating. This is what we discover happening when Adam sinned. God clothed Adam with a coat of skin. Pay close attention to the fact that the body as described is not Job nor Adam, but rather they were actually the spirit that is covered by the body. Isn’t this the definition of a hedge? To keep something in or to keep something out? What is Satan? Satan is a created spirit being. Satan is not allowed by God’s law to come into the natural realm to tempt or test as I taught in the first lesson. I believe that this physical body is our hedge of protection from the evil beings in the spirit realm. It is also our physical bodies that keeps us present in this world. But, I do not have time to fully expand that thought today in this lesson. It was simply an introduction to get you to think about something new. Think about this also, when Satan attacked Job, what did he attack? Did not Satan attack Job in the physical realm and not Job in the spiritual realm? Could Satan have hurt Job spiritually speaking? It is impossible to kill or hurt a spirit being, so Job was incabple of being harmed spiritually. Therefore, I believe that Satan attacked God’s designed hedge or protection that surrounded Job and this was the man’s body and his natural surroundings that he possessed. It certainly changes your perspective dramatically when thinking in these terms and I hope you are seeing them.

So let’s get back to the words of Job and what he said in chaoter 1 about the Lord taking and the Lord giving and determine if that is the truth or just his words. Do you understand that there are many accounts of people speaking in the Bible and some of these people are clearly ignorant and do not know what they are talking about. There are also many clear accounts of people who intentionally lie in the Bible as I just talked about found in Acts 5. Jesus taught us that Satan is the father of lies and the words of Satan are found throughout the Bible. Based upon the shear presence of lies being recorded in the Bible, do you understand how this information makes correct Bible interpretation more difficult? If it does not say “Thus Saith the Lord God” or the Words of Jesus in Red Letters, then you are taking the words that are potentially words of an ignorant man or woman and exalting them to the status of God’s words. Having said all of that there are Prophets of God who do speak God’s words, but even they sometimes quote Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar or someone else who does not speak for God. Correctly interpreting the Bible is not as easy as you think and it takes brains, thought, logic and seeing who is speaking, who they are talking to and then finally noticing exactly what they say.

So let me ask you this, is Job a prophet? Is Job speaking for God? I’ve been to too many funerals given by preachers who think that these are the Words of God Himself, just because they are written in the Bible. These are tough questions to answer based upon just the small parts that we have read so far. But let’s go to the end of the book of Job and see what opinion God has of the spoken words of Job. After all it really shouldn’t matter what you or I think about the Words of Job, it should really only matter what God thinks about his spoken words:

Job 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,

As you can clearly see God is about to speak directly to Job and say something very significant to him. You should pay very close attention to the next words that do come out of the mouth of God and then go back and apply these to what Job said in chapter 1 about God taking things away from him:

Job 38:2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?

God basically tells Job you do not know what you are talking about, so why do you open your mouth and speak any of these words. According to God Job is speaking empty words from an empty head. Therefore, we can clearly see that Job is confirmed by God to be ignorant! God says Job has no knowledge to speak in the areas that he is attempting to speak in. So should Job be saying anything at all? Or should Job being doing what most Christians in the world should be doing and listen to God in order to learn. Instead of running their mouths on the internet, many people need to hear what God is saying and go get some knowledge before they try to speak anything. There are virtually many chapters of Job and most of these verses are just the empty words of ignorant men who should not be talking. Yet we have a vast number of preachers who want to quote Job’s words at funerals as if God had spoken them. That is just more demonstrations of ignorance in action. I hope that if you learned anything today you learned the lesson of what God thought of Job’s spoken words.

Job 1:22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

We finally see what the last verse in chapter 1 says, after all of Job’s accusations of God stealing his possessions and killing his kids God says that Job did not sin nor charge God foolishly. You see what people do or say out of ignorance is often overlooked by God. Especially in the case where there is no written laws of God to follow. Since Job had no Bible and was doing the best that he could to figure out what was the right things to do, God overlooked his accusations. Let’s see a verse that is applicable to what is stated in Job:

Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

Clearly God says where there is not law there is no punishment for sins. The law brings wrath and the law permits punishment, and this is true in the natural realm as well as the spiritual realm. You see there was a time when child pornography was legal, but was it right? Absolutely not, but yet because of the lack of laws, no one could be convicted of this crime. It was only after laws were passed that now people are punished. Because, Job lived during the time where there were no Mosaic laws of God written, there was no punishment that God could bring if He wanted to. So Job did not transgress God’s laws even if he did not do or say everything right.

The next time you go to a funeral and they start to tell you how God took somebody, or their children, I hope that you can at least see this was not true. God is not the thief who kills, steals and destroys. The only two times I saw God take anyone in the Bible, God did not have to kill them to do it. Enoch the Bible says was translated and poof he was gone. Elijah was caught up in a chariot of fire and Elisha saw it happen. So these are the only two times in the Bible that God is said to have taken anyone up beside the raised from the dead Jesus Christ. If you can see somebody go up in a chariot of fire, then you can claim that God took them, otherwise do not accuse God of doing something that He did not do. God does not have to kill anybody to take them to heaven; many people will find this out the hard way before too long when Jesus appears for the catching away of the church. Then the dead in Christ will arise first and those that remain will be translated as Enoch and suddenly all disappear from the planet. What a vast confusion this event will cause all over the world.

I guess I should briefly mention the subject of God’s judgment. There are times in the Bible, like Noah’s flood or Sodom and Gomorrah that God is forced to exercise judgment upon the earth. What happens when God exercises judgment? In both cases, Noah and Lot the righteous were spared and the others perished completely. So why do people want to apply God’s judgment to Job? If Job was an unrighteous man and fell into judgment, he would not have been around at the end of the book. Do not confuse judgment with attacks from Satan. Satan does not have to ask permission to attack you, all he has to do is watch for you to open the door and Satan has learned he is now free to do to you what he can get away with. In the book of Job you find that Satan is presenting himself with the other angels to learn what is valid and what is not valid for him to do. Why is Satan being so careful? You see you may recall that there are other references in the Bible to the “sons of God”. In Genesis 6, before the flood, the sons of God are again referenced. This time the “sons of God” see the daughters of men and see that they are physically beautiful. These angels have physical sex with the human females and create races of giants on the earth. This results in a polluted mixture of men and angels and God says this was an illegal perversion of God’s laws and design. This was clearly an example of the angels crossing over the hedge. You can see that by reading this verse in 2 Peter:

2Pe 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

If God threw some angels into hell (but not all of them), they must have violated some spiritual law or done something that was very perverted. Having sex with natural women would be an example of this type of perversion. The angels are obviously ignorant of what is permissible and what is not permissible for them to do. So believing that Satan is appearing before God in Job chapter 1 to accuse Job and to find out what is permissible makes perfect sense to me. Satan has certainly seen that some of his angels were already cast into darkness, locked up with spiritual chains. Do you understand that Satan must learn what is permissible and what is not? So I have gone long enough in this lesson for today and I have given you many new things to think about. I appreciate greatly your time in studying the Bible and if you have any comments or question about anything I have taught, please do not hesitate to leave me a comment. God Bless.

If you would like to continue to read in this series about Job, please go to “Part 4“.

Posted in Bible Study, Job

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Tags: Bible, Church, Genesis, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Job, man, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Satan, Symbolism, Truth, understanding

Understanding the Book of Job? An overview of what it is and what it is not! Part 2

Sep 9

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.2) This is Part 2 in a series of lessons on understanding the book of Job. The book of Job is a very tough book of the Bible to understand using just the reasoning found within your human mind. If you have not read this series from the beginning, I would highly recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1”. Too many Christians want to put themselves into the role of a Job because of all of the bad things that have happened to them and they find some peace or reason to help explain their situations in life. They use Job to help explain what is going on in their lives, because they think if God can test Job, then he must be testing me also. They want to see themselves as a Job being tested by God and this somehow makes them feel worthy of the bad things that have occurred. After all they think that God sent all of these evil things that were occurring in Job’s life to test him. That would be great if that was really what the Book of Job actually said, but that is just someone’s misinterpreted view of the book of Job and that does not make it the truth. Nevertheless, this view is widely taught this way and that is exactly the way Satan wants it to be taught. You see as long as you think that it is God sending you the curses of life you will have to accept them and just be patient until God changes His mind to bless you. You do understand the difference between blessings and curses? It is the difference between day and night and good and evil. Blessings are good and curses are evil. As you read the book of Job you need to figure out first who sends good things into your life and who sends the bad things to hurt you. If you think that God sends them all, you are sadly deceived and playing into the hands of Satan. Here is what my Bible says about God:

Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

So as you can see God is the sender of every Good and Perfect gift into your life. Then who sends the evil bad curses into your life, do they also come from heaven above? You see you cannot conclude that they do, because this verse also says God does not change. If there is not any shadow of turning in God, then God is not blessing you today and cursing you tomorrow. God is not having full confidence in you today and testing you tomorrow. This is so absolutely important for you to see and to understand. God already knows the future, he does not have to test you to know what you are going to do, He already knows. Whenever Christian think that God tests them, they automatically think that God is stupid and does not know the outcome. The Bible says that God makes known the end from the beginning, so he must already know the end. Do you get it?

The story of Job is a story of God’s blessings and Satan’s curses. If you confuse the two roles you are just going to be deceived. If you recall, we have already looked at the first 12 verses of the book of Job. Job was said to be an upright righteous man blessed of God with tremendous wealth. This is what God is guilty of doing for Job. Satan sees the hedge of protection that God has placed around Job and his family and Satan starts to look for ways into Job to force God into lowering the hedge of protection. I showed you that Satan is called the “accuser” of the people of God in Revelation 12. Suddenly Satan appears in heaven and starts the legal accusation process. God is a God who holds all power and all knowledge. God is an omnipotent God and only He sees the future. But just because God is all powerful, too many Christians want to think that God controls everything that happens in the world. This results in a “No Fault” Christian religion. In other words no matter what happens to me in life, it is not my fault. This makes it all God’s fault. People like to think that when good things happen to them it is God’s blessings, but when bad things happen to them that it is just God’s tests and trials. However, I showed you in Deuteronomy where God says I set before you life and death and blessings and curses, now you choose life. So it would appear that God places the choice for both life and blessings in the hands of men on the earth. But, here is Job’s problem, he didn’t have Deuteronomy to read and he certainly didn’t have the book of Revelation to read. Job is flying in the game of life blindly, by the seat of his pants trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. This is Job’s greatest weakness, his ignorance. In Hosea 4:6 the Bible tells us clearly why God’s people are destroyed and it declares that it is for their lack of knowledge. If only Job had possessed the correct knowledge Satan would not have been able to make inroads into his life. This is what I am attempting to teach you about so that you do not fall into the same mistakes as Job. There is a popular quote that says those that fail to learn the past are destined to repeat it. Are you learning anything from God and Job yet? We are about to see that ignorance is what it is that is controlling what is happening to Job. So let’s continue our Bible study of this valuable book:

Job 1:13 And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:

This verse reveals that the children of Job have not changed their ways. They are still party animals and are in the process of having fun and fulfilling their fleshly desires. Here we find out that these are not young kids, for the eldest has a house of his own. At the least the eldest doesn’t live with dad Job anymore and it could be that every kid had their own house.

Job 1:14 And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them:

What we are beginning to see is the power of Satan being made manifest that God describes to us in verse 12. It is funny how a messenger is spared in each case to come tell Job of the bad news. It is also interesting to note that before one messenger stops speaking another shows up with more bad news. So you can see the rapid progression of simultaneous events. Let’s continue reading and see what happens:

Job 1:15 And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Do you see how Satan works? Satan does not come into this world and steal your stuff from you personally. Satan uses people in this world to steal your stuff from you. This is the only legal course that Satan can take. The Bible says there has no temptation overtaken you except that which is common to man (1 Cor 10:13). The words “common to man” means “in the natural course of things”. In other words it is illegal for Satan to tempt you supernaturally. But, the Greek word translated as “temptation” also means “to test”. Job is being tested, but it is certainly not God that is doing it. The Bible says in James 1:13, “Let no man say when he is tested that I am tested of God, for God cannot be tested with evil and neither does God test any man”. I changed the words that were translated as “tempted” to “tested” because that is what the word means in the Strong’s. Look it up for yourself, if you do not believe me. Prove all things and then hold fast to those that are true. The story of Job is definitely the testing of Job and how Job survives it using his patience and the grace of God. But, James says God does not test men, so God clearly had nothing to do with the tests of Job. Do you understand this? If you do we can continue, if you do not you should go back and reread James a couple of hundred times until you get it.

Job 1:16 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

It seems that the messengers just keep coming and bringing more and more bad news. God gets blamed for something in this verse that He did not do. This still happens today. People call earthquakes and hurricanes acts of God. These clearly destroy things and kill people and take away human life. Is this the God that you serve? It is not the God that I serve. My Bible says that God is Love! Love does not bless you today and take it all away tomorrow. That doesn’t make any sense for our God to do that. One of the most important verses in the Bible is John 10:10 and it clearly describes God’s role and Satan’s role in the world.

Joh 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

This verse sound like a major problem for the God is testing us theory. What is the major difference being described to us in this verse? Who is the speaker and who is he speaking about? Jesus (God in the flesh) is speaking here to us personally and He said I came that you might have life and that life more abundantly. Now using this information if you try to say that God sends hurricanes on the earth when someone dies; then somebody lied when they wrote the Bible. Do you think that Jesus lied or was He just confused about His role with the Father God? God the Son came to Give us Life; but God the Father sends storms that will kill you. Would this mean that God’s house is divided? Is God opposed to Himself? Which one is God doing, giving life or killing you? What did Jesus say about a house divided? If God gives life to people and kills people this is a Dr Jekyll and a Mr Hyde type of God and that is clearly a problem to me. You better go and study your Bible a lot more before you accuse God of sending storms to kill people.

Job 1:17 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Again we see another example of how Satan can influence people to come and attack you, steal from you and do you harm. So here we get to some of the most devastating news:

Job 1:18 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:

Job 1:19 And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

A strong wind from the wilderness; what is that? That sounds like a tornado if you ask me. I do not know of any stronger wind on this planet than one of these forces of nature. Can Satan cause one of these to occur? It would appear from reading this story that he can. The force of the wind was directed at the house of the eldest brother, was this a coincidence? It cannot be a coincidence given the sequence of events that have just transpired in rapid succession. The odds for all of these events occurring to Job in that short of time are astronomically impossible. You talk about bad luck; it seems that Job has just hit the bad luck lottery. Here we are just 19 verses into Job and most of his possessions are taken, his children killed and this all in the matter of minutes.

I am going to stop with chapter 1 and 2 and skip ahead in the book of Job to show why this is occurring and what Job did to open the door for Satan to do it to him. You see if you begin to understand things in the Bible, you can apply what you learn in other places to help you better understand places like Job. What we will do is see if Job gives us any clues to what choices he made in order to choose the curses instead of the blessings. What we are going to do is look for what Job did and not focus on what you think God did or did not do. So let’s skip forward and read the last 3 verse of chapter 3 and learn what Job says about what just happened:

Job 3:24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

Job 3:25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

Job 3:26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

Amazingly enough there are some critical clues in these three verses. These verses taken in light of other verses in the Bible clearly demonstrate where Job missed it and allowed Satan to have access to his life and his family. Let’s see what he says.

Verse 24 speaks of Job’s” roarings like water”, what is that? What happens when a lion roars? It is making vocal sounds. Well this is a clue that Job was running his mouth too much. What is water a symbol of in the Bible? The N.T. tells us that we are made clean by the washing of the water of the word (Eph 5:26). So water must represent God’s spoken words in this verse. God speaks words that can make us clean, so what kind of words does the enemy Satan speak? I believe these are words that make us dirty. So what kind of words are you speaking?

Pro 18:4 The words of a man’s mouth are as deep waters, and the wellspring of wisdom as a flowing brook.

So Words are Water! I do not have time to teach you everything that the Bible says about words in this lesson but you can go read my other lessons on this subject. In James God tells us that our mouths are like water from fountains and asks can a fountain bring forth fresh water and salt water at the same time? No it cannot, but it can either bring forth only fresh water or it can also bring forth the fresh mixed with the bitter undrinkable salt water. It would appear to me to be a choice to which one that you allow your mouth to bring forth. I will tell you very plainly that I believe your spoken words are Satan’s number one access into your life. If you say the wrong things, you open the door for Satan to waltz right in and use his power to steal, kill and destroy you. You in effect give him orders that allow his work to be accomplished. It is like a spiritual permission slip that is granted to him. Let me help to prove what I just said using the Bible to back it up:

Pro 6:2 Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.

Proverbs teaches us some very powerful lessons on the words that we speak. This is one of the most powerful lessons to learn found in this verse. God clearly tells us that we are “snared” or “taken” captive by the words of our mouth. To be “snared” or “taken” captive means to be imprisoned, enslaved, or to be trapped into something or somewhere that you do not want to be. Do you understand this? It is like falling into a pit and you did know was there. So is Job facing a situation that he did not want to be in? Of course he is, Job has been trapped or tricked into a series of things that were clearly not what he desired to happen to him. What happens to Job is based upon Job’s spoken words first and foremost, but that is not the entire problem revealed to us. Let’s look at the next verse in chapter 3.

In verse 25 of chapter 3, Job says that the thing that I feared the most has come upon me. That which I was greatly afraid of has over taken me. People, who do not understand faith in the Bible, do not know what Job has just told us. The Bible in the N.T. tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). So why is faith so important to God? And then what is faith so that we can please God? Again I cannot teach you the answers to either of these questions fully in this blog. It would take way too long. I can only begin to tell you what faith is not in this blog. Faith is not fear. Faith is not being afraid. In fact fear is the opposite of faith. If you would like to read about “Understanding Bible Faith” then you can go to this series of lessons that will better explain why Job failed. Fear opens up the door for Satan to cause what you are afraid of to come to pass in your life. Faith opens the door for God to bless you and fear opens the door for Satan to curse you. This is how the whole Bible works and it is a common theme from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.

Finally in Job verse 26 of chapter 3 we see more of the problem being described to us. To be in faith means to be in peace, but yet Job was in fear so he was definitely not peaceful and resting. The Bible says that to those who have believed they have entered into rest (Heb 4:3). When you have faith in God you can rest that he will do what He has promised. This is also having peace in your spirit. Job did not have this, so Job was open to the attack of Satan. Job was constantly in fear and was worried about his children and offered sacrifices to help his children and Job did this continually provring he was not in faith believing that it was working. This is not peace or rest, it is works based and the Bible says that no man is ever justified by his works.

Did you know that in any court of this land, you cannot go in and plead ignorance? Ignorance is never a valid reason for committing a crime. I’m sorry judge I didn’t know driving 140 was illegal. So it is with God’s spiritual laws. Just because you do not understand faith, spoken words, peace and rest does not mean you can get away with not doing them. You can clearly see that Job’s problem was at least 3 fold. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut; he was in fear for his family and finally he did not have any confidence in God’s ability so he could not rest. These are just Bible basics that God has hidden in the Word of God so that we can find them. We can also clearly see why God said everything that he possesses is in your power. It was Job’s own words and actions that open the door for Satan to come in. I would strongly suggest if you do not know much about faith and spoken words that you go study these two subjects extensively. If you can understand these, then you can clearly see how Job let Satan into his life. Then you can apply the lessons of Job to understand this is also how you let Satan have access to your life. So it is a vitally important subject to learn. I have gone too long in this lesson, so I’ll end it right here. I pray that you will continue reading in the next lesson so that we can learn some more from the book of Job. God Bless!

If you would like to continue reading this series you can continue with “Part 3“.

Posted in Bible Study, Job

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, evil, God, Good, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Job, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Satan, Truth, understanding

Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of the Church in the Bible

Sep 6

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 2.2) This is my list of the Names, Titles, Descriptions, Types and Symbols for the Church of Jesus Christ. If you are a Christian, this document helps to describe who you are and your place in the Kingdom of God. This is a living document of references to God. It will change and be updated as I find additional scriptures. A Name is a direct reference to the Church. A Title is a given direct identifying appellation signifying status or function. A Description is something that represents something in words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a spiritual individual not named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes characteristics or features of a spiritual being you cannot see.

If you have found others that I may have not included yet, please share them in a comment. Thank you and God bless you in advance.

words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a pattern of the spiritual individual not directly named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes the characteristics or features of a spiritual being that you cannot see or understand without first understanding the symbol. If you know of other references not named, please share them with me in a comment. Thank you.

Name, Title, Symbol, Type for the Church	Description	Scripture Reference
12 Tribes	New Covenant People in Jesus originating in His 12 Apostles, the fulfilment of Jacob’s 12 sons.	James 1:1;
Abraham’s Seed	Those with Abraham’s type of Faith	Gal 3:29;
Babes	Newborn (born again) Children of God	Mat 11:25; Luke 10:21;
Beloved	The Bride of Christ	Rom 9:25; 2 Ths 2:13;
Blessed of My Father	The Sheep of God’s Pasture	Mat 25:34;
Body, His	Those married in Covenant to Christ	Eph 1:23; Col 1:24;
Body, the	Those who are in Christ	Eph 5:23;
Body of Christ	She Who is Joined and one with Christ	Rom 7:4; 1 Cor 10:16, 12:27; Eph 4:12; Col 2:17
Born Again	Those who are new Children of the Spirit	John 3:3-6; 1 Pet 1:23;
Born of God	Children of the Spirit	1 John 3:9, 4:7, 5:1, 4, 18;
Born of Him	Born Again of the Spirit	1 John 2:29;
Bride	Married to Jesus	John 3:29; Rev 21:2, 9;
Bridechamber, Children of the	Those married in covenant to the bridegroom (Jesus)	Mat 9:15;
Brother	Sibling of eldest brother Jesus Christ	Mat 10:50; Rom 8:29; Heb 2:11, 17;
Called, the	Those chosen by God	Rom 1:6, 8:30, 9:24; 1 Cor 1:24;
Candlestick	Lights in the dark World	Rev 1:20;
Chosen	Those people that have embraced the Calling of God to follow Jesus	Jam 2:5;
Chosen Generation	Highly Favored People	1 Pet 2:9;
Children	Sons and daughters of God	Rom 8:17;
Children, Dear	Those dearly Loved by God	Eph 5:1;
Children of Abraham	A Spiritual family type of Israel	Gal 3:7;
Children of God	Born of the Spirit	Mat 5:9; Rom 8:16, 21; Gal 3:26; 1 Jn 3:10;
Children of Israel	Spiritual Nation of God’s people	Exo 19:6; Hos 2:23;
Children of Light	God is Light, those who are His children	Luk 16:8; John 12:36; Eph 5:8; 1 Th 5:5;
Children of the Day	Those walking in the Light of God	1 Th 5:5;
Children of the Free Woman	A type of the promised child born to Sarah, those who are reborn from the spiritual woman Jerusalem Above	Gal 4:31;
Children of the Living God	Those Born of the Spirit	Rom 9:26;
Children of the Kingdom	Those Who Belong to God’s Kingdom	Mat 13:38;
Children of the Promise	Children of God’s Spoken Word	Rom 9:8, Gal 4:28;
Chosen	Those Favored by God	Eph 1:4; 2 Ths 2:13;
Christ	Those with God’s Anointing and Jesus in their Hearts	2 Cor 6:15;
Christian	A Believer in Christ	Acts 26:28; 1 Pet 4:16;
Christians	Followers of Christ	Act 11:26;
Church, Glorious	Noble and Honorable	Eph 5:27;
Church, My	Those Who Belong to God	Mat 16:18;
Church of Christ	Those who Belong to Jesus	Rom 16:16;
Church of God	Called Out by God	Act 20:28; 1 Cor 1:2, 10:32; 2 Cor 1:1;
Church of the Firstborn	Those gathered in and with Christ Jesus the Firstborn from the dead	Heb 12:23;
Circumcised Heart	God’s children that have been circumcised by the hand of the Spirit	Rom 2:29; Php 3:3; Col 2:11;
City	The home of God within His people	Mat 5:14; Rev 21:23;
City, Faithful	She who will be a faithful wife to God’s Covenant	Isa 1:26;
City of My God	Where God Resides;	Rev 3:12;
City of Righteousness	Those abiding with God who is their righteousness	Isa 1:26;
City of the Lord	Those of the New Jerusalem	Isa 60:14
City Not Forsaken, A	Those pursued by God	Isa 62:12;
Daughter of Jerusalem	The Church who is reborn by the Spirit of God, His Word and the woman Heavenly Jerusalem	Mic 4:8; Zep 3:14; Zec 9:9; Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22;
Daughter of Zion	She who is Born of God	Isa 52:2, 62:11; Mat 21:5; Heb 12:22;
Disciple	The Student of God	Mat 10:24-25;
Ekklesia (Church)	A Calling Out	Mat 18:17; Act 2:47; Rev 22:16;
Elect, The	Those Chosen of God	Mat 24:31;
Faithful Brethren in Christ	Those married to Christ	Col 1:2;
Fellow Citizens	Residents of the City of God	Eph 2:10;
Fellow Heirs	Joint heirs together of God’s Kingdom	Eph 3:6;
Fellow Servant	Working Together in Unison	Rev 22:9;
Field, His	God’s Garden	Mat 13:24;
Flock of God	Those in God’s Pasture	1 Pet 5:2;
Followers	Those that that imitate the Godly examples of others	1 Cor 11:1;
Followers of God	Led By the Spirit	Eph 5:1;
Friends	Jesus Laid Down His Life for Us	Jn 15:13-14;
General Assembly	Universal Congregation	Heb12:23;
Glory and Honor of the Nations	Where God Resides	Rev 21:26
Good Soldier of Jesus Christ	Those in God’s Army	2 Tim 2 :3;
Great City	She Who is Mighty and Strong	Rev 21:10;
Ground, Good	The Good Soil of the Kingdom of God	Mat 13:23;
Habitation of God	The New Jerusalem God’s City of Living Stones	Eph 2:22;
Heir(s)	He Who Inherits	Rom 8:17; Gal 3:29; Gal 4:1; Tit 3:7; 1 Pet 3:7;
Heirs according to the Promise	Those who inherit	Gal 3:29
Heirs of God	Those Who Inherit	Rom 8:17; Gal 4:7;
Heirs of Promise	Those who inherit by an oath	Heb 6:17;
Heirs of Salvation	Those that inherit the Kingdom of God	Heb 1:14;
Heirs of the Kingdom	Those that inherit the Kingdom of God	Jam 2:5;
Holy City	He has made her clean and ready	Isa 52:1; Rev 21”2;
Holy Jerusalem	Blameless City of Jehovah	Revn 21:10;
Holy Nation	Blameless People	Exo 19:6; 1 Pet 2:9;
House, Christ’s	The Dwelling of Christ Jesus	Heb 3:6;
Household of Faith	Those in the Family of God by Faith	Gal 6:10;
Household of God	Those in the Family of God	Eph 2:19;
Household, His	Those in the Family of God	Mat 10:25;
House of God	Where the Spirit of God Lives	1 Tim 3:15;
House of Israel	The Spiritual Israel in Covenant with Jesus	Eze 34:30; Heb 8:8
House of Judah	The Spiritual Jews in Covenant with Jesus	Heb 8:8
In Christ	Those abiding in Jesus Christ	Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 1:2, 3:1 15:22; 2 Cor 1:21, 2:14, 3:14, 5:17; Gal 3:28; Eph 2:6, 2:10, 2:13, 3:6; 2 Tim 3:15;
Isaac	The church called a type of the son of promise being in Christ	Gal 4:28;
Israel	God’s people saved by Grace	Rom 11:26;
Jerusalem	City Redeemed of the Lord	Isa 52:2, 9; Dan 9:25;
Jew	Spiritual type of natural Israel; Circumcised of the Heart	Rom 2:29;
Joined Unto the Lord	The Bride of Christ	1 Cor 6:17;
Joint-Heirs with Christ	Those who Inherit	Rom 8:17;
Just, the	Those Who are Blameless	Mat 13:49;
Kingdom of Priests	Spiritual People	Exo 19:6;
Kings	God’s Royalty	Rev 1:6;
Kings of the Earth	Rulers of the Earth	Rev 1:5, 21:24
Lamb’s Wife, the	Married to Jesus	Rev 21:2, 9;
Light	Those of the Day	2 Cor 6:14; Eph 5:8; Php 2:15;
Light of the World	Those that Teach the Truth and demonstrate the Love of God	Mat 5:14;
Living Stone	The New Jerusalem of God	1 Peter 2:5
Members of Christ	The Body of Christ	1 Cor 6:1;
More than Conquerors	The church in Christ Jesus	Rom 8:37;
Mother	Spiritual Mother of God	Mat 12:50; Gal 4:19; Rev 12:1;
Nation, A	Those of Spiritual Israel	Isa 55:5;
Nations of Them Which are Saved	The Redeemed of the Lord from every nation	Rev 21:24;
New Creature	Those Born of the Spirit	2 Cor 5:17;
New Jerusalem	The Lamb’s Wife	Rev 3:12, 21:2;
One	One consisting of many in Christ	Gal 3:28; Eph 1:10;
One Body	One With Christ by Marriage Covenant;	1 Cor 10:17, 12:12;
One Bread	One With Christ by Covenant	1 Cor 10:17;
Partakers of His Promise	Participants of the union with the Holy Spirit.	Eph 3:6;
Peculiar People	Purchased Possession	Tit 2:15; 1 Pet 2:9;
People, A	God’s Spiritual People	Heb 8:10
People, Holy	Those made blameless	Isa 62:12;
People, My	Spiritual Nation of Israel	Hos 2:23; Rom 9:25;
People Israel, My	Children Born of the Sprit	Mat 2:6;
Pillar in the Temple of My God	Living Stone	Rev 3:12;
Precious Fruit of the Earth	That Which is to Be Harvested	Jam 5:7;
Priests	Those who bring the sacrifice of Praise to God	Rev 1:6;
Priesthood, Holy	Those who bring the sacrifice of Praise to God	1 Pet 2:5;
Purchased (Possession)	Those Bought with the Blood	Act 20:28;
Rachael	The type of the Bride of God’s Week of Work	Gen 29:18
Ransomed of the Lord	Those Bought with the Blood of Jesus	Isaiah 35:10;
Redeemed of the Lord	Those Purchased from the World of Darkness	Psa 107:2; Isa 51:11; 62:12;
Righteous, the	Those Justified by God	Mat 13:43; 1 Pet 3:12;
Righteousness	Those Justified by God	2 Cor 6:14;
Righteousness, Servants of	Those who Serve God’s Purpose	Rom 6:18;
Royal Priesthood	New Covenant Kings and Priests that praise and worship God	1 Pet 2:9;
Ruth	A Type of the Bride of Christ	Ruth
Saints	Sacred, Pure, Blameless	Rom 1:7, 15:25, 16:15; 1 Cor 1:2, 16:1, 15; 2 Cor 1:1, 13:13; Eph 1:1, 2:19, 3:18, 4:12, 6:18; Php 4:22; Col 1:2; 1 Th 3:13;
Saints In Christ Jesus	Those blameless in Christ	Php 1:1;
Saints in Light	Those blameless in God	Col 1:12;
Salt of the Earth	Those who flavor and preserve	Mat 5:12;
Same Body, the	Joined members of the same body	Eph 3:6;
Saved	Those redeemed from Satan’s kingdom	Rom 8:24; 1 Cor 15:2; 2 Cor 2:15;
Seed, Abraham’s	Those of spiritual Father Abraham	Gal 3:29;
Seed, Good	Those planted by God	Mat 13:38;
Seed, the	Those of the Promise of Abraham	Rom 9:8;
Servant	Those in service to God	Mat 10:24;
Sheep	Those in God’s Flock sorted at the right Hand of God	Mat 25:33; Heb 13:20; 1 Pet 2:25;
Sheep, My	Those people dedicated to follow the Good Shepherd	Jn 10:14; Jn 21:16
Sister	The Sibling of Christ	Mat 12:50;
Sister Spouse	Sister Married to Christ	Song 4:9-10, 12; 5:1
Sons of God	Those Born of the Spirit	Jn 1:12, Rom 8:14, 8:19; Gal 4:6; Php 2:15; 1 John 3:1-2;
Sons of the Living God	Born of the Spirit	Hos 1:10;
Sought Out	Those pursued by God	Isa 62:12
Spiritual House	The New Jerusalem God’s dwelling place	1 Pet 2:5;
Spouse	The Bride of the Son of God Jesus	Song 4:8, 11;
Sweet Savor	Pleasant aroma of Praise to God	2 Cor 2:15;
Tabernacle, the	God’s Eternal Temple	Rev 21:3;
Temple of God, the	God’s Dwelling Place	1 Cor 3:16;
Temple of the Holy Ghost, the	God’s Holy Living City	1 Cor 3:19;
They which are written in the Lambs Book of Life	The Church	Rev 21:27;
Tree, Good	Those who produce Fruit of the Spirit	Mat 7:17-18;
Tree of the Field	Those that bear fruit for God	Eze 34:27;
True Worshipper	Those people in the Spirit	Jn 4:23;
Twelve Tribes, the	The Spiritual Israel of God	Jam 1:1;
Vessels	Those of the House in Honor	2 Tim 2:20;
Vessels of Mercy	A saved human	Rom 9:23;
Way, the	Believers walking and following the Good Shepherd in the narrow path of eternal life	Gen 3:24; Mat 3:3; Mat 7:14; Act 9:2, Act 16:17;
Wheat, the	That which is planted by God for Harvest	Mat 13:30;
Wife	The Church aka the Bride of Jesus	Eph 5:25, 5:31-32;
Woman, A	The Bride of Christ	Rev 12:1
Workman, A	God’s faithful servants	2 Tim 2:15;
Zion, the	Those of the New Jerusalem	Isa 60:14;

If you would like to read other reference documents about Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols here are some others that are available:

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Tags: Bible, Bride, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Symbolism, understanding, woman

Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Jerusalem in the Bible

Sep 3

Posted by agapegeek

(ver 2.0) This is Part 4 in a series of reference documents revealing the multiple Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Spiritual Individuals in the Bible. This lesson will focus only on the subject verses describing Jerusalem found in the Bible. This is a living document of references to Jerusalem and it will change and be updated as I am led to additional scriptures. A Name is a direct reference to the individual. A Title is a given direct identifying appellation signifying status or function. A Description is something that represents the individual in expressive words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a pattern of the spiritual individual not directly named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes the characteristics or features of a spiritual being that you cannot see or understand without first understanding the symbol.

Jerusalem is a central subject of the Bible and the capital of Israel located in the Middle East today. Jerusalem is also a major city revealed in end time prophecy. This city has captured the attention of the entire world. Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible directly around 767 times and indirectly many other times. However, it is very important for you to know that there is more than one city named Jerusalem in the Bible. In fact there are 3 separate and distinct cities all with this exact name. Knowing this information complicates correct Bible interpretation significantly. You must be wise enough to know which Jerusalem God is talking about when you see the name “Jerusalem” by itself. You may be asking yourself what are these three cities named Jerusalem and I will give you a quick lesson on them:

The Jerusalem that now is as revealed in Galatians 4:25 and in multiple other verses and the primary subject of this document.
The Jerusalem Above revealed in Galatians 4:26 and is called the Heavenly Jerusalem in Hebrews 12:22.
The New Jerusalem revealed as the Lamb’s wife in Revelation 3:12 and 21:2.

From these references you should be able to recognize the existence of three cities named Jerusalem. This document will primarily focus on the one reference of the Jerusalem on the earth that now is. If you have seen other verses that I have not found yet for Jerusalem, please share them with me in a comment. Thank you.

Name, Title, Symbol, Type for Jerusalem	Description	Scripture Reference
Abomination	Disgusting Idol Worshipper	Ezekiel 9:4; Ezekiel 16:2, 36, 51, 58; Ezekiel 22:2, 23:36; 33:29; Malachi 2:11; Revelation 17:4-5
Adulteress	Unfaithful Wife	Jeremiah 3:1; Jeremiah 5:7; Ezekiel 16:32; Ezekiel 23:45; Hosea 3:1
Afflicted	Depressed Woman	Isaiah 51:21
Aholibah	My Tent is In Her; Whore	Ezekiel 23:4
Ariel	The Symbolic Name of Jerusalem	Isaiah 29:1-7
Babylon	The Whore	1 Peter 5:13
Bad City	Wicked City	Ezra 4:12
Birthed in Land of Canaan	Where She was born	Eze 16:3;
Bloody City	Those that Kill the Prophets	Ezekiel 22:2, 24:6,9; Nahum 3:1
Bond Woman	Spiritual Hagar Egyptian Slave	Galatian 4:24-25, 30-31
Burdensome Stone	Load Carrier	Zec 12:3;
Castle of Zion	The Net or Snare of Zion	1 Chron 11:5;
City	Inhabited by the Children of Israel	Judges 1:8; 2 Kings 23:27; Psalm 122:3; Zec 14:2; Jeremiah 26:9
City, Chosen	Highly Favored of Jehovah	1 Kings 11:36; 1 Kings 14:21; 2 Kings 23:27; 2 Chron 12:13
City of a Stranger	Home of the Jebusites	Judges 19:12
City of David	David the Great King’s City	1 Kings 8:1; 2 Kings 9:28; 2 Kings 14:20’ 2 Kings 23:27; 1 Chron 11:5; 2 Chron 5:2; 2 Chron 21:20; Isaiah 22:9;
City, Faithful	She who is faithful to God	Isaiah 1:26;
City of Righteousness	The inhabitants have God’s righteousness	Isaiah 1:26;
City of the Great King	City of David	Matthew 5:35;
City of the Jebusites	Inhabited by the trodden	Judges 19:11; 1 Chron 11:4;
City Where David Dwelt	The City of David the King	Isaiah 29:1;
City Which Is Called By Thy Name	Married to Jehovah	Daniel 9:18;
City Which Killed Jesus our Lord	Those Who the shed Blood of God is On their Hands	Mat 16:21; Rev 11:8;
Covent Breakers	Those Who Broke Covent with God	Eze 16:59; Romans 1:31;
Curse, A	City which is cursed	Jeremiah 26:6;
Daughter	Female born of a woman	Ezekiel 23:2;
Daughter of an Amortie	Her Father was a Canaanitish Mountain Tribe;	Ezekiel 16:3, 45;
Daughter of a Hittite	Her Mother was a terrorist; Fear and Terror	Ezekiel 16:3, 45;
Desolate	Waste Land	Jeremiah 26:8
Desolate City	Jerusalem laid waste	Eze 26:19
Desolation	Waste Land	Zep 2:15;
Divorced Woman	She that was Put Away	Isaiah 50:1; Jeremiah 3:8; Hosea 2:2
Dross	Backsliders; Those who draw back; Refuse of the furnace	Ezekiel 22:18-19;
Drunken	She Who is Drunk	Isaiah 51:21: Jeremiah 13:13; Ezekiel 23:33;
Egypt	Spiritual Name for Jerusalem; Where she played the Whore in Her youth	Hosea 11:1; Revelation 11:8
Evil	Moral Wickedness	Jeremiah 25:5
Evil Figs	The Spoiled Fruit	Jeremiah 24:8;
Family Know of God	She who was married to Jehovah	Amos 3:2;
Faithful City	She who was faithful in Marriage	Isaiah 1:21;
Filthiness	Not Gold; uncleanness	Ezekiel 16:36; Ezekiel 22:15; Zephan 3:1; Revelation 17:4
Filthy	Disobedient and Rebellious	Zep 3:1;
Fornicator	Lover of Idols	2 Chronicles 21:11; Ezekiel 16:15;
Fuel to the Fire	She which is consumed by the Lord	Ezekiel 21:32;
Gomorrah	Spiritual name of Jerusalem;	Isaiah 1:9-10; Jeremiah 23:14;
Great City	She which was Great	Jeremiah 22:8; Revelation 11:8; Revelation 17:18;
Hagar	The Egyptian Bond Woman; slave girl	Galatian 4:24-25
Harlot	The unfaithful woman	Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 3:1: Ezekiel 16:15; Ezekiel 16:35, 41; Ezekiel 23:19;Ezekiel 23:44; Hosea 2:5; Hosea 4:15;
Harlot, Well-favored	Beautiful Adulteress	Nahum 3:4;
Heifer	Female Cow	Hosea 10:11
Her with My Name	The Name of Jehovah shall be on her	1 Kings 11:36; 1 Kings 14:21; 2 Kings 23:27; 2 Chron 12:13; Jeremiah 25:29
Holy City	Sacred	Neh 11:1
Imperious Whorish Woman	Vixen Adulteress	Ezekiel 16:30
Israel After the Flesh	Natural Nation of Israel	1 Cor 6:18;
Jebus	Aboriginal Name of Jerusalem; Trodden	Judges 19:10; 1 Chr 11:4;
Jebusi	Trodden inhabitants of Jerusalem	Joshua 18:28
Jebusite	Trodden Amorites	Joshua 15:8;
Jerusalem Which Now Is	Earthly Jerusalem	Galatians 4:25
Jeshurun	Symbolic Name of Israel	Deu 32:15, 33:5, 33:26; Isa 44:2;
Jews	Those of Judah	Romans 2:17;
Jezebel	A type of the False Religion of Adultery and Idols	Revelation 2:20;
Killer of the Prophets	Murderer of Those Who Are Sent To You	Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34
Lewd Woman	The Adulteress Wife	Ezekiel 23:44;
Married Wife	She who has a husband	Isaiah 54:1
Mistress of Witchcrafts	She who is deceived by Magic	Nahum 3:4
Mocking to All Nations	She who is ridiculed;	Ezekiel 22:4;
Mother	She who has born Children	Isaiah 50:1; Hosea 2:5; Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34; Galatian 4:25
Mother of Harlots	Her Children are like her	Revelation 17:5
Mother’s Daughter	The female child; like mother like daughter	Ezekiel 16:45;
Mt Sinai	Where the Law Given to Moses	Galatians 4:24-25;
Mystery Babylon the Great	The Whore	Revelation 17:5
Oppressing City	The City who is proud and violent	Zep 3:1;
Oppression, Wholly	She who has unjust gain; deceitfully obtained	Jeremiah 6:6;
Polluted	Trodden Down	Ezekiel 16:6; Zep 3:1
Rahab	The Harlot, spiritual type of Jerusalem	Psalm 89:10; Isaiah 51:9
Rebellious House	She who is disobedient and has become an enemy	Ezekiel 17:1, 24:3;
Rejoicing City	Joyous City	Zep 2:15;
Reproach to the Heathen	Disgrace to the Gentiles;	Ezekiel 22:4;
Salem	Peaceful the pattern and roots of Jerusalem	Genesis 14:18;
Seed of Evildoers	Fruit of Ungodliness	Isaiah 1:4;
Shalem	Early Name of Jerusalem	Gen 33:18;
Sinful Kingdom	A people to be destroyed	Amos 9:8;
Sinful Nation	A people led astray	Isaiah 1:4;
Sister	Woman with Siblings	Ezekiel 16:46;
Sister of Judah	The sister	Jeremiah 3:1;
Sister of thy Sisters	Sin runs in the family	Ezekiel 16:45;
Slayer of Innocent Blood	The City that Killed Jesus	Jeremiah 26:15;
Smitten	To Strike Down	Ezekiel 33:21;
Sodom	Spiritual Name for Jerusalem;	Isaiah 1:9-10; Jeremiah 23:14; Ezekiel 16:46-49; Revelation 11:8
Thy Mother’s Daughter	Daughter of a Hittite (terror)	Eze 16:45
Uncleanness	Religious filth	Ezekiel 36:17;
Where Our Lord Was Crucified	Jesus was hung on the cross there	Rev 11:8
Whore	Adulteress Idol Worshipper	Ezekiel 16:33-34
Whore, Great	Adulteress Idol Worshipper	Revelation 17:1;
Wife	She who is married to Jehovah	Jeremiah 3:20, 31:32; Ezekiel 16:8; Ezekiel 16:32;
Woman	The Great City	Ezekiel 23:44; Revelation 17:18
Woman, Removed	Unclean Woman	Ezekiel 36:17;
Woman Who Breaks Wedlock	The Unfaithful wife of Jehovah	Ezekiel 16:38;

If you would like to read other reference documents about Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols here are some others that are available:

Posted in Bible Study, Jerusalem, Understanding

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, Covenants, God, Holy Spirit, Israel, Jerusalem, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Symbolism, understanding, woman

Spiritual Visions! Real or Fantasy?

Sep 2

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.5) This is now Part 2 of a series of important Bible lessons on the subjects of spiritual truths and realities. I had a reader try to tell me that the story in the Bible about Moses and Elijah appearing with Jesus on the mountain top was a vision that Peter, James and John experienced and therefore in a vision anything is possible. The entire context of his message comment was an attempt to explain away the reality of the existence of spiritual beings after their physical/natural death. These types of people are simply very ignorant and deceived by the devil into believing lies. They do not want to believe that people are spiritual beings that exist after death because they would rather believe that they go into a state of unconscious sleep until judgment day comes and God awakens them. They are attempting to justify their deception of the false “soul sleep” theology by explaining away what the Bible actually says on the subject either directly or indirectly. This is a common ploy of deception used by Satan, either ignore those things in the Bible that do not conform or fit with your version of the truth, or attempt to explain them away using your limited intellectual knowledge and human reasoning. There arises a great problem with this type of wrong thinking. We can easily find verses that contradict a soul sleep belief. People, without understanding what they are saying believe that my God was and is a willing participant to visions with lies of deception being embedded within them. They said that God can give people a vision of anything, like fairies, monsters, fantasies, imaginary figures or whatever simply because He likes to teach us something and it would be OK and acceptable for God to behave this way since He is clearly the sovereign God. All of his comment was a response to my explanation of “Is there Life after Death for Seeing Spirits” lesson that was recently written on that important subject. If you have not read this lesson you should go back and start with that lesson first, because I will not repeat any of it here. Because these people want to believe you go to sleep when you die, they try to explain away Moses and Elijah appearance with Jesus as a vision fantasy. Today’s lesson is on the subject of visions and it is directed at those who want to know the truth.

INTRODUCTION TO SPIRITUAL VISIONS

So today’s lesson is about the subject of spiritual visions and what they are! God will further discuss today in this lesson the purpose that His vision are given to people. We will learn today that there is more than one kind of spiritual vision. We will also discover that there are other types of a vision possible for other purposes. We will research and discover the truth using the Bible and ignoring the words of deceivers. According to the “deceived individual” a vision is simply an apparition or a fantasy of Biblical and Godly proportions where anything goes. So according to this person, God can communicate with people saying anything He wants to and even lie to them using a vision not found within reality. However, my Bible says that “It is impossible for God to lie” (Heb 6:18). In Titus 1:2 it says God cannot lie. Therefore according to written scripture there is absolutely no way that a vision from God can be a party to a lie or untruth in any way or form. Because people do not want to know the truth, they make up excuses to explain away the truth and they present them to fools who buy into them like they were eating candy. What a crazy mixed up world that we live in. It is just way too easy for Satan to deceive some people (Rev 12:9).

So what is a spiritual vision? In order to understand something we need to define it first. A vision occurs when a natural man is given a view into the spiritual realm either past, present or future. A vision is not a normal human experience. A vision is most definitely a gift from God by His sovereign choice that allows natural people to see unseen spiritual things, places, events, angels and people. However, these spiritual things are never fabrications or fantasies because they are more real than the natural things that we can see all around us. God who is a Spirit (John 4:24), created the natural world as a pattern after the spiritual world that He already lived in. It was the Supreme God of the spirit world that created this natural world.

2Co 4:18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

The things that we perceive with our five natural senses are called the “Temporary” things of this world. This verse then contrasts the temporary things with the greater eternal things. What are eternal things? They are not natural things so they have to be supernatural things. These are spirits and the world that they live within. These are the eternal things and beings that God is comparing to natural seen things. Because people cannot see, feel taste, hear or smell the spiritual realm normally they do not believe that it exists. But, this is by God’s design and purpose not to allow man to know that he is a spirit being living in a temporary natural body, until after they are either saved or dead. Even after a person becomes a Christian they can still be a very “Carnal” Christian and still be flesh dominated.

Heaven is a very real spiritual location and place and existed way before the earth and the natural universe existed. What I am going to do today is to use the Bible to show you God’s usage of visions and see what we can learn from them. By standing firmly only on the Word of God and understanding what it says, is our only hope for not being deceived like some of these people that try to write me crazy responses, like they were trying to help me not to be deceived. I have learned better than to ignore God’s truth in order to follow a lie, I know who my God is and I know what His Word says, so I’m going to stand with Him and ignore the opinions of people.

THE FIRST VISION

The very first mention of a “vision” in the Bible comes in the Book of Genesis. This account is God speaking to Abram. If God is the one giving this vision then we know that God is communicating truth to Abram and these are not the words of any fantasy or fairy tale. Abram is able to perceive and understand the spoken words of God and here is this first mention of a vision in the Bible:

Gen 15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

So obviously God is lying to Abram and just telling him something He wants to trick him with. If you are spiritually blind this is what you might believe. If that is what you choose to believe then you might need to go read somebody else’s blog. What we can clearly see is that God holds a conversation with Abram in this chapter and informs him of what will happen in his life on earth and in the future to come. If you read the whole chapter you can clearly see that God gives Abram a covenant and reveals what will happen to his seed. These are spoken prophetic Words from God and not lies. There are no lies written here in this chapter because these are all of the true facts that will soon happen to Abram. God is not participating in a fantasy with Abram. It is very critical to note and learn the reason for the vision being given was for God to speak to a natural man named Abram. God did this by opening his spiritual eyes to see and hear something coming from the greater spiritual realm. God speaking to natural men with visions will become an established pattern of truth as we continue in this lesson. Please note that there is no other reasons given for the vision, do you understand this? Let’s look at another mention of “visions” in the KJV O.T. Bible.

ANOTHER CONFIRMATION FOR VISIONS

I am going to move to the book of Old Testament book of Numbers next. Here we should see God’s usage of visions and the further confirmation reason for their application usage. Remember in the Bible that God says let every word of truth be established in the mouths of two or three witnesses and that is exactly what I will do. Let’s read Numbers chapter 12 and verse 6:

Num 12:6 And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.

God clearly informs us of how He uses visions to communicate to His servants the prophets. The prophets of God would receive spiritual information directly from God Almighty in the form of both visions and dreams. Again we see the only reason for God giving a vision to a human man is for God to speak to them. This means it has to be the truth, if it is coming from God. So I brought up dreams because this verse mentioned that God also uses them to communicate with people on the earth. I do not believe that every human vision or dream can only originate only from God, after all there are other spiritual beings that are alive and well on this planet. I have heard people say in church that they saw someone who they thought was Jesus and he appeared to them, but what he said to them tried to make them do something that the Bible did not say or confirm. So that type of vision could be the possible deception of the enemy Satan. The Bible says that even Satan can transform himself into an “angel of light” in order to try to deceive us (2 Cor 11:14). The only reason why Satan would transform himself is to be seen in a visual form. This clearly implies a vision into the spiritual realm. Therefore, if you do not know what the Bible says, you are an easy prey for this type of deception. I will tell you this plainly that God will never tell you anything in a vision that is contrary or opposed to the written Holy Word of God.

As you can clearly see in the above verse in Numbers 12:6, God uses visions to make Himself and His words known to people. So is God going to trick you with a false vision? Is God going to deceive you with a lying vision? Or is God going to speak ONLY the truth in a vision? What would make God known to us? I believe that only the truth is what comes from a vision from God for Him to make Himself known to us. So if Peter, James and John had a vision of Moses and Elijah speaking to Jesus was it fictional or real? I believe it has to be more real than anything we experience on the earth. The spiritual realm is not fictional, if it is, then God is a fictional character and I know much better than that. One of the key points to deception is to discredit the truth. Satan uses this ploy very often by inferring that God is the one that lies to people and that he is the one speaking the truth! This was his deception to Eve and he hasn’t come up with anything new for you either.

TYPES OF VISIONS

There are more than one type of vision in the Bible and in fact there are at least two types of visions that I have found in the Bible. One type of vision I will call an “Open” vision and the other type of vision I will call a “Closed” vision. Let me briefly show you the difference between these types of visions using the Bible. For example in the book of Job God says the following.

Job 33:14 For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.

Spiritually unaware men have a great difficulty in hearing the voice of the Spirit of God. Either their minds are cluttered with busy natural stuff or their mouths are opened too wide and speaking with empty words instead of listening for God. In either case, God does not interrupt your life and your agenda because He wants to say something to you. God is a Gentleman who does not rudely butt in on what you are doing and interrupt you. If you think He does, you are wrong. In Job this verse tells us that men and women have a great difficulty in perceiving the spoken Words of God. God can be speaking to you and you never even understand that it was God. One solution to this problem is God’s usage of dreams also called night visions while you are sleeping. This is an example of a closed spiritual night vision:

Job 33:15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;

As you can clearly see in this verse, God is saying that I will come to you in the night while your body rests and sleeps, because you did not hear me during the day when you were awake and busy. When you are in a deep sleep, your mind is usually very quite, you are not busy moving or talking and you can more easily hear what the Spirit of God wants to speak to you. Why is this possible? It is only possible because your spirit inside our sleeping natural body never sleeps. Just because your body sleeps does not mean the real unseen you ever sleeps. Only deceived people believe that spirits can sleep. While your body is asleep and your mind is not preoccupied, your spirit can hear directly from God in a night vision or a dream.

Job 33:16 Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,

God says that He is able to open the ears of the man in the night sleep so that he is able to hear the instructions from God. This is an example in the Bible of a closed spiritual vision. There is a key word given to us in this verse, and it is “opened”. This does not mean that the man was deaf and was unable to hear physically. It is only talking about the spiritual ears of the man being opened so that he can hear with his spirit. This type of vision is usually very personal and it is God speaking directly to your spirit for normally your benefit only. I guess it is important to note that even in a closed vision of the night, God must open something in order for you to hear it or see it.

So let’s contrast the difference between closed visions and an open vision. An open vision would be one that was in the likeness of the one experienced by Peter, James and John when they all saw Jesus speaking to Moses and Elijah on the mountain top. They were not sleeping, they were fully awake and they could clearly all see into the spiritual realm of reality concurrently something that they would have missed otherwise. If there was a third party watching this experience they would have seen Peter, James and John in a trance like state with their eyes fully wide open. But, these external observers would not have been able to perceive the presence of either Elijah or Moses unless God opens their eyes to see them. Let’s look at an example of this in the O.T.:

Num 24:4 He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:

An open vision is usually one that occurs with your natural eyes wide open. When this type of vision occurs to you the people around you usually do not see what God is showing you in the spiritual realm, they only see you in a trance like state of existence. You are usually the only one that perceives the message from God sent from the Spiritual Realm. This is a method of God that allows you to see into the real spiritual world and it definitely is not a fantasy event of any type.

There are just many examples in the Bible of this type of vision and I will only give you one more example in today’s lesson. I just cannot go through every mention of the word in the Bible, it would take too long. The next story that I want to touch on is the story of Elisha in the O.T. book of 2 Kings. In this story the servant of Elisha comes to him and tells him some really bad disturbing news, he thinks. He tells Elisha that they are surrounded by the enemy and on the verge of their death. However, Elisha did not fret with this news or get worried in the least little bit. Why was this? What made Elisha able to see the situation differently than his servant? Remember that Elisha was God’s prophet and what did we read in Numbers about God speaking to His prophets? All Elisha did was this:

2Ki 6:17 And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

Open the eyes of my servant so that he can see that there are more for us than there are against us. To open your eyes, does not mean your physical eyes were closed or blinded, his physical eyes were seeing fine the natural things that they were faced with. What Elisha was requesting for God to do was to open his spiritual eyes to let him see into the spiritual realm in order to see that there were flaming chariots of fire all around them. This was an example of an open spiritual vision of view into a real set of angels of God riding in chariots of fire. These angels were not “make believe” and these angels were not fantasy; they were simply seen only in the real spiritual realm and this the truth from God. So people, who want to believe lies, can go and explain away these real spiritual things in the Bible with their human reasoning for other spiritually ignorant people to devour.

CONCLUSION – FALSE VISIONS

I’ll wrap this lesson up for today with one final verse to consider. We have learned there are at least two types of visions, one open and one closed. We have observed that God’s visions are only given because God wants to speak truth to a natural man about things that he may not have been able to perceive otherwise. Now I want to briefly address a part of the subject that I alluded to earlier about false visions from other spiritual beings.

Jer 14:14 Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false visionand divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.

God clearly tells us that He does not give anyone “False” visions so that they can preach lies to the people of God. Did you understand what God just said? Do you understand why and how this applies directly to the vision that Peter, James and John had? If the vision of Moses and Elijah was not real and the truth then it was a fabricated lie and must be called a false vision. This would be a deception that God says that He is not participating in. This verse clearly teaches us that God gives people only visions of truth and spiritual reality. God will not give anyone a fantasy vision, a fairy tale vision or an imaginary vision of fiction. That would make God a liar and this is not my God and never will be.

People who want to believe lies will ignore vital scriptures in the Bible that conflict with their erroneous beliefs. These scriptures were placed there by God to teach us the truth and every scripture on the subject of visions must be balanced with the other scriptures on the subject. This is basic correct Bible interpretation. Only when we allow the Bible to interpret itself can we come close to actually understanding the truth. The next time anyone gives you a verse and tries to tell you that it is not a real vision from God of truth you should respond with the Bible.

It is very interesting to note, do you know that it does not matter what you believe? It does not matter if you are right or if you are wrong? Wow, I probably just blew someone’s mind saying that. I guess I should rephrase those statements, because it does matter if what you believe is the truth for your salvation. But, what I meant to say was your version of the truth does not change the reality of the actual God given and intended truth. God is not going to change to fit and conform with your personal beliefs. God is not going to change His truth to align with your version of the truth. God is a constant, never changing, eternal God that only projects the truth in His word to those who want to see it. To those who are not interested in God’s truth, they are permitted to be deceived and follow their own misconceptions. This is the only way that God can give everyone a free will and a right to make a fair choice in this life.

I had another confused reader try to ask me, why can’t there be multiple choices available to the afterlife? In other words he seemed to think that people are all so different in this current world, so therefore God will allow them all to be different in the world to come. While people will not be identically cloned robots in the afterlife and they will be completely unique we must understand that an anything goes moral mentality and the freedom to commit sin, will not be a direct part of God’s future plan. This type of thinking was the erroneous philosophy of an all-inclusive religion of tolerance and acceptance called “Universal Salvation” where everyone will be in heaven even if they never made Jesus their Lord here on this planet. I have other Bible lessons that address this so I will not repeat them here. But these are false lies of Satan also that will send people to hell because they think they do not have to repent and get saved. There will be no evil in the afterlife for those that are saved because there will be no tempter to test us. Satan will be cast into the lake of fire and will not be able to tempt anyone. God help us all to see the truth.

If I were you I would become hungry and thirsty to know the real truth. Only by being open minded and examining the Bible closely to verify everything that you believe is true, can you ever be assured that you have not been deceived. If you are not willing to change when the truth is presented to you then you are in trouble. Pray and ask God to show you the truth, He is the teacher and will confirm to you the truth. Base your faith only on the Bible and not on anything that a man teaches. Thank you for taking the time to read and study the Bible and I hope this lesson will help someone to understand spiritual visions. God Bless!

Posted in Bible Study, Spirituality, Understanding

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Sspirituality, Truth, understanding

Who’s Sending the Storms in Your Life?

Aug 29

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 2.1) This is “Part 3” in a series of advanced lessons about “Understanding Hard Sayings” found in the Bible. We live in a pretty crazy world at times. Some Christians like to believe that God is in complete control of everything that happens to us, but what do you do with the times when it seems like you are facing some very challenging overwhelming circumstances? Did God send these negative circumstances to test you, prove you or maybe just to keep you humble? It is funny what many churches teach on this subject and most of them ignore what the Bible says in order to teach something that they have created in their minds. Human reasoning and religious thinking usually results in things that are directly opposed to the truth of God. Learn to be careful who you follow and make sure what they are teaching you is based ONLY upon the scriptures being correctly divided and interpreted. Also allow the Spirit of God inside of you to be your quide into the truth. He will also keep you from what is not the truth if you let Him. Always remember that whatever God says to you by His Spirit will always be in perfect alingnment with what He has said to you in His written Word.

Joh 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

The Greek word translated as tribulation literally means “trouble” and “pressure”. So we have all been faced with the storms of trouble and pressure in our lives. These are things like losing your job and wondering what you are going to do now for money to pay the bills. How about getting attacked physically with sickness and disease? Having a child die suddenly? What about being pregnant and having a miscarriage? Facing natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados, wild fires, earthquakes and floods. Look at the world’s economies on the brink of collapse. The plunging real estate markets and the rollercoaster stock markets. What about the price of food and inflation, droughts, famines, wars and I could go on and on We are all faced with an enormous amount of different kinds of pressures being put on us from every side it seems. The verse above in John 16:23 speak of these “pressures” in life. Jesus told us that tribulation is a part of the world that we live in. However, Jesus did not say God was sending them your way. Jesus said be of good cheer for I have overcome the world. Jesus directly links this “pressure” to the “world” that we currently live in. Jesus did not say be of good cheer because these are just God’s way of testing you, changing you, proving you or whatever else people like to think. I personally believe that if there was nothing to overcome in life that nobody would seek God for help. But, yet I also believe that God never sent any of these storms of life that we are faced with. I personally believe that God warned Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that Adam is the one that allowed evil to enter into the world that we reside within. I’ll try to talk more about this as we go to show you who the originator of these adversities and evils really is. Here are some Bible verses that I have found that helped me tremendously when I was studying this subject and I hope they are a blessing to you also:

Luk 8:22 Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the side side of the lake. And they launched forth.

In this story found in Luke, Jesus has been ministering to a group of people and it was now getting very late in the day. Jesus sends the people away and goes with his disciples to cross the sea in their boat . So far nothing new is happening that is very news worthy.

Luk 8:23 But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy.

This is where the story starts to get really good. There are many people in churches that teach that Jesus was God in His full deity power. However, this verse should cause them a major problem, because the Bible says that God neither sleeps nor slumbers (Psalm 121:4). You can obviously see the potential conflict to that kind of teaching by simply reading the verses in the Bible that reveal to us the truth. I believe that Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man. However, I also believe when God became a man, He stripped Himself of His deity powers in order to lay down His life for us. You see it is impossible to kill an omnipotent God. Understand that how you are now is how God had to become. If you sleep Jesus had to sleep. If you eat then Jesus had to eat. If you ever get thirsty then Jesus got thirsty. If you could sin, then it was possible for Jesus to sin. These are just basic realities found in the Bible. So I got off of the subject for a quick side trip to help someone today. This verse informs us that as they were sailing, Jesus went to sleep. The winds picked up and a storm came upon them and it looked very bleak to the disciples. Some of the disciples were men who made their living on the water; they were intimately familiar with this sea, the weather there, boats and sailing. They obviously thought the situation was life threatening. So they had a problem; one of those storms of life had arisen around them that I talked about earlier and they believed it could be the end of them. The boat was taking on water, the wind was very strong against them and the outcome looked very bleak. Fortunately for them they had Jesus in the boat asleep. Let me ask you a quick question; do you have Jesus in you right now? If you do He is not sleeping!

So let’s stop right here and determine something. Who sent these winds and this storm to Jesus and the disciples? Was this the work of God? I thought God was in the boat? Of course God in the flesh was in the boat but God who is a Spirit was also everywhere else at the same time. But, did God send the storm? People like to think that the storms are the acts of God because He is the highest power in control? Certainly men on the earth believe they did not cause the storm, therefore they understand cause and effect so someone had to cause the storm! Insurance agencies like to have “Acts of God” clauses to define what they will cover and what they will not cover. I’ve even heard ignorant ministers claim a hurricane that almost destroyed New Orleans was an act of God’s judgment upon a sinful city. People sure can be ignorant and accuse God of doing some crazy things that I doubt if He is pleased with. Please let me introduce you to a new concept that is related to our subject today of who caused the storm:

Mat 12:26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?

Did you know that Satan had a kingdom? That is not why I picked this verse, but it is an interesting point to keep in mind. Jesus says that any kingdom divided against itself will be brought to nothing. This is a spiritual law from the mouth of God! What do we learn from this law? Can you apply this knowledge to our discussion today? Jesus claims that one party or one kingdom cannot fight against itself and survive. That is a very important concept to keep in your mind when thinking about did God cause the storm. So what is my point? If God sends the storm and then God is awakened in the boat to stop the storm, would that not be God working against Himself? That would make God divided against Himself, not in harmony and certainly not in unity. It is more like a Jekyll and Hyde type of God. You cannot send a storm just to give you something to do or to provide an opportunity to prove that you can stop it. It would not make any logical sense. The Kingdom of God would clearly be divided against itself if God sends the storm and then stops the same storm. Do you understand what Jesus is teaching?

Luk 8:24 And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm.

As you can see the disciples woke Jesus up and said Master look we are perishing. Jesus got up and looked at the problem and spoke words to it! The wind stopped and there was a great calm. So let’s stop right there again and think. If Words stopped the storm, could words have started the storm? I think that is a very valid question. If it were Words that caused the storm, they cannot be the words from God or He would be divided against Himself. The Bible clearly says God does not change! To speak words to cause a storm and then to speak words to stop the same storm would cause God to be a shifting inconsistent unstable God! I find that a very interesting concepts to understand. As a result of spoken words there was a great calm that surrounded them. If the storm was intentionally sent to Jesus and the disciples what would have been the end result of the storm, if Jesus had not stopped it? For what purpose would the storm have served? Would the storm have been a blessing or a curse? I recently saw a post on the internet that said “adversity can be a blessing in disguise” and I thought immediately how confused this writer was. If you can read in Luke from the fear that the disciples possessed the storm seems to be designed to kill them, to destroy their boat and to steal their life, their time and their money away from them. There is absolutely no logical way to think that the storm in Luke could be viewed to be a blessing in disguise. What else is a storm good for? Right here is an amazing time to use your brain and think again. Is any major storm of life ever a blessing in disguise? I do not think anyone recently in Joplin Missiouri would think it was. So who does Jesus say causes these types of adverse destructive events in our lives? Did you know that the Bible tells us who is responsible?

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.

The thief is a synonymous reference or title for Satan. There are those in churches that think that God sends the storms of life upon them and if that is the case then God is the thief. I cannot speak for your God, but my God is not a thief. Anything that steals from you, tries to kill you or destroy what you possess, Jesus called it an act of the “thief” Satan. We also know that God is not the one who kills, steals or destroys because Jesus said in this verse that He came to give us life abundantly and that would be the opposite of someone who was coming to give us death. Hopefully you can see the difference and know who is behind each event that happens to you. Jesus said that the pressures of life would come, but that we should be of good cheer because He had overcome all of the pressures. Why is that important? Because according to 2 Cor 2:14 God declares us triumphant “In Christ”. Did you know you were in Christ? I guess I do not have time to teach that today, but this is why God can tell you to be of good cheer when storms come!

Eph 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.

There are just too many people in churches who do not realize that we have a spiritual enemy and an adversary of spiritual opposition. This enemy is only interested in taking you out of this world. He wants to deceive you any way that he can. The term to wrestle is a physical conflict between opponents. If you are wrestling a friend you are not wrestling. The opponent is described to us as not being a physical being, but is clearly described to be a spiritual force. The term principalities refer to the chief rulers in the spiritual realm. These spiritual forces are described as being “wicked” that means evil and hurtful. They do not play the game or fight the battle by any rules. They are in a no holds barred match of spiritual wits against you. They will send whatever they can against you to take you out.

Luk 8:25 And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.

Getting back to our main lesson story found in Luke, Jesus calms the storm with words and turns to the disciples and asks them a very funny question that most people do not understand. Jesus did not say “Sorry fellows, I did not know, why didn’t you just wake me sooner”. I think that is what most religious people would like to do or think that Jesus said. Jesus was asking “Where is your faith?” Why was Jesus asking them like they should have had faith to do something about the storm? When you read the Bible you need to pay close attention to every word. What is said and what is not said. You do not ask a question like this if you did not expect something different. Everyone likes to pray to God and ask him to calm the storms of life and God’s response will always be “Where is your faith?” That is something that people do not grasp easily, because they do not know what faith is. The implied meaning of the question that Jesus asked was the disciples could have done the same thing that Jesus just did. I know that is going to go over big with some people and others it will be like I’m speaking heresy. We can’t do what God does, can we? We certainly are not God! I know that for sure. However, I’m just studying the Bible and trying to understand what it says. You can choose to believe something else if you like; I’m not your judge.

What I take away from this lesson of Jesus and the disciples is that Jesus is more than capable of solving all of our problems. But, His question will always be “Where is your faith?” I also learn from this story in Luke that God is not causing the storms in your life so He or you can calm them. God’s house is not divided and God must be consitently good or we woould not know if we should try to calm the storms, ask God to calm the storms or to simply let the storms kill us. After all if God sent the storm and you prayed to have the storm stop you have made yourself a new enemy to the will of God and that is why I peronsally believe that God never sends the adversities in your life. You of course can choose to believe what you like. God Bless!

If you would like to continue reading in this series about “Understanding Hard Sayings” you may go to “Part 4“.

Posted in Bible Study, Hard Sayings, Understanding