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Is the Rapture of the Church Really Found in the Bible? Rapture Basics in Intelligent Design – Part 3

Oct 28

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.4) This is Part 3 in a series of advanced spiritual Bible lessons on the important subject of “Is the Rapture of the Church a Bible Truth”. If you have not read from the first lesson I would highly recommend that you go and start your study review with “Part 1” and then continue in succession until today’s lesson. I have been going through the steps for building a firm doctrinal foundation for the Biblical subject of rapture. In the last lesson we explored 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 to begin our discovery process to what God was teaching the early church on the subject of being “caught up”. The Greek word “harpazo” was correctly and clearly translated as “caught up” in this verse and this Greek word is just a synonymous term for the modern English word “rapture”. We further explored at least 6 historical rapture events recorded in the Bible to verify that being “caught up” was not a fictional or manmade concept but it was given to us by God as a standard pattern in the Bible starting in Genesis and going all the way to Revelation.

As we have discovered, not every historical rapture event reported in the Bible was both physical and spiritual but still every example fulfilled the pattern for the sovereign display of the power of God to take a man suddenly out of the world. Each of these recorded rapture events that I mentioned from the Bible were the divine intervention of a sovereign God that interrupted the normal course of human events for the selected few that were affected. We learned several important lessons from these examples. For example, we can clearly observe that when these events transpired, that the man selected by God was removed from the earth while all others remained on the earth to be left behind. We can further learn from the study of these men taken up that each was considered to be righteous and not evil in the sight of God. Every person recorded in the Bible that has already been raptured was a righteous man in good relationship with the almighty God. I could not find where God takes up an unrighteous man from off of the face of the earth as a historical pattern. If you know of one that I missed you are free to tell me about it. From what I have seen all those that were taken up by God had the normal course of their life suddenly and instantly translated by divine designed interruption. These are all very important patterns to apply and remember. God will not take everyone in the next scheduled rapture event either and God will only be focused upon the righteous people as is revealed in these great Bible patterns.

From the six recorded historical rapture events we have found in the Bible, three were very clear examples of living breathing men leaving the earth in complete unified body and spirit form. These three men were Enoch, Elijah and the risen from the dead Lord Jesus Christ. We of course know that Jesus going up was different from Enoch and Elijah since Jesus had tasted death first but was then resurrected back to life before He went up to heaven in Acts 1. It is important to distinguish this difference since Enoch and Elijah never tasted physical natural death and they were both taken up by God as they were walking with God like we who believe in rapture soon will be also. We further know that neither Enoch nor Elijah had any power or control over what transpired. However the Lord Jesus Christ went up under His own control and power at His own timing, but He was also God. Enoch and Elijah establish a pattern that teaches us that every living being does not necessarily have to experience natural death to be taken into the presence of God. These three divine transportations from the face of the earth prove the concept of rapture is absolutely true and more than possible beyond any doubt in my mind. We further saw two examples of spiritual transportation to heaven to view things never seen by human men and these two described experiences were Paul and Isaiah. Finally, we also saw another human man named Phillip in Acts that was transported physically and spiritually from one natural location to another natural location on the earth. All of these clear examples prove that another event just like those can occur by God’s selected design. We have not talked about the book of Revelation or any future rapture events yet but we will get there as the Bible study continues.

A FRESH LOOK AT 1 THESSALONIANS 4:16-17

1Th 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

1Th 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Today in this Bible lesson I am going to do a few things very different than in the majority of my other Bible lessons. I am going to attempt to go into more technical depth with the basic Bible rapture information found in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. I plan to give you a brand new approach for Bible study. This method will help you to see how I think about the subjects found within a Bible study. I realize that not everyone is like me and I understand that completely. We are all unique beings with differing life experiences, training, education and personalities. So while I describe to you how I study the Bible I am not saying that you must be like me or you are wrong. I hope that you keep this in mind as you read the rest of the lesson. I will not attempt to promote my Bible Study method as being superior to anything that you do. In fact after you read this lesson, please be brave to share how you study the Bible, I would love to hear about it in a comment. My primary point here is that we all just need to study the Bible and if anyone can use anything from my methods and learn from them that is really great, but if you have another method that works for you then you be led by the Spirit of God and do it that way.

I believe that many people do not generally spend enough time when studying specific verses in the Bible. I am going to focus today on 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 again to help some to learn that there is always more that we can get from reading the same verses over. In fact, most of the greatest revelations that I have received from the Spirit of God has come only after I spent significant time reading the verses over and over and over again. Sometimes after the 30^th repetition of reading it slowly again, the Words on the page would suddenly come to life in my spirit and I would see something new that I had never seen before. Even as I continue to meditate upon the verses and reread them I would again see something new that I had not seen before. I have learned that God just works like this because humans are generally spiritual dull people requiring their minds to be renewed with the truth before being able to see what God is saying in the Bible. It is also noteworthy to consider that because of the extreme intelligence of God, He is able to say significantly more in a few words than any human can say writing an entire book. Usually this mind renewal process is not a onetime read it and we got it type of miracle. Even if someone has a photographic memory and can immediately quote the verse that they just read does not mean that they understand what it said completely in their spirit. You can even teach a parrot to quote the Bible but that bird will not understand what he is saying I hope you understand these principles because they were very important points that I have learned from experience.

Let’s examine these Bible verses in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 and extract the primary stated nouns, verbs and adjectives. This is actually a very good first step in any Bible study. If you have never done this I would suggest that you put this into your study habits. It will help us to be more detailed oriented when reading and it helps us stop at each word and consider why God has placed this word within the text. Also, in doing this it will help explain how these words selected by God fit into a new way to study the Bible that I use constantly and I’ll talk more about this later. A noun is a person, place or thing and is usually tangible in nature, recognizable within the 5 sense realm, but not always. There certainly exist many intangible nouns beyond the 5 sense realm of the natural senses. A verb is a part of speech that expresses existence, action, or occurrence and it is usually connected in relationship to the stated noun part of the sentence. Finally, an adjective is a word or phrase of descriptive quality that modifies any given noun in the sentence. An adjective almost always limits the qualified scope of the noun definition by providing us with specific descriptions, attributes or qualities of the specified noun. I am going to give you a list of what I found in these two verses and I would like it if you would see if you can agree with me on these. I certainly realize that I am not a perfect man and that I do not know everything so I am open to correction if you have very strong sound evidence for your belief and understanding of the these subjects.

VERSE	ADJECTIVE	NOUN	VERB
16		Lord	Descend
16		Heaven
16		Shout
16		Voice
16		Archangel
16		Trump
16		God
16	Dead	In Christ	Rise
17		We
17	Alive	(In Christ) implied	Caught Up
17		Them
17		Clouds
17		Lord	Meet
17		Air
17		We	Be With
17		Lord

This list is certainly not every word identified in the verses, but I believe that they represent the major subjects, actions and descriptions being communicated. Being a detailed person I like to consider the words like “the”, “and”, “with”, “in” and etc., but including all of these in this study would make the lesson considerably longer. Correct Bible study involves much deeper digging beyond a simplistic one time surface reading and this is what I am attempting to demonstrate to you today. I personally believe that one of the next steps to correct Bible study is for us to look up each original language word definition in a good dictionary like “Strong”, “Thayer” or others. I have found from experience that Strong appears to be a good word definition source however I do not consider it a perfect book without errors or at least certain human bias. For example, Strong names the natural land of Israel “Palestine” in many of its definitions and I disagree with that. There has never been a nation of “Palestine” that I know of. Strong may have had a good reason for doing this, but I have not found it yet and it seems to promote the modern Palestinian view that the land of Israel does not belong to the nation of Israel. I will point out that when Dr. Strong published this book back in 1890 the nation of Israel did not technically exist until 1948 when they were again given parts of this land area and reestablished as a nation. Therefore when the concordance was published he could have viewed this land as the land of Palestine even though that nation did not exist either.

I have found 16 major nouns and some of them are used more than once like “Lord” and “we”. I have found at least 5 distinct verbs of described accomplishment or action. The adjectives are mainly two words that are describing two different types of Christians, the physically dead and the physically alive. To study this completely we would need to look up the definitions of every word in the original Greek language to insure our understanding is complete on the word’s usage and translation into English. I do this to protect the accuracy of the translation and in doing this I have discovered many mistakes that the translators have made. If you have not ever looked up the definitions of these words in a dictionary like Strong’s, I would strongly suggest that you spend the time and do it before continuing to read. I simply will not go into that level of detail on every word to keep this lesson from growing into a longer book form.

I will point out a few key words that are important in verse 16. The Greek word G2962 translated as “Lord” means the supreme one in authority and can only be a reference to Jesus Christ. Therefore Jesus is at the beginning of this described future event. The Greek word G2597 translated as “descend” means to come down and we are told the originating location for the descent by the Greek word G3772 translated as “heaven” the abode of God as one possible rendition. So far in this event we have the risen spiritual Jesus from spiritual heaven descending down towards the physical natural earth. That represents two realms of existence and a transition between them taking place. I’ll skip the “trump“, the “archangel”, the “voice” and the “shout” for now. Let’s go down to the Greek word G3498 translated as “dead” and you will find that this Greek word G3498 means a literal corpse. The next primary verb is the Greek word G450 translated as “rise” literally means to stand upright again. Thus we have Jesus coming down and the corpses arising up. These are very descriptive words and I do not understand how or why people explain them away but they do.

Let’s quickly review some of the other key words found in verse 17. The Greek word G2249 translated as “we” is just a plural form of the personal pronoun “I”. Therefore God’s usage of this word “we” represents a group of more than one. We of course are not given a number of people in this group and it could be an open ended quantity anywhere from 2 to more than we could count. Did you ever think about the term “we”? What is it that allows many separate individual people to be grouped into a single named pronoun entity? The answer to that question is they all must have something in common together or they are not a “we”. Also notice that the writer’s usage of the term “we” includes “me” the author of the letter. Paul was clearly including himself in the category by using “we” or “us” and not “them” or “they” which would have excluded Paul. Who are all of these “we” people and what is it that all these individuals in this “we” group have in common in this verse with Paul the writer? The answers to those questions are found in the adjective that follows the pronoun.

The next key word G2198 is used as an adjective description for the preceding pronoun “we” and it was translated as “alive”. G2198 literally means “to live”. Clearly we are observing the stated contrast of verse 16 the dead corpses from the living bodies of those that are described to “live” here on the earth in verse 17. Always attempt to place what you are reading in any verse within the context of the surrounding verses. This is just a general rule of sound Bible interpretation. Then notice that Paul was obviously alive when he wrote this letter, so he was including himself in this group of living and excluding himself from the group of corpses previously mentioned. However, that is still not sufficient information for us to conclude who Paul was referring to as the “we” in this sentence because of the “and” word that connects the additional point to the description. This next connected subject was the word “remain”. Who remains, who left and what does that mean? The Greek word G4035 translated as “remain” literally means those “left behind”. However this “remain” can only be clearly understood correctly within the context statement of the preceding verse. Verse 16 clearly speaks of the antithesis of those alive in verse 17. In verse 16 Paul writes about those that were not only “dead” rising but then speaks why they rise because they were also “Dead-In-Christ”. The “Dead-In-Christ” must have already departed the earth to be present with Christ Jesus or the inclusion of the word “remain” would not make any sense to have been present in the sentence. Can you begin to see how God says so much using so few words? The wisdom of God is way beyond human ability to have written this text. Notice that both verse 16 and 17 are clearly talking about two types of contrasting Christians. One Christian group has physically died and spiritually departed earth and the other Christian group is alive and remains behind on the earth.

Finally the next key verb found in verse 17 after the stated adjective and noun is the Greek verb “harpazo” that we have already looked at before and it just means in context “to be taken up by force or external divine power”. This is just not that complicated until you listen to deceived people that are trying to explain it all away using satanically inspired human reasoning. Satan attempts to use people to help others see things that are not being communicated in the verses, but the Holy Spirit will always point us to Jesus and the truth. We have just spent a very short time reviewing some of the key words found in the text, but certainly not everyone. I hope and pray that you are getting the idea of how to do this for yourself. I would much rather teach you how to fish than just give you a fish to eat in my lesson. I know I have said that before, but not everyone has read every lesson that I have published.

What should the next step in the process of correct Bible study? All of these steps are open to debate, but my next step is usually to explore the Bible for where else each word is used in the Bible? I would recommend that we need to exert effort to discover God’s usage of each of these selected words in the verses we are studying to insure that God does not redefine the word in any other verse of the Bible. I have discovered that God’s definitions are always true and man’s definitions are always wrong. Also by examining the word usage we can have a greater confidence and a more complete understanding of the entire subject being discussed. Only by examining every word usage can we be assured that what we are teaching and believing is correct. Simply by ignoring just one key verse on any subject from the Bible, that lack of information can leave us void of the complete truth omitting the key elements of the topic. I pray that you realize that many times a partial or incomplete truth is more deceptive than a complete or total lie. Not balancing every scripture on a subject will cause someone to think they believe the entire truth when they do not.

I certainly understand that the number of times any given word is used by God can make the research of the subject more complex if there are a great number of references found. For example, the Greek word G2962 which is translated as “Lord” is found in well over 600 verses of the N.T. alone. That is a bunch of verses to read for any study. However, if you have any doubts to who this “Lord” represents in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 then you need to do that study to resolve any conflicts in your mind that it can be no one else but the God/Man Jesus Christ. If after reading all 600+ verses and still not being able to confirm that this word references Jesus, then I would suggest that you get saved and get to know Him personally for yourself before you come back and study the Bible.

Some words in the Bible are used very frequently and that truly makes them challenging for us to go and read every occurrence. I suggest that if the word usage is less than 100 verses that you take the time and read them all. If it is used many more than 100 times then that is probably more time than you have to spend. I guess it depends upon your effort that you wish to devote. I have found the harder I work the more I am rewarded with finding good things that I did not know before. Take the Greek word G2597 translated as “descend” in verse 16. It is found in 80 verses of the N.T. Many times it is translated as “come down”, “came down”, “descended”, “and descending”, etc. In reading all of these verses it seems very consistent what it means and it helps us to understand the word in relation to the Lord noun being described coming down from heaven. Perhaps you do not know where heaven is stated to be in the Bible? That would be an excellent question for you to answer in your word search. You are probably not going to find the answer directly in the N.T. but it is stated clearly in the O.T. in Isaiah for example:

Isa 14:13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

We should be able to see that Satan is being revealed to make a statement about the placement of the throne of God in a realm called heaven. Satan is obviously on the earth looking up and telling God what he will do to ascend up to raise himself above all the other angels (symbolic stars). I also take it that the direction given is very relative to the direction of this throne and heaven. North is the only stated reference to a physical direction, but even this is relative to the position of the earth during the earth’s tilt and cycle around the sun. I personally believe that this is just a general direction of where heaven is revealed to be, since I have no proof for this location other than what the Bible says. Therefore, I am not going to fight over it, if you choose to disagree with what I just said. I will give you one other verse that appears to confirm what I just said about the location of heaven:

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

As you can read every direction given is where “promotion” does not originate from. Which direction is therefore implied to be the source for a human’s promotion? It is obviously from the north again. If you read the context of this verse it is clearly speaking about God’s location being the one that raises up one man and lowers another man’s position on the earth. Therefore God the judge is stated to be seated in the North. We could go into other verses, but that is not a primary part of the rapture message even though it helps to establish which direction He will be coming from.

Take the Greek word G3498 translated as “dead” in verse 16. Here is a fascinating word that can teach us a lot that is found in 123 verses of the N.T. But, interestingly enough this Greek word is consistently translated as the same English word “dead” in every single one of them. That is a tremendous rarity to find in so many translated verses. Normally a Greek word can be translated into several different English synonymous words and some of them might be a stretched application for the given verse. However, in this Greek word translation example, we can be more confident that “dead” literally means “dead”. By reading all of those other verses, you will discover that this Greek word is almost consistently used to describe the physical death of the natural body. However, that is not actually true in every word usage found in the entire New Testament. This becomes a clear example of why it is so important to read every verse to expand what this word can apply to. Take for example Matthew 8:22 where Jesus is speaking to a young man and tells him “let the dead bury their dead” when asked if it was permissible for him to go and bury his own dead father. Here we have an important revelation of two kinds of dead being described in a single verse. Since it is impossible for physically dead people to bury physically dead people Jesus had to be speaking of a new type of death and I call this the spiritually dead people in the city burying the physically dead people that have died naturally. I know this presents some brand new challenging information for you to deal with in all of your Bible study verses. However, that is what is necessary to learn when studying the Bible. What we have just observed is a very basic Bible fact that the same Greek or Hebrew word can be used to describe both a spiritual truth and a physical truth and we need to be able to determine which it is or we will be confused. That becomes a great challenge for us in rightly dividing the Word of Truth to determine which realm is being referenced in any one verse (2 Tim 2:15). We can normally do this by examining the source statement closely within the context of the surrounding verses. I hope you understand this point that I just taught you. It is a major stumbling block to many carnal Christians when they read the Bible seeing all of the words as being natural references only.

It is a good basic rule of interpretation to take the Bible literally first and then seek to understand it as being non-literal only if there is a major conflict for a literal revealed truth. Since Jesus was literally speaking about a real funeral service of a literal dead natural man, these are easy to accept as being literal interpretations and not symbolic references. However, when Jesus tells the young man to let the dead bury his father, this departs from natural logic and can only be a symbolic spiritual reference to people that are clearly implied not to be like Jesus or the disciple. This is one of those types of verses that one needs to see what is implied but not directly stated. Jesus did not volunteer to go and help bury the dead father, Jesus is implying that he is not dead physically or spiritually. Since Jesus did not tell the young disciple to go bury his father, Jesus was implying this man was not dead physically or spiritually. These are just very basic ways to look at scriptures correctly dividing spiritual things from natural things to understand what was being stated. I truly hope that you understand this concept because this will be repeated in so many other verses and subjects of the Bible.

I’m not going to go through every word in these two verses, but I will go through one more as an example of what we should be looking for. The Greek word G3507 translated as clouds in verse 17 is only found in only 22 other N.T. scriptures. That is a very manageable number of verses to go and read them all slowly and in-depth. I have discovered that sometimes the fewer the verses a word is used in the more likely they are to all be linked together for a greater divine purpose. This Greek word literally means cloudiness or a cloud and it is translated this way consistently in every example verse that contains it. It can be either singular or plural but that is really not that important. I personally believe that almost every one of these verses has something to do with the rapture but I do not have the time in this lesson to expand upon them. We will get to as many of them as we can in future lessons as I am led.

If you have not done this research with all of these words, I would suggest that you stop reading now and using your Bible search program go look up and read every verse with every word being used in these verses. It would take me a great deal of writing to do that, so I will allow you to do it on your own and if you have any questions or comments with what you find, you are more than welcome to add them at the end of this lesson as a comment or question and I will attempt to respond as quickly as possible. Keep in mind my list of nouns, verbs and adjectives because I will be referring to these as I continue with a new perspective on Bible study. Let me quickly review a list of my basic Bible study steps.

List every significant word and designate it to be a Noun, Verb, or Adjective.
Using a dictionary look up the words found in the original languages to insure your understanding.
Search for every occurrence of every word in a verse and read and study them to see how they fit into the entire subject being studied.

BASIC BIBLE RAPTURE CONCEPTS FOUND IN INTELLIGENT DESIGN

I am going to attempt to reveal how a former computer programmer logically thinks in simple black and white terms while observing the intelligent design found within the complex system of information found within the written Word of God. I believe that God is the author of the entire Bible and that it was written down in 66 different books in a period of time over 1500+ years by 4o different prophets of God. I further believe that God is supreme in all wisdom, knowledge and understanding. I also believe that God is an omnipotent eternal Spirit. Therefore I believe that the Bible contains the superior thoughts, actions, words and descriptions spoken by the superior knowledge, wisdom and understanding of the supreme Spirit of God. Perhaps you have never thought of the Bible as being a very large complex system of divinely designed information. However the existence today of hundreds and even thousands of church denominations in the world prove that few in the church agree with God on what the truth actually is in the Bible. Did you notice how I phrased that last statement? I did not say many do not agree with me or you or any other human opinion. I said many do not agree with God. Only God is true and everyone else is just potentially ignorant or confused.

The Bible is a book containing easily read natural plain text word data but still not very many can agree with what these simple words actually mean. Why is that? I believe that this failure to agree is largely based upon man’s introduction of their own “Human Opinion” or as it is referred to in the Bible, man’s “Private Interpretations” (2 Peter 1:20). Private interpretations are defined as “Self” defined meanings completely separate from God’s intended purpose. Ever since the Bible was created this has been man’s greatest weakness of not knowing the truth. What Christians do not realize is that within the plain text words of historical accounts, genealogies, laws, commandments and instructions are found hidden threads of complex spiritual truths about a spiritual world that we have never seen or experienced fully yet. The Bible contains such great detailed hidden spiritual information about this reality, but the carnal mind will never be able to see it or understand it while reading the Bible. Most of the spiritual meaning is cloaked or covered beneath layers of parables, symbolism, allegorical content, Biblical typologies and many other methods that God uses to hide the information from plain natural view. Becoming spiritually “born-again” is the beginning to the process of obtaining the spiritual eyes to grow in mature spiritual “understanding” of the truth of God.

I want to ask you, do you believe that the Bible is a divinely created “Complex System” of information? I guess the answer to that question should rest upon the definition of what a complex system represents. So I’ll change the question to, what exactly is a “Complex System” and how should it be defined? I believe that if you live in this world you are surrounded by a countless number of manmade and God created “complex systems”. Whether God created or man created the complex system each has the same patterned characteristics. Perhaps you have never thought about these concepts before and how they relate to the Bible. We are surrounded by complex systems still there are a wide number of varying opinions to what a complex system represents and how it should be defined. Rather than give you all of those varying opinions, I’m going to just stick with my viewpoint and tell you what I think about the subject based upon my experience and observation as a former computer professional. I normally do not give out my opinion on things but I am going to make an exception for this discussion today. You see by me giving you my opinion I am violating one of the main rules of Bible interpretation that teaches us we should not “privately interpret” anything. I do hope that you understand that every opinion is nothing but a personal theory which is just another phrase for a private interpretation based upon ignorance of the subject under discussion. However, since I have had vast experience with large scale computer system design and construction since the 1970’s, I feel that I am a bit more qualified to give an expert opinion on the subject than many others. Please extend me some patience as I attempt to expound through a complicated subject.

Let’s start by looking up the antonym for the word complex. If you do this you will find that the opposite of “complex” is the term “simple”. By far the Bible is not a simple book. Yes, the Bible has some simple statements in it, but I would strongly suggest that you go and read the books of Revelation and Daniel and find out how many mysteries you encounter on every page that cause you to scratch your head. I find nothing simple about either one of these books. There are so many Bible teachers teaching a completely different message from them that it is truly ridiculous. I have concluded that the Bible cannot be considered a simple book and if you have read all of my other Bible lessons you should easily agree with me. Let’s then examine the synonyms of the term “complex” and learn from those. According to the thesaurus the term “complex” has some of the following synonyms:

Multifaceted
Compound
Composite
Multipart
Intricate
Multilayered
Many-sided

Wow, I really believe these words describe the Bible very accurately. Think about what they say and then attempt to apply them to what you know about the Bible. Now permit me to define the term “system”:

sys·tem/ˈsistəm/

Noun:

A set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole, in particular.
A set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network.

We can learn a lot by reviewing word definitions. The term “system” implies something that is complex by definition. The term “system” means that which is found to be in multi-parts. Is that the Bible? The Bible is 66 separate books written by 40 different humans. Therefore this information alone causes the Bible to be a system of information. A system is a set of connected things and the Bible is definitely a set of connected books. A system is a set of lesser components that comprise a more complex whole purpose and this also describes the Bible precisely. For example how many subjects are mentioned in this book? There are so many different subjects that it would be very challenging and complex to attempt to list them all. . That makes this book a clear complex system of different components of information designed designed by an intelligent author to teach us. I really pray that you are beginning to see this already, but I’m going to go into it in more detail to help you..

Based upon my personal experience as a computer system operator, programmer and designer, I believe that a complex system is first any observable set of components that were created by an external intelligent source of thought, design and construction. I further see that every complex system is created for a very specific given purpose. No useful complex system exists today in the world apart from external intelligent interaction and purpose. Did you hear what I said? I will probably get some disagreement from some potentially deceived individuals, but since they cannot provide any proof for spontaneous intelligent design construction by random chance, I will stick with what the Bible says about God creating everything that we can see. You see “spontaneous design construction” or as some ignorant people call it “evolution” cannot possibly occur. Evolution is increased complexity that had to come from a much less-complex set of random components without any intelligent design to assist. This belief in evolution violates the second known law of Thermodynamics. This law teaches us that everything around us is in a state of decay which is the reverse or antithesis of the addition of a force and intelligence necessary to form it, cause it to be or make it become complex. The second law of thermodynamics is a study of entropy. Entropy is the measure of the degree of randomness or disorder of a given system. What that teaches is that a complex system is anything that is more ordered than it is random. We could also say that a complex system is anything with a much greater degree of non-randomness by external intelligent design influence.

Ok, so the laws of thermodynamics just gave us a pretty good introduction to what a complex system represents. From that I believe I will give you my definition for a system in the relationship to a book like the Bible. The Bible would represent a complex system because it contains a collection of intelligent non-random words with organized designed purpose for every part to contribute to the greater complex whole. In other words since the Bible is not random word patterns on a page and can be used easily by any person with a basic education, it is a system of related parts of information and by definition a system. Let me give you these points one more time:

The Bible exists only because of externally influenced higher intelligence
The Bible is not a random collection of unrelated words
The Bible was written in distinct parts
Every Word of the Bible has a specific designed purpose
Within the books of the Bible is contained many multiple layers, parts, subjects, etc.

The substance, laws and organizational non-random structure found in our own universe did not suddenly appear from nothing as many ignorant college professors and school teaches would like us to believe. The organization of a system from chaos or randomness would violate the laws of thermodynamics. Just the existence of a vast expanding universe proves beyond any reasonable doubt that someone of greater ability external to this known system caused it to exist here. This simply states that a designed system with rules and laws cannot create itself nor could any force within the system have created the system. Randomness never creates non-randomness. Dis-order never creates order. This is really not that complicated, but so many get it easily mixed up with people’s words that are trying to deceive you. The existence of a complex system simply means someone external to the system was the source of origination.

The universe is very much like a modern computer system. A computer system is a complex machine with many organized laws, components and structured building blocks that all work together to fulfill a greater plan and purpose. The existence of a working computer system proves the existence of an external computer designer, a computer builder and a computer programmer that cannot be found to be physically present within the computer system. No one with any intelligence would look at a computer and believe that it just evolved into being present on the earth. Therefore, since I believe that the universe was created by God and if the Bible was also originated from this same God as is declared (2 Tim 3:16), then I believe that the Bible qualifies to potentially be another complex system of recorded information created by the same external greater intelligence. The existence of one complex universe system pattern helps to establish the existence of another complex Bible system pattern.

I believe that the size of a system plays a major role in the complexity of the system. From what I have observed the larger the system is, usually the greater the complexity of the system. Let’s go back to the universe system example created by God. The universe is such a vast complex system that it can only be imagined to its total size, its full content, its type of individual components, its understood composition, its total mass and its actual past point of origination. Scientists are still today constantly discovering new facts concerning the known parts of the universe surrounding us. In my humble opinion based upon just the size of our universe alone we all need to open our eyes to embrace the existence of a much greater intelligent creator being. Many agnostics and atheists will reason against me, but I still stand with that belief since I have personally come to know Him for myself.

I think I will expand the definition of size and help you to see that not all created systems need to be light years in expanse in order to be complex. The system can still be considered complex depending upon the number of components and sub-systems discovered in the system. You see I view the human body to be a very complex system within itself. Within this one system of very measurable size and weight are smaller immeasurable components called cells. There can be millions, billions and even trillions of cells within the many parts of the human body. Many have estimated somewhere between 5 and 50 trillion cells in the human body. Wow, that makes our bodies a very complex system all by our self. Take the human body system and underneath this main system there are many sub-components containing subordinate systems and objects with each being made from individual cells. For example we have the neurological sub-system object, the respiration sub-system object, the digestive sub-system object, the circulatory sub-system object and on and on I could go. Each sub-system can have further divisions of several layers of individual object components, like the heart, lung, kidney, stomach, etc. The level of complexity can get very great. We could transverse the entire human body system all the way down to the individual cell level, molecular level and even add in the very complex DNA system object components that are a complex system by themselves. The existence of the human body system objects with so many interacting sub-object components working together for the single greater purpose and good of the whole object represents external intelligent design. Truly the human body system is an ordered arrangement of functioning designed components and systems. Any complex system lacking non-randomness or chaos is a very strong indicator of intelligent design and this proves the existence of a greater intelligent designer. Of course I am referring to God as the design engineer and creator for the human body object.

I have just introduced you to another factor for the definition of a complex system. A complex system has other dependent subordinate complex systems within it. Systems within systems, systems depending upon other systems and all working together for a greater purpose, how can we even get our minds around all of this? Maybe you do not understand this statement yet. Let’s examine the created universe system again. If the universe is a complete complex system as I believe it is, how many other systems also exist within this system and would our universe still exist in the same form without every single one of these being present? I told you I was going to get really deep in this Bible study to cause you to think today. One basic rule of intelligent system design is that the designer never adds anything that is unnecessary for the completion of the whole given purpose. In other words what I am teaching is that in any well designed system every given observable component has a specific purpose even if that purpose is not fully disclosed or known. The universe system can be divided into a multitude of galaxy systems and the galaxy systems can be further divided into a multitude of solar systems. The earth resides within the Milky Way Galaxy system. The sun that the earth revolves around is just one star of around 20 billion others in our galaxy alone. Therefore, scientists generally do not have a clue to how many galaxies exist in our universe since they do not even know how many total stars there are in our single galaxy. Wow, is that cool or what? God created such a great place for us to exist in.

Our planet’s solar system is just one complex sub-system found within the greater universe system. Let me ask you this question and I want you to really think about it. If our solar system did not exist would the universe still exist in the same form and for the same purpose? I do not believe that it would. Let’s shift back to the computer system example that I was talking about previously. Any large scale modern computer system is comprised of many designed dependent sub-system components. Every sub-system component is essential to the entire process or it would not have been included in the design. Many of these sub-system components are so critical to the whole process that the designers have built in a factor called redundancy. Redundancy just means if one critical part of the sub-system fails another part of the sub-system takes over until the whole sub-system can be repaired to full working redundant capacity. The existence of redundancy within many critical computer systems proves that the omission of any single sub-system causes the design of the whole system to fail. Thus the failure or elimination of even one sub-system without redundancy will be catastrophic for the working of the whole greater process of the system. If you think a manmade computer system is different than a God designed complex system of the universe you are a very deceived individual. Man was created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26) and what God does a man can only do on a smaller scale. There is nothing new under the sun.

In any complex system in order to begin to understand it, one must be able to break down the whole information into lesser manageable components and sub-components. Many times people get the complex Bible truths mixed up because they are missing the basic spiritual fundamental details that are spread out in specialized hidden designed formats in the Bible. Any complex system with intelligent design should contain the ability to be analyzed and broken down into smaller manageable pieces that first need to be understood. By understanding the smaller core pieces and parts we can more quickly learn about the more complex interactive purposes and parts of the entire system. What I am trying to teach is that there are methods to learning the Bible and that these methods conform to known modern intelligent design procedures. I am talking about a basic of life concept found all around us.

For example in order to correctly fix an automobile you better understand how it was built. An automobile is a complex system with many dependent lesser complex systems working together to get the user to a desired location. The automobile system has a cooling system, a power system, an electrical system, a transmission system, a braking system, an air conditioning system and many others. In the car example the failure of the AC system will not stop the car from functioning. This is a bit of a departure from what I said earlier. However without an AC system the driver might die if they are going through a desert in the summer. If any system of a car fails, someone needs to know what they are doing and how it works in order to fix it. If you don’t believe me go and take apart your car’s transmission and see if it will ever work again. God wrote the Bible using defined intelligent design principles and if we are to understand these words we must approach studying the Bible with the same level of intelligent analysis methods.

I am going to conclude this Bible lesson with a very deep application of mathematics and computer concepts and how they relate to the Bible. If you are not into either one of these subjects this discussion might be less interesting to you because of the new level of complexity that I am introducing into an already complex subject. I believe that God created these concepts such as math and computers for us to learn, use and to apply. Every part of creation has a purpose just as every word of God has purpose. Math and computers are certainly a part of God’s creation so they have a purpose whether you understand them right now or not. Even if you have never studied these subjects you might just derive some added benefits if you attempt to learn some of the basics concepts for what they mean.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, I introduced you to a new concept based upon the laws of mathematical sets but I never revealed to you why I was giving it any significant emphasis. I am going to continue to reveal my behind the scene logical thought process for what I was teaching in the first two lessons. Let me give you a quick definition for a mathematical set. A mathematical set is a grouping of related well-defined but distinct individual objects with common characteristics or features. A set is a very similar concept to the definition of a system in many regards. An object is either an abstract or tangible “noun” that can be practically anything that is perceivable or observable. If you noticed, I just connected us back into the discussion the subject of “nouns” that we listed at the beginning of this lesson. A tangible object noun is like a man, a city, a tree, an animal, a fork, a car, or whatever. An abstract object noun is like an idea, a thought, a spirit, or an emotion, etc. An intangible object is anything that is not perceived by the five natural senses and this is why I included the noun spirit. However, a spirit can also manifest and be seen or felt within the natural realm as is recorded in the Bible. In those instances the intangible spirit becomes a tangible object.

From my list of nouns in 1 Thessalonians most can be considered tangible objects. God and Lord of course are generally intangible since no one can prove His existence with their physical senses. Of this list of given nouns, how many are qualified to be sets or groups of related individuals or things? That is probably a new complex question to think about? Hopefully you can see that “we”, “them”, “the dead in Christ”, “the alive in Christ” and the “clouds” are all words that have both plurality and commonality. Thus these nouns being more than one yet can be referenced with a single noun, qualifies the group to be a mathematical set by definition. Do worry, not every Bible study that I do will contain this level of detail. So do not get discouraged if you are having any trouble following it. Do the best you can and learn what you can and more understanding will eventually come.

Both intangible and tangible objects can be grouped together into a single named defined set based upon any known and well-defined relationship or characteristic. For example, a group or set of related objects would be like a set of universal cars or automobiles. This universal set might include every automobile ever created if so defined. Each automobile in the set can be a unique object (noun) alone but they can also be grouped together into a new greater set because they share many common characteristics and features becoming a new named object (noun) maybe called “Universal Automobiles”. That brings up a new set consideration called sub-sets. A sub-set is just a smaller more well defined set of the larger more general set of car objects. That brings us into the world of “adjectives”, doesn’t it? An adjective is nothing but a further subset limitation (division) of a larger defined noun set. For example we can have a “Universal Automobile” subset of just “Toyota Automobiles” because all of the cars in this subgroup were manufactured by Toyota and share that common trait. What if we created a subset called “Red Automobiles”? Uh oh that brings a new wrinkle into the discussion that gets more complex. Red Automobiles now cross over into every car manufacturer including “Toyota Automobiles”. Therefore a Red Toyota Automobile is a common member of both sets. This is where multiple subsets can potentially overlap each other and share common objects. A single named object just might be found in common with multiple subsets and we need to at least be aware of this possibility when we read and study the Bible. Do you understand sets yet? Many have learned this in school and probably just consider this a minor review. But, it gets more complicated than that simplistic introduction.

Let me review a few of these set laws that I have been going over very rapidly. Each unique member object in a defined set will either be a totally separate noun object or another new subordinate subset object. Every member object in a set or a subset is joined by the selected well-defined noun description or adjective qualifier commonality. As long as this is true each member object can be legally included and named as one object in the set or subset. However it is very important to note that one defined object does not exist multiple times in any one single set. Also one member object does not exist in two different opposing separate sets. For example, being in the “In-Christ” set is one of the common bonds that join every Christian that is saved together by God’s set definition. Perhaps I did not give you enough scriptural information on Christians being in God’s set called “In-Christ”. There are repeated scriptures written to the church that clearly state this fact. This phrase “In-Christ” occurs around 27 times in the book of Ephesians alone. But I will give you a few good examples to help establish the truth in your mind:

Rom 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Rom 12:5 So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

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

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

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.

I am not going to go through every verse and explain them. Nor am I going to attempt to give you every verse that says we (the church) are all in this mathematical set called those “In-Christ”. However, I just listed some key verses that I felt were applicable to the topic discussion. For example, look at the first verse found in Romans 8:2. This verse declares a new spiritual law of life that opposes the old law of sin and death. In effect God is revealing two sets of opposition. I believe that these are those in Christ verses those out of Christ. Then notice how in Romans 12:5 and Galatians 3:28 that Paul is clearly stating that we as many separate individuals are now referenced to be one “In-Christ”. Those were mathematical set laws being stated whether you presently understand them or not. Many times in the Bible God will say some of the most profound things in passing without any given explanation to what was just said. I hope that you can see the stated fact that all Christians today are in the God defined set called “IN-CHRIST”.

Let us consider that there are multiple defined sets in existence in the Bible. I personally believe that any plural noun reference in the Bible is a defined set. We certainly all know that the O.T. nation of Israel is a predominate set of people described intimately in the Bible. This set of people excludes every other person not of this natural nation. Therefore the people not in this natural nation of Israel were another set called “Gentile”. One set was in covenant with God and the other set was not. If the saved church is now defined by God to be in the “In-Christ” set, where were we found to be before we were added to this new group? Uh oh, maybe you have never thought this way before? Theoretically we could have been in no other set but I rather believe that we were in either the set called “Gentile” or “Israel” which included everyone. I personally believe that everyone in the world is in a defined set found within the Bible. Determining the set is another new complex study. However, I just alluded to this fact in the last paragraph when I reviewed Romans 8:2. I believe that those now found “In-Christ” came from an unstated set of those that were “Out-Christ”. Don’t start picking up any stones to throw at me yet, I’m not done.

You must understand that if God can name and define one set that there is no limit to the number of defined sets that God can use for His purpose. Please allow me to introduce you to a new important concept. There is a very popular law of Bible interpretation that I call the “Law of Antithesis”. This law states for every directly named truth in the Bible there exists an opposite truth position by unstated implied antithesis. It is very much like reading about the subject of light and knowing that the opposite of light is the absence of light and that this is called darkness even if it was never directly mentioned or referenced in the verse it still exists somewhere. In other words what was stated as truth for light in the verse, the opposite is implied to be truth for the unstated antithesis darkness. Do you understand opposites? In our current world there will always be opposing forces; evil opposing good, death opposing life, darkness opposing light, drought opposing rain, storms opposing calm and we could go on and on. This antithesis fact came as a result of the choice that Adam made in Genesis 3 when he allowed the evil to enter the world after God had created everything in a state of being called “very good” and warned Adam not to do it. Notice what God created as a set of “very good” and from what Adam chose a new set called ‘evil” entered into the world of good.

Antithesis truths are a very common binary computer concept. Every computer in the world is a binary machine. What is a binary machine? A binary machine is one where the basic most simplistic unit of definition can only be one of two states of opposite. The lowest and simplest form of every computer device is called a “bit” unit. A bit is the rudimentary binary computer element that is assigned either one of two opposing force settings. A bit is either defined as a 1 (one) or as a 0 (zero) thus a computer is called a binary machine. However, modern computers are comprised of millions, billions and even trillions of these single bit binary units. These simple single bits can be combined and grouped together to form larger and more complex number concepts and objects such as bytes, words, double words, etc. However the basis of every computer is still a simple solitary unit of either one or zero. Combining multiple bits only facilitates larger binary numbers to be formed. For example, an 8 bit binary number can be anywhere from 0000000 to 11111111. These represent the numbers from 0 to 255. In order to make larger numbers you must add more bits for more 1’s and 0’s. This binary concept corresponds to a simple toggle switch that can be turned on or shut off. Therefore, a bit is nothing but a binary electronic switch. The laws of antithesis and computer binary concepts are very prominently featured within God’s intelligent Bible design. Keep this information in your mind as we continue to study the subject.

In this discussion a mathematical set consisting of many individual objects can also be considered a complete self-contained object within itself as I alluded to earlier when discussing the set “In-Christ”. Therefore using mathematical set concepts we have an important idea of many individuals being viewed as a collective named one. The many being named as a one is another very popular concept found throughout the Bible and I pray that you are beginning to understand it. The nation of Israel was many people but only one named wife to God in the Old Covenant. The church of the risen Jesus Christ is also many people but still one named bride in the New Covenant.

I am taking these well-known mathematical facts and transferring them into my Bible study. For example I taught you about the existence of the mathematical set of saved believers that God called those “IN-CHRIST”. Every individual believer when they believed and accepted Jesus into their hearts to make Him their personal Lord and Savior enters into this common single object group having left their previous unnamed antithesis object group. This set transformation is a single individual exiting or departing from a former set of many entering into as a new individual a new many set called “In-Christ”. What I just described is God’s definition of marriage if you did not put that together yet. When a man marries a woman, they both leave their former family sets to be joined together to become a new family set that never existed before and God defined them to be a new one (Genesis 2:24). It is critical that you understand this simple but profound information. Do you recall that I gave you 2 Corinthians 5:7 in my list of “In-Christ” verses? What did that verse say? It said if any man be “In-Christ” he is a new creature and the old things have passed away. That verse teaches us set transition is possible with God. We can leave the old set and become a member of a new set that never existed before called “In-Christ”.

By the defined existence of the saved group called those “IN-CHRIST” God has indirectly implied the presence of another unstated antithesis group of unsaved people in the world that we could call those “NOT-IN-CHRIST” or the “OUT-CHRIST” object group or set. I hope you understand the concept for Biblical antithesis truths by now. God teaches us by using a named noun set that there is a limitation to the scope of the objects in the named set. If it was as the Universal Salvationist’s try to teach us that all will be saved, God would not have needed to create a named set called those “In-Christ” that excludes those that do not qualify. No, I’m going to say this one more time that the existence of those that are “IN-CHRIST” clearly reveal the existence of those that are “NOT-IN-CHRIST”. Jesus taught us these unstated concepts of set truths repeatedly in the Gospels using the wide path and narrow path example, the sheep and goat example and the wheat and the tare example. All of these were single named symbolic sets with two opposing sets of many individual member objects. Every parable mentioned was a binary teaching concept where only two states of existence persist. Therefore sets and binary concepts are a prevalent themed subject in the Bible even if you never thought of them in these terms before.

I taught you previously that underneath this common set called those “IN-CHRIST” are two separate divinely defined sub-sets that I will call the “DEAD-IN-CHRIST” and the “ALIVE-IN-CHRIST”. As you recall any set of collected objects can be sub-divided into further defined object groupings based upon selected and further defined commonalities. In this case being dead or alive physically determines which sub-set you are currently in and if you are reading this lesson I will tell you that you are in the “alive” sub-set. This is a major component to what God is teaching in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. Try to understand how I arrived at the existence of these sets and then consider the existence of the antithesis set “OUT-CHRIST”. Logically speaking, if the “ALIVE” and “DEAD” subsets exist within the “IN-CHRIST” set then the same must also exist in the “OUT-CHRIST” set. These are all new concepts for you to grasp today. All of these concepts conform to the mathematical laws created by God and are easily recognizable when you apply the laws logically to the scriptures. If you do not understand basic Algebra, Geometry and math concepts you probably do not understand much about how I arrived at these conclusions. Let me give you a quick picture diagram of these concepts that I have just given to you.

I probably do not have many readers that really understand computers and especially object oriented programming (OOP) concepts but I do know that I have a few that read my lessons that do. This diagram shows a hierarchy of related objects. OOP is not something that is required to understand the Bible but I have found that it is a good subject to know if you can grasp the complex ideas. You see in modern computer programming there is a similar concept like math sets and sub-sets called objects. An object in computer programming is a thing that performs a related set of defined tasks for the greater purpose of the system. We’re back to talking about systems again. I am still linking together all of the concepts using related titles and named entities to teach how these concepts overlap. You see we are again speaking about one complex system within another greater complex system. The computer that a program is running on is just one greater complex system and the application sub-system designed to do the corporate accounting runs beneath the computer system.

If you were programming a banking system in OOP, an object might be a single customer of the bank, or even one account of the customer of the bank or any other related defined banking noun. Generally speaking programming objects are always nouns that have verb activities associated with them called methods or actions. For example any customer object can change their address, create a new account, make a deposit, make a withdrawal, make a payment or perform any other normal banking activity. These are all verb actions performed by a banking object noun. An object can also possess defined attributes. A defined attribute is just like a descriptive adjective. It is interesting to note than almost any adjective can also be a noun. For example, a banking customer object will probably contain their name and address information as well as their date of birth, sex, tax ID and other pertinent personal identifying information. Attributes of an object clearly identify the object and make it unique from other types of the same object. I just tied into the discussion OOP the round trip with the beginning noun, verbs and adjectives from 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. Can you see how all of these concepts are coming together yet? We have gone from systems, to sets and now to objects and each possess the same characteristics and basic features.

So with every associated programming object we have a unique noun named entity that can perform specific things and be described with details that cause them to be unique from all other similar noun objects in the set. I’m not sure how detailed I should get with this but I will teach you about another OOP concept called a class. Every computer object is created from a class that is used to define the object its features and its designed actions. While every object of the same type can be unique they are generally all created from the same class definition. Therefore a “class” is nothing but a blue-print pattern used to create the unique noun object. Wow, that is a God kind of realization if I’ve ever heard of one. Patterns are a basic truth found in every part of the Bible. Objects being created from class patterns are another basic reality found in every part of the Bible. What I am doing is teaching you of the existence of God’s intelligent design concepts found in His Word using naturally created patterns found all around us.

One more complex concept found In OOP is that one object can inherit characteristics and features from another object’s class. For example, a cell is a common human body object that is shared within almost every human component or object. Therefore in the human body system we could have a basic cell object that every other system objects inherits from. The complexity of object definition, object commonalities and object interaction can get very complex especially in a very large system like the human body. Why am I teaching computer programming concepts and methods? It is primarily because I see these complex concepts repeated by God in the Bible. I am praying that you can see how your Bible is a very large complex system containing both antithesis and related word objects that I will call God’s Bible subjects. These subjects have defined attributes, characteristics and limitations that I call “adjectives”. These God given defined Bible subjects also can perform certain designed actions that I will call “verbs”. All of these interact together with each other in a highly complex intelligent designed manner to achieve the greater message purpose revealed in the Holy Bible. This is one of the central features of the Bible that makes it unlike any other created book ever conceived or written by a human. It clearly demonstrates the characteristics of extreme intelligent design beyond the human capability to produce or even fully understand and when you see it, it proves the existence of a very intelligent author.

Let’s talk about the Bible object (subject) called man (Hebrew word H120 in the Strong’s). I of course am using this term man to include both natural males and females in a generic object I could call “Mankind”. Under this object type we could sub divide it into two specialized object types called the male and the female objects using the naturalistic perspective view. Here is where I want to emphasize a change in your Bible perspective to include the spiritual viewpoint. When you read the Bible looking at only the words from a natural perspective you will find only natural truths being communicated. The spiritual truths are generally found within the same verses but deeper within the text than on the surface. Perhaps you do not understand how one verse can project multiple or simultaneous messages. If you do not understand this then you have probably not read and studied the Bible for very long. I can read a verse that I have read for hundreds of times and suddenly in my spirit I see something that I had never observed before and the meaning is suddenly very clear now. Explaining how you missed it before is a total mystery to most Christians. What happened to cause this? How can one person see something in a verse that the other person reading the same words cannot see? The answer to those questions is called God’s revelation or revealing of the words so that someone can finally see what was written there on the page from the beginning. This fact is the main reason why God had to “reveal” the Old Testament to Paul and the other disciples even though they had read or heard the words all of their lives. The New Testament has many, many quoted Old Testament verses with God’s explanations of what they finally mean. One of my greatest frustrations is when people quote me Old Testament verses and they have not researched the New Testament information that explains them. I run into this more often than I would like to admit. When I try to tell them what the New Testament says, they close their spiritual eyes and refuse to be open to what God is saying. The only thing that I can do after that is pray for them like Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus in chapter 1 of Ephesians. Paul prayed for God to open their spiritual eyes of their understanding. Go read this prayer and find out that Paul asked God to give them the revelation of Jesus Christ. “Revelation” is God uncovering the words on the page so that they can be finally clearly understood. If you have not prayed that for yourself, then do it!

Instead of a natural viewpoint let’s change the human object type “Mankind” into defined spiritual sub-divisions like I did in the previous diagram. When confronted with Bible subjects I prefer to look at things from a spiritual God perspective first rather than from a natural human perspective. We should understand that God is a Spirit and that God is the author. When we try to look at the words from the perspective of how God looks at the words I believe that we come closer to seeing the truth. There are probably not very many Bible teachers that would agree with me since so many are carnally minded. One spiritual sub-division or object type of man would be the “IN-CHRIST” saved type of man. We can clearly see from the Bible that not every human is in this defined object noun set. This only leaves those that are not saved in the “NOT-IN-CHRIST” object type category. Both the “IN-CHRIST” and the “NOT-IN-CHRIST” objects can inherit common characteristics and features from the greater “Mankind” object or class pattern. However each new object type can also implement new individual characteristics or properties that are only common and in effect with the other named object types that are derived from this same object class pattern. For example the “IN-CHRIST” object will be defined with a “SAVED” property and the “OUT-CHRIST” object will be defined to have a “LOST” property. You just never know what you might learn when you read my Bible studies. I try not to get this deep in most of my lessons but sometimes I believe that is just good for me to make you think outside of your box.

If we take this object lesson up the ladder from the “Mankind” object this human object that was created by God will inherit all of their spiritual characteristics from their creator class according to Genesis 1:26. Mankind made in the image and likeness of God causes the man object class to inherit from the greater spiritual God object class but the spiritual God object class inherits from no one else being supreme. That is until the Jesus Object class comes along and He inherited from both the God object class and the Adam/Man object class equally to become a new God Man. I really believe I shock people sometimes because they do not think when they read the Bible. Only Jesus was 100% God and 100% man. Only Jesus called himself the Son of God and the Son of Man. Only Jesus was a unique product of the naturally created and the divinely spiritual. Only Jesus was qualified to save us by inheriting from two separate opposing natures. If you disagree with what I have said you are free to be wrong and I will not argue with you.

Ok let’s move down below the “IN-CHRIST” object in the linked diagram. We learned in 1 Thessalonians 14 that the IN-CHRIST object has been sub-divided by God into 2 binary antithesis subsets. These two were the “DEAD-IN-CHRIST” and the “ALIVE-IN-CHRIST” and both of these are unique qualifications that allow each to be treated differently by God at the rapture event. Both of these object groups inherit common characteristics from the greater “IN-CHRIST” saved object type which inherits from the greater “Man” object class which inherits from the greatest “God” object class. Understand the basic quality of the two groups of “DEAD” or “ALIVE” are speaking of the physical natural death or life respectively and not a spiritual feature. The “In-Christ” object must contain the quality of spiritual eternal life already based upon what Jesus taught in John 3:15 that whosoever believes upon Him would not perish but have eternal life. Right there Jesus is speaking about all those that are either physically alive or physically dead that believe in Him will have spiritual eternal life. Therefore placing the verse in the proper context will align the words with those found in the saved “In-Christ” class. It further goes on in John 3:15 and states that those that do not believe are those that “perish” and again this is a universal quality reserved for the “OUT-CHRIST” class of objects beings. This is not good news for these people.

Let’s discuss in more detail the differences between the “DEAD-IN-CHRIST” and the “ALIVE-IN-CHRIST” objects. The “DEAD-IN-CHRIST” objects must have a change of classification with the departure or the separation from their natural physical bodies. The “ALIVE-IN-CHRIST” objects are still physically here on the earth and they remain present in their physical bodies. The “DEAD-IN-CHRIST” objects have experienced natural death while the “ALIVE-IN-CHRIST” object types have not. Once the naturally dead Christian departs they cannot die physically again. Also both subsets are spiritually alive but one is in the body while the other is not in their body. Using basic logic I have concluded that these two object types must also exist under the “OUT-CHRIST” object. This is not rocket science we know saved and unsaved people both physically die by the story that Jesus taught in Luke 16. However the departure from the body of the unsaved object will result in a much different location change to that of hell and not heaven like the “DEAD-IN-CHRIST”. It is also interesting to note that the “ALIVE-OUT-CHRSIT” object types still can get saved and be changed to become an “IN-CHRIST” object and this results in a different future destiny completely. The “DEAD-OUT-CHRIST” objects do not have any further opportunity to be saved once present in hell. Maybe you can see why I like computer programming and why I can see things like this in the Bible. If not don’t get upset at me, just keep learning whatever you can accept. There are many other more complex things built into object oriented programming but I will not get into any of this in any more depth so that I do not totally bore anyone else that does not understand the importance.

Why have I spent so much time describing noun, verbs, adjectives, systems, sets and objects? I use these complex realities whenever I study the Bible. I read a verse and I analyze the words and then ask what are the objects given by God in this verse? I then think why does this object exist? Where did this object come from? What does this object represent? Does this object inherit any characteristics or features from any other Bible object? Is this object a set or sub-set? Does this object fit any known patterns in other verses of the Bible? How does this Bible object differ from other Bible objects? What features are presently in common and which features are unique? Also remember that an object is just one member in a set. How did the set get created? How do members come to exist in that set and what are the benefits or pitfalls of being a member of that set? We could finally determine, does this object have an antithesis related object? So many questions to ask and I just really broke the surface of them all.

According to 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, rapture is a select activity performed by God which is reserved for a well-defined subset of objects within the greater set of all human beings. In order to qualify for rapture described in these verses the individual must be found in the given set that will meet the requirements. This teaches us that those not raptured are excluded from the event being described. From the 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 information we are given only one very specific set that qualifies for rapture in the description. This set that qualified for the rapture was the “ALIVE-IN-CHRIST” believers and it excluded everyone else. Everyone else not raptured were in the sets called the “DEAD-IN-CHRIST” and all members in the “OUT-CHRIST” set. The “DEAD-IN-CHRIST” did rise bodily but since their spirits were already present in heaven they do not qualify for rapture (harpazo). Please notice in these verses that there is no mention of those outside of the set of “ALIVE-IN-CHRIST” being taken up and off of the earth at this timed scheduled event. That is a very important detail to consider. Learn from what the Bible says and then apply correctly what it does not say also. Selective and exclusionary rapture is a pre-established pattern found in the Bible found in the lives of Enoch, Elijah and Jesus. These were all taken up and all of the others on the earth were left behind to remain. This is a very key point to distinguish. Not everyone is going up in this prophesied event being described in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

I totally believe that I have blown the minds of many of my readers. I will conclude this lesson here so that I can allow you to think about the many facets of the information that I have presented. If you like this style of detail you are free to tell me, but more than likely I will not go into this level of detail in the future on this subject of rapture. In the next lesson I will attempt to get back to more of the standard types of Bible lessons that I have been doing for several years. I just wanted you learn how I think and by doing this it might just help you to see why I write things in the style that I do. Thank you for your time in reading and I greatly appreciate it if you would help point someone else to my website. God Bless you until the next time I can get a lesson out.

If you would like to continue the study in this series on Rapture please go to “Part 4“.

Posted in Bible Study, Rapture, Understanding

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, Jesus, Knowledge, Prophecy, Rapture, Religion, Revelation, Truth, understanding

Is the Rapture of the Church Really Found in the Bible? Introduction to the Basics – Part 2

Sep 23

Posted by agapegeek

(ver 1.2) This is Part 2 in a series of advanced spiritual Bible lessons on the subject of “Is the Rapture of the Church a Bible Truth”. If you have not read the first lesson I would highly recommend that you go and start the study with “Part 1” and then continue with today’s lesson. During lesson 1, I took you through a brief explanation of what Rapture is using the dictionary. From this word definition I derived a list of synonymous terms that can be interchanged with the word “rapture” to convey the same thought or message. Some of the words were “caught up”, “taken away”, “removed”, and “to depart”, etc. Seeking to learn the basics we looked at three to four messages taught by Jesus using different symbolic representations to teach very similar rapture concepts. Of course none of these lessons contained the word “rapture” and that is why they are often ignored when studying the subject. We examined the “Pathway Analogy”, the parallels given to us in the “Sheep and Goat Analogy” and the “Wheat and Tare Analogy” and finally we looked at the “Ten Virgin Parable”. You should have easily observed that each lesson contained a central theme of the concept of division. Division is nothing but the separation of two distinct groups. One group can be separated from another group for many distinct reasons. In the world today criminals are sent to prison to separate them from hurting others outside of prison. Therefore, we can potentially call rapture the separation of the righteous from the unrighteous. In today’s lesson I will continue to expand on the basic concepts using Bible patterns of rapture to confirm the basic concepts. Here are some of the items that we will be covering today:

Rapture is a separation of one person or one group of people from the others.
Rapture is a change in location either physically or spiritually or both from one previous location to another new location.
Rapture is usually the forced removal without scheduled notice and without any human consent.
Rapture demonstrates the sovereign divine Power of God to transport a person or a people from one location to the new location.
Rapture event timings are always determined by God and nothing you do or believe can change that.
Rapture can be the exclusionary act of God upon the unrighteous that were not taken (not saved, left behind, those to be destroyed) separated from the righteous that were taken, saved and removed.

We have read several basic verses and have so far not officially determined the timing for any potential rapture event. Many get distracted by the intimate details and miss the more important basic concepts. I want to firmly establish the basics and then work towards the details in their proper order. You might recall that in the first lesson I implied that there are at least 3 future raptures that must still take place and eventually we will readdress what those can be. I also said that I can clearly see that there have already been around 6 previous raptures that have previously occurred in the Bible and we cannot ignore them. These examples will conform to the basic factual rules that I just listed above. I plan on exploring many of these historical rapture accounts in this lesson today to help further the establishment of the valid patterns for the future rapture concepts being taught in the Bible.

GOD REVEALING TRUTH

Too many people want to read the Bible and believe that God placed all of the truth in obvious plain view for anyone to easily find, see, read and understand. However that is just not how God wrote the Bible and it is not how you should approach learning anything from the Bible. We must all learn to see the true concealed nature of God in His Word and in the world around us. Let me ask you, have you ever seen God personally? Can you prove to anyone that God exists? What evidence for God’s existence do you possess? Obviously you have never seen God and cannot prove that there is a God to anyone here on the earth. Yet God says in Romans 1:20 that the invisible things of God are clearly seen being made known in the things that God created. Wow, there are some amazing parallels in that verse to what I am teaching you about the Bible. How can the invisible God who has not been seen with our natural eyes, or made known or displayed to our physical senses, His presence being improvable in a court of law, lacking any clear evidence of existence still be found by searching and studying the things that were created? It is simply because God in His wisdom hid clues throughout creation that clearly allow people to see the existence of a creator if they want to know Him. If anyone does not desire to know God they will never see the truth that is plainly right in front of their eyes. That is just how God designed everything.

Now ask yourself how many educated scientists today after studying the facts of creation have concluded and found that there is a God and a creator because of the overwhelming evidence found from what they are studying? Not very many are there? The majority of the scientists today are either agnostic or atheist in their beliefs of God. Yet God still says I can be seen everywhere if you are looking for me. What make you think that the truth in His written Holy Word will not also be recorded in the same type of secreted format? You see I completely believe that the truth in the Bible can be easily seen, but only after you want to know it, are saved, then know what to look for and then extend the effort to look for it with great diligence allowing the Spirit of God to help you see it. There is a principle discovered especially in the New Testament that is very important called “revelation”. Revelation is God illuminating His Word to humans so that it can finally be understood. Revelation is never man suddenly discovering what God has said using their individual human reasoning to figure it out. Every human requires God’s revelation in order to understand the spiritual things that were written inside of the natural words and stories.

Rom 16:25 Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,

You see Paul tells you that the previously hidden Christ has now been uncovered and revealed by God. He states that this was a formerly hidden mystery of God. Paul gives us a better explanation of this revealing process in Ephesians 3:1-5 if you would like to go and read how the mystery was not revealed to men prior to the Apostles but has now been given to us by the Spirit of God’s choice. Wow, that concept seems to pass over the head of many Christians today and it teaches us so much about the nature of God. The rapture of the church is just another one of those mysteries hidden by God in His Word. Look up the definition for the Greek word translated as “revelation” here. It means a “disclosure”, an “appearing”, an “enlightenment”, or “something that was previously hidden but has now suddenly been revealed”. This Greek word G602 comes from another root word G601 that literally means to “uncover” or “take the cover off”. It is like someone in the natural taking the lid off of a box to discover what was previously hidden inside of it. That uncovering concept teaches us that we can look at the outside cover words all day long and still never understand what is underneath the surface until the cover has been removed. Only God can remove the cover from His Word. However, that is exactly what the Spirit of God is doing in the church today to those that want to know the truth. There are literally hundreds of mysteries in the Bible and most of them you probably do not know or have any understanding of their existence because you are still looking at the covered text and not seeing the hidden spiritual meanings beneath. Do not throw away the rapture teaching simply because it is not easy to find on the surface. Wait until you at least ask God to reveal it to you and show you if it is true. God is no respecter of persons. If He revealed it to me, He will also reveal it to you so that you can see it also.

I read a couple of the internet lessons on the no-rapture theory just to see how they were explaining the verses that God showed me about rapture. Nothing that they said swayed me in the least little bit since what they said conflicted with the voice of the Spirit of God and the real meaning of the verses in the Bible. Their arguments were very cleverly written with many supposedly supporting Bible verses but they were totally blinded to what the scriptures said and how to apply them correctly. These were nothing but examples of how natural men can “wrongly divide” the word of truth to produce a message that can be accepted easily by other carnal men. What I say in my Bible lessons is generally not accepted by carnal minds because it is so spiritually based. Natural people tend to be attracted by natural words and spiritual people tend to be attracted by spiritual words. It is very much like the law of Genesis being restated everything producing after its kind.

You see I am certain to run into the same problem that Paul ran into with what I am teaching. Paul was confronted with both natural thinkers and spiritual thinkers. God gave Paul certain spiritual revelation and understanding that no other man knew in his day (Gal 1:12). Paul then went about trying to teach this God given revelation to the others in the church with the only confirmation evidence that the hearers in the church possessed was from them listening to the Spirit of God that resided in them and the previously written Old Testament Words of God. If they could hear and see spiritual things they were accepting, but if they were carnal thinkers, then they were rejecting the truth. Here is what God says about the people in the early church that were faced with this great decision:

Act 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

God says that the people in Berea were nobler than the people in Thessalonica. God informs us that the Bereans were first open to hearing something brand new from Paul implying the Thessalonians were not. However, God then says that the Bereans did not just automatically accept the new teaching of Paul, but that they were rather wise enough to go and search their scriptures to find if what Paul was preaching was actually the truth that God had declared in His Word. So regardless of which rapture category your beliefs fall into today at least be open to hear a new perspective on the subject and then to go to your own Bible to search for yourself to see if it is true or not. Do not believe anything that I say because you do not even know me. Who I am, is of no significance to you also what I say is only important if it is what God says. If you do not see what I say in your own Bible then toss it away and believe what you do see. You will not offend me if you reject what I teach.

BUILDING A STRONG RAPTURE FOUNDATION ON THE BASICS

We are going to continue in this Bible lesson with some of the basic foundational verses for the existence of the legitimate doctrine of the rapture. We need to go to the letters written directly to the church and see what God records for us there and make sure that we clearly understand what God is saying to us correctly. Every teacher that preaches a “no rapture” philosophy must explain away all of these verses that we will be looking at today or they must totally ignore them to teach what they teach. They can be very creative in their attempts to explain them away and many people believe what they say without doing the necessary study to prove it in their own spirit which will result in deception. Therefore you need to follow along with me in your Bible using your heart to see if God is giving you internal spiritual peace about what is written here and then verify it using the Bible.

We will go to the book of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 16. You may recall that this verse was mentioned in Wikipedia as a foundational scripture for rapture. This is certainly not the only verse found in the Bible on the subject, but it is clearly one of the most prominent and important verses on the subject. People want to discount one prominent scripture in the Bible and explain it away because they think one verse is not important without many other confirming verse witnesses. That is very true that one verse cannot be taken as a complete doctrine of theological belief, but it is also true that it is still found in the Bible and that there are other confirming witnesses that can be found if you look and search for them.

I also want you to understand that the books of the N.T. Bible were not necessarily placed into the Bible in their chronological written order. First Thessalonians was probably the very first letter written by Paul to any church. Therefore, God saw fit to teach the church about rapture from the very establishment of the church. Many today try to say that rapture is a modern creation of man not taught by the early church founding fathers. But simple minded people clearly do not choose to see what the Bible says and must ignore what Paul taught and wrote to remain in their ignorance. You do understand that what Paul wrote about in the Epistles to the churches were also the things that he taught to everyone in the church when he was physically present with them, don’t you? Can you separate the two? I cannot do that. Let’s read what Paul taught about the rapture:

1Th 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

1Th 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Verse 16 begins with the description of the Lord descending from heaven. Who was this Lord and why is it necessary for Him to descend? What is the stated purpose for the descent? This Lord was the God of heaven come to the earth in the flesh that died for all of our sins on a wooden cross and He is named Jesus in the English tongue. We should remember from reading in Acts 1:9 that after Jesus died and was raised from the dead, He ascended back up into heaven where He has been seated for the past nearly 2000 years (Heb 8:1). This statement of descent being described is simply the reversal of the preceding ascent that visibly took place on the earth with the early church disciples being witnesses. I will also say that what was seen by a few in the church of Jesus going up will be seen by those in the church that He is descending to come back for. Let’s start by just listing the basic facts given in the order of mention to us in these verses and then talk about them in more depth:

Jesus descends from heaven with a shout.
The voice of the archangel is the next observed mention.
Immediately followed by the trump of God.
The next mention is the dead in Christ that will rise.
Then followed by those that are alive in Christ on the earth being caught up.
Those alive on the earth are stated to be elevated to the level of the clouds in order to meet with the Lord.
At the culmination of this event both the dead and alive in Christ will forever be with the Lord.

Those were the very basics from what I just read in the Bible. What did you read? Can you agree with them or is that why you don’t believe in rapture because that is just not what God says here? I believe that there are both direct and indirect implied statements being made in these verses. I just listed the direct statements of facts only. First it directly says that the Lord descends from heaven to initiate the event with a shout. We must determine the definition of heaven based upon the context of the statement being made and using the other facts of the Bible to correctly interpret the term. For example, the Hebrew word translated as heaven in the O.T. is H8064. This same Hebrew word can refer to up to three different locations and that same statement is true about the N.T. Greek word G3772. Heaven is defined in the Bible in three different ways. There is the immediate atmosphere surrounding the earth and this is often spoken of as what I will call the first heaven (Deu 11:11). There is the universe of stars and solar systems in space and this is often what I will call the second heaven (Gen 1:17). But Paul we will soon learn spoke of a “third heaven” (2 Cor 12:2) and this is the literal location of the spiritual throne of God. The first two heavens are natural and the third heaven is completely spiritual. This heaven being described in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 is clearly the reference to the unseen third spiritual heaven. We will get more confirmation for that as we continue. Therefore I see two dimensions of existence being stated in these two verses. Jesus is descending from heaven and is coming out of the spiritual dimension to re-enter back into the natural dimension to accomplish the rest of what is stated.

Surely you can see Christ’s descent from the spiritual heaven in parallel with a shout, the voice of the archangel and the trump of God are the beginning of something else about to occur. I view verse 16 as starting in the spiritual realm and ending in the natural realm. I then see verse 17 as starting in the natural realm and ending in the spiritual realm to complete the cycle and we will see this more clearly as we go. But notice in verse 16 there is no mention of anything natural or physical until the end of the verse and then it speaks of death which is clearly natural only. Every noun mentioned is a spiritual being or place until the last mention of the dead rising. Therefore the archangel’s location is also implied to be in heaven being mentioned following Jesus descending from heaven. Immediately following the archangel is the trump of God and this is also implied to originate from the location of spiritual heaven.

I believe that both the shout and the trump are announcements from the spiritual heaven for the coming event to occur upon the physical earth. The Greek word translated as “shout’ is only used in this verse in the entire N.T. However this Greek word G2752 comes from another Greek root word G2753 that means “to command”. The source Greek word is less of an event announcement than it is the shout of an ordered command expecting some subsequent action to take place. The root Greek word means a direct command has been ordered from heaven for the next expected action to occur. I take this command to be given by God Himself personally. Angels generally do not have the authority to give commands apart from God’s will. It is interesting how this verse is phrased and worded, because the shouted command could be taken as being from the Lord or it could be a command given by the archangel. However, based upon supremacy of rule, I teach it as originating from God and going through the archangel like the chain of command in a military hierarchy.

Let’ reconsider what we learned about from the earlier messages of Jesus on the separation of the sheep from the goats or the wheat from the tares. Both of these lessons contained commanded symbolic servant workers (aka angels) that were given orders and instructions to separate the one group from another group. I believe that we can see some distinct parallels being taught by the usage of this Greek word when the Lord commands and the voice of the chief angel in heaven is heard to possibly repeat the shouted order. I believe that you need to resolve in your mind who is doing the original shouting and who the shout is directed towards. I do not believe that the command order from heaven is directed to those that are about to be taken from the earth, do you? Clearly the order is directed to those that are doing the taking and those can only be the angels of God. This is clearly a chain of command type of military order being described. The commander in chief God has given a direct order to gather and the order is shouted to every ranking member of the staff to be carried out. If you have never been in the military you may not understand chain of command but most things in life work this way. Every large or small corporation has a chain of command from the ranking CEO going down the chain. Any way that is how I view the shout mentioned in this discourse and you can disagree and believe what you like if you see something different.

Let’s move on to the trump of God mentioned next. The Greek word G4536 translated many times as trumpet or trump occurs in only 11 verses in the N.T. and it is a word that means a “vibration”, a “quavering” or a “reverberation” all descriptive synonymous terms for a loud audible sound. Because the Greek word is only found in 11 N.T. verses it is easy to determine if any of these other verses play a role in describing the same type of rapture either directly or indirectly. Also take note from reviewing these verses that they do not necessarily have to mean that a physical horn type of instrument is blown. Many have the idea that the ram’s horn called a shofar is used for this event announcement. I do not have a problem with that interpretation or belief but that is not technically what is stated in this verse or several other verses in the New Testament (1 Cor 14:8, Rev 1:10, Rev 4:1). In these verses it describes voices being like a trumpet but, in other verses like in Revelation 8:2, 8:6, 8:13 and 9:14 it appears to be an actual literal trumpet. However if you notice anything when reading the book of Revelation, you should immediately recognize that the majority of the book is cloaked in symbolism. Therefore the trumptes mentioned in Revelation can possibly be a symbolic representation for a greater spiritual truth. At least that is what I believe at this point in time with my current level of knowledge on the subject.

Let me reemphasize the initiator of the event in 1 Thessalonians 4. Understand that Jesus is described as the originator of this unique event. Clearly Jesus coming down with a shout starts the entire process. Therefore this affair is a divinely initiated occasion that I believe is describing the bridegroom coming down to fetch His bride that we learned about in lesson 1. How does this description in 1 Thessalonians 4 correspond or compare to the information given to us in the parable of the 10 virgins? If you recall in Matthew 25:6 the bridegroom is implied to start His return at midnight when all of the virgins were asleep and an outcry or shout announces His coming before they ever see Him and the virgins are told to “Go Out” to meet Him in the parable. There was the stated coming of the bridegroom first and then there was the subsequent shouted cry that followed to trigger the virgins to go out and meet their bridegroom. That sounds very amazingly accurate to what we are reading about here in these verses in 1 Thessalonians 4 to me. I know it does not match word for word but the similarities are too close for it not to be God telling the same story using different types and symbols in one and more literal references and descriptions in the other. These types of writing styles of God make the Bible very complex to the casual reader. I take them to be the same event because of the match of all of the recorded characters and actions mentioned occurring in the exact same order. I also know that Jesus is the bridegroom and that we are the bride (virgin) in the Bible. Do you see it? Don’t you think that there could be some direct similarities between the description of 1Thessalonians 4 and the Parable of the 10 virgins? I can see a very distinct pattern of resemblance.

Do not confuse this event description in 1 Thessalonians 4 with the Second Advent event when Jesus literally sets foot back upon the earth to rule for 1000 years with the saints. There is no mention of Jesus coming that close to the earth in 1 Thessalonians 4 anywhere in this description. In fact the way that I read it I can never find Jesus descending below the normal cloud level anywhere in this discourse. In verse 17 it is clearly stated that those that are still alive on the earth surface of the earth go up to the clouds in the air to meet Jesus. How far up are the clouds from the surface of the earth? We might also consider the height of the earth’s atmosphere as being a stated factor. We obviously can learn easily that these are known facts discovered during modern space exploration. The reentry of a space craft from the realm of space first encounters resistance of the earth’s atmosphere at around 120 km (75 mi). At this altitude above the earth, the air is extremely thin and there are no clouds. The air continues to thicken as the craft descends and clouds eventually are able to form.

In order to determine where clouds normally reside in the atmosphere we need a deeper study of meteorological facts. Clouds come in three general categories of high cloud layers, mid-cloud layers and low-cloud layers. If you search the internet you will find that low clouds can range in altitude from surface level to upwards of 2 km. Mid-clouds can range from 2 to 4 km in height. Finally, high clouds can range from 4 to 8 km in height. Therefore Jesus can legally meet us in the atmosphere depending upon if it is a foggy day or a normal day anywhere from 0 to 8 km up in the atmosphere. I can personally see that if you do further study on the internet that NASA has spent time averaging maximum cloud heights over the course of the last 10 years and they have in their data found that clouds normally occur at a maximum average height of between 3 and 4 km and that is a long way up. People in the “no rapture” belief camp have tried to explain this verse away stating that the Greek word translated as “air” is a sea-level only point of view in the Bible. They completely have to ignore the “cloud” reference and overlook the term “caught up” to be in the clouds. They must be assuming a foggy day for the return of the Lord back to the earth’s surface. They have purposely closed their eyes to what the Bible is saying not using any factual evidence to support their beliefs scripturally or scientifically.

Act 1:9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

The Greek word translated as “clouds” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 only occurs in 22 verses of the N.T. so that is a very manageable number to go and read every occurrence. What you will find in your search is God’s exact same usage of this Greek word here in Acts 1:9 where Jesus was described as ascending up and then the clouds are said to receive Him out of their view. Have you ever watched an airplane take off? How long can you view it until it disappears from your view? I guess it depends on the clouds, doesn’t it? But, that sounds like a very high altitude up in the sky to me. What God is doing is describing two separate related events and He is connecting them together with the usage of the same Greek word G3507 translated as “clouds”. Five times in the Gospels Jesus is found speaking of Himself and says that He will be coming in the clouds (Mat 24:30, Mat 26:64, Mark 13:26, Mark 14:62, Luke 21:27). However every mention of this may not be all describing the same event or times. For example, Matthew 24:30 could be speaking of the second advent after the tribulation or of another specific time. In Matthew 24:3 the disciples asked Jesus 3 different questions and in this chapter Jesus answers them all but does not always tell you which answer is to which question. Maybe we will talk about these in a future lesson. In Matthew 26:64 the time frame is not directly given. Mark 13:26 can also be considered a description of the same three questions that the disciples asked in Matthew 24. Again in Mark 14:62 there is no time reference given other than it is after the ascent into heaven in Acts 1:9. That leaves us with Luke 21:27 and this is a very interesting set of verses that appear to be a different timing than the Second Advent. I believe from reading these verses that Jesus could very well be describing the rapture before the tribulation revealed by the wording of the statements. We will get to those verses in more detail later in the series.

What is stated to happen on the earth first in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17? We can see that there is a very clear reference to those that have already died (IN CHRIST) a physical death on the earth “rising” first. Here is a good time to learn a basic truth. Every Christian that has been born again by the Spirit of God is now in the universal group set called “IN CHRIST”. However, God makes a new distinction in this discourse to differentiate between two sub-groups found within the global set of IN-CHRIST. God says here in these two verses that one subset group called the DEAD IN-CHRIST is a little bit different than those that are still ALIVE IN-CHRIST. One group is dead and one group is alive and this has been stated from the physical natural human perspective. Why is that important? Why does one group of DEAD “rise” and why are the others in the ALIVE GROUP “Caught UP”? You really need to ask these types of detailed questions when you read and study the Bible.

This is the first mention of the natural realm and it represents a transition from the heavenly realm that initiated the event. These dead bodies are identified to rise first because of their former experiences with natural death that has caused their old physical bodies to be left here in the dust of the earth. If you examine the context of chapter 4 you will see that one of the primary subjects being discussed is about those that have died believing in Christ and how that they can still have hope of a certain resurrection like Christ’s. When Jesus was resurrected from the dead, did He take His physical body or leave it here on the earth? I think you know that Jesus took His body with Him. There is no tomb with the body of Jesus on the earth. Therefore, Jesus was fully resurrected from the dead physically and spiritually. This is the hope that is given to all of those that have died in Christ. These verses about resurrection were written to the church. These dead people are the saved righteous believers in Christ Jesus. They have died a physical natural death but when this occurred their spirits then departed the earth and went to heaven to be with the Lord Jesus (2 Cor 5:8). Thus the reason for the unique wording of the dead “rising” versus the alive being “caught up”. I’m really not sure if you are getting where I’m going here or if you understand yet what I am attempting to say.

The Greek word translated as “rise” in verse 16 literally means to “stand up” or “arise”. This rising can be from any non-standing position seated, reclining or lying flat. Since God is discussing the dead in Christ rising we can conclude logically that the original unstated position of those arising are normally found in a lying flat position like most dead bodies at a funeral. This description is given to us from the human natural perspective and not the spiritual divine perspective. Death in the Bible is many times described as what looks like natural sleep of the physical body and this is stated from the casual human viewer’s perspective. People here in the natural world generally view things from the natural human standpoint. That is what we see when we look at a dead body. But the spirit of that person has departed their body and is either with Christ or is in hell right now according the Luke 16.

Jas 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Here in James is a statement of universal natural truth concerning natural death. When the physical body dies, the spirit of the man or the woman that died has departed and is no longer present in the body. Or we could say when the spirit departs the physical body, the body dies. Both statements are accurate representations of the truth. However also take note that if the spirit of the human departs the dead body, the spirit always remains alive. Do you know the difference between natural things and spiritual things? Natural things die, but spiritual things never die or cease to exist. Humans are spiritual beings that live in a temporary natural body.

All of this information is just my attempt to explain why God’s distinction between the dead “rising” and the alive “departing” references that are given. In verse 16 of 1 Thessalonians 4 it ends with the natural perspective of the human body that possessed the appearance of sleeping being resurrected or raised to stand up again in order to be joined back to the departed human spirit. This resurrected body will be rejoined back with the human spirits of those that were already in heaven and this new eternal resurrected body will be their personal living place and the dwelling residence for God’s Spirit forever. Then in verse 17 we see a contrasting difference being stated with those that remain here on the earth and are described to be alive being “caught up” to meet Christ in the air. Can you seriously see the difference being stated here yet? Why aren’t both groups “caught up”? Why don’t both groups “rise”? This is actually very important information. When all of the puzzle pieces are put together correctly it makes such clear logical sense. God is in effect saying that when this event occurs the dead in Christ will descend with Christ from heaven to be joined with their risen resurrected bodies, but the living Christians on the earth will be personally “caught up” to be with Christ with a resurrected body in the clouds. Now do you see it? Do you now understand why the difference between the two stated experiences and why God describes it as two sub-events beneath the one greater event? What God is doing is giving you a lot of unstated information by using distinct unique word selection.

Verse 16 was only the dead bodies rising and not the spirits of the dead people being “caught up” since the spirits were already present with Christ in heaven. Verse 17 makes the radical transition from what happens to the dead bodies to those that are still living in a body. Two separate verbs are selected by God to describe what happens to each group. Verse 17 starts out by saying those that are “alive” and these are a clear reference to the people with a natural life existence on the earth given to us from the human perspective. This Greek word G2198 literally means to possess life or those that live. Again this viewpoint can only be from the natural perspective and not a spiritual or divine perspective since it is impossible to kill a spirit being. Both the dead in Christ and the living in Christ on the earth are spiritually alive unto God. If God was using His spiritual viewpoint in these verses He would have stated it differently. What God is teaching is the difference of the locations of the living spirits affected during the event. The dead in Christ were already in heaven and those living in Christ remained here on the earth during the start of this event. At the end of the event they are all together with Christ in the clouds with their new resurrected bodies.

UNDERSTANDING BEING “CAUGHT UP”

These verses are simply comparing two types of believers. These two groups of believer types represent two new sub-sets of the whole set group called those “in Christ”. We really need to understand basic math set theory when studying the Bible on many subjects. God created math and mathematical laws which are used in the Bible repeatedly to teach us concepts that only could have come from Him. Let’s stop here and define that Greek word translated as “caught up” and then dig much deeper to find out why God states it differently from the bodies that “rise”.

G726

From a derivative of G138; to seize (in various applications): – catch (away, up), pluck, pull, take (by force).

The Greek word “harpazo” (G726) literally means to seize or take someone or something by force. It is only found in 13 verses of the New Testament and many of these are very significant connected verses to explore about the subject of rapture. Begin by understanding that the definition of the word represents a divine orchestrated demonstration of power. In other words this event in 1 Thessalonians 14:17 being described can only take place because there was a great external force of power behind it that causes it to occur. This description of force corresponds to the direct controlled information given by Jesus of the angel reapers taking out from the earth the wheat and the tares as well as the separation of the sheep from the goats. There are distinct parallels of external power being enforced in common in all of this imagery. In these lessons the wheat, the tares, the sheep nor the goats have an influence or contribution on the separation that occurs. In each instance the force of control is external to those that are affected.

No natural exertion of resistance, human effort, human force or any human power from the participants on the earth being raised or caught up was necessary or even mentioned during this event. I probably did not state that last information exactly correct. You see I believe that every human is required to have faith and believe in the rapture in order to participate in the event. I cannot see where the Bible says that anyone that does not believe is still rewarded with the same prize of those that do believe. Crowns of salvation are not handed out to everyone like Universal Salvationists like to teach. I believe that rapture is exactly like salvation. No one that has not already placed their faith and beliefs in Jesus Christ will be saved or can be saved. Everything that God gives to His people through His divine sovereign Grace must be received by the people through their faith. I don’t have the time to teach you faith, if you have not read my lessons on Understanding Bible Faith then do that to help clear up any conflict. Let’s quickly review one dictionary definition for the word “rapture” to recall how it was defined:

RAPTURE: the carrying of a person to another place or sphere of existence.

To me this definition of the word rapture fits precisely with the Greek word definition of “harpazo”. To carry someone away from one realm to another is clearly a display of power and force that must be present to move them. The English term “rapture” is derived from the Latin term “raptus” also meaning to carry away or carry off. I have concluded that “raptus” was a synonymous Latin term for the Greek word G726 “harpazo” that was translated as “caught up”. This is one of the primary reasons for the legitimacy of the doctrine of the “rapture”. The modern term was developed to help Bible teachers teach the subject using a simple one word title. Do you understand “harpazo”? It is a very well defined word that teaches a lot on the subject. Harpazo is a show of external force and power. It is a convention beyond the power of human resistance. Even if you did not want to go the Bible teaches us that you are going. No debate is offered. No options are given. Those being taken are simply gone being removed from existence upon the earth physically and spiritually.

All of this discussion so far today was just an introduction to the basic foundational concepts proving that the catching away of believers is a valid truth taught by God, Paul and the early church in the Bible. The timing of the event has still not been fully developed or established and we will eventually get to that part of the subject as we progress.

HISTORICAL RAPTURE EVENTS IN THE BIBLE

Before we go into future rapture events and other verses about the subject, let’s prove to all of the skeptics that this harpazo or “catching away” by force has already occurred multiple times in the Bible. In proving historical event occurrence, this will help us to define and confirm the possibility for potential repeated future event occurrences. God simply says in the Bible “There is nothing new under the sun”. He continues in this discourse to teach us “that which has been is that which shall be again” (Ecc 1:9). Verses like this teach us that there are established patterns found in the Bible and that we need to learn them in order to see what might occur in the near future. Discarding the past will cause you to not know the future. You see for any doctrine to be legitimate it must be an established pattern throughout the Bible with more than one witness to the truth being stated. God required for every word to be established in the mouths of two or three witnesses so that they all can be verified to be in agreement with the other witnesses. This truth disallows the taking of any single verse out of context to prove one’s erroneous point. Let’s go to the book of Acts and see one type of rapture example and a direct type and shadow of the coming rapture being described in 1 Thessalonians 14:

Act 8:39 And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing.

Was Phillip just raptured away so that immediately the eunuch after being baptized saw him no more? Why did God take Phillip away? Why didn’t God take the eunuch also? You see this does not say that Phillip walked away or swam away under his own physical power. The power of God literally takes Phillip away from the place that he was previously seen and places him physically and spiritually in a completely new location. I mean if this description is not a type of rapture of a man from one physical point to another physical point you tell me what it is. You see someone being raptured does not always have to mean that this someone was taken directly to heaven. It can mean they were just physically transported from one part of the earth to another. Rapture is nothing except a real divine encounter of a fictional Star Trek type of teleport or transport. This rapture of Phillip is simply a change in his physical location and it is a valid pattern for what will happen to the church very soon. Patterns can simply be natural events that will correspond to coming spiritual events. Notice that Phillip had nothing to do with what just happened to him. Phillip did not pray to be taken, Phillip did not ask God to take him and this is again a pattern of the coming church rapture. Also note that one man was taken and one man was not and this again is a pattern for rapture. Rapture includes the separation of one or more people from another group of people.

Notice that God brings this verse into the subject discussion by the inclusion of the Greek word G726 harpazo. I understand that Phillip was not given a supernatural resurrected body during this event. I also understand that Phillip did not leave the earth to go to heaven and then return in a new earthly location. While that was certainly possible that is not what just happened to Phillip. We need to learn not to put God in our box of human narrow minded limitations. We need to see that almost anything is possible when God is involved. I said almost anything is possible, because God is not going to do anything that violates His written word or causes Him to lie. Keep that in mind as you study the Bible. I am simply viewing the “catching away” of Phillip by the Spirit of God to be a natural pattern for the coming greater spiritual event. If God can do this event to a man in the church then God can also take the whole church in a future event. Let me show you another type of rapture event recorded in the Bible that is often ignored by rapture skeptics.

2Co 12:2 I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.

I mentioned this verse earlier but I feel this is important enough to look at again. This event is in a position of greater alignment with the normal concept of what most people believe is the primary type of rapture. Here we have Paul describing an event about himself and saying that he was “caught up” to the third heaven. “Caught up” is again the Greek word G726 harpazo. So Paul was taken by force in this experience by the Spirit of God. He says he does not know if he was in his body or outside of his body and that is not the important point to take away. However notice that Paul says that he was taken and this means his spirit went to heaven at the minimum. What you must observe is that Paul’s spirit was literally transported from the physical earth to a spiritual heaven location and then you can read that he saw things that he could not even describe to us. Clearly this is another example of rapture in the Bible. The spirit of Paul was taken up by force to see things in heaven that he had never seen before. This was another divine sovereign choice act of God. Paul did not ask to be taken but it still occurred to teach Paul and the rest of us that it can occur. Do you still not believe in rapture? I seriously do not know how you can still be on the unbelief side of the fence after studying all of the events that have already occurred. But, I’m not done yet and there are more. Let’s go back and reflect on a story from the Old Testament of a rapture event and possibly the first rapture event recorded in the Bible:

Heb 11:5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

Wow, so Star Trek really did not invent the “Transporter”, God did. God clearly transports the living natural man Enoch wholly, completely and directly from this earth to an undisclosed, unnamed new location in this verse. We are never informed of where Enoch went; we are just told that he vanished off of the face of the earth. Did you notice that Enoch did not have to die naturally first? There are only two men in the O.T. that did not taste of natural death that I know of and Enoch was one of them. Enoch is a clear O.T. pattern for the church members that will be “caught away” alive in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Clearly Enoch was raptured from this world alive to the eternal spiritual realm being taken bodily so that there is no grave here on the earth containing his body. How can anyone teach that rapture is not a valid Bible concept and truth? Look up the Greek word translated as “translated” in this verse. It literally means to “transfer” or “transport” as in an exchange of physical locations. This is so significant that I do not know how people miss it or why they choose to ignore it. I’m beginning to see a Bible concept that I really like here, and I’ll call it the “Beam me up Jesus” method of spiritual travel. I really believe that this is going to be an awesome experience when it occurs. There is only one other man in the O.T. that was taken up by divine force without seeing death and this was the prophet Elijah.

2Ki 2:1 And it came to pass, when the LORD would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.

The Hebrew word in the verse translated as “take up” literally means to ascend. This is not rocket science so everyone should be able to recognize another obvious pattern for human translation or transportation out of this world while still naturally alive by divine sovereign power. If you study the context of this event you will also see that God reveals what is going to happen to Elijah before it happens. That is also significant since God repeats that pattern by revealing to the church that rapture will occur before it occurs. Elijah is again a pattern for the living church members remaining on the earth today. They do not know the exact timing of the “taking up” but he knew it would occur before it occurred and he even knew that it would even occur very soon. Clearly Enoch and Elijah are valid “harpazo” patterns. These are two direct witnesses for the future.

Let’s talk about Isaiah chapter 6 briefly. This chapter describes an event that took place that clearly resembles what Paul experienced of being caught up to the third heaven. I’m not going to quote any of the verses or review them in any detail. You can do that research for yourself. I will say that what Isaiah describes is clearly not of this world in any form or fashion. In verse 1 there is mention of a throne but then following this is the mention of winged creatures that are a special type of angel. This creature had 3 sets of wings. One set covered his face and one set covered his feet and with the final set he flew around. That is pretty amazing stuff. This experience is no doubt a type of rapture where Isaiah is taken to the throne of God to view and record some things that we need to see. It does not say that Isaiah was there bodily, but he had to be there spiritually in order to come back to write what he saw. I find that very interesting and also very relevant to our discussion of rapture. I will not address this experience any further in this lesson other than to give it to you as fifth potential pattern reference for a type of rapture.

Act 1:9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

We could talk a lot about Jesus ascending into heaven in Acts 1. I have already mentioned this example previously in this lesson in a direct reference connection to 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. Here we have Jesus ascending up into the clouds and disappearing and this is another pattern of what is described will happen to the living on the earth when Jesus comes back to the clouds to take us up. I will point out one distinct difference in this verse. This ascent is not “harpazo”. In other words Jesus was not seized out of the earth by force or caught up by the Spirit of God or any angel. No this Greek word is very different because this is the divine God himself going up under His own power. This Greek word is always used in conjunction with self-control and personal extended effort of self-power. This is clearly an example of rapture because God is controlling the ascension event. However it is done indecently from external power and is the internal power of God within Jesus that causes Him to go up. The first five examples of people being raptured were clearly events independent from human human power and they can only be displays of the power of God. I really pray that you are receiving these parallel examples and seeing the possibilities that can occur from them?

Satan fights the teaching of the true rapture because he will be forced to present an explanation to what happened to the millions of righteous people in the world that simply vanish without a trace prior to the tribulation. He will come up with an ingenious twist of the truth. He will probably claim that the wicked people on the earth have now been taken out for judgment and now only the righteous remain to rule with him. You see this explanation fits with the pattern of what is transpiring in the media today. The media is blasting Christians as hate mongers of an intolerant message of God’s love. The homosexual agenda is the most intolerant group of people that exists in the world and they are in direct opposition to God and what the Bible says on the subject. However, they claim that Christians are intolerant ones for claiming the truth in the Bible and not embracing their sin as normal. What we see developing is a dividing line between those that are on God’s side and those that are opposed to God. I would think that it would be wise to remain on God’s side, but they have had their minds blinded to the truth so that they are unable to see it.

I think I will wrap up this lesson for now. I have given you a lot of information to examine and to consider. I thank you for your time in reading and studying the Bible. There is so much more in the Bible on this subject and I will continue on it in a future lesson. God Bless!

If you would like to continue reading in this series you may proceed to “Part 3” now.

Posted in Bible Study, Rapture, Understanding

Tags: Bible, Bride, Christianity, Church, God, Jesus, Prophecy, Rapture, Religion, Salvation, Truth, understanding

Understanding Bible Faith. A Healing from Cancer Testimony! Part 17

Jul 9

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.3) Today’s lesson is Part 17 in one of the most important Bible study series that I have ever given to you about the subject of “Understanding Bible Faith”. If you have not read all of the lessons I would strongly recommend that you go and start reading with “Part 1” first and then continue through the series. Today is going to be a really different kind of post in this series. The Spirit of God led me in a way this week that I really did not expect to go. This week I was spending some time on Facebook and I was led to talk to a friend and the conversation went in a direction that only God could have orchestrated. Today I am going to share my friend’s testimony that I received this week about her mother’s miracle of healing. Hopefully you will read this testimony with an open mind and will learn something from it while being also encouraged that no matter what the diagnosis is from the doctor, that nothing is impossible or too difficult for God to solve and help you through. I will let you read the entire testimony that she wrote and then I will comment on it at the end and help you to understand what happened and why her mother has lived past the age of 80 after being given a near death sentence by the doctors at a young age. This testimony is from over 25 years ago. Here is what she sent to me and I want you to know that it was her anointed writing that produced this:

HEALING FROM CANCER TESTIMONY

My senior year in high school was Straight A’s, Dean’s List, Honor Roll, National Honor Society, Best Writer Award on the school newspaper and a small scholarship to help pay for college. Just when things seemed to be turning out pretty good for me, things got pretty shaken up.

Found out my dad was sneaking around with a young gal from his college classes. My mom found out the lump in her breast was cancer & decided she didn’t want to put up with both my dad & the cancer, so after 28 (not so happy years) of marriage, they split up.

My mom went into the hospital at the Air Force Base, and had a Bi-lateral, Radical Mastectomy – both breasts removed, and most of the lymph nodes from under the arms too.

With my dad out of the house, this left me and my older brother Tony on our own. The task of calling family, friends & church people to give them the news about Mama’s diagnosis, fell to me, because Tony thought it sounded better if I the person giving the info was crying and emotional (rather than him, in his ever monotone, emotionless way).

Mama was in the hospital 18 days – she was afraid to come home because she feared the dog might jump on her & hurt her, but she did finally come home. That was hard. Moms aren’t supposed to get sick. At least not that sick. And with chemotherapy treatments, she got pretty darned sick. Kids aren’t supposed to have to deal with that kind of stuff – they’re just not equipped for it. Teen-agers are still quite self-centered, at least I was, and so looking back at this time is hard, because I just wasn’t there for Mama like I would be today. This was a battle that she fought on her own, just her & God.

Because she was now separated (not divorced, because then she would lose her medical coverage from the military), she was on her own financially… with two teenagers at home. Tony did move out around this time. And the house had to be sold as part of the divorce settlement. I was not emotionally equipped for college, so I dropped out after the 1^st semester. I had never had a job, so I wasn’t equipped for that either. I was pretty lost and self-absorbed. Mama, endured 9 months of awful chemotherapy while still driving 20+ miles each way to work & back; often driving with a bucket on her lap, because she was so sick from the chemo.

Somehow God brought her through all of this by His grace and a series of miracles.

Back when she first found the lump, a friend asked her what she would do if the doctor told her it was cancer. Mama said, “I’ll just tell him to sew me up & let me go home to die.”

But when the doctor gave her the news, he took her to the room of another patient. In that room, she saw a lady lying in the bed, one side of her chest flat and with stitches, and her husband standing next to her. First Mama saw the surgical wound, but then their eyes met. She said it was like the lady was saying, “But I’m alive!” Mama then felt “billows of peace” rolling over her with each breath she took. Instantly she did the first three steps of AA: 1) Admit there’s a problem too big to handle; 2) Admit there is a God that can restore her; 3) Turn her life, will & problem over to God.

She told the doctor to schedule the surgery, and then she went to bed. Sometimes, in the midst of a battle, the best thing you can do is rest and sleep, and let God take over.

The surgery was done. She was bandaged up and mostly alone in her hospital room. Mama, was always one to have her hair and make-up done up nice before going anywhere, so these endless days in the hospital were challenging in that respect as well. Wanting to try to regain some normalcy, she asked a nurse if someone could come wash her hair for her – apparently not! So Mama went in her bathroom, bent over the sink and washed her hair herself. Of course it hurt, but it had to be done. The next step was to pin her hair up. Pinning up her hair was a ritual Mama had done every night since she was 13 years old. It consisted of methodically taking very small sections of her hair, wrapping the hair around her finger, sliding that bit off her finger to lay flat on her scalp, and securing it in place with two bobby pins. This would cause the hair to dry in with a curl in it, rather than the pin-straight style that came naturally to it. This process of pinning up her hair required both hands working on top and above her head.

When the nurse walked in on her, she gasped, turned around and left. Nurse number two came in and did the same. Apparently, in the course of the surgery, the muscles needed to raise the arms are cut, so that movement is not possible… or is very painful. As they say, where there’s a will, there’s a way! Some days or perhaps weeks later a volunteer from “Reach to Recovery” came in to teach Mama how to walk her fingers up the wall, to exercise her arms and regain that movement. Well, Mama was way ahead because of her hair pinning chores.

Somehow life did go on. The house sold. Mama found an apartment for her and me. Although I don’t remember packing, I know we must have. Then somewhere along the way, sometime after the 9 months of chemo, Mama had another divine intervention.

Battling with pain in her liver as well as depression, one morning it was just too much to face. Mama lay in bed, and told God, “You gave me a job to do, if you want me there, you’re going to have to do something.” And then she pressed her head even deeper into the pillow. Before she knew what happened, she found herself sitting on the edge of the bed, with her feet on the floor, and no idea how she got there!

She made her way to the bathroom, where the orange glow of the countertop made her look even worse as she stared at herself in the mirror. Her response was only, “Unh–uh, God!” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw this small, brilliantly colored rainbow with block lettering. The message read “I HAVE HEALED YOU”. She closed her eyes, yet still she saw it. “Great, now I’m hallucinating!” She thought.

The rainbow went with her as she got in the shower, and with her eyes closed, she kept reading it. Every time she read it, it moved, like it was dancing and it was progressively moving closer to her. “I HAVE HEALED YOU”. “I HAVE HEALED YOU”. “I HAVE HEALED YOU”. “I HAVE HEALED YOU”. “I HAVE HEALED YOU”. “I HAVE HEALED YOU”. “I HAVE HEALED YOU”. Until it went inside her mouth and exploded! She said it felt like the explosion shook and vibrated all through her. As she stepped out of the shower, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God had healed her.

As she walked through the doorway from the bathroom to the bedroom, she saw something above her, shine down on her, and she said it “Tattooed” on her brain: “It doesn’t matter what it looks like, I Have Healed You.”. She said it was so real that she answered aloud, “Okay”.

She had not gotten a doctor’s report or diagnosis back yet, so she didn’t know what she was healed of, but she knew she was healed.

On the way to work that morning, Mama told me this whole story. And she said that she had been so sick with chemo that she would not go back on it. She said we serve a God who heals. I agreed (I did not know about the prayer of agreement: Matthew 18:19 “Again I tell you, if two of you on earth agree (harmonize together, make a symphony together) about whatever [anything and everything] they may ask, it will come to pass and be done for them by My Father in heaven.”). When she got to work, she shared her story with her co-workers; Christian counselors, who prayed over her.

By the time she went to see the Oncologist to get the news of the liver scan that had been done, the doctor was quite upset by the many new spots he saw. He motioned for Mama to look at the slides hanging on the light boxes. As she turned to look, all she could see was a hand, with fingers grasping a round pull ring, and a white shade pulled down preventing her from seeing the slides. At the same time she heard again, “It doesn’t matter what it looks like, I HAVE HEALED YOU!”

She left that doctor’s office without a prescription or a treatment plan; after all, she was healed.

That was more than 25 years ago. Mama is now 80 years old and is still healthy & well. Every now and then a pain will trigger a fear, but as she shares her story of God’s power, faithfulness and love, she is reminded of God’s word to her, that she was healed…. and still is, no matter what it looks like!

LEARNING THE FAITH LESSONS REVEALED IN THIS TESTIMONY!

I can possibly understand different things from reading this testimony of deliverance than you can see right now. I can see many hidden faith lessons presented to us that I feel are valuable for us to understand in this story. But, I also believe that I understand the subject of faith now much better than when I first started to study this subject of faith extensively well over 20+ years ago. Too often people do not understand that their current level of spiritual knowledge places limitations upon the things that they can receive from God’s Word. God tells the Corinthian church in 1 Cor 3:1 they are still carnal and unable to receive the spiritual things of depth and substance. Thus their spiritual maturity level placed severe limitations on what could be taught to them by Paul. Everything that is being taught by me or any other real Bible teacher is relative to two realities. What I teach you is totally relative to what I know on the subject and what you can understand about the subject is also totally relative to what you already know on the subject and the basics found in the Bible. I could easily go over your head with deep information, but I try very hard not to do that. That is why I teach using a series of lessons style of progressive information with limited content in each lesson. I try to go with the basics of a subject first, introducing you to progressively more complex parts of the subject in succession like they do in school with math for example. Therefore as you progress in this knowledge of God you should be able to grow into more complex sections of the information presented. I recommend that you go back and reread all the lessons more than once. This way you will catch new things that you did not see or understand before.

I am going to go through the testimony and give you some new perspectives to look at on the subject of faith. For example, many times we get the wrong idea from reading the Bible that a miracle of God is only an instantaneous spectacular phenomenon of the power of God and does not fit with a slower extended over time process like this testimony speaks of. Clearly this testimony was a new extension of the miracle working power of God over time. God was certainly involved in her deliverance even though it took an extended duration of time to fully manifest. Perhaps the reason why this detail took time will become clearer as I continue to go through the analysis of what was said and make some direct comparisons of this modern life experience with another Old Testament example that God gave to us as an example of faith to follow and to learn from. I will be teaching you using the story of Joshua and how they took the Promised Land as you will see soon.

Satan is definitely an equal opportunity oppressor, destroyer and murderer. He comes at anyone, anywhere and at any time that they will let him. The Bible says that “Your adversary the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). That is exactly what is occurring in this testimony. I believe that is one of the first things to learn from this testimony. The origination of the cancer was not from God. God did not send the cancer and then deliver her from it for that would be idiotic. The next lesson to learn is that sometimes bad things happen to good people and we can understand that this occurs because of what Adam chose in the garden. After Adam sinned God said “The man has become as one of us, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:22). Therefore Adam allowed all evil to cross the threshold into the world because of his sin. When Adam let evil into the world he also let sickness come in the same door. I have a Bible lesson series on the specific subject of “Understanding Healing, Sickness and Disease” if you would like a more complete definition for why sickness is an evil and why it exists in our world. You need to settle in your mind and your heart today and determine who your God is. Is your God good or is your God evil or perhaps you are really confused and think that your God is both simultaneously? As long as this is not established in your heart it will cause you to doubt. This is exactly what Satan wants, since doubt will defeat you from receiving healing. Let me ask you again? Where does cancer come from? Is it from God or is it from Satan? Jesus gave us the answer and He taught us something very important in the Gospels and gave us some direct clues to that question. In the book of John Jesus informed us that it was not God who performs the evil in the world. Jesus said “the thief has come only to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you might have life” (John 10:10). Jesus said very clearly that “I am not the thief”. Jesus said I have come to give to you, life abundantly. This was God in the flesh telling you He does not do anything evil to hurt you. Is cancer a good thing or a blessing? If you think it is good then you are cleverly deceived by Satan the thief. Cancer steals your health, your time, your ability, your strength, your money and your life if you let it. But Jesus said I am here to give you life and not to give you cancer. This is really not rocket science but you need to settle it.

Jesus revealed in John 10:10, that there exists two opposing forces; one of evil versus one of good and He attributes death and doing evil to you as being from Satan and life and doing good to you as being from God. Therefore, if any evil is working in your life it was Satan that was behind it and not God. Acts 10:38 teaches us that Jesus went about DOING GOOD, healing all those that were “oppressed” of the devil. That verse clearly teaches us that all sickness is the opposite of good and is an evil satanic oppression. Therefore, cancer is also a part of this unified set of evil oppression brought to people by Satan. Consider the synonyms of “oppression” because they are fascinating to learn. Oppression means “domination”, “coercions”, “cruelty”, “tyranny”, “subjugation”, “persecution”, and “harassment”. None of these describe God at any time or under any circumstances. These words are the antithesis of God and His goodness (Rom 2:4).

Here is another interesting bit of factual information that I learned from studying this information in the Bible. Satan can cause physical diseases, illnesses and symptoms to manifest in your external natural physical body. I really do not have time to fully elaborate why this is possible or what gives Satan access, but know that there was something that you did that opened the door for him. I know this because of the verse that I gave you earlier about “Satan goes about as a roaring lion, seeking who he may devour”. We can clearly read that Satan is not able to devour just anyone that he wishes or he would not need to seek. To seek means to look for something like a hidden door or search for something like a hidden passage that will allow him access to devour you. What is it that you do that opens the door for him? I really can’t explain it completely here, but if you want to know you can begin to read my series of Bible lessons on the power of your tongue and gain many clues to how this is possible. You see the Bible says “Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and those that love it will eat the fruit thereof” (Prov 18:21). Did you notice that this verse in Proverbs repeats the same two elements described by Jesus in John 10:10? Here we have two opposing forces of life versus death and good versus evil. Therefore, life must be produced by us choosing to speak God’s good Words and death must be produced by us choosing to speak satanic evil words. This is more relevant and important than you can imagine right now. Your words got you into this mess, and your words can be changed to get you out of this mess. Let’s go back and read Deuteronomy 30:

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:

You see your life is more in your hands than it is in God’s hands. People want to abdicate and relieve themselves of any personal responsibility for what happens to them. However, God says that I have given to you the choice, and therefore choose wisely and select to live. If Satan puts cancer upon you based upon something you said to open the door, then you can begin to reverse that curse that you initiated by speaking life. How do you do this? Jesus said “the words that I speak they are Spirit and they are life” (John 6:63). Therefore you need to find out what God says and speak that. I think I’m getting ahead of myself but I just said some very important things. Let’s go back and verify using the Bible that God is not the initiator of sickness and that Satan is. Let me give you a verse that links evil spirits with the subject of sickness:

Mat 10:1 And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

I want you to understand that whenever God mentions two or more subjects in a one verse statement that there is an undeviating connection between them by direct word association. Clearly power was given by God to do two things; to cast out unclean spirits and to heal. This word “power” means “delegated influence” within a realm of jurisdiction or authority. It is a legal term indicating a transferred right of legal supremacy. Why does Jesus give His disciples power to cast out unclean spirits and was this, the same as healing someone? In other words is casting out unclean spirits equivalent to healing or are they potentially two separate spiritual activities of God’s power. You do understand the implications given here, don’t you? I believe what is being revealed is a cause and effect relationship between demons causing the sickness and then when you get rid of these causes then you have eliminated the effects of sickness. I hope that you understand these concepts of physics. I believe that this is all very significant information and you need to pay close attention to what is revealed. First do you know what an unclean spirit is? How do we define that and what is different between a clean spirit and an unclean spirit? What makes a spirit unclean? Perhaps it would be helpful to study the definition in the Strong’s of the Greek word translated as “unclean”:

G169

From G1 (as a negative particle) and a presumed derivative of G2508 (meaning cleansed); impure (ceremonially, morally (lewd) or specifically (demonic)): – foul, unclean.

We can see that this word is associated with the demonic by Strong. It means something that is foul and impure. The opposite of pure is impure. A pure substance like gold is the most valuable in the pure form and the value decreases as you mix more filler elements with it. The concept of water is best as pure H2O and adding other elements soon makes it undrinkable. This is clearly a difficult concept to grasp until we search and find God’s use of this word in the Old Testament. God uses “unclean” to describe a leprous man in the natural realm. A leprous man was one with his flesh in a state of rot and decay. A leprous man was required to be separate from the non-leprous people so that they would not be infected. Any time a leprous man came near clean people they were required by law to yell out “unclean” so that everyone would be warned (Lev 13:45). I believe that God is using this natural example of sickness to demonstrate a spiritual truth about the angels that have fallen with Lucifer. They have left their state of perfection to become imperfection by their own sinful choice. Therefore sin is again a cause for spiritual imperfection making a clean spirit one without sin.

To be an unclean spirit is never mentioned in conjunction with a man’s human spirit in the New Testament. 23 verses in the N.T. mention unclean spirits and they are directly associated with spiritual beings that inhabit people. We can learn this a little more clearly by reading what Jesus speaks of in Matthew 12:43.

Mat 12:43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.

Mat 12:44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.

Mat 12:45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

An unclean spirit is revealed to us in this discourse as a spiritual being that enters into and exits from a man’s house. However this is not a physical dwelling like a brick, mortar or wood building construction. These are all symbolic expressions of a much greater truth. The man’s house in this explanation is his symbolic natural body. A clean house or body is one that is free from evil influence or inhabitation and an unclean house is a man with one or more evil spirits living within. The real man is a spirit that lives in a physical body. The unclean spirits that are coming into the man’s house (body) were those spiritual beings that followed Lucifer from heaven. We can understand this concept of the human body house better by reading other verses in the N.T. like when Paul writes this:

2Co 5:6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

Clearly the body of a Christian man is his temporary dwelling place while still being present here on the earth. It is self-evident to me that this verse is speaking of an implied house being called a home to the spirit of man. The contrasted antithesis truth found in this verse is to be with the Lord in heaven when we are found apart from this physical body. What I just said is more clearly stated in verse 8:

2Co 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

To be absent from the body is to no longer be at home in the natural body. To be “present” with the Lord is defined as our spirits having left our body after death here on the earth and going to be with Jesus. This is called rightly dividing the Word of Truth (2 Tim 2:15). Did you notice that the unclean spirits mentioned in Matthew were there for the purpose of the destruction of the natural house? The implied part of the story is that they were cast out and that the man was able to get his house back into the physical order of health. Let’s call this being physically healed since Jesus is describing his body and not a house that we live in. Jesus is describing spirits that cause havoc to a man’s body. Jesus says if you get rid of them and then let them back in they will bring 7 more with them the next time and it will be worse than the previous time.

Do you recall reading about the demon possessed man that Jesus ran into at Gadara? This man was described as a madman that could not be chained and Jesus came to him and commanded the “unclean spirit” to come out of him and they had a conversation first. Jesus asked for the name of the “unclean spirit” and they said “We are legion for we are many” (Mk 5:9). Here was a clear example of many evil spirits being present in the body of a single man. It does not say that this man had a physical illness, but it does say that he had a great mental illness. Therefore, mental illness is also demonically inspired manifestations of “unclean spirits”. That is exactly what Jesus was teaching in Matthew could occur. No doubt the man in Mark 5 had cleaned house before but has let the same spirits return with many more until now he has enough unclean spirits to be called a great army of them.

“Unclean spirits” are the evil spirits that inhabited the bodies of men and women on the earth that cause physical disease and mental illness and I could give you many more scriptures that help to support this evidence if I need to. Going back now to Matthew 10:1 do you better understand why Jesus connected the “authority” to cast out unclean spirits with the ability to heal ALL manner of sicknesses and diseases? According to the Bible when you get rid of the cause the resulting affects also has to go. What am I saying? I am saying cancer is caused by evil spirits. If you don’t understand that or believe that then you will not know to resist it and you will let it come in stay and live, run its course and kill you. You are going to have to take the authority that Jesus gave to you over your house that you live in. Just because Jesus gave His disciples this authority does not mean that it was not also transferred to you. You are the same body of Christ as they were. I do not have time to teach the subject of Bible Authority completely. I did one lesson on the subject of authority and great faith in this series, but I should probably do more just on this subject soon.

One seminary graduate man that I worked with many years ago told me once that God had given his wife cancer, yet they still went to the doctor to try to get out of the perfect will of God. That really did not make any sense to me. He desired his wife to live but then he had to believe that he was fighting against God to get her healed by a doctor. He was mixing up who was the oppressor and who was the healer ignoring the Bible while attempting to put God in both roles in his mind. Why pray to God and ask for healing if God sent you the sickness in the first place? Whatever God sends to you are we supposed to refuse it? Clearly that is illogical human reasoning and turns God into a liar when Jesus said “a house divided against itself will not stand” (Mark 3:25). If God is sending you the sickness and then healing the sickness, His house is a mixed up divided kingdom about to perish. I alluded to this statement earlier, but you MUST believe that Satan is the oppressor and that he has brought you the sickness or disease to kill you or you will not resist it like God says in His Word (James 4:7). Physical and spiritual resistances are both absolute requirements for any faith victory. The ultimate faith battle is on the inside, but the ultimate victory result is only seen by others on the outside in the natural. However, victory always starts on the inside and then this will works its way to the outside and I’ll talk about this more later.

I cried when I read this testimony. It touched my heart how much this lady endured in her life. I felt great compassion for what she went through. However, I also saw several things that developed in her over time that God used to deliver her. At first she did not want to fight the cancer, but then the doctor showed her another lady that was still alive and that seemed to make a difference in her to give her a fighting spirit. God can use anyone to try to change your heart. You need a fighting spirit within you or you will be easily defeated before you start the first battle. The Bible clearly teaches us that we are to “fight the good fight of faith” (1 Tim 6:12). This clearly implies to us that there will be a series of faith battles that will occur in your life for your life. No fight is over instantly. In fact a fight further implies endurance is necessary. Natural fighters train for months before they go and fight one event. During this time they are strengthening their bodies to be an overcomer. This is a physical quality that can be transferred into the spiritual arena. If you go into this faith fight unprepared and passively expecting to automatically win, then again you are going to be defeated. I have never seen any fight with a passive winner natural or spiritual. If you think that you have automatically won the fight because of what Jesus has done for you, then again you will be defeated. There is nothing in the Bible that teaches us what God has given to us is automatically transferred to anyone without them believing, receiving and fighting to keep it. This pattern was first introduced with Adam when God told him to hedge the garden. Sure God gave Adam the garden without a fight, but to keep it safe was not God’s responsibility because God had given it to him to rule over. Threfore Adam held responsibility to keep every enemy out of the garden, but failed.

The children of Israel learned this lesson the hard way in the wilderness. When they finally decided to take their Promised Land, they still had the exact same enemies as before but now there were probably many more of them than there was 40 years earlier. The children of Israel had to couple a physical external fight with their internal spiritual faith fight in order to produce an external physical victory for the possession of the land. That is really no different than what we go through as revealed by this great testimony. Taking the Promised Land is really no different for us than what Israel endured. I would recommend that you go and read the book of Joshua. The entire book of Joshua is only 24 chapters and can be divided into three sections of information. The first 5 chapters represent the preparation part before the actual battle occurs. In these chapters God taught Joshua and Israel to start by being strong and courageous. This is a basic of any spiritual fight using your faith. God then told Joshua to not let the book of the law depart from his mouth, but to speak it day and night (Joshua 1:8). How does faith come? Surely you understand from the previous lessons that faith comes by hearing and that this act of Joshua speaking God’s word was God’s way of giving His people faith. This is exactly where you must start your faith fight also. If you are not getting prepared correctly you are already in trouble. Learn to be strong and then learn to speak God’s Word day and night.

The second part of the book of Joshua is chapters 6-12 where they actually take the Promised Land in phases. During these chapters the nation of Israel has multiple encounters with their enemies. God gives specific instructions for each encounter that must be believed and obeyed in order to be victorious. So far we have 5 chapters of preparation and 7 chapters of battles. The rest of the book of Joshua is Israel settling in the land. It is important to note that the conquest of the Promised Land is a duration of time of nearly seven years. What we learn from this is that just because God gives you something does not mean it does not take time to possess it. Clearly this was not an instantaneous miracle of God. But yet it was still clearly the power of God at work throughout the battles. Are you seeing any parallels with this information to the testimony yet?

Take the battlefield of Jericho in the O.T. as being no different than the battlefield of cancer for this lady in the testimony. The battle is not all yours, but yet you still have a major role to play in producing the victory. For example in the battle for Jericho, the children of Israel were given specific instructions from God and they were required to believe them by faith alone without proof or evidence, obey them and then expect God to do His part. They were required to march around the walls for 7 days. On the seventh day God told them to march around the wall 7 times and then have 7 priests blow their 7 horns and God brought the walls down so that they could take the city. That was an O.T. typology picture of a N.T. spiritual faith battle. They had to believe what God said and then become obedient to what God said or God was not going to help them win or make it happen for them. This is still true today. If you expect God to do everything, you are going to be defeated and the walls you are told to march around will remain upright.

Let’s compare what is different between this woman’s testimony and the fight of Israel to take the Promised Land. In the testimony, she did not believe in divine healing at first because of her ignorance of God’s word. Therefore she completely lacked faith to receive anything from God. Before this she did not have any courage to even continue to fight and thus she has failed to prepare as Joshua did. Thank God for His mercy. If you do not know what you are lacking, God will help you to get there. God ended up giving the woman courage to begin the fight by showing her another woman that had done the same. Later in the testimony God shows her a Bible verse and this is for the advancement of her faith in God’s word to allow her to believe what He has said. God sent His word to the prophet Moses and it was recorded bevore the battle can be fought. This written word of God was the faith source for Joshua’s fight. Are you seeing how God achieved what He taught Joshua in the first 5 chapters as this testimony unfolds?

It is very difficult to believe in the truth, if you do not know the truth or have never heard the truth. God did eventually show this woman a portion of a Bible verse found in 1 Peter 2:24 that states we were healed. We should be able to understand that this was God’s attempt at building her faith since faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Rom 10:17). In the testimony did you notice what God said to her? Maybe I should ask, did you notice what God did not say to her? God did not say “I am going to heal you”. God looked past her current physical condition where it did not yet look like she was healed and He called those things that be not as though they were (Rom 4:17) and said to her in the testimony “I have healed you”. God is never going to change what He says today and make it something different than what He has already said to you yesterday in His Word (Mal 3:6). That is why many of your prayers probably do not work, you are asking God to heal you someday and He has already said to you “I have healed you” (1 Peter 2:24). You are therefore, not in agreement with God. If you do not know what He has said, then that is your number one weakness and why you believe wrong. If you believe wrong then your faith is not based upon the Word of God but rather your misconception of the truth. When the answer to your prayer doesn’t come you will let your circumstances and your symptoms dictate the final outcome. If you learn to change your perspective and start believing “I am healed” simply because that is what God says I am, then you are now in full agreement with His Word and not your symptoms (Amos 3:3).

Physical symptoms of sickness, disease, and cancer are very real just like the giants were very real in the Promised Land to the children of Israel. Both are parallel manifestations of the same enemy. Both the natural giants and the physical symptoms are designed by Satan to put fear into your heart in order to take away any faith, hope or expectation in what God has spoken to you. The spoken Words of God were designed to give you faith (Psa 107:20). This is exactly what Jesus described would happen in the battle of the field also known as the Parable of the Sower (Mat 13:18). Jesus taught us that the seed sown was the Word of God (Mk 4:14) into the hearts of people. But then Jesus said the birds of the air came immediately to steal the word (seed) that was sown (Mat 13:4). The birds of the air were the symbolic demons (unclean spirits) that come bringing to you the symptoms. According to Jesus what was one of the key factors that keeps the spiritual seed from being stolen from us? It was the understanding (Mat 13:19) and the believing it that allowed the seed to remain and not to be stolen which produced the spiritual fruit that God desired. Producing spiritual fruit represents you obtaining the victory over your spiritual enemies in this spiritual battle for your faith beliefs. Jesus said this parable was the most important one for you to know and if you could understand this one you could understand them all (Mk 4:13). Take time to study the Parable of the Sower in the Gospels. It clearly reveals the spiritual battle that you are in now for the control of your belief in the Word of God. Satan is trying everything he can do to steal the Word from your heart and God is trying to help you to produce fruit. Let me show you some important faith scriptures on external symptoms and circumstances:

Rom 4:18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.

Rom 4:19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb:

Rom 4:20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;

Rom 4:21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

Read these verses very carefully. These verses are describing the God kind of faith that Abraham and Sarah possessed. God had spoken and given to them a promise concerning a coming son that would come from their bodies and yet at near the age of 99 and 90 years of age it looked so really bad that it was not going to happen. Anyone can easily get into discouragement looking at the circumstances. But this is not what Abraham ended up doing according to these verses. Verse 20 says Abraham staggered not at the promise of God meaning he did not waiver because of the external circumstances or the wait for the promise to be fulfilled. In verse 21 it goes on to say that Abraham was fully convinced that what God had declared was not impossible for God to perform. Wow, that was an awesome revelation of truth. No matter what the circumstances or the symptoms of the lady with cancer in this testimony God still came and said “I have healed you”. She took hold of that truth and staggered not at what her body looked like.

The Promised Land was not all taken by Israel in one day. Neither did this woman in the testimony possess her healing in one day. Sometimes taking back physical health is a series of smaller miracle victories and not one giant miraculous event. For example the woman in the testimony continued traveling on her pathway to victory, by simply fighting to wash her own hair. Perhaps you do not understand the significance in this simple action. According to the doctors and the nurses, she did what she was unable to do physically and thus she achieved a major victory without even knowing it was a victory. If you listen to what the doctors say you cannot do then you are defeated. Fortunately for her she had not been told that she could not move her arms this way and she did it without being discouraged by the doctors negative words. If the doctors would have been there first and told her this, she might have been defeated. But this simple effort on her part of doing something so basic was a very significant victory on the road to recovery. That was a classic type of faith without understanding what faith is. Doctors do the best that they know from a natural perspective. They do not mean to be faith killers but many times they are. If you listen to them and believe them they can and will many times cause you to remain as you are instead of trying to encourage you to fight to get better. Your will is a major factor in your ability to receive a miracle from God as I have already taught in this series. This lady ignored the pain and washed her hair anyway. She then spent time with her arms raised and fixing her hair. That represents faith whether you understand it or not. Begin to do what you can’t do. Begin to do what they said you could not do. Begin to fight and take back one inch of ground at a time. Don’t give up, don’t quit and do not get discouraged that you did not take a mile today. Every inch will matter over time.

Reread this testimony now and compare it to the Children of Israel’s experience with taking the Promised Land:

Israel had just gotten delivered (saved) from Egypt by a great display of God’s power and things are looking really positive as they walk out. Everyone is well, strong and wealthy with the riches of Egypt being transferred to them as they left. Pharaoh has second thoughts after letting them go and decides to pursue them only to be destroyed in the sea. Wow, can it get any better for God’s people? I think they even have a scholarship to get into a really nice college promised land.
They then go from what appears as God’s great blessings to a wilderness experience even asking God, why did you bring us out here to die? Were there not enough graves in Egypt? The family situation was certainly starting to look very bleak, negative and cursed in this wilderness and even divorce could be splitting the family up.
Just when it couldn’t look any worse they send 12 spies into Canaan land and get a really bad doctor’s report back. The report says that there are cancer giants in the land? 10 spies say we can’t overcome these cancer giants so let’s just die and only 2 said “It’s not a problem”. This is when the patient people are faced with a decision. Whose report are we to believe? The 10 in the majority or the 2 men of God? Fortunately, one doctor shows the patient a vision of a survivor and she chooses to become a Joshua who is willing to fight for the victory.
For forty years the Joshua patient endures a fight of faith in the wilderness while everyone else around her dies one by one. Time in the wilderness has to take a toll mentally, emotionally and physically, but Joshua holds on to what God says still believing that he can take the land and overcome the cancer giants.
Finally, it’s time to enter into the Promises of God. I can’t stand my dirty hair anymore so I’m going to make it clean all by myself. It’s not easy to do, it might even hurt, and the nurse looks at her and says you can’t do that. But that didn’t stop the Joshua Christian from doing it anyway. You see the 10 spies said we can’t, but the 2 said we can. Doing what others say you can’t proves that you can do it in spite of their weak opinion.
The battle was won and the hair was clean, now it needs to be put up on the top of her head again something that no one said she could do. People this is called faith, if you did not know it. Are you learning anything?
Every little battle and every little victory matters. With each time of victory new confidence grows and faith increases. The next battle is easier to win because of the previous victory and the display of faithfulness from God.

That was my quick comparison of the parallels between two victorious accomplishments by faith. Did you learn anything from it? I know it helped me and I pray that you received from it also. Let me conclude with a list of things that I took away from the testimony and reading in the book of Joshua today.

Go to a doctor and get natural help especially if you do not know what the Bible says. There is no lack of faith in fighting a physical battle using a doctor as long you do not neglect the spiritual enemy that has caused it. Do not fight a spiritual or physical battle without God on your side.
Sometimes not knowing what is wrong with you is worse than knowing who your enemy is. Joshua saw the enemies the same as the 10 spies, but Joshua did not let the knowledge of the enemies deter him from defeating them. Joshua knew the names of the people and you need to find out what you are facing.
When you have a medical diagnosis you now have a natural enemy with a name. We know that Satan also has a name. So both of these are the names of your enemy that you are facing.
The Bible says that every knee must bow to the name of Jesus because the name of Jesus is above every other name (Php 2:9).
Therefore, use the Name of Jesus to stand against your named disease and Satan and command them both to bow to the greater name of Jesus.
Remain as positive and optimistic as you can be, despite the diagnosis, prognosis, symptoms or circumstances because your faith is in the Word of God and what He has said to you like the believing Joshua. Focus on who your God is and the promise not the giants in your body.
Prepare for battle. Feed daily and even hourly speaking God’s Word to help build your faith and keep it ever before your eyes and ears again as God instructed Joshua to do (Joshua 1:8). Time spent in preparation for battle is more important than the battle itself.
Get a hold of a fighting spirit and do not ever bend or waiver to become passive allowing your surroundings, feelings, emotions or symptoms to dominate you or your thoughts. Cast down every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God’s Word (2 Cor 10:5).
One of the primary spiritual battles that will occur is ultimately in your mind for the control of your beliefs. As long as you believe God instead of your circumstances you will win!
Fight the good fight of faith and take back small chunks of the Promised Land daily. Don’t attempt to win the entire war in one day. Look at the war as a series of smaller battles to overcome one enemy at a time.
Let each small past victory help to build you up and raise you to a new faith level of greater confidence for the next victory (Rom 1:17). For the Bible says clearly that the JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH. Do you want to live? If yes, then you need to get FAITH and increase it (2 Cor 10:15).
You never ignore the giants or pretend like they are not present; you look each giant in the face and defeat them with the Sword of the Spirit like David did to Goliath. Giant symptoms are very real. We do not deny the symptoms; we do however deny their right to exist in our land.
Like I said, your faith fight is probably not going to be a one victory or one battle experience, just like the taking of the Promised Land was not one battle and one victory for Israel.
Faith is more like a marathon race event and not a fast sprint type of race. The taking of the Promised Land took nearly 7 years to possess. Do not get discouraged how long it takes, just keep believing it is yours.
Joshua and Caleb saw themselves as ultimate winners and victorious long before they ever achieved the final victory outcome. That is having great faith before you see the result. That is what I am trying to tell you to do right now. Get a vision of victory and then expect it to come to pass.

Do you see yourself as a winner? Can you see the vision of victory? Do you expect to win because of who your God is or are the giants bigger than your God? Begin to change to see yourself as God has said and this will make the difference for the outcome in your life. I hope and pray that this testimony that I gave to you provided some encouragement on how to fight your coming battles. In this world we will all be faced with the same enemies in some form. Your vision and your beliefs will determine God’s ability to fight these battles for you. I thank my Facebook friend for sharing her story with you. I thank you for taking the time to read it and for allowing God to speak to your heart. If you have a testimony that you would like to share with everyone I would be very happy to hear it. God Bless you as we all grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

If you would like to continue reading in this series of Bible lessons please continue to “Part 18“.

Posted in Bible Study, Faith, Understanding

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, Faith, God, Healing, Jesus, Religion, Truth, understanding

Understanding Healing, Sickness and Disease! Was Divine Healing Always Instant in the Gospels? Part 7

May 23

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.1) Today’s lesson is Part 7 in the Bible study series about “Understanding the Subjects of Healing, Sickness and Disease”. I have been led by God recently to teach on this subject of healing for someone and I do not always understand the reasons for doing everything that I do, so I just try to be obedient. I do know there are many people in the church in need of a divine touch from God so this subject is good for everyone to know even if you do not need the same today. I have already covered a lot of information in this Bible lesson series that will not all be repeated exactly as stated before, therefore if you have not read every lesson from the beginning, I would recommend that you start reading with “Part 1” before you read today’s lesson. Today’s lesson is a continuation of the last lesson to some extent about the question that I received “Is divine healing always instant”. I have been answering this question from a reader about why healing does not always appear to take place immediately after we pray and ask God to heal us. This is a very common modern problem found in the Body of Christ. Many are taught wrong and have based their beliefs on this wrong information resulting in failure to receive what God has already given to them. In the last lesson I taught on Daniel’s prayer and how that his answer sent from God was delayed for a period 3 weeks because of a spiritual conflict occurring in the unseen dimension between heaven and the earth. We discovered that God had heard Daniel’s prayer the very first day and sent the angel Gabriel to Daniel with the answer but yet the answer did not arrive for these 21 days. Obviously this is a pattern that we need to learn from to understand what is potentially occurring for us today.

The failure of humans to receive from God is often based upon their ignorance of not understanding that they also have an enemy that is purposely attempting to block their answer of God from coming. When this occurs they often fall into a vicious cycle of unbelief that God did not answer so I must go and ask God for the answer again. However, this new request usually just starts the same process over where we find that God hears and sends the answer but because it does not instantly occur again, the cycle repeats to almost a daily pray and ask God for an answer and if nothing happens tomorrow I just need to pray and ask God to send the answer again and again and again. I know people that have prayed for 10 years asking God for the same answer over and over; not realizing that He had tried to send it the first time they asked like we read in Daniel. I’ll probably shock some people today, but if you prayed about the same healing more than once you prayed the second time in unbelief that God did not hear you the first time. Unbelief is the opposite of faith and believing and Satan has just defeated you by the very simple tactic of causing a modest delay in time to occur. If you read the Gospels closely you will find that Jesus honored faith and nothing else. Those that demonstrated faith got healed and those that did not usually got nothing. God is still the same today.

Today I’m going to try to go through some Bible examples found in the Gospels where Jesus the Son of God in person could not or did not heal anyone instantly and discuss why not. These examples will help to bring clarity to why it might also take time for you to receive from God. In other words these new exceptions to the “instant miracle” belief will help us to understand that God does not always control what is happening to get someone healed. We can learn from these new profound examples some additional factors about divine healing that will be comforting and helpful if we can accept them for what they teach us.

IS DIVINE HEALING ALWAYS INSTANTLY MANIFESTED IN THE GOSPELS?

Truly while reading the Gospels we can see Jesus doing what appear to be many instant healings and miracles for many people. There are so many clear examples of instant healings and miracles found in the Gospels that they almost dominant the entire message causing many people to believe that this is God’s standard and only way of doing it. It also causes many modern people to wish they lived when Jesus was physically here on the face of the earth just so they could get healed that easily and quickly. For example, we can read about the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda that instantly rises and walks in John 5:2. There is another healing of two blind men that instantly receive their sight found in Matthew 20:34. Another blind man in Luke 18:43 also received his sight immediately. A leprous man was immediately healed by Jesus in Matthew 8:3 and Mark 1:42. There is more than enough evidence for instant types of divine healing to understand that this is a potential way for healing to occur but is it the only way that God’s power operated on the earth in people? I believe that it is a great mistake to think that this is the only way it can happen. Never lock God into your religious box of limited information and understanding. Never place any restrictions or limitations on divine methods and how they must operate to satisfy you or your fallible human requirements. You are a fool if you think that you control God, what He does and how He can do it. You are going to have to read and study the rest of the entire Bible to insure that God does nothing in a non-spectacular instant miraculous way in order to discount those types of alternate methods of gradual or progressive healings. So while I do not deny that instant miracles can occur even today, I also choose to see that there are some other very interesting recorded events in the Bible that need to be balanced with the knowledge of these instant types of miracles and that is my goal today in what I teach you.

Attempting to be balanced in all of God’s word will cause us to walk more down the center of the road keeping us far from falling into either side ditch of extremism on our left or on our right. For example, one ditch side of extremism on the subject of healing will try to say that God never heals anyone anymore while the other ditch side of extremism will scream God only heals instantly or it is not God. Both are just excessive positions that do not teach the actual balanced truth of God. Learn to avoid the ditches of extremism and that information will possibly help you more than anything else that I say today. Learn to base your beliefs upon sound doctrines using balanced principles and that will raise you above the level of deception that occurs in many man created teachings. But, before we go to these new Gospel examples let’s review a radical concept given to us in what God has created in this natural world about healing.

NATURAL HEALING, IS IT ALWAYS INSTANT?

Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

According to the Bible many of the invisible qualities of God can be seen in things that God has created in our world around us. We therefore need to analyze what did God create and does it relate to our subject today? Is there any healing in the human body that occurs naturally? I think that you can easily understand that the normal human body was designed to fight against sickness and injury and that this process was certainly designed by God.

Do you agree that God created natural healing? Doesn’t our natural physical healthy bodies have God’s divine healing systems normally pre-built in that are designed to repair themselves or to at the least help to fight off sickness or injury that have attacked us? Are any of these naturally designed divine processes instant? I believe that you can clearly see they are always consistently gradual and never an instant manifestation. Have you ever thought about that? The natural realm is a direct contrasting opposite to what seems to occur in the majority of the Gospel accounts. Could God have created an instant repair system in the body of man if He so desired? Obviously I believe that God is more than capable, intelligent and powerful enough to do that if that is what He wanted to do. However, our natural immune system was certainly a sovereignly designed feature that came from God and it is not an instant process. This immune system was given to every human being for the purpose of helping us obtain health. Naturally if we cut our external skin organ the process of self-repair normally takes over to correct the problem but again slowly over time. God created blood coagulation as a normal part of the initial process to stop the flow of blood in cuts. The scab will eventually form and the skin will eventually repair and heal. This is clearly a divinely designed healing process with multiple and progressive steps. It does not instantly happen and it requires time to be fully fulfilled. Therefore even in the created natural realm God designed non-instantaneous ways for divine healing to occur. So I have just given you two different example patterns for healing to occur by God’s design. Some of these Bible examples were patterns of instant divine corrections and others in the natural realm were not instant healings, yet still miraculous none-the-less over time. Using this information let us now go into some non-instant healings found in the Gospels.

JESUS HEALS A BLIND MAN IN BETHSAIDA

We are going to start our examination of a specific Gospel healing story that is often overlooked or ignored in the huge number of healing accounts recorded. This new additional example of divine healing in the Bible should further expand our knowledge that not every healing that Jesus performed was an instant miracle display of God’s extreme power. We will go to the book of Mark and begin to read in chapter 8 and verse 22:

Mar 8:22 And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him.

Mar 8:23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought.

These are really fascinating verses beginning to unfold. Jesus comes to a town where some people living there lead a blind man to Him and ask Jesus to touch him. Why were these people bringing this blind man to Jesus and what did they want or expect to occur? Obviously the intended purpose was for Jesus to heal him with His touch. Here is where we need to stop and figure out why then does the anointed Son of God take this blind man out of town where they are before He heals him? Why not just touch the blind man in the town and instantly heal him? Wow, those are very tough questions to answer so we normally ignore them and keep reading not understanding the importance of what is happening here. What does leaving town, have to do with the blind man getting healed? You really need to ask God some specific questions if you ever expect to hear specific answers when you read and study the Bible. If you do not observe what is being said in the Bible you will certainly miss at least 99% of the main message. Let me try to answer those questions by what happened in another location with Jesus. Do you remember when Jesus once went into His own hometown and what happened there when He tried to heal the people? In this story found in Mark 6:5 it says that Jesus could there in that city do NO mighty works (miracles) except to heal a few minor sicknesses. Evidently we learn from these two stories that in some physical locations it matters to Jesus and determines what He can or can’t do. This is actually very important because this information will still hold true for today and your physical location in the world. The location of where you are presently can and will affect if you are able to receive your healing. I have observed this before and perhaps you have also. In churches that do not teach about divine healing, rarely does any divine healing ever take place. In other churches that teach divine healing strongly there is an atmosphere of expectancy that permits God to heal.

Why are some cities open to receiving miracles from God while other cities like Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth and Bethsaida were not? Jesus teaches us in Mark 6:6 that it was their unbelief in Nazareth that limited what God could do there. Wow, religious people struggle with that statement tremendously. However, I did not say it God did in His Word. So if you reject His words do you not also reject Him? According to the Word of God, people have the power to limit what God’s power does on the earth and this human power was called unbelief. I know I’ll get some negative comments from certain kinds of carnal religious people for saying that, but I’m just reading the Bible. I hope you are doing the same. Notice by this defined truth that if unbelief has the negative power to cause us to not receive from God then by the law of antithesis your belief contains the positive power to receive from God. I hope you heard and understood what I said, it was very important. Check your surroundings and see if everyone around you believes with you or are against you. If they are against you then it could cause an atmosphere of unbelief that can hinder the flow of God’s power.

Apparently from this information we must conclude that the people in Bethsaida were also full of the same type of negativity called unbelief and this was the primary reason why Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the city. Notice that Jesus only laid His hands on the blind man once they were fully out of the city, but also notice that before He did this that He only did it after spitting on his eyes and that is another very interesting twist to observe. What does spitting on the blind man’s eyes have to do with his physical healing or the power of God’s ability to manifest? I probably will not be able to answer that question to the fullest satisfaction of many readers today. However, it is very noteworthy to search your Bible to see that at least 3 times in the Gospels Jesus used spit to heal someone and these 3 different people were only healed because Jesus first spit.

Why is it that some people in the Gospels got healed by a touch alone and others by spit, a touch and a longer process? We are forced to conclude that either God’s power alone was not effective in these specific cases or that there are other unknown factors that were involved that kept this blind man from seeing instantly. I vote for number 2; that there existed other unknown or unstated factors that existed and that God’s power did not fail them or treat them uniquely differently. I cannot believe God’s power or lack of power was the problem in this blind man’s case in Mark 8. What would happen if someone came and spat in your face? What would your reaction be if you did not see it coming? Shock, surprise, and even potentially anger could arise from someone doing this unexpectantly to you. I believe Jesus did this on purpose to get a reaction and to set the expectations for something new to happen. The blind man certainly felt the spit hit him and this was not what he was expecting so that changes his attitude to expect something different. This is actually a good lesson to learn from. Don’t expect how God will heal you just expect it to happen and it will.

I did not really emphasize this point but in verse 23 the last thing that Jesus does is to ask the blind man if he can see anything? That is an amazingly interesting question for the Son of God to ask. Does He not know that the man was healed after He has spit and touched his eyes? Do you think that after you pray and ask God for healing and He has sent the answer, is it possible that God is asking you are you healed? I believe He is, even if you cannot hear it. You need to figure out how to answer that question correctly before it is asked to you. Let’s continue to read the answered response given to us from the Mark 8 blind man:

Mar 8:24 And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.

The blind’s man’s first words to Jesus were “I see”. That is a positive faith statement whether you understand it or not. It indicates that there was at least some progress in his eyesight after being led out of the city, Jesus spitting on him and touching him. Previously the blind man could see nothing and now he says that he sees men that look like trees walking. You need to learn to speak positively no matter what is not working fully. This statement represents a progressive healing process occurring in steps. The message is clearly presented that something was different in this blind man based upon some unstated and unknown factor. Now, examine Jesus’ response to the man’s answered words of seeing partially but not clearly:

Mar 8:25 After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.

Here we have an example for every minister to potentially follow. If you lay your hands on someone and they do not begin to recover fully we could learn that Jesus stopped and did it again. Why does the great God in the flesh need to do something twice? I personally believe it was for two factors for us to see. One is to teach us what to do as men and second is to show us how to increase the faith of the person that we are ministering to. Jesus never wavered in His belief that the man was healed. However Jesus’ faith and the anointed power of God were not the only factors involved in the blind man receiving his healing. If you do not understand how faith works, you will never understand what is happening in this story. Jesus took the blind from the city to eliminate him from the surrounding force of unbelief (lack of faith). Now alone together with Jesus the single isolated blind man’s lack of faith is the only factor that needs to be overcome. While the blind man was being led out of the city by Jesus, he could have stopped Jesus and said “I’m not going” and walked back into town at any time. The blind man exhibits a certain measure of faith simply by silently being a follower of Jesus without questioning or having any proof that anything positive will even happen to him. That reality exhibits very simple faith to be led without knowing the outcome. In fact it corresponds to a N.T. verse that says we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7). The blind man walking out of town took a level of belief in someone that the blind man could not see and thus he fulfilled this verse literally. Do you understand what I am trying to say and how it is an important part to my lesson?

After getting the man out of the town Jesus continues to work on increasing the man’s faith level to receive. Jesus does this by first spiting in his eyes. This spirt is a tangible physical feeling that the blind man could immediately feel and it was also something totally unexpected for him to experience. Therefore the blind man is now beginning to expect the unexpected to happen to him. What happens when you experience something that you did not expect? I believe it sets a pattern for you to begin to expect more of the unexpected. No doubt no one had ever done this to the blind man for this reason, so this causes the blind man to start expecting something new to happen. Jesus then lays His hands on the blind man’s eyes and the tangible anointing of God could now flow from Jesus’ body into the blind man’s body and no doubt he could feel this power also. Afterwards Jesus removed his hands and asked him a direct question. When the man opens his eyes and sees for the first time things were definitely better than before but yet still not perfect. So Jesus touches the man’s eyes again and the anointing again flows and this time he opens his eyes and sees every man clearly. This is pretty awesome stuff if you can see what is happening.

There are two main factors that must be present for the majority of divine healings that takes place in the Gospels. These two main factors that must be present are first the quantity of God’s power that is present and administered and second the quantity of the person’s faith to receive the power of God’s Grace given. Both must be present and working together in unison, agreement and harmony or the divine healing will not take place. Of course there are still exceptions to every rule. The fact that God can still give to anyone a gift of healing even to someone without faith has occurred in the Bible and still does occur in the world today occasionally. For example, the lame man at the pool of Bethesda was an example of a gift of divine healing without any mention of faith being present. However, do not count on God doing this for you. You don’t have any promise in the Bible that says He will do it this way. This is completely up to God and He will decide to do it and not you. Many times I have seen God do this in third world countries for people that have never heard about God or Jesus.

THE DIVINE ANOINTING PRESENT FACTOR

Let’s briefly talk about the variable of the anointing factor. God’s anointing can be given to every man in various measures of power and effectiveness. Practically no two men on the earth possess the same level of anointing from God. We can learn this fact in many verses but one of the clearest examples is found in the life of Elijah and Elisha. Both men were great prophets of God and both did extraordinary feats for God. However, Elisha asked for a double portion of the anointing that Elijah possessed. Let’s go back and review this quickly in the O.T.:

2Ki 2:9 And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.

2Ki 2:10 And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so.

God is described to be omnipotent or “All Powerful” in the Bible. These descriptions of God provide us key qualities that we do not fully comprehend. God’s power is what I will call limitless or unlimited, yet God still places self-imposed limits on what He does by His own sovereign freewill and by His own Word. Levels of this power of God can be transferred as an anointing on spiritual beings like angels and on the people on the earth. Elijah was anointed by God and he called down fire from heaven that consumed all of the prophets of Baal. Elijah also stopped it from raining on the earth for a period of three and half years and then commanded it to rain and it did. Now, Elisha observes the great things that God has done through Elijah and only asks for something greater and if you read on in the Bible, you will find that it was granted to him. The number of great things that Elijah did, Elisha did twice as many. Go study it for yourself and see that God’s power was variably given to men. However, we can learn that no other man had as much of the power of God’s anointing as Jesus did. Acts 10:38 tells us that God anointed Jesus with this power to drive out and heal everyone oppressed by Satan. Satan as you may recall from reading in Ezekiel 28:14 was also anointed by God. Therefore Satan had power given to him by God also. We learn from Acts 10:38 that Satan used this power to oppress people with sickness and that God countered this oppression with Jesus bringing healing. However, let me show you a scripture that appears to claim that Jesus had the entire anointing power of God according to the Word of God whereas Satan and others did not:

Joh 3:34 For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.

God tells us that the measure of the Spirit that was present upon Jesus had no limitations that were set. This is a very interesting statement that is full of implied truths. It indicates that every Christian today has the Spirit of God by limited measure. This simply means that we all have God’s power but not in the fullest measure like Jesus when we pray for someone else. However God’s power not in the fullest is still powerful enough to solve every human situation and problem. Do not discount God’s power to say I don’t have enough to get someone else healed today. Do you remember what Peter said to the lame man at the gate of Jerusalem? The lame man wanted silver and gold from the Peter but Peter said those I do not have, but such as I have, give I thee and commanded him to rise and walk. Peter was anointed to heal and he knew it. He offered this anointing to the lame man and he received it by his level of expecting and walked that day.

I probably need to do a separate series on just the anointing of God and how it works. What we need to know today for receiving healing is that when a man or woman of God comes and lays their hand upon you that their level of anointing power is a factor for the amount of power delivered. Still understand this if you are alone in your house with no one to pray for you, God is ever present and the power of God is always available. The difficulty in this approach is that many times there is no point of contact that is readily available to receive. You see when Jesus spit on the blind man and laid his hands upon his eyes this represented an observable, physical and tangible contact point that could be felt externally. This power transfer contact point greatly enhances a person’s faith in receiving the power of God. Jesus certainly understood this and this is why Jesus was led by the Spirit of God to do what he did in healing this blind man.

I really was planning on doing more than one healing in the Gospel today, but I have gone long enough in this lesson with presenting many new things to think about. I do not want to overwhelm you with too much new information or it will just go in one ear and probably exit the other. Let’s recap with a quick overview of what you should have taken away from today’s Bible lesson.

The blind man’s healing in Bethsaida was not instantly manifested.
In fact the unbelief of the city of Bethsaida causes Jesus to remove him from that place before ministering to him.
Jesus spent personal time building the man’s faith so this faith was important to be present in the man in order for him to receive his healing. Therefore, spend time in building your faith.
The blind man literally walked by faith out of the city of unbelief in order to receive and was healed.
The blind man’s healing was a limited multi-step process and took time.
Jesus had to lay hands on him twice for the healing to be fully received.
The anointing factor of the power of God is variably given depending upon who is administering God’s power.
Even a small amount of the Power of God is all that is needed to heal anyone.

I know I made a lot of other important points, but you can go back and reread them to get them all. I suggest that you reread these healing lesson over and over to help build up your understanding and your faith in God’s word. Thank you for taking the time to read and for your willingness to hear from God. God bless you as we continue in this series.

Posted in Bible Study, Healing, Understanding

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, Faith, God, Healing, Jesus, Religion, Truth, understanding

Understanding Healing, Sickness and Disease! Erroneous Teaching in the Modern Church? Part 5

Apr 29

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.3) Today’s lesson is Part 5 in the Bible study series about “Understanding the Subjects of Healing, Sickness and Disease”. In this series we have been exploring the Bible foundations to recognize God’s truth and perspective on the subject of where does physical healing, sickness and disease actually come from? I have already introduced you to a lot of information in this Bible lesson series that will not all be repeated exactly as stated before, therefore if you have not read every lesson from the beginning, I would strongly suggest that you go and start your reading with “Part 1”. I usually do not focus on the erroneous teachings of other men, but I think this is a valid approach to take since there are so many erroneous things about healing being taught by many churches. What I will attempt to do today is not to teach you the foundational basis for the error, but rather to teach you to see the counter truth to the inaccuracy using God’s Word. One of my chief goals in all of my Bible lessons is not to give you a fish but rather to teach you how to fish from God’s word for yourself. This concept of learning to see the truth for yourself will help you not to be deceived by anyone that will try to come to you and present something new that contradicts with what God wanted you to know. Therefore, we must counter the error with only the truth of God to help other people from falling into Satan’s traps of deception. So today will be a Bible lesson about many of the wrong teachings found in churches about healing, sickness and disease to help you. Obviously this will not cover every false teaching in the world on the subjects and it will not be a comprehensive level of detail on any one subject that could have been accomplished. It will however give you an overview of the vast problems associated with a few teachings that I know are in error.

BRIEF REVIEW OF WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED SO FAR

Since it has been a long time since I posted on this subject, I think it would be good to briefly mention a few of the things that we have learned in the series. We know from reading the Bible that when our world and the first man Adam were created by God, He looked at it all and said it was “Very Good” (Gen 1:31). Therefore according to God, no evil, like sickness existed prior to sin. If Adam was not created sick, where then did sickness come from? The first mention of the healing of human sickness actually occurs many years after creation in Genesis 20:17. From God’s timeline this has to be nearly two thousand years after Adam. I will also say that the book of Job is reported to be the oldest book in the Bible and it has mention of sickness and healing. However the exact timeframe of the book of Job is not known. The book of Job probably occurs sometimes after Noah and before Abraham. We may talk about Job in future lessons since this book is widely misapplied to accuse God with causing sickness by Satan to occur on Job. For now let’s concentrate on Genesis 20. In this verse Abraham prays to God for Abimelech and his wife and it is stated that God healed them because of the prayer. This is actually very important to note that the first recorded healing in Genesis is stated to have come from God through the vehicle of human prayer. I believe that is important to know.

We also know from Bible study that Adam’s sin was the main factor for man knowing evil according to Genesis 3:22. In this verse God states that evil entered into the world and man has now come to know something besides knowing only God’s goodness. Therefore I have concluded that sin was the root cause for all evil including sickness to enter into the world. However do not misunderstand what I said. Just because sin was the root cause for all sickness, this does not mean that it was necessarily your sin that caused your sickness. You see there was a transfer of death upon all men from the original sin of the one man Adam. Since sickness is nothing but a minor precursor to death we should know that Adam’s sin has now passed this curse to everyone else that has descended from him according to 1 Corinthians 15:22. There are such things as generational curses that are handed down from parent to child and from generation to generation. This is why doctors ask about family history of certain diseases. If your parent had it then you are more likely to also have it. Perhaps in a future lesson we will talk more about this generational curse factor revealed in the Bible.

I further showed you in lesson one that sickness was the curse for disobeying God’s law revealed to us in Deuteronomy 28. Any disobedience is called a sin of commission or omission and we are all guilty of this according to Romans 5:12. You may recall that I gave you one example of Jesus healing a paralytic man that couldn’t walk. In this story Jesus said to him first “Your sins are forgiven” and all of the Jews drew up in arms that Jesus could forgive sin. In this story found in Matthew 9 you will see that Jesus attributes a direct link between sickness and sin. Jesus was basically teaching us that the cause of sin resulted in the effect of sickness. When Jesus told the man his sins were forgiven Jesus was saying son you are healed. Are your sins forgiven by the shed blood of Jesus today? Well according to Jesus you should be healed also. The Greek word translated as “saved” is the word “sozo” and it means to be made whole. This was an all-inclusive work of God. God gave to men salvation which included spiritual health, mental health, physical health and financial health. In other words God relieved us from the curse and you can read that by finding it in Galatians 3:13.

I hope you also understood the concept that I presented about a house being divided will not stand. If God makes you sick and also heals you then His house is divided and by His own admission of law will not stand. Jesus revealed a basic truth that states any house or kingdom can be easily defeated if it is not strongly unified in a singleness of purpose. Therefore, evil and sickness must only come from the house of Satan that is evil and healing which is good can only come from the house of God that is consistently good! Finally I taught you one lesson on the Father’s heart revealed to us in the parable of the Prodigal Son. The father was not out to inflict the child for being stupid, the father’s heart was directed at only re-establishing the son to his place in the family because of his great love for his son. This is clearly a picture of God and His desire to bless you today. These were all just some of the basic important concepts already discussed. I pray that you took hold of them and accepted them as the truth. Now let’s explore some error.

THE ERROR OF AN OLD TESTAMENT DOMINATED THEOLOGY

There are literally too many unfounded erroneous teachings about healing, sickness and disease found in the modern church today. I will start this lesson with one that is very popular. I find this error in more of my comments on this website than almost any other mistake that people make. Reading the Old Testament in isolation is one of the most prevalent problems with modern theological teachings. There are literally many mistranslated verses found in the Old Testament that people use to establish their wrong beliefs. Because people do not know or understand how God wrote the Bible, they can easily be misguided by what they read in the Old Testament. We must begin by first asking “Is the truth plainly presented in the Old Testament”? If you feel like it is, then you are already deceived and lack understanding that is required by God. There is nothing of any spiritual value in the Old Testament that is clearly presented. I probably just lost a bunch of readers with that statement. However consider what Jesus said about the Old Testament before you turn me completely off:

Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

This is one of the most important statements that Jesus taught us about all of the words written in the Old Testament. Jesus said that nothing you could read was self-evident concerning the truth about Him. In fact Jesus just literally said you must “search” to even find Him. That means He is not easily found. To search the Old Testament implies the hidden meaning that the words about Jesus were not placed upon the surface text for us to easily locate. Have you ever lost your car keys? Have you ever had to do a house room to room search to find them? That is exactly what Jesus is teaching you about you finding Him anywhere in the Old Testament. Jesus claimed it was going to take great effort of you looking for you to find Him on the pages. That is a very important concept for you to learn.

One of the most important things that you can learn from me today is for you to never read the Old Testament without first reading the New Testament very closely and understanding it as completely as possible. Begin your every Bible Study by understanding this very basic Bible interpretation law. The Old Testament is the New Testament in a concealed format. The New Testament is the Old Testament hidden concepts being revealed to the church. Therefore we must use all of the New Testament revelations to understand anything that was written in the Old Testament. If you fail to do this you are in error. If your pastor is teaching you mostly from the Old Testament without using any of the New Testament to explain it, you need to find a new church very fast. We in the church are not under the law of the Old Covenant (Rom 6:15). Therefore we are not under that covenant. There is a major division within the Bible that occurs between Malachi and Matthew. The words written prior to Matthew are primarily directed to a natural people and the words written after Matthew are primarily written to a spiritual people. Of course this is much more complicated than I just stated.

Rom 16:25 Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,

This is another very important scripture to understand. Do you know what “revelation” is? God defines the word “revelation” as “a disclosure”. This Greek word translated as “revelation” literally comes from a root word that means to “take the cover off”. Revelation is the act of revealing what was once hidden from plain view. Therefore we must understand that the words written on the pages did not change but only the meaning they convey were adjusted so that we could see them like God could see them. As you can read in this verse, God revealed to us mysteries that were kept secret from the foundation of the world. How did God do this? God does this by writing in plain text code. I do not mean that He encrypted the text and made it unreadable; I just mean that He hid the spiritual meanings of the words being encapsulated within the natural word text making them easily overlooked by the carnal dominated mind of the reader. This is still what occurs today for most people reading the Old Testament and thinking they understand it without checking out what God explains and reveals about the subjects in the New Testament. Because people do not understand these concepts they are vastly confused about many subjects in the Bible. You cannot understand anything in the Old Testament without first finding God’s definitions, explanations and revelations in the New Testament. That could have been the most important thing that I teach you all day.

Here is an interesting fact about the New Testament. God quotes the Old Testament nearly 300 times in the New Testament. This fact means that every 1 in 22 N.T. verses is an Old Testament quoted verse. If you have a NASB translation of the Bible you will easily find the quotes since they are presented in ALL CAPS. This will greatly help you in your search for them. If one in every 22 verses is quoting the Old Testament then the other 22 verses are potential explanations of the revelation about what the O.T. verse meant. This means that you must read and study these N.T. verses to even come close to begin to know what the Old Testament verses were saying originally. Paul taught us plainly that what he taught the early church came as a direct revelation from Jesus (Gal 1:12). If Paul required extensive revelation to understand the Old Testament scriptures, then you also need the same kind of revelation to understand God’s O.T. words. However it is noteworthy that what they taught in the New Covenant was completely verifiable from what was written in the Old Testament:

Act 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

We can clearly see from this verse that the early noble church at Berea used the O.T. to verify everything that Paul was teaching to them. Notice however, that this was the exact same book that the Jews had read for 1500 years and they could not see what they were now seeing being revealed by Jesus. There were no new words added to the O.T. text. The only event that had occurred was that God had finally revealed what the words on the old scrolls meant and that changed everything. So what am I saying to you today? Are you learning anything? Do not read the Old Testament in isolation thinking that you understand what it means about any subject. Your carnal mind and human reasoning is too small to comprehend God’s vast hidden meanings and there is literally no way that you will understand them correctly without first learning to view them through the New Testament.

OLD TESTAMENT CONFLICTS WITH NEW TESTAMENT REVELATION

Because this is such an important topic to understanding the differences between New Testament revelations and Old Testament mysteries, I’m going to reemphasize it with some direct Bible examples about what I just taught in the last section. Let’s begin by defining the word “sick” from the Bible. This Hebrew word that is often translated as sick literally means to be rubbed or worn. It is the opposite term of being new or being without imperfections, faults or failures. Healthy is of course the opposite of being sick from our modern vocabulary. Therefore, God is basically saying to be sick is to be like a pair of jeans with worn holes in them. Sickness is a condition that demonstrates your human weakness and it shous us a condition that we were not in when originally designed and created by God. Therefore according to God to be sick is like having worn holes in you pants. I know many ignorant people today like their jeans with holes in them, but I’m not that stupid to pay extra money for a garment that is distressed and imperfect. Therefore, human sickness is a weakness to the fabric of life and health and a precursor to death which is the complete failure of the life and health fabric.

What is the definition of the Hebrew word that was translated as “heal”? To heal according to God is to repair or mend that which was broken or in need of fixing. Healing is defined to be a cure or a reversal for whatever made you sick. Therefore we must use these new definitions to figure out if our God broke us just so that He could come to the earth personally to fix us? That obviously does not make any logical sense to me but that is what many are teaching us today. I do not intentionally break my car just so I can fix it. I never break a china plate to try to glue it back together. That would be insanity and not creativity and the revealed nature of our God. Let’s go back to the Old Testament and see a verse:

Deu 7:15 And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.

Here is a classic Old Testament verse about sickness being attributed to God’s purpose. We have a direct stated conflict in this verse that violates many of the New Testament scriptures that are impossible to believe while believing what this verse says as translated. If we take this verse literally as stated it means God is either good or evil depending upon some unknown or unstated factor. If God takes away sickness from Israel but also puts the same sicknesses on Egypt then that is an inconsistent God of indeterminate uncertainty. Clearly His house is divided if we take this verse literally and we do not know if we should pray and ask God for healing or stop and be humble and thank God for sending us the sickness to enjoy. That is an idiotic type of Christian thinking to interpret the Bible this way. You see you cannot find God making anyone sick in the Gospels. Jesus never walked up to anyone and said “I will bless you to be ill today”. Jesus consistently healed everyone and that was the revealed nature of my God. Therefore we cannot interpret anything differently from the Old Testament if it violates the revelation given to us from the New Testament.

Many people just do not understand that every English Bible translations contain flaws of human error and wrong human interpretation embedded in them; they will read these Old Testament verses and think that God has caused sickness to occur while ignoring the revealed God in the flesh in the New Testament. I can literally find many verses translated like this in the O.T. Bible. But that does not mean I must believe them over what God says to me in the Gospels and the letters written directly to the church. Whatever was written by God in the New Testament, now take precedence over everything that was written in the O.T. What is precedence? Precedence is technically a legal term that means those words have priority over the other stated words. This could be present for many reasons, but just remember that these New Testament words do not replace the Old Testament words, but that they certainly do explain them. The church should realize what covenant they are joined to and then make that one their priority as I was trying to teach you in the last section. Make this determination right now; if you are under the law of the O.T. then you should never attempt to read the N.T. However, if you are under the grace of the New Covenant then you should never read the O.T. without using the revealed light of God found in N.T. to understand what was written in the Old. This is just very basic spiritual reasoning that God taught me.

This is one of the most significant reasons why people believe things in error today about healing. They will read an Old Testament verse about God making someone sick believing they understand it but when they finally explore the entire subject using the New Testament God has changed the definition of what they thought He said in the O.T. to reveal a new understanding of the subject for the saints. This is why in an earlier lesson that I mentioned that Acts 10:38 was a critical verse on the subject of healing, sickness and disease. You should recall that this verse attributed all healing to Jesus and all sickness to satanic oppression. This new information changes our old interpretations of every other verse in the Old Testament about sickness. Many times human translators would accuse God of doing something when it really should have been translated using the permissive verbiage. There is a major difference between a causative God of sickness and a permissive God of sickness. If God causes sickness in the O.T. this would directly conflict with Acts 10:38 and all of the Gospels where Jesus is only revealed to have healed and never made anyone sick. If you learn nothing else from me today you need to learn how to interpret the Bible using the New Testament explanations, definitions and revealed information and I know that is probably the third time that I said that. But you really need to get that into your study habits because there are things explained in the New Testament that you will never see directly mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament.

GOD USES SICKNESS TO CORRECT OR TEACH HIS PEOPLE

Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

Here is a very popular modern belief taught by many seminary graduates. Some in the modern church teach that our God the creator of heaven and earth sent us sickness as punishment, or correction, or as a teaching tool. Many have come to me and asked me how God corrects His children like Hebrews 12:6 says if not with sickness like my pastor says this means. What you need to do is to read and study your Bible and then just ignore everything that your pastor says that does not match with what you see that the Bible actually says. People can try to make the Bible say whatever they like, but that does not change what it actually says. You have eyes and a brain and the Spirit of God in you if you are saved. Ask God to show you what the Word says and then believe what He says. Here in this verse in Hebrews, it does not mention sickness not once and still people have tried to claim this is how God affects His children with correction. Just read the Bible and believe what it says and do not add to it what it does not say. That is one of the main rules of correct Bible interpretation. God tells us that no scripture of prophecy is of any private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20). God is basically saying I will tell you what it means, therefore, don’t invent your own meaning because it will be wrong.

So why is the belief that God afflicts Christians with sickness for correction a bad belief to believe in? First it will keep you from seeking divine healing that clearly comes from God (Exo 15:26, Psa 103:3). Second, it violates the laws of singleness of purpose given to us by Jesus in an undivided kingdom (Mat 12:25). Third, it would violate God’s word that says God does not ever change (Mal 3:6). Fourth, it would violate the character of God revealed in the Son of God Jesus in the Gospels. You cannot ever find Jesus making someone sick for any reason. Jesus was unified in the sole purpose of healing only and thus His kingdom will stand forever and not be divided. I just gave you four great reasons why God will not correct you using sickness. I hope and pray that you got them!

GOD’S SOVEREIGN CONTROL OF THE UNIVERSE

There is another very popular belief being taught that because God is sovereign that He controls whatever happens to us good, bad or neutral. This is just another example of extremism; people taking one truth and trying to apply it as the only truth that is necessary for what we believe. This is a huge mistake in wrong Bible interpretation. I think I have shown you in this series that this was not what the Bible says and that sickness came as a result of man’s disobedience, his sinful choices and his independent actions that were implemented by his own freewill. Extremism on any subject is an unbalanced approach at understanding God and the Bible. It promotes an isolationism theology that ignores every other revealed truth on opposing subjects. Certainly I believe that God is sovereign and I do not disqualify His ability as the Omnipotent Being to control everything if He so desired. However for me to believe that He does this violates the definition of a God described to be Love (Agape) in 1 John 4:16. Then there is this verse; God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). This verse in John describes a major conflict with God sovereignly placing sickness on people. Why would the sovereign God come to save me and then tell me that I could be saved, if I only I believe? Did you see what I just asked you? Does that make any sense to you? Whose choice is it to believe mine or God’s? Obviously it is my sovereign choice to believe that causes me to begin to be saved. You didn’t know you were a sovereign being did you? A sovereign being is anyone that has the ability to make an independent decision without external control or influence. Did you decide to get out of bed this morning? If you did then you made a sovereign choice. Of course if you decided to stay in bed this morning you would have still made a sovereign choice in what you did. Nothing you do today can be placed upon anyone but you. You have been given responsibility and control of your destiny. Actually technically speaking you are not a completely independent agent as a human. After Satan entered the world and Adam lost his sovereignty over the earth, Satan became the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4). Before Satan entered into the world Adam was a completely independent sovereign being. We learned from Jesus’ law of singleness in purpose again that Satan has a kingdom (Mat 12:26). Therefore, we are either in the kingdom of light (Jesus) or the kingdom of darkness (Satan) (1 Th 5:5) and we will all choose which eternal kingdom to reside in by whether we believe and are saved or do not believe and are damned (Mk 16:16). Having the ability to choose what we believe in is a direct design feature of every man and woman. The pure ability of man to believe and choose makes God’s sovereign control inconceivable.

Let’s expand and continue to explore the notion that our loving Heavenly Father is still the author of all of the sickness today because of His sovereign control of the planet. This extreme sovereign control theology has great potential for harm because it relieves man of any human responsibility and future accountability. If God is in complete sovereign control then I have nothing to do today to be saved or lost. Is that what the Bible says? What about future accountability? Accountability is simply the responsibility to do something that you should have done. Is there coming a judgment upon every man? If God is in sovereign control of what happens to every man, what then is there to judge? Do you see any problem with that? You cannot ever judge what you caused to happen or you will be forced to judge yourself. Judgment is simply the responsibility of only the Judge to pass sentence for an independent violation for someone that is held accountable for doing something or not doing something. If I stole something from you then I could be found guilty of violating the laws against theft. If you caused me to steal something from you then you are now guilty for what I did and I am not responsibile for my actions. Therefore, I can only be judged fairly by a judge that was not involved in what I did and I must be held accountable and made responsible for not doing it right. Who is this Supreme independent fair Judge and who will He judge?

Act 10:42 And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.

According to the Bible God is the judge of the living and the dead. The living and the dead are two separate opposite categories of people. You cannot be the living dead nor can you be the dead living. You are either dead today or you are alive inside. Of course these are figurative language definitions for the status of salvation. Those that are alive are those spirits that are in the Kingdom of Light and have believed. Those that are dead spirits are those that have not believed and are in the kingdom of darkness. Both are eternal spirits, but classified in two individual sub-sets. This is really not rocket science but it proves God is not in sovereign control of what you or I do or what we decide to believe in. God is the supreme judge and the only ability for any fair judgment to occur in the future is for the Judge to be independent of the crime being judged. If God caused you to believe what you believe or not to believe then He should be judged by all of us for making us this way. Clearly that is a major problem with that line of thought.

Extreme sovereign God philosophy teachers clearly do not understand the concept or the definition of what love is and that God is defined to be only love in 1 John 4:16 as I stated earlier. Does God love His spiritual children differently than I love my natural children? If you think so, then you do not know God. If I loved my natural child here on the earth, I would not want them to be sick no matter what they did and if I chose to make them sick on purpose after they have disobeyed me then I would now be guilty of being a child abuser in need of prison. Sovereign control is a modern philosophy taught in some churches that tries to convince people that no matter what we do as humans that we cannot change what God has given to us to endure or suffer through. People who believe this clearly have not read the Bible. This type of belief disqualifies prayer and the power of God to heal. I could probably say a lot more about this subject, but I’m just hitting some high points on every subject and not trying to do an in-depth teaching on every issue.

DID DIVINE HEALING CEASE WITH THE DEATH OF THE APOSTLES?

Still many others in the church teach that God did heal people in the Gospels and through the early church, but all of that ceased when the last apostles died. This teaching is very popular because it relieves them of accountability and responsibility. It is another twisted example of the extreme God Control Theology. This erroneous teaching denies that the apostles were in the same church as we are today. This teaching contradicts the verse that says Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb 13:8). You see everyone in the church is clearly defined to be the complete one body of Christ (Rom 12:5). In other words there are not two bodies, three bodies or more bodies of Christ; there is just one unified body that exists. Since Peter, James and John were in the same body of Christ as us, then what they could do we can also potentially do because we are still the same body. Christ does not ever change according to Hebrews 13:8 and therefore if Christ healed anyone in Acts, Christ still heals today. Don’t make yourself independent from Christ or you are none of His.

What else is wrong with this teaching of treating apostles differently than disciples? Are you a disciple? Jesus said in John 13:35 that they will know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another. Who was Jesus talking to? I believe that He was talking to me and you. Therefore everyone is a disciple even if you are not an apostle a prophet, an evangelist, pastor or a teacher. To attribute that only the apostles healed anyone is a clear misunderstanding of God and the scripture. For example, in Luke 10:1-18 Jesus sends out 70 disciples and not 12 apostles. How many more is 70 than 12? Even if the 70 included the 12 that leaves 58 that were not apostles of the Lamb. Why is this important? This is only important to see because Jesus told them all to heal the sick in verse 9. Clearly we can see in verse 18 that all of the 70 returned to tell Jesus that even the demons were subject to them. Uh oh, that means they healed the sick that were oppressed with devils (Acts 10:38). It is very obvious to me that healing was a disciple gift and instruction and not just an apostle gift and instruction. Don’t put God into your box to define what He can do or not do with His disciples in His Church. He is the Head of the Church and you are not.

Let’s talk about another scriptural conflict with why healing did not stop with the apostles. Is God a respecter of persons and does He show any favoritism to anyone? Can you find anyone getting healed in the Old Testament? I can find several. Can you find anyone getting healed in the Gospels? Again I can find many. Why then do you think that healing has ceased for today? This alone violates Hebrews 13:8 that says God never changes. Believing that only certain apostles can heal denies God to be the healer. This belief conflicts with verses like Acts 10:34 and 1 Peter 1:17 that proclaims God is no respecter of persons. If God only gave the healing power to the early disciples then that would be a denial of the power to me as a disciple of Christ. This would first mean that God has changed. Then it would mean that what He did for Peter, James, and John, He will not do for me and I believe that is a major problem to your theology based upon God being no respecter of person. That type of belief would mean that they were special, but I am not simply because I was born in another generation to come. That is clearly a false belief and the violation of the Word of God. We cannot allow scriptural conflicts to stand. We must use the Bible to understand the Bible. If healing ceased then the Word of God has ceased. My Bible says in the Old Testament that “He sent His word and healed them” (Ps 107:20). We know from New Testament revelation that Jesus is the Word of God incarnate (John 1:1-14) that came and healed us (1 Peter 2:24). So Jesus is the healer and not any apostle. Therefore, if Jesus is alive today and He is, healing has not ceased. Nowhere in the Bible can you find an apostle claiming to be the healer. Therefore do not allow men to teach you otherwise.

SHOULD WE SEEK GOD OR SHOULD WE SEEK DOCTORS TO GET HEALED?

There are also a few ignorant teachers who claim the healing power of God ceased with the death of the apostles that have justified in their minds that this is the reason why we have modern medicine, doctors and hospitals in existence today. This teaching is just another example or a variation of the extremism philosophy of the Divine Sovereign Control Theology. In other words, they believe that what God had done previously though His Spirit and His word has now shifted to a physical pill or the hand of a surgeon type of man called a doctor. They have in effect exalted a man into the previous position of God and that sounds like an anti-Christ type of teaching to me. This is one of the most ignorant backwards types of reasoning that I have ever heard conceived up. I would find it humorous if it were not so dangerous. These teachers claim in error that God has changed His healing methods and approach and that only a natural doctor is now God’s healing agents for all of humanity.

Therefore this teaching immediately violates Hebrews 13:8 and Malachi 3:6 that teach us that God never changes. Why is this false teaching so dangerous? This teaching shifts the focus off of God onto a man that we can see and that makes it a treacherous error. If your eyes are on a man then you are missing the God who is the healer. This teaching denies the need for a Christian to even pray to God and ask for healing or guidance. In fact it denies the human responsibility of being led by the Spirit of God to know what to do in the case of sickness. Being led by the Spirit of God is a requirement according to Romans 8:14 therefore to be led by a doctor to get healed you are not being led by the perfect God but by imperfect human doctors. According to them we should all just go to the doctor and they will handle it all now for God and what will occur will occur as the will of God. Clearly this is a very bad teaching that causes many people to die today since no doctor is God and knows everything. Let’s take a look at what the Bible actually says about doctors:

2Ch 16:12 And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.

I do not think that it is entirely bad to seek a doctor’s advice, but what I do find troubling is not first seeking God’s advice. Clearly God speaks about the king in negative terms for his ignorance of only seeking for doctors to help him. Doctors being fellow ignorant humans are technically incapable of healing anyone. Most of the time doctors treat the symptoms but rarely do they fully implement cures of complete wholeness. If you read the very next verse you will see what occurred by only seeking doctors. The Bible says that Asa died and was buried with his fathers. Clearly this is a major conflict with the seek doctor only modern teaching and it ignores God. There is another greater example of seeking physicians found in Mark 5:26. In this story of the woman with the issue of blood she had sought a cure for her problem for 12 years with doctors and finally turned and sought to touch Jesus after hearing about Him. Clearly the doctors could not help her and only seeking God brought the answer. I learn several things from this example. First, seeking the doctor’s help did not keep her from being cured and made whole by God. But, I also learned that her answer came by her only seeking Jesus. Therefore I have concluded if you need a doctor’s help seek one. But in your seeking do not neglect the real healer and seek Him more diligently.

IS IT THE WILL OF GOD TO HEAL TODAY?

Here is another major problem taught in many churches today by words and actions. Certain preachers do not know if it is the will of God for healing to occur so they do not understand how to pray and ask God for healing or they fail to do it completely. Many times these preachers will constantly pray and ask for healing “If it by thy will”. There is a major lesson taught to all lawyers and attorneys. You never ask a question to anyone on the witness stand that you already do not know the answer they will give to you. This same principle works for healing and all Christian prayer. If you do not already know that God’s answer is yes for what you are asking then you are asking in error and praying in the dark. That is a major revelation to understanding why many are not healed today. Do you remember the story of the leprous man that comes to Jesus for healing?

Mat 8:2 And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

Here is a man that desperately needs help and divine healing but he does not know if it is Jesus’ will to help him. Any time there is a question mark present there is a hindrance to receiving healing from God. The man clearly knows that Jesus has the ability and the power to heal him but does not know if it is the will of God to heal him personally. He must have learned about the power by the observation of what happened to others touched by Jesus. But what happens to others is no guarantee for what might happen to you. You can never base your faith upon what others possess or fail to possess. You must answer all of the questions in your own mind and then you will have the ability to receive for your situation.

Mat 8:3 And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

Here was Jesus’ response to the leprous man. Jesus told him “I will” and that is a universal statement of truth for you also. This statement reveals God will for all healing. It is God’s will for you to be saved, healed and delivered from everything that the enemy had you trapped under. We know since we have read repeatedly in the Bible that Jesus is never changing as revealed in Hebrews 13:8, that Jesus will still say “I will” today. Therefore God’s will was to heal in Matthew 8:3 and God’s will is still to heal in today’s modern time. Knowing this information now you do not have to pray to ask God if it be your will and you can just ask and receive knowing it was His will to begin with.

THE CONCLUSION

I think I have covered enough for one lesson. I know there are many other false teachings that promote coonfusion and division in the church. If you know of other false teachings surrounding the subject of healing I would be glad to learn about them from you. If you are not sure what your preacher is teaching is right or worong, then you may also ask me that if you desire. Hopefully you will have learned that you can find the answers also if you search your Bible for them. Finally always remember my main point about reading the Old Testament. If you are not looking at the Old Testament through eyes corrected with the New Testament glasses, then you are blindly reading a hidden message from God. Thanks for reading and we will do another lesson in this series later. God Bless.

Posted in Bible Study, Healing, Understanding

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, Healing, Interpretation, Jesus, Religion, Revelation, Truth, understanding

Once Saved Always Saved, Eternal Security Versus Satan’s Factor of Deception! Part 5!

Mar 26

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 5 in the series of Bible lessons on the very popular misconception called Unconditional Eternal Security (U.E.S.) previously known as Once Saved Always Saved (O.S.A.S). We have covered a lot of information found in the Bible and if you have not read this series from the beginning I might suggest that you go and start with “Part 1” first. In the last lesson I talked about the ongoing Christian Responsibility revealed in the salvation process that is clearly laid out for us by God in the Bible. God uses several metaphorical comparisons to describe our salvation to be like a process, like us having to fight a good fight (1 Tim 6:12, 2 Tim 4:7) or running a marathon type of race (1 Cor 9:24, Heb 12:1). Both of these symbolic types represent our participation in set contests with competing opponents that are attempting to take from us our victory. Clearly these examples give us the established truth that we can lose or fail or quit the contest. Both of these competitions were clearly defined processes of endurance and not simply a onetime salvation event where we start and automatically win like many of the U.E.S. teachers want us to believe. Both process examples have clearly defined beginnings, followed by many middle steps of conflict and struggle with a set well-defined ending. Both examples are processes governed by defined rules of engagement to help guide the outcome but yet not to determine the outcome. In other words, neither process has a pre-determined victor of the fight or the race. In either of these types of contests any of the individuals competing can always grow tired or weary and quit or give up and fall short of the desired initial expectation for victory. Do you start a race to lose it? Do you start a fight to be defeated? In any fight you might just believe that you are the winner from the start, right up until the point in time that your opponent hits you hard and knocks you down. If you believe today that you are running a fixed race or fighting a fixed fight that you have already won, then you are clearly not very familiar with realities of fighting or racing. I really hope and pray that you understand these really basic Bible concepts that God is using to teach us.

Today I am going in a totally new and different direction on the subject of Unconditional Eternal Security using a series of new subjects that I will introduce and connect together to teach the subject of the contribution of the “Deception Factor”. Today’s lesson will be primarily focused on the potential role and effects of deception in the ongoing process of our salvation and how we are warned by God to avoid it. However, it will take me familiarizing you with and reviewing other prerequisite subjects to get us to where we need to be to understand how deception is such a major factor to why we do not have eternal security. Let’s start by first knowing that we have an enemy.

THE REALITY OF YOUR SPIRITUAL ENEMY

The subject of deception is specifically tied to the requirement that a deceiver must exist and be present, willing and able to deceive or deception is a non-issue for every Christian. If no deceivers exist, then no deception is presented as being possible. Was that just way too obvious? Therefore I need to focus on the existence of a deceiver using the Bible. I am going to introduce you to the existence of the primary deceiver who is also known as Satan. From Satan comes every other deceiver, so if I can prove his existence in the Bible it should be easy to transition that others exist also. Using my Bible program I searched for the key word “deceive” and found multiple verses on the subject. Satan is described as the individual spirit responsible for deceiving the people of the whole world in Revelation 12:9, Revelation 13:14 and Revelation 20:10. The whole world would be an all-inclusive statement not omitting any nation of people. Remember what I just said! Therefore, Satan qualifies to be the deceiver by definition from God’s Word. Does Satan still exist in the world today? If you said YES, then you are on the right track. If you said no, then you do not understand that Revelation 12, 13 and 20 has not happened yet and only by studying God’s Word can we understand that God says Satan is still present to deceive people in EVERY nation. I just said that again didn’t I? Now, let me ask you do you still exist in the world today? I think if you are reading this Bible lesson you must say YES again. Therefore by God’s definition you have the potential to be deceived because the deceiver is still present here with you. Also notice something new that you have not connected yet to the subject. You see God teaches us in the New Testament that the church is a new “Holy Nation” of people (1 Peter 2:9). However that still makes everyone in the church a potential candidate for deception because we are clearly defined to be a nation. Now do you see why I emphasized Satan deceiving the nations? If Satan is the deceiver of the nations, then we in the church are still the potential victims of his deception by our association to God’s definition of a nation. The Bible is not that hard to see things if you can put them together correctly.

If you did not know it, the Bible declares that every Christian still has a spiritual enemy. The enemy of the church is named Satan. Technically Satan was God’s enemy before he was our enemy but I won’t go there today. Just understand that God’s enemies are now our enemies by covenant relationship. There is an old proverb that says the enemies of my enemies are my friends and conversely the friends of my enemies are also my enemies. Jesus taught us a similar variation of this proverb in Mark 9:40 saying “He that is not against us, is for us”. This Bible fact of the existence of a spiritual enemy is declared repeatedly in the Bible both directly and indirectly (James 4:4). We are first introduced to our enemy as a symbolic serpent in Genesis 3:1 and he continues through the Bible in many forms using many names, descriptions and titles all the way to the last mention in Revelation 20:10. Satan is described as a spiritual opponent that is arrayed against us trying desperately to defeat us. Many Christians have left me comments about Jesus’ outstanding victory over Satan (John 16:33, Col 2:15). They have concluded from these verses that Satan was completely defeated at Calvary thus Jesus rendered him to be a defeated insignificant or trivial factor going forward. However that is just not all of what the Bible says about Satan, the people on the earth including the church, Christians and their role with resisting Satan and many other statements of truth.

Jesus also taught us that Satan was the ruler of a kingdom (Mat 12:26). Jesus further taught us that Satan still had power (Luke 10:19). Understand that this stated kingdom of Satan was not the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, but a new separate dominion taken from man. We learn this fact by observing what Satan told Jesus during the 40 day temptation in the wilderness (Luke 4:5-6). If you go read Luke 4 closely you will see Satan offering Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world if only Jesus would worship him. Satan told Jesus that these were given to him and since we are not told in the Bible that God gave them to Satan, they must have been taken from Adam. You see according to Genesis 1:26 Adam was given dominion over all the earth by God yet we see Satan claiming to have control of it in Luke. One of the first indirect mentions of this kingdom of Satan is also found in first book of the Bible in Genesis 1:16. On the fourth day of creation God sets the moon (the lesser light) to rule the night and the sun (the greater light) to rule the day. This verse was a highly prophetical statement using hidden symbolic information for the coming of the Son of God into the world. This verse predicts the coming of Jesus into the world on a precise timeline and reveals to us one reason why Jesus has come. The moon in this verse is symbolic of Satan, the Sun in this verse is symbolic of Jesus, the night is symbolic for the kingdom of darkness and the day is symbolic for the Kingdom of Light. Furthermore, the “4^th day” of creation is also symbolic for the time of the coming. Jesus just so happens to come into the world after four days from Adam using God’s definition of a day from 2 Peter 3:8. If you do not understand the significance of this information I have a more complete teaching on the subject called “Understanding Night and Day”.

Jesus came personally into Satan’s kingdom of darkness being born of a virgin to bring us light (John 8:12). However this was not external light, but rather internal spiritual knowledge. God’s plan was never to take over Satan’s kingdom of darkness or even to take it back into the light or to establish a rule over it here on the earth; no the plan of God was more precisely to create a new pathway out of Satan’s kingdom for all of those in the dark world that would believe on Christ. The light of God’s day and this new kingdom of God would be formed internally in every believer. This way the light of God would be present in every believer but still separate from the darkness of this world that still remained in Satan’s control. God was in effect creating a new separate Kingdom of God that never existed before apart from Satan, his angels, his kingdom and He was offering all those on the earth the blessed opportunity to come out of their darkness to live in the light of God forever for free through His shed blood. That was a very quick overview of some new things that you have probably never heard taught before and I do not have time to explain them all fully today. However, go through the N.T. and see how many times this kingdom realm of darkness or night is mentioned and then observe the scriptures that say Christians are now in the light of God’s day. Let me give you a couple of the key verses that may help you to understand:

Col 1:13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

Jesus is being described as the one that has delivered us from the “power of darkness”. There are three basic things that you need to grasp immediately from this incredibly important verse. First, the kingdom of darkness still exists and has not been eliminated. Second, notice that this kingdom of darkness still has power. Then third, notice we that are saved are not in this dark kingdom anymore having been translated into the Kingdom of Light by Jesus. This verse clearly implies that those that are not saved are still in the kingdom of darkness where some spiritual force of power still rules over them. Clearly there is a distinction between two separate spiritual kingdoms of existence being stated in this verse. These two kingdoms must still exist concurrently or this verse is a lie. Clearly the kingdom of darkness still has great power and influence or no one in their right mind would still be in there right now. Also understand by implied inference if anyone has come out from this kingdom of darkness by their freewill choice of salvation, then by the definition of antithesis, they can also potentially return back to that darkness by another freewill choice. I pray you understood everything that I just said to you. It was all extremely important. Let me give you another great verse that contains vast knowledge about this kingdom and this enemy:

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.

Read this new metaphorical case closely, because God gives us another example of a spiritual contest between opponents with an implied winner and loser outcome. To wrestle an opponent is a paradigm process that is very similar to boxing or racing. In this verse in Ephesians you can see that just because Christians are not in the darkness this does not mean we are not still in a spiritual war of opposition with the darkness or the rulers of that kingdom. Who rules the darkness? Clearly this verse is another reference to Satan and his angelic followers as I mentioned earlier. Clearly from this information we can see that these spiritual individuals still exist along with their kingdom if we are currently wresting against them. There is absolutely no way that you can teach that Satan is a non-factor for any Christian today if you correctly balance these verses with the other verses that the exclusive U.E.S. Grace teachers want to focus on.

If defeated Satan had no more power or influence to do any harm to a saved Christian, then why are there so many warnings given to the church in the Bible to the contrary? A truly defeated enemy would have no such supremacy, weapons, ability or present any further risk, but an enemy that still has power and ability to do Christians harm must still be a major danger if we do not know how to counteract his plans and attacks. This spiritual war subject is not my main topic today and I have other lessons that you can go and read about how to be a victorious child of God. Just realize that God has given you the potential for victory by Jesus’ victorious actions and accomplishments but now it is your God given responsibility to enforce the victory and to become the overcomer like I introduced you to in the last lesson. Let’s change to a brand new subject called “Patterns”.

DIVINE GOD PATTERNS

If you learn anything from me today, please learn how God uses divine design patterns throughout the Bible to teach us. I’ve already described to you three direct patterns of process in today’s lesson. One was a race, one was a fight and one was a wrestling match. These were all recognizable patterns of contests with opponents, rules, a beginning effort, a struggle, endurance, and an anticipated end. Let’s get into what a pattern is using additional specific examples. How would we define a pattern? A pattern is normally a set of design templates and instructions used to prepare or to create a new copy of an existing original. The actual copy can be totally different in appearance while being completely similar in design, concepts and principles. That was of course my definition, but did you understand it? Using my 3 metaphorical examples of contests, they appear to be radically different types of games on the surface but yet they all share a set of design pattern concepts that make them joined together with many common similarities. That is exactly what pattern usage produces; copies of an original working model.

Let me give you an example of a natural pattern application on the earth. Patterns are used in sewing extensively and they allow the seamstress to turn out multiple new original creations that can be perceived to be similar to the original by observing the design pattern characteristics but not by necessarily observing the materials selected or the individual options being tailored or customized. There is just a general rule of life that it is always easier to copy a working original piece than it is to create something completely new. I learned this concept in programming computers. Working code reuse is always faster and more productive than new code creation. The creation of any original functional piece of work will always take significant trial and error to produce a great product. It took Edison literally hundreds and hundreds of attempts to create a light bulb that worked. But, now they can be copied very quickly and cheaply by the use of his patterned design. Have you ever asked yourself why Adam was made in the image and the likeness of God in Genesis 1:26? Do you understand that Adam was made from the direct pattern of God, his creator? God took a working design and repeated the process to make a man. This was a very significant example of the wisdom of God being displayed. When God made man, God knew that He was coming to the earth as a man so why not make the man from a pattern of Himself an already working viable component?

Understand that the reuse of any design pattern is just a small part of the complete creation process. Natural pattern usage only comes into play somewhere between the initial steps of conception, the design and before the full implementation. Almost every defined process and pattern can be viewed as interchangeable concepts to some extent. For example, any repetitive process producing a positive result can be viewed as a repetitive design pattern implementation and vice versa. I really try not to get too technical in my Bible studies to allow everyone the opportunity to understand the concepts. I try to leave out technical words and phrasing but I have been teaching you the subject of patterns and have had to introduce you to some new ideas to think about. So hang in there and learn what you can about patterns.

Let’s talk briefly about another earthly natural pattern. Any positive process is like making a cake. A cake could be created using great trial and error like Edison making a light bulb. However if the baker wants to forego the learning curve they can go and find an existing working recipe with the exact steps and ingredients used to create a great cake and in a short time they have a copy of one through the use of a known pattern. Therefore the original cook must have recorded or documented the set of specific ingredients and recipe preparation instructions that must be followed exactly in order to recreate the original design, texture, taste and quality. If you do it right the outcome is great and if you miss one ingredient or step then it will probably be a great failure.

So why am I talking about processes and design patterns, templates, sewing, light bulb and cake recipes so much? Patterns are what God used in the creation of our world to teach us about Him and spiritual things we cannot see. For example, the Bible teaches us that all of the hidden qualities of God are clearly seen in the things that He has made (Rom 1:20). This means that what we can observe on the earth around us was from a designed pattern of what already existed in heaven previously and these things reveal God to us. It is also why we need to learn about the concepts of patterns to see what will be coming soon in the future. What we soon realize is something that God teaches us in Ecclesiastes is very relevant to everything we can observe around us. God says “the things that have been are the things that shall be again” (Ecc 1:9). Ecclesiastes and Romans both explain to us that God uses divine design patterns to teach and to recreate the things we can observe. God took working spiritual realities and used their patterns to create our natural world. God then teaches us that these natural things will again be used as patterns for the new spiritual things that will occur again. Let me show you another verse about patterns in the Bible to help you better understand:

Heb 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.

Here we have God describing to us that the things given to Moses on the earth were simply patterns for pre-existing unseen things already found and bound within heaven. In this verse, the original spiritual things created by God in heaven were clearly greater or more significant than the temporary natural things created by the hands of men on the earth. However these temporary natural things given to us by God on the earth also provide us a view into the existence of the spiritual things that we have never seen or experienced. You can clearly see that God gave Moses patterns to use for everything. These patterns will again be used in the design for the coming new heaven and the new earth. Patterns are so very important in the Bible that I should probably do a more complete series on the subject. For now try to understand the existence of patterns is a prevalent reality throughout the Bible. Using our knowledge of divine patterns, we can easily learn about many of the unseen spiritual things found within our past, our present and our future.

There are actually many different ways to name or title a Biblical pattern process using synonymous terms. Some call them similarities, similitudes, resemblances, likenesses, patterns, types or shadows and I even have labeled them by all of those descriptions in my past lessons. I believe that a natural type or a shadow from the Old Testament was usually given to us by God to help point us to a New Testament spiritual reality. For example, Jesus told the Jews to search their scriptures because in them they thought they had eternal life and then Jesus said these were just the words that testified of Him (John 5:39). But, yet you cannot find the direct mention of the name of Jesus, or the direct person of God in the flesh unswervingly mentioned in the Old Testament scriptures anywhere in obvious plain sight. Since I have studied the Bible for many years I can now see Him in almost every chapter, but that is not how I started. God’s use of patterns, similarities, types and shadows were just one of the wise methods of concealing Jesus in the characters and stories of others that are plainly revealed in the surface text. I pray that you are beginning to understand the concept of patterns and how they apply to our Bible study because that is exactly where we are going next in this discussion of U.E.S. Let’s begin to ask are there any patterns found in the Old Testament for U.E.S.?

ARE THERE ANY UNCONDITIONAL ETERNAL SECURITY PATTERNS?

If you examine the design pattern of Adam and Eve as recorded in Genesis 2 and 3 you should be able to find Jesus and the church. I will use the pattern of Adam and Eve to help establish and confirm the false reality of the Unconditional Eternal Security teaching. When God created Adam did God make him to be unconditionally and eternally secure? It is very obvious to me based upon the Word of God that Adam was never created perfect or secure since he sinned, failed and fell willingly into the disobedience of God’s Word. Whatever security that Adam thought he possessed, was suddenly completely lost. If Adam was created with “freewill” to sin, to make mistakes and even to depart from the perfect way and will of God, then how can you or anyone else possibly believe that a Christian now does not have the same pattern of choice? What about Adam’s wife Eve? Was Eve created so that it was impossible for her to be deceived? Again it is extremely obvious that the Bible says Eve was deceived (1 Tim 2:14). I am talking about patterns found within creation to see if there are any ways that are still possible for the church to fall away from the Grace of God. Were Adam and Eve created in the extreme Grace of God? I believe they were. They were created without sin, lacking nothing and placed in a near perfect world to live in. Could it have gotten any better than that? However in this great state of Grace, could they still make the wrong choices, of course they did. I hope you are using your brain today to see what I’m saying to you. How are we any different from Adam today in the church? If Adam could depart from Grace then you can depart from Grace!

Let’s back up before the creations of man and ask what about Lucifer’s status in heaven! Did God create the perfect archangel Lucifer with unconditional eternal security? According to Ezekiel 28:15 Lucifer was created in a perfect state yet sin was still found to be in him. Did this sin matter to God? If we observe his destiny in Revelation 20:10 you will understand that even perfect Lucifer is revealed to have no unconditional eternal security when he is cast into the lake of fire. Clearly perfection with no sin is not a statement for possessing security. Where exactly in the Bible can we find anyone with the pattern of Unconditional Eternal Security? Can you find me just one? I’m talking about someone other than the church that you just think is unconditionally eternally secure! If the church is eternally and unconditionally secure then there must be an existing pattern for this somewhere else in the Bible or it is not true for the church either. How can I say that? And why is this even important? It is simply critical because God tells us to establish every word of truth using at the least two or three witnesses (Mat 18:16). If we cannot find two witnesses that confirm unconditional eternal security as a divine pattern then the modern Bible teachers trying to teach us U.E.S. fail God’s requirement. Now do you understand the importance of patterns?

WHAT ABOUT JESUS?

I have searched the Old Testament and I could not find any man starting with Adam that possessed eternal security here on the earth. Adam never lost his freewill to depart from God’s ways or plan and this pattern repeats to every man born from Adam. If you can find me even one man in the O.T. that God said could not ever fail, then show me the verse. Ok, I’m about to blow your religious mind with a new question to think about. Was Jesus Christ born in the Old Testament? If you are an intelligent and observant Bible student, you already know that Jesus was born a man under the law of the Old Covenant (Gal 4:4). Now let me ask you this radical question was Jesus Christ unconditionally and eternally secure as a physical man? You see I believe that even Jesus possessed the freewill capability for failure, and many religious people will laugh and call me a heretic fool for that belief. However, if Jesus had no potential for failure or sin then God becomes a liar. The Bible says Jesus was tempted in every way just like we are but yet He was without sin (Heb 4:15). The only reason that Jesus was without sin was because He chose to be without the sin as a direct act of His freewill. You see if it was impossible for Jesus to sin, then He was never tempted like you or I. Are you tempted? Have you ever been tempted? Do you fail or have you ever failed? If say yes then you are potentially just like Jesus and Jesus was potentially just like you. Otherwise He would not be able to identify with our weaknesses or our plight. We clearly saw already reading in Luke 4 that Jesus was tempted, but he did not give into the temptations of Satan. This is where Jesus succeeded where Adam failed.

Heb 2:17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

Jesus is revealed in the Bible to be the God that became a man exactly like you and I. This was a major paradox and stumbling block to why natural Israel did not accept Him. They knew the Bible says God is not a man (Num 23:19). However they made the major mistake of taking one isolated truth and then ignoring all the others that God is still powerful enough to become a man if He chooses by exercising His freewill. This is the danger of separating one verse and thinking that it is the entire truth. That is an extremely bad and dangerous approach to interpreting the Bible. Do you understand what I am trying to say? I am claiming that the God of creation who created everything has now become an intimate part of His creation and this changes everything. What God was not, God became by His design. Therefore, God as a man was no longer a perfect being incapable of failing or sinning. I did not say God failed or God sinned I just said He had the potential to do that or He was not exactly like us as the Bible has declared. You are going to have to make up your own minds on what you believe; I cannot do that for you. You read the Bible and do the research and the study and see if Jesus was incapable of failure and see if He possessed Unconditional Eternal Security and then notice that even Jesus died on the cross and I believe He went to hell for 3 days to pay for my sins so I would not have to go there. I don’t call that eternal security, do you? Let’s shift our focus and establish Adam as a defined pattern for Jesus and this may help us reaffirm that Jesus was not infallible while in the flesh.

THE HIDDEN PATTERN OF JESUS IN ADAM

1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

Why exactly, is Jesus called the “Last Adam” in 1 Corinthians 15:45? I think that is a very great question. God by direct name association has just linked Jesus Christ to the first created man Adam. This is just a very tricky way of God saying my man Adam was a set design pattern for my Son Jesus to come. This is the beginning of the reality that if Adam could have sinned, then Jesus could have sinned but yet didn’t. However, notice that both Adam’s still died. So they obviously both did possess at least one direct equal characteristic and we will find there are many more if we look for them. I find this study of Adam and Jesus as repeated patterns fascinating. It has great potential for many overlapping truths. Let’s go for another witness to what I am teaching that Adam was a pattern for Jesus:

Rom 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

Romans 5:14 emphasizes this pattern usage point again to us even more clearly. The Bible says that Adam was a created pattern of the man Jesus to come. We already observed in Genesis 1 where Adam was defined to be a pattern for the creator spiritual God originally, so this is just a further perpetuation of the same God pattern to the physical God. Look up the Greek word definitions and study these verses to understand what concepts are being revealed to you. The Greek word translated as “figure” means a die as struck. Do you understand what a die is? A die produces an exact image of the same print repeatedly. It is a modern copy and paste concept found in the computer design paradigm. The original printing press created by Gutenberg was a die concept for printing one page of the Bible over and over. We soon realize that God did a copy paste of the spiritual type of Himself into the natural form of Adam, which is then transferred as another copy and paste into the combined God man named Jesus. This verse in Romans clearly teaches us that we should be able to look at the man Adam in Genesis and see Jesus and this is exactly what Jesus said we would find if we searched the scriptures looking for Him. Moses wrote down God’s words about Adam, but God’s words were more about Jesus than Adam. The two Adam’s were simply patterns for each other. I believe God created the first Adam already knowing the second Adam was coming to save the day. This is exactly why God did what He did in Genesis 2 and 3 with the first man and his wife.

Let’s stop here briefly again and consider that if the first Adam had a wife does that reveal that the last Adam (Jesus) has a wife also as a defined part of the pattern? Most definitely He does. I have a much more complete Bible study on the subject called the “The Bride of Christ Revealed”. Therefore, I am not going to repeat any of that information in this lesson. If you do not understand the church position as the bride then please stop and study to find that truth and establish it in your heart because it is essential to our pattern discussion today about U.E.S. I will simply say the church is definitely the Bride of Christ and we are the ones that are united in eternal marriage covenant in Revelation 19. Where I am going is that if Adam’s wife was capable of being deceived then the Lamb’s wife is also capable of being deceived by direct pattern association. Pretty simple yet very difficult to find if you do not understand patterns.

THE ROLE OF SATAN AND DECEPTION IN THE CHURCH

In the Grace message of eternal security there is a belief that Satan has no further influence or power over a believer to cause them to ever depart from their salvation. The belief popularly states that Christians have been sealed with eternal security and thus Satan is no longer a factor to deceive them anymore. Let me stop there and say that if you currently believe that you can never be deceived then you are clearly already deceived into believing a lie from Satan. What exactly is deception? How can we define it as it relates to the church? I believe deception is believing in something that you think is true that actually is not true. It is like my picture on this paragraph of the fish caught with a decieving lure. The fish believed what he was eating was good food, but it turned out to be something deadly to him. That is exactly the definition of deception for a Christian also. Clearly no Christian in their right mid is intentionally caught seeking to find lies. I believe that every easily deceived Christian is just presented the lie either intentionally or unintentionally by other well meaning ignorant Christians and they look attractive so they end up swallowing them and are caught like the fish. Let’s take into account a scripture that has far reaching implications attached to it for our current subject discussion. You will notice that in this next verse that Jesus is speaking, thus we have God in the flesh stating something very important that we must need to know. Therefore, pay close attention to the words of my Lord and Savior:

Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

We have to totally write this statement of Jesus off if we want to believe in unconditional eternal security after our salvation. In order to teach security we must conclude that we are smarter than Jesus and that Jesus did not know what He was talking about when He warned us about not being deceived. We either have to call Jesus a liar or we have to explain the verse as being non-applicable to people in the church today. If you read the context of the statement Jesus was asked by the disciples to teach them of the signs of His coming and the end of the age. Therefore the rest of the statements in this chapter are the answers of God in the flesh concerning the end of the age that we live in today. Who are the people that Jesus is speaking of to not become deceived if not us? Many people have tried to creatively explain it away as the Jews before salvation only, but they were not yet living in the last days so that makes no sense to me. Since we in the church who know the truth are the people now living in the last days before His soon return then I believe that Jesus was certainly speaking about us and to us as those that can be deceived. If we are these potential people that can be deceived, what are the consequences for being deceived? Are there any consequences for being deceived? There must be at least a possibility for us to lose our salvation from this warning from God or there would be no need for a warning from God to be given. Do you understand what I just said?

Why warn people not to be deceived if it is impossible for them to be deceived like the eternal security teachers try to teach us? It makes God look very stupid when you teach eternal security. Of course people can easily twist the scriptures to say this information in Matthew 24 does not apply to us because Jesus was only talking to His Jewish disciples. That is just so easy to do. Let’s just ignore the words of Jesus as being not for everyone, but only for a select few that heard them personally! We could do that type of reasoning with every verse in the Bible. Is that a smart way to interpret the Bible and the words of God? I really do not believe that is a valid approach to correct Bible interpretation. In interpreting every verse of the Bible we must always inspect the words that are spoken, observing the target audience they are directed to, while simultaneously finding the context of all of the subjects being discussed. First understand that these words in Matthew were spoken to more than just a few Jews. These select Jews that were hearing are defined directly to be our founding church fathers so they must apply to the rest of the church by direct association since we are now a part of the same body of Christ that they were included in. If you try to separate us from them, then we are a new body of Christ, a separate or different believer set from what they were and that really sounds like a scary belief to put your faith in. These words were spoken in the time context of future prophetical events and not current events, so they must also apply to us and the times that we live in right now. Finally, since these words spoken by Jesus do not state any target audience they must apply to everyone that reads them as a universal statement of truth. If you want to see the truth in the Bible you will see what I am saying is correct, if you do not want to see the truth, then nothing that I say will change your mind.

If Satan and his deception were no longer factors for our further continued salvation, there would be no need to mention Satan again in the New Testament after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Many modern Bible teachers like to teach the total defeat of Satan by Jesus at Calvary, however if that was actually true we would not see that Satan was so heavily involved in attacking heaven in Revelation 12 and trying to take over the earth in the other chapters of Revelation. The total defeat of Satan and the removal of his power is clearly not the reality of the text found in the Word of God. In fact Satan is mentioned more times in the New Testament than he ever was displayed plainly in the Old Testament. Why is Satan mentioned more frequently throughout the New Testament and especially in the book of Revelation than any other parts of the Bible? There hast to be a reason for this! I personally believe we find Satan in the New Testament to learn of his ways and his future plans so we are not found to be unaware. I believe that Satan is much more than a non-factor on the earth in the church age and that he is clearly revealed to be the direct enemy and opposing spiritual force to the church. His power and influence over the people on the earth are still quite evident and great. His power to deceive people including even Christians is still as great now as it always has been. This power of deception must be applicable for Christians or we would never find any verses in the Bible like these written to the church:

1Co 3:18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.

1Co 15:33 Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.

Eph 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Eph 5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

2Th 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

1Jn 3:7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.

These are all commandments of instruction from our God written to the church and each of them contains direct delegated responsibility for believers not to be deceived. Do any of the verses tell you that God will not ever allow you to be deceived? I do not believe God would warn you if it was His responsibility to save you from it. These warnings were not written to unsaved people. Do you see what these verses say to you over and over? What is the central theme for every verse? Every verse contains a cautionary statement from God that says “Do not be deceived”. If the church could never be deceived to lose their salvation from this deception then these verses become pointless and irrelevant commandments and should be viewed as only misplaced suggestions. To believe in eternal security we must ignore these verses or conclude these verses to be non-applicable to us. Either approach is failure to adhere to the truth which always results in a Christian being deceived. These are not lies from God and we must see them to be clear notices to us Christians. I did not go through the entire New Testament and give you every verse that I could have. I only provided 6 or 7 verses to offer you more than enough witnesses to the truth that the church can still be deceived after initial salvation by many different methods. If you cannot see this fact then you are in denial. I will end this lesson with an example of deception that occurred in the N.T. church:

2Pe 2:20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

2Pe 2:21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

2Pe 2:22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

Peter is writing some very important words to the church about certain former saved church members. The wording in these verses is very significant if you do the research and study. God is speaking concerning certain people that “knew” righteousness. Jesus of course is our righteousness (1 Cor 1:30) and He is even called the “Sun of Righteousness” in Malachi 4:2. The term to “know” righteous is a sexual Hebrew description of the relationship that exists between a husband and his wife. The people in the church are in covenant relationship with Jesus the bridegroom making them His bride. God is saying these people were once an intimate part of my wife that I knew and they have departed from me. God clearly says it would be better for them to either stay or to have never been married to him than to leave their salvation to fall back into the darkness. Why is that? It is because they will remember for an eternity their mistake that they made and only they will fully understand what they missed while they are in hell. Lucifer is going to understand this better than anyone. He experienced the goodness of God more than anyone in the church and while he is in hell for and eternity he will constantly be tormented for his mistakes. These are patterns that teach us we do not have unconditional eternal security.

God calls the people who leave their salvation pigs and dogs. Just as dogs return to their own vomit and the pigs to the mire this is the same result that Christians experience when they return to their previous filth and love it. Clearly this is an example of deception being victorious over those that were saved. Clearly these Christians did not heed the repeated warnings from God not to be deceived and are now suffering the consequences. These are words that were written to you. Are you receiving them? I could give you several more examples of this in the Bible, but I really have gone too long in this lesson.

THE FALSE SECURITY OF THE UNCONDITIONAL ETERNAL SECURITY DOCTRINE

I have systematically covered several subjects in today’s lesson connecting them together to help establish the fact that a Christian can be deceived. We started with the concept that we have an enemy. This enemy is described to be Satan the deceiver. A deceiver is simply labeled that because he deceives people. This is really not that complicated. Sure the unsaved people in the world today are clearly deceived, but they don’t read the Bible and these words of warning not to be deceived were not written to them. Therefore, the use of this weapon of deception by Satan is still actively targeted at the people in the church to take them from the church and the truth. Based upon this information alone the doctrine of unconditional eternal security is revealed to be a major false teaching that should be recognized as another way that is designed to deceive you. Do you understand the danger of the U.E.S. teaching? U.E.S. promotes a false sense of security that we have to do nothing to stay saved or to keep from being deceived. It allows Christians to let in whatever they come across without the fear of any consequences. Fear is not always a negative emotion to avoid. God created real fear for you to learn how to avoid something that is not necessarily positive or beneficial for you. If you do not fear gravity and jump off a tall building you will soon be dead. I am really not talking about fearing the devil as in being terrified of his power. The Bible clearly teaches the fact that the Greater One is in us. However, that does not mean that you do not respect his ability like you should respect the power of gravity. These are just basic Christian life lessons to help you understand that you have an enemy and this enemy is not your friend, he has powers and abilities, and he is trying to take you out and down.

Finally, I talked a lot about Bible patterns. This is a very important Bible study concept repeated in practically every chapter of the Bible in some form. Fully grasp this concept and it will change your Bible study habits. Look for confirming patterns of truth in the Bible. For example, I showed you scriptures that teach us that Adam was a pattern of Jesus. This was technically so radical that I could not fully teach everything on that one subject because it could turn into a series of lessons by itself. However I gave you enough information that should help you to learn about Jesus from the pattern of Adam. See what Adam had or was given by God before the fall and this will be a pictured view into what Jesus will end up with minus the evil, the sin and the rebellion. Adam had one wife and Jesus will end with only one wife. Very simple yet profound truths.

The pure existence of human freewill dictates that we view every one of God’s covenants with conditional application. In other words if we choose to remain in the covenant we are good, but if we choose to leave it then we are screwed. What I am saying is if God comes and makes a covenant with you, God is not the problem, you are. You can become your own worst enemy when you believe a lie. Just as natural Israel departed continuously from God’s covenant as a pattern for the church, the church also has that same opportunity to fall away. If the recipient of God’s Grace satisfies the stated requirements and conditions they remain in the relationship with God’s Grace. If they choose to disobey willfully and depart from God’s extended gift of saving Grace then they are lost without a chance for absolution. Learn today that what you do going forward, matters tremendously. Learn to have respect for your enemy and stay deep in the Word of God so that you are not deceived by him. Your salvation is not completely up to God. Sure He will be there for you and help you and will never leave you or forsake you. But, your continued salvation is more up to you than anyone else so that you do not get deceived and decide to leave God or forsake Him. You have a major role in the ongoing process of your salvation to remain faithful, to endure and to overcome. Thank you for taking the time to read and study the Bible. If you have questions or comments feel free to leave them. God Bless as we continue to learn to grow in His Grace.

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, deception, Interpretation, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Salvation, Truth, understanding

Once Saved Always Saved and Eternal Security Versus Man’s Responsibility! Part 4

Mar 11

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 4 in the series of basic Bible lessons about an old religious philosophy labeled as “Once Saved Always Saved” theology. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go start reading with “Part 1“. The “Once Saved Always Saved” teaching has been in existence for well over 60 years so it is not a new Bible teaching. However, this old religious philosophy has recently been transformed into a more modern Grace extreme theological message called Eternal Security or Unconditional Security or even Unconditional Eternal Security. This has become a very popular message found on the internet and it is taught in many churches today. Christians buy into the message simply because it proclaims a universally safe no fail no fault approach to being a Christian. It makes being a Christian so ultra-simple. However, the message of Unconditional Eternal Security (U.E.S.) completely ignores the fact that there are any spiritual enemies still left in the world that are now trying to deceive or defeat us. The message of U.E.S. has total disregard for the fact that God gave to everyman freewill to choose to depart from their salvation at any time. It ignores any further Christian responsibility to remain a Christian or to live a holy Godly lifestyle. This teaching lumps every type of sin into a common category of all-inclusive forgiveness and makes them all irrelevant, inconsequential and removed from the equation of either the initial salvation process or the continued salvation process. In fact it technically denies there are any processes defined to salvation at all. They claim that by the removal of their sins by the shed blood of Jesus that God now provides us each with eternal security without any further attached conditions. These types of Christian believers think they have no further accountability thus denying the existence of any future judgments from God. They further deny human responsibility to do anything to remain saved. In other words in their minds their salvation was a onetime decision point event on the timeline of their life on this earth and that this one event has now guaranteed them eternal security with God forever. Since they have already accepted Jesus they assume that there are no further decisions to make, no more scriptures to learn, no need to hear from God, no need to listen to God, no need to be taught by God, no need to be led by the Spirit of God, no need to grow up spiritually and I could go on and on. All of this human reasoning allows them to live independent from anything else that God has declared in His Word on any subject. To me that logic does not make any sense and to base my eternal security upon anything so obviously shaky would really scare me.

I still run into this popular belief more frequently than I would like. This modern teaching of Unconditional Eternal Security is just a new type of the older extreme Grace message called “Once Saved Always Saved”. These teachings have departed from a balanced truth approach to Bible interpretation moving into the false realm of extremism simply by leaving out the other subjects that they do not agree with. These Bible teachers take only specific scriptures of truth found in the Bible that they like to see to base their message explaining away all the other verses of a conflicting nature. But, the problem remains that there will always be more than one or even two truths found in the entire Bible and we are required by God to take into account all of the stated truths given to us in the Bible so that we can know that we are preaching what God actually thinks of the subject of eternal security. Rather than give you all of the verses that these Grace preachers so love to exclusively teach on, I am simply focusing on in this series, what else the Bible says about subject of eternal security so we can see that God says there is more to being a Christian than just us getting saved once in our lives. I’m going to start today’s lesson talking about a subject called Christian Responsibility.

GOD’S DELEGATED CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY AFTER SALVATION

Unconditional eternal security is a belief that is based upon the irrelevance of man’s future actions. U.E.S. believes what a man does is independent from the process of their continued salvation. This type of belief removes the obvious freewill participation of the man from any further relevance. It also is a belief that proclaims that a man has no given responsibilities from God to do anything. Maybe we need to stop here and define the word “responsibility” to give us an equal foundation. How you view the definition of responsibility might be completely different to what I see it to be. Here is a definition that I found easily on the internet:

The state or fact of having a duty to deal with something.
The state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something.
the ability or authority to act or decide on one’s own, without supervision

Here are three dictionary definitions for the word responsibility. I agree with every one of them and I understand them. But, do you understand them? On Facebook recently one of my friends posted a sign on their wall about something that I really liked. So I took the sign and put it on my wall and here is what it said. It said “I’m only responsible for what I say; I’m not responsible for what you understand”. Did you notice the word “responsible in that sign message twice? That is exactly what I am discussing here today. That saying from Facebook shows us I have a responsibility for what I say and you have a responsibility for what you hear. According to the Bible, God will hold me personally responsible for what I say when I teach, so I’m very careful what I teach. However, you are now also responsible to learn, but not to just learn what I said but more importantly to understand what I was saying. Any parrot can be taught to say anything repetitively, but the bird will never understand the words that he speaks. Don’t be a parrot type of Christian; learn to understand what is being taught and this will cause the knowledge to never be taken away from you.

Using the definitions of the word “responsibility” can you think of anything in the New Testament that God has spoken to you that reveals you as having any responsibility? Look at the first definition. It says you have to deal with something as a duty or a job. Has God left anything here on the earth for you to deal with? You bet He has! The second definition states that you will have accountability for having done something or take the blame for having failed to do something. Is that applicable for any Christian going forward? If you do not understand the coming judgment of God then you do not yet understand your God given responsibility and your accountability for doing it. Number three is also important to see. It states there was given some task assignment along with the authority to accomplish that job. How does that apply to us as a Christian, let me show you:

Luk 10:19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Here is delegated authority given to the church from Jesus personally. The key word in this verse is the first Greek word translated as “power’. This word is mistranslated and should have been translated as the English word “authority”. This Greek word G1849 means “delegated influence”. Real authority can only be transferred or given to anyone by a higher authority. Since God is the highest authority this means He has the right to give us some of His authority. Anytime anyone gives away part of their authority they have now delegated their responsibility to them from which they will be now held accountable. For example, every police officer of a city is held accountable to uphold the laws fairly for that city. Therefore the police officer has been given direct responsibilities from a higher authority. If they fail to uphold the laws of the city then they will face the consequences for their failure. This is the exact same concept being transferred to us by God in the verse in Luke 10:19. You have been given responsibilities by God the highest authority and you will be held accountable for not doing them. In other words Christians have been given specific gifts, talents, tasks and assignments and these are not optional, but rather our God given responsibility to fulfill or they will not get done. Let’s talk about some more of our Christian responsibilities:

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

Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Let’s begin our thought process on responsibility by considering how we got saved. Did we have any responsibility in the entire process of our initial salvation? We should know that we began the process by hearing someone preach about Jesus. We continued the salvation process by believing what we heard about Jesus or we ended the process by not believing and then walking away from Jesus’ salvation offer. However if we choose to believe what was being preached the process continues. For example we believed that Jesus was God in the flesh, that He died for our sins and that He was raised from the dead and we conintue on the path to being saved. Next, we must confess Jesus as our Lord and according to Romans 10:9-10 and God says we are now saved! So how did we just get saved? It was a process! In this process of initial salvation there are three realms of delegated responsibility that must be present and working together. First the preacher was given the responsibility by God to preach the Gospel to us or we will not hear it. Second the unsaved person was given the responsibility to hear, believe and confess or they will not begin to be saved. Finally, the Holy Spirit has the responsibility to confirm the Word of God spoken by drawing the unsaved individual to God and then to come into the spirit of the unsaved person after they have heard, believed and confessed. Clearly “initial salvation” is a multi-step and a multi-responsibility process. Any one party could fail in the process and there would be no salvation. Of course God will never fail you, so that is not the weak point or the weak link in the process. However, the human factors that are participating can always fail. Humans will always be the weak link in the initial salvation process.

I firmly believe that we must determine how we were saved in order to determine how we will remain in the state of our salvation. In other words what got us into God’s grace will continue to be exactly what keeps you there. If initial salvation and continued salvation are both mutually exclusive from each other that would represent a new scriptural inconsistency. Ephesians 2:8 states that we are saved by Grace through faith. Therefore salvation was conditional upon us believing in the finished work of Jesus with our faith. Then in Romans 10:9-10 God says we must not only believe that God raised Jesus from the dead but we also must confess Jesus to be our Lord. If we are required to do something like believe and to confess in order to be saved then that makes our initial salvation clearly conditional upon our faithful obedience. If our initial salvation is conditional upon our obedience then by direct association our continued salvation must also be conditional upon our continued obedience or God would be very inconsistent. Do you understand my logic so far? Ephesians 2:8 told us that our faith was a factor for our salvation. 2 Corinthians 5:7 says we must continue to walk by our faith and not by sight after becoming a Christian. Therefore faith is still an ongoing factor for being a Christian. If continued salvation is only the responsibility of God like U.E.S. teaches, then initial salvation must also have been the full responsibility of God and that is clearly not the truth given to us in the Word of God.

The belief of unconditional eternal security after conditional salvation replaces the concept of any further human responsibility for continued salvation and places the full responsibility solely upon God. However God was clearly not the only factor for our initial salvation, so God just cannot be the only factor for our eternal security. If God was the only factor involved in our initial salvation then everyone would be saved today since 2 Peter 3:9 says God is not willing that any should perish. That however is another clear erroneous doctrine of many Bible teachers that want to believe in the invented concept called “Universal Salvation”. However when we study the Bible correctly we must balance more than one truth and see that just because God’s will is for everyone to be saved, that does not mean that everyone is saved. Clearly even Jesus taught us that people will be in hell with the story of the rich man in Luke 16. Clearly Jesus taught us that there will come a division between the sheep on the right hand from the goats on the left hand (Mat 25:32) and those not in His sheepfold will be lost and cast into the fire (Mat 13:40).

From my understanding and belief in a conditional salvation which is dependent upon my faithful obedience, participation and full acceptance causes me to believe in a conditional eternal security also based upon my further obedience, participation and acceptance. Otherwise we would all be saved by our willing participation but now kept safe independent from our participation by divine sovereign control. That type of belief would be completely illogical to me and very inconsistent with what I have observed in the scriptures. If man has no further responsibilities after his initial salvation then God has taken something away from him that he had before he was saved. If this is now missing from man, how can we claim we ever had it to begin with? Let’s examine the subject of continued Christian responsibility after salvation observing a basic truth taught to us in Romans:

Rom 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

We need to begin to understand that we have been given the responsibility as a Christian to remain a Christian. In order to do this we must begin to find our responsibilities given to us by God. Here in this verse God says my children are ONLY those that are led by my Spirit. Is that you? Did you know that this being led by the Spirit of God was a conditional requirement for your continued salvation? This verse was written to Christians and not to unsaved people. Did you hear what I just said? People sometimes simply don’t want to go to hell so they will get saved thinking that is all that is required to keep them from hell, but that is clearly not what God teaches us in His full balanced Word. This verse in Romans displays two separate divisions of people. The two divisions are those that are led by God and those that are not led by God. We can restate this truth by saying it includes those that are His children and those that are not His children. Therefore getting saved and not being led by the Spirit of God defines to us a new state of potential loss. Do you see how conditional your salvation can suddenly become? Today very few Christians understand this concept of even how to be led by the Spirit of God much less to be able to hear and obey Him. But, suddenly in the Grace unconditional eternal salvation message this being led by the Spirit of God to be His child becomes a non-issue. I don’t see it that way. God clearly places responsibility upon Christina to be led. If you do not know how to be led by the Spirit of God I have a Bible series of lesson on this subject “Understanding How to Be Led by the Spirit of God”. Let’s go examine some words spoken by Jesus on the subject of responsibility:

Mat 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

Mat 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Jesus said I will look at some and say to them “depart from me for I never knew you” and these were clearly people that thought they were saved and were even calling Jesus their Lord and thought they were doing many righteous good things that we see people in many churches do today. Do you understand that? I mean use your brain and think with me for a moment. Jesus is not talking to people who were in the bars, the night clubs and the strip joints of the world. God certainly does not know those types of people, no Jesus was talking to people who thought they were doing good things for God and they did not understand they needed to be led by the Spirit of God in what they did. In other words what they did for God they did independent from God and thus they failed to qualify for their continued salvation. In Matthew 7:22-23 Jesus was not talking about people or to people that never got saved! These are clearly people who got saved but went no further with their continuing salvation process to learn how to be led by God to become His child. Let’s look at the following verses in the context of those that Jesus was speaking to saying depart from me to find why they are being instructed to leave:

Mat 7:24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

Mat 7:25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

Mat 7:26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

Mat 7:27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

Read these verses very carefully for they are talking about two types of saved Christians again. These two types of Christians are being compared and separated from each other in these verses. You can try to explain them away as being saved people versus unsaved people but that is not what is being stated. Both types of people had houses built and both heard the same Word of God. These are two types of Christians. First there are those that heard the Word of God and do what they heard and then second there are those that heard the Word of God but ignored what they heard. Both of these people had to sit in the same church services to hear the same word of God being taught. The wise man in this description is stated to be the doer of the word of God and the foolish man is he that is destroyed because he chose to only hear. If you cannot see the stated Christian responsibility given to you in these verses, of Romans 8:14 and Matthew 7:24-27 to become a doer and a follower of what God has said to you by His Word and His Spirit then you are deceived greatly. God has placed conditions upon your continued Christianity and your continued salvation. I could give you many other scriptural salvation conditions but I’m only going to end this lesson with some verses written directly to the church in Revelation spoken to us by the Lord Jesus:

Rev 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Rev 2:17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.

Rev 2:26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:

Rev 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

Rev 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

Rev 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

I just gave you seven verses from Revelation chapters 2 and 3 written to the church telling us that we must “overcome” something or someone in order to receive something else from God. What does that teach us? Any time that God promises you something and then tells you what you must do to qualify for it that changes the promise of God to a conditional requirement that is based upon your successful participation. Let’s get the definition for this word translated as the English word “overcome” in order to understand what it means. Here is the definition from the Strong’s:

From G3529; to subdue (literally or figuratively): – conquer, overcome, prevail, get the victory.

Do you understand what subdue means? It means you have an enemy opposed to you. Do you understand what conquer means? It means you have a responsibility to win. Do you understand what “prevail” means? It means you can fail if you do not learn what you are doing. To be defeated as a Christian is as simple as you doing nothing. You are guaranteed failure for your lack of participation. The easiest way for any evil to prevail, is for good people to do nothing to prevent it. Do you know what “get the victory” means? It means God expects you to be a winner. To “overcome” clearly denotes responsibility to be victorious over your enemy and you will be held accountable if you do not do this.

What exactly is there left for us in the church to overcome if Christ has overcome it all already? I think that is a very excellent question that is being ignored by Christian Grace teachers of unconditional eternal security. Clearly we have just been given a major conflict with the belief for unconditional eternal security for all the church if we have anything left to overcome in order to qualify. God tells us repeatedly in these verses that we are to overcome in order to qualify for the participation of any further gifts. This is clearly God’s delegated responsibility that makes God’s gifts conditional. Several of these verses make it sound like even our salvation depends upon us being an overcomer. Read them closely for yourself. For example Revelation 2:7 says if you we overcome we get to eat from the tree of life. What would be the opposite of that truth? Would that be to eat form the tree of death if you don’t overcome? Uh oh? That is a potential problem isn’t it? Read Revelation 3:12 and see what God says to those that overcome He will give His name meaning to those that do not overcome He will not. Then understand that one name that is given to these overcomers is the name of the New Jerusalem and this is identified to be His bride in Revelation 21. Clearly if you do not overcome you are not His bride. If we don’t overcome, then Jesus implies we cannot eat from the tree that gives us life, we cannot be His bride, and we cannot have His name. This is really not that complicated, but it is an unexpected problem for those that believe in U.E.S.

Clearly to me our continued salvation and eternal security is not independent from our future decisions or actions. To me it is very self-evident that our continued salvation is totally dependent upon our continued faithful participation and obedience to God’s Word and His Spirit for the rest of the process of our salvation to make us overcomers. These truths that God gives us in the Bible make the reality of eternal security to be a completely conditional divine proposition. I only gave you a few great examples of continued Delegated Christian Responsibility after salvation. I could give you many others, but I believe I made my point and will move on to another topic that you need to understand in the next lesson in this series that I call the Deception Factor. Therefore, thanks for your time in studying the Bible today and I pray that you learned something that will be a blessing to you. Until next time if you feel like leaving me a comment, please do that. If you want to find me on Facebook and be my friend you are welcome to do that also. God Bless you until next time.

If you would like to continue reading and studying in this series, you may continue to “Part 5“.

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Religion, Salvation, security, Truth, understanding

Understanding How to Be Led By the Spirit of God! How the Holy Spirit Led the Early Church in Acts 11! Part 13

Feb 26

Posted by agapegeek

(ver 1.1) This is now Part 13 in a series of very important basic Christian Bible lessons on the subject of Being Led by the Spirit of God. My foundational scripture verse for the entire series is “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom 8:14). We have covered a tremendous amount of new information that will not be repeated so if you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1” first. The last two lessons have been focused on what God reveals about the early church’s growth and expansion in Acts 10 to include the Gentile people of the earth. Chapter 10 of Acts was an awesome chapter of spiritual information, divine guidance and church growth and I believe that we have learned a lot from it. I view the early church to be in the group called “the children of God” and therefore according to Romans 8:14 they are being led by God in everything that they are observed to be doing. Today’s lesson will be more about the events in chapter 10 because chapter 11 is a further overview and explanation of what happened in chapter 10. This will be the third time that God describes the same events. Any time God repeats Himself twice it is critical that you fully understand the importance of what is being spoken. However, any time God says the same thing three times then it has just exponentially grown to a factor that is way beyond critical to know. So today I’m going to go through chapter 11 and see what God is doing and saying to us in the modern church.

One of the key realizations to what I have observed in studying Acts 10 and 11 is God’s focused purpose and plan to increase the church’s spirituality level. God of course began this process by raining down His Spirit upon the Jewish church in Acts 2 and then we saw this continue as God’s Spirit fell on the Gentiles in Acts 10. But that was only the beginning of a longer spiritual process. I equate this beginning act of God to be similar to a garden planting analogy where God has planted His seed in us His church garden. God then expects this seed in us to grow and to increase and eventually to produce real spiritual fruit. Therefore the God seed planting was only the beginning of the process for the expected final outcome. We are God’s plants today that are created to produce God’s fruits of righteousness in the world. Jesus taught us that we can only do this if we become the branches that remain in Him our Vine source of life (John 15:5).

As we continue to go through chapter 11 I pray that this spiritual plant and garden growth process will become clearer to your understanding also. I have become totally convinced from this study that in order to be led by the Spirit of God that it requires God’s people to grow to understand what spiritual things are and how they work. The more you know the more you grow. People today want to be led by God, yet many do not want to make the effort to grow or increase spiritually. The Bible says that God is clearly a Spirit (John 4:24). Furthermore, God reveals to us in His Word that His ways are not our ways nor are His thoughts our thoughts, but they are higher than ours as the heavens are above the earth (Isa 55:9). Since God’s intelligence is on a level that is so far above ours what is it going to take for Him to communicate intelligently with you? God can only come down to your human level of ignorance and lack of spiritual understanding so far. Let me show you a statement that Jesus said to a teacher of Israel:

Joh 3:12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

Jesus is unscrambling and differentiating between two dimensional realms of reality within this statement. This God statement clearly causes new revelation to come to us, illuminating spiritual things to be higher and much more complex than the natural things of the earth. Jesus said I cannot tell you about heavenly things because you do not yet still understand these basic natural earthly things that I tell you. There is an implied necessary Christian growth process hidden in this statement. Jesus said you are basically incapable of hearing about any real complex spiritual things at this point in time. This would imply the need for something to occur in the man that was hearing in order for Jesus to be able to communicate the higher heavenly things to him. Is this too complicated for you? The thing that is required is called spiritual maturity or spiritual growth and this is combined with new increased spiritual knowledge and understanding of the God kind of things. All of these are contributing factors to being successfully led by the Spirit of God.

What Jesus was teaching us in John 3:12, is that we all need to develop spiritually in order to see something above our current natural capacity level to understand. You are going to have to rise up or grow closer to His spiritual level if you expect Him to give you something really useful. Think of it like this, what if a three or four year old human child wanted to talk to a great intellectual man like Albert Einstein and ask him for help to understand the theory of relativity. First the child would not even know what to ask of him and then there is the root of the child’s challenge called immaturity and ignorance that causes every complex statement revealed by Albert to be missed completely. What exactly do you think the child and Albert have to talk about? Sure Albert could come down to communicate on a certain elementary level about many things with the child. But, the deep things that Albert knew could never be transferred to the child no matter how much Albert would have loved to give them his vast knowledge because of the child’s inability to communicate on the Albert level. This is exactly the way it is with most Christians today and them asking God to help guide them. God will do the best at speaking to you on your level, but He would prefer that you came up higher to know Him better so that He can speak to you of the deeper complex things that He holds inside of Himself. Let me show you something else that Jesus said to us:

Mat 11:25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.

You can clearly see that God says there are hidden things that come only from Him. These hidden things were given to us the “babes” in this statement. The people in the church are these “babes”. The wise ones that the things were hidden from are those like Satan, the angels of Satan and the people of the earth that follow him in darkness. Look up the definition of the word “babe” in this verse in the Strong’s dictionary. The Greek word translated as “babes” literally means an infant as in a non-speaking baby. That definition of “babes” has spiritual meaning hidden in it that goes very deep. This kind of a natural child is unable to communicate intelligently other than simple crying or laughing. These types of infants can only drink milk to grow. This natural reality corresponds to a spiritual reality that is on a very elementary level of spiritual knowledge, understanding and ability. This non-speaking spiritual baby level is where all Christians begin their life in Christ. In the eyes of God we in the church are just spiritual non-speaking children and God desires us to grow into speaking mature children. Spiritual growth is one of the greatest desired expectations of the heart of God for His children. However, the only way this is possible is if we continue to abide in Him and to listen. It goes back to what I said earlier about being a branch that is connected to Jesus the Vine.

Being a baby is exactly where we all start out naturally in this world, but this is also how we all start out spiritually when we are born again (John 3:3). To be born again is a “spiritual birth” process that replicates the natural birth process but in the unseen spiritual realm. This spiritual birth process results in a new spiritual baby being born into the spiritual family of God. This stated new spiritual baby can exist in the body of a fully grown mature natural man or woman. The external age of the human body is always independent from the internal age of the spiritual child (2 Cor 4:16). The body that is visible never reflects the condition or the age of the hidden internal spirit. Being a spiritual baby is exactly like being a natural baby. Like natural babies, spiritual babies need help to survive and to grow or they will die. Read this statement that Paul makes to the church at Corinth about the spiritual growth process:

1Co 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

Paul tells the church in Corinth I cannot speak to you yet about spiritual things because you are still spiritual babies in Christ. This word for “babes” is the exact same Greek word that Jesus spoke in Matthew 11:25. This was clearly written to church people that were fully grown enough that could read and write, but yet they knew nothing about the spiritual things of God. God says you need to grow spiritually to be able to see the real complex spiritual subjects found in the Bible and in God. The complex subjects are only available to be understood after personal spiritual growth has occurred. Paul was telling the church I cannot communicate to you closer to God’s level because you are still non-speaking children in Christ. Those are pretty strong words aren’t they? Let’s read the next verse in 1 Corinthians:

1Co 3:2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.

God teaches us how spiritual growth occurs by using the very simple human concepts found in the natural baby growth cycle. If you do not understand natural baby things then you will never understand spiritual baby things as we have already seen by what Jesus was teaching us in John 3:12. If you read Romans 1:20 you will begin to see God telling us that His invisible spiritual qualities are clearly understood by the things that were created by Him in this world. You should be able to read 1 Corinthians 3:1 and 2 and see that God expects His spiritual babies to grow to eat meat. Meat symbolically represents the complex higher spiritual subjects of God. But in order to eat meat you must first drink the milk of the Word of God basics to grow. These concepts are critical and I pray that you are grasping them or you will never be led by the Spirit of God fully. Let’s read another witness of the truth in the Word of God:

Heb 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.

Heb 5:13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.

God reveals to us in these two verses that there are both simplistic milk subjects found in the Bible for spiritual babies and then there are also advanced meat subjects found in the Bible for the mature spiritual Christians. Clearly babies cannot take the really deep complex subjects because they do not understand even the simple milk subjects. That is what God is saying to the reader. Every complex meat truth found in the Bible is built upon several dependent layers of simpler milk truths that are necessary first to be understood. Hebrews 5:12 informs us that this understanding only comes from being taught. It is very much like learning to add and subtract as a school child using simple math concepts before you ever try to learn the algebra and calculus more complex math concepts. If you do not yet understand the simple it is impossible to grasp the complex. My Bible studies are normally intended for meat eating mature spiritual Christians. I recently had one person unsubscribe to my Bible study and I can only guess that it was because they did not like or could not take the meat that I was trying to feed them. That is OK, with me I’m not sent to teach everyone, if you cannot handle what I write you probably just need to go drink some more milk for a while and then come back later and try to eat the more complex topics from God. Don’t choke as a baby Christian trying to swallow spiritual meat when you have not yet developed any spiritual teeth to chew it. So while I lost one subscriber recently God blessed me and replaced them with 5 new subscribers. Praise God!

What I have just tried to describe to you is the spiritual growth process in a concise nutshell. God uses these things to teach each of us in the same way. This is exactly what I see happening to the church in the first 10 chapters of Acts. God was teaching the early church babies new spiritual things that were so much deeper than anything that they had ever seen or understood before. God is guiding them and giving them limited steps containing new ways to view the old scriptures to help them see God’s Word more through the spiritual eyes of God. Now with this new spiritual knowledge growing in them God can increasingly guide them by His Spirit to do even greater things with this new knowledge. That was my introduction so let’s get into the reality of chapter 11:

Act 11:1 And the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.

This is an awesome verse. It helps to clarify many things we saw in Acts 10 by explaining to us that it was the Word of God that made everything else that happened possible. When the angel told Cornelius in the beginning of Acts 10 to go and get Peter it was for the sole purpose of Peter bringing the Word of God to Cornelius. This is the designed process from God and it is described to us in Romans 10:14. Peter came and Peter preached the Word of God and because Cornelius and his house received and believed the Word of God, the Spirit of God fell on them and they spoke with other tongues and praised God. Being saved, being filled with the Spirit of God or whatever you receive from God begins with you first receiving the Word of God that is spoken to you by a preacher sent from God. The Word of God is the foundational basis for everything else that you need, spiritual, mental, emotional or physical. After hearing the Word of God, you must believe it and then you must receive what was spoken to you. This is called receiving the Grace of God by your faith. I’m not going to teach you about faith and what it is and how it works, so if you do not understand this subject I have an in-depth lesson series called “Understanding Bible Faith” that you should go and check out.

Notice however what is happening here in verse 1, the brethren that are mentioned here are the saved Jews of the natural circumcision in Jerusalem. These are the men that were circumcised in their flesh by the hands of other men according the Law of Moses but they were also now circumcised by the hands of God in their spirits and they have not yet fully comprehended which one is the most important. They do not yet understand that the first natural was only given to teach them about the greater spiritual circumcision that occurred by the Hand of God. The fact is that the circumcision of the heart was just being revealed to the church and this means that they had not fully embraced the truth nor did they completely understand it. This was simply because they were all still babes in Christ growing up in the Lord.

Act 11:2 And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him,

Here we have a potential firestorm division occurring in the church. This is a golden opportunity for the new baby believers of Jerusalem to depart the unity of the church body to create a new independent branch of believers called the Southern Jewish Church. Ok, that was a really bad joke on my part, but you understand what I meant. It is always man’s solution to create a new denomination when differences arise and it is always God’s proposed solution to resolve the conflict with new knowledge. The saved Jews in Jerusalem had heard about the Gentiles and they were not very happy Christians. In fact they were being very carnal, very jealous, very arrogant and very prideful types of Christians. It sounds a lot like some that I know of in the world today. It is very much like they felt themselves to be better or superior than those Gentiles because of something they had in their flesh that they could see. This is a dangerous approach to take before your fall and you will fall unless you change and release this attitude. Pride is always followed by the destruction of the individual (Prov 16:18). Any introduction of new Godly revelation to the people of God brings the opportunity to grow spiritually. It is also a potential opportunity to fail by rejecting it and remaining ignorant. Therefore, do not ever put yourself into a strict religious box of not being able to change, learn or grow from God’s new revelations. The Jews in Jerusalem in Acts 11 are about to reach a decision point as we continue to read through the chapter. They are going to be faced with some radical new spiritual information that is over their current spiritual level to understand it fully and they will have to make a choice to accept it or reject it. They will eventually learn that spiritual things will always take precedence over the natural external things but this is just a part of the normal growth process. We are about to explore the root of the problem being revealed to the early church:

Act 11:3 Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.

Why is it important for a Jew not to eat with a Gentile? Why does this natural external action of Peter so concern the Jewish men at Jerusalem? That is an incredible thoughtful valid question that people today do not even consider or try to understand how to answer. People in the modern world eat with anybody, anytime, in anyplace without giving it considerable thought to the consequences of their actions. What did I just say? Are there really consequences for eating with people? You see because of your ignorance you do not know where I am probably going next but we are going to explore briefly some Old Testament Law that these Jews in Jerusalem understood better than you did:

Exo 12:43 And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof:

Exo 12:48 And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.

Exo 29:33 And they shall eat those things wherewith the atonement was made, to consecrate and to sanctify them: but a stranger shall not eat thereof, because they are holy.

To an informed Old Covenant person, eating a meal with a Gentile was them making a covenant with a people that were not currently in covenant with their God. The Jews learned that the Passover meal was a covenant meal that was given to them while they were still in bondage in Egypt. Eating the Passover meal and placing the blood of the lamb on the doorpost allowed everyone in their house to live while the death angel took the firstborn of all that did not eat of the lamb and where the blood was not found on the doorway. God gives us these natural symbolic types to reveal the spiritual truths that have occurred in us in the church. In Exodus, God was telling the natural Jews that in order for a Gentile to participate with them in eating the meal, they must first be circumcised in their flesh. Did you not just read this? This was the Law of God that was being misapplied to the church in the minds of the Jewish believers in Jerusalem based upon their spiritual ignorance.

What I am saying is that eating with a Gentile was in effect the people of God joining themselves with their enemies. The sign of the circumcision was an external confirmation that they were in covenant with the same God you were in covenant with. However, that external sign of the covenant is now foolishness no matter who you are. The principle that was being taught to us is that you do not make covenant with anyone that is not in covenant with your God. That was the natural principle being taught to the Jewish people and that principle is still in effect in the spiritual realm today with the church (1 Cor 6:15). When you make covenant with a person not saved, the only advantage gained was given to the enemy that you covenanted with. Once you let your enemies into your house where you live you have just opened up your life to them for your complete destruction. What I just described to you has more spiritual relevance than what you probably understand right now, but I do not have the time to go there today. However, this was probably the driving reason behind the Jewish concern in Jerusalem extended to Peter. They were just in a state of shock that Peter had gone into a Gentile’s house and made covenant with them without them being circumcised in their flesh. They were in effect thinking very naturally and saying to Peter “What were you thinking?” “Why are you eating with these uncircumcised godless men?”

The natural Jewish believers were obviously not seeing things correctly through the eyes of God yet. They did not understand that Peter was being led by the Spirit of God in what he did and they for sure did not believe that the uncircumcised Gentiles were able to hear from God to do what they did. This is a grave mistake of people today that call themselves Christians. I saw a comment recently on Facebook from a Christian lady that is usually very sound in what she says. However she obviously got into the flesh with this statement and showed her spiritual immaturity. She was basically putting down people today that say they hear from God. I personally have more concern for people who do not hear from God than I do for those that say they heard from God. My Facebook friend even tried to justify her statement by using unfounded statements about Moses. She believed that even Moses never heard from God that much. I found her logic more than a little amusing. Moses after all wrote the first 5 books of the Bible and many of the Psalms so Moses obviously heard from God a lot. Do not get me wrong, there are people on the internet that say they hear from God and clearly they do not based upon what they say. If what is spoken contradicts the Written Word of God, then it is not from God. This is always an example of the real being counterfeited with the false. The presence of the false however proves that there is a real by implied antithesis. People in the world never counterfeit anything that does not already exist and is valuable or the counterfeit would have no value to anyone to deceive them. Satan will always introduce the fakes to discredit or distract form the genuine. God is speaking today in the world to His people and do not believe that He is not.

Act 11:5 I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came even to me:

Act 11:6 Upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, I considered, and saw fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.

Act 11:7 And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat.

Act 11:8 But I said, Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth.

Act 11:9 But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.

Act 11:10 And this was done three times: and all were drawn up again into heaven.

Act 11:11 And, behold, immediately there were three men already come unto the house where I was, sent from Caesarea unto me.

Act 11:12 And the Spirit bade me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man’s house:

Act 11:13 And he shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter;

Act 11:14 Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.

Act 11:15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.

Act 11:16 Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.

Starting in Verse 5 and continuing through verse 16 in Acts 11 is now Peter’s account of what just happened in Acts 10 as it is replayed for the saved Jewish believers in Jerusalem. You might recall we got Cornelius’ account of the events at the end of chapter 10 telling Peter and now we are seeing Peter tell his side of the story to the other natural circumcised believers. You did notice that I said the “other” natural circumcised believers, yes? What is happening here? Why didn’t God speak to these believers directly like He did with Peter? Recall that Peter was dealt with on a personal spiritual level by God directly in Chapter 10. These Jewish men in chapter 11 were not. Why that was and what we can learn from it will now become more apparent. Revelation is never given to everyone in the church. Visions from God are never given to everyone in the church. Angels are never sent to everyone in the church. On and on I could go. These are all examples of divine sovereign choices of God and they are designed to help the whole body by allowing the one given the message to go and tell the others. That is exactly what is happening here in Acts 11. Peter was sent by God with the message from God to the natural Jewish believers in Jerusalem so they could hear what God has done.

Peter’s vision from God was not just for Peter’s personal benefit; it was for everyone else’s benefit in the church also that will hear it. Do you understand what I am saying? If Peter did not spread the message, the message would have died with Peter. God never gives one man any kind of revelation that is not intended for him to share with everyone else. I already tried to cover the difference between natural circumcision and God’s spiritual circumcision and I hope that you understand the differences. You can clearly see that this new spiritual way of thinking was causing a great division to occur in the church and if God does not deal with it then we would have the beginning of a new church denomination like I said before. Uh oh? God is actually working very hard to reverse the cause for the division by doing spectacular things like sending angels and giving visions, but the people in the church are still going to have to cooperate, believe and accept.

Act 11:17 Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God.

I love this verse! It is so awesome! What did Peter just tell these Jewish believers? This is the best advice that people today can still get a hold of if they humbled themselves and tried. Peter just said “I’m not stupid, it is not my place to tell God what to do”. Do you ever try to tell God what to do? I see it on the internet every day. I’ve seen it in churches repeatedly. People speaking against what they do not agree with and they call the others not in their group false teachers and liars. They do not understand that God could have given someone else a new revelation and this was also for them but they have rejected it because it was new. I’m not going to go through everything that Peter said to the Jews verse by verse, but I do want to point out the key factors again for emphasis:

Peter says “I was praying” in verse 5.
Peter says “I was in a trance and I saw a vision” in verse 5.
Peter described the vision and says he then heard a voice say “arise slay and eat” in verse 7.
Peter says back to the Lord “No Lord nothing unclean has entered into my mouth” in verse 8.
Peter then says that God answers back to him “Do not call unclean that which I have cleansed” in verse 9.
Peter then says that all of this happened three times in verse 10.
Peter then says the Spirit of God spoke to him again and said “These men that I have sent, go with them doubting nothing” in verse 12.

Let’s just stop right here and analyze the facts given to us. How many times did God speak and how many times did Peter speak to God in this conversation? Peter prayed so that is the first time where the spiritual conversation begins with God. The vision then begins, so God is now speaking back to Peter in a trance. We have one for Peter and one for God. Now the voice of God tells Peter “Kill and eat” and Peter says “no”. That gives me a count of two for God and two for Peter. God then answered back “Do not call unclean what I have cleaned”. My count is now three for God and two for Peter because Peter had no reply. What God was pointing out to Peter was “you don’t know what I have done or what I can do”. God was in effect teaching the man Peter during this whole vision. Peter then tell us that this happens three times. According to my calculation that would give us a subtotal of God speaking seven times and Peter speaking back to God four times. However, Peter then says God told Him to go with the men and that makes the count, God speaking 8 times and Peter speaking 4 times. Did this not say that God just spoke to Peter 8 times in one conversation? I mean can you count? How many people today is there that do not understand that God still does this for everyone since He is no respecter of persons? Does God still speak? You bet He does! Does God speak a lot? You bet He does, if you are listening. Let’s talk briefly about verses 15 and 16:

Act 11:15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.

Act 11:16 Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.

Here is further confirmation for what I was teaching you in the last lesson. God is revealing how things work in the spiritual realm by revealing to us little clues found within the natural realm. While Peter was preaching at Cornelius’ house the Word of God, the Holy Spirit was poured out exactly like He was in Acts 2 on the Jewish believers. We learned in chapter 10 this taught Peter that God was no respecter of persons. But, Peter also tells us when this was happening that he suddenly remembered something that Jesus had said to him. Do you think this was a coincidence or do you think this was also God speaking to him? I personally know it was the Spirit of God speaking to Peter. This is simply one way that God communicates with people and people do not understand it is God unless you learn to see what is said. The Spirit of God inside of Peter was giving Peter the thoughts to preach the message to Cornelius all along. God just revealed one thought of the many others that were implied. What was this thought that Peter just had? The thought was a memory recall of some of the words that Jesus spoke to him in the past. I have called this concept God drawing water out from a well. The thought was the water, God was the drawing out Spirit, and the well where the water was found is Peter’s spirit. The only reason water existed in the well was because it was placed there by Jesus’ teachings. This is not really rocket science kind of technical stuff here, but yet it is very profound if you get a hold of it. Jesus taught us “From the abundance of your heart, the mouth speaks” (Mat 12:34). Therefore put God’s Words into your heart if you want to get any of God’s Words to come out from your heart.

Do you understand what Jesus was teaching Peter and the other disciples from this thought in Acts 11:16 and how it applies to what is happening now with Cornelius? In other words why is God causing Peter to remember these words at this exact moment? Why is it relevant? Notice what Jesus was contrasting in the thought. Jesus was speaking of natural things like John and his water baptism to teach them of new coming spiritual things. Also understand that Jesus’ statement was a future prophetical reference to an event that had not yet occurred when it was spoken. If you research your Bible you will find that this statement was made by Jesus in Acts 1:5 right as He was about to ascend back to heaven. The Spirit of God was now revealing to Peter that this is the time of fulfillment of that prophecy. Jesus told them that John had used water to baptize, but now God will use the Holy Spirit to do the exact same thing in the spiritual realm. It is again an example of how external things are being represented to reveal internal invisible things. If you learn nothing else from me today I pray that you begin to understand the differences between natural things and spiritual things. Learn today that spiritual things are always greater than the parallel natural things. Learn how natural things are nothing but physical pointers to the hidden spiritual things from God. So we have had Peter describe the intimate workings of the Holy Spirit during the process to the Jews in Jerusalem and we are now at the time for their decision. Do they accept it or do they reject it?

Act 11:18 When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.

Here is the model example of the appropriate Christian reactive response to any new revelation. These Jewish men in Jerusalem just showed you what you should be doing today. Peter has just preached to the natural Jewish believers in Jerusalem a message that came from God and they believed it and accepted it. There are literally too many other possible human reactions for me to list what could have happened. Instead of focusing on what did not happen, just notice that they kept their mouths shut except to praise their God. That is probably one of the greatest lessons to learn from what is happening in these two chapters. When and if you do not fully agree, fully understand, or fully embrace what is happening it is wisest to hold your peace and just praise God. Don’t fight against God, observe what He is doing and go with it. How could these men at Jerusalem do this? It is because they knew their God and they knew Peter. They had to have a certain level of trust for this man of God that he was not misleading them. They also knew that he was the one that got them saved in the first place by preaching in Acts 2. So we have many factors contributing to trust and their spiritual growth.

Act 11:19 Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.

You can clearly see the problem that God was addressing in the church in this verse. Those that were being scattered from Jerusalem’s persecution were only going to other cities preaching to the natural Jews. God was revealing to the early church that it’s much bigger than that, guys! You people are missing the largest harvest fields and only focusing on the select ones that you think are good. It goes back to a truth that God revealed in the O.T. that says “God does not see as men see, for man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). If people would only see things in the Bible like God sees them, there would be no divisions, debates or arguments in the church today and we could all reach a lot more people to get them saved.

This lesson is already long enough. Let’s just recap what else is revealed in this chapter to bring it to a close.

Verse 20 says the Gentiles are now being actively preached to and converted.
Verse 21 says the number of the Gentiles being added to the church is very significant.
God also says in verse 21 that these Gentiles did two things to be saved. They believed the message and they turned to God for their salvation.
Verse 21 also says the hand of the Lord was with them, proving God was leading them in what was happening.
Verse 22 says the news of the church growth was spreading through the church and reached back to the church in Jerusalem.
Verse 22 then says the brethren in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch to preach and teach them. This was God again sending a man with a message to help them grow spiritually. I told you a mature Christian was always necessary to keep a new born spiritual baby alive.
Verse 23 says Barnabas saw the Grace of God and was glad and he began to exhort them. Exhortation is a comforting and an encouraging word sent from God telling them to continue in the Lord. Meaning they have the opportunity to turn back or walk away.
Verse 24 describes God’s messenger Barnabas as being a good man that was full of the Holy Ghost. Two things I learn from this. To be a good teacher of God you need to be full of the Spirit of God. Finally a mature teacher needs to be sent by God.
Verse 24 says many people were added to the church as a result of sending Barnabas.
Verse 25 does not give us a time frame of how long Barnabas was present in Antioch but it says he left there for Tarsus to seek for Saul. I take this as God guiding him because of Romans 8:14. Galatians 2:9 teaches us that Barnabas becomes an apostle to the Gentiles with Paul.
Verse 26 is one of my favorites. It gives us the reason for seeking Paul. Paul is brought back to Antioch to help and this verse says they stayed there for a year and taught many people. Verse 26 also reveals this is where people in the church were first called “Christians”.
Verse 27 says Jerusalem sent prophets to Antioch. This proves God is still working to bring messages through men to other men.
Verse 28 is a warning from the Spirit of God spoken by the prophet sent to Antioch. He tells them of a great famine that would come upon the world.
Verse 29 the church at Antioch gathers supplies to give to help those in Judea.
Verse 30 says Barnabas and Paul leave Antioch to take the relief to the church elders.

We could literally write a book about all of the things revealed in these few verses. If you meditate on the verses long enough you will see what I mean. There are many lessons that can be transferred to the days that we live in. There is God leading the church individually and corporately to grow and increase in significant numbers. There is God leading and teaching individuals to grow up spiritually. There is God bringing warnings of coming events and helping to prepare them through a prophet. There are times of famine now in many parts of our world. People have physical needs and these should be taken to the elders in the church to be distributed to those in need. I believe that the church’s number one goal is to add to the number of believers to help the body grow. But, then the number two goal is to help those that are new in the church to grow spiritually so they do not fall away and they can become teachers also. I finally see the last goal of the church as being to help the physical needs of the people. This was God’s stated order of mention in chapter 11. I see God’s emphasis in Acts 11 being spiritual first and then physical. However, the famine did occur after a year from when Paul was sent into Antioch so the emphasis might have changed if the circumstances were different. Nevertheless, I want to say that I can see God was working in Acts 11 to supply both their spiritual needs as well as their physical needs. Both are necessary components to continued growth. We saw great examples f God sending teachers to the new church members. We can easily confirm that God wants to save you first, but then He wants you to grow spiritually so that He can continue to lead you in the process to help others get into the same process and the spiritual life cycles continues and repeats. The spiritual cycles of spiritual church population growth duplicates the natural human cycles of population growth. The spiritual cycle of development and maturity parallels the natural human cycle of development and maturity. Just as math students in the natural can become math teachers to others as they grow, so it is with Bible students in the spiritual dimension. Non-speaking baby Christians after spiritual development and maturity should all become speaking Christians (AKA Bible teachers) for others.

While you may not fully understand how much you have learned today or how it applies to you being led by the Spirit of God, I will tell you that what you have learned has gone much further than you realize. Someday soon you will become a teacher and then these lessons will be in you to help others. God will draw them out when it is time and you will speak the oracles of God with wisdom. God Bless you until next time and I greatly appreciate your effort to study the Word of God with me.

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Tags: Being Led, Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Religion, Truth, understanding

Understanding How to Be Led By the Spirit of God! How the Holy Spirit Led the Early Church in Acts 10! Part 12

Feb 12

Posted by agapegeek

(ver 1.1) This is now Part 12 in a series of very important basic Christian Bible lessons on the subject of Being Led by the Spirit of God. These lessons contain critical spiritual information, instructions, and corrections that are essential and necessary for the spiritual growth of every Christian and they directly apply to all of us in the modern church because we are all in the same body of Christ serving the same God in the same ways as those in the book of Acts. My foundational scripture verse for the entire series is “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom 8:14). That verse informs us that it is more than just a good idea, more than optimal, more than important, or more than just advantageous to be led by the Spirit of God over those that are not led. Romans 8:14 actually tells us that it is an essential requirement to be led by God or you cannot even be called His child. Jesus stipulated that “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). But commandments from God are more than just reading and obeying the written Laws of Moses. There will always be the written Word of God that we must learn, but there is also an implied direction to hear His current spoken words also. What was written to us thousands of years ago in the Bible still definitely applies and is very relevant, but I believe that what we may need to know is more specific for the right now. How do we grow and what do we still need to learn today, is there anything that we need to change, who do we need to speak with today or to witness to, who do we need to pray for today, where do I need to go today and on and on we could go. Personal direction from God can only come from hearing the Holy Spirit speak on an individual intimate level. That is why I’m teaching about how you can hear from God in the right now.

I believe that it is so very important for us to know this subject in great detail. Learn how God speaks, learn when God speaks and learn why God speaks and then expect Him to speak to you. If you are not expecting, then you are not listening. We have covered a tremendous amount of information that will not be repeated so if you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1” first. In recent lessons, I have been moving through the book of Acts and observing the patterns and revelations of how God led the early church to grow and increase in great numbers. I believe that these are great teachings for the end-time church to go up and out on so that we can learn how to reach as many people as we can in the shortest amount of time. The Bible speaks of the outpouring of the Spirit of God as being like rain (James 5:7, Zec 10:1, Joel 2:23). The Bible also speaks of the Word of God coming down from heaven like rain (Isa 55:10-11). God called for the former and the later rain to fall in their respective seasons upon His people to produce a healthy fruitful spiritual crop. Two things happened in the Book of Acts former rain that stands out above all other facts to me. The Spirit of God was poured out on the Church and as a result God gave them such profound new revelation of His precious Holy written Word that it was unprecedented and beyond comparison. As a result of the Spirit of God being poured out like never before on everyone in the church and the knowledge of God increasing so profoundly, the church grew tremendously. It was a classic cause and effect reality from God. We are now living very near the time of the harvest and therefore we are abiding in the time of the later rain. We are currently writing the final chapters to the book of Acts today by what we do for God. I believe that what happened in the early church rain is what is reoccurring now in the later rain. This is the heavenly rainy season that we live in right now. Learn to get into the rain of God and see if He will not pour out on you a blessing that you cannot even contain. The revelation of God is increasing today like never before. We are to use this information to help the church to grow, to overcome and to unite in His purpose. Get involved in what God is doing and make sure you are standing under the spiritual rain cloud that is being poured out on the church today.

In the last lesson I was teaching on Acts chapter 10 and we did not get through the entire chapter. Let’s briefly review what we saw that was happening. I personally believe that chapter 10 of Acts is the most important chapter we have observed on this subject of being led. The chapter begins with Cornelius a Gentile man praying and suddenly seeing an angel sent from God. In this vision, the angel gives him a message from God and tells him to go and find Peter in another city in order to hear another message from God. That right there is a very strange request from God. I guess the angel was not told the real message. What I believe is happening is that God is revealing to us that we are living in the church age. The church was given the delegated authority and responsibility to go and preach to those on the earth to get them saved (Mark 16:15). There is coming a time in Revelation 14:6 where the angels will preach to the people on the earth because the church will already be in heaven. Therefore, I believe the angel in Acts 10 is pointing Cornelius to a church member to hear the Gospel. The angel tells Cornelius where Peter can be found and he sends three men to the city of Joppa where Peter is staying.

While the men are on the trip to find Peter, Peter is also said to be praying at the exact precise time and he also has a vision from God that is very disturbingly strange. Peter falls into a trance and sees a vision of a sheet being lowered from heaven with every kind of animal clean and unclean on it. Peter is then commanded by God to kill and eat, but Peter knows this will be an offense to his current understanding of the written Law of Moses and he refuses. Because of Peter’s refusal to participate, Peter sees the same vision three times and that is another interesting concept that visions may reoccur, but do not think that they must reoccur. I believe it is wiser to participate and obey the first time that God says something to you. Peter is still contemplating the meaning of the vision when all of the sudden the Spirit of God speaks to him in his spirit and tells him the men sent by God are here to see him. At this point in time Peter does not know what the vision means nor does he understand who the men are and why they are here to see him. So Peter goes down and meets with the men to find out what is going on.

What we have just observed is a divinely choreographed and well-orchestrated plan of God that has been unfolding in progressive steps and stages. This is a great example of the wisdom of God in manifestation. Every participant is given only very limited quantities of information to accomplish a single step of the greater unknown divine goal. No one at this point in time knows what God is doing or why they are doing it with Him. This is clearly an example of the people of God being led blindly by faith where God is the only one that understands fully what is happening and why. Of course if God knows what He is doing then we should not really care what He is telling us to do or even ask why. What is going on will always become apparent to us soon enough if we continue to obey. This is just called being a willing servant of God that walks by faith. We can clearly see how the factor of human obedience plays a significant role when yielding to a higher degree of wisdom than we possess. It is also based upon a factor that is called “TRUST” like a child trusts their parents to catch them when they jump into their arms. There is a further implied unstated factor of humility where we must acknowledge internally that we need to be led by God. The success of the whole plan of God is completely dependent upon the faithful participation of each individual involved being led and all of these qualities that I just mentioned play key roles in the successful outcome. If any one man in this chapter drops the ball and does not do or complete what God has instructed them to do, God would have needed to find some new church members to replace them to get the job done and thus the church would have not grown as fast or as efficiently.

THE PURPOSE OF GOD’S LEADING

Jer 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. (NASB)

Here is a good time to confirm why God wants to lead us again. If you are being led by God it is not for your demise, harm, hurt or destruction. Jeremiah 29:11 teaches us that God is always working for your greater good and for a greater purpose than what might be apparent at the time. You should be able to recognize that in Acts 10 as we continue through the lesson to the fulfillment of the plan of God. In this chapter nothing but positive things happen to everyone participating. The Bible clearly informs us that God is FOR US and not against us (Romans 8:31). There are three different perspectives that we can use to see what is written in this verse in Jeremiah 29. First, it can be viewed corporately as a universal statement directed at everyone. Second it can be viewed from the perspective that it was written to others like natural Israel only. Finally it could be viewed as a verse that was written to ME personally. There are ways to reason away any one of the these three possibilities using human logic. However, because the verse does not say who it is written to using a noun qualification, I take it to be a verse that includes all of the above possibilities concurrently. The translators also thought this way because they used the personal pronoun as “you” being “me” the reader to state the truth. I take this verse as a direct quote from God spoken to me.

I can understand that this verse was originally written to the natural nation of Israel. But, I then can begin to expand my vision to view it to be a universal truth that crosses over from the natural realm into the spiritual realm to include everyone. Therefore, it is simple to me if I take the truth in this verse to be for me personally. You of course need to make up your own mind if it is for you and do with it whatever you like. If you can come to the realization that it is for you also, then you need to do something else. You need to believe that God has a good plan specifically for you like I believe God has a good plan specifically for me? Your plan is not my plan, and my plan is not your plan. They are both unique and separate while still being equally good for each. If you can believe that, then you have a strong basis of faith with the scriptures to stand upon when you pray and ask God what is your plan for me. Knowing this revelation will give you confidence that when God leads you it is for a positive outcome and for a greater good purpose.

Since I believe that this verse in Jeremiah 29:11 is universally true and for me as an individual I can conclude three new things from it that applies to why God was leading the early church in Acts 10. First, God is ultimately interested in the good plan for growing the church as the single whole body of Christ on the earth. This is what I will call a “ONE” church body approach to understanding the scriptures. Since I believed that Jeremiah 29:11 was for individuals and I view the body of Christ as an individual corporate body I believe God’s good plan must include us all as one group. I’m not going to teach you about the church being one body found in the scriptures today so if you do not understand that truth then you should do a separate study on the subject. Second, I believe that in order for God to grow the church that God must also be interested in helping all of the members in the church to grow up spiritually to learn how to be led by Him. What we have again is an approach that if one part of the body is ill, then the entire body is ill. You cannot cut off one part of your body and still be a whole person. Again I can see how God’s GOOD plans for the church are both individualized and simultaneously incorporated for the good of everyone for a unified positive purpose and outcome. I hope that you understand these concepts, because I do not have time to go into them in great detail. Last but not least I believe that God is interested in blessing you in the natural realm so that you can become a blessing to others on the earth in the natural realm to get them saved. Here is where church growth corresponds to human growth cycles. When a natural child is born into the world they are very small, weak and need assistance to survive. As their body develops they are increased in mass, strength and ability. These concepts can be transferred to the body of Christ. I believe that our church body is in a growth cycle right now and we are reaching out to those that are not a part of the body to help them to be added to the body of Christ. This is only possible while we are all still in the natural realm. If you die or they die then it is too late for each of you to participate in the increase to the body of believers. I can see all three of these things occurring in Acts 10 and I hope that you will also agree with me on them.

WHAT IS A GOOD PLAN FROM GOD?

Jeremiah 29:11 informs us that God has good plans for His people. What exactly is a plan? And what makes one plan good and another one not good? One definition of the word plan is a design or a scheme of arrangement. We might be able to view a plan as a set of project specifications. This is a concept that transfers to many things in the natural to be easily understood. A cook uses a recipe to create an edible delicacy which is tasty. A seamstress uses a pattern to create a dress that will knock your socks off when you see it worn. An architect creates a plan called a blueprint design with architectural diagrams to build a great building that we can live and work in. These are all designed stepped approaches to the creation of things in the world. These are all good planned approaches that benefit people in some way. No plan that I have just mentioned was intended for anyone’s harm or demise. However, you can clearly see how that any plan can be changed or modified to become evil. Good and evil are basic concepts found in the Bible. The Bible tells us that God is good and that Satan is evil. We should be able to conclude that God’s plans are for our good and Satan’s plans are for our hurt. This is really not that complicated, but Satan has used people’s human reasoning to try shift all plans to God’s control and that is a great error in judgment.

Does every plan on the earth automatically come to pass exactly as planned? If you have ever been a project manager you know that they do not. Rarely does a plan occur without a problem. Now, consider what if it is God’s plan for your personal life? Does that mean God’s plans for you will automatically come to pass just because God is omnipotent and controls everything that happens to you? Again, it certainly does not! If that was true it would be totally unnecessary to be led by the Spirit of God and we could just all sit back and let Him do everything. The requirement to be led by the Spirit of God dictates that every plan of God does not automatically transpire. All of this means that you need to first learn what the plan of God is or at the minimum learn what part of the plan that God wants you to do and then follow God’s instructions to fulfill it. What I am doing is attempting to go through some side trips that are informative enough to try to help you understand why things occur. Every plan is not good and every good plan does not always come to full fruition.

I have studied the Gospels and I have tried to observe what Jesus said and did in person for humanity in order to better understand what God in heaven wants to do for humanity today. I never did see Jesus kill someone, rob someone, hurt someone or do any evil to anyone. The Bible clearly says in Acts 10:38 that Jesus went about doing “GOOD” to all those oppressed of the devil. If Jesus wanted “good” for us on the earth when He was here physically then it is still the same today. This also teaches us that God is not the author of the evil and that Satan is the one doing evil to us. Read the Gospels and see that when people were hungry Jesus cared enough to feed them. When people were sick, blind or crippled many got healed and delivered. When people were in their ignorance Jesus spent vast amounts of time teaching them. Jesus even raised many from the dead. These were all examples of doing good things for people. How can you see anything but good coming from God since the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever? (Heb 13:8)

So why do bad things still happen to the good church members in Acts and to the people on the earth still today? We clearly saw Stephen being stoned and others being thrown into prison in Acts. There was definite persecution being leveled on the church by the Jews. I believe that there are possibly multiple reasons for bad things happening in the world to good church members. First the existence of evil in the world remains ever present and it will not be taken away until the time has been fulfilled. Understand that the world that we currently live in had a set beginning which requires a set ending by definition. Satan the initiator of all evil now understands the concept of the timed ending and he knows that his time left is growing rapidly shorter so he is intentionally stepping up the evil in the world and he is not trying to reduce it. Second, the whole concept of being led by the Spirit of God was a brand new idea that had just been initiated by God in all of the church in Acts 2. Previously in the Old Testament God would lead one man and they would hold the responsibility to lead everyone else. Today in the church we have a radical new concept where God says that He will lead everyone individually, corporately and simultaneously.

Being led by God is not an automatic spiritual skill that everyone understands when they become a Christian. In fact it is actually the opposite. Being led by the Spirit of God is an acquired spiritual ability or we could also say a learned spiritual skill as we can clearly see in the experiences of those in Acts 10. Normally humans are led by their senses, their experiences and their human reasoning. All of these are enemies to how God leads us by our spirit and we have to make the transition from these natural ways to be successfully led by the Spirit of God. No one in the book of Acts is yet an expert at being led by the Spirit of God. Everyone is still growing up spiritually as God teaches each of them. Keep in mind at this time there is still no New Testament Bibles that exist. Everything being taught by the church is from the Old Testament and these are concealed words about a hidden Jesus and the many other spiritual things that were just being revealed and taught for the first time by God. So the people in Acts are like the people today. We are all still learning to be led by God and we all still growing spiritually as we hear from Him. Like those in Acts we are all still imperfect men and women with faults, weaknesses, emotions, sense feelings, and the same oppositions, persecutions and distractions as they faced. Therefore, between the continued presences of evil in the world working with the fallible human condition of men in the world both continue to contribute to why bad things still happen to Christians.

What we have seen so far in Acts 10 is God’s usage of at least 4 or 5 different communication methods over the course of several days to accomplish the greater plan of God while simultaneously teaching the church how God operates to lead them. I have noticed that God is intelligent enough to multi-task and He is more than able to accomplish several stated goals with a single threaded process. This is one of the greatest examples in the Book of Acts that I have seen so far of how the Sovereign God works in conjunction with the imperfect people on the earth that have the freewill option and choice to listen, hear, understand, choose and to obey Him. We have clearly seen that God gives us all limited instructions in progressively sequenced steps to cause every participant to walk by faith and not by their own individual sight, knowledge or understanding. I call this God’s modus operandi or method of operation. It is how God operated with the early church and it is how God operates with us still today.

Think about the story in Acts 10. If God would have told Cornelius everything from the beginning using the angel there would have been no need for any messengers to go get Peter. There would have been no need for a Peter the preacher at all. If God would have told Peter everything that was happening, then he would have also not needed to go down and talk to the men from Caesarea or go and preach to Cornelius. Cornelius would have not needed a Peter and Peter would have not needed a Cornelius. These are clear examples of how the individual people in the church should be working together in unison to accomplish the greater goal of God. In other words no church member is an island that can stand alone in their own personal ministry isolation. God does not call any church member to live in solitary confinement. God called no Christian to be a Robinson Crusoe type of believer living in a monastery. If you think you can live a full Christian life like that then you are deceived. If you think no one else needs your participation then you are deceived. These are some of the greatest examples of God using ordinary people like you and me in the church.

WHY GOD LED THE CHRUCH IN ACTS 10

As you continue reading in the chapter we will finally begin to discover why God is doing what He has been doing. We will finally understand that everything that has occurred in Acts 10 is God causing the church to grow, expand and include the people of every nation and not just the people of natural Israel as it was found to be in the first 9 chapters of Acts. God is about to shake up the box of their religious beliefs and their understanding of God’s character and turn it all upside down. I guess technically I should say that God is turning things right side up, but you know what I mean. Read some verses found in the prophet Isaiah:

Isa 42:6 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;

Isa 42:7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

Isa 42:8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.

Isa 42:9 Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.

Isa 49:6 And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

If you search the Bible you will see that there are several prophecies in the O.T. like these that reveal salvation belongs to all nations through Jesus Christ. Here in Isaiah God says Jesus will be a light to the Gentiles and that His salvation will be displayed to the ends of the earth. God says this will be something brand new. What is a Gentile? From a natural O.T. Bible perspective a Gentile was anyone that was not of the circumcision of the flesh first given to Abraham. Every male descendant from Abraham on was circumcised as an outward sign of their covenant with God. This event usually occurred 8 days after a male child was born (Php 3:5) and it resulted in a cutting of their flesh, the shedding of some of the child’s blood, and it also hurt and was physically painful. Therefore a Gentile to the Jewish men in Acts 10 were any men that did not possess this physical mark in their flesh. Now a new problem is being revealed to those in the church in Acts 10. God is going to give them a totally new spiritual definition to an old natural understanding of what exactly circumcision was. God is revealing something so radical to them that it is very difficult for many of them to even accept. Here is a part of the new revelation that God would later write to the church at Rome:

Rom 2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:

Rom 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

You see these are verses that people today ignore because they do not understand what they say or mean. God is teaching the church that the outward mark of the flesh is not what makes a man a Jew anymore. God is revealing that the outward circumcision was only given to teach them all about a new inward circumcision of the heart that makes us all a brand new kind of Jew. Uh oh? What did I just say? Do you see why people still struggle with this revelation? We will discover that the early church had this same difficulty when we get to chapter 11. There was a huge movement in the early church by some Jewish believers to try to get all the new Gentile believers that came into the church to be circumcised like they were in their flesh. These Jewish Christians were thinking carnally and naturally that in order to be fully saved it required everyone to do something externally to keep the law of God. What God was doing is revealing that the natural things that He implemented under the law with Abraham only pointed them to the real spiritual things that ONLY God could do in the spiritual realm. The Bible says that no one will ever be justified by the works of the law (Gal 2:16). The circumcision of the heart (spirit) first started happening in the beginning of the church age as men received the Spirit of God. This same circumcision of the heart that only the natural Jews had received is now being expanded in Acts 10 to include all of the Gentiles that believe on Christ also. You cannot see or even understand the spiritual things of God and how they work without first understanding the natural things and how they worked. This is why God does the natural first to teach us about the spiritual works of God. This is really not that complicated yet many Christians still stumble over it constantly.

THE CONCLUSION TO ACTS 10

These were just cleverly designed ways of God to say behold I do a brand new thing and it is now open to everyone that wants to participate. The early church did not really fully understand these verses were even in their Bible. That is why God is revealing them to the church in Acts 10 and His written word can be used to confirm what He said to them. Always remember that what God tells you by His Spirit will never conflict or contradict with what God has said to you in His written Word. God is giving the church new revelation knowledge of the old prophecies in Isaiah. Revelation knowledge is never a modification to the words that were written on the page, it is always just an adjustment to our spiritual eyesight that increases our understanding of what the words meant in the first place. Let’s complete the study of the verses in Acts 10:

Act 10:28 And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.

Here is a very classic example of how people can believe they understood what the Bible said and totally miss the real meaning until God reveals it to them. There was a strict literal natural interpretation of the law that said that no Jew could associate with a non-Jew. We could read this in the Gospels when the woman at the well was shocked that Jesus was talking to her a Samaritan (John 4:9). The natural Jewish religious leaders took this law to an extreme and fell into great error with it. Jesus understood what it said and knew it did not mean what they thought it meant. Taking any truth to an extreme is one of the greatest dangers to believing a lie. Peter in the presence of Cornelius begins to understand the vision from God. The new revelation from God was being taught that these uncircumcised men in Cornelius’ house were chosen by God and they were not the kind of men that God was saying not to associate with in the law. This was really an incredible new way to look at an old written rule. What God is doing is differentiating between natural truths and spiritual truths, natural laws and spiritual laws, and natural people and spiritual people. The natural Jews looked at this law as meaning one thing and now the church is being taught to see it with a completely new way of thinking spiritually. This quite literally proves that what we sometimes thought to be the truth is not always the truth in reality.

Act 10:30 And Cornelius said, Four days ago I was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and, behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing,

Cornelius begins to recount to Peter what God had done and what was told to him by the angel. God is now connecting the dots to allow everyone to see the bigger picture plan of God. Notice again that there was a span of 4 days that these events have transpired on. As you read down you will see Cornelius explaining what the angel said to him and how he was instructed to go to Joppa to get Peter to hear the message. This is now the second time we are told what God is doing in this chapter. Whenever God tells you something more than once it means it is very important and you better learn what is going on. It is a lot like when Jesus said “Verily, Verily”. Anytime there is repetition there is intended importance and emphasis.

Act 10:33 Immediately therefore I sent to thee; and thou hast well done that thou art come. Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.

I like the term “immediately”. Immediately denotes the factor of timing to be potentially critical to the entire process. If timing did not matter, God would not have told you about it. I believe that many times if there is a delay in doing what God has said we might just miss what is happening in God’s plan. Of course God could change the course of timings and if Cornelius delayed sending men to Joppa there could have been a delay of Peter praying and getting the vision. However you may remember that Peter just so happened to be hungry when he was praying so the timing of events appears to be critical for the whole process. Both Cornelius and Peter prayed at the exact set precise time for each to accomplish the plan. The angel appears to Cornelius at the specific set time needed. The men are sent to Joppa and they travel a set specific time that corresponds with Peter’s prayer time. God gave Peter a vision about food and eating a meal at the precise time he was hungry. The men from Cornelius just so happen to show up where Peter is at after a day’s journey and their arrival corresponds exactly after the vision was just completed. God just so happens to tell Peter they are there and on and on I could go. I feel that timing was an essential factor to getting the plan of God to happen in the exact order and sequence of events. If any participant delayed and did not do what they were supposed to do, would the plan of God still have fallen into place so precisely? That is a very interesting concept to consider. It sounds like to me we need to become aware of God’s timing and try to follow Him very closely. For example, if God tells you to wait five minutes before doing something, it is probably best to do it. You do not know what will happen if you do not do it and that is the risk of being disobedient. If God leads you only for your good, not being led by God could result in something evil happening to you. If God tells you now to do something and you do not, you also just might be missing out on the blessing that God was awaiting to give you. Keep reading in this chapter and see the blessings of God that are being poured out as a result of everyone being led by the Spirit of God. In Acts 10:34 through verse 44 is Peter’s sermon to the house of Cornelius. I will not go over the sermon, because it is basically the Gospel of Jesus foretold through the prophets.

Here is a good time to re-emphasize a point that I tried to make earlier in this series. At no time does it say that Peter thought about or prepared what to say or to preach to Cornelius’ house before getting to them. At no time does it say that Peter stopped to review his notes, read anything or to even make notes. I’ll shock you a little more here and say that Peter does not stop and pray to ask God what to do either. What comes out of Peter’s mouth is the spontaneous response from what God has already previously deposited in his heart through the teachings of Jesus and the experiences that he has had up until this point in time. Do you understand this? You probably do not yet understand fully what I am saying. A preacher should always prepare to preach by diligent study and prayer, but a preacher should never have a set written statement to read from for anyone. Doing this puts God in a human box of constraints and limitations and denies that God has the ability to speak to you directly to give the people a fresh new Word from heaven. What I am trying to say is that God brought to Peter’s remembrance what was necessary to preach to Cornelius at a flashed instance of spontaneity. It is a classic well and water analogous concept. The preacher is the well that has the deposits of God’s water (word) within his spirit. The spirit of man is like the well of water. This is exactly what Jesus was teaching the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus said the water that I give will cause a man to never thirst again and she said to Him give me this drink. God places good deposits in our spirit by us hearing His word over and over and us meditating on it. The Spirit of God will draw out this water from the well to give to others when it is needed at that precise moment. Jesus taught Peter this concept when he was here on the earth. Read this verse and see if you can apply it to what is happening in Cornelius’ house:

Luk 12:11 And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say:

Luk 12:12 For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.

Jesus taught them not to think beforehand or plan what they will say, because He clearly said that the Holy Spirit that will be in them will tell them what to say. This again is a major faith proposition for the preacher to trust God to give him what is needed when it is needed. Wow, that is a tough concept for many to understand. But this allows God to flow and to change to be spontaneous to fit the ever fluid changing situation of humanity. I have been in church services and seen where the pastor has started out with his written prepared sermon outline notes and all of sudden he went off on a topic that the Spirit of God brings to him and this was a right now fresh word for someone in the audience that needed to be there to hear it and to be ministered to. There is no way that the preacher would have known this and been able to prepare for it. Yes God could have told him, but that would allow the preacher to walk by sight and not by faith. Let’s try to finish Acts 10 today. What I want to show you next is what happened as Peter was preaching:

Act 10:44 While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.

This was the same outpouring of the former rain sent down from God in heaven. The Holy Spirit was given to the Gentiles almost in the exact same way as He was given to the natural Jews in Acts 2. If you read Peter’s sermon he makes this revealed statement “I perceive that God is no respecter of persons”. What Peter was referring to was that it was not the external circumcision of the flesh that determined what the internal man could receive from God. To perceive is an inward increase in spiritual understanding. It was the revelation that God was revealing to Peter through the leading, the vision, the angel, the men in house of Cornelius and the other works that we have witnessed. All of this was the greater plan of God for the church from the beginning, but it has taken God almost 10 chapters of Acts to get it implemented.

Act 10:45 And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Act 10:46 For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter,

Here we have the beginning of a new church controversy. The Jews that came with Peter, all being of the circumcision were blown away by what God has just done to those men that were never circumcised in their flesh. They all learned a great lesson with the house of Cornelius and all were blessed by what has just occurred. Notice that what is happening is almost a complete repeat of what happened to the natural Jews in Acts 2. The Spirit of God falls from heaven and they received and were all heard speaking in tongues and praising God. This is awesome information for us today. It means what they experienced is what we can still experience. In other words this was not a onetime event in Acts 2, it was a church age event that can occur over and over. Let’s review the sequence of events one more time:

Cornelius Prays to God in Caesarea.
Cornelius has an open vision of the angel.
Angel was sent from God with instructions to go get Peter in Joppa for a message from God.
Cornelius sends three men to Joppa to get Peter and takes over a day to get there.
Peter was praying in Joppa at the precise time when the men neared the house.
Peter was hungry while he prayed.
God gives Peter a closed vision three times that needed interpretation to be understood about eating unclean animals.
The Spirit of God speaks to Peter after the vision and tells him men sent by God are here to see him.
Peter goes to Cornelius house and preaches the Gospel.
While Peter is preaching the Spirit of God is poured out on the Gentiles and Jewish believers witness it and are amazed and perplexed.
As a result God adds to the church the Gentile people.

Notice what is happening. God is never revealed to do the exact same thing twice in this entire process (with the exception that Peter was given the same vision three times because of his refusal to participate) proving God’s ways are not always our ways of doing things. People like to do things out of repetition or habit, but that is obviously not God’s way of doing things. God uses at least 5 different displayed methods to lead His people in one process plan. Everyone involved is required to walk by faith. Everyone involved benefits, learns, grows spiritually and the entire church of God also grows and increases in numbers. These are fundamental facts that are essential to grasp. These are some of the key ways that God will lead you and me to work together today. I go many times to listen to a man of God and will hear something new from them that helps me learn something else new from God. God will use one preacher to say one thing to someone and another preacher to say something else to the same person and all of this causes us all to grow together. If at anytime the people in Acts 10 wanted to isolate themselves and not participate with the plan of God it would have not been accomplished. Sometimes God’s plan will require you stretching out beyond your four walls to go to someone else to hear the complete message from God or give them a message from God. Begin today by praying and see what the Spirit of God says for you to do. If we are not praying we are probably not hearing from God as we should and getting directions that we need for today. Thanks for studying the Bible with me on this important subject and hopefully we can move to another chapter in the next lesson since we have spent so much time in this great chapter. Stay hungry and thirsty for more of God and God will bless you with more of Him.

If you wold like to cotinue reading in this series you may go to “Part 13“.

Understanding Hard Sayings in the Bible! Jacob Have I Loved and Esau Have I Hated! Part 6.2 (The Conclusion)

Jan 31

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.2) This is Part 6.2 and it will hopefully be the conclusion of the lesson on the “Hard Saying” concerning Romans 9:13 “Jacob I loved but Esau I hated”. I will probably not be able to cover everything that I would have liked to cover on this subject because of the comprehensive nature of the information found in the Bible. There are just so many scriptures in the Bible that are related to this subject that it would take many, many more lessons to try to cover them all, so I’m only going to hit a few of the high spots to point the direction for you to study the subject more on your own if you want to. Please be advised that this is an advanced Bible lesson intended for spiritually mature Christians only. It introduces subjects and topics that are over the natural heads of many people who call themselves Christians. Therefore, evaluate yourself and become your own judge before you read this lesson. I am not physically present as you read this lesson. Nor do I control your natural thoughts, physical, mental or emotional reactions to new controversial spiritual things from God. If you have not been a strong praying, Bible believing, church going, Bible reading and diligent Bible student type of Christian for at least 3 years then go and read someone else’s Bible lessons and not mine today. This will be some new information and a new perspective and if you can see it that will be great, but if you cannot that is also fine. I do not believe that anything I will say today is a salvation dependent teaching message. In other words if you disagree with it, we can still both choose to be Christ followers walking in love towards each other without losing our salvation. I have quickly learned that people see things differently even when looking at the exact same verses. However, that does not mean everyone is right, it only means we are looking at the truth from different perspectives and placing our own interpretations on it.

A hard saying is any Bible verse of scripture that is difficult to accept because in its literal interpretation it conflicts directly with many other verses that you can easily read in the Bible. A hard saying is one that conflicts with another verse that we thought we understood completely. This is the root cause to every Christian theological difference that is present in the Body of Christ today. For example, in Jeremiah 3:8 and Isaiah 50:1, God says to Israel “I divorce you” and He writes her a bill of divorcement effectively ending the covenant. These are clearly very hard sayings for many Christians to accept since they conflict with the concept of an eternal covenant with Abraham and his seed that is also a clearly stated reality in the Bible. How do you begin to resolve these types of complex conflicts? People either 1). ignore the Bible verses that are conflicting to embrace the scriptures that they like better, or they 2). attempt to explain them away as not saying what they actually say using their human reasoning, or they 3). actually do their homework, study and pray and ask God to resolve the problem conflict. I vote for number three personally.

This is just one example of why so many people have learned to ignore the parts of the Bible that they do not understand in order to fully embrace the other parts that they think that they do understand. However, that is not the correct way to interpret any of the verses in the Bible. Ignoring any related verses and leaving conflicts unresolved makes our stated position of belief fallible and weak. We must resolve every conflict and every verse that opposes each statement of individual truth in order to fully understand the entire truth. Jesus told us if we “continue” in His word, then and only then we would learn the truth and that this truth that we learn would set us free (John 8:31-32). Therefore a continual study of God’s Word is required to learn the truth. It is progressive steps of increasing knowledge, understanding and wisdom with the help of the Holy Spirit and only that will lead us to know the actual truth which none of us know fully yet. Did you hear anything that I just said? These last two paragraphs might have been the most important information in this whole lesson. Also, if you have not read the first lesson on this subject, please do not start reading the study in the middle, because you will have a much more difficult time understanding how we got to many of the conclusions that are being presented today. Go back and start reading with “Part 6.1” and then come back here to complete the lesson.

The complexity of the Bible is far greater than what many casual readers can understand or grasp. The Bible is not a history book, but yet it contains valid historical facts. The Bible is not a text book, but yet it contains many lessons for life. The Bible is not a calendar, but yet it contains a complete overview of human existence. The Bible is an interwoven book of compound spiritual information written and wrapped in an understandable natural word environment. Thus the Bible contains natural information and spiritual information interwoven together. All of these natural words ultimately point us to the hidden advanced spiritual messages and meanings written to us by the most intelligent spiritual author that has never been seen by us. Our author God has never done a book signing or a physical appearance to promote His book, yet it is still the most popular bestselling book of all time. The Bible is a distinctively designed book of spiritual knowledge that only permits those who want to see the truth the vision to know and understand and to those that do not wish to see the truth there are many other alternative realities that are also presented as valid but incomplete choices.

God wrote the Bible in a way to allow every man the ultimate right to choose what they believed even if they are completely wrong and this is what I call the truth of God hiding in plain sight. Here is another great problem that I have observed. You can read the Bible and teach anything from it right or wrong. That is why some people have even taught that abortion is allowable and permissible using scriptures from the Bible. God has placed anything that you want to see in the Bible in some form and this further promotes the complexity of God’s Word. However, that never means what you see in the Bible is the truth; sometimes it only means you might need to change what you are looking for or looking at. It is like Jesus said, “Let him who has ears to hear, hear”. We could also say “Let him who has eyes to see, see”. Reading the words on a page does not give anyone the assurance that they have understood what they read. People prove this every day. When you read the Bible you must allow the Spirit of God to help you to understand what you just read. So today, stop for a moment and pray and ask God for the spiritual eyes to see what He is saying. Pray and ask God for the revelation knowledge of Jesus Christ hidden in His word. Ask Him to change your natural perspective not to see as a mere man, but help you to see how He sees the Word. That is what I do frequently and if you do the same God will honor your prayer of faith. Let’s review what God hates:

Rev 2:6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

I wanted to confirm briefly what God hates with this verse to help you to see what I taught you in the first lesson. Jesus says to the church at Ephesus you have hated what I have hated and this is a commendable and noteworthy action. When I said that God does not hate Esau and that he must be a symbolic representation for evil deeds, this verse appears to help confirm that statement. Jesus clearly does not say that he hated the earthly Nicolaitan people, but only their deeds. We will be commended if we hate what Jesus hates and these are clearly the works of evil. These are the written words of Jesus the Head of the church speaking to His body. He implies that you better love the right things and hate the right things. Therefore I believe Esau is a figurative representation and not a literal reference to a human man.

So what do Jacob and Esau represent figuratively speaking from our verse of Romans 9:13? That is where we will focus today. I’ll continue by researching Esau and what is recorded in the Bible about this man. If you go through your Bible carefully you will discover that God hides information not from us, but for us to find when it is time to be revealed, then the Spirit of God teaches us. Searching for the name of Esau in the Bible you will find that it occurs directly around 85 times in 9 different books of the Bible. You can find the name Esau in 82 verses in the Old Testament and only 3 times in the New Testament. Yet the New Testament references help to reveal that Esau is a hidden greater reference that points us to a new understanding of the many Old Testament references. The first occurrence of Esau is of course found in Genesis 25:25 and the last direct occurrence is found in the book of Hebrews. Three prophets of God other than Moses directly wrote of Esau in Jeremiah, Obadiah and Malachi. However, when you do a more thorough search of Esau in the Bible you will see him called by different names like Edom, Edomites and Idumea and thus Esau is being referenced by many other books of the prophets like Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Joel and Amos. Clearly you can see that since all of these prophets wrote of Esau hundreds of years after Esau was gone that God is using Esau for something greater than just a historical reference to a dead man. This is just a very common technique used by God to conceal spiritual information in the Bible.

Before I move further into the subject of Esau let me introduce you to something brand new that Jesus said that is also very relevant for us understanding the story of Jacob and Esau. When we read the Bible we need to observe clues that help us to unfold the mysteries of God’s Word. This is one of those types of clues that is so plainly significant that I want you to pay very close attention to what God says:

Joh 5:46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.

Wow that is a major statement of truth that Jesus just revealed to you. Who wrote the book of Genesis? Of course it was Moses. I am personally convinced by what Jesus just said that all of the stories written by Moses in the book of Genesis point us to Jesus. This statement that Jesus made must include the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis. Understand what Jesus is saying. Since Jesus did not give us any specific story that He is mentioned in, we must conclude logically that His statement is an all-inclusive declaration not omitting any story that Moses penned. Did you understand what I just said? If Jesus would have just qualified the statement it would have limited the scope of the statement to a certain book, a specific story, a unique chapter, or some isolated verses, but since He did not do that, it represents a universal statement of truth. I understand that in Jesus’ day that there were not any chapter or verse divisions so do not think I am being ignorant. What I am saying is by Jesus’ own declaration every verse written by Moses has some relevance to Jesus in some known or unknown way. Therefore, somewhere in the story of Jacob and Esau must be a descriptive reference to the hidden Jesus. I called it a hidden Jesus because very clearly Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible and several of the Psalms and yet we cannot find the name of Jesus mentioned anywhere in these verses. However, we can understand by Jesus’ own statement that these writings of Moses are about Him. How can this be? We must therefore, conclude that the words that are recorded by Moses have first a clear understandable message concerning things that we can read about and see while simultaneously hiding things about Jesus we cannot see. God hides information in Genesis using several techniques and these include hidden typologies, symbolisms, allegorical content, foreshadowing and the many other methods of concealment found in the Bible to give us a hidden message about Jesus. Here is another very important verse that will help to confirm what I am teaching you:

Luk 24:27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

This verse tells me plainly that the subject of Jesus must be hidden in the stories written by Moses like Jacob and Esau if Jesus had to explain them to His disciples. To “expound” is a technical teaching term that means to give detailed explanation, expressive interpretation and complete understanding of the words that were written for anyone to read. This clearly means what was written down by Moses from God was neither self-evident nor self-explanatory and that is the infinite complexity of the Bible being revealed. Do you understand that? Earlier I alluded to God’s eternal covenant with Abraham that is found in Genesis 15, but now by Jesus’ own self-proclaimed instruction this story written by Moses was a story about Him and now Christians only want to focus on a natural people on the earth that they can see and then they ignore the Jesus that they have never seen. The Bible clearly teaches us in 2 Corinthians 4:18 “While we look not on the things that are seen, but the things which are not seen for the things that are seen are temporary but the things that are not seen are eternal”. What are you looking at and focusing on today? Can you see it in the natural? I am on Facebook and I see Christians or at least people that say they are Christians and they are focused almost entirely upon carnal temporary things like the economy, the president, earthquakes, natural disasters, wars or the natural nation of Israel. Can you see things like natural Israel? Can you travel and go visit natural Israel? Is natural Israel on the news almost every night? If you said yes to any of those questions, then they are all temporary and of no eternal consequence according to the written Holy Word of God. Do not get me wrong or misunderstand me, I’m not against the natural nation of Israel; I pray that they would all get saved just like Paul did (Rom 10:1). However, looking at temporary carnal things is why there is such great confusion in the body of Christ over prophecy and things that they do not understand in the Bible. Sorry, for the side trip let’s get back to Moses.

I am personally convinced that we can see Jesus in some form in every story in the book of Genesis. However the problem now becomes in allowing God to expound to us the hidden character of Jesus in these stories. For example, I have easily found a hidden Jesus in the creation account from Genesis chapter 1 and He is never mentioned there by name at all. I have found Jesus in a type of Adam in Genesis 2. I have easily found Jesus in the type of Abel. I have found Jesus in a pattern of Noah. I have seen Jesus in the figure of Abraham. I have seen Jesus in the figure of Isaac. I have even found Jesus in the pattern of Ishmael. I have seen Jesus in the figure of Jacob. I have seen Jesus in a figure of Joseph and on and on I could go. Realizing that God purposefully designed every word about each subject written in the Bible tells me that God utilized His extreme intelligence to His advantage in the selection process of which information He included and which information He excluded about each. This represents complex creativity and extreme intelligent design beyond the capacity for human reasoning to create it. I have become convinced that every story that was selected in Genesis was carefully chosen for a greater purpose and a plan that points us to the Lord Jesus. However, since we still do not fully understand the story we therefore do not yet comprehend God’s hidden connections to Jesus. If you learn what I just said, this should radically change how you study the Bible; what you are searching for and what you see in every story. I think I will start talking about Esau now with the last direct mention of Esau in the Bible found in the book of Hebrews:

Heb 12:16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.

Heb 12:17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

These are all very deep words about very deep subjects that I do not have the time to fully elaborate on. However, notice that Esau is being compared to someone else not mentioned. The stated term “as Esau” reveals a hidden comparison to an unknown or unnamed individual. We are technically being warned not to become like an Esau. We can take these verses personally as speaking to us and we should. Esau is clearly given to us as an ungodly typology example for us not to follow. There are several good points that need to be emphasized in these two verses. God called Esau a “fornicator” and a “profane person” and neither are good descriptions or qualities to possess. A “fornicator” is a term that means “to sell” as a prostitute. Wow, that is a really tough subject. Esau clearly sold his birthright in Genesis for just a meal from his brother Jacob, was that prostitution in the eyes of God? A prostitute sells their body to fulfill the sexual desires of another. The only thing exchanged is usually money or drugs, but neither participant gains anything of any lasting value. Technically speaking more is lost than what is gained. It is a very interesting concept where nothing is literally sold, but everything is usually sacrificed. Clearly there is a comparative lesson in this concept to the subject of Esau. God is teaching you that the natural gain of temporary substance is never sufficient for the loss of the eternal things that you have given away and cannot ever get back. This is the stated moral to the entire story of Esau and Jacob. Both Jacob and Esau gained temporarily, but one man gained an inheritance and one man lost his inheritance for a meal and neither were the same afterwards forever. God is teaching us about a greater spiritual principle that is lost through a natural temporary short term gain.

How is this information related to our subject of Esau? If you search the N.T. you will see that this word “fornicator” is used in around 10 verses and almost always it is included in a list of the types of spiritual beings that will not be saved. Who is it in the Bible that will never be saved? From my research and study of the Bible I have only seen that there are two kinds of spiritual beings that will miss out on God’s plan of salvation. They are the angels that rebelled in sin and the people of the earth that missed or ignored the opportunity to accept Jesus as their Savior. Out of these two distinctive classes of spiritual beings, which one could Esau represent? Technically I believe Esau could potentially be a type or a pattern of either and possibly both simultaneously. To me Esau represents a type of sin that God hates. Both Adam and Lucifer are reported original sinners just in different dimensions. Clearly Satan is found to be the first named sinner in the Bible but you do not read about his sin until later through the prophet Ezekiel and several comment that were made in the N.T. What we can read in the Bible is that Satan left Heaven, the spiritual domain containing eternal life within the family of God for a temporary situation on the earth to rule. That was not the wisest choice that Satan could have made. What Lucifer did was very similar to Esau leaving his inheritance being the firstborn to sell it for a temporary gain.

The next word in Hebrews 12:16 that I want you to focus in on, is the one translated as “profane person”. This is a fascinating Greek word. It means to cross a door threshold as in exiting a house. It comes from a root word that also means “foot” or “walk”. This helps me confirm what I just said about Satan leaving heaven to come to the earth. Also notice, what did Jacob grab a hold of when Esau was born first? It was his heel or his foot. Is this just a coincidence? I really do not think so. Esau represents the “foot” or the “profane person” that is attempting crush or to step on Jacob. This word translated as “profane person” can also be defined as a “wicked” person. Does that sound like anyone you know? We will definitely explore these concepts more as we go. Finally notice in Hebrews 12:17 that Esau was supposed to inherit from his father, but God says he was rejected because there was no place for repentance. What is repentance? Repentance is based upon sorrow, but that is not repentance. Repentance is technically a conscious decision to change or it can be associated with a committed behavior modification of an individual. It is when you are going in one direction and you suddenly notice that it is the wrong way to go and you turn 180 degrees around to find the correct direction. So Esau found no way to turn around even when he knew that he had made the wrong choice. This is very bad news for Esau.

Do you understand now why I mentioned that angels cannot be saved? No angel has the option for salvation or repentance. Every angel that has left heaven with Satan has made their own temporary choice for a temporary gain and they will be forced to reap eternally the consequences. It does not matter if they are sorry, if they ask for forgiveness or if they change to now try to be good. Jesus did not become an angel to die to save the angels; Jesus only became a man to die to save mankind. Adam also had no way of salvation until Jesus came and He made the way for us all. What I want to do next is to go over a list of Bible facts found concerning Esau. These are not all of the Bible facts about Esau, just some that I have chosen to emphasize for the identity of Esau:

Esau Bible Facts:

Called a Nation of people (Gen 25:23)
Called a Twin (Gen 25:24)
Called to Serve his brother (Gen 25:23)
Called a weaker people (Gen 25:23)
Called the Firstborn (Gen 27:19, 32)
Called the Brother of Jacob (Gen 27:11, 23, 30, 41, 42, Mal 1:2)
Hated His Brother Jacob (Gen 27:41)
Struggled with his brother Jacob in the Womb (Gen 25:22)
Called a Red man (Gen 25:25, 25:30)
Called a Cunning Hunter (Gen 25:27)
Jacob grabs his brother Esau’s heel at birth (Gen 25:26)
Sells His Birthright for food (Gen 25:30-32, Heb 12:16)
Despised his birthright (Gen 25:34)
Desired to kill his brother Jacob (Gen 27:42)
Called a father of the Edomites in Mt Seir (Gen 36:9)
Calamity (destruction) is coming to Esau (Jer 49:8)
Deceived himself with his own Pride (Oba 1:3)
Called a Fornicator (male prostitute, a seller of self) for temporary gain (Heb 12:16)
Called a Profane or Wicked man (Heb 12:16)
No stated way to repent or to be saved (Hev 12:16)

Reading through these few Bible facts concerning Esau, does anyone come to your mind that this might represent? There are several key descriptions that are more self-evident to me than others. There are also some typology facts that are very difficult to accept. For example, the brother fact, the firstborn fact and the selling of the birthright for a meal fact are all difficult complex concepts that are not clearly tied to anyone that I know of on the surface. The selling of the birthright for food could potentially represent the created man Adam. God told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This tree sounds like temporary food or you could call it a meal. Adam was the first man that purposefully chose to eat from this tree of the knowledge of good and evil and thus he sold himself into the hands of Satan for the temporary gain of a meal. Adam also lost what he could never get back and he only gained what he never actually wanted. This was a very similar concept to what happened to Esau. However, the rest of the factual descriptions do not fit Adam very closely. The reference to the heel of Esau is also a very strange fact and it is certainly a curious detail for God to mention in the birth of twins. I do not know of anyone else in the Bible that this fact is mentioned. Do you ever wonder why God includes such apparently minor trivial facts in the Bible? There has to be a reason for this “heel” reference. The “heel” has to mean something and grabbing the “heel” has to mean something. If you search the Bible you will find that this Hebrew word translated as “heel” is not widely used, so it must hold some valuable information for us to understand about the type of Esau. God must have included it for a greater purpose to teach us about Jesus. We will therefore attempt to use it to make a direct connection to someone.

Let’s briefly analyze the reference to the heel of Esau and what it might mean. The “heel” is a very specific part of the foot. Throughout the Bible the heel or the foot of one man on another’s head has long since been used symbolically in the Bible as a representation for the defeat of the person underfoot signifying the victory of the one that has stepped on him. You can search and find this repeatedly. Look for words like “tread” or “trodden” and other words that are related to people walking into victory over an enemy. From the symbolism of Esau coming out first and Jacob grabbing his heel, this tells me that Esau was symbolically trying to overthrow or defeat his brother from their conception. It signifies a temporary defeat of Jacob. In other words, I can see that the brotherly battle that originated in the womb represents a spiritual realm battle which has now transitioned into the natural realm. The first time that “heel” is mentioned in the Bible is when it is used by God in a prophecy that He speaks directly to Satan. Is that a coincidence? I do not believe it is. I believe the prophecy is at least an interesting reversal of the typology given to us in the Jacob and Esau story. What I see is a prophetical end that will demonstrate a correction to what began in the spiritual realm a long time ago when it appeared that Satan had won.

Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

I literally do not have time to teach you what all of this verse means. Just realize that here God is saying to Satan that he will end up defeated under the foot of the woman and the woman’s seed. What I do want you to notice is the reference to the “enmity” or the implied “hatred” between two opposing factions, groups or we could possibly even call them nations as God called them in Genesis 25:23 speaking of Jacob and Esau. You see I believe this verse is literally speaking about the Kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan. One nation of the people of God will prevail over the other nation of people ruled by Satan. Seed is often used as a reference for a nation of people in the Bible. God told Abraham your seed will be as the stars of the heaven (Gen 22:17). Looking at Genesis 3:15 closely we can observe two opposing types of seeds in a spiritual battle. Not knowing what seed is causes many to miss the fact that Satan is stated to also have seed. Did you notice in the list of Esau facts that he was called the “father” of the Edomites? A father is a male that has produced children through a female. Uh oh? Was Satan ever called a father in the Bible? I’m going to continue to tie in more verses using references to Satan to show you his direct connection to being a type of Esau:

Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

I believe you can clearly see that Jesus is saying that Satan has children which are called seed on the planet. If you research the parables taught by Jesus you will find one about a subject called the wheat versus the tares. This is a parable of two opposing types of seeds competing for the dominion of the same soil, one is a good and fruitful seed and the other is an evil and worthless seed. The wheat seed is used to produce bread products and the other seed is just burned. The seed type called the wheat was planted by God and the other seed type called the tares was planted by Satan the enemy of God (Mat 13:25-30). These are figurative representations of the two opposite kingdoms we saw represented by Jacob and Esau on the earth today, one is the Kingdom of Light and the other is the kingdom of darkness (1 Th 5:5). A kingdom is always a nation of people with a prince or king ruler. God is Light and in him is no darkness (1 Jn 1:5). Jesus is called the King of kings and He rules the kingdom of the Day. Conversely, Satan is darkness and in him is no light and he rules the kingdom of the night. Satan rules the darkness or night and Jesus rules the light or day. Light is always stronger than darkness. Light always prevails over darkness. Are you beginning to see how Jacob and Esau fit the respective types and patterns for Jesus and Satan yet? We will get there, but let me prove that Satan has a nation of people to rule:

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

Jesus is speaking, therefore we understand that Jesus knows the truth and always speaks the truth. Jesus tells us very clearly that Satan has a literal kingdom. A kingdom designates an implied nation of subservient people to rule and further implies that Satan is their ruler. We could confirm this with many other scriptures but I do not want to make this lesson any longer than absolutely necessary. So we are talking about several key terms in unison. We have seen the first reference to “heel” in the Bible and its direct connection to Satan’s impending defeat. From this verse in Genesis we have also seen the indirect mention of two nations of opposing people called the seed of the woman and the seed of Satan. We have seen Satan called a father as well as a murderer in John 8:44. What did Esau plan to do to his brother Jacob? Was it not to kill him? I am observing patterns that are undeniably rich with parallels between Esau being a type of Satan. Let’s tie all of this into another prophecy that has direct relevance to our subject of the heel:

Psa 41:9 Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.

Here we have one of the very few verses in the Bible that mentions the same Hebrew word translated as “heel” which was connected directly to Satan in Genesis 3 and the description of Esau and Jacob’s birth. This verse certainly has specific ties to our story or Esau and Jacob by the direct association of the reference to “heel” and to the term “meal” that Esau ate from Jacob. Reading this verse you would probably never know that it was a prophecy about Jesus unless you searched to find that this is the same verse that Jesus quoted to the disciples in the book of John when eating at the final Passover meal. Let’s go to John and read the account:

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

Jesus is talking to His disciples about His disciples. Why is this verse connected to what we are talking about with the type of Esau being a potential type of Satan? I believe it is tied in, because Jesus is the speaker and He is declaring someone’s heel that has been raised up against Him. Is this not a parallel to the Esau heel being raised up against his brother Jacob? Back up in the book of John and we will read this statement about one of the participants in the meal, it is very profound:

Joh 6:70 Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?

Jesus is telling the disciples I have chosen you and one of you is the devil. While this cannot be literal, it does represent a figurative truth statement of a reality that did occur. We know from this information and by searching the Bible that the Greek word translated as devil is used 38 times and the majority of time it is a direct literal reference to the spiritual being Satan. Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness and this word for “devil” is this named tempter. Both in John 6:70 and John 13:18 Jesus is speaking of Judas one of the twelve. If you do a contextual review of the statement in John 6:70 you will see that this statement about Judas being a devil is in the context of Jesus teaching about He was the bread sent down from heaven and they must eat His flesh and drink His blood. This is again a meal reference but these are all symbolic descriptions of spiritual truths. Do you see the connection of spiritual things being described in natural things? What I am saying without saying it is that Judas was not the devil incarnate, however he was a type of Satan and he was influenced and eventually possessed by Satan.

Think with me for a moment about why Jesus chose 12 disciples to be His first followers. Jesus was a purpose driven man. He did nothing by chance or accident. He could have chosen any number of followers to begin, but He specifically chose 12 and that was a very recognizable designed pattern for something else. I personally believe that this was another pattern for establishing Jesus to be a type of Jacob. How many sons did Jacob have? Were there not 12 sons that originated the 12 tribes of Israel? But, here we have another twist in the puzzle. We can clearly see in John 13 that Jesus was sitting at Passover with His 12 disciples and now He has called one of them the devil. Why is the Lord Jesus sitting at a covenant meal with a representative type of Satan present? You do understand that a meal is a covenant, don’t you? People in the Middle East certainly understand this concept and they never eat meals with strangers until they get to know them. They know by eating with them that they could be entering into a covenant with them and thus they could be joining themselves to their enemies unaware. I believe that this is exactly what is happening here during the Passover meal. I know this is very complex and very new to you. I really cannot help that, you will have to dig deep and study if you want to know the truth. Understand that when Esau ate the meal that Jacob prepared it was also a covenant meal and this was the same meal where we are told that Esau sold his birthright to Jacob. Look at what happens to Jesus and Judas at the Passover:

Joh 13:26 Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.

One of the disciples asked Jesus who is it that will betray you? We can then observe Jesus taking a crumb of the unleavened bread and dipping it into the cup of wine and then giving it to Judas. I know it does not say that, but these are two of the key elements of every Passover meal. This was all done on purpose as a part of the plan to reveal the connection to other stories in the Bible. Remember how we got here; we found the passover meal by searching for the occurrences of the word “heel” in the Bible. To me it is amazing how God ties things together. Now observe what is said to happen to Judas:

Joh 13:27 And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.

As you should be able to see the spirit of Satan enters into the man Judas during the meal. Thus Satan was participating with a covenant meal with Jesus the Spirit of God being inside of Him. Jesus has just given bread to Judas after sopping it in the wine. The bread and the wine constitute the symbolic covenant elements of the body and the blood of Christ. Why is Jesus doing this? And more importantly why is Satan letting Him do it and participating in it? It would appear that Satan is despising his birthright by participating as Esau did with Jacob. That is the way that I see it happening. Can you see any of the typology of Esau selling his birthright and eating a meal prepared and given to him by his brother Jacob to eat? If Judas represents the type of Esau then he is also a type of Satan that entered into him. The spirit of Satan inside of Judas would certainly represent Satan selling his birthright to his brother. Perhaps we need to connect what is transpiring with Jesus at passover to what transpired with Esau and Jacob.

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 clearly see three distinct things being mentioned as repeated patterns from what happened in the Passover meal with Jesus. No Esau is not said to have had bread and wine but they are bread and a liquid soup substance and Esau we are told does eat and drink them and then rises and leaves quickly. All of this happened in John 13 with Judas and Jesus. Judas is given a morsel of food dipped in liquid by Jesus and he eats it and then he is told to go do quickly what he must do. These are all very similar circumstances and substances to what transpires with Jesus, Judas and Satan. Notice that Esau eats and God says he has despised his birthright by eating. Esau gained a temporary meal to satisfy his hunger and lost the more valuable inheritance from his father.

What is want to do is just to go through a list of the key facts concerning Esau and show you now they relate to Satan using verses found in the Bible. There are actually many ways to continue this study, by exploring the other references to “heel”, “meal”, “bread” and etc. But this lesson is getting rather long and I just need to summarize the best that I can for you so you can continue the study on your own if you desire. Go and read the scripture references that I give you and then see if they correspond to my descriptions of Esau and to Satan.

Esau	Satan
Esau is called a Separate Nation from Jacob’s nation (Gen 25:3)	Satan’s kingdom is described to be separate from God’s kingdom (Luke 11:18) The church is now called a Holy Nation (1 Pet 2:9) This implies Satan’s nation is the opposite unholy one.
Jacob grabs Esau’s heel (Gen 25:26)	Jesus claims fulfillment of Psalm 41:9 His old friend that ate his bread has lifted his heel against him (John 13:18). Jesus was eating with Satan present.
Esau is said to hate his brother (Gen 27:41)	Satan called the enemy of God (Mat 13:39)
Esau defeated himself because of his pride (Oba 1:3)	Satan’s pride began his downfall (Eze 28:17)
Esau is called a father (Gen 36:9)	Satan is called a father (John 8:44)
Esau called wicked (Heb 12:16)	Satan is called the wicked one (1 Jn 2:14)
Esau desired to murder his brother (Gen 27:42)	Satan would not have killed the Lord Jesus if he knew what would happen (1 Cor 2:8) Satan is called the murder (John 8:44).
Calamity and destruction coming to Esau (Jer 49:8)	Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire (Rev 20:10)
Esau called a cunning hunter (Gen 25:27)	Satan was described as a hunting roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5:8)
Esau called the firstborn (Gen 27:19) Esau came into the world first then Jacob came into the world.	Lucifer called the son of the morning (early light or first light) (Isa 14:12) and God is Light. Clearly Satan existed for ages prior to the appearance of the physical Jesus who was born nearly 4000 years after the fall of Adam. Therefor Lucifer the son of the morning pre-existed the physical Son of God.
Esau when born was described to be red (Gen 25:25)	Satan is symbolically linked to the figure of the moon. The moon rules the darkness (Gen 1:16)_ The prophecy is given that the moon will turn to blood (Joel 2:31, Acts 2:20, Rev 6:12) Thus Satan is symbolically linked to becoming red like blood.
Esau struggled with Jacob in the womb symbolically representing the spiritual battle that was taking place (Gen 25:22)	Jesus said “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). Satan comes against God in heaven in Revelation 12:7 and is cast down forever losing his place in heaven.
Esau called a weaker people (Gen 25:23)	Jesus is called the greater spiritual one in 1 John 4:4 emphasizing that Satan is the lesser spirit that is in the world. Again these are two kingdoms and two opposing spiritual realities.
Esau to become subservient to his brother (Gen 25:23)	Jesus said in Matthew 28:18 that all power (authority) had been given to Him making Satan subservient.

I believe that Esau fits the pattern of Satan very distinctly. Now I want to explore the Jacob facts given to us in the Bible. There are technically too many references to Jacob and Israel to even begin to mention them all. Jacob is mentioned in around 345 verses in the Bible and Israel is mentioned in over 2000 verses in the Bible. I beleive this is another parallel that the Bible is pointing us to Jesus and not toa natural man or a natural nation. Hopefully after you review and study the list you will begin to see how he precisely fits a pattern of Jesus. Here is Jacob described to us in the Bible:

The name Jacob means “heel catcher” (Gen 25:26)
Called a separate nation of people than Esau (Gen 25:3)
Jacob’s name is changed to Israel (He will rule as God) (Gen 25:28)
Jacob had twelve sons (Gen 35:22)
Jacob called “My Servant” (Gen 32:4 , Isa 44:1, 8)
Jacob called God’s chosen (Ps 135:4)
The children of Jacob called God’s “Chosen Ones” (1 Chr 16:13)
Jacob called a father (Acts 7:32)
Jacob called a co-heir (Heb 11:9)
Jacob called My Chosen Seed of Abraham (Isa 41:8)
Jacob described to give us natural water to drink from His well (John 4:12)
God gives Power to Jacob (Hosea 12:4)
God gives truth to Jacob (Mic 7:20)
The house of Jacob shall be a fire (Oba 1:18)
Jacob will take root, blossom and bud and bear fruit in the world (Isa 27:6)
The house of Jacob will walk in the light of the Lord (Isa 2:5)
God will show (reveal, explain) His word unto Jacob (Ps 147:19)
Jacob went down to Egypt and died there (Act 7:15)
Jacob is described to have had faith (Heb 11:21)
Jacob is loved by God. (Mal 1:2)

What I ‘m going to do now is to go through the list of Bible facts concerning Jacob that I have just given to you and show you how they can fit as a pattern of Jesus. I would suggest that you go through and read them carefully, looking up the verses and studying them.

Jacob	Jesus
Jacob means heel catcher and grabs Esau’s heel (Gen 25:26)	Jesus says “He that eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me” (John 13:18)
Jacob called a father (Acts 7:32)	Jesus called the Everlasting Father (Isa 9:6)
Jacob had 12 sons (Gen 35:22)	Jesus chose 12 apostles spiritual sons (Luke 16:13)
Jacob’s name changed to Israel (Gen 25:28)	Jesus is given a new name (Rev 3:12)
Jacob called a servant (Gen 32:4 , Isa 44:1)	Jesus called God’s servant (Isa 42:1, Mat 12:18) Jesus called the form of a servant (Php 2:7) Jesus humbles himself and performs the deeds of a servant by washing the disciples’ feet (John 13:12)
Jacob called chosen of God (Ps 135:4)	Jesus called chosen of God (Isa 42:1, 1 Pet 2:4, Mat 12:18)
Children of Jacob called God’s chosen ones (1 Chron 15:13)	The church is called the chosen generation in the family of Jesus (Heb 3:6, 1 Pet 2:9)
Jacob is called a different nation of people than Esau (Gen 25:3)	The church is called a “Holy Nation” a different people than the unholy nation of Satan (1 Pet 2:9)
Jacob called a co-heir (Heb 11:9)	Jesus called co-heir with the church (Rom 8:7)
Jacob called the Chosen Seed of Abraham (Isa 41:8)	Jesus called the one seed of Abraham (Gal 3:16)
Jacob described to give the people natural water to drink from the well (Jn 4:12)	Jesus standing at Jacob’s well said “Whoever drinks from the water that I give, will never thirst” Jesus was saying His well was the greater spiritual source of living water (Jn 4:14)
God will show (explain, reveal) His word to Jacob (Ps 147:19)	Jesus grew in the wisdom of God (Luke 2:40) Jesus observed to have great wisdom by the people he was teaching (Mk 6:2) Jesus expounded the scriptures to his disciples (Luke 24:27)
The house of Jacob called a fire (Oba 1:18)	Jesus said “I am come to send fire on the earth” (Luke 12:49)
Jacob called a fruitful plant that had taken root and bears fruit (Isa 27:6)	Jesus called the vine, the church is called the branches that bears the fruit (John 15:1-5)
The Chosen One, My Servant will be a light to the Gentiles (Isa 42:1-6)	Jesus called the Light of the World (Jn 8:12, Jn 12:46)
God gives truth to Jacob (Mic 7:20)	Jesus said He was the truth (Jn 14:6)
Jacob went down to Egypt and dies there (Acts 7:15)	Jesus came down to the earth from heaven and dies in spiritual Egypt (Rev 11:8)
God gave Power to Jacob (Hosea 12:4)	God gave Power to Jesus (Acts 10:38)
Jacob is loved by God (Mal 1:2)	Jesus is loved by God (Mat 3:17)
Jacob described to have faith (Heb 11:21)	Jesus Called the Author of Faith (12:2)
Jacob prevails over the angel (Gen 32:28)	Jesus prevails over Satan (Rev 5:5)

There are just too many specific parallels between Jacob and Jesus for Jacob not to be a very specific type of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have just seen too many Old Testament natural patterns that closely resemble the shadow pictures of the New Testament spiritual realities. The imagery recorded in the Old is clear enough for us to see the outline of the New. The shadow of the old is never the new real spiritual reality, just like my shadow projected on the ground is not me. The new future spiritual reality however has been projected into the patterns of the historic old enough to make them recognizable. The shadow of the old natural temporary will also always point us to the new spiritual eternal reality if we follow them closely. The New Testament realities are the invisible spiritual things of God and thus God uses the natural occurrences found in the Old Testament to help teach us how to understand these new invisible spiritual concepts. God says that the thing that has been is the thing that shall be again, that which was done is that which shall be done (Ecc 1:9). Learning these concepts should help you tremendously to see things in the Old Testament with a completely new perspective helping to confirm that they all will eventually point us to Jesus. Jesus is the reason for the whole Bible. I did not cover everything that I would have liked to cover, but I gave you enough to get you started in the right direction. The Bible is a gold mine of hidden revelation nuggets from God waiting to be found. The deeper you dig into it and are led by the Spirit of God you will learn new things that you never could imagine were written there for so many years. I hope and pray that you took something positive away from this very deep lesson. I know I covered a lot in one lesson, but that is just the way it has been going lately. I plan on talking about “Being Led by the Spirit of God” in the next lesson and continuing with that series that I never finished. God Bless you until next time!

Posted in Bible Study, Hard Sayings, Understanding

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Hate, Jesus, Love, Religion, Satan, seeds

2011 Merry Christmas to my Friends

Dec 22

Posted by agapegeek

Thank You to all of my 2011 readers. I pray that you have a blessed Christmas season as we celebrate the birth of the King of Kings on the earth. We owe our existence to our Lord and Savior Jesus. Without His shed blood we would all be lost in our sin. We depend upon our Lord for our future. And we continue to look up knowing His coming is so near. We will always be eternally grateful for all that He has given to us. So to all of my friends in Christ I bless you with all of the Love that I can share in a note. Keep Jesus in the forefront of your mind and think only of His goodness. Have a blessed season and if I never meet you in person here on the earth I will look forwward to meeting you in eternity and I will have more Bible studies soon.

Ron

Posted in Blog Info

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Christmas, God, Jesus

Understanding Bible Faith! The Hidden Aspect of Authority for Having Great Faith! Part 15

Dec 3

Posted by agapegeek

(ver 1.0) This is now Part 15 in a series of very important advanced Christian Bible lessons on the subject of Understanding Bible Faith. I have covered a tremendous amount of information in this series that will not be repeated so if you have not read it from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1” first. I dealt with the subject of Great Faith in one other lesson directly and several other lessons indirectly. In the direct lesson on Great Faith about the woman from Canaan we discovered the importance of how we view the problem versus how we view the power of God to solve the problem matters. I attempted to teach you that no matter how big the problem may appear, the power of God to solve it is so much significantly greater that it only takes a crumb of His power to change it. This principle was an awesome revelation that combines two stated truths found in the Bible concerning faith. First there is “All things are possible with God” and second that “all things are possible to those that believe” (Mat 19:26, Mark 9:23). You see many Christians have no problem believing that God can do anything because He is omnipotent, but then they fail to realize that they have any part to play in getting this reality from God to occur in the natural realm. It is a combined effort of agreement between God and you and you cannot ignore the fact Jesus taught that people must believe in order for the humanly impossible to transpire. This is why Jesus told us that all things are possible to us “IF WE CAN BELIEVE”. So our faith is again mentioned as the final determining factor for what is possible for us or what happens to us. I hope that you understand what faith is by now. Faith is a belief based spiritual system that comes from hearing His written Word about what God has already accomplished in the Spiritual realm. It is this Bible faith that becomes the literal substance of those things that we cannot or have not seen in the natural realm (Heb 11:1).

Today I am going to focus in on the only other illustrated example given to us in the Bible of explicitly stated great faith. Jesus only looked at two different Gentiles and said that they had great faith beyond what he could find in all of Israel. Jesus revealed to us that he was looking for people with faith in this statement and He marveled at only two things; those in Israel that had no faith and those outside of Israel that had great over the top faith. So I have already addressed the woman of Canaan that was rewarded for her great faith by Jesus casting the devils out of her daughter. Today I am going to look at the story of the Roman Centurion that introduces us to a brand new perspective on the subject of faith. How did this non-Jewish man obtain such great faith when Jesus was not even sent to anyone except to those in Israel? I believe that this is an excellent question to answer and that will be my goal. We will start reading in our Bibles in Matthew chapter 8 and verse 5:

Mat 8:5 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,

Here is the beginning of the great faith story. Notice how the story begins. The Roman Centurion is coming to Jesus and it was not Jesus coming to the Roman Centurion. Recognize today where the source of your answer will originate and then start out to get it from Him the same way. I know today that Jesus is not physically on the earth, but He is here spiritually and His written word is ever present here for you to still seek out. God, His Spirit and His Word are all inseparable realities called three in one (1 Jn 5:7). So come to the Bible and start to learn what you are missing and then pray and He will answer. Also recognize that if you are waiting on God to show up you are out of the designed process of God’s flow and you are doing it all wrong. If you want an answer to a problem in the world today you are going to have to go and figure out how to receive it. This is exactly what the Roman Centurion is doing in this example. The Roman Centurion was not sitting back passively but was taking steps and being aggressively active to seek God for the answer. I hope you have gotten that concept from the previous lessons, but I restated it again for those that need to hear it.

Mat 8:6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

Here is the stated great problem that the Centurion is seeking Jesus to solve. The servant of the Centurion appears to be too “grievously” sick to come to Jesus himself. We can understand that the servant is suffering greatly and in tremendous pain. The Centurion obviously has great compassion in his heart to do something for someone else to try to help them. Having compassion is a Godly quality that is highly desirable. Here we must stop and understand why is the Centurion coming to Jesus? At this point he must have either seen Jesus heal personally before or at the very least heard of Jesus healing someone by word of mouth from a witness. Hearing is a requirement to having Bible faith. As we continue in this lesson you will definitely learn that it was the Centurion’s faith that causes the positive results to occur.

This also introduces us to an interesting concept and a fascinating question that comes up when discussing this subject of faith. Can my faith or your faith be used to help someone else get their answer? Clearly in this example given to us from God in Matthew 8 we are going to see that the Centurion’s individual faith definitely helped a servant without the servant’s faith being involved. Part of the reasoning that needs to be taken into account is that a servant is a delegated household subordinate or individual. In other words the servant was part of the household of the Centurion and under his roof. However, it is more complicated than that statement. You see in the example of the Centurion the fact that the servant is so sick that it would be impossible for him to seek out Jesus personally for himself must also be taken into account. Plus the fact that the servant was the property of the Centurion means whatever happens to the servant is up to the owner in charge. Both of these factors play a role in determining whether your faith can be used to help for others. It is a great mistake to automatically assume that you can force your faith upon anyone or that you can override the will of another individual to get them saved, healed or delivered from anything that they do not want to be free from.

Let me go into some examples of when your faith can and cannot work for others. For example, if you have young children living at your home and they get sick, it is going to be your faith that gets them well until they get to the age of accountability to have faith for themselves. This is the repeated reality found in the terms of the Roman Centurion who is the head of the house and the servant being a subordinate figure. Children are always subordinate to the parent. This same natural example crosses over into the spiritual realm also. You see if a Christian is new to the faith, they are a spiritual child in the Lord too young and immature spiritually to have faith for most difficult things. That is kind of an oxymoronic statement, since nothing is too hard for God and if they believed for their salvation that was probably the greatest obstacle that they will ever face. Technically a saved person has already achieved great faith in one area for their salvation. But, that is the problem it takes more faith in other areas like being filled with the Spirit, or healing, or finances to solve those different inadequacies. I guess what I am trying to say is that your faith can be accessed to work for many new Christians at least once. However, as they grow, spiritually mature and see how it works they will learn that they will be required by God to have faith for themselves. Just like kids today in the natural are required to grow up and take responsibility for their own lives, so it is in the spiritual realm.

Next if a person is unconscious or unable to come or ask for their own healing then many times your faith can be used to help them also. It is not always the case however. For example, when my father was unconscious in a comma in the hospital after a stroke the entire local church body prayed and sought God for the answer in faith, but the answer did not come. Was it our lack of faith that caused us to fail or were there other factors? You see there were several other factors that hindered the healing. The spiritual maturity of my father played a very significant role. The previous actions of my father were also pivotal in determining whether our faith could work for him to be healed. Also our will could not override his will and we do not actually know what he desired or thought about staying and being healed or going to see Jesus. First off consider this; my father was not a baby Christian. He had been a Christian for over 25 years. Next consider that my father had been to two Bible schools and was a pastor of a church. Then consider the fact that he ignored certain warnings from God about what was about to happen months earlier and the instructions given to him by God that showed him what he needed to do to fix the situation and it was all of these things that allowed death to dominate him and win. Do you remember the story of the prophet coming to the king and telling him that he would surely die and to get his house in order (2 Kings 20:1)? What did the king do and what result did it cause to change? Surely you remember, the king repents before God and God sent the prophet back to tell him that God had lengthened the king’s days on the earth considerably. So what people do on the earth, how they react to bad news, their ability to repent and change or not to change must matter if they want to live on the earth a long time. Do you understand this? What if the king did nothing? God said that he would die and he would have died just as it was spoken. This same thing happened to my father, God sent him a Prophet warning him of his death and he ignored it and guess what happened? These are very powerful lessons to understand about when your faith will work for someone else and when it will not. God says in the Bible “I am not mocked, whatever a man sows that will he also reap” (Gal 6:7). This is a basic statement of truth that sometimes what we pray for some men may not matter if they have sown the wrong crop and refused to repent for it.

Let me give you another example of when faith worked for an unconscious man. A pastor of a small church in Texas once had a member of his church fall off of an oil well platform from a great distance and he was very near death. He was unconscious in the hospital and the doctors said it was just a matter of time and he would be gone. His pastor was a believer in faith and he did not accept that report. This pastor went before God in faith and prayed and the man eventually fully recovered and came back to church well. So what is the difference here? The man was a member of the church of the pastor. This means the member was under the jurisdiction of the pastor being a spiritual subordinate and I’m going to talk about this more in a little while. What I am saying is that the pastor had a right to pray for his own member because he was not a fully grown mature Christian and the fact that the member could not pray for himself and ask God for healing since he was totally unconscious. The church member had not been warned by God of impending disaster and he just fell into it. Thus the factors were dramatically different between this man and my father’s example. So the subject of faith and healing is a very complex one that has many factors involved in it and sometimes it is extremely difficult to determine when your faith will work for someone and when it will not. Let’s continue with the Centurion:

Mat 8:7 And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.

Jesus replies to the Centurion that He will come with him so that his servant will be healed. However, I want you to think and understand why Jesus said that He would do this. It has to be the man’s faith being visibly seen that causes Jesus to go where he was needed. I can find no other reason that caused Jesus ever to do anything for anyone just because they asked. I guess I should qualify that statement, because there were times when Jesus did things through a manifested gift of the Holy Spirit’s working. A gift of healing or a gift of miracles is a different type of the work of God that takes place by God’s divine choice and does not involve the faith of the individual to receive it. God will sometimes heal someone as a sign or as a confirmation of the Word preached that will not involve a man’s faith as a great gift. Just do not count on the gifts of God to heal you, this is a great mistake. You do not control the gift giver; gifts are only given according to God the administrator by His divine sovereign choice. This would be like if you heard of me giving away a present to someone that you really liked or needed. Even if you came to me personally and asked me for one, does not mean I will give it to you? That is presumptive thinking to assume someone will give you anything when you do not know the circumstances to why the other one got what they received. Conversely your faith can be used to take hold of God’s power at any time as we discovered studying about the woman with the issue of blood that just came and took her healing without praying or asking God for it. Next, I want to explore the scriptures that record the Centurion’s response to Jesus’ confirmation that He will come and heal. Here is the beginning of the statement:

Mat 8:8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

One of the first factors that I notice about the Centurion is that this man of great human power in the Roman army has great humility. It takes great humility to even ask anyone for help. Do you understand that? The soldier could have demanded Jesus to come, but instead tells Jesus he is not even worthy for Him to come under his roof. If you feel like you are worthy of Jesus coming to do anything for you then you are not in the right attitude of respect and humility for the all-powerful God. You do not deserve the answer and there is nothing that you can do or to offer to make yourself deserving. Anything that you obtain from God is solely based upon God’s Grace to give it. Your position of wealth, fame, power and influence on the earth will not cause you to receive anything from God. Then the next thing that I want to point out is the Centurion’s ability to perceive spiritual things. This Centurion could see when Jesus spoke that things happened. He simply asks Jesus to speak the Word and his servant would be healed/saved. Wow, that is an awesome display of ultimate faith. I can see why Jesus was so focused on this Gentile man entirely. You see if the Centurion had no faith he would have not come to Jesus at all. If the Centurion had only average faith he would have been very glad for Jesus to come to his house. But because he understood spiritual things greater than any other, he asked Jesus to just give the command and it will be done. You may not yet understand what is happening in this story and why this man has this kind of faith, but you are about to learn the key found in the Centurion’s next statement:

Mat 8:9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.

The Centurion says “I am a man under authority”. Wow again and double wow! The Centurion just revealed one secret to having great faith and this is where we are going to spend the rest of the lesson. The Centurion tells Jesus, “I speak commands and they are obeyed”. The centurion says “I tell this one to go and he goes, I tell this other one to do this and it is done”. In other words this is a military man who understands authority. Everyone in an army has an assigned rank of authority. Anyone new to the army is at the bottom of the authority food chain. Anyone with extended experience and maturity is at the upper echelons of the authority ladder by their years of experience and wisdom. There is literally no one in the army that is not under the authority of someone else. Even the chief leader is under the lordship of the ruler of the country. There are vast numbers of lessons to learn from the military but I will not attempt to give you very many. Just understand that orders are given and orders are obeyed. If orders are not given, nothing is done. If orders are not obeyed then severe consequences are delivered. All of the army is a word based command structure system of authorities. No one shoots their gun without someone in charge telling them to shot, where to shoot and how often to shoot. If you don’t understand this I’m sorry, but that is generally how life works in the army.

Mat 8:10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

Jesus’ responses to the Centurion’s words are very revealing. As you can see Jesus is clearly looking for faith in Israel and has found it to be a scarcity. If you do not understand that Jesus is still looking for faith today then you are not in touch with reality. God has not changed, is not changing and will not change. So this is the key factor for what is happening in this story. Jesus stood in astonishment with the words spoken to Him by a man outside of the Old Covenant. This wisdom that came from the Centurion’s mouth demonstrated his ability to recognize things that others ignored around him. Do not think that Jesus did things in isolation or in private always. When Jesus cast out a demon with His Word, the demon was gone and people could see the result immediately. Many people in Israel recognized this to be authority in demonstration, but only the centurion used this knowledge of spiritual authority to set his servant free from his pain, torment and impending death. Let me show you some other scriptures found in the Gospel about Jesus’ authority quickly:

Mat 7:29 For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Mar 1:27 And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.

You see the authority that Jesus carried with Him on the earth was clearly evident so that everyone could see it to be different than all the other teachers in Israel. This is what the Centurion also observed and only he understood how it worked. You can clearly see that men of Israel questioned Jesus in Mark 1:27 saying He speaks and the demons obey Him. These are military realities. They were very self-evident but yet some saw them and questioned them, others saw them and accepted them. Where are you today on this authority revelation? That is exactly why I am teaching on this subject to help your faith. Let me show you another verse on this subject of Jesus’ authority:

Mat 21:23 And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?

Here we have the Jewish leaders in the synagogue questioning the obvious display of authority from Jesus to teach, to heal or to do anything. You can tell these leaders recognized what authority was, but yet they did not accept it to be a legitimate authority since it was not given to Him by them or by any other established human organization, government, etc. The things in their minds were not right. They saw Jesus as a mere man from an insignificant city called Nazareth and not the God man sent from heaven born in Bethlehem. Uh Oh? That was a major stumbling block of offense to them and they allowed their ignorance of the truth to stop them from seeking the truth. That was not very good news for any of them at all. You see these men were very closed minded locked into a false knowledge of the truth. When confronted with truth they closed their eyes because of His overwhelming brightness, even though truth was standing right in front of them. To be closed minded is a state of mental and spiritual blindness that is used by Satan to keep people from knowing the truth (2 Cor 4:4). I pray that you will always be open to learning more from God, because He certainly has more that He can teach you.

In Matthew 8 we have discovered a new factor for having great faith. This factor for having great faith is called “authority”. Both the Centurion and Jesus walked in authority, understood authority, recognized authority and used authority to produce positive results. The Centurion’s authority was natural and Jesus’ authority was clearly spiritual. Both men knew what authority was and both men understood how authority worked completely. Both men recognized the power of spoken words and this is the basis of ALL authority. That is where we are in this lesson. Perhaps we need to research what authority is and how it affects our faith next? We still have a lot to learn on the subject of authority so let’s explore deeper.

People today in the modern world still question authority and do not understand the importance of its existence. They typically disrespect those that are in authority and they do not understand the chaos that would exist without any organized structural authority. We like to live in a free country and enjoy all of these freedoms offered, but these are only made possible because there are established laws under authority. In this country that I live in we have an organized system of hierarchical layers of authorities. Let’s quickly look at a definition that I found on the internet for the word authority:

The power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience:
The right to act in a specified way, delegated from one person or organization to another.

Authority involves power, but authority does not mean you are all powerful. Being the strongest man in the world does not make you the one in charge. This is true in every realm of government, sports, corporations, organizations, families, etc. Many times the shortest weakest men or women are the ones with the most authority. Understand the difference between power and authority. For example, a policeman carries a gun that gives him power, but he also has been given delegated rights of authority by the badge that he wears. Both of these are separate distinct factors that combine for either positive or negative results. Look at the definition of authority; this word means a delegated right to give orders and to enforce their obedience. These orders given are expected to be carried out or there are major consequences. Having rights is a key part of the definition to having legitimate authority. This is why Jesus was questioned by Satan asking what right do you have to do these things on the earth? Satan did not realize how smart God was and that God does not do anything that is illegal. God certainly had a right by all of His past previous divine acts. But, I do not have time to fully elaborate on all of these today.

Using these definitions of authority we can easily understand that our God holds all authority by preeminence and power. But, can we also find the transference of rights and authority from the most High God to us or anyone else here on the earth? You must realize that God is sovereign and being sovereign God has the explicit right to delegate authority to whoever He wishes. Does God do that and why would God do that? Certainly God has the right to do that, but many do not understand why God would do anything to relinquish any control. To surrender control would violate their idea of an omnipotent God in sovereign control of everything that occurs. Delegation of authority would allow others to make independent choices, laws, rules and commands and thus things on the earth would no longer be in God’s full control. That concept boggles the mind of many religious people endlessly. That is really very unfortunate that people do not just read their Bibles and actually see what God has said in His word and then believe that. Read this verse carefully and observe the transfer of authority from God to man:

Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Man being made in the image and likeness of God dictates “that what God is capable of man is also capable of” on a lesser scale. You see I once had an educated seminary man try to tell me this verse does not mean what it literally says. If that was true then no verse in the Bible could be taken as truth either. Anyone could easily dismiss the virgin birth, the existence of the man Jesus Christ or His death on the cross and his subsequent resurrection from the dead as all being invalid occurrences. This verse in Genesis clearly from God says man/Adam has been given “dominion” over all of the earth. Did God have the right to do this, certainly He did. Perhaps it is the word dominion that you are having problem with. This word has a very different meaning than what may come to your mind at first. Let me give you the Strong’s definition of the word to investigate what God intended to happen with His created man Adam:

A primitive root; to tread down, that is, subjugate; specifically to crumble off: – (come to, make to) have dominion, prevail against, reign, (bear, make to) rule, (-r, over), take.

Interesting Hebrew word definition, isn’t it? To “tread down” is a very familiar term if you have read many of my other Bible studies. You see this word “dominion” corresponds to an impending prophecy after the fall of man found in Genesis 3:15 where Gods says that the “seed of the woman” would bruise the head of the serpent. The confusion arises because people do not understand who the woman is or what the seed is either. Genesis 3:15 has not been fulfilled yet even though many teach that it has. To those that teach that it has been fulfilled show me the Bible verses that declares this. You are going to have to show me where Jesus is called the seed of the woman and then show me where he bruised the head of the serpent. Since you cannot find these verses, you have to make other verses try to fit your beliefs and that is a dangerous approach to Bible interpretation. What we must first understand is that “dominion” to God means to “tread under foot”. Then we can try to figure out why Adam did not do this and what the consequences were for not following God’s orders.

What God is teaching us is that how the world began with man in authority will be how the world will end. This word definition for “dominion” conveys delegated authority and at the very least the right of man to have limited human sovereignty over the earth. This would give Adam the right to make independent decisions apart from God. For Adam to rule and to reign on the earth represents the delegated right of power and authority given from the highest authority in the universe and that was God. Was Adam the strongest and most powerful being on the earth at this point of assignment? As of Genesis 1, he probably was, but as of Genesis 3 we see the entry of another spiritual being called the serpent coming onto the scene that at the very least God says in the Bible also has great power but yet no authority on the earth. Let me ask you at the point of the entry of the serpent on the earth, who had authority? Was it God, Adam or Satan? Adam of course had been given full authority by God to kick Satan out. Therefore, God did not have the responsibility to do it. Satan comes into the world and causes sin and death to reign. Now authority has been transferred to Satan. God gave it to man and the man gave it to Satan. Probably not the best choice Adam could have made. But nevertheless all of this was legally transferred authority based upon God’s Word.

You see when Jesus came into the world Satan took Him up to a high place and showed Him all of the kingdoms of the world and said I will give these to you if you worship me (Mat 4:8-9). Satan declared with this statement that the rights and authority of the world had been given to him. Where did Satan get this if not from Adam since it was first given to Adam by God in Genesis 1:26? I find things like this written in the Bible to be fascinating. Why would God put such detailed information of events if they were not significant things that we needed to know about and to understand? Also these related subjects would not be understood if they were not properly connected in some way. God is teaching us that authority matters and that was one reason that Jesus came into the world to reverse the works of Satan (1 Jn 3:8). You see after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead He makes another radical statement about a transfer of authority that is often ignored:

Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Do you see what Jesus the risen Savior has just declared? Is Jesus a liar? Is this not omnipotent God in the flesh? What a new radical statement. Here God is telling us of another transfer of all authority that has just taken place. Jesus Christ informs us clearly that not all power was His before, but now is in two different dimensional realms. Power in both the spiritual dimension and the natural dimension has again been transferred back into the hands of God. Wow, is that a tough concept to comprehend? Do not forget these words, because they are very important. This Greek Word translated as “power” does not mean God lost His omnipotent ability of force at any time. This Greek word translated as power actually means “Authority” has been transferred again back from Satan and returned to God on the earth. Uh oh? That means Satan no longer has any authority again on the earth as before Adam sinned. Do not confuse power and authority. Satan still has power, but he has no authority to use his power unless a Christian gives him the ability to use it. Let me show you the very next statement that Jesus makes to the church after saying all authority has been returned to Him:

Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Can you see that Jesus after saying that all authority has just been transferred to Him, immediately He transfers that authority back to the church, His body on the earth? That is why this verse 19 starts with the conjunctive “therefore” which connects the previous statement to the current statement. You see Jesus immediately delegates responsibility again to His people on the earth to do something in the power of His name. Do you understand this? These concepts are very important to embrace as a Christian. You again have delegated rights and authority from the Most High God to do things. What Satan took from Adam and lost, you have gained back from God through Jesus Christ. The only difference is we are not working independently from God because God is joined with us working together in us to bring about the final victory over Satan. Now we need to go back and determine what do all of these transfers of authority have to do with faith and more correctly us having great faith?

This is where the rubber meets the road so to speak. We are going to make a practical application of how to possess the greatest kind of faith using our newly found knowledge of how authority was transferred from God to Adam, Adam to Satan, back to Jesus and finally to the church and how this type of authority works from a military perspective. Recall what the Centurion said to Jesus. He told Jesus to “Speak the Word” only and my servant will be healed. Did Jesus do this and what happened to the Centurion’s servant after Jesus spoke?

Mat 8:13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.

Jesus speaks several things but I skipped down to verse 13 to shorten the lesson for now. Jesus says to the Centurion to go your way and that as you have believed (past tense) it has been done to you exactly that way. Ok, that was my paraphrase of the words of Jesus, but surely you can see what Jesus has declared. Why did Jesus emphasize that the Centurion had already believed and did not currently believe (present tense)? Do you think this make any difference? I believe that it does make a huge difference. If you believe that God will heal you someday in the future then that is not real great faith. Maybe it will help if we review what just happened to the Centurion and the servant. Here is a synopsis of what the Centurion did and what happened:

The Centurion heard of Jesus and had faith in His Word.
The Centurion initiates the exchange and does not wait passively for Jesus.
The Centurion was very humble in his approach to God.
The Centurion had great compassion for another to seek God to help.
The Centurion recognized the Authority that Jesus possessed.
The Centurion understood Authority involved only Giving Orders.
The Centurion believed that he only needed Jesus to Give the Order.
And finally the Centurion believed it was done when the Order was given.
The Bible then said after the word was spoken, the servant was healed.
Therefore, by the time everyone was back at home everything was back to normal.
Understand that at no time on the way home did the Centurion doubt that it was not done.
Therefore, the Centurion had great confidence in the Word of God that was spoken to him.

These are all factors of having great faith today. In other words all of this happened exactly like it was previously believed and spoken by the Centurion first. Did you notice I did not say spoken by Jesus first? Yes I did mean it that way. Yes Jesus did say it was done according to the way the Centurion believed, but Jesus didn’t tell the Centurion to believe this way or what to say. The Centurion made the choice what to believe and knew based upon his knowledge of authority that it would be done if Jesus would agree. This was the greatest faith example in the entire Bible of an unsaved Gentile man that was never in covenant with the almighty God because he understood authority. Clearly we can see that it was only because the Centurion believed in authority and spoke humbly with authority that caused him to have such noted declared great faith that caused even God to stand in awe and marvel. Do you want to amaze God? Here is how you do it. You believe He has given you the same authority that He possessed “to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19) and you speak with this delegated authority of God’s Word in your mouth declaring what has been already established in the spiritual realm and God will then say to you “be it unto even as you have believed today”. You see I just quoted you a part of Luke 10:19 and you need to go and read this verse closely and study it:

Luk 10:19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

This verse confirms your authority over Satan. God says that you will “tread on” the power of serpents. Isn’t that a full circle back to what God said to you in Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 3:15? To “tread on” again means that you have been given transferred rights of authority to demonstrate Satan’s defeat on the earth personally. You will need to look up the definitions of the words “power” in this verse in Luke 10:19 in order to fully confirm what I am telling you. The first word translated as power in this verse means “Authority” and the second word translated as “power” means force. So they are two different Greek words concerning two different spiritual beings. We have God’s “Authority” over Satan’s force of power. Both of us are in the world but light overcomes darkness every time. However, if we do not exercise our authority, Satan will dominate us with his illegal power.

I guess I have been going a long time in this lesson. I have many more things that we could talk about concerning using your authority. Perhaps I need to do a series of lessons just on the subject of authority. This is truly a great revelation that every Christian needs to understand. Jesus has come into the world to restore the right order to man and has given to us His newly transferred authority for a purpose. We are going out of this world a victorious church and not a defeated church. We can only be victorious if we learn that we have authority and then learn how to use it with our faith. This information will change your life and your attitude. When Satan attacks with his power, you can fight back with your authority and he will flee in terror. Satan will not like me teaching you this authority, but that is just too bad. If you will grasp these concepts and take hold of them firmly and believe what God has told me to tell you, you too will become an over comer for God. God bless you until next time and please leave me a comment about how this is helping you to learn and grow in the knowledge Jesus Christ.

If you would like to continue to read in this series on the subject of Bible Faith you may now go to “Part 16“.

Posted in Bible Study, Faith, Understanding

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, Faith, God, Jesus, Religion, Revelation, Truth, understanding

Understanding How to Be Led By the Spirit of God! How the Holy Spirit Led the Early Church in Acts 10! Part 11

Nov 21

Posted by agapegeek

(ver 1.2) This is now Part 11 in a series of very important basic Christian Bible lessons on the subject of Being Led by the Spirit of God. These lessons contain critical spiritual information necessary for the spiritual growth of every Christian and they directly apply to us in the modern world because we are the same church body serving the same God as those in the book of Acts. My foundational scripture verse for the series is “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom 8:14). That verse makes it sound essential to be led by God or you cannot be called His child. Therefore, I believe that it is essential to know this subject. We have covered a tremendous amount of information that will not be repeated so if you have not read this from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1” first. In recent lessons, I have been moving through the book of Acts and observing the recorded (direct and indirect stated) methods used by God to lead the early church. We are beginning to see a set of repeated pattern of the same methods being used by God to build up and grow the Body of Christ. We are also beginning to understand an emphasis of certain methods of God over others that I have mentioned of how God leads His people. In the last lesson I introduced you to some new concepts when I described the contributing factors of peace and joy to be necessary for hearing from the Spirit of God. If you are depressed then you are not hearing from God. If you are not in peace you are not hearing from God. We have also seen repeatedly that those in the church that are being led by God are always those that are in unity with the other believers surrounding them. This means they were not arguing, fighting or debating over what anyone wanted to do individually, but that they were more concerned with what God was doing corporately for the greater plan and purpose of the church. Those being led today in the Church should be no different. God is not going to lead one part of a group of believers differently apart from another group of believers so that they fight over who is right and who is wrong. This is another important key to being led by the Spirit of God. Hearing from God should always cause love to flow which generates a spirit of oneness, agreement, harmony and unity.

Today I am only going to teach in chapter 10 of Acts. It has just been making my lessons too long by me trying to teach on multiple chapters in one lesson. Acts chapter 10 is only 48 verses long but it is so rich with new information on my subject of being led by the Spirit of God, that this again will probably be a long lesson and I will probably only get approximately half way through the chapter today. I apologize in advance for the length of the lesson, but I believe this information is really important on the subject of being led by the Spirit of God. Acts 10 is probably one of my favorite chapters in the book of Acts and hopefully as we go through it today, you will see why I say that and maybe it will become one of your new favorite chapters also. Let’s start at the beginning with verse 1 and read down to verse 3.

ACTS CHAPTER 10

Act 10:1 There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band,

Act 10:2 A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway.

Act 10:3 He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius.

It is very interesting for me to see the connecting and developing factors being tied together in these verses. It is also clear to me that God gives us many new clues and details like the hour of the day that these events occurred in this chapter. These details certainly have direct meaning and are not there by chance. There is nothing found in the Bible that occurs there by accident. Every word has a designed purpose of God. In the first verse, God is speaking about an Italian man, a Gentile by the flesh. Up until this point in time, the church was widely a Jewish set of believers that have accepted Jesus. But, Cornelius is clearly described as a Christian man; he is being labeled as someone who feared God. To fear God is not an indication of being afraid or terrified of God, but it is more the concept of being in an attitude of awe for God with a great reverential respect for His position, His power, His knowledge and His ability. This same Greek word is used in Ephesians 5 when God talks about a wife’s attitude towards her husband. This is clearly not the type of fear that she is to be afraid that her husband will hurt her. You see the risen Savior Jesus is the husband in this relationship with the church and the church is supposed to treat God with awe and respect. However, God’s attitude of love was first demonstrated towards us and He treats us with great tender kindness like the very valuable wife that He has given His all to find.

You can learn this concept of God giving His all by listening to what Jesus said about the kingdom of God when He teaches the parable of a merchant man seeking valuable pearls. This merchant man goes and sells all that he has in order to buy the pearl of great value that he has searched for and found (Mat 13:45-46). The merchant man in this parable is a type of Jesus and the pearl of great value is a type of us, the church. The great purchase price paid for us was the payment of His blood and His life. This was God giving everything that He possessed to buy us out of our major predicament of sin. What we learn as the symbolic pearl from this information is that how we view God will determine if God will be able to guide us with His Spirit. If we view Him as a God that will hurt us if we do not obey or make a mistake, then that is going to affect what we can hear and how we can hear Him. If someone obeys God out of terror then that someone becomes a slave to that fear. If someone obeys willingly out of their love for their God then that person actions are founded upon His love knowing if they do make a mistake that He is there to help them. You see you do not understand how much God values you if you believe that God will hurt you if you do wrong. One of the most important verses in the entire Bible is the one that states “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8)! Not God has love for us, but He is that Love for us. God has not given to us the spirit of fear. Fear is being afraid or terrified which is really an opposing force to love. This is why I wanted to briefly try to explain the type of fear being mentioned in Acts that Cornelius possessed that allowed him to hear from God.

In the first three verses in Acts 10, Cornelius is also described to be a giver and this is a characteristic of most real Christians. Most Christians love to give to others. The United States gets accused of many things, but the majority of the charity poured out on the world comes from this Christian nation. Giving may or may not be a factor for what you think about God, the Bible and being a Christian, but giving is a huge factor for if you desire to receive anything from God. I’m not preaching works based giving; I’m teaching Spirit led giving. Obeying the law will not justify you, but obeying God will cause great benefits and blessings to occur. You see giving is tied to receiving everywhere in the Bible. You can see this as a stated spiritual law of God. It is called the law of sowing and reaping and it occurs everywhere in the Bible as a predominant theme from Genesis to Revelation. Sowing and reaping is not usually a popular subject and frequently ignored because people teach it only in regards to money, but this subject is found ever present in many areas other than money. There are over 10 things in the Bible referred to as seeds and if you don’t know them, then your ignorance causes you to potentially miss them. I have a series of Bible lessons on this subject so I will not repeat them in this lesson. If you want to read them you can go and see “Understanding Seeds in the Bible”.

As you can see in verse 2 of Acts 10, Cornelius is praying. What happens when we pray? I think I tried to teach you that God hears and will respond. Here is another very clear example of that in Acts 10. Cornelius has a vision, but this time it is of a spiritual angel. So we have the spiritual realm becoming visible to a man in the natural realm through God’s use of a vision. This is an example of a combined method approach of spiritual communication. God used both a spiritual vision and a spiritual being or an angel simultaneously. This is certainly different, but it does happen. Other times in the Bible, God sends an angel into the natural realm and people see them physically and God can do either. This is also another example of an open type of vision. The man Cornelius is wide awake and his eyes are wide open. These are amazing confirmations that God will still use visions and angels directly in the modern church to give to us a specific message.

I want you to see the stated order of occurrence in this manifestation of God. It is stated that Cornelius did three things first before God sent the angel and gave the vision. Cornelius feared God, gave to others and prayed before God gave him a vision and sent the angel with the message. Is that not God responding or giving back based upon what Cornelius gave and did first? Most of the time, I believe that this is the way that things have happened in Acts. Saul was the only example that I have observed in Acts to be different so far. Jesus appeared to Saul an unsaved man the first time without Saul asking or doing anything, but notice after that, it was only when Saul prayed to God that God said that He had given to him another vision. The Spirit of God can do things progressively different as you continue to learn to grow up spiritually. For, example when I was first filled with the Spirit of God, God spoke to me in an audible voice one time. He has never done that again since then. However, that does not mean that I do not hear from the voice of God daily. It only means that I have grown enough spiritually to discern how else He speaks. God treats unsaved and baby Christians a little bit differently than the mature Christians because He expects the mature Christians to know more. This is true for babies in the natural realm and this is true for babies in the spiritual realm. Let’s now see what God’s response was to what we have seen so far from Cornelius:

Act 10:4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.

God declares that He has heard the prayers of Cornelius and has seen his giving and it sounds like God sees both of these as being positive things. Why else are they mentioned? One key word in this verse is the term “memorial”. A memorial in the natural is a way to remember someone or something”. This is what this word means, but it is easily taken the wrong way since God does know everything. What you do or say cannot cause God to suddenly remember you. God does not step back and say “Oh yea, I forgot about Jim, I guess I better do something. However, it is clear to me from these verses that God says the angel was sent and the message delivered because of his actions. What I want you to discover is that Cornelius’ actions and his words were observed by God and thus your words and actions are also viewed by God since God is no respecter of persons. I also want you to understand that if anything is pleasing in the eyes of God we need to remember clearly what it is that pleases God. It is not your giving and it is not your praying, but it is only your faith when doing both of these. You see the Bible says without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). So if you are giving without faith, you are still not pleasing to God and you do it in vain. If you are praying without faith then you are again not going to be pleasing to God and your words will fall empty. God places certain priorities on certain things and His Word is first and foremost above everything else and then your faith in His Word allows the connection to take place to access His Power. If you do things without learning about God’s priorities then you are more than likely doing them out of order. I do not have time to teach you about faith, but I have a series of lessons that will help you understand this critical subject called “Understanding Bible Faith”. I bring up faith because it is clearly Cornelius’ faith that played a role in hearing from God even though it was never directly mentioned. This is just another example of using the Bible to explain the Bible. If God is pleased with anyone, then God says that they have faith while doing what they have done. Let’s continue with the angel’s instructions from God:

Act 10:5 And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter:

Act 10:6 He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side: he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do.

The angel tells Cornelius to send men to Joppa for a man named Peter. Notice that Cornelius does not know Peter. Why didn’t the angel just show up where Peter was and tell Peter to go and see Cornelius? I find it very interesting how God does things in this chapter and that is why I’m spending so much time in talking about it. Here we have an angel sent by God with a message to tell Cornelius where to go and get another message from God. Wow, that is just mind blowing, to many Christians. God tells Cornelius to go find a man named Peter because Peter has a message for him but as we read down in the chapter we are going to find out that Peter doesn’t know this yet. Why is that? Do you see what is happening here? The man Cornelius has a vision and sees an angel but does not get the message from the angel but is told where to go to get the message from a very certain man named Peter. In other words if Cornelius tried to get the message from the apostle John, he would have missed it Was it only because the angel did not know the message or was it that God was teaching these people involved some new spiritual lessons on guidance, helping them all to grow? Both men of God are required to walk by faith and not by their sight. Cornelius had specific steps of instructions to get Peter and Peter will be given specific words of instruction for Cornelius. Using this information you should begin to understand how God is going to potentially lead you? He is not going to tell you everything personally all at once. Sometimes He will just tell others what to tell you. Sometimes I am used by God to speak to people and sometimes God uses other people to speak to me. Sometimes I hear directly from God and other times He does things differently with me reading His word or hearing a preacher or a teacher. There are so many ways that God can speak that you just need to be observant and attentive enough to hear Him when He does. That is just the way He does it. I just try to learn the best that I can to flow with Him and that is all that I can do by faith.

Act 10:9 On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour:

Act 10:10 And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance,

Ok, we are about to learn several new things in these verses. First, Cornelius sends men to get Peter and while they are traveling Peter is described to go up on top of the roof to pray. So again we see prayer as a major contributing factor for hearing from God. But, we should soon notice that it is not just the fact that Peter prays, but it becomes more significant that Peter prayed at just the right time that makes all of this really work together. This is why God is revealing the time factor in this chapter and teaching you that timing is everything with God. You can be told by God to do something and then do it too early or too late and miss what God wanted you to learn. During this prayer, Peter falls into a trance. That is the beginning of a very different manifestation of the Spirit of God. This is what I call a closed vision. A closed vision is one where the individual is not necessarily asleep, but not necessarily awake either. A vision during sleep is called a dream and this is not a dream. In other words, if you were observing Peter praying you might seem to think that he looked like a statue because he appeared motionless and fixed in one place. The condition of his eyes could be either shut or open, but they will definitely not be blinking. It might look like that he was sleeping if was not for the fact that he might be standing up or even kneeling down. Nowhere in the chapter does it say that Peter was directly lying down. It does say later in verse 20 that Peter is told to arise and this implies that he was not standing. But there are a lot of positions other than standing that it could be. What you need to observe is if God does not tell us the position then the position is not important. Too many Christians get focused on external things and totally miss the really important spiritual things. There is an unnamed church denomination that is highly ritualistic. They think that they will be heard by God by their faithful acts and works. However, that is just not the truth. During prayer what is important is the inward position of your heart and not your outward external posture or stance. Saul saw a vision while he was traveling. Stephen saw a vision while standing and being stoned. Here in Acts 10 we now have seen the third and fourth mentioned direct occurrence of someone having a vision and both of these times it was while they were praying.

Act 10:13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.

I’m not going to go through every verse, but this one is very good because it tells you directly that Peter heard a voice and we will find out in the next verse that Peter recognized that it was the voice of God speaking to him immediately. Remember what Jesus said to the Apostles? Jesus taught them about Him being the Shepherd and them being the sheep in John 10. Jesus also said that He knew His sheep and that His sheep knew Him (John 10:14). All of this information in that chapter teaches us that God’s children will recognize His voice. So God does not have to say “Thus saith the Great I Am”, He just speaks and Peters knows who is speaking. This is the same way with you and I. I hear His voice and I recognized Him to be my God and the voice of a stranger I do not follow because the stranger I do not recognize. That is called spiritual discernment. The more you understand about the Bible the more recognizable His voice becomes to you. God will never speak in opposition to His Word, but Satan will. You see in the Bible voices are always spirits and spirits are always voices. You will either know it or you will be deceived to follow another voice and that is usually fatal.

Act 10:14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.

As you can tell Peter understands who is speaking to Him because He calls Him his Lord. You may recall earlier that Cornelius had this same response calling the voice Lord. This was the Spirit of Jesus, the Great Shepherd the familiar known voice that was speaking to Peter. Here is where Peter’s problem begins, because he knows who is speaking and he thinks that his God is telling him to do something that was unlawful. Peter is greatly struggling with these instructions from God. What we learn from this is that God knows what He is doing and you don’t so you should not question, but should be obedient. As long you know the voice is from Him, you just need to do what He says. If you read down in the chapter God repeats these instructions 3 times, so Peter is on the verge of rebellion because of his lack of understanding of the purpose of the law. God says my people are destroyed for a lack of knowing (Hosea 4:6). So Peter must learn quickly or get left out. Why didn’t Peter just ask God to explain what was happening? Did you know that you cannot ask God any questions that are too hard to be answered? You can ask God a dumb question, but as long as it is not a question of doubt or unbelief then it is a valid question.

Let’s discuss briefly the vision of Peter. Did you notice that the vision was about food and in verse 10 it said that Peter was already hungry? Do you think that God can give you any physical feelings? I know the Bible says that God is a Spirit, but I’ll ask you again, do you think that the Spirit of God can give you a physical feeling like that of natural hunger? I know for a fact that God can manifest in these ways if He so desires. After all God invented natural feelings so it is not difficult to manifest them. Again I will tell you that this is God’s choice and not our choice. But, God can come into the natural realm to make Himself known for any purpose and in any way that helps to teach us.

When I was first filled with the Holy Spirit, I felt a strong heat like a fire from the Spirit of God inside of my chest and sometimes it was so strong that it was very distracting. I feel this heat of the Spirit of God in my chest right now as I type this lesson. This is clearly a physical feeling in my flesh caused by the Spirit of God residing in my spirit. If you do not believe me I’m sorry, I can’t prove it to you; this is for my benefit and not for yours. However, I do know that what I feel physically is scripturally based. Have you read the recorded words of John the Baptist? He said of Jesus that “I baptize you with water, but there will come one after me that is greater than I and He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire” (Mat 3:11, Luke 3:16). I can tell you about this fire from God, but I can’t make it happen for you and neither can you. However, there is a difference, you can pray in faith and ask God for this experience since it is a recorded promise found in His Word for you. If you want the fire of God ask for it now.

Let’s go back to Peter’s vision. What I found significant about Peter’s vision was the fact that he was feeling very hungry and suddenly God gives him a closed vision about food that needed an interpretation in order to be understood. Visions and dreams that required interpretations were given by God many times in the Old Testament. But, this is the first time we can see that God is doing this again in Acts. Realize that God is still the same God today as He was back then, and He can do whatever He likes. Just learn to flow and then learn that God still uses dreams and visions that need interpretation. Verses 11-16 in Acts 10 describe the vision of Peter and since this is not my direct subject I’m going to skip it. They basically give several symbols, a sheet carrying many wild animals of the earth that are lowered down from heaven. God tells Peter to kill and eat and Peter tells God I have never eaten what is common or unclean. God then tells Peter “Don’t call common what I have made clean”. Uh, oh? God is definitely teaching Peter something new. This was God teaching Peter to get out of his box because He was doing a new thing on the earth.

Act 10:17 Now while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean, behold, the men which were sent from Cornelius had made enquiry for Simon’s house, and stood before the gate,

Here is what I have been trying to say about Peter’s view of what was happening; that he did not understand what the vision meant yet even though God had just given it to him. This is what happens to Christians in the church still. Just because God gives you something does not mean you will understand it immediately. Peter had a conflict in his mind because he was attempting to interpret and judge the vision by his old knowledge of the law of God. God declares many things in the law to be unclean for human consumption but, now God has said to Peter to kill one of these and to eat it. This was a common problem for many converted Jews when they first become Christians. They tried to hold on to their old traditional understanding of the laws of God too tightly when God was clearly saying “those were only shadows of new coming spiritual things”. Paul taught this problem in Romans and Galatians and other places. There was a constant struggle for man to try to keep the law and God is teaching them to be led by the Spirit instead. However, what God was doing was using Peter’s knowledge of the scriptures in the Old Covenant to bring him a new revelation of what God was doing in the New Covenant. Go back and reread this chapter again very closely. It is actually a great lesson to learn many things. First see what timing plays in everything that occurs. Then realize that God must be guiding multiple people simultaneously to get all of these things to happen at just the right times. God gives multiple limited step directions using two types of visions, an angel and a voice directly from the Spirit of God and everything occurs at just exactly the right time. It is pretty amazing to me.

Act 10:19 While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee.

I want you to realize that the Spirit of God is directly attributed with speaking to Peter and that this is the second recorded direct example of God doing this in the book of Acts so far. I’m not sure if I pointed out the first occurrence, but there was one recorded in Acts 8:29 that said the Lord spoke to Phillip directly. I really do not believe that these are all of the times that God speaks directly, but I do believe that these are mentioned to teach us that God still does this. I want you to understand also that it does not say what kind of voice these men heard. It could have been an external audible voice or more than likely it was the internal still small voice of God within them. Again, how God speaks is not as important as what God says. I hope you understand that. You should not really focus or care about the method, but you should care greatly what God said. Also notice that God speaks while Peter is using his God given mental reasoning faculty to try to determine what the vision means. In other words Peter was focused in on the very important content of the vision and not the fact that he had just had a great vision from Almighty God. Wow, what a lesson to learn today. Don’t stand in awe if God gives you a vision and miss the message!

Act 10:20 Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with them, doubting nothing: for I have sent them.

While all of this is happening to Peter, the men from Cornelius’ house just so happen to show up and the Spirit of God says they are here and to go down to see them because I have sent them. Notice God claims responsibility for what is transpiring. So is God doing it or are the men doing it, or is everyone doing it together? Take a look at what God is doing. God is teaching them all spiritual lessons by giving them many different limited steps to follow. These are examples of God teaching them using tiny baby steps of divine guidance. Things are beginning to fit together as each part of God’s designed plan is revealed and fulfilled. The men of God are definitely participating and this demonstrates clearly that they are all being led by the Spirit of God. What we are observing is men working with the Holy Spirit’s guidance to achieve a greater purpose. Without the participation of each man and the direction of the Spirit of God, we may not have any Gentiles in the church today.

Pay attention to the fact in verse 20 that God is directing Peter to not doubt and also to be obedient. Why is God doing this? What is doubt? Doubt is the opposite of having faith. If you have doubts then you are not fully in faith. I keep going back to faith, because this is the key factor for following God, being led by God and for being pleasing to God. Jesus taught Peter about doubt when Peter left the boat to walk on the water with Jesus. Because of Peter’s doubts God says Peter began to sink (Mat 14:31). So how does this knowledge that Peter possessed apply to his current situation? To me it is obvious that doubt causes people to go down or fail. That would mean the opposite truth would be that not to doubt would cause people to have a successful outcome. You have to understand that God has not told Peter who was at the door to see him. God only said, “Men are here and I sent them”. Here is the opportunity for Peter to doubt. These men sent by God were all Gentiles and that causes a problem of potential doubt in the mind of a man who feels special for being a natural born Jew. Peter could have looked at the circumstances and thought that these men can’t be from God. There was a great revelation coming that everyone is welcome in the New Covenant and not just the natural Jews and that was the plan of God to bless all nations in order to grow the church beyond the borders of natural Israel. But, Peter didn’t know this yet. Peter was about to learn a revelation that was hidden in God’s covenant with Abraham and this was how God chose to reveal it to him. I hope you understand the concept of revelation, I will do a separate Bible study on this subject soon.

Act 10:21 Then Peter went down to the men which were sent unto him from Cornelius; and said, Behold, I am he whom ye seek: what is the cause wherefore ye are come?

Peter still does not know why they are here even though God had just given him a vision to why they are there. God even told Peter that He had sent them but, Peter has just not put all of the pieces of the puzzle together yet. Have you ever realized that God gives us many things using a puzzle format in the Bible? If you do not understand this then you do not understand the joys found when solving a divine puzzle. There is great satisfaction gained from solving the complex puzzles given to us by God. Maybe only computer programmers, like me understand this. It causes a sense of accomplishment and God uses it to promote your morale, confidence and self-esteem. God is interested in teaching you how to do things. It is an error to think that God wants to do everything for you. God wants you to grow in spiritual things so that you can come up to a higher level. Did you know that? I think that is a little bit controversial to many and it sounds like I’m contradicting what I said in an earlier lesson that without God we labor in vain if we do things independent from God. There is a huge difference from doing your own things in independence and doing specific God kind of things by faith expecting Him to work with you and guide you. A guide will never come to you and carry you; that would be them doing everything and you watching. A guide should give directions and show you the way to go and you should make the effort to obey and to follow them. Wow, that is unity and harmony of God working with you and you following God.

You see when I write Bible studies for you to read, I do it, but I am expecting God to show me what to do using my faith in Him. This is what is happening in this chapter of Acts also. If that was not true then God would not be doing what He is doing, the way He is doing it in this chapter. If God simply wanted to get new information into the hands of the church the fastest way possible, He could have done things in a much more simplistic direct manner with both Cornelius and Peter. They could have all immediately known everything instead of having to walk by their faith. However, walking by sight is just not what is happening here in this chapter. Everyone is working through the process and learning and this is God’s hidden plan. I pray that I am describing these things in a way that teaches you how God will deal with you.

Act 10:22 And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews, was warned from God by an holy angel to send for thee into his house, and to hear words of thee.

I want to reemphasize that Peter still has no clue what is going on or what he is supposed to say to Cornelius. God has never told Peter that he was to go directly to see Cornelius either. God has only told Peter I sent these men to you. So what these men tell Peter is totally new to him and they bring words sent from God through a Gentile man. Peter is required to believe a message came from God from a Gentilie man. Cornelius is also required to beleive a message came from God from Peter. Do you really understand what is happening? God had just gotten through speaking to Peter directly but never gives any details to what is happening or why. Peter still does not have a clue what words he is supposed to share when he goes to Cornelius’ house to speak. Are you learning now what is happening? Do you see how everyone is required to walk by faith and not by their sight? I know I keep repeating myself, but that is so very important that I want you to really understand it. God purposely provides limited instructions in phases and stages of development that all will fit together eventually.

Act 10:22 And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews, was warned from God by an holy angel to send for thee into his house, and to hear words of thee.

So this is all news to Peter. Peter hears about an angel appearing to Cornelius the Italian. Peter has just had a vision from God that explains the whole situation, but the vision needs interpretation to be understood. I think I‘ll end this lesson with this discussion. Let’s review the key points given today:

Cornelius’ giving was mentioned as a key factor for getting God’s attention.
Prayer mentioned as a connecting reason twice for having a vision from God.
Faith is always a key to being Led by the Spirit of God.
An open vision was given to Cornelius and he sees an angel with a limited message from God to go get Peter to hear the real message from God.
Peter experiences physical hunger and is given a closed vision about food and eating that needs an interpretation in order to be understood.
A clear vision was given to Cornelius that needed no interpretation.
God gives Peter a symbolic cloaked vision that needs interpretation.
The interpretation of the vision required Peter’s knowledge of the Word of God.
God spoke directly to the spirit of Peter with a very clear voice but with limited details being given and Peter was required to believe the words of the men sent to him.
Timing in every event mentioned is a key to the success of the whole purpose of God.
Every man involved heard from God, obeyed and cooperated with the Spirit of God to accomplish God’s plan.
The purposed outcome of the plan will be a new revelation from God and the continued growth of the church.

This is what is happening today in the church whether you realize it or not. God is revealing the Bible, the knowledge of His people is greatly increasing and the church will grow until Jesus returns very soon. Get into the plan or you will be left behind. Be in unity, hear His voice and be led and we will exit as the victorious church body of Christ. Thanks for taking the time to study the Bible today. I will continue this series soon, but please leave me a comment about how you have heard from God. I guarantee that He is speaking, just be attentive, pray and listen. God Bless you and thank you for your time.

To continue reading in the series you may go to “Part 12” now.

Tags: Being Led, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation

Understanding How to Be Led By the Spirit of God! How the Holy Spirit Led the Early Church in Acts 8 – 9! Part 10

Nov 7

Posted by agapegeek

(ver 1.1) This is now Part 10 in a series of very important basic Christian Bible lessons on the subject of Being Led by the Spirit of God. These lessons contain critical spiritual information necessary for the spiritual growth of every Christian and they directly apply to us in the modern world because we are the same church body serving the same God as those in the book of Acts. We have covered a tremendous amount of information that will not be repeated so if you have not read this from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1” first. I have been moving through the book of Acts and observing the recorded (direct and indirecly statedt) methods used by God to lead the early church. We have already observed at least 7 different direct methods either being observed in action or described in words. These methods will be the same ones that God will use to lead us in these last days. I believe that the church today requires the Holy Spirit’s involvement just as much and even possibly more than the early church. The early church certainly encountered great physical opposition and persecution, jail, beatings and even death and these are beginning to emerge on the earth again today as Christians continue to proclaim the same Gospel of Jesus Christ. Living here in the United States it is often too easy to ignore what is going on in the other parts of the world and in other countries. But, Christians are being murdered, imprisoned and persecuted for doing nothing but claiming to be a Christian. The Muslim populations of many countries kill people for them just looking or acting like Christians and doing nothing but giving humanitarian aid to their people. Christians in Egypt are now under attack from the Muslim Brotherhood and they have burned churches and killed several Christians in the streets in name of their new laws. A recent Christian in Iran was jailed and sentenced to death for not denouncing his faith in Jesus. These are the types of things that the Holy Spirit’s guidance can be very beneficial to us to help us avoid. God already knows the end from the beginning but that does not mean everything that happens is set in concrete. It means we need to learn to hear from God and be obedient to allow us to be in the right places at the right times to help the right people. If God knows which flights will crash, it would be best just to not be on that flight, do you agree? I believe that persecution will increase in these last days as we get nearer to the return of Christ. Let’s continue to go through the book of Acts to study God’s spiritual leading of the early Church:

ACTS CHAPTER 8

Act 8:1 And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.

We should recognize what is happening in this chapter because it goes along with many other verses in the New Testament that are pivotal to your spiritual understanding. The religious Jewish leadership in Jerusalem came down very hard on the rapid expansion of the church of Jesus Christ because they did not believe in the God of their father Abraham anymore. That statement probably shocks many Christians today that still view Israel as God’s chosen people, but they obviously ignore who it was that hung Jesus on the cross when the God of Abraham came to them personally in the flesh. This was a clear failure to recognize their God and a direct rejection of their God. You should learn many things from that reality. First don’t put your God in a box that limits what He can do. Because the Jews believed that God was not a man, they failed to see Him when He purposefully chose to come to the earth in the form of a man. There is a great deal of difference between being a man and appearing to us in the form of a man. This was God thinking outside of the box and it was a radical approach to take. The Jews at this time of God’s visitation had replaced the worship of the God of Abraham with a manmade religion full of rules, ignorance and unbelief. During this time, the church becomes highly motivated to widely disperse from Jerusalem to flee the Jewish persecution and the certain death as we witnessed with the loss of the life of Stephen in chapter 7. This is a very essential part of my lesson to why it is important to be led by the Spirit of God today. If you do not see the growing persecution of the church in the modern world then you are living in an ostrich like isolated false reality with your head buried in the proverbial sand.

Do you believe that these people in the church in Acts fled Jerusalem out of fear or by the guidance of the Holy Spirit? What was their motivation? I personally believe that they were led by God to safer places to carry on the spread of the church’s growth in other regions. You of course can believe whatever you like, but only this interpretation fits with my verse that says “those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God’ (Rom 8:14). So if God was not leading them to flee Jerusalem then they are no longer the children of God. Yes I know they still had free wills and that they could have been doing things independently from God, but why would God write about their independent actions in a book about the acts of the Holy Spirit? It just doesn’t make sense to me. This is the book of Acts written about God’s work in the church and for the church. Therefore, pay attention to what the church is doing and you should be able to see what God is doing for them.

Act 8:4 Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word.

Here is an obviously brilliant strategy move that was missed by Satan. If Satan would have not persecuted the church they may have remained only in Jerusalem and probably never have grown into the rest of the world. But, since they were being persecuted relentlessly by the Jews, this verse says they went preaching the Gospel everywhere that they traveled. If someone is preaching Jesus, is this not God working through them to get others saved? If they were running away from Jerusalem to hide, this would indicate “fear” based actions, but since they are going and preaching this demonstrates “faith” based actions. Sometimes Satan is just not that entirely smart in what he does and how he does it. He never should have killed Jesus on the cross and now Satan should have never persecuted the church and helped them to spread the Gospel to the rest of the world. Probably the church would have been led by God to go to the rest of the world eventually, but this attack by Satan certainly sped up the process tremendously. I believe Satan is making the same mistake today in persecuting the church. I believe this persecution will help motivate the people of God to get the message out before it is too late for all of the other people that have not heard about Jesus.

Act 8:6 And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.

Here we again see the church in unity. It would definitely appear to me that being led by the Spirit of God will promote the spirit of oneness and agreement. This is the seventh time in the first 8 chapters of the book of Acts that the church is described to be in unity. I believe that this is a coming sign of maturity for the body of Christ to go out on. We must begin to unify and become one harmonious group of believers as the Spirit of God continues to teach us and to guide us. Expect this to happen or do not expect it to happen, but it will happen either way and you might be left on the outside looking in like the natural Jews. It is better to be in agreement than to be left out, being offended or not in agreement with God. I just cannot see the church being raptured as a divided body of believers, if we are not ONE BODY in complete harmony then Satan has won. You see in the Bible Jesus said a HOUSE DIVIDED will not stand (Mk 3:25). If we are God’s house and we are divided we will also not stand and that only leaves us defeated. Do you think the church ends this age defeated? If not, then you better start praying with me for unity and harmony. Of course what I am saying is that we should pray what Jesus prayed to get in agreement with His prayer. Go and read it in John 17 and see what Jesus prayed and then see if you can agree and pray with Him.

Act 8:8 And there was great joy in that city.

If you notice this verse says that the church is filled with joy even in the face of all of the persecution that has recently occurred. This has to be the work of the Holy Spirit! Joy must be a sign that God is doing great things, like healing the sick, casting out devils, setting the captives free through His saving grace and doing many other miraculous signs and wonders. Joy is said to be one of the fruits of the spirit (Gal 5:22). So Joy should be a fruit present in those being led by the Spirit of God today. I believe that God will lead His people to help others to spread this same joy. These are the benefits of being led by the Spirit of God. If you are in despair and in gloom, downcast, looking down at the circumstances around you, then you are not being led by the Spirit of the Almighty God. Do you understand that? There are many other examples of men and women being led by the Spirit of God in this chapter but I’ll end the chapter 8 discussion with one more example of the repeated involvement of angels:

Act 8:26 And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.

An angel again appears to Phillip and gives him exact directions from God. This is clearly an external manifestation of the Spirit of God helping to guide the early church. This is at least the third time that angels were directly used by God in just the first 8 chapters of Acts. Always expect the involvement of angels and God will use them today as needed. Let’s move on quickly to chapter 9 and I’ll end this lesson with what we find in this chapter.

ACTS CHAPTER 9

Act 9:3 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:

In chapter 9 of Acts we can see the manifestation of spiritual guidance through God’s use of visions that were first mentioned by Peter in Acts chapter 2. You may recall that Stephen while being stoned had a vision so this is not God’s first usage of visions in the book of Acts, but we are about to see a new emphasis placed on this subject as a very direct selected method of God to communicate with men on the earth. Take note of this fact as this chapter begins; Saul is an unsaved man on the road to Damascus. Saul is not born again when this vision occurs and he doesn’t even believe in Jesus yet. Saul is traveling on the road to Damascus to persecute the church and then Jesus suddenly appears to him in a vision as a bright shining light from heaven. Spiritual visions are a very legal communication method recorded in the Bible for Christians and non-Christians and these will continue to occur as the Lord desires to get a message to those as He wills. There are different categories of visions, but this vision was an open type of vision. Meaning Saul was wide awake and his eyes were wide open while it was happening. Jesus basically tells Saul in this vision to go into the city and wait there for further directions. This is clearly an example of Saul being led by God directly using certain limited instructions for guidance. This is a very important part of learning to be led by the Spirit of God. God will rarely tell you everything that you need to know and He will normally lead you using a step by step instruction methodology or process. This method insures your faithfulness and your obedience and forces you to walk by faith and not by your sight (2 Cor 5:7). This was not a pun that I intended to make but, since Saul was struck blind during this encounter it does apply. Saul is learning some things from God the hard way because of his past actions. As you read down in this chapter you will see Jesus also appearing to a disciple in Damascus named Ananias and Jesus tells him what to do and where to go to see Saul. This proves that God can give a vision to even a lowly disciple as well as a future apostle. This informs me that even I am qualified to be have a vision if God chooses to do that. Let’s read about the vision of Ananias:

Act 9:11 And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth,

Act 9:12 And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.

Jesus appears to Ananias in another open vision and tells him where to go, what to do, who he is going to see and what to say to Saul. Jesus also reveals that Saul is praying and has seen another vision. We can conclude from this information that visions can occur many times while you are praying in private since Ananias and Saul are both said to have had visions this way. This is now God’s display of three different visions in this one chapter. So visions must still be a significant way of leading people even in the modern church based upon the frequency of the usage in this chapter alone. I knew one modern day preacher that gave his testimony of how God had given him several visions and in these he was also praying when they occurred. Therefore, praying and seeing visions is a potential connecting manifestations of God. But, I want to reemphasize that none of these men asked to see a vision in this chapter; this was clearly God’s choice and not theirs. I’m just teaching that you should not be surprised if God still selects this method. Ananias obeyed Jesus’ instructions and goes to the house where Saul is waiting and tells him the Lord has sent me to lay hands on you so that you might receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. God is obviously working and leading the church to establish the greater purpose and plan of God and these are all examples of what God should be doing today in the church. Can you see how God is leading every church member in this book? I know some examples are only implied while others like Saul and Ananias are more plainly laid out. But, surely you can see how God is working to help guide and grow the church. Let’s move on to another manifestation of the Spirit of God at work in this chapter:

Act 9:24 But their laying await was known of Saul. And they watched the gates day and night to kill him.

Here is another indirect New Testament spiritual concept of the background work of the Holy Spirit. The Jews were conspiring to kill Saul and Saul knew it. How did Saul know this? You could assume many possible explanations of the origination of this knowledge. For example, Saul could have based this knowledge upon his past experience with the Jews using him to kill the new members in the church. So this knowledge could have been based upon personal experience of the past. Now that Saul was a new member of the same body, he may have concluded that he was next on the list to be killed. However, this is still a mental thought process of reasoning and this could have still been God leading him. I personally believe that Saul heard from God, but that this hearing from God could have been his intuition at work. What is intuition? Females are often attributed with this feature, but it really is more a God quality or a spiritual quality than it is a female only quality. I really believe that females just normally have a greater sensitivity to listening to their intuition and this helps them more than males that ignore it and fall easily into troubles that God tried to get them out of. An intuition is like an internal knowing about something that has not yet happened. Of course an intuition does not mean that what you know will happen, it only means if you do nothing different then it will happen. In other words I believe that an intuition is a spiritual warning of what might occur if you continue to do nothing to change it. I have seen examples of this with mothers and their children many times. Perhaps you have also. I have seen this occur when one mother just has a sense that something is wrong and she goes and checks on a child and they needed her help. What do the disciples do with this knowledge of potential danger given to them by the leading of the Holy Spirit?

Act 9:25 Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket.

You can clearly see they were led to avoid the danger and not to confront it. This is actually a great lesson to learn from. Danger and evil exists in the world. It is often better to avoid these rather than to try to fight against them or to overcome them. To be led by the Spirit of God to be in the right places at the right times is a very relevant method of avoiding danger, harm or even death as in this verse in Acts. Learn to listen to your internal intuitions and this could potentially save your life. Intuition is just an inner state of knowing or consciousness that occurs without any explanation and it could be very easily ignored. There will usually be no voices heard by you, you just will know something and this is normally the Spirit of God giving you guidance and protection. What occurred in this chapter based upon this knowing? The disciples lowered Saul from the city in a basket in the middle of the night and Saul departs to go back to Jerusalem avoiding the eminent danger. Clearly this was spiritual guidance to me, but yet it is not directly called that so it is easily explained away.

You are going to have to lern how to read the Bible with your spiritual eyes open wide to see what is being stated at times. Just learn what I am trying to teach you, that this method of guidance that I am calling intuition from God can be an internal knowing, awareness, consciousness or perception of a coming event in the world that you can avoid if you choose to listen and obey. This is really not that strange if you think about it. It happens in the wild animal kingdom every day. Back before the giant tsunami hit the coasts of Asia and Africa in 2004 killing literally many thousands of people, the majority of the wild animals had already fled to higher ground. How many people do you think had the same intuition as the wild animals and ignored it and died that day because they were too busy, distracted or occupied with other worldly things? I think that is a very good question.

That might have been one of my most important points of the entire lesson today about intuition. This method of spiritual guidance from God is used extensively in the lives of every believer. It is only when believers ignore this spiritual knowledge that they find themselves regretting that they should have done something different. Here is another example of this intuitive action of God and it occurs in the same chapter:

Act 9:30 Which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus.

Here are the disciples in the church being led by the Spirit of God again by an internal knowledge. This is not well described and I understand that there are many ways to interpret this information as it is given. But, that is just the way God wrote the Bible to give every man a choice in what they believe. Seeing the spiritual things in the Bible is probably the most difficult part of understanding what God has written. This Greek word in this verse translated as “knew” is an internal perception and awareness that I believe occurred by the work of the Spirit of God even thought this is not directly stated. We are not clearly informed that this information came from God, nor are we taught directly that this was God leading His church in this verse alone. That is why we use the Bible to help us interpret the Bible. These are implied meanings that were hidden within the text. After all if God would have written everything about every subject in every verse you would have nothing to search to find in the Bible. Perhaps the next verse will help us to establish the context and the direct association of God’s leading to what is happening in this chapter:

Act 9:31 Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.

There is great deal of information in this single verse about my subject of being led by the Spirit of God. It introduces you to two new radical concepts that I have not directly discussed. It also shows the purpose or the reason for the leading of the Holy Spirit in this verse and I’ll talk more about that in a minute. First, the Greek word translated “rest” means to be quiet and at peace. Wow, that is an important part of my subject to grasp. If you are not at peace then you are not being led by the God of peace (Col 3:15). Being in peace and at peace is a major factor for hearing from God. Remember what has happened to the church in the previous chapters. The Jews in the synagogues are plotting to kill the disciples, beat them and put them all into prison. Stephen was stoned to death by the Jews and Saul in chapter 7. Then in one recent Acts 5 church service a man and his wife both fell down dead because they lied to the Holy Ghost. How can anyone be “at rest” when these types of events are happening all around them? I hope that you are getting the concepts that are being taught by God in these verses. According to God it should not matter what is happening around you if you believe that God is guiding you. According to God there should exist an atmosphere of being in peace regardless of the external circumstances. Do you understand this concept of being in peace and its role in being led by the Spirit of God? If not I may try to get into that in more depth in a future lesson or even later in this lesson. Just don’t let the concept of “peace” get away from you. You should be able to judge your heart and see if you are in peace right now. This will help you to know if you are being led by the Spirit of God. The other word in this verse that I want to focus in on is the Greek word translated as “comfort”. Because this act of comforting is the stated work of the Spirit of God by direct association. Do you recall what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit’s coming?

Joh 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

The Holy Spirit is said to be another Comforter. That implies Jesus was the first Comforter for the human race because Jesus brought a light into the world that would help alleviate darkness’s dominion over man. So Jesus was a physical comfort to those that accepted Him while He was present upon the earth. But, Jesus also left this earth physically and He told us that it was better for Him to go than to stay (John 16:7). Why was that? Clearly Jesus leaving us physically left a void or a vacuum that needed to be filled for the church to continue. Jesus said that His departure was better for us because we would now have an even greater internal ever present comforter that was given called the indwelling Holy Spirit. You see the problem with a physical Jesus was that He was only one man in a world of millions and now billions of people. It would have been impossible for a physical Jesus to visit everyone personally and to listen to what each needed. However, in a Spiritual form He is ever present within every believer and able to listen to and to speak to everyone simultaneously. This was the wisdom of God being displayed:

Joh 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Can you read these verses and see the intimate working of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts? This verse describes some of the behind the scene and seldom mentioned works of God in Acts. The Spirit of God was poured out on the church in Acts 2 and this activity of God permits the words of Jesus in this verse to be fulfilled in every believer that participates. The Holy Spirit will teach us all things and then the Holy Spirit will bring to our remembrance what Jesus has taught us. Right here we have a major clue to how God led the early church in Acts and how He will lead us even today. Do you remember that the very day the Holy Spirit was poured out in Jerusalem in Acts 2? Peter stood up and spoke without being prepared to teach or preach anything? Peter had no notes, no prepared script, no Bible in front of him and yet he declared the precise right things for the moment to get many saved. How did Peter do this? This was clearly the Holy Spirit giving Peter thoughts on verses and words to preach to those that were standing around observing. This is clearly an example of the words of Jesus in John 14:26 being fulfilled. You can observe this occurring throughout the book of Acts several times. No one has any prepared notes; they just stand up and speak some very profound truths that came from within them. I do this all of the time in my Bible lessons. I start typing a lesson without a plan by faith and some of the lessons that I read after I have finished even I am amazed at what God has done and said. This is the Holy Spirit bringing to our remembrance what we have learned from the Bible. It is a mental process or a thought process, but yet it originates from the Spirit of God. It is very difficult to describe if you have never experienced it, you are either going to have to take my word for it or you are going to have to learn to listen for Him inside of you to learn how it works. Please note why this is so difficult to understand. Where do thoughts originate? They come from the soul realm which is also called your mind. But, there are three possible originations for every thought that you have. One possibility is you! You can have a thought. Two is God and God can give you a thought. But, three is Satan and he can also give you many evil and contrary thoughts. This is where discernment comes into play. If you have a thought about God, the Bible, Jesus, or things that are good, it probably originated from God. If you have a thought of lust, sin, or evil doing, then it probably came from the devil. God teaches us in John 14:26 that He will cause us to remember Him and His Words and therefore any other type of thoughts are probably something you should ignore especially if they are evil. I could talk a lot about thoughts but I do not want to get into that level of detail in this lesson today.

Let’s discuss briefly the term a “Comforter” or a “Counselor” and find the meaning of this word. If you research it, you will find that it means “intercessor” or “advocate”. Both of these are spoken word types of works. Someone who intercedes will speak words of intercession for someone. An advocate is a term many times associated with a lawyer. This is an occupation that is performed by an individual with a specialized education and ability to speak for you. Therefore, a comforter is always the spoken word based action of an individual to bring help to someone who is in need. Is that you? I know it is me; I would clearly have nothing to say without God’s help. Let’s go back to Act 9:31 again and review the “comfort of the Holy Ghost”. This Greek word is actually a different Greek word than what we found in John 14 when Jesus was describing the Holy Spirit to be our Comforter. However it is merely the difference between a noun in one place and a verb in another place. Let’s look at the definition of this word G3874 in Acts 9:31 found in the Strong’s:

G3874

From G3870; imploration, hortation, solace: – comfort, consolation, exhortation, intreaty.

Here is a word that is an awesome display of the divine character and nature of God. God gets accused of orchestrating everything because of His sovereignty, but why would a sovereign God have to “implore” anyone if God was causing everything to occur? Do you know what “imploration” means? It is the extended effort of an individual to plead to someone, to beseech someone and to appeal to them to do something. It is a calling out to come. How did I teach you that the Spirit of God leads His people? I tried to teach you that the Spirit of God uses the Shepherd and sheep method. God calls His sheep to follow Him, and He does this, using His kind and loving soft words of imploration, beseeching them to come and for them to follow where He wants to lead them. However, God does not ever force anyone to follow Him as I have already stated. Neither does God yell and demand that you follow Him. Both of those would violate the character and the definition of what the Bible says about God. This Greek word as you can see comes from another root Greek word and it has the following meaning:

G3870

From G3844 and G2564; to call near, that is, invite, invoke (by imploration, hortation or consolation): – beseech, call for, (be of good) comfort, desire, (give) exhort (-ation), intreat, pray.

This word means “to call to be near”. Wow, is that God or what? These are clearly the words and the works of a loving Holy Spirit and not a forceful God. These are clearly words of a spoken invitation, meaning people who hear the invitation have the choice to do what they want with it. Anyone can ignore it to do their own thing. But, by following the invitation, you can see that you will remain close to the one that you need to follow and this is the Spirit of God. Finally why did God do all of this for the church in Acts 9:31? I told you that this verse gave us the reason, but I did not tell you what that reason was yet. The verse has another Greek word that was translated as “edified”. Edified is a past tense declarative that teaches of a completed action. Let’s review the Strong’s definition of this word for clarification:

G3618

From the same as G3619; to be a house builder, that is, construct or (figuratively) confirm: – (be in) build (-er, -ing, up), edify, embolden.

Do you see what this word means? Is God building a house? If you do not understand this, then you have not read all of my other Bible lessons on God’s Spiritual Family. There is a new House of God being built in the spiritual realm and God is doing this with us His people. We are the individual building blocks in this spiritual house of Jesus (1 Peter 2:5) and collectively we are called the New Jerusalem in Revelation. I do not have time to explain all of that to you, so you will have to go and read and study the other Bible lessons on this subject in order to fully comprehend what I just said. Just take note that edification is a building work of God. God is building us up and growing the church and this is His purpose and His plan being fulfilled. Therefore I have concluded that everything we have observed so far in the Book of Acts is our God doing things to help us, to grow us and to build us up together in unity. I think I have gone long enough in this lesson so I’ll end it here.

I have been going through the book of Acts to find out how God lead the early church in order to see how God might lead us today. I have covered a lot of information given to us in only 9 chapters out of 28. So far we have only briefly looked at one fourth of the book and I’m not sure if I should continue going through every chapter yet. If you feel this is beneficial let me know and this might help determine how I continue with this series. Let’s review some of the key points from today so that you do not let them slip away.

God has used at least 7 different direct methods to guide the church in the first 9 chapters of Acts.

Angels
The Written Word of God
Prayer
Dreams and Visions
Inward Witness (Intuition, thoughts)
Still small voice of the Holy Spirit
Preachers with a message from God

There were also five key related subjects that I either reviewed or introduced you to today about the subject of being led by the Spirit of God:

The Church will be in united harmony when they are all led by the Spirit of God.
The Church will be in a state of Joy if they are being led by the Spirit of God.
The Peace of God/Rest will rule the church in order to hear from God.
The Spirit of God is our eternal Comforter and
God will bring to our remembrance what Jesus has taught us.

From these works of God, I said it was the peace that allowed us to hear God speak and direct us. What I meant by that was if you are in a state of busy, fear, turmoil, or internal confusion, your mind is incapable of hearing anything that God says clearly. There is a verse that is very applicable to my subject of you having peace and hearing from God and it says “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10). This verse infers that it matters how and even when you can hear from God. To be still is the opposite of being very busy. To be still is a form of quietness that crosses into multiple realms of dimension. There is the physical realm, the emotional realm, the mental realm and the spiritual realm and you can be busy moving around in each of these and miss out on God’s leading. God is a perfect Gentleman. Meaning God is not going to interrupt your thoughts to give you His. That would be the ultimate sign of rudeness and disrespect and God is not that way. If you want to hear from God you are going to have to be quiet and listen. This is not always easy, I know. But, you will be glad if you will try to develop it. I’m not talking about Yoga, meditation or any other metaphysical type of demonic activity. That is not what I am teaching you to do. These are evil acts of Satan designed to attempt to get you off into another direction of spiritual evil guidance. I guess I better stop here for now because I could talk a lot about the counterfeit that is intended to distract you from the real. In conclusion I wanted to re-emphasize why the Holy Spirits guides anyone. We learned today that it was for our edification. To be edified is to be built up in the Lord. It is a building process or a spiritual construction process that only God can accomplish. This is why it is essential to hear from the Spirit of God before you do anything. I’ll end with this scripture:

Psa 127:1 A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

Did you see what God said in this verse about what He is doing? God is building a house and He even associates it to a city and this is not a physical house or city but it is rather a new spiritual house and city. He also says if we try to build it independently from Him, then we are laboring, working, extending effort, exerting or struggling in vain. This means that He must be directly involved in what we do or it is a worthless effort on our part. Now are you beginning to make the connection to what is happening in the Book of Acts? God is just doing a spiritual construction process and giving you some of the details to how it works in this lesson, but not every detail is clearly provided. However, this is why we are studying this subject today. Thanks for taking the time to read and to study the Bible with me and I pray that you were blessed with new spiritual insight and understanding. Leave me a comment or press like on this post if you understood the lesson. It will help me know that I am doing more than just casting God’s pearls before swine if someone actually acknowledges God’s work. God Bless you until next time.

If you would like to continue reading in this series you may go now to “Part 11“.

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Tags: Being Led, Bible, Christianity, Church, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Prophecy, Religion, Truth

Understanding Bible Faith! Real Faith Always Receives from God! Part 14

Oct 28

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.2) Today is Part 14 in a series of advanced lessons on Understanding Bible Faith. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1”. Faith is by far one of the most significant subjects found in the Bible for every Christian to know. This subject has far reaching applications that crosses into everything else found in the Bible. The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God. The Bible says that whatever is not of faith is sin. Without faith it is impossible to be saved. Without faith you will remain where you are today and fail to achieve what God has called you to do. These are radical concepts that few Christians attempt to understand and they have therefore, failed to recognize why they are in the situations that have arisen in their lives. God many times gets blamed in error for these conditions of mankind. But, it is far more likely that it was the people’s own ignorance of the subject of faith that has caused them to be facing what they think that they are unable to overcome.

What have we learned from this series of Bible lessons on faith? We should have learned that anything that happened to anyone in the Bible that was ever positive occurred only because someone had faith in God and His Word. Even in the majority of the cases observed in the Gospels, Jesus only acknowledged a person’s faith as being the key factor for them being saved, healed or delivered. At no time did Jesus take credit and say that it was His power alone that delivered anyone. This is why this subject is so critical to learn about right now. What applies to the people in the Bible applies directly to you and me today. Faith is the human factor that causes God’s power to be made manifest in the natural world. This could be the Power of God for spiritual salvation, physical healing, emotional restoration, marital reconciliation, child relationship and development or financial blessings. God cares about every area in your life, but God is not going to get involved just because He can or just because you need Him to. God will however, respond to your faith and move heaven and earth to get you the answer when you learn to do your part and believe.

I once heard a preacher man on TV say that faith does not move God. His point was that faith moved you to be in the right place to receive and that is really my subject today. But, I also wondered after hearing him, what Bible he was reading. I just had to disagree with that statement whole heartedly. You see I learned that the Bible says God is no respecter of people in the world (Acts 10:34, Rom 2:11). However, reading in the Gospels I learned that if people had faith God would do some extraordinary things to help them and not having faith mostly caused people not to obtain what God wanted to give to them. I read in the Matthew that when the centurion came to Jesus and asked for Jesus to heal his servant that Jesus said I will come (Mat 8:7). Why would Jesus have made such an effort to go out of his way for a Gentile that was never in covenant with God in order to go to his house personally to heal his servant? People really need to read the Gospels with more attention to the details. The centurion tells Jesus you do not even need to come to my house, just speak the word only and my servant will be healed. Jesus is again marveled and said I have not found so great a faith no not in Israel (Mat 8:10). Why was Jesus willing to go? Is this not an example of God in the flesh being moved? According to Jesus it was the centurion’s faith that caused Him to even be willing to travel and go where He was needed to go. Go read the story and see if it is not true. Jesus was moved by faith to go many places and this is still true today, because the Bible clearly says that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb 13:8). Let’s talk about faith today and learn some new things on this very important subject. Let me give you one of my foundational verses today:

Mat 11:5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

Who gave the blind their sight? It was God of course. Who caused the lame to walk? Again it was God. Who cleansed the lepers? It could be no one else but God. Who can only raise the dead? No one but God can raise the dead. Finally who preached Gospel to the poor? It was Jesus. But, notice the emphasis is not ever upon God or His power in this verse anywhere. The emphasis is placed upon people receiving these things from God and that is a completely different perspective to that of God just giving them to everyone. While faith is not directly mentioned in this verse, I understand that this is the implied subject that causes people to receive, but you may not know that yet and that is why I am teaching this new part of the subject today. It is only because the blind has any faith that they are able to receive what God has given to them for free. What is receiving and what does it mean to receive something? Let’s do a quick review of the definition from the dictionary:

To take or acquire (something given, offered, or transmitted); get.

This is an interesting concept that is easily overlooked by Christians? This word conveys personal responsibility to do something. This something requires individual action in order to be made effective. There are many things that come to my mind when reading this definition. If someone takes something that was not given to them, this is called theft or stealing. But, since we are talking about God’s gifts that have been given through His promised Word we are going to have to figure out how to reach into the spiritual realm to take what we cannot see or touch with our physical senses. Think of it this way, what if God has given to us in the spiritual realm, but no one has come from the natural realm to take what He has offered to us all freely? Is God going to come into the natural realm and force you to receive (take) it? That would certainly change the definition of receive, wouldn’t it? That is the religious idea of election or predestination and that is not in the Bible. God will never force His will or His gift of salvation upon anyone who does not take it freely. People in the natural realm are always required to take by Faith what God has given freely by Grace in the spiritual realm. Think with me in terms of natural Israel as being our example. They sat in the wilderness dying because they did not want to go into the Promised Land to take by faith what God had freely given to them by Grace. The Promised Land represents the spiritual dimension of your faith fight and obtaining God’s blessings. The wilderness represented the natural realm where if you remained you do without God’s blessings. Do you understand the analogy that God has given to us from this very clear Bible example?

Let me give you some more Bible examples of receiving to help teach you that I am not making this stuff up. Read with me in the book of Luke and see that Jesus is speaking to a blind man in another marvelous faith lesson:

Luk 18:41 Saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight.

Jesus asks the blind man what do you want from me and the blind man demonstrates his faith by his actions and his spoken words. The answer given to Jesus question was “I want to receive my sight”. Why didn’t the blind man just ask for Jesus to give him his sight? Wow, that is a really great question. Sight is definitely what the blind man was after from Jesus, yes? Did you know that it matters what you ask for and how you answer when God comes to you? If the blind man’s words did not matter then why did Jesus even ask the question? Jesus is obviously well aware of the situation and the need and yet the man is not yet healed. What is Jesus waiting for? The problem was standing right in front of Jesus and Jesus could have just reached out and said “Be Healed” if it was all up to the power of God. Please think when you read the Bible. Jesus never does anything like you would do normally. If you were God standing before a blind man you would have probably just said “Your healed” and kept walking. But, Jesus stops and asks this man a question and that has meaning and his answer must matter. Everything that Jesus did was on purpose. I personally believe that it was only because of the blind man’s great answer that allows Jesus to continue. Can Jesus just heal everyone in the Gospels? Unfortunately, you do not find that is true if you observe what it really says. We learned from the woman with the issue of blood that she was the only one that got healed in a massive crowd of people that were all trying to touch Jesus. Jesus turned and looked at her and said your faith has saved you. Getting back to the blind man’s answer, why does he ask to receive his sight from Jesus? Do you understand that these words put the responsibility upon the blind man to receive and not Jesus to give? Do you understand the difference? That is a very new radical approach to take with an omnipotent God that is always capable of giving to us anything. God is teaching you that the way you think and speak is going to matter if you want to get your answer from Him.

So I’m going to introduce you to a brand new concept about faith and this will be a little bit different than anything that I have said before. True faith concludes that God is not only capable of giving, but that He has already given and I just need to learn how to receive it. The blind man never asked for Jesus to give him anything or to heal him, he only asks to receive his sight. Sight represents the answer to the man’s problem blindness. It is clearly stated from the blind man’s perspective and his request that Jesus has already given this and he just needed to take it. That is what faith is from a new Bible perspective. Let me help you see something else new in the Bible:

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

God is stated to have power and through this power God has already given to us what? Is this not “ALL THINGS” that pertain to life? If God has given to you ALL THINGS that pertain to life why don’t you have it? It comes back to you not knowing how to receive it again. If you do not take from the spiritual realm what God has given, you will do without it in the natural realm. That is just the way it is and that is why people do without in many cases. What is your problem today, you only need to learn how to have faith to receive to get your answer also. Faith reaches out to receive or take and that is the foundational basis for my entire Bible lesson today. If you are receiving then you are in faith. If you are not receiving then you are not in faith. Your faith will receive the answer. Wow, again that is great information to learn. Notice the response of the creator God to this man’s request to receive:

Luk 18:42 And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.

Jesus clearly associates the blind man’s faith to be the determining factor for him being able to receive his sight and it was also his “receiving” that permitted the anointed power of God on Jesus to flow and to manifest in the natural realm. You may recall that when the woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus, immediately Jesus felt virtue (power) flow from Him. Jesus stops and turns to see who accessed this power to flow and then tells the woman your faith has saved you. I always find it very interesting what Jesus says to people. Jesus does not say I have healed you even though it was clearly the power that He was anointed with that did the work in everyone. To the blind man, Jesus said “take your sight, your faith has saved you” and this caused power to be transferred from the spiritual dimension into the physical dimension. I may have implied this before, but I want to reemphasize the fact that faith is a spiritual force that you possess and not a natural feeling that you can work or sense and we will talk about that more in second. Clearly in Luke 18:42, Jesus again places the emphasis on the man’s taking with his faith and not upon God’s giving of the power.

Luk 18:43 And immediately he received his sight, and followed him, glorifying God: and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God.

I like the term “immediately”. This man is instantly healed by God and received what he requested without delay. However, this is not the only blind man healed by Jesus in the Bible. Why does God not treat every similar problem the exact same way? Did you ever notice that? There are several different blind men healed by Jesus in the Gospels and they are all different. It is actually a great lesson to go and read them all to determine the differences, but I will not do that for them all to limit the size of this lesson. I technically believe that God does treat every identical problem the same, but that it is the human contribution or factor that causes the variableness to occur. It is only because every person does not have the same level of faith that things appear different in the natural realm. For example, there is a blind man found in John chapter 9. This man encounters Jesus in a much different setting. If you do not recall this story please stop now and go read John 9 and then continue with this lesson so that we can compare the two similar problems and the healing examples. In John 9, the disciples point the blind man out to Jesus and ask Him a question about who sinned to cause his blindness. Let’s skip the answer to concentrate on what Jesus did different for the blind man and then let’s compare what this blind man did that was different to the blind man in Luke. In John 9, Jesus spits on the ground and makes mud and puts it on the man’s eyes and then tells him to go and wash it off. Why didn’t Jesus do this in Luke 18? The blind man in John 9 goes and does what Jesus asked him to do and comes back seeing. Why didn’t Jesus just look at the blind man in John 9 and say “Receive your sight your faith has saved you” like he did in Luke 18? Both are clear miracles of receiving sight, but they are completely different examples of the variable of human faith required to receive. It is clear to me that the blind man in John 9 had no faith at least at first. Let’s back up in the story of the blind man in Luke 18 to learn a few new things that I did not include to compare the differences.

Luk 18:37 And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by.

Notice that this verse says that Jesus was passing by. Did you notice that? Jesus was not there to heal, and He would have just passed by if no one had any faith to stop Him. Do you understand that? Jesus was also passing by the blind man in John 9, but this time the disciples stop Him. Faith always gets God’s attention. I have given you examples of this several times. In the Gospels, clearly God was moved when He encountered the Faith of people and even at times marveled at their faith. What caused almighty God to go out of His way to deliver the child of a gentile woman in Tyre that you read about in an earlier lesson? Was it not her great faith? If you want to get God’s attention so that He marvels at your great faith you are going to have to learn how that works. This blind man in Luke 18 heard a commotion and demanded to know what was happening and he was told that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. Obviously this was at least a key part to him getting faith but it could not have been the entire story. He must have heard at some time in the past who Jesus was and that Jesus had said that He was anointed by God to heal and to give the recovering of sight to the blind and he must have believed in Him because of what he did next:

Luk 18:38 And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.

Who is the blind man in Luke calling for? He had just heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, but he calls out for Jesus the Son of David. This was a covenant term of recognition or a covenant Title of respect and honor. Clearly this blind man understood more than many that were in the Jewish temple. The fact that the blind man calls Him the Son of David reflects that he knew who He was. The Messiah was prophesied to come from the seed of David. According to prophecy David’s son would forever sit on the throne of His father David. These are natural descriptions as well as spiritual terms being related. Take notice, who the blind man is calling out for. Could it be these covenant words that got Jesus attention to stop and not to just pass him by? Also note the man’s acknowledgment of God’s mercy. Love, mercy and compassion are all spiritual partners of God’s Grace. You can call them synonymous terms or you can see them as related intertwined subjects like a divine chord of character. Grace, mercy, compassion and love caused God to give to the world what they did not deserve. Nevertheless the blind man directly sought for Jesus and this must have been based upon him hearing His Word in order to already have faith when Jesus had not said anything to him up until this point. Therefore the man had faith and chose to do something to receive. Doing nothing would have resulted in Jesus passing by. Doing nothing would have resulted in him not receiving. The blind man could have had faith after hearing, but kept silent and not activated it and he would have done without.

Why is Luke 18 so much different than John 9? Both are blind men. The blind man in John 9 never calls out for Jesus to do anything. The blind man in John 9 does not ask for mercy, does not call Jesus the son of David, does not ask to receive anything and therefore Jesus has do some things differently because this man had no faith at this time. The John 9 blind man either does not know who Jesus is or has just never heard of him before now as being the anointed one sent from God. Luke 18 clearly is radically different. The blind mind initiates the contact after hearing the crowd passing. The John 9 blind man is passive and the Luke 18 blind man is totally aggressive taking the initiative. The blind man in John 9, Jesus initiates the conversation. The blind man in Luke 18 even the people can’t shut him up. One man has faith and corresponding works and the other man has neither at first. Let me introduce another complex factor that I have addressed only in passing. There is another faith factor or partner given to us in James that is applicable to what is occurring both in Luke and in John. Please allow me to take a side trip into teaching you about faith and works and how they are displayed in each Bible story from Luke 18 and John 9.

Jas 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Why are faith and works even mentioned together in the same verse? These two forces are diametrically opposed to each other in many other verses found in the Bible. For example, Galatians 2:16 says no man is justified by works, but by faith in Jesus Christ. What we learn from studying this subject is that faith alone in Jesus does not save anyone. Conversely works alone never saves anyone either. However, these two factors working in harmony together cause’s salvation to manifest. Why is faith dead without works? You could also ask; why is works dead without faith? Ok, why is that? We are born into the natural world as hidden spiritual beings. God is a Spirit, yet we do not come to know Him spiritually first except through hearing about Him in the natural realm and believing in Him by faith. When we choose to hear and learn about God and decide to believe in Him that is the initial stages of having saving internal spiritual faith. But, yet you are not saved until you acknowledge Him with your external works of your spoken words that He is your Lord. Those two factors together are the external corresponding work based actions working in conjunction with your internal spiritual faith based believing to cause a union of the physical and the spiritual resulting in the manifestation or receiving of an already accomplished God given reality. This is an example of faith and works coexisting and cooperating in harmony to produce salvation. Let me show you in the Bible:

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

Roman’s 10:9 demonstrates how faith and works go together and tells us that we must first believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. The only way you are going to believe this is if someone comes and tells you about Him first. How does faith come? According to the Bible faith comes by hearing the Word of God, therefore believing comes by you first hearing. Then Roman’s 10:9 tells you that if you confess Him as Lord with your mouth then you are saved. This is the external works part of the internal spiritual faith belief. This verse is actually given to us in reverse order of occurrence and it does not directly mention the preaching part of the process, but yet everything can be confirmed by reading the next verse. Notice that true Bible believing only occurs in the heart of men and women on the earth in Romans 10:10.

Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

It is with the heart (spirit) that the Bible says that people believe anything. What we discover is that there are two realms to the completed process of salvation. The natural realm requires your works of confession while the spiritual realm requires your heartfelt beliefs to be established on God’s Words given to us by His Grace. All of this is dependent upon you first hearing the truth of the Gospel and then receiving it like we saw in the story of the blind man in Luke 18 or the woman with the issue of blood In Mark 5. Why did the blind man not ask Jesus to give him sight? Why did the blind man only ask to receive? This is the most important part of Bible faith. God had already given Jesus and the Messiah was present in the flesh standing right before this blind man. The blind man does not need to ask for Him to come and heal because God has already come and He was already anointed by God with healing power (Acts 10:38). The Bible said in Psalms 107:20 “God sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions”. Do you suppose the man understood what the Bible said? Jesus the Word of God made flesh was given and present. God says in Psalms 107:20 that this sent Word “healed” them, as in past tense, done. Why do you need to ask for anything that was already done? That is the problem of most people’s prayer in the world today. They pray for salvation for a friend and salvation was given already and the friend now just needs to receive what God has given. Pray for your friend to receive, pray for God to send laborers across their path to preach but do not pray for God to save them. God will simply say to you I have done that if you were truly listening when you read my word you would have seen where I told you that I saved them. You can find this truth in many verses but one of these is where God says that we have been given the ministry of “reconciliation”.

2Co 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

This is a radical concept and this verse has some great information within it. The statement that God was in Christ informs us that Jesus was much more than just an ordinary man. He was God in the flesh and why did God come in the flesh? This verse says that God came to reconcile us (the world) to Himself. The world was everyone that was unsaved, an all inclusive scope of reality. This is again past tense terminology given to us as the completed action of God. These are specified things that God has already given and already accomplished. This verse ends with a message of direction for us today. We are to go and tell everyone what God has done. This is called the ministry of reconciliation. Reconciliation is the great exchange. God has given to us His life and in exchange we are to receive this eternal life by giving to Him our lives. What God has already given to us in the spiritual realm, we now must receive in the physical realm through our faith and works.

What we discover from understanding about faith and works in James is why there is such a difference between the Luke 18 and John 9 blind men. The Luke 18 man had heard of Jesus, had faith and released his faith in his words and his actions to receive. The John 9 man had not heard of Jesus, had no faith at this time and could not release his faith in anything to receive. What does Jesus do for the man in John 9 to cause him to have faith? If you read the chapter you know that Jesus is said to have made mud from the ground and He then “anointed” his eyes with it. We can understand from reading Acts 10:38 that it was the anointing that healed those that were oppressed of the devil. However, the blind man’s faith in John 9 was still required to receive. The anointing still healed both men, but in John 9 God could not heal until the blind man in John 9 believed and did something first. So Jesus speaks instructions for the blind man to believe and then tells him something for him to obey (do). The man in John 9 had to go to a very specific pool and wash. What if the man never went to the pool because he did not believe what was happening to him was real? What if the man left Jesus but did not go to the right pool? What if there was a closer pool and the man went to that one instead? What if the man did not believe Jesus at all and he was not obedient and just went home? Hasn’t Jesus already anointed his eyes with the Power of God? I believe that he would not have received his sight. Being obedient to the voice of God is the acknowledged action of your beliefs. If God tells you to do something it is wise to do it no matter how crazy it sounds. Both men from Luke 18 and John 9 exhibit faith and works in action working together to produce positive results. One did not have to go and wash, the other did. However, both received their sight in the end. So that is more important than not receiving. Let me teach you another factor that is also revealed in these lessons:

Luk 18:39 And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much the more, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.

Here is a man that is blind, he hears a commotion and asks what is happening and people tell him about Jesus of Nazareth passing by. As the man calls out for the Son of David and for mercy others around him rebuked him to stay silent. What spiritual application can we learn from this new information that applies to us today? We learn that not everyone in the world is on your side and is willing to help you get your answer. We learn about the concept of the opposing forces of evil that will try to stop you from receiving. In other lessons I talked about these being like faith giants in the spiritual battle of your faith. While you are seeking for God’s mercy, you will encounter a spiritual force of opposition that will attempt to shut you up and stop you. Do not think that all of the things of God will be so easy to access? Do you think that you have no enemies and that God has no enemies? Where do you find that in the Bible? Do not assume everyone is on your side. Truly the opposition in Luke 18 came from ignorant people who knew not the heart of God to save this blind man. These people understood little to nothing of how God worked and why. These are examples of people that you will run into everywhere still today, on the internet, in your church, in your Christian book store and at your work or in your family. These people will discourage you from seeking to be healed, saved and delivered. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that you will not be persecuted for doing the right things and for seeking God’s help. What made this blind man in Luke 18 ignore all of his critics and continue to shout louder for the Son of David’s mercy? It is called the determination factor. If you are determined to receive from God then you will receive from God no matter what comes against you to stop you. Determination can mean when it looks like it is not working you remain confident that it is working. Determination can mean that when someone tells you the Bible is full of lies and errors that you just ignore them. The blind man in Luke 18 could have given up and given in to the opposition and then he would have remained blind. The blind man in Luke 18 could have listened to fools and stayed blind. If the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5 had not been determined to fight through the large crowd of people to touch Jesus then she would have not been healed either. She showed her determination by not giving up or quitting despite not feeling well and all of the people that were in her way. The blind man in John 9 could have given up on the way to the pool. He was still blind the whole way there. Jesus didn’t go with him and encourage him the whole trip to make sure he did what he was told either. Do you think that it was easy for him to get there? Have you ever been blind? I think it was not easy for him to do anything that Jesus said to do. You are going to have to make a conscious decision to become determined after you learn about faith. You will have many enemies both spiritually and naturally that will counter your beliefs to get you to fail.

Let me stop here and review the list of faith partners that I have been teaching on with the new additions to what you shoud have learned today on the subject. So far today we have discussed two new faith examples of Jesus healing blind men from Luke 18 and John 9 and I also mentioned the famous faith lesson of the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5. God says let everything be established by the words of two or three witnesses and that is what I have done today. I have given you three witnesses to faith. I will now give you a list of faith characteristics that we have talked about in this series and you should be able to identify these in every story that I have included in some form of words or displayed actions:

The success of your faith depends upon:

Your Humility.
Your Will/Desire to Get the Answer.
Your Aggressive Actions to Participate in the Process.
Your Ability to Hear.
Your Understanding of the Word Heard.
Your View of the Importance of the Word of God Heard.
Your Belief in His Anointing Power.
Your Belief in the Truth of the Word of God.
Your Confidence Level in God’s Ability to do what He has Promised.
Your Confidence Level in God’s Willingness to do what He has Promised to do.
Your Overall Trust in God.
Your Continued Determination Level Despite Major Opposition.
Your Reaction to the Opposition.
Your Words Spoken.
Your Positive Expectation Level.
Your Actions of Obedience.
Your Receiving the Answer.

You should be able to find these faith qualities demonstrated in the life examples of everyone to some extent. Not everyone of them is obviously stated in every story, but yet they play a role in them receiving from God their answer to their problem. Today’s lesson was primarily about Faith Receives in the natural realm what God Grace has given to us in the Spiritual Realm. I then taught you that this was a combined effort of both the natural and the spiritual realms of man working in harmony. The human spiritual realm is where we believe and the natural physical realm is where we do the corresponding works. The realm of the human soul also plays a role in my list of factors but I have never spoken of this realm directly before just now. The soul realm of man is where our mind is, where our will originates and where our emotions play major factors into the faith fight. I talked about your will in other lessons being a factor to receiving. Today I talked about your determination being a factor and again this comes from your soul or your will. Your emotions will play a factor and cause you to want to give up. These are some of the very complex factors involved in Bible faith. We could probably add many more to the list and potentially we may do that in future lessons on this subject. I hope and pray that you learned something today about faith that will help you in your relationship with God. Until next time, may God bless you and keep you as you walk by faith. God Bless.

If you would like to continue reading in this series on Bible Faith please go to “Part 15“.

Posted in Bible Study, Faith, Understanding

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, Faith, God, Jesus, Knowledge, Religion, Truth, understanding

Understanding How to Be Led By the Spirit of God! The Spirit of God Bears Witness with Our Spirit! Part 7

Sep 29

Posted by agapegeek

(ver 1.1) This is now Part 7 in a series of very important basic Christian Bible lessons on the subject of Being Led by the Spirit of God. We have covered a lot of information and topics that will not be repeated so if you have not read this from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1” first. In this series I have been attempting to teach that God still speaks in the modern world to His children the same as He did in recorded Bible days. Since the Bible teaches us that God does not change nor does He show any favoritism, what He did for others is what He will do for those that wish to participate with Him today. This will probably not be the last lesson in this series because of the amount of information that is still needed to cover it. After I looked into what remained, I think I have decided that there is just too much that you need to know to cover everything in one lesson today. This is a complex subject and it is getting more complicated as I have transitioned into the spiritual dominated parts of the subject. I tried to start teaching with the easier subjects first that were sense realm manifestations of the Spirit of God like prophets, angels, the audible voice of God, creation, signs and wonders, etc. and I have moved into the purer spiritual realm methods like the still small voice and today’s subject of the inward witness. God is a Spirit and in order to be led by Him you are going to have to learn how He operates as a Spirit. People generally do not know what they do not know and therefore they fail to realize what they are missing out on. God says “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). Therefore, people do not even realize that God desires to speak and to direct them in their present circumstances. The ultimate goal of being led by the Spirit of God is for you to hear something that you did not know that will help you to avoid a potential negative outcome that you were heading into. This is what God did for the people in the Bible consistently. Here again is the list of 12 methods that God has recorded in the Bible to lead His people. This is probably not a complete list but it has most of the ones that I feel are important for every Christian to understand.

The Audible Voice of God
The Finger of God
Angels Sent by God
Prophets, Teachers, Pastors, Evangelists, Apostles or other Men/Women (disciples) of God
The inward Still Small Voice of God
The Written Word of God
External Visible Signs from God
Visions from God
Dreams from God
Prayer of an Individual
The Inward Witness of the Spirit of God / Moral Conscience / Intuition / Internal Knowledge / Spiritual Insight
Patterns found within God’s Creation

From this list I have introduced you to every one of God’s methods that I have found in the Bible except for number 11. This method number 11 is actually a composite of several related methods that I placed all together and I probably should not have done that. These spiritual methods of God leading His people are probably the most prevalent ways that God uses on a daily basis and it is going to be very challenging to try to explain to you since they are mostly pure Spiritual encounters with God. To discuss spiritual things using only natural words, terms and descriptions is where the challenge truly comes in for me today. Jesus would very often teach about spiritual things using natural parables, symbols and types that people understood more clearly. Teaching on spiritual leadings is very much like trying to describe the emotion of love to someone who has never experienced this feeling. Since love is usually experienced in different ways to each individual, how do you describe this feeling of emotion so that everyone will see it the same way? It is really almost impossible to do this. In every other communication method of God that I have discussed, there was always a basic sense realm manifestation either involving your vision or your hearing. But with a pure spiritual inward leading it is certainly not this way.

There is a major difference to the way the Spirit of God was able to direct His people after Jesus was raised from the dead to the time before when no one was born again of the Spirit of God. When Jesus was raised from the dead He appeared to His disciples and He breathed on each of them and told them to “Receive the Holy Ghost” (Jo 20:22). This was something that had never happened in all of human history. It was a radical departure from the way things were done in the Old Covenant to the new way for God to be intimately involved in the day to day life of every believer in the New Covenant. For the first time, the Spirit of God lived not in structures made by the hands of men and in the Ark of the Covenant apart from the people, but now He was much closer than you could imagine living inside of every person’s spirit. This is why the new Spiritual methods of being led are so much more important for us to know. The old physical/natural methods are still valid, but God can use new spiritual methods that were never available before to a much greater advantage to everyone. Let me introduce you to my subject today:

The Spirit of God Bears Witness with our Spirit!

Rom 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

I am going to talk about a new internal spiritual guidance method using several new descriptive terms. These are new methods of God that He did not use in the Old Testament. Here in Romans 8:16 is the portrayal of one of the new works of the Holy Spirit and it is very different than anything we have seen before. The term “bears witness” is a unique phrase that is easily misunderstood. If you have a witness in a court setting that is testifying, that is the independent isolated words and work of a single individual speaking about what they know or have seen. In this setting, there is only one person on the witness stand at that time and that is not what this Greek word means. Therefore we are going to have to shift our focus and perspective to see what God is speaking of in this verse. This Greek word means “Joint” testimony and in the context God’s participation is dependent upon your concurrent participation and agreement. If you do not agree with God, He will not agree with you. Always remember who changes and who stays the same and never changes in the God man relationship. People changing to be in agreement together with God will cause you to have power available. There is an implied dependence that God will confirm (bear witness) what you believe and speak. There is another verse in Romans 8:16 that says “The Spirit of God will bear witness with our spirit that we are children of God”, but first you had to do something to become a child of God and then God does His part and bears witness inside of you. This does not mean you will necessarily hear God speak words of confirmation. It is much like you do not have to hear your wife say she agrees with you because you can look at her and know what she thinks by her facial expressions, smiles or nods. Words are not the only way the Spirit of God communicates with men and women on the earth in the spiritual dimension. I’ll try to talk more about this as we continue through this lesson, but for now I want to shift to a very specific type of internal spiritual leading that is labeled the human conscience.

God’s Guidance through the Human Conscience

I am actually going to focus on this single part of the inward witness of the Holy Ghost called the human conscience in the rest of this lesson. Every aspect of the inward witness of the Holy Spirit will be a method that is beyond the realm of the 5 physical senses. The human conscience will always be a method that can be very easily ignored in the sense dominated realm especially for newborn or carnal Christians. I also want to say that the Human Conscience is a valid tool to be led by the Holy Spirit if you are a true Christian. For others that are not Christians the Human Conscience is not a reliable guide for anything. What is a conscience? Does everyone have a conscience? Where is the conscience? How does God use the conscience to help guide people on the earth? These are the basic questions that I will attempt to introduce you to. I’ll start by saying that I could not find any reference in the Old Testament to the word “conscience”. It appears that “conscience” is never directly mentioned by God in the Old Testament anywhere. That does not necessarily mean that it was something that did not exist in the O.T., but rather I believe it was something that God places no emphasis on since how do you explain spiritual things to natural people? It is very much like Satan is rarely mentioned in the O.T. either, but in the New Testament we have been given authority over him so we now have tools at our disposal to exercise and demonstrate his defeat. The word “conscience” appears in the KJV of the Bible in only 29 verses in the N.T., but I will not be talking about them all today. Let me begin by giving you one of my foundational scriptures in this lesson on conscience:

Rom 9:1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,

You see Paul describes something in this verse that is really beyond natural description. There is no reference to hearing a voice from God; there are no references to any physical feelings from God and there are not any external sense realm references at all given in this verse. One key word that is directly mentioned is Paul’s “conscience” that is qualified with the usage of the personal possessive pronoun “my”. That is where I will try to begin today’s lesson. Wow, here I go with trying to explain a spiritual concept that many people ignore on a daily basis. The human conscience can be defined as an inner spiritual sense of knowing right from wrong that is attempting to guide us to do what is right. Having a conscience is not based upon any new spoken words from God, but rather I believe a good conscience is always based upon your past knowledge of the Word of God. The lack of the knowledge of God’s word is the root cause of everyone’s problem in the world today. Because of the lack of teaching of God’s word in schools, children are growing up without a moral conscience foundation. Everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes and they do this in ignorance mostly. So I believe the human conscience is based upon your Word knowledge of the truth. If you know no truth you have no basis for having a conscience. The Human Conscience is always an internal reality that is expressed in the external realm by your freewill actions and this originates from the heart of men and women in the world depending upon the deposit of the good treasure of the Word of God that has been heard by the individual. Paul claims that this conscience was a part of him and that he possessed it. There is another factor given to us in the Bible that is related to conscience and this is the complex association of sin and the law that are both interrelated subjects, but I will not have time to teach on these subjects in this lesson fully.

It is like the Bible says, without God’s law man would have not known what sin was (Rom 3:20). Therefore the knowledge of the law of God brought men correction to teach them the difference between good versus evil. But there is more to it than that based upon the story of Saul in the Bible. Think about the story of Saul in the Bible who became Paul that has written many of these verses that I am talking about today. Saul knew the Law of God better than most men in his day and he thought that he was doing good works for God by persecuting the church. While he was Saul he caught Christians accusing them, imprisoning them, beating them and even killing them. Where was Saul’s conscience during these times? Wow, that is a really good question. Obviously it takes more than the knowledge of God’s word to guide someone to do the right things. This is an example of a man who was zealous for God but knew Him not. Paul later tells us that what he did to Christians in the past he did in ignorance. Therefore the ignorance of Saul (lack of understanding) is directly related to Saul not having any conscience to be led by God to help the church. Do you understand the destructive power of the ignorance of God’s truth? It is very profound when you see it. Let me give you a direct verse about the danger of ignorance:

Rom 10:3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

If you do not know God’s righteousness this verse says you will attempt to establish your own definition of righteousness. This is just saying people will by nature live by their own law and ignore God’s ways. This is usually based upon sense realm leadings of what feels good to me, what I like, what I want to do, what looks good to me and on and on. It is a ME, MYSELF and I existence with a complete disregard for all others. These types of people have little to no conscience and will not generally care what they do to others. I’ll try to talk more about this soon.

I’m now going to talk about a story of conscience found in the Gospels where a group of religious men bring a woman caught in the act of adultery and ask Jesus what should we do with her? They were quoting that the Law says to stone her, but then they ask Jesus “what do you say”? These men obviously knew the law of God, but understood it not at all. These men were just looking for ways to accuse Jesus of violating God’s law, but Jesus used great wisdom in His answer to them and He said “He who is without sin, cast the first stone”. Jesus then stoops down on the ground and begins to write in the dirt ignoring everyone around Him. While I do not believe the Bible says what He was writing, I personally envision it to be the places, dates and times of every man’s sin that was present. Here is what the Bible says next in this story:

Joh 8:9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

There are two key words in this verse that have direct application to my main subject. Of course one is “conscience” that we have already looked at briefly. The Greek word translated as “conscience” is again “H4893” and it means morals. Next the word before that is one that relates to having morals and that is “conviction” or “convicted”. What does it mean to be convicted? To be convicted in law/legal terms means to be found guilty. Is that what we are talking about? I believe it is. When someone is found guilty of an offense they can have at the least two different contrasting reactions. One is called sorrow and the other one is called pride. Having no remorse for being found guilty is like having no conscience and it is a major problem that I will try to talk about more in a minute.

Notice what happens in this verse. The men who were ready to stone the woman without any regard to their conscience suddenly start disappearing from the oldest to the youngest appearing to get a conscience. This helps me to envision what Jesus was writing on the ground that caused the men to suddenly walk away one after the other. What was happening during this time? What was the internal process that was taking place to cause them to have a change of heart and to walk away? I obviously believe it was their memory being jogged from whatever Jesus was writing on the ground. There were no spoken words from Jesus so Jesus is giving us all a lesson on the human conscience without preaching to anyone. Therefore, human memory must be involved in having a conscience. Memories are always based upon past experiences or the recollection of words that we have lived through. These are mental pictures of the things we have been taught from the lessons in our past. Jesus could have been writing on the ground about when each man had committed the same offense with this woman or with someone else and this caused them to see that they might be stoned next. How did God in the flesh use their conscience to help guide them? If you can begin to see the application found in this story to what you do every day then you will begin to understand that your conscience is still your potential guide into doing positive, good and right things. After all of the men walked away Jesus looks at the woman and asks her “Woman where are your accusers”? Then Jesus says “neither do I accuse you go your way and sin no more”. Do you think that this woman learned a lesson also that day and how did her conscience going forward change? I’ll guess she never did what she was accused of doing again.

This was a very powerful lesson on how people can change to do right when they desired to do something very wrong. There are lots of lessons that we can learn from this story. Every man had a choice to make. Therefore conscience is the exercised choices of the freewill of mankind. Every man could have ignored the actions of Jesus and still stoned the woman based upon their knowledge of the law. Therefore any man can ignore his conscience and still do the wrong thing. The law never changed in this story, it remained constant. It was only the viewed perspective of the men that changed. What I believe happened is that the men suddenly understood that one sin does not justify another sin so they walked away. Did God use their conscience to help guide them? I believe that He did. Could the men have chosen to ignore their conscience? I believe they could. A good conscience prevailed in this situation and they made the right choice, but this is not the case in every situation in the Bible, is it? Let me show you another story in the Gospels with a slightly different result:

Mar 14:30 And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this day, even in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.

Let’s briefly talk about this story in the Gospels about Peter one of the key disciples of Jesus. Right before the crucifixion of Christ, Jesus looks at Peter and tells him “before the cock crows two times you shall deny me three times”. The prophet Jesus is telling Peter what will happen before it happens. Does this mean Jesus caused it to happen? Foreknowledge is never forced behavior. Peter always has a freewill choice, but the situation becomes more than he can handle and the prophecy is fulfilled just as Jesus predicted. Remember what is happening here. An armed group of men comes and takes Peter’s teacher by force and arrests him. Jesus is placed on trial immediately, beaten tortured and them condemned to death. Peter is observing what is taking place and is of course very concerned with these developments because they could do the same to him. So when a young servant comes to him and asks him if he is one of them, Peter forgets what Jesus has warned will happen and goes in self-preservation mode and begins to deny Jesus. The cock crows and Peter is still scared. Some more people come to him and tell him you were one of them and again Peter denies it. Finally here is how this chapter ends:

Mar 14:71 But he began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak.

Mar 14:72 And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept.

Here we again see a connection and an indirect reference to the conscience of Peter. Peter obviously was not thinking clearly before this or he would have remembered sooner the words of Jesus. Notice the connection to the soul realm and the mind in this scripture. Peter suddenly “remembered” the words of Jesus. Does this mean if he would have remembered sooner that he might have also remembered telling Jesus I will die with you? The pressures of this world can be very overwhelming at times and there are circumstances when it is difficult to be led by the Spirit of God regardless of your intent or desires. What is noteworthy is that even after Peter did wrong by denying Jesus, his response indicates that he still had a good conscience that led him to be sorrowful and repentant. If he had no conscience at this time, then he would have just walked away and we would have never read of Peter again in the Bible. Avoiding making the bad choices in life is the ultimate goal of being led by the Spirit of God, but if you do make a wrong choice then you are not lost unless you ignore your conscience and you continue to go down the paths of destruction without sorrow for what you have done. Let me show you some other scriptures that will help clarify what I just said:

1Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;

1Ti 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

Here is God speaking of former Christians. These were some of the faithful that were no longer believers because of Satan’s deceptions and their bad choices. They have fallen away from the truth and bought into the lie of Satan. Notice what verse two says; because this was the important part that I needed to get you to understand. This verse states these lost people still had a conscience, but that it had been hardened by a process that is referred to in the terms of searing meant like branding a cow. To sear meat or the flesh occurs only with the application of metal raised to a temperature of intense heat. What did God say that He would do for Christians? God said I will take out your stony heart (unfeeling and insensitive spirit) and I will put within you a heart of flesh (that has sensitive feelings). Do these verses mean that these people are once saved and always saved? According to God their heart of flesh can become insensitive to the Spirit of God and even become hard again. Therefore, God says those who are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God. If your heart is no longer sensitive to His leading I do not believe you can still be saved or be called a child of God. Being led by the Spirit of God always requires the individual’s sensitivity and desire to be led by the Spirit of God.

I have given you two examples of conscience found in the Gospels. Once God used the human conscience to change the people’s intended actions to do something good and positive instead of the evil that they desired originally and another time God used a man’s conscience to help him repent and become one of the foundations of the church. Both are positive outcomes from the direction of the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Both times every man involved could have overridden their conscience and done more wrong things. The subject of conscience is very deep and I’m not convinced that I know it all either. But, I’m still learning and growing and God will cause me to increase in knowledge and understanding just like you.

Conscience is God’s internal moral guidance to help you to do right and good things and this results in positive things coming your way. You see God says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life (Rom 6:23). Listening to your conscience will help you avoid the wages of death and will help you to receive the reverse wages of life from Jesus Christ. Remember what Jesus said in John 10:10? Jesus said “The thief has come to kill, steal and to destroy, but I have come that you might have life and that life more abundantly”. God intends you to have abundant life in this natural dimension right now and the only way you are going to get there is to be led by the Spirit of God. If you spend time in prayer and in the Word of God you have a conscience that you can depend on. Jesus also said “I give unto a new commandment, that you love one another” (John 13:34). Therefore, being led by the Spirit of God and your conscience can be reduced to the simplicity of you doing only what is love based towards your neighbor. It is very similar to the golden rule of you doing to others what you desire them to do to you.

There is still a lot more to talk about on this subject of Being Led by the Spirit of God. I hope and pray that you are still learning and enjoying these lessons and that you will continue to study the Bible with me. I also would love to hear your experiences of being led by the Spirit of God. However God has done it or what method that He used to cause you to have good success in this life, it would be awesome to hear about it. Share it with me and it might be a tremendous blessing to someone that needs to hear it to give them confidence that they also have heard from God the same way. If you have any questions or comment on these lessons, you are free to give those to me also. Until next time God bless and continue to study and grow in His truth and learn to listen to your conscience.

If you would like to continue reading and learning in this series you can continue with “Part 8“.

Tags: Being Led, Bible, Christianity, Church, Faith, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Religion

Understanding How to Be Led By the Spirit of God! Being Led by a Man of God with a Message from God! Part 5

Sep 4

Posted by agapegeek

(ver 1.2) This is Part 5 in a series of very important basic Christian Bible lessons on the subject of Being Led by the Spirit of God. We have covered a lot of information that will not be repeated so if you have not read this from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1” first. In the last lesson I attempted to emphasize the importance of hearing, learning and understanding the written Word of God and then becoming a doer of the Word of God and not just a hearer only. Learning God’s Word and then following your knowledge of God’s Word by acting it out, makes you a disciple follower of Jesus Christ permitting the Spirit of God to guide you. Ignoring God’s word and being independent from God’s word will prohibit the Spirit of God from leading you. Therefore I believe that the written Word of God is the number one method that God has chosen to communicate with all of humanity in order to lead them out of the dangers, adversities and the negative consequences of living in a world of darkness ruled by Satan. It is also essential to understand that whatever the Spirit of God speaks to your heart will always be established upon the written Word of God. The voice of the Spirit of God will never instruct you to do anything that is contrary or opposed to the written word of God. God will never lead anyone into sin. Do you understand that? This is probably the main reason why it is essential to know the Word of God intimately.

ESTABLISHING AN INDEPENDENT BELIEF APART FROM GOD’S WORD

You see I once heard the story of a woman who claimed that the Spirit of God had spoken to her and told her that she was going to become the wife of a well-known preacher. This lady went about telling her friends and they even held a mock wedding by faith to proclaim and confirm God’s direction. The only problem was that this preacher already had a wife, but this woman and her church friends were not going to let the Bible or the facts get in the way of what they believed that God had articulated to her in her private prayer time. That is clearly an example of a woman being deceived by a spiritual voice other than the voice of God. The Bible teaches us that God’s words are forever established in heaven (Ps 119:89), therefore they do not change. What God speaks today will not ever contradict what God has spoken yesterday. The Bible clearly teaches us not to covet or desire what your neighbor already possesses (Exo 20:17) nor is it ever legal or permissible to commit adultery (Exo 20:14) or murder (Exo 20:13). God would have to kill the current preacher’s wife in order for another woman to be married to him. This woman was perfectly content to ignore these key Bible verses thinking God has suddenly changed His mind to what is allowed within His established Laws. All you need to do is to go and read the story of David and Bathsheba (2 Sam 11) and you will see clearly that God did not indorse this type of behavior of taking another person’s spouse. Wow, that is a crazy dangerous approach to Christianity if you choose to ignore the Bible to establish an independent belief system of right and wrong. Clearly Jesus called this a type of behavior the acts of a foolish man building his spiritual house on shifting sand and this will result in a great destruction of that house when the storm arrives (Mat 7:26-27).

THE TIME FOR KNOWING THE WORD OF GOD IS NOW!

Also in the last lesson, I used the example of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke to show you the appointed time of salvation and learning the Word of God is right NOW while you still can! No human non-Christian is guaranteed a tomorrow. No one likes to contemplate death, but death is inevitable for everyone if Jesus tarries long enough. Many people in hell today probably thought they had more time before they had to make a choice. However making no selection is still a conscious choice and people don’t always realize that. We are all born into the world ignorant of the truth. Therefore everyone is required to seek the truth in order to find it. Those in hell today have either ignored the truth, did not seek the truth, refused to believe the truth and their ignorance of God and His word has caused them reap what they have sown and that is not good news for them. I like to think of the Bible to be like the manufacturer’s handbook of instructions for the men and women on the earth. Clearly we are God’s creation so there is no better place to learn about what God has created than learning it from the Creator’s own Owner’s Manual! I also like to think that the Bible is God’s divine service plan of maintenance and repair for the human mind and spirit. Without these inspired words written on the pages, no one could be saved today, including me! Therefore knowing the Bible is the foundation for everything else that occurs in our life that is positive. I guess the flip side (inverse truth) of that statement is that everything else that happens negatively in your life could come as a result of you not knowing the Word of God and doing it. I really hope you understand the awesome importance of the Bible to some greater extent. I’m going to give you the list of the twelve divine methods of communication that I have been teaching from again today so that you can review them:

The Audible Voice of God
The Finger of God
Angels Sent by God
Prophets, Teachers, Pastors, Evangelists, Apostles or other Men/Women (disciples) of God
The inward Still Small Voice of God
The Written Word of God
External Visible Signs from God
Visions from God
Dreams from God
Prayer of an Individual
The Inward Witness of God / Moral Conscience / Intuition / Internal Knowledge / Spiritual Insight
Patterns found within God’s Creation

From this list I have introduced you to methods 12, 9, 8, 7, 6, 3, 2 and 1 so far. So we are getting nearer to the end, but we still have a lot to cover and maybe some of the most important methods are still left to come. I think today I am going to focus only on number 4 and speak to you about a method that God has used extensively in the Bible to communicate with many people. Like the written Word of God, the use of a human messenger like a prophet has been comprehensively established by God from cover to cover. There are certainly overlaps between the written word of God and God’s usage of a man to bring a verbal message to God’s people. Many of the prophetical Old Testament books were God’s messages to the nation of Israel and these messages were always designed to ultimately point Israel to Jesus. However these books also still hold information that is relevant to the church that we need to learn from today. As the population of the earth increased from the two original father and mother of us all, God came down to one man or one woman usually to bring a message to all of the others. The first recorded human messenger of God could possibly be viewed to be Adam. Clearly we are told that God spoke to Adam and Eve and prophesied many things to come. However, if Adam ever left us a message from God I do not know of its existence today. The major problem with believing Adam was a prophet is the lack of anyone else on the earth to prophesy it to. Everyone present on earth heard what God said in Genesis 3 and this is the last time that I know of that this has occurred. It was only when Adam and Eve had children that they could teach them anything about what God had said and I do not know where that is recorded in the Bible either. In the book of Jude God declares that Enoch the seventh son from Adam prophesied about the coming of the Lord. This is the first time that I know of where God says a man brought a direct message from God to others, but it is certainly not the last time this occurred.

BELIEVE HIS PROPHETS BY FAITH

2Ch 20:20 And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.

God is basically equating your belief in God to your belief in hearing the words of His prophets to be the same. This verse is informing you of one way you can prosper in the world. To prosper is an all-inclusive term including health and wealth. Of course this verse is written to natural Israel, but it has a double referenced intentional truth that applies to the modern church today also. God is declaring a greater truth in this verse than you can imagine. God had to speak to the prophet in order for the prophet to speak to the people. The people had to hear the message an then believe the message and finally accept and do the message. This is an example of being led by a prophet and this is very valid in the Old Testament, but I’ll have to explain why it is not so valid in the New Testament soon.

Everything that God does on the earth is based upon a spiritual law called faith (Rom 3:27). If God would come to everyone individually or corporately and reveal His existence, no one would be permitted a freewill choice not to believe in Him. However if a single man of God comes from God to you with the Words of God you now have a freewill choice to make immediately! Do I believe that God sent this man and do I believe that he speaks for God? These are now faith based choices built upon you hearing and believing or hearing and rejecting the words spoken to you. If you choose to believe them, then you are saved, but if you refuse to believe them God says you will perish (Mark 16:16). This is clearly an example of the divine sovereign choice of God. God allows all men freewill to do as they please. God never forces anyone to believe anything. Here is a scripture that reveals the faith based process created by God.

Rom 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

Hearing a preacher is a concept that dominates the entire Bible from Genesis to the Revelation. Noah was revealed to us to be a righteous preacher (2 Peter 2:5) of the truth of God and he proclaimed the end is near for nearly 100 years while building the ark. Everyone heard the message and laughed at the words of God and then the rains came and washed them all away. It is also this exact same way today. Jesus said as it was in the days of Noah so shall it be in the days before the coming of the Son of Man! (Mat 24:37). Today, when I tell people that the end is near, I have people laugh at me and perhaps you do to. What would have happened if God suddenly appeared to everyone on the earth in Noah’s day? Would anyone have doubted Noah then? I do not think they could. It is clear to me that God’s ways of doing things are not our ways of doing things.

THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL AND GOD’S MEDIATOR MOSES

When God heard the cries of Israel in bondage in Egypt, what did God do? God selected one man named Moses to be the deliver with the message of deliverance. Moses continued to be the man with the message from God right up until he died in the wilderness. This is called a mediator approach to communication between two parties. Not listening to the preachers of God today may cause you to be washed away or even left in symbolic Egypt very soon also. This is one of the main reasons that I listen to every preacher that I can. I have over 10,000 MP3 files of preachers and teachers and I have listened to most of them and some of the lessons I have listened to a 100 times because they were so good. Please understand why God has done what He has done. God forces everyone involved to have faith and believe His words. The children of Israel definitely had this choice and wavered back and forth based upon whether Moses was actually present or not. Pharaoh clearly did not believe Moses had the words of God and hardened his heart against God. God sent plagues and eventually convinced Pharaoh after the firstborn of his family was killed. There are always consequences for not hearing the Word of God and doing it. This is an important lesson but I’m going to move on and continue teaching on being led by the Spirit of God.

THE 5 FOLD MINISTRY GIFTS IN THE CHURCH

Let’s shift our focus off of the Old Testament examples to more modern relevant teachings found within the New Covenant for the church:

Eph 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

Eph 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Here in Ephesians 4:11-12 is the same concept of a Noah or a Moses being repeated in the modern church today. Sometimes people don’t realize that what God did in the Old Covenant is a foreshadowing of what He will do again in the New Covenant. There is truly nothing new under the sun as it says in Ecclesiastes. The thing that has been in the natural realm is the exact same thing that shall be again in the spiritual realm. We know from reading here in Ephesians that not everyone in the church is an apostle. Not everyone in the church is a prophet. Not everyone in the church is an evangelist. Finally not everyone is called to be a pastor or a teacher either. This is a divine designed hierarchical structured approach to spiritual organization. It is a classic set and sub-set teaching from high school math. We are all in the Body of Christ Set, but we are not all in the Apostle subset, for example. Without structure we would have a body of all leaders and no followers or all followers and no leaders. Jesus of course is the Head of the Body and He takes preeminence over everyone else. Jesus Christ is also the only physical man on the earth that occupied every office of the 5 fold ministry. However what God does today is to give some men and women on the earth today a specific role of responsibility with a message and these individuals are held accountable for teaching it to everyone else. The Bible says that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance (Rom 11:29). It was this way with Moses and the children of Israel and it will continue to be this way until the church is taken up very soon. Why does God do things this way? You need to immediately stop and ask yourself are you a called apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher or are you just a disciple? Finding your place in the body will determine what you need to do next. If you are NOT one of the classic 5 fold ministers then why are they needed, if the same Spirit of God is resident in you as it is in them? Can’t the Spirit of God just teach me everything that I need to know directly? I think that is an excellent question! This method that God has implemented, gives everyone individual responsibility and future accountability for doing what God has said. Again it is based upon the requirement of the spiritual faith of each individual to respond and to believe the message from God when no one has ever seen God. Without faith it is impossible to please Him (Heb 11:6) God says. Ignoring the subject of faith will cause you to be unpleasing to God and miss out on the blessings of God and that is a tragedy. Many times I have seen God lead people with questions to the men of God who know the answers. This is a modern example of being led into the truth by the Spirit of God. God leads some men to find certain things in the Bible and to teach them and then God leads others who wish to know the truth to those that are teaching it.

God declares that He has established apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the “perfecting” of the saints. Did you know that you were a saint RIGHT NOW? There are many Christians who do not include themselves in the “saint” category of spiritual beings. One unnamed church denomination votes people to sainthood based upon some undocumented and unscriptural working of miracles supposedly? Therefore in this church no one can be a saint unless some men on the earth say they can be one and this is usually after they are dead and gone. So technically to them there can be no benefit on the earth of being a saint and it appears to have benefits only in the afterlife. Wow, that makes the Christian life pretty tough if you have to please men and you choose to ignore God. That is another example of how some people have ignored the Bible to teach another man-made doctrine. I am a saint right now according to the Bible and if you are born again you are a saint also right now according to the Bible! Use your Bible program on your computer and search for the word “saint(s)” and go read about yourself and find the truth. There are 62 verses in the New Testament that use this word in KJV Bible. If you don’t have a Bible program you can download one for free. You have no excuse not to search and find what the truth is.

The Greek word translated as “Perfecting” does not mean you will become perfect! The Greek word translated as perfecting comes from a word that means to “repair”. What does it mean to repair something? Does it mean that something must first be broken or in need of repair? I believe that it does. I never fixed anything that was not broken. Also I do not know about you but anytime I ever repaired something I could never call it perfect again. Even if you glue it back and fill the cracks no matter what you attempt to do to it, it can never be called perfect again. The Bible is more complex than this one verse however. There is a verse that says “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature” (2 Cor 5:17). After being born again you become a brand new creation in your spirit, but your mind is still not renewed until you replace all of the old natural junk with God’s Word. Do you feel like you were broken before Christ came along? After you were a believer, did you feel like you were a new creature? This is why we do not walk by feelings, we walk by faith in God’s Word. I need to get back to the main subject and talk about God’s usage of the 5 ministry gifts. God says that the ministry gifts as described in Ephesians have been given for the good of the whole church body. If you are a teacher then teach. If you are not a teacher then learn to study from a teacher called by God. If you are an apostle go to who God has sent you to. If you are an evangelist preach the gospel of salvation to everyone. If you are a pastor become a shepherd to God’s sheep. If you are a prophet prophesy what God gives you for the edifying of the body. Soon I will give you an example of just because you are an apostle that does not mean you do not need a prophet.

I have heard many people say to me I can read and study the Bible all by myself and the Spirit of God will teach me everything that I need to know! That is a belief built upon a partial truth ignoring all other truths. If that was the complete truth there would be no need for God to have teachers like me in the church. If that was the complete truth, there would also be no requirement for you to have faith! The scripture in John 16:13 that people embrace incorrectly says “The Spirit of Truth will guide you into all truth”. But, if you expect the Spirit of God to teach you all truth you have misapplied the verse. There is a great deal of difference between being led into the truth and being taught the truth directly by the Spirit. I have people being led by God to my website to get answers that they have been searching for and this is how God works. When you try to misapply the Bible you paint yourself into a corner that limits God’s ability to reach you. If you expect God to teach you what He has already taught someone else to give you the answer, then you are expecting things to happen outside of the designed plan of God. It is true that everyone is required to study the Bible for themselves (including me) and to research and prove all things that anyone else teaches by confirming it in the Word of God! (Acts 17:11) But that does not mean that God is going to come to you and tell you everything nor does it mean God will give everyone the same revelation knowledge or understanding of the Bible. You just cannot find this in the Bible. God gave Paul specific revelation that He gave no one else. God gave John the revelation of the end times and you cannot find anyone else that wrote the same book of information unless you go back to Daniel and see some specific parallels. Guess what I’m a Bible teacher and I do not know everything. Only God knows everything. No man is God! That is another reason why I listen to other Bible teachers. God will never give any one man the complete knowledge of the entire Bible. So I’ll tell you very plainly you need to read and study from many teachers of God and not just one. The more you know the faster you will be able to recognize which ones are stronger in their knowledge of God and which ones are less mature than maybe you are. Some preachers I listen to one time and move on because they have no clue what they are saying. You need to learn to let the Spirit of God within you confirm what a man is teaching you and I’ll get into that more soon.

A PERSONAL EXAMPLE OF GUIDANCE FROM A PREACHER

I went to a church that had a pastor that is still one of my favorites. When I lost my job over twenty years ago because the company went bankrupt, I started seeking God for help and guidance. I told you in the last lesson that I began to seek God by looking first to the Word of God and God spoke to me about having a job for me from a verse that I saw in the Bible. But, that was not the end of the story. Within two weeks I had two job offers from two different companies. At that time I was standing at a fork in the road of life decision point. I knew that God had said that He had a job for me by me believing His Word, but which one do I take? If I only had one job offer I could assume that this was the one that God had opened up for me. But since I had two job offers I had to assume that one was the right one and the other one was the wrong one. So I began to pray again and ask God for which one to take. One Sunday night in church my favorite preacher was speaking and all of sudden he said something that rang true in my spirit to which job to take. This is a prime example of how the Spirit of God can answer your prayer request by speaking through another Spirit filled man of God. The preacher never knew he was speaking to me and I never told him I needed to hear from God. This makes it more spectacular when God answers in this way. It also proves He heard my prayer request because the preacher was led by the Spirit of God and he was able to deliver the message to me from God. I took the words of the preacher to be from God and not from the preacher and I made the choice and worked for that company that I felt led to go to. I hope you understand what I am saying today. God sometimes uses other people to get you a message. I have to admit I was not expecting to hear it from the preacher, but God did it this way to teach me a new lesson. The preacher that is speaking to you may never be talking directly to you, looking at you and they may not tell you anything specifically like your name or your choices that you should make but they may simply just say enough to give you the direction to go in and you know it in your spirit. I don’t know how God does it exactly or why God does it this way sometimes, but I am a witness to the fact that it is done this way often in churches that are led by the Spirit of God. If you are not getting directions or guidance from you pastor to the events of life you are going to the wrong church.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF BEING LED BY A MAN OF GOD

I’ll give you another example from a preacher that gave his testimony of how God led him. This preacher was offered a church position in Texas. He really wanted to make sure he was being led by God and not by an offer so he began to pray and seek God for what to do! Do I stay here or do I go to Texas? This was another example of a fork in the road of life with no visible sign posts for the direction to travel in. Always remember if any road could get you where you needed to be then it would not matter which decision you made. However when I studied the Bible, I learned that just any road is not the right answer. Only the narrow right path will lead you to life and the wide path leads you to destruction. So it definitely matters in life which road you select in everything that you do. This preacher continued for several days praying and asking God for direction and one day he was walking outside down the road praying again for what to do and another minister of God not from his church came running by getting his exercise. He suddenly stopped and said something to the effect of you better stay where you are at and then kept running by. This running preacher did not know the situation nor was he asked to give his opinion of what was being contemplated. It was simply the Spirit of God speaking through him confirming what the other preacher should do, but was debating in his mind because of a new church offer. Again this is just how God does things sometimes. The preacher stayed in the church he was at and that church is now one of the largest churches in that city.

WHAT DO YOU DO IF YOU NEED TO KNOW WHICH ROAD TO TAKE?

If you are ever faced with a fork in the road life decision like should I marry that man? Or should I work for that company? Or should I move to another city? Then you need to stop and seek God for what to do. Don’t do anything or be pressured to do anything until you actually are confident that you have heard from God. Did you hear what I said? This could be a matter of minutes or even a matter of several days. Look for the answer to come in several different ways depending upon your spiritual maturity and your ability to hear the Spirit of God. I’ll use a famous movie line that I remember which the teacher said to the student “Don’t move till you see it”. If you move before you hear from God you will probably regret it very soon. If you pray and ask for directions then expect to hear God answer, but you are going to have to exercise some patience and wait until you hear. Let me give you another Bible example from the New Testament:

Act 21:10 And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judaea a certain prophet, named Agabus.

Act 21:11 And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.

People, we are told are tarrying in Jerusalem for many days? To tarry is an act of waiting and exercising patience. Why were these people in Jerusalem waiting? I guess they were waiting to hear from God? I based that upon what happened next! God sends a prophet to the group in Jerusalem with a very specific message for them. Remember we are talking about the Apostle Paul here in this group of people! Apparently even an apostle needs a prophet occasionally. The prophet takes Paul’s girdle and binds his hands and feet and here is the part that I want you to see. The prophet says “Thus says the Holy Ghost”. Wow is that important? These are not the words of the prophet, they are clearly the words carried to be delivered to Paul from God. God teaches us that men still bring messages from God to other men even if they are great apostles and wrote 2/3 of the New Testament. If you think you will never need your brother or your sister in Christ you might just miss one of the most important messages from God that you have ever needed to hear. Are you grasping these concepts today?

Why didn’t God just speak to Paul directly? I personally believe that God did speak to Paul directly and the prophet sent was just a confirmation to what Paul already knew in his spirit. I will definitely speak more in the future about being led by the Spirit of God personally, but today I am just trying to teach you how God still uses men to get messages to other men. I also want you to see that you do not have to be a preacher, teacher, apostle, prophet or evangelist to be sent by God with a message.

Act 9:10 And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.

Act 9:11 And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth,

I want you to see in these two verses that there is a lot going on. The spiritual information being taught is extremely complex and very extensive. Before these verses Saul was on the road to Damascus and Jesus shows up in a vision and this is another demonstration of the sovereign will of God getting the attention of a future great man of God. In this vision Saul was saved, did you know that can happen? The Bible says Saul must have believed in the Lord because that is what Saul calls Him, his Lord! According to what God says in Romans 10:9-10, that is all it takes to be saved. It is also interesting to note what Jesus said to Saul as instructions. Let me give you verse 6 quickly:

Act 9:6 And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

Jesus was speaking to Saul personally in a vision and He tells Saul to go into the city and basically wait for further instructions. Why didn’t God just tell Saul what was going to happen right then? God has his full attention, but the full disclosure of information was never given. This is how God operates. God will tell you the step by step instructions of what to do and He will hardly ever give you the end step before the first step. As you can see Saul is required to obey and to believe which is called walking by faith. The Spirit of God then speaks to Ananias in a vision and tells him to go to the house where Saul is for the next steps to take place. Both men are required to walk by faith.

We are told that Saul is in a house praying and then before that it says a certain disciple named Ananias must also have been praying because He was given a vision from God to go to see Saul. Saul is the future Apostle Paul and God uses a relatively unknown spirit-filled disciple to deliver a message so that Saul can receive his sight and be filled with the Spirit of God. What I am attempting to teach you is that you do not have to hold an office of one of the five-fold ministry positions in order to be used mightily by God. Anyone available can be used by God to bring someone a message of help so that they can receive an answer to their prayer. What we learn from this story is that if Saul would have refused to be ministered to by a simple disciple because he was looking for a great prophet, or an angel or another vision from Jesus, he would have not written the greatest part of the New Testament. Do you see my points found in this story? Can you learn anything from this that you can apply to your situation today? I know I can! Maybe you should go back and reread the entire chapter and see what other nuggets of spiritual knowledge you can find hidden there.

ASKING GOD THE RIGHT QUESTIONS!

Let me speak to another issue in closing concerning how to be led by God with greater precision. Does it matter how you ask God for direction? You better believe it matters. Everything you do and how you do it always matters. If you ask without using any wisdom you may paint God into a corner where He has to choose between the lesser of two evils. You see there are three different types of questions generally speaking. These are Yes/No Questions, closed questions and open questions. If you are faced with a fork in the road life decision choosing between two obvious choices, always leave God a different answer or option. This in effect changes the question from a closed question to an open type of question. In other words when I look back upon my decision of choosing between two jobs that were offered to me and I only asked God “Do I work for company A or do I work for company B?” Do you see the problem with that question? What if there was a company C that was the optimal way to go and I missed that one because God had to choose between the lesser of the two bad choices that I gave Him to select from? Wow, that is some very good and valuable teaching and I hope you understand what I am saying? Remember when Jesus came up to the boat walking on the water in Matthew 14 and there was a great storm raging and the disciples cried out in fear and then suddenly Peter says “Lord if it is you bid me to come on the water”! That is a clear example of painting God into a corner with a closed question without thinking about what you are asking. Because it was Jesus He had no choice but to say come! There were no other correct answers for Jesus. Jesus could not say no Peter it is not me, don’t come! He could also not say “Yes it is me but don’t come”. Neither of these would have been permissible for the question being asked. So Peter goes out to walk on the water like Jesus and eventually is shrouded in new found doubts of uncertainty and begins to sink. Now Jesus is forced to save Peter because he was not ready for water walking faith. Peter should have asked “Lord if it is you and it is your will tell me to come” or “If I am able to stay above the water and it is you, bid me to come”. Would either of these different types of questions resulted in a different answer from Jesus? Potentially yes! What I have learned is we would all benefit if we would learn to think before we speak. Always give God an out for a different better possible direction to go in. Never place specific limitations on God’s answer by your question. Never stop and say “Should I stay here or should I go to Texas”? There could be something else behind door number 3 that is way the best choice for you but you missed it because you were not open to that possibility. I began to learn this lesson from how Jesus prayed and asked His father things. Once Jesus is recorded praying and saying “If it be possible, take this cup from me, nevertheless not my will, but thine be done”. You can see that Jesus left it open ended to do the will of God and did not elminate any possible choices.

I hope you have learned something new about being led by the Spirit of God today. This subject is very complex and God has many ways to get a message to you. Being open and smart to these methods will allow God to get to you faster than if you were narrow minded and placed constraints on God’s ways to communicate. We still have several more methods to discuss and hopefully we will go a bit faster now, but I cannot guarantee that. I will have to wait and see how the Lord leads me and then try to follow what He wants to say. If you have ever heard God speak through a minister to answer your question to God, please tell me about it. I’m sure I’m not the only one that has experienced this. Thanks for taking the time to read and study the Bible today and until next time God Bless you tremendously.

If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons you may continue to “Part 6” now.

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Tags: Being Led, Bible, Christianity, Church, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Religion, Truth

Did Jesus Have NO Money and Set an Example of Poverty for Us to Follow?

Aug 7

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.4) This is Part 4 in a series of Bible lessons on unlocking the “Myths of Jesus” found in the church. This lesson is a follow-up and another attempt at setting the record straight. If you have not read the first lesson I might suggest that you go and start with “Part 1“. According to a recent video that I saw on Facebook from a preacher, he claimed that Jesus must have taken a vow of poverty and set a humble example that we should all follow. Using only his religious philosophy he portrayed a Jesus who suffered physical pain and therefore we should tolerate pain with the same level of humility. He further went on to say that my Jesus was born into a poor family and implied this is where we all should be also. Then He went on to say that Jesus was homeless, often hungry and could not even pay His own taxes. I’ll start this discussion by asking you a simple question, why was it necessary for a homeless poverty stricken hungry man to even pay taxes? Does your government tax people when they have nothing or does your government give the poor people food stamps, housing subsidies and welfare to help them? Was Jesus dependent upon the generosity of people to survive or was Jesus a blessing to others as a man of means? I guess how you see your goverment depends upon who your government is. Giving to the poor is certainly a descriptive view of the U.S. democratic government. Maybe things are different now than they were back then, I do not know for sure, since I was not there. I do know what the Bible says on this subject however so let’s find out if Jesus was a poor Jesus example for us to follow. We’ll begin with His childhood:

Mat 2:11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

Poor people did not live in houses even in Jesus’ day. Joseph and Mary must have owned a house and lived in it in order for the wise men to find them there. Then the wise men from the east come to their house and what did they bring with them to the house? Are they not gifts to give to the child Jesus? If some men from one country come to another country to visit a new born king, what kind of gifts do they bring? You have to understand that these men were bringing gifts to a king in their mind and not just gifts for a baby shower. These were no little nothing gifts of insignificant value. These were great gifts fit for royalty in large enough quantities so they would not offend the king or the family of the king. Examine the key word in this verse and research the definition. The key word in this verse in Matthew 2:11 is “treasures”. The wisemen are said to be bringing their treasures to Jesus. If you look up the word “treasures” it means “wealth”. What does wealth mean to you? Are you wealthy physically? If you are not then you are not like Jesus was. Understand based upon this information Joseph and Mary were now set for life after this encounter and this meant Jesus was never poor either. Gold, frankincense and myrrh were the three types of gifts that were given and they all had great value and wealth attached them by definition. If they rode to the house on camels they could have had saddle bags full of the stuff. We are not told how much was presented, but logically speaking it had to be the size of a gift that would not be laughed at by the royal recipient. What if these men wer bringing their gifts to Ceasar in Rome? What type of gifts would they have brought that would not have gotten them thrown into prison or killed? What would have impressed Ceasar? You see if you change your perspective you will begin to see a different type of Jesus and the men that came to honor Him. How do you get a poor Jesus out of this information? I cannot fathom the blindness or the creativity that it takes to write this off to come up with that type of religious philosophy that preaches a poor Jesus. You are still welcome to ignore Bible verses like these or attempt to explain them away to make your own private independent views work apart from God’s Word, but that does not make your views true, it only leaves you locked into a wrong interpretation of the Bible.

Let’s back up in the story to Bethlehem before the wise men show up with their gifts of wealth. Did Joseph have money before this? Before Jesus was born, the couple was going to Bethlehem to do what? Did you know that they were going to pay taxes and participate in the nationwide census according to Luke 2:1-3? I’ll say this again that poor people do not pay taxes. It takes money to pay taxes. Joseph is called the carpenter in Matthew 13:55, so he was obviously employed and was a trade worker and that information implies that he was never poor. Carpenters were skilled laborers and not house builders like we think today. Houses were not framed by carpenters in those days when Jesus was born. Carpenters built more furniture and things out of the wood for the inside of the house. Houses were made of clay or brick normally. Anyway Jesus is born in a manger in Bethlehem because why? That is the million dollar question being presented for the prize of knowledge and truth:

Luk 2:7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

Apparently Joseph tried to stay at the inn but they were full? Do you know you have to have money to stay at any Inn? Did you know a nine month pregnant woman does not travel very fast? By the time Joseph and Mary arrive at Bethlehem the inn is full of people and there is nowhere else for them to stay so they stay in the manger. Better than outside, but not what they had in mind either. Jesus was only born in the manger because the INN was FULL! It is very clear to me based upon Bible evidence that the family of Jesus was NOT poor if they had to go to their home city to pay taxes and they had money to stay at an inn. So why do people say they were poor? I have no clue!

Now, let’s examine the ministry of Jesus as a grown up. I’ll skip to the mature life of Jesus as a grown man now being 30 years old and see what is being told to us about Him. Did you know that the ministry of Jesus had a treasurer? Why is it necessary to have a treasurer? The treasurer is always held responsible to manage and control the money of the organization. This is the normal duties of a treasurer. Who was this treasurer? It was Judas who would betray Him:

Joh 13:29 For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor.

Judas we are told was the money carrier for the ministry of Jesus. The “bag” that is referred to in this text contained money. When things needed to be bought with money, then it was taken from the bag and they bought it. You can clearly see in this verse that the disciples thought that Jesus was speaking to Judas and saying for him to take some of the money in their possession and either spend it to buy some things that they needed or to give it to the poor. Uh oh? That is a problem for a poor Jesus philosophy, isn’t it? We are given two direct reasons for Jesus having money and they are very clear. You either need stuff or you give stuff to others. Let’s look at another example in the Gospels of Jesus’ ministry. What happened one day when Jesus was ministering to a group of 5000 on a hillside? After everyone was there for a long time Jesus makes a request to the disciples and the disciple’s reaction is absolutely priceless:

Mar 6:37 He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?

Jesus tells the disciples to feed the people and the disciples said we don’t have any money to do this? No that is not what the disciples said, is it? Why would a poor Jesus even make that kind of ridiculous statement if it was impossible for them to do it? Jesus is clearly confused or He was not poor. The disciples estimated that it will cost them nearly 200 pennies worth of bread to buy enough food for this many people and this is clearly almost a year’s wages to them. Do they have that much money on them in their possession when they made this statement? They must have it in their possession or this would be a very stupid response to make to Jesus’ command. I do not believe that Jesus was poor; if they had enough money with them to feed the 5000 they had a lot of money on them. How many peopl have you ever fed? Ever been to resturaunt and paid the bill for everyone? This is what Jesus was telling them to do. However, the problem was that they were in the middle of nowhere and there wwere no stores to buy anything anywhere near them, so Jesus was making a point, but they were asking if He meant for them to go away to buy the bread and then come back to give it to the people? I’m telling you verses like these reveal volumes of information to me that are ignored by many Christians. Read what Jesus tells His disciples in another place in the Gospels:

Mar 6:7 And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits;

Mar 6:8 And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse:

Did you know that you do not have to tell men that have no money not to take their money with them? This is not rocket science. Here we have it recorded in plain sight that Jesus is telling His disciples to leave their money at home with their wives and to go out in faith and the disciples heard it and obeyed. It is very obvious to me that all of these men had money to leave and it implies that they all had personal purses that they carried with them normally. This means their money was separate from the money in the bag that Judas carried. Do you understand this? Do you think this is a trick question? Does Jesus tell men with no money not to take any money? That would be very stupid for God to do. All the men would have to do is to confront Jesus and say Master we have no money and this would tell us of their poor condition, but that is not recorded in the Bible so therefore it did not occur. Here is another lesson that Jesus taught on money:

Mar 10:25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Mar 10:26 And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved?

When you read the Gospels you find that Jesus taught more on money than probably any other subject. If poor people came to learn a teaching about money from a poorer man than they were, they would be very stupid. What would the reaction to that be today? In today’s world a poor homeless man would be laughed out of the city. If Jesus was a homeless destitute man as this preacher claimed he is not qualified to teach on the subject of money since he could not obviously manage it properly. You never take advice from a man who has nothing to teach you about how to manage your money. Today, I would rather listen to Warren Buffet or Bill Gates on the subject of money than to listen to any homeless poverty stricken man on the street. If you think this is different today than back when Jesus was on the earth you are very foolish in your beliefs. Here in Mark 10 Jesus is teaching on the subject of money and His disciple’s reaction to this teaching is what is important for you to see. In these verses Jesus said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to be saved. Then the disciples were full of excitement because they were all saved poor men? No, they said with great astonishment “who then can be saved”? This is not the common or even logical reaction of a poor man; it is more the reaction of a rich man with money. If you can’t see this, then someone needs to pray for your eyes to be opened. The disciples did not exhibit a proper reaction for poor men, they clearly demonstrated the opposite. Does this matter, you bet it does! Let’s go back to the treasurer in the ministry:

Joh 12:5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?

Joh 12:6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.

Again we see a reference in context that Judas held the money bag. This verse says that money was placed in the bag and that it must have been enough money that Judas was able to steal from it without being easily observed or caught by all of the others that were with him. Do you understand this? Is that what the Bible says? Does the Bible say that Jesus had no money? You have to be totally blind or totally ignorant to remain in the doctrinal state of poverty to be like Jesus after reading Bible verses like these. If you do not have a personal treasurer handling your money and your finances, then you are obviously not being like Jesus’ example in the Gospel. If you do not have a personal accountant to manage your money then you are not following Jesus’ example that He gave to us to follow. Therefore, you are failing to follow the illustration of Jesus Christ. I’ll probably get a lot of negative hate mail because of this lesson today and probably lose some friends on Facebook. But I’m not going to ignore the Bible to satisfy their ignorant beliefs of a poverty stricken Jesus.

One statement that the preacher made was that Jesus was often hungry and this proved He was poor by his reasoning. I wonder how some people can be so selective in their Bible reading and ignore verses that are clearly right in front of them? Was Jesus ever hungry? We saw Him turn water into wine once and we can see Him taking 5 loaves and some fishes and feeding 5000 at one time and 4000 at another time in the Gospels. This does not sound like a hungry man to me.

Luk 5:30 But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?

It is very obvious to me that if the religious people of Jesus’ day criticized Him for eating and drinking with sinners and publicans that Jesus Christ did not go hungry. Where do you get a hungry Jesus in the Bible? Do you make it up and fabricate it or do you see where Jesus fasted for 40 days and misapply those verses to apply them to a poor hungry Jesus. The ideas of a poor Jesus do not hold up when analyzed accurately with what is recorded in the Bible. I never saw where Jesus could not eat, did not eat or could not afford to eat. If you know of those verses, then tell me where they are.

Why do people have the idea that Jesus was poor? I really do not have a clue other than the fact that the Bible makes some rare statements that can be easily taken incorrectly and misapplied to make Jesus sound like He was poor. Too often people just jump to wrong conclusions and make wrong assumptions without researching the truth. We have been given a narrow window view into the life of Jesus in the Bible. John says if everything was written about Jesus and what He did on the earth, the world could not contain the volumes of information (John 21:25). Therefore we are required to read the words that have been selected by God and rightly divide them in order to understand the examples that Jesus has set before us to follow. Let’s review a few scriptures that have been classically misunderstood about Jesus and see what they are saying. For example:

Mat 8:20 And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

You see I have heard so many people quote me this verse and try to tell me that this proves that Jesus was homeless and destitute and that interpretation is amusing to me now in the light of balancing this information with the other scriptures about Jesus. This verse is Jesus’ response to a question and a temporary personal situation and people try to apply it to areas that they are not applicable to. Jesus had a traveling ministry and went from city to city and even to far away regions to minister to the people. Jesus would travel a long ways some times and then reach a place by faith and yes need a place to stay. Here is Jesus telling a man, I have no place to stay tonight. It is like when I travel and I go to another state and drive into a town without a reservation. I can look for a hotel to see if they have a room and this is sometimes what I do. We will often go to places without a reservation or a place to stay and expect to find something. We did this once when we went to the British Virgin Islands. We tried to find a place on the internet and got a reservation, but when we got there it was not as good as it sounded so we went driving around the island looking for another place. We found a great place on the beach and it was awesome. Let’s get back to Jesus. Read the Gospels and realize that things are not always written in literal and obvious terms. Nowhere in the Bible does it ever say that Jesus went to the bathroom, but it does tell us that He ate so we know by simple logic that He did this. To believe that Jesus slept on the ground outside all of His adult life as a homeless man is a fallacy that neglects the fact that Jesus obviously had money from His birth. Understand that a traveling Jesus does not have to reflect a poor homeless Jesus. It only means that He left his home and went other places some times and when He did this He needed places to stay the night occasionally. Let me try to explain another classic verse:

2Co 8:9 For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.

You see people like to take a part of a verse and ignore the entire verse to make a point that fits with their religious philosophy. Here it clearly says Jesus was poor. But, being poor is a relative term based upon two things; who Jesus was and where Jesus came from. It is just like I’m poor in the eyes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. But, to many people in Africa and Asia I’m very rich because I have house, a car, a cell phone and money in the bank. Jesus as you know left heaven where the streets we are told are paved with solid gold to come to the earth where I have never seen a gold paved street. Using this information we know that even Bill Gates one of the richest men in this world could be called poor by heaven’s standards. Do not pretend that Jesus lived on the earth in poverty to justify your poverty. See things in the Bible from God’s perspective first. Know that Jesus (God in the flesh) left the extreme riches of heaven to come to the earth and this He did so that we could come up to His level and standard of reality of being rich like Him. Here we have a future promise of being made rich that most would gladly agree with. But I read in the Bible that much of the reality of what Christ did for us came into effect when He rose from the dead and we accepted Him as our Lord and Savior. You have to understand the difference between what was given to us already and what we are still waiting on to be given to us. The only thing that I can see that we are still awaiting for is the redemption of our bodies to be made immortal. Other than that the Bible seems to say that everything God has done has already been given to us in the past tense wording found in the New Testament.

People like to look to the coming future spiritual kingdom of God that will change their current situation around someday in the next age and they forget the Kingdom of God is here now in you and me. Rather than seeing the Kingdom has been established internally they are looking for a new external coming event. Therefore we should just all be tolerant and patient to be like Jesus was so that when He comes and takes us away that He will give us a new mansion built in heaven. That is a nice Bible truth, but that is also not the entire Bible truth. My Bible says “I am seated with Him right now in the heavenly realm” (Eph 2:6). Then in 1 John it says “As He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). There is an implied state of being that however Christ Jesus is right now that we are supposed to be in the same state right now. This of course could be a mental state or a spiritual state if that is all that you believe Jesus accomplished for us on this earth. However when I looked up the word “salvation” in the Greek it appears to be more all-inclusive, meaning salvation of the spirit, the mind, the emotions as well as the healing for the physical body. When Jesus was teaching the people, He would read from the book of Isaiah and tell them “God has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor” (Luke 4:18). What is good news to a poor man? To me it has to be that you do not have to be poor anymore. Do the research and do not take my word for it. Look up the Greek word “Sozo” and tell me what it means. It is often translated as healed, delivered, and saved. People like to criticize modern health and wealth preachers as not following Jesus’ example of poverty and suffering. However if you read what Jesus said while quoting Isaiah you find Jesus was the first health and wealth preacher that ever existed and those that continue this tradition are only following what He has taught. I guess I won’t go there in further. People like to think that this is the coming future reality and I believe it applies now to me and to you if you also believe it.

1Ti 6:17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;

I want you to see that God does not write to people and tell them to take a vow of poverty in the New Testament. God only tells them not to trust in their money. You have to have money in order to trust in money. If God writes a letter to rich people and says do not place your confidence in your money, then it is very obvious to me that it is permissible to have money if you do not place any confidence in it and become arrogant or “highminded” as this verse warns. Do not seek money; seek God as He is the one that has given us “Richly” all things to enjoy. This is really not that difficult to comprehend, yet there are Christians that will write me and tell me I’m teaching you things not found in the Bible. They obviously cannot read nor see what God wanted them to have in this life, right now. I do not fault them and I do not put them down either. People are free to do whatever they like in this world regardless of what the Bible says.

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

If God has given to us ALL THINGS that pertain to life (Past Tense), how can you exclude money from this statement? It takes money to survive in the world today. Without money you are not going to reach the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you are poorer than the people that you are trying to reach, why would they want to follow a man or a woman to become like them when they have nothing to offer? Having nothing in the world reflects on a God who has given them nothing? Your poverty is a direct reflection on your God’s character and ability to bless you. I do not care if you disagree with that statement or not. If your God cannot supply your needs, then how can He get His message of salvation, deliverance and healing to other people who are looking for the truth in all of the wrong places? If you think you are going to impress people with your good looks or your clever words then you are clearly confused. Reread the exodus of Israel from Egypt and see the types being repeated in the Exodus of the church from the earth. The children of Israel went out with the vast wealth of the Egyptians. They took all they could carry and then some and they exited Egypt in health very strong after eating the Passover lamb (a type of Christ). The nation of Israel coming out of Egypt is a type of the church today about to be taken up out of this world. If you do not believe that we are going out big in victory then you are probably staying here in Egypt and that is not good news for you. I’m not trying to be a popular Bible teacher. Because of some of the things that I teach like today’s lessons I am persecuted by my self-called brothers in Christ. I’ll end this lesson today with another story about Jesus our example to follow. If Jesus was so poor why does it say this?

Joh 19:23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.

Joh 19:24 They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.

Here we have the Roman soldiers who are crucifying Jesus dividing up the spoils of the man hanging on the cross. The coat of Jesus is described to be made without a seam. What does that mean? A seamless garment is not one that was cheap or easy to make. It was not a common type of garment worn by a poor man either. It is made upon a special loom that creates a continuous piece of cloth. This garment obviously had no patches, tears, rips or damage to it. This type of garment was one worn by kings and only the wealthy people of the day and the nobility that could afford to purchase it. In the terms of today’s clothing this was the upper end designer clothes of that day. This was the best of the best and not the clothing of a homeless man. It is very clear reading the Bible that the Roman soldiers decided to cast lots for this valuable piece of clothing and not to rip it up into pieces. Someone tried to tell me that this great rich robe was placed upon by those that crucified so that they could mock him. That is true that they take his clothes off and beat him and put a kingly scarlet robe on him. But this robe was taken from him and his clothes were returned before they crucified him. You can read this clearl in Matthew 27:31. Therefore the Roman soldiers were gambling over Jesus own clothing. So do people ever gamble over something that is worthless? If they did this they were very stupid. Do not get me wrong, I’m not saying the Roman soldiers were stupid, I think I’m saying the people who said Jesus was poor could possibly be called that, but I’m not going to go there. I want you to see that Jesus wore the best clothes and they were desired to be owned even by a paid soldier. It had to be very valuable so this information alone dispels the poverty Jesus philosophy.

There is overwhelming evidence in the Bible that Jesus was not poor if you choose to see it. God gave us enough clues to see that He lived well for human standards even though it was far from where He came from in heaven. Jesus was never sick anywhere in the Bible that I could find. Therefore, Jesus exemplified the modern health and wealth Gospel that many are being criticized for teaching today. Do you feel you are better than Jesus? If you want to remain poor and sick on the earth, I am not going to deny that unique privilege to you. Just do not criticize those that teach that we should be like Jesus and actually desire to live it out. According to the Bible, Jesus had money from His birth until His death on the cross. According to the Bible, Jesus had health from His birth until Satan killed Him on the cross. If you attempt to say that because Jesus suffered on the cross and exemplified an example of suffering for us that we should do the same, then you do not understand that Jesus laid down His life voluntarily as our sacrificial lamb to shed His blood for our salvation and redemption and you do not have to do anything to accept this free gift of His Grace other than believe and have Faith in Him. If you attempt to suffer like Jesus did for a few hours of His life on the earth then you have become a doer of the works of the law and are attempting to save yourself by making yourself worthy and fulfilling what only He could have accomplished hanging on the tree. Nowhere does it say that we should be crucified like Him to pay for our sins. I am going to stick with Jesus’ example of health and wealth the best that I can do to follow His example, and I will be happy following Him and you can do whatever you want. Let’s review what we have learned today:

Jesus was born into a family that owned a home.
Jesus’ step-father worked as a skilled carpenter and was required to pay taxes in Bethlehem even trying to rent a room at the inn there.
Jesus was born into the world and as a child was given gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Jesus was not hungry and was criticized for eating with sinners and publicans.
Jesus wore fine expensive clothes of the day that were gambled over when He was crucified proving their extreme value.
When challenged by Jesus to feed the 5000, His disciples asked “do you want us to spend a year’s wages to buy bread for this crowd?” proving they had that much money in their pockets to do this.
The disciple Judas was the appointed treasurer of the entire ministry and this is only necessary if you have enough money to manage.
If Judas could steal money and it goes unnoticed, then there was a lot of money in his possession.

Where is the poor Jesus in these facts? Are these easily ignored facts in the Bible? Are these easily explained away facts found in the Bible? They must both be true in order for people to teach a poor Jesus for us to follow. Please wake up and see the real Jesus recorded in the Bible. When I learned these verses in the Bible it totally changed my perspective. I knew Jesus was a great example for us to follow and that is why I am like I am today.

If you want to read other lessons that I have about did Jesus own a house on the earth you better go and read them on my blog to learn the complete truth about His examples given. I did not attempt to give you every verse in the Gospels in this lesson that I could have. Jesus teaches a lot of stuff on money and I will probably talk more about that later. However, I have given you enough witnesses to show you that there is more to the Bible than a modern man trying to say my Jesus was a homeless beggar who could not even pay His taxes. Read your Bible very, very closely and see what it actually says and do not follow me or any other man who does not give you Bible verses to back up exactly what they are saying. Even when a man appears very sincere and a dedicated Christian, he can be sincerely wrong. Also do not criticize anyone where you have no complete knowledge on the subject under discussion and make yourself to look like a fool. When God spoke to Job He said “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge” (Job 38:2). This is what probably people’s words sound like to God when they criticize the called and anointed preachers of God today who teach like Jesus did. Base your beliefs only on the Bible and ignore the doctrines of men. Who knows how many people I have offended today, but yet I did not name any names so I feel that I am justified in my Bible lesson. I did not name the preacher who inspired my lesson today by His criticism of the well-known TV preacher Joel Osteen. But, if you want to find it on YouTube I’m sure you can find it. I do not listen to Joel Osteen, but I do not criticize Him either. I will not base my beliefs on what any man teaches. I will only base my beliefs on my knowledge of the Bible that God has taught me. I would strongly recommend that you do the same and keep your mouth closed on what you do not know when you want to criticize me or anyone else. God Bless!

Posted in Jesus

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, God, Jesus, Money, Religion, Truth, understanding

Understanding Bible Faith! Do I Have All the Faith I Need For Right Now? Part 13

Jul 25

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.2) This is Part 13 in a series of Bible studies answering the questions about the Reality of Bible Faith. What it is, where it came from, how I get it, why it is important and how you can use it. I have taught many things in this series so I will not attempt to repeat them all again today. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back to Part 1 and start reading there first. In previous lessons I taught that faith was measurable meaning every Christian believer does not possess the same amount of faith. That teaching raised the question that many people have; does that mean I need more faith if the situation that I am facing is greater or more severe? Well I listened to a TV preacher this week that said that every Christian already had all of the faith of Jesus available to them right now. This preacher then implied that the only problem that a Christian possessed was simply that they did not know how to use the faith that they already had. In a way I agree with those statements and when I heard only his Bible verses that he gave he made a very convincing lesson. But he also failed to mention or take into account all of the other scriptures that I have given you that contradicts what he was teaching. The Bible is way too complicated for us to take one set of truths and attempt to make them the entire truth. If we do this then we are claiming to be smarter than God and choosing to ignore what else God says on the subject. There are over 220 verses in the New Testament alone that directly mention the word “faith” and then there are many other indirect related verses that must also be considered on the related dependent subjects of believing, beliefs, confidence, expectation, fear, doubt, unbelief and worry to name a few. In order to confidently teach any subject we are going to have to know the majority if not all of the verses that are related to the subject of faith. For example here is one verse that my TV preacher brother must have ignored on the subject of faith:

2Co 10:15 Not boasting of things without our measure, that is, of other men’s labours; but having hope, when your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly,

Paul in writing to the Corinthian church and is looking down the road to the future when their faith would be increased in order that they can become a greater blessing to others. Wow, I do not know if you heard what I just said. Paul does not tell the Corinthians that they already have ALL FAITH and that they just need to learn how to use it. Paul clearly says your faith is growing and you need to continue to allow it to grow. The Greek word translated as “increased” means to grow, increase or enlarge. If you can enlarge your faith, then you do not have all of the faith that you could have. There is a definite statement of conditionality placed upon their faith increasing. It is very clear to me that they do not possess enough faith to accomplish what Paul is looking for or expecting for them to use right now. Do you understand this? Faith is like a growing plant or even the fruit on a tree. Spiritual growth is like natural growth. When you are born again as a spiritual child you do not yet possess the fullness of all love, joy, peace or any other fruit of the spirit. Spiritual fruit grows on spiritual trees and it is not something that just magically appears and is there instantly. People are the spiritual trees that will produce the spiritual fruit, if they feed their spirits and water their spirits with the word of God to allow this fruit to grow. The word “faith” is included as one of the nine fruits of the spirit found in Galatians 5. Planting seeds and getting harvests is how practically everything in the spiritual realm works. The concept of planting seeds and growing fruit is a natural concept that applies directly to the spiritual realm. Faith is a fruit of the Spirit and not something that you have all of the moment you become a Christian.

Rom 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

In an earlier Bible lesson on faith I taught you about how faith comes. Reading in Romans 10:17, we know that Bible Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Therefore Bible faith has a staring origination point that is totally dependent upon you first hearing God’s Word. If there is no hearing, then there is no ability to have faith in God. When you were saved it was because you heard a preacher tell you the truth about Jesus Christ and you believed it and you accepted and confessed Him as your Lord. Does this concept of hearing God’s Word and getting faith carry forward beyond salvation or does it end at salvation? In other words is a Christian when they are born again automatically given all the faith that they will ever need as my Christian brother was teaching? Or is faith still based upon the foundational principle found in Romans’ 10:17 of hearing God’s Word and getting faith? According to my TV preacher friend, you already have all of the faith given to you by God and you just need to learn how to use it or to apply it. If that was true, ignoring Romans 10:17 Christians would never need to hear the Word of God again after they were saved. There would be no need to go to church, no need to study the Bible and no requirement to listen to another preacher. Just go get saved and you got it made. Unfortunately this is not how I have discovered that spiritual things work.

The problem with this philosophical doctrine of automatic faith maximization is that it relieves Christians of any further responsibility to learn more about faith and it reduces or oversimplifies the truth that you only need to learn to use what you have already been given by God. Think with me about the children of Israel looking into the Promised Land of God. Did God not say I have given you the land? Did they automatically possess this land? Obviously they did not and they still had personal responsibilities to perform in order to possess what was clearly given to them by God. My point is that just because God has given you something does not mean that you have it in your possession and can use it. One of the verses that my TV preacher brother used was the one that I already addressed in this series so I will not repeat all of that information again. This verse was found in Romans 12:3 and it is one that many preachers like to jump onto and claim that every Christian has been given the same exact measure of faith by God and they therefore reason that there is no need to try to increase it, just use it. What we need to understand is that the Bible holds more than one truth on any given subject. We are therefore required to learn them all and then to balance each of them to become aware of the actual overall truth. I keep saying this and I will continue to say it, the Bible is much more complex than you think. Let me show you another verse in the Bible about faith and then you tell me how this verse conflicts directly with what the unnamed TV preacher said:

Rom 12:6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;

Can you read? Can you understand the words written in this verse? If God had given to everyman the Measure of Faith why is there differing proportions of faith that is required to prophesy? The Greek word translated as “proportion” means a piece or a part and not the whole amount. I guess you could reason away this verse by saying that you have all faith, but that it only requires a small part of the whole to prophesy. That is certainly one way to look at. However, I do not believe that is what God is saying. If it was, then you should stand up in church next Sunday and start to prophesy and see exactly what comes out of your mouth and if any of it actually comes to pass. If it does not happen like you said then you are a false prophet. I personally believe whatever we do for God is done by our faith in Him. But that does not mean that we already have all of His faith. It means we need to learn to use the small part that we do possess and then allow it to grow into a greater quantity. The usage of the word proportion clearly implies growth potential to me. I guess you could choose to look at it differently if you want to. Let me show you another potential set of conflicting verses with contradictory information for my TV preacher brother:

1Co 12:8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;

1Co 12:9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;

1Co 12:10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:

1Co 12:11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.

Paul is writing about spiritual gifts that come from the Spirit of God that have been given to different men and women in the church. It is very clear that some have some of these gifts and probably many others do not. The Word of Wisdom and the Word of Knowledge are two impartations of the Spirit of God that I have seen demonstrated by only a very few preachers. These are very clearly not spiritual gifts that everyone possesses, only a very few. Now we continue to the next verse 9 and it says to another meaning not the same one as before God has been given the gift of Faith. Uh oh? That seems to be a major problem for my TV preacher brother. This verse is NOT saying that God has given to every man this gift, is it? Why is it even necessary for God to give any man this spiritual gift of faith if God has already given to EVERY man “the measure of faith” as the TV preacher has claimed? I think that is a very excellent question to try to figure out the answer to. My TV preacher brother probably could not answer this question or didn’t think of this question, so he must have just ignored this information. What is the gift of faith? For that matter what are any of the gifts that are mentioned in these verses referring to? If you do not know what they are then you are certainly going to write them off as being unrelated or unimportant. Every spiritual gift mentioned in these verses is a SUPERNATURAL manifestation of the Spirit of God through a human being to accomplish a divine purpose on the earth. Why is this necessary? Wow that is another excellent question we need to answer today. I believe it is necessary because God can only accomplish things that we cannot in our own ability or power if we cooperate and believe. God occasionally gives to us spiritual gifts such as the working of miracles to confirm His word that has been taught. God will also use the Word of Wisdom or the Word of Knowledge for a sign to help those present. God will use other of the spiritual gifts as ways to strengthen, build up and to edify the body of Christ.

Let’s go back to faith and leave the other spiritual gifts alone for now. Why if a Christian already has all the faith of Jesus would it be necessary for God to give them this spiritual gift of faith? In one of my faith lessons I taught that Jesus always claimed that it was the individual faith of the person receiving that was the determining factor mentioned for anything supernatural that occurred on the earth. If you do not understand this concept you better go back and reread that lesson again. This meant that nothing happened supernaturally on the earth unless a man or a woman believed God and His word and placed their faith in only those factors. This is why everything in the Old Testament occurred. This is why everything in the Gospels occurred. This is why everything in the modern church still occurs today. For example in the O.T., the deliverance of Israel from Egypt was based upon the faith and obedience of Moses. If Moses did not have any faith in God and would not have believed what was spoken to him then the children of Israel would still be in captivity or God would have had to find another deliverer who did believe Him. What about Noah and the great flood of the planet? Could God have saved Noah anyway, the animals and the blood line of Christ if Noah had not believed God and obediently built the boat instructed by God by faith? You see it was only Noah’s faith and obedience in God’s word that caused the supernatural power of God to manifest. I probably will get some people, who disagree with me, but you go through the Bible and you see the involvement of the partnership of man with any major event of supernatural demonstration of the power of God and then you tell me one (other than creation before there was a man) that God did independently from man. Even the virgin birth required Mary to believe in the words of an angel sent by God. It was clearly her faith that allowed God to come into the world in the flesh. What I’m getting at is that faith allows God access into the world and the lack of faith prohibits or reduces His ability to do anything. I know I’m going to get a lot of religious commenters from these statements that try to tell me that God is sovereign and that He can do whatever He desires at any time. Ignorant people often say things that are problematic to others who actually know more about the subject under discussion.

Understand what the gift of faith is. The gift of faith is the supernatural faith of God present inside a man to accomplish something that a man would not normally be able to accomplish without it. Also note that none of these spiritual gifts are resident full time in anyone. They are there temporarily as the Spirit wills to accomplish a single goal and never given at the will of the man or woman using them. They are given by God for a short time and they are then dormant. Even Jesus Christ who was God in the flesh and had the Spirit of God without measure could not operate in all of the spiritual gifts all the time. You go through the Gospels and read them very closely. You will see every manifestation of the spiritual gifts (except tongues and interpretation) mentioned in the ministry of Jesus Christ at one time or the other. But at other times Jesus could not do any miracles because of the unbelief of the people present (Mark 6:5) and then other times Jesus did not even know who it was that touched his garment and got healed (Mark 5:30). The presence of Jesus at the porches healed only one man and there were probably hundreds of others who did not get healed (John 5:2-3). It clearly shows the manifestation of the Spirit of God was totally dependent upon the Spirit of God and not the man that was given the gifts. I hope you understand these concepts. If not, please ask me questions and I’ll try to answer them more clearly.

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.

I’ll wrap this lesson up with this verse for today. I find this verse very interesting in the chosen phrasing of the translators. Jesus Christ is called the “Author” of our faith. Clearly this implies to us that our faith has a starting or originating point. The Greek word “author” technically means a chief leader. However I love the use of the word “author” in this verse. In the English language the term author means the writer of words. Since we learned that faith comes by hearing God’s Words earlier we know that faith is a spiritual word based system given to us from God. Without God’s words there would be no Bible faith on the earth. In the context within this verse Jesus is also called the “finisher” or “completer” of our faith. It sounds like a man writing a book. It sounds like the book was started at some point in time and then progressively grown through phases or chapters to an ultimate end of completion. Writing a book is like growing a garden of words. This is what God is doing whether you realize it or not. That is how I view our faith and God’s Word. I believe that the hearts of men and women are the new writing tablets of God’s divine authorship and I can give you Bible verses to back that belief:

Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

Did you see what God says in Hebrews 8:10? God says I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their spirits. How does God get His words into or onto your spirit? Is that an automatic one time occurrence or is that an ongoing continual process? My personal faith in God had a starting point and my faith is now increasing based upon my knowledge of God’s word and it will eventually be completed because of the continuing work of the Spirit of Christ within me. This is the continuing ever increasing faith and that represents a state of transitional passage from faith to ever increasing faith (Rom 1:17). This tells me that we are responsible for participating in the spiritual growing process of our faith. This tells me that it is not automatic or that we have already been given all of the faith that we need. If our faith was already complete, we would no longer need a Jesus to be our finisher. Wow, I hope you understood what I just said. I am still awaiting a completed work of my savior Jesus Christ and I hope you are also. But, I also have a role to play. It is only with my involvement that God will continue to write on my heart His Word. Jesus is the Author, His word is the spiritual ink, my heart represents His blank pages and I get them written onto my heart by hearing them over and over. This is how things work and when you understand that you will be on the path to growing up into a faith giant killer like David.

I have attempted to teach you another basic faith lesson today. No you do not have all of the faith that you need to do everything that you need to do for God. If you did, then we would all be in heaven right now. Ask yourself this question, do I know and understand the entire Bible? If you answered no, then you do not have all of the faith that you could have. We are all still growing in the knowledge of Him and we better all be building our faith in increasing stages. I really did not talk directly about how much faith you need for each situation. I believe that it takes greater faith for bigger situations. In other words there are people today that have faith for millions of dollars that at one time they did not have faith for even two dollars’ worth of food. My TV preacher friend was one of those individuals. His testimony was that he and his wife went a long time without food because they had no money when they first started in the ministry. Now he teaches on TV and it costs him literally millions of dollar to pay the costs of TV time. Truly it is self-evident that his faith has increased over the years because his knowledge of God’s word also increased over the years at the same time. So if you want to be a TV preacher and think it is automatic success, just try it and we will watch you fail. I have seen many preachers on TV fail and they are no longer around. It is very clear to me that those who succeed are those that believe God will supply the need and those that fail are those that ask for donations from people. Faith is always the factor for success. But faith as we saw in Romans 12:6 is proportional. God said for us to do thing according the proportion of our faith. It was implied that we could overextend our faith and fail. If you want to start a TV ministry, first start with a group in your house and build your faith to grow to the millions of viewer level. If you fail with 4 in your house then you will fail even more with 4 million on TV. So faith is a factor and faith grows but there is also another matter that needs to be taken into account. Jesus taught us that even with a mustard seed size of faith we could move a mountain (Mat 17:20). A mountain represents a symbolic great obstacle or problem. So we must balance the fact that we do not have all of the faith that we could have with the fact that we just might have enough faith to solve at least some of our problems we are facing right now. What I recommend is that you prioritize your problems. Maybe they are financial, marital, children, or job related, emotional or even physical health related. Then go find all of the scriptures you can find on that subject that you deem to be your greatest need. Finally, feed your spirit on them daily speaking them out loud to yourself so that you can hear them to cause faith to come. There will come a time very soon after you do this continually that faith will become resident in our heart to solve your problem in that area. I also recommend that you do not start with the greatest most severe problem and combine every related need at the same time. To overwhelm your faith can be disastrous. It is usually best to start with the smaller things first and then work to the larger things like my TV minister example. Get faith for your daily natural food needs and then grow your faith to the millions of dollars of TV time costs. My TV preacher brother did not start on TV, he spent many, many years not on TV learning God’s word and growing in faith. It is like David in the Old Testament. He started watching sheep and grew to be King of Israel. David killed lions and bears before he ever tried to take down the giant facing Israel. Grow in faith and learn how faithful God is with your small successes and then greater things will come to allow you to have larger victories.

I hope and pray that you have learned more about the subject of Bible faith than you knew before. This is always my goal. I want to provide spiritual knowledge and insight to help you to grow spiritually. Thanks for taking the time to study the Bible with me today on the subject of faith. My guess is that I’m not even close to being finished with this topic but it will help me to know if you have any specific questions in any area. So drop me a comment and share anything that you might be struggling with and I will do my best to try to be a blessing to you. So until next time, may God continue to bless you with all the knowledge and spiritual wisdom of Jesus Christ. Amen.

If you would like to continue to study in this series you may go to “Part 14“.

Posted in Bible Study, Faith, Understanding

15 Comments

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, Faith, God, Jesus, Life, Religion, Truth

A Christian’s Responsibility vs. the Sovereign God’s Responsibility! Part 1

Jul 20

Posted by agapegeek

Responsibility: the ability or authority to act or decide on one’s own, without supervision

(Ver 1.4) This is Part 1 in a series of basic Bible studies about the Personal Responsibility of Every Christian versus the Divine Responsibility of the Sovereign God. Responsibility is a word that implies authority and ability to make independent decisions. This certainly applies to God, but what about men and women made in the image of God, how would this apply to humans? I personally believe that the word responsibility is potentially more complex than this definition. There are independent abilities of man and there are dependent abilities of man. So responsibilities can be independently assigned or they can be jointly assigned or they can also be corporately assigned to many. There is a popular Christian philosophy being taught in many churches that God is in complete and absolute control of everything that happens in the world. This philosophy relieves all Christians of any personal responsibility, accountability or judgment for doing the wrong things in the world. I truly believe that God in Heaven is sovereign meaning that He is all powerful and is perfectly capable of doing anything that He desires at any time. However, is this the character of God that you know and understand and base your faith upon? Does God force people to do what He desires them to always do? Is God overriding human freewill to manipulate the outcome or destiny of individuals? If a terrorist kills thousands of other people was that the perfect plan of God in action and full manifestation? Does God really control everything that happens to every Christian and non-Christian alike? Is God the Great Puppet Master in the Sky pulling all the strings? I personally do not believe that God is in control of every event in human history. If it was true, then God is the most evil God that I have heard described and that definition would contradict with a God who is named Love!

INTRODUCTION TO THE ERRONEOUS PHILOSOPHY

THAT GOD CONTROLS EVERYTHING THAT OCCURS!

I saw a very ignorant movie last night from Hollywood called The Adjustment Bureau. This movie portrayed a God who manipulated men and women to do what He wanted them to do. It dictated a master plan of a sovereign type of God. If a man or woman strayed from the sovereign plan, they were immediately sent a being to adjust them for change. These adjustment beings would have to manipulate the circumstances surrounding the individual and they would have to change the persons’ mind or thoughts to get them to conform to the good plan of the chairman upstairs. They would have to cause them to go down the right path that they were supposed to go into to be what God had planned for them to do on the earth. This is a very popular religious philosophy taught in many churches. However, any time Hollywood embraces a Christian philosophy it automatically causes me to suspect it is a fallacy of the grandest proportions. But, we still have to balance the fact that after all God is sovereign and you cannot do anything to ever lose your free gift of salvation. It is too bad that this is not what the Bible actually teaches us.

INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY

I have already said that if God controls everything that it is completely unnecessary for humans to do anything for the perfect will of God to be accomplished in their life. If they wake up with cancer one morning then this was the plan of God for them to die an early painful death. The will of God must prevail so why even go to the doctor to prolong your life? Wouldn’t you be fighting against God by going to the doctor?

We should just blame God if you stay in bed all day and do nothing because this must be the will of God for you. Because it happened it had to be the plan and will of God. But is this what the Bible teaches? There is a very popular Christian extreme belief called predestination. In this belief some were predestined to be saved and others were created by God to go to hell by God’s sovereign choice. In this belief no one has any right to say which place they were made to go for an eternity. But this is a very popular lie from the devil that places no responsibility upon humans for determining the outcome for their lives. it also relieves all of the involvement of the spiritual enemy called Satan and reduces him to be a non-factor in our lives. This is exactly what Satan wants you to believe. This gives Satan free reign over your life and you will blame everything negative that happens to you on God. What a masterful deception this is.

We are about to explore verses in the Bible that teach us differently about the divinely delegated human responsibility that was given to us by a sovereign God. For example look at Hebrews:

Heb 6:4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,

Heb 6:5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,

Heb 6:6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

There are literally many verses in the Bible that I could teach from today, but I will begin speaking about these for now. If a Christian can never be lost after being saved, then why did God write these verses of direct warning to all Christians? To be a partaker of the Holy Ghost is clearly a sign that these people being spoken of were once all Christians. But, by the time you get to verse 6 it says that they have “fallen away” (departed) from Christ and the Holy Spirit. Some Christians read the Bible without thinking about what is said by God. They will see a word like “if” and think that the word “if” means that it is not possible to fall away. But the Greek word translated as “If” (G102) in this verse could very easily have been translated as “When” so do not write it off and think that it cannot happen to you or to anyone else. Therefore, God says there is no further salvation available for them because they would have to crucify the Lord of Glory again and put Him to shame. If you do not understand these verses you better read, study and learn them very soon. These are very powerful words of warning written to ONLY the Church. They were not addressed to the lost unsaved world. If you believe you cannot fall away after you are saved or that it is impossible for this to occur, you may already be on the verge of being deceived. Because of ignorance, potential deception is more likely. This was the first and greatest responsibility given to us by God as a born again Christian believer and that is to remain or to stay a Christian. This means we don’t stray away and get lost from the goodness of God.

These verses list three specific things that you need to remain committed to. First, it says for you to partake of the Holy Ghost. Define the Word “Partake”! Is that God’s responsibility or your responsibility? If I sat a piece of chocolate cake in front of you and said “partake”. What am I asking you to do? To partake is clearly the freewill choice of every cake eater to choose to eat. This is the same for every Christian to receive the Spirit of Christ. Once you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior the Holy Spirit comes inside and abides. To accept and receive the Holy Ghost implies the responsibility for keeping the Holy Ghost resident. I know that goes against what many people try to teach from other verses in the Bible. However, if I gave you $100 today, you could by our own choice throw it in the trash or you could put it in the bank to try to keep it safe. The choice would always be yours to do with whatever you have been given freely. Next it says to taste the word of God. This is not a onetime meal. This must be a continual everyday action of eating God’s Word to make your spirit strong.

When you eat your natural meals, who is it that is responsible for you eating and tasting? Does anyone force feed you or do you freely pick up the fork and do it yourself? How many physical meals do you eat a day? You better learn to eat the Word of God as much as you eat physical food. The physical food of this world is important, but the spiritual food of God is more eternally beneficial. Finally, these verses say to taste the powers of the world to come. This means that we can walk in the power of God right now and that this power is the same as that which we will possess then in that future world. Do you know you have this power right now? Perhaps you will recall what Romans 8:11 teaches us? In this verse God says the same power that raised Christ from the dead now dwells in us and that is a statement that should be believed.

There is an old saying that goes, “with great power comes great responsibility”. This saying goes along with the current state of many nations of the earth who are in possession of weapons of mass destruction that can cause many other people hurt or destruction. God’s power is greater than nuclear power. However, this is the kind of power and responsibility that God is relating to you that you have in the spiritual realm right now. Taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps 34:8) and that His mercy endures forever. These three verses were an introduction to basic Christian responsibilities for us to live by today right now. I’ll list these again later in the lesson for you to take note of them, but let’s move to another perspective to Christian Responsibility.

IS EVERYTHING GOD’S GOOD PLAN THAT HAPPENS TO YOU?

Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

This is a very popular verse of scripture quoted in many churches today by many preachers. It is read at funerals, it is read for divorces, it is read in hospitals after car accidents, it is read at every negative event that occurs in the lives of any Christian believers to provide comfort and to try to justify a greater unknown sovereign plan and purpose of God for the evil that occurred. Because preachers in their ignorance cannot explain these negative and evil events, they attribute them to be for a higher purpose to explain them away. After all they have been taught in seminary that God is in ultimate control of everything that happens in the life of every believer and this is what they were brainwashed to think and believe. This belief gives them religious comfort, relief and solace and it relieves them from learning the truth or for any personal responsibility for what may have occurred that was negative. It is what I will call “A No Fault Religion” philosophy. In this philosophical view whatever happened in my life was certainly not my fault because God is sovereign and must have willed it to occur. What Christians are attempting to do is to take a portion of a verse in Romans and change it to say something that God does not say. This is a major mistake of Bible interpretation that many make. They take things out of context and they miss or ignore the conditions being given in order to qualify for God to cause everything to work out for their good.

Christians try to take a conditional promise of God and make it completely unconditional because of God’s sovereignty. However, this verse says that God will only cause all things to work together for your good if you 1). “love” God and if you are 2). “called” according to His purpose as two major conditions for receiving the promise. But, again people take this as personally including them automatically, but then if you ask them what they were called to do by God; most of them could not tell you. I am called to preach and teach the Word of God, and that is my calling and gifting. So I have a direct and personal answer to that question if you choose to ask me. Now the subject of “being called by God” is much broader than my simply example but this is still certainly a major part to the subject. Regardless of how your were called or what you are called to do, it is still a condition for God to cause all things to work together for your good. Do you understand this?

Also there is the fact that God says to those that “love” Him all things will work out for their good. Many will say I love God and then not understand what this means either. Love is much more than just saying some meaningless words. For example, remember in John 14:15 where Jesus said “If you love me you will keep my commandments”. so do you keep all of His commandment? If not then Jesus implied that you don’t love Him and therefore you don’t qualify for everything to be working together for your good. I hope and pray that you are examining yourself to see if you qualify.

These there is further conditions give to us by God. This verse is also in the context of the two previous verses that it goes along with. These verses are often ignored because they are not understood. The two previous verses are speaking about the personal prayer life of the believer. But this is just not any type of prayer, it is a very specific type of prayer being mentioned, and even though it does not tell you what that type of prayer is you need to figure it out in order to qualify for verse 28. If you do not understand what kind of prayer that is, I’m sorry I’m not going to teach it to you today in this lesson. Just realize if you do not understand it and cannot explain it to me, then you are not doing it and you do not qualify for verse 28 and I’ll leave it at that for now.

If Christians could automatically expect everything that happens to them to become a good thing from God, then why would there be so many other verses in the Bible that instruct us to do something else? It would seem to me that too many Christians are not using a balanced approach to understanding the Bible and that they are ignoring some very important verses in favor of other verses that they like better. I call those types of Christians to be “Trail Mix” Christians. They pick out the pieces of the trail mix they like and throw out the pieces of the trail mix they do not like. Let me give you a quick example of what God says for Christians to do that makes the Christian life conditional with personal responsibilities:

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

My primary subject today is “Christian Responsibility vs. God’s Divine Responsibility”. Here is God speaking to every Christian with two important instructions. Where does it say that God will resist the devil for you? Where does it say that God will chase the devil away from you regardless of what you choose to do? Where does it say that God will force you to submit to Him? Can you read? Does this mean if you do not do these two things that God will still cause everything to work together for your good? I assume that this is exactly what many Christians want to believe. I personally do not believe that this is the case! I believe that all of God’s promises are always conditional and that you are required to follow His instructions in order to be successful in this life. Can you answer me this question; “Is obedience a factor in this life?” If obedience is a major factor, then doesn’t obedience denote human responsibility and even consequences for disobedience?

Isa 1:19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

Here is God giving us another clear conditional statement of promise. God says “IF” you do this and that you will get to eat the good of the land. Being obedient is one of the key determining factors to being successful in this life. The other is being “willing” to be obedient. In other words you can do what God says and be unwilling and God will tell you that you do not qualify because you failed in one key step. This is how the things of God work and if you do not believe it you can do without the good of the land. Here in James 4:7 God said first for you to submit your life totally and completely to Him. This is not that hard if you actually do it. I try to get up every morning and pray, “Not my will but yours be done today”. I tell God “I submit my will unto you this day”. I believe that praying and committing your ways to the Lord is the beginning of submitting to Him. Next, God says that you must resist the devil. Uh oh? That is a major problem for many Christians, isn’t it? How do you resist the devil if you do not ever see the devil? Have you ever seen the devil? What happens if you do not resist the devil? Are these words of warning with implied consequences? I think that will be a better series by itself so I will not get into how you resist the devil today. Just realize that these are two personal instructions that have attached responsibilities with them and implied consequences for not doing them. God is not going to do them for you, so you better learn how to do them for yourself. Also note that if you do not do them, then God cannot cause everything to work together for your good either. Since I’m in James, I’m going to stay here and give you another verse with personal responsibilities attached to it:

Jas 1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

You see the Bible after telling you to submit to God and to resist the devil says for you to also be a doer of the Word of God. This implies that you must first read the Word of God, then that you study the Word of God, next you must understand the Word of God, and this is based upon the requirement that you remember the Word of God, then you must put the Word of God first place in your life and give it priority and then finally that you will actually do what the Word of God says to do. If you think you automatically do all of this, you are probably already deceived. There is nothing that I just mentioned to you that is automatic human behavior. These are all learned behavioral modifications that you must do to renew your mind to God’s new ways of doing things. God says you can deceive yourself simply by not being a doer of the Word, but you can see that being a doer of the Word requires a lot of effort on your part. Effort implies personal responsibility and again consequences for not participating. If you do not feel this way, then you are in trouble. There is also no way that you can do what you do not know personally. God says in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. This means your lack of knowing can cause many of the negative things to occur in your life that you could have avoided if you only knew how to avoid them. God is saying that all things do not work together to those of His people who do not know the Word of God and do it. Surely you can see why things have occurred in the lives of many people that were very negative and why. Do not think that something negative happening to you is the perfect plan of God. This is what Satan wants you to do. If you do not fight it or resist it and you simply roll over and accept it, you are easily defeated. Negative things can be caused by many things in this world. You might have forgotten to submit yourself unto God. You might have forgotten to resist the devil. You might have not been a doer of the Word of God in the area that you needed to know how to avoid that negative situation. There are really many more factors of Christian Responsibility but I have gone long enough for today. Here is a short list of a Christian’s responsibilities that I have covered today:

Make an effort and commit to remain a Christian daily
Partake of the Holy Spirit continually (Praying in the Spirit)
Continually feed on the Word of God to strengthen your spirit
Continually taste the Power of God
Submit yourself unto God
Resist the devil
Read the Word of God
Learn the Word of God
Put the Word of God first place in your life
Do the Word of God
Be willing and obedient to God

These are some of the basic Christian Responsibilities for every one of us to do daily from today’s lesson to help us have positive outcomes in our life. If you do not understand them, then you need to learn them and find out what they mean. If you do not understand what these are, you are free to ask questions, because I at least believe that I understand enough to be a help to those who do not know them at all. What I am attempting to do is to teach Christians that they have a personal responsibility for what happens to them. It is not all up to God and God is not orchestrating everything that happens to you for His perfect plan. If God was doing that, there would be no need for Him to tell you to do anything. God gives us His word so that we can get to know Him personally, His ways, His character, His nature, His love, His grace, His Son Jesus Christ and His divine responsibility. Then God gives us His Word so that we can learn who we are in Christ, what He has given to us and what we are still required to do with His free gifts of grace. These are balanced Christian Responsibilities working with the Divine God Responsibilities in partnership. I will try to continue this series in the future. Thanks for taking the time to study the Bible with me today. God Bless!

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

Understanding the Hidden Spiritual Family Structure of God’s Household! The Hidden Family of God in the Abrahamic Covenant! Part 9

Jul 14

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.5) This is now Part 9 in a series of extremely advanced Bible studies about a subject that you have probably never heard anyone teach on before. If you have not read these lessons from the beginning, I would suggest that you go back to “Part 1” and start there. The Spirit of God revealed this information to me more than 10 years ago and I have been diligently studying it in the Bible ever since then to prove it was true. Over these years I became totally convinced that this was accurate simply because I could see it plainly in the Bible and I knew that it was actually what the Bile said. This is my introduction to one of the last lessons in this series of one of the most important and complex Bible studies that you may ever try to study or try to understand. All of these lessons have come directly from my heart today to yours. I can’t make you see anything in the Bible. So my prayer today is that you may have an open mind, a receptive heart and may the eyes of your spiritual understanding become enlightened with the spiritual knowledge of knowing Him who was and is and will always be eternally faithful; my God of all Grace and all Peace, my Lord and my Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I was a computer programmer for over 25 years. I have worked on the development of several complex large computer software systems for some very large corporations. I will occasionally introduce computer terms in my Bible lessons and I may do that again today. But, I have found the design of God’s Word system to be so much more advanced and complex than anything that I have ever seen created by man that it is at times overwhelming. God’s extreme intelligence is clearly displayed in the design of His Word. However if you have never worked on a large scale computer system before or approached the Bible with this way of study, you will not understand what I am talking about. This is why not very many people on the earth today actually understand how to study the Bible. Intelligent design is displayed in every word printed right in front of them, but many do not recognize the patterns being presented. I have been studying the Bible faithfully for over 20 years using my computer and I am not any closer to learning everything that God says because of the vastness of what is covered in the Bible. Having said all of that, God has taught me a few things since the beginning and I am closer to knowing the complete truth today than I was 20 years ago. The things that have taken me over 20 years to discover, you can learn in a matter of a few days if you apply yourself and actually believe what you are reading and then search and see them in the Bible for yourself. When you do this, Satan will not be able to come and steal them from you.

In the last lesson I reviewed three distinct hidden patterns of the family of 5 divided 3 against 2 using the Micah 7:6 prophecy as the foundation and the stories of Abraham as two of the repeated models or patterns. Abraham was both the father and the son in the family in these patterns. In each of these examples, the pattern of family division recurred as an arrangement of 3 against 2. The patterns were always close enough that you should have been able to recognize that they came from the same Designer. You could call these little hidden patterns just amazing coincidences or you could call them the work of God like I do. Today I am going to show you another even more potentially controversial hidden pattern of the family of 5 divided 3 against 2 that is also found within the life of Abraham. This will be the third witness of God’s hidden pattern found in the life of a single man in the Bible. I do not believe that the existence of three very similar patterns found within the story of one man in the Bible can be called a chance occurrence, a happenstance or even an accident. If you could determine the mathematical probability of this occurring I believe it would be way beyond random probability. If you can find this pattern in the life of anyone else in the Bible please let me know about it, I would really be interested in hearing if you can find it anywhere. I personally believe God is trying to teach us something that is extraordinarily complex and important for us to know about. Today we are going to explore the Abrahamic covenant and what God has initiated in a cleverly designed hidden textual format that will probably amaze some of my readers and for others they will probably just walk away being perplexed and skeptical. I cannot predict which one you will choose to be, but I will hope that you will at least give God a chance before you shut the door on what He has to say in His Word.

I am now going to take you back to Genesis again to some prominently featured Words of God in the Old Testament that are very relevant to the family of 5 being divided 3 against 2. Of course all of this information has been very widely studied for thousands of years and yet no one could have understood what was being said because I believe that it was only intended for us to know before Jesus returns. I want to specifically show you these hidden secret concepts found within the Abrahamic Covenant so get ready to learn something new. We are going to be studying the verses found in Genesis chapter 15. You may recall while reading in this chapter of Genesis that God comes to Abram and makes some very specific promises to him and to his seed and these verses are all very interesting. Let’s start by reviewing the general themes found in this chapter. Here is my list of the important themes found in this chapter.

Abram is very concerned because he has no heir.
God comes to Abram in a spiritual vision.
God makes Abram certain promises.
Land is a central theme in this chapter.
God makes a covenant with Abram.
The seed of Abram is a central topic to this entire chapter.
The majority of the statements spoken by God are prophetic.

In reading and studying Genesis 15 these were some of the central themes being related to me. God appears to be dealing with Abram personally, but also simultaneously speaking prophetically about many subjects. The central theme concerning an heir and the central theme of the seed are both critical to understanding the purpose and the plan of God being revealed in this chapter. I believe that we should quickly list the promises of God made to Abram in this chapter also to understand what is being promised as well as the prophecies being revealed.

Your heir will come from your own bowels (Gen 15:4).
Your seed shall be as the stars of the heaven (Gen 15:5).
Abram will inherit the land (Gen 15:7).
Thy seed will be a stranger in a land and they shall serve them and be afflicted in bondage 400 years (Gen 15:13).
God will judge this nation and the seed will come out with great substance (Gen 15:14).
Abram will live a long life and die in peace (Gen 15:15).
In the fourth generation they shall come here again (Gen 15:16).
God makes a covenant with Abram saying the land from the Nile to the Euphrates is given to you and to your seed (Gen 15:18).

These are the basic prophecies and the promises that were made concerning Abram and his seed from direct statements of God in the spiritual vision. I believe these are very important to note, because we will learn more about them as we go further into the lesson. I think we need to do some introductory concept analysis to exactly what a “seed of Abraham” is in order to understand who God is talking to and why. I have done a much more extensive Bible series on the concept of Understanding Bible Seeds so I will not repeat all of that information here, but I may touch on some of it again in this lesson. If you want to understand this subject more completely you can stop and read that series first and then come back to here and continue or you can wing it and try to catch up with what I am teaching just today about Abraham’s seed.

Before I continue let me make a point about something that God does in the book of Genesis as well as other places in the Bible that is potentially very confusing to many Christians. God will speak about natural things and spiritual things within the context of the same chapter, even calling them by the exact same name and description and not ever tell you which one He is talking about or if He has even changed the subject or has shifted the realm of domain of the subject from what we were just reading about in the previous verse. Wow, I’m not sure if you really understood what I just said. Maybe you will as we continue through the lesson. Also know that one verse may be from a participant like Abram’s viewpoint and the next verse may be given to us from God’s viewpoint of the situation. Scripture view point is a complex subject analysis, but one that you need to be aware of in order to understand how to rightly divide the Word of truth. For example, Abram could ask a purely natural question and God could give a spiritual answer and both should be viewed differently. There is also another level of complexity built into the story of Abraham based upon what we learned from Galatians 4. The story of Abraham was and still is an allegorical representation of the family of God. This means God tells a natural story about a natural man and these are parallel references to the spiritual realm. All of this makes the correct interpretation of Genesis 15 infinitely more complex.

There are many spiritual things mentioned in Genesis 15 as well as many parallel natural things. For example the concept of “seed” found in Genesis 15. “Seed” is mentioned directly 4 times in 4 different verses. Is every verse speaking about the same type of seed? Is every verse speaking of the same exact seed? Is this “seed” natural or is it spiritual or is it both simultaneously? Is the term “seed” used as a singular reference or is it used as plural reference meaning many or is it both again simultaneously? When I studied the subject of “seed” in the Bible I found where God called at the very least 10 different things by the exact same Hebrew word translated as “seed”. Which one of these ten is the type of “seed” being spoken of in this chapter? Or is every reference a different type of seed? The Bible is so much more complex than you think it is, so let me try to answer some of these questions. Let’s go to Genesis 15 and start reading in verse 18 first.

Gen 15:18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

I am going to start by talking about the covenant that God makes with Abraham first and then I’m going to talk about the seed of Abraham and then finally end back up at the covenant at the end of the lesson. According to my Bible studies that I have done, a covenant is a spiritual marriage in the eyes of God. If God makes a covenant, he is proposing spiritual marriage. If you do not understand this concept then you should go and read my lessons on “Understanding Bible Covenants” first. God says “Unto your seed I have given this land”. God is speaking to Abram directly and speaking about his seed. What or who is this seed that God is speaking of? God actually does not define that in this verse does He? People automatically assume it is only the natural children of Israel since they possess a small portion of that land today. We can read in Romans 11:1 and 2 Corinthians 11:22 that Paul calls himself a seed of Abraham and Paul is very clearly speaking of a natural seed as being a physical descendant of the man Abraham. You may recall that Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob and Jacob begat the 12 tribes of Israel. We can also see in Hebrews 11:9 that Isaac and Jacob are described to be heirs of the promise. So clearly we have some scriptures to lean towards an all-natural interpretation of Genesis 15. We also know that Paul was born on the earth from the descendants of the tribe of Benjamin. So there is clear precedence for a purely natural interpretation of the Seed of Abraham as being only a physical people. This is a popular position that many Christians stand on. But, is this all that the Bible says on the subject? I think we are about to find out some new perspectives on this subject.

When reading the Bible it is important not to mix apples and oranges just so that you can call them all fruit. This would be an example of trying to take the Word of God and make it all natural or to make it all spiritual by lumping both of these into a general basket category that you want to call the Truth and that would work if God wrote the Bible that way. However God makes us divide the word of truth into categories of either spiritual or natural sections in order to understand it clearly. What I am getting at is that there are many things that are spoken by God in this one chapter and if you think that God is only talking about one covenant, one people or even one man then you are in a position to be very confused. You are going to have to read the Bible with a more open mind and then learn to use the Bible to interpret the Bible. You are also going to have to discern the differences between natural things and spiritual things. Here in this verse in Genesis it appears that God is speaking only to a natural man named Abram and that He is making a covenant which includes some physical land on the earth. There is an explicit region described that goes from the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates river going through Turkey, Syria and Iraq and this land has been directed to the seed of Abram. I really do not have a problem with that general interpretation of this verse. It is usually best to always take the Bible literally first and then stick with the literal interpretation when you can. I said when you can, because there are some other places in the Bible that appear to expand our definition of what God was talking about in Genesis 15. For example, read this verse in Galatians 3:

Gal 3:29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Here we have a major new conflict brewing with the pure natural interpretation of Genesis 15. You see in Galatians 3:29 it appears that God is calling all Christians the “seed of Abraham”. God also calls us the “heirs” of the promise. Which promise, is God speaking of and what is it that we are supposed to inherit? This is obviously a very different new type of seed being spoken of than what we originally thought from reading Genesis 15:18. Galatians 3:29 must be referring to a “spiritual” type of seed and not a “physical” seed since I am not a naturally born Jew and neither is the majority of the modern church today. Since I’m not in possession of the natural land of Israel, this also means there is a potential spiritual inheritance that is different than the natural inheritance that was given to natural Israel by God in Genesis 15. All of this new information makes correct Bible interpretation infinitely more complex for us immediately. We are going to have to learn to rightly divide the Word of Truth if we are ever to correctly understand it. We are going to have to balance this new spiritual information with the old natural information that we previously thought to be the entire truth. It is important to note that this scripture implies a plural type of spiritual seed, meaning many spiritual individuals being called the seed of Abraham. Everyone that belongs to Christ is now called the spiritual seed of Abraham. This is the same pattern that existed when we read in Genesis 15:18 and there were many implied natural descendants of Abraham called his natural seed. What I begin to see developing is a natural pattern found in Genesis 15 that has occurred first to help point us to a spiritual pattern that has occurred after Christ was raised from the dead. I know I added the words “spiritual” and “natural” before the words “seed” in my interpretations but that is the only logical way to differentiate them in my view point. Let’s back up in this chapter of Galatians and see what else God says about the Seed of Abraham.

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

Here is another verse that complicates our efforts tremendously when interpreting any verse found in Genesis 15 with a reference to the seed subject. Here in Galatians, God is speaking directly about the promises that were made to Abraham and to his seed and this time God clearly comes out and says that the seed in Genesis 15 is a singular reference to Christ and that it is not a plural reference meaning many. Do you recognize how this presents more complex problems in interpreting the seed and the promises of God found in Genesis 15 correctly. At the very least it appears to imply that God has made simultaneous promises to the natural and the spiritual seed of Abraham. Here in Galatians 3:16, God says this promise was only made to the one seed of Abraham called Christ (Heb 2:16). So we have a continual increasing conflict developing. We just read in Hebrews 11:9 that Isaac and Jacob were called heirs of Abraham and God now directs us to Christ as being the only seed that was spoken of. We have now gone from many to one and this is a totally new perspective. I believe that we are seeing more parallels being revealed. Abram had only one natural son that God recognized to be his natural heir. This heir was Isaac and he represents a natural pattern of the spiritual Christ to come. Let’s read another verse found in the New Testament from God’s commentary about the seed of Abraham:

Rom 4:13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

These are vastly ignored verses in the Bible. They clearly say the promise was not made to those natural seeds that were under the law, but that the promise was to the spiritual seed that would inherit the world through the righteousness of faith. This is obviously a major problem for the exclusive natural seed interpretation of Genesis 15. Here in this verse it does not name the specific region of the Nile to the Euphrates any more, it rather states it in the general term called the “world”. The Greek word translated here as world means “an orderly arrangement”. It denotes a place with structure and organization. When God spoke to Abram in Genesis 15, the known world was centered between the Nile and the Euphrates. That was the world back then. I believe that this is what God is saying to us from these verses using patterns found in design and speech.

What I see developing is two realms of parallel existence. The natural realm occurred first and Abraham produced a nation of natural seeds. But, God then reveals that there is another type of seed that has also come from Abraham and this seed must be viewed spiritually from God’s point of view. These verses in Romans and Galatians clearly inform us of another parallel type of seed that is spoken of by God and too many Christians want to ignore them to focus only on the natural descendants of Abraham. There is an implied reference that the land between the Nile and the Euphrates was only a symbolic representation for the greater reference of the “world”. Notice in Romans and Galatians God is speaking of the fulfillment of prophecies and He mentions the promises, the heirs and the seeds in these verses and this proves conclusively that God is speaking directly about what we are studying in Genesis 15. Practically every major theme of Genesis 15 is explicitly satisfied in these verses. To ignore God’s definitions, God’s perspective and God’s words of explanation will cause you to wrongly interpret the Bible 100 times out of 100 attempts. I hope you are learning something today.

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.

I believe that one of the primary goals of the New Testament is to cause Christians to transition away from looking at the temporary things of this world to try to teach us to look at the eternal things of God within the greater spiritual realm of domain. Both in Galatians and Romans, God is attempting to shift our focus off of the natural things found in this world in an attempt to get us to see the supernatural spiritual things that He has accomplished in the unseen realm. My mentioning these verses will probably not make me a very popular Bible teacher to a select number of people who believe that natural Israel was given the land eternally. However, I am not going to ignore these important verses in the Bible that speak of Jesus and the church as the spiritual seed of Abraham in order to satisfy their personal private interpretation of Genesis 15. Too many people read the fifteenth chapter of Genesis in isolation and think that God is speaking only to the natural people that will forever possess the physical land in the Middle East named Israel. However, when we read the New Testament more closely we found some additional insight that is too important to ignore. The New Testament appears to say that the seed of Abraham is not the natural seed, but that it is rather the spiritual seed who will inherit the promise of God. Do not get me wrong, I’m not abandoning the natural nation of Israel. I fully support them to get saved and come into the reality of Jesus Christ. Let’s go through the rest of the verses in Genesis 15 that speak about the seed of Abraham to see how they might fit with what we have just learned from God in the New Testament.

Gen 15:2 And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?

Here in verse 2 it is very interesting to note that Abram is speaking to God and telling God what God already knows. It is not news to God it is only the sound of Abram complaining. But, one hidden word stands out to me in this verse. The word translated as “steward” is actually two Hebrew words and the translators omitted one of them. The Hebrew word left out is “H1121” and it means “a son” and “a builder of the family name”. Abraham is clearly saying to God I have no son; my only family builder is my servant. So Abram desires a son. This hidden son reference is not a coincidence. This is the exact same Hebrew Word that Jesus used when He said “I am the Son (H1121) of Adam (man)”.

Gen 15:3 And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.

Here in verse 3 of Genesis 15, the term “seed” appears to be a singular natural and physical reference and it is spoken by Abram from Abram’s perspective of his personal situation. Try to see how Abram is asking God a natural question and the answer that God gives back to him is precisely not the exact same question that was asked. As you can see Abram is focused entirely on the singular fact that his wife Sarai has given him no children. Abram desires to have an heir to inherit all that God has blessed him with. Abram is seeking God for the very basic human need of a sole physical heir. It is also interesting to note that Abram is blaming God for not having this heir. Abram has been married to his wife Sarai for a while now and they have had no children but not for a lack of trying to have children. Abram has only a servant in his house that is currently his sole heir if anything would happen to him. There is a possible voiced discouragement in his question to God. From this information so far we see a singular focus for a solitary son to be the natural physical heir. To me this relates indirectly to another spiritual heir named Christ we saw in Galatians 3:16. You see when Isaac was born to Abraham; God called Isaac his only son (Gen 22:2). Jesus the Son of God is also called God’s “Only begotten” in John 3:16. Are you seeing the parallel being established here with Abraham being a type of God the father? Isaac is definitely a type of Jesus the future spiritual Seed of Abraham and the promised heir. Let’s examine God’s response to Abraham’s natural problem. Abraham tells God you have given me no seed. This “seed” that Abraham is talking about is clearly a physical son. Can we agree so far?

Gen 15:4 And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.

As you can see God is telling Abram that this servant born in his house will not be his heir. God then tells Abram that his heir will come directly from his own internal bowels. From this statement we could automatically assume that God is indirectly speaking of a new second type of “seed” called sperm. You can see this type of seed mentioned in the Bible in verses like Leviticus 12:2, Leviticus 15:16 and Numbers 5:28. The sperm of a human male is definitely called by the same Hebrew word translated as “seed” in those verses. Since this type of seed originates internally and then is produced externally we could think that God is speaking of this seed in Genesis 15:4. If we do that the number of human male sperm cells (seeds) passed to the female can vary. The number of sperm cells can range from 20 million to 400 million individual cells. Yet this amount is a very countable number so keep that in mind. Abraham was asking God about one natural seed called a child and God seems to confirm that this child will come from his own body (bowels) and that he will be produced from one of the millions of seed cells that were in him. However that is a very human natural viewpoint of another actual spiritual situation and circumstance being spoken of in the New Testament. The word translated as “bowels” is more likely to mean the “womb” as in a female reference to a woman’s natural body part that produces children. Obviously Abram does not have one of these, or does he? You can look at this verse two different ways using the Bible. There are specific verses that say Sarah’s body is Abraham’s body and that they are now one flesh (Gen 2:24). So what his wife has Abram also technically possesses. Then there is another aspect that is also highly applicable to our subject of having children. These are called the spiritual children that will be birthed after the resurrection of Christ.

Gal 4:19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

Here is a very confusing verse for many people. A human male named Paul is writing about being in labor with soon to be born children and clearly he is not speaking literally or more specifically physically. Paul must be writing about a spiritual process that is taking place. I believe God is speaking spiritually in this verse in Genesis also while people are thinking naturally. Abraham is called the “father” of the church in Romans 4:16 and James 2:21. This cannot be speaking naturally and it can only be revealing a spiritual fatherhood that has transpired as a result of Abraham’s faith. Do you see how complicated these subjects found in Genesis can become? So far we have two different types of natural seeds being spoken of and one new third spiritual kind being implied in this chapter and it is about to get even more complex in the next verse. Genesis 15:3 was a natural question and verse 4 was a potential natural answer that I believe can simultaneously apply to the spiritual realm. These are God’s words of promise to Abram with definite spiritual applications. We also saw a seed transition occurring; moving from a singular reference to a potential plural reference. Now let’s see what God says next to Abraham.

Gen 15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

Here in verse 5 of Genesis 15 the subject of “seed” seems to shift dramatically beyond the concepts of anything natural or singular. Reread this verse very carefully and see if you can see how God has shifted the focus and the perspective has changed from a naturalistic human way of thinking to a purely spiritual divine point of view. Notice how these words seem to be coming from how God see’s things happening up in the spiritual realm. To me it appears that God is looking down from heaven at a new and different type of seed. Remember that the last verse spoken by God could be taken either naturally or spiritually, but here in this verse it is practically impossible to take it naturally at all. God is still speaking directly to Abram and this is still the same answer to his natural question about a singular natural heir (seed). However, God is now comparing the concept of Abraham’s “seed” to be like the number of the stars in the heavens. Do you have any idea how many stars there are in the heavens? Using modern telescopes we have determined that there are so many that we cannot even begin to count them all. Modern scientists have only been able to estimate the astronomical number of heavenly bodies. This number is way over the trillions of stars level. Therefore here in Genesis 15:5 God has escalated from one seed or even millions of seeds all the way to a range of uncountable seeds. So obviously what God is saying to Abram is something way beyond what a natural human mind could conceive. The current earth population is around 7 billion and this is still a very countable number. Even if every human on the earth got saved today, we would not come close to the number of stars in the heavens. Are you following me so far? I know you can look at this verse other ways and reason that God was only speaking of people seeing stars with the naked human eye in order to determine the number of seeds to come. However, since the knowledge of this is going forth in a day when we can see way beyond the naked eye constraints, I believe that God is answering Abram from a prophetical spiritual way of thinking and seeing? Let’s estimate the count of the stars visible by the naked eye on a clear night to be somewhere in the range of the low thousands maybe even tens of thousands. Is that all of the seed that Abraham will produce? Even if you count to a million, there are 7 billion people on the planet. There are currently over 4 million natural descendants of Abraham living in Israel today. Neither of these numbers is in the thousands. There is no logical way that God is talking about a number that low to be all of the seeds of Abraham. After all God knows how many stars that He created. I personally believe based upon what we learned in Romans and Galatians God was thinking eternally all along while simultaneously speaking of both natural and spiritual things. Let’s skip down quickly to verses 13 and 18 to see the last two times the “seed” of Abraham is directly mentioned in this chapter. One of these verses we already looked at, but it won’t hurt us to see it again:

Gen 15:13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

Gen 15:18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

Here in these two verses we have what appears to be the usage or a reference to the fourth type of the Hebrew word translated as “seed” of Abraham found in Genesis 15. This time God has seemed to shift back to the plural natural perspective of the nation of Israel being the natural seed that are to be captive slaves in Egypt for a period of 400 years and that was not what Abram was asking about in verse 3 or even what God was talking about in verses 4 or 5. This “seed” in verses 13 and 18 appear to be plural and it is definitely natural on the surface. Yet we are still talking about the same subject of a singular seed heir of Abraham. This makes it very complex to interpret all of these scriptures correctly. When the children of Israel were freed from Egyptian bondage scholars estimate their numbers to be around 1 to 2 million people. This would involve all the men, women and children that came out of Egypt. This reference is somewhere beyond the number one, but way below the number of the stars in the heavens. So this is why I stated that this appears to be a fourth type of seed referenced in this chapter. We have seen multiple seed references and multiple numbers associated with each reference. Going back to Galatians 3:29, God said “If you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s seed”. Based upon what we just read in Genesis 15 of the 4 different types of possible seeds mentioned, which seed type is Romans 4:13, Galatians 3:16 and 3:29 talking about?

Seed of Abraham = the son Isaac a solitary seed/heir (Genesis 15:3)
Seed of Abraham = the sperm in his bowels in the range of millions of cells (Genesis 15:4)
Seed of Abraham = something as the stars of the heavens an uncountable number (Genesis 15:5)
Seed of Abraham = the natural nation of Israel in bondage 400 years 1 to 2 million people (Genesis 15:13, 15:18)

Since the majority of the church does not qualify to be seed type 1, 2, or 4, we must be found somewhere in the seed type 3 by default or we are another parallel seed type that is not directly mentioned. We also saw that Jesus was called the singular seed of Abraham. Which one of these seed types fit that pattern? I believe Jesus was a pattern of the seed type 1, Isaac. That was an introductory analysis of the very complex subject of the “seed of Abraham”. I just showed you 3 or 4 different things that are called the seed of Abraham concurrently. Yet God said none of these are the heirs in Galatians or Romans. How difficult is this? A physical heir was what Abram sought from God and Galatians 3:16, 3:29 and Romans 4:13, tells that Jesus Christ and the church are these revealed heirs of Abraham. Yet we (the church) were not held captive 400 years in Egypt. However, you may be able to see that according to Bible typology, the human race was held in symbolic bondage to Satan for 4000 years until Jesus Christ came and died and provided us freedom from the bondage of sin. There are many distinct parallels given to us in the Bible about the natural nation of Israel being a pattern of the church for us to learn from. I will not expand that part of the subject any further today, but I thought I would throw you a couple of new clues to think about.

An heir is one of the major themes of the entire story of Abraham found in Genesis 15? A physical heir was what Abraham desired and it was a spiritual heir that God desired. When God was telling Abraham what He would do in this chapter, you need to understand what Jesus said about this chapter in the Gospels. Moses wrote the book of Genesis and in John 5:46 that Moses wrote about Him. This was a very key statement to understanding anything in the Book of Genesis. It is ulitmately about Jesus. The truth of the Bible is rarely found on the surface text, it will only be clearly understood when we dig deep beneath the surface and find out what else God says about the subjects being discussed. I am now ready to talk about the Abrahamic Covenant and its hidden meanings. So far in this lesson I skipped over the primary verses that I wanted to talk about in an attempt to explain how things in Genesis 15 were given more from God’s spiritual point of view rather than they are from Abraham’s natural point of view. What I am going to say now will further confirm that if you can see it. We can fairly easily understand that God is doing something much greater than just making a covenant with Abraham in this chapter if we perceive the underlying messages being revealed to us. Let’s go to verse 7 in Genesis 15 and begin to read there next.

Gen 15:7 And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.

Gen 15:8 And he said, Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?

Here we have another direct promise given to Abraham to inherit the land. Notice in Genesis 15:7 God says to Abraham I brought you out of your former land to give you this land to inherit it. I can see spiritual implications on that statement. We as Christians have been brought out of our previous natural land to become the spiritual heirs within a new heavenly spiritual domain. I think we need to look up the definition of the word translated as “inherit” in this verse to learn what it means. I think we need to analyze this statement. Did Abram ever possess the Promised Land? Uh oh? Abraham certainly sojourned in this land but there is no way that you could say that Abraham inherited it! I think you will be surprised to find that “to inherit” does not mean what you automatically assumed that it meant.

H3423

A primitive root; to occupy (be driving out previous tenants, and possessing in their place); by implication to seize, to rob, to inherit; also to expel, to impoverish, to ruin: – cast out, consume, destroy, disinherit, dispossess, drive (-ing) out, enjoy, expel, X without fail, (give to, leave for) inherit (-ance, -or), + magistrate, be (make) poor, come to poverty, (give to, make to) possess, get (have) in (take) possession, seize upon, succeed, X utterly.

This Hebrew word represents a wide range of possible meanings and uses. It would appear to me that many of the meanings are an aggressive action of force against an enemy. It also appears that there is a double edged sword of blessings and cursing attached to the very definition. The occupying people would be blessed and the occupied people would be cursed. To occupy is a conquering term where one nation overtakes another nation. It denotes the seizing control of, the casting out of the previous occupants, or to make the previous owners poor, consume them, destroy them, ruin them, to take possession and to seize control away from someone or something. This is not what we normally think of when we say I inherited a house from my uncle. Using this definition that would mean you kicked your uncle out of his house by force and you took it over to live in it for yourself. Did Abraham ever do this? I do not see how Abraham ever fulfilled this prophecy until after his natural descendants did it hundreds of years later when Joshua led his children into the Promised Land again to possess it. Did you know that this story of Joshua and Israel taking the Promised Land was a type of Jesus and the church today? Do you know what Jesus’ Hebrew name was? The Greek word transliterated as “Jesus” is the exact same Hebrew name transliterated as “Joshua” who led his people into the land to possess it. Do you think this is a coincidence? I can see the parallels being given to us again, can you?

Wow, I could spend a lot of time talking about that but, perhaps I better not today. Just take note that God is speaking here about a pending battle that will take place in the future. God is denoting future responsibility and action that is required by Abram and his seed to inherit the Promised Land. Then look at verse 8, where Abram says “Lord how will I know that I will possess (inherit) it”. What is God’s answer to this question? I am about to blow you away with God’s proof text answer. This is the surprise that I have been building to today in this lesson. Here is God’s reply to Abram’s question.

Gen 15:9 And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.

Gen 15:10 And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.

I can read these two verses now and see how that Abraham is given the task of dividing the Spiritual Family of God very plainly. Can you see it? You are going to have to learn to look beyond your natural thinking and begin to look for the spiritual pattern characteristics from what you have learned before. In these two verses there is no mention of a family, a father, a mother or a mother-in-law, a son, a daughter-in-law or even a daughter, yet they are all right there in front of you in plain sight. I call this the display of God’s intelligence and His ability to hide the truth in plain sight. It is like I taught you earlier, when you are sewing together dresses from a single pattern, one dress can be made to look totally different than another dress by the simplest choice of options or the material fabrics selected. One dress might be made from black silk with white pin stripes and the other dress could be made from a linen or cotton red polka dot pattern. They can appear totally different on the surface. However, the expert will always be able to recognize the reuse of the same pattern in both. The designer can make specific selections to change the entire look and feel of a dress and still be using the exact same pattern.

In object oriented computer programming this is a cool feature called “inheritance” that exists that is related to our subject today. One computer object inherits the characteristics and patterns of another object and the new object can make little additions or modifications to individualize the new component. However the original pattern is still available and is clearly recognizable to the expert. Did you notice this computer technique was called “inheritance”? Did you notice that inheritance was one of the primary subjects within the Abrahamic Covenant? You should really learn more about computers if you want to learn more about God’s word. Sometimes the parallels are amazing. I am teaching you God’s object oriented technique of inheritance today found in His word using patterns. God reuses natural patterns to convey hidden spiritual lessons. When you learn these things it changes how you study the Bible.

Did you notice how many animals that God has instructed Abram to use in this covenant? It just so happens that there is exactly 5 animals used in this covenant. Uh oh? Since we are not directly told that there are five you are going to have to count them for yourself and this is just a small effort on your part to help you to recognize the same familiar pattern found in Micah 7:6. How many family members did Jesus tell us were in the family in Luke 12:52? Was it not exactly five? Do you think that the use of 5 animals is just another strange coincidence? I certainly do not believe that. Now let me show you what else is revealed here in the Abrahamic covenant. Did you notice that 3 of the animals are divided? Do you think the number three is another coincidence? Did you also notice that these 3 animals are given specific ages as well as their specific sexual genders? One is specifically masculine and the other two are specifically feminine. A “Ram” is always a mature male sheep. A “Heifer” is a mature female cow. The “She Goat” is also a mature female goat. These are three very specific types of unique animals with great detail given to each of them. It clearly tells me that a ram is not a cow and a goat is not a ram and a cow is not a goat. We have three very different creatures even though they are all within the global animal kingdom. But, that makes three animals with specific genders being divided. Is that an accident? There is absolutely no way that this occurs by accident. What we are seeing is the Father, the Mother and the Mother-in-law in the family of God being divided and we will get to this in more depth very soon; one male and two females.

The specific genders of the two birds are not revealed within the text, but we now know from our understanding of Micah 7:6 that one bird is a male and the other bird has to be a female. But, since they are not divided we learn some very new information about how the family of God is being divided. It is essential that you notice that 3 of the animals are divided and 2 of the animals are not divided? Does any of this sound familiar to you? Isn’t this very similar to the patterned words of Jesus again from Luke 12:52 when He said the house would be divided 3 against 2 and 2 against 3? Is this not another reoccurrence of the pattern of the house of 5 divided 3 against 2 with a slight new variation? In every pattern given, God is revealing new details of the family division. I’m telling you God is so smart that He can write something in the Bible for thousands of years and no one understands it until He reveals it to us and then it is so obvious that I wonder, why I didn’t see it before? Let me give you a new picture diagram of the Abrahamic Covenant and show you how it fits the pattern of God’s family of 5:

This is the third time in Genesis that God has used something in direct association with Abraham to display a repetitive pattern of the 5 in one family divided 3 against 2. The first time I showed you this pattern, Abraham was a type of the son. The next time I showed you this pattern, Abraham was a type of the father. Now we have the covenant that God is making with Abraham with another new variation of 5 being divided 3 by 2. Keep in mind that this is God’s answer to prove that Abraham will inherit the world/land. God is saying to Abraham this is all of the proof that you need, but it was certainly spiritually encrypted or encoded evidence that was not understood by Abraham or anyone else since Abraham until now. I can clearly see the spiritual implications being revealed to us and I hope that you can also.

I need to address a subject here for the sake of argument. You might can look at my diagram of the family of 5 and can see how Satan has taken it to possess it for a symbol of himself. You see, I believe that Satan figured this truth out a long time ago and this is why there are so many satanic symbols today that are viewed as an upside down five pointed star with the head of a dead ram on it. Do you think this is also a coincidence? I believe there is absolutely no way that this is a coincidence. I believe Satan purposely selected this symbol to discredit the truth and to present himself as God. I do not believe that Satan is stupid. Satan is very intelligent and very tricky. However, I believe that God is smarter and He is definitely going to win this battle. What battle? You will have to read Revelation 12 to see the coming battle in heaven. Satan will take on God in heaven with all of his might and he will be thrown down to the earth. Let’s get back to the Abrahamic covenant.

The animals selected by God are not specifically revealing on the surface except for the Ram. The ram is a symbolic representation for God the Father and He is always the father of the Lamb. A lamb is of course a type of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. When Abraham took Isaac to be sacrificed, Isaac asked his father “where is the animal to be sacrificed”. Abraham’s answer was “God will provide himself as the sacrifice” (Gen 22:8). Now we see that a ram and not a lamb is caught by his horns nearby where Abraham was and Abraham goes and gets this animal and he becomes the sacrifice instead of Isaac. Therefore God as a Ram in my diagram is a very easy association for me to make. I personally believe that God chose these five animals to teach us some new truths while also using them to hide the pattern in more depth of surface complexity. I do not ever recall Jesus being called a bird, but a dove did descend from heaven upon him when He was baptized by John. So I can see an association of Jesus to a bird using this reference alone. I personally believe that God did not tell Abraham to use a lamb because this would have given it away and made it way too obvious for everyone to focus on the Lamb of God.

I do not believe at this level of the discussion that the identities of the female animals, the heifer or the she goat are important for today’s lesson. I could have flipped them and the result would still be the same for what I want to say about them. The same is technically true of the given two birds; one is described to be a turtledove and the other a young pigeon. However there is an interesting part of the Hebrew definition of the “young pigeon” that I will mention briefly. This Hebrew word means “nestling” and it is referring to a very young bird without feathers. In other words a newly hatched baby bird that just came into the world! I do not see how this type of bird fits with a type of the Son of God, but the newborn/reborn church I can make that fit very logically. What I want to teach you about briefly is what God uses in the Old Testament as a type of Jesus and the church. This may be too much information in this lesson, but I’m going to try to show it to you anyway so that you can see the usage by God of these two birds as a type for Jesus and the church more clearly. We are going to the book of Leviticus and we will read in the fourteenth chapter:

Lev 14:2 This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest:

Lev 14:3 And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper;

Lev 14:4 Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop:

Lev 14:5 And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water:

Lev 14:6 As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water:

Lev 14:7 And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field.

I read these verses and come near to tears when I thought of them. If you do not see what they are saying then perhaps you should get saved. God uses the law of the leper cleansing to reflect the redemptive works of Jesus Christ on the cross. Practically everything mentioned in these verses are symbolic representations of something much greater in power and spiritual authority. Two birds are used and that is not a coincidence, especially knowing who the two birds are in the Abrahamic Covenant? One bird sheds his blood in order to free the other bird after the living bird is dipped into the blood and the water of the dead bird. There is a direct mention of an earthen vessel, cedar wood, scarlet thread and hyssop and each of these are very significant to the story of Jesus. Jesus came to the earth in an earthen vessel to shed His blood for us. Jesus was hung on a cross of wood. The Roman soldiers gave Jesus a drink of vinegar and hyssop on the cross. When Jesus’ side was pierced by the soldier’s spear, water and blood poured out onto the ground. The scarlet thread represented the blood line of the savior from Abraham to David to Jesus.

I personally believe that leprosy is a hidden type of sin in the Bible. Leprosy is a physical state of uncleanness that reveals to us a greater truth about a spiritual state of uncleanness. Did you notice what the priest was instructed to do with the two birds? One bird is killed and his blood is collected in a pot with running water. The living bird is dipped into the pot and then is set free to fly away after being symbolically cleansed. I of course can see Jesus as being the type of the bird that has shed His blood to cleanse the church that is represented by the living bird. In other words we in the church, do not have to shed our blood to be made clean from our sins. It was only Jesus’ blood that causes our spiritual cleansing from our sins (1 Jo 1:9). Two birds are definitely a hidden pattern for Christ and the church so these 5 animals are beginning to fall into place very nicely.

The ages of the three animals that are divided are specifically given and they are said to each be 3 years old. That of course makes life more difficult for me to try to explain. God the Father is an eternal ageless spiritual being and has no age. The Heavenly Jerusalem was the elder woman first created in covenant with God as the type of Sarah. So the Heavenly Jerusalem has a birth or a start creation date, even though I do not know when this occurred. The Earthly Jerusalem was a much younger woman and she was a type of Hagar. We do technically know when this approximately occurred from reading in the Bible and calculating the dates. The covenant of Abraham was made approximately 2000 years after Adam and 2000 years before Christ. So we generally know the age of one woman in human terms she is technically near 4000 years old earth time. However here in this verse God calls them all three years old. I personally believe this is symbolic and certainly not literal ages. It also emphasizes the number 3 to us to help us to see that this is an important number to recognize in this verse. I do however believe that this number teaches us that all three animals were called mature and not newborns. A three year old cow, ram or goat is old enough to have children and that is in stark contrast to the young pigeon that is not yet old enough or mature enough to have children. I believe personally that the number 3 signifies a triune characteristic of each. God was God the Father, God the Word and God the Holy Spirit at this time in the covenant. The nation of Israel was mankind made in the image and likeness of God and they were spirit, soul and body. Ok, here is where I get to speculate a bit. I believe the angels in heaven were also triune beings made in the image of God. The number 3 given to each animal could be representative of other things as well, but I do not have time to explore them today.

So why are there three animals split down the middle in this covenant while two were not divided at all? The birds could have very easily been divided with great ease compared to a much larger cow, ram or goat. I told you that this lesson today was going to get very controversial so here I go again. I’m going to start with the easier one first. If the woman Heavenly Jerusalem consists of every angelic being including Satan and his angels, I can logically see how this female in Heaven can be divided to eliminate all of the evil while preserving all of the good angles. Therefore I have concluded that to divide the she goat is God removing sin and evil while keeping the good. Now we get to the younger woman called the Earthly Jerusalem and things get a little more complicated because of the vast numbers of religious beliefs that are not based upon a complete spiritual view of the Bible. I believe the same division of good vs. evil is occurring in this woman also. You see the controversy come in when you find scriptures in the Bible that people take to say that God will come to the rescue of the entire natural nation of Israel to save them all. I know that this is not what the Bible actually teaches us. The Earthly Jerusalem is only the natural people of the descendants of Jacob that are under the law. She was a type of Hagar and I showed you in the last lesson that Hagar was cast out of the family of God by allegorical interpretation. Therefore none of natural Israel will be saved ever. But, that does not mean they cannot become spiritually born again in order to be saved. It does make the salvation of natural Israel conditional. According to what God says in the book of Romans we have to balance every scripture about Israel giving each equal priority. Here is God quoting from Isaiah:

Rom 9:27 Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved

A remnant is not many based upon the sands of the sea concept that it is being compared to. We must realize at this time that God is saying the natural house of Israel on the earth will be divided and a remnant will be saved and others will just miss out. We of course know very clearly how they can be saved. God says everyone that believes God raised Jesus from the dead and confesses Jesus as Lord they will be saved (Rom 10:9). Those that do not believe or do not confess Jesus as Lord will be damned. This is still not good news for a lot of people. That really saddens me tremendously but this is the way that God has established salvation to work. I guess I should change the subject off of natural Israel and get back to the rest of the family of God again before I make some new enemies.

We are getting progressively more complex as we continue up to the top of the spiritual food chain. The Ram being divided is clearly a type of God. This is going to make life and your understanding of the Bible infinitely more complex to try to comprehend. How can you divide God? Are you beginning to see my problem? I guess I should say God’s problem, and not mine. In every other family member I believe there was a division of the good from the evil and how do you make that fit with our understanding of a good God? Technically you cannot divide God. We know that the triune God is described to be “One” (Eph 4:6)! Yet even in mathematics you can divide the number one and get fractions. According to the Abrahamic Covenant God says He is divided here by association to a ram. I think I mentioned this in other lessons, but it needs to be readdressed for this discussion. If God the Father does not die on the cross and experience death for all mankind, we (the whole earth) are in serious trouble. This would mean God the Father is still in covenant with all of the angels. This means God is still in covenant with natural Israel. This would also mean God’s son does not have anything to inherit. You need to understand that God is not evil. However, the Bible informs us that God was in covenant with evil and this represents a major problem for God. The only legal way to end the covenant with evil is through experiencing death to separate Himself from His old wives. The N.T. talks a lot about us being the heirs of an inheritance. An inheritance only occurs after someone dies to leave their possessions to another. When Jesus was raised from the dead He makes this statement that is almost universally ignored:

Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Why does God the Father have to transfer ALL power in both heaven and the earth to His risen Son Jesus? I think that is an excellent question. I also think since no one could answer it they ignored it. It is very clear to me from this statement that God has transferred all spiritual authority to the Son Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead. Why didn’t God do this before He died on the cross? The term “power” in this verse means “authority”. We know that God by definition is almighty and all powerful so it is impossible to transfer His power, but to transfer His authority to another member of the Godhead is a different concept entirely. Authority is the rule or the government of a nation. This transfer of authority tells us that whoever was running the Kingdom of Heaven is not the same one who now is running the Kingdom of Heaven in the eyes of God. I told you this was deep and controversial. But yet it is written in the Bible so do not ignore it. I could give you many other Bible verses that reveal the death of God but I really do not have the time today. I think I will end this Bible lesson here and perhaps continue it on another day in the future. If you have understood anything that I have taught tell me. If you have doubts and questions tell me. I do not know what needs more explanation and what does not until someone raises the issue. I know this was a long Bible lesson and I really could not cover everything that I wanted. I tried to shift your focus from natural things to spiritual things and this will help you if you can do it. I thought this was going to my last lesson, but I will probably need to do another to show you the other patterns found in the life of Abraham and his son Isaac. So until next time, may God continue to bless you and keep you in your study of His Word.

Posted in Bible Study, God's Spiritual Family, Understanding

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

Understanding the Hidden Spiritual Family Structure of God’s Household! The Hidden Bible Patterns of the Household of Five Divided 3 Against 2! Part 8

Jul 4

Posted by agapegeek

(Ver 1.0) This is now Part 8 in a series of extremely advanced Bible studies about a new subject that I call “The Hidden Spiritual Structure of the Family of God”. These lessons are designed for mature Christians who want to learn the truth about God’s Spiritual Family. Today’s subject will be focused on the repetitive Bible patterns of the 5 family members who are divided 3 against 2. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would highly recommend that you go back to “Part 1” and start there. I will warn you at the start that the next two lessons in this series are potentially the most controversial lessons that I have ever done on my website. It will cause many Christians to rethink what they have believed about God, the Bible, the nation of Israel and the subject of families. I can guarantee you that you have never heard this taught anywhere. But, just because it is something brand new, does not mean it is not from God. You need to learn how God operates and how God unfolds the Bible to His people in stages. You should then learn to use your Bible to figure out if what I am teaching to you today is something that is actually true or something that I just made up to try to deceive you. Don’t make me or anyone else do all of your Bible study for you and never take the words of any man blindly and accept them as the truth. Decide right now if you want to learn the truth and then get your Bible out in order to prove all things. You are required by God to study to show yourself approved unto God a workman that has learned to rightly divide the Word of Truth who cannot be put to shame (2 Tim 2:15). I learned that if I can’t see what someone is teaching from the Bible in the Bible for myself, then I just ignore what they said. You should do the same with what I say today.

By now you should be intimately very familiar with the prophecy of the family of 5 found in Micah 7:6. I gave you a new picture at the beginning of this lesson of the family of 5 with several new scripture references in it. Some of these verses I have discussed before and others are brand new. I would suggest that you go and read all of the scriptures that I have given to you and then go back and reread the original prophecy in Micah 7:6. It was this specific prophecy from God that got me started studying this subject. I quickly learned that the prophecy was repeated in Matthew 10:34-36 and Luke 12:51-53 with only some slight variations and additional new details (clues). Both times in Matthew and Luke, Jesus is speaking and He says “I am come…” and then tells us about the Micah 7:6 prophecy as the reason for Him coming. This told me that the prophecy was related to God and His family and not just some anonymous random unnamed household that God was using to make a point. Jesus was in effect saying I have come to the earth to divide God’s family of 5 by putting 3 of them against the other 2. That statement will be very perplexing and almost sacrilegious to some. Many will read this lesson series and probably scratch their heads in either confusion or amazement depending upon their spiritual growth.

Since this prophecy is recorded in the Bible these three times, I quickly understood that God placed special significance upon it. After all, God will never speak anything three times in the Bible using three different writers for it not to be something that He wants you to fully understand. If God ever says the same thing three different times in the Bible it is always very important to Him. He places extraordinary value upon His every spoken individual word so when He repeats Himself, you better learn to pay attention to it. In addition to all of that, Jesus specifically when quoting this prophecy said this is why I have come to the earth in the flesh. So Jesus also places such unlimited importance on such an obscure prophecy that it immediately drew my full attention to it. The problem that I instantaneously recognized with the prophecy was that all of these verses were spoken and written in the form of a riddle that actually concealed their meanings. You could not read the riddle prophecy and be confident about what it meant, who it was speaking of or even to whom it was written. Like I showed you before you could not even understand how many were in the family until Jesus revealed there were only 5 in Luke. When Jesus made these statements there was no church; so technically Jesus was not speaking to the church. I personally believe that Jesus was speaking both to the natural nation of Israel and the angels in heaven where He came from. These were the only two women that were present in the family of God to divide when He spoke these words. However Jesus was the Son of God and that makes the fourth member of the family. All we need now is the bride of Christ to come into the picture to make the fifth family member. But, since the prophecy is now being revealed to the church, I believe that it is clearly written for the benefit of the Bride.

So I studied this subject for well over ten years. During this time God revealed more and more to me and I began to see the significance of this knowledge like never before. There were times that I would be listening to the Bible on CD and the Holy Spirit would stop me when a certain verse came on and ask me “Did you hear that?” When God speaks to you even in a still small voice, it is always very important to stop what you are doing and for you to give your full attention to what is being said. So I would back the CD up and listen to the verse again and there it was a hidden pattern of the family of 5 divided 3 against 2. Then God would show me additional details while listening to Christian ministers on TV. They would not be teaching on this subject, but they would be reading from a verse of scripture that was another hidden reference to the family of 5 and again the Holy Spirit would prompt me inside of my spirit to pay attention to what was being read. I soon learned who the mother was in the family, then who the mother-in-law in the family was and finally God taught me about the daughter and the daughter-in-law in some other verses. God progressively connected all of the dots for me to understand His spiritual family and it changed my perspective dramatically forever. God would disclose the meanings of the riddle by His Spirit that was in me. Therefore what I’m teaching you today did not come from any man or any school on the earth. I can clearly say that if it were not for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I would not know anything to teach on this subject. So I soon realized that these were not my words, only those that were freely given to me to freely share with others. I do hope you can see that also.

Joh 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

One of the greatest benefits of being a real Christian is the ability to participate in a concept and a process that the unsaved world remains clueless of. We as Christians have an infinite amount of knowledge and wisdom inside of us because the Holy Spirit indwells us. However, just because God knows everything and He is inside of us, does not mean that we automatically know everything. Did you notice in my last paragraph that the Holy Spirit would always point me to scriptures? God never spoke to me anything that was not already written in His word. That is why the Holy Spirit is called the guide to all truth. That is why the Bible is called God’s Truth. When is it necessary to have a guide? What is a guide? A guide is always someone who knows more than you do. You only need a guide if you are going into dangerous territories that you have never been to before. I just called the Bible dangerous territory and that will make people think! But, all you have to do is read things on the internet and find out why I say that. You can literally make the Bible say whatever you want it to say and that is very dangerous territory. A guide is always someone who you will follow. That means you never tell the Guide what to do or where to go, they will lead you and you will be required to follow them. You are the follower and the Spirit of God is the Guide Leader. The Spirit of Truth is of course just one of the names given to the indwelling Holy Spirit in John 16:13 and He is definitely my Guide. Here is a basic truth that this verse in John teaches us. We know from this statement and many others that God’s word is written in riddles using hidden word construction techniques that make it impossible for a natural man to comprehend. The Word of God is the most highly complex spiritual book of hidden information that you will ever attempt to study. This is why we need the Holy Spirit to teach us what it means. He will show us where to look for the truth in the Bible, He will teach us what this truth is, He will reveal the meaning of the hidden truth, and then He will show us how these new truths fit with all of the other truths that we already know. We are constantly moving from truth to increasing truth, always moving higher and higher in the knowledge of God, gaining new insight and revelation into these hidden mysteries of God. I am personally very excited to be involved in the ministry at this time in history. We are coming to the culmination of the completed work of God. The end of the six days of God’s labor will be fulfilled shortly and God’s day of rest is close at hand. The Savior will come and take us away from here very, very soon and then we will return with Him after 7 years to reign on the earth for another 1000 years. I hope you are ready and looking for His soon return. Let’s begin to examine the information found in the hidden patterns of God’s family in Genesis.

One of the first patterns that I taught you about of the 5 in one house divided was when I showed you the hidden pattern within the family of Abraham. It is interesting to see and learn how God writes the Bible. You see you can find verses that seem to indicate that Abraham was the firstborn of triplets. However, the other children of Terah are omitted in Genesis 20:12 in order to make what was written a pattern of what God wanted to conceal in the Bible. In other words God selectively chose His words with such precision that He included only the exact words in the Bible that He needed to convey the hidden message. In this verse in Genesis 20:12 we are specifically told that Abraham and Sarah were brother and sister. To selectively use information is a very interesting concept. If God says something but omits many of the insignificant details, is that a lie? I have had people try to tell me that this is a sin of omission. Not to tell the entire truth according to them changes what you say to a lie. I do not believe that at all. The Bible says it is impossible for God to lie. So if God omits certain facts to make a verse say something, to me that exhibits extreme intelligence and not deception. God purposely omitted many specific details of human history in order to include only pertinent facts that had hidden message that He needed us to learn about. Wow, I hope you are grasping what I just said.

In Genesis 20:12, we are told that Terah was the father of both children and they each had different mothers. Using this single verse we now have an exact matching pattern of the family of 5 given to us reading the selective words written by God. Each family member referred in Genesis 20:12; has the exact relationship titles given to us in the Micah 7:6 prophecy. Since there are only 5 family members mentioned in this verse we can quickly make the connection to the family of God as being a viable natural pattern of the hidden spiritual Family of God. God informs us in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that the thing that has been is the thing that shall be again. God is basically teaching you about the concept of repetitive patterns. The things that you have seen are the exact things that you shall see. God says there is nothing new under the sun. It is also interesting to note that the first time the term “daughter-in-law” is used in the Bible; is when it is used to describe Sarah. That is clearly not a coincidence. That is called the Law of First Mention and God is relating pertinent information of the Micah 7:6 prophecy to the family of Abraham. As you continue through the next two lessons you will begin to see how important Abraham is to the subject of the family of God. God is connecting Sarah to be a type of the future church in this specific allegorical information. God is connecting Abraham to be a type of the future Savior Jesus Christ. When God speaks to Abram in Genesis 12:1, He tells Abram to leave his father’s house. This commandment from God causes a family division to occur. We now can see the split of the two married children from their 3 parents taking place. These are all just more hidden patterns of God’s family and they speak volumes to me.

Hopefully you now understand the names and the identities of every family member in the Spiritual House of God. There is God the Father the Spiritual Head of the Family and God the Son, the two males in the family. They are also the husbands married in covenant to three different women all named Jerusalem. God the Father was married to the Heavenly Jerusalem first and then later He married the natural nation of Israel on the earth (Jer 31:32). This city I called the “Earthly Jerusalem” was a much younger natural pattern of the existing heavenly spiritual woman Jerusalem. Then God sent His son Jesus Christ onto the earth to be the Savior of the world. Jesus was killed by the natural nation of Israel and the Roman Empire on a cross. The good news is that this was the plan of God all along and God raised Him from the dead. You see the death of Jesus on the cross was not the end; it was simply the beginning of something brand new. Jesus Christ the risen Son of God is now joined to His new bride named the New Jerusalem in a new covenant of marriage. Jesus Christ the risen Son of God was never before married to anyone else and since He was God and man simultaneously, He was uniquely qualified to solve problems in both the natural and the spiritual domains simultaneously. Jesus has created one new family for God and this is very important for you to know.

The term new implies a Jerusalem that never existed before. However, the bride of Christ technically consists of spiritual beings and people from the two previous marriage covenants along with all of the people on the earth that were never entered into a covenant marriage with God, but who have also accepted Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior. Therefore, the New Jerusalem will consist of spiritual individuals from three separate sets or groups that are now joined to form the one new body of the bride. Therefore, follow what I am saying, the New Jerusalem will consist of all of the gentiles who were saved from every nation on the earth, all of the natural Jews of natural Israel (the Earthly Jerusalem) that have now accepted Jesus as their Messiah and finally the good spiritual angels of God from the Heavenly Jerusalem that have never sinned. These are the three realms of domain that have been divided to be joined for a new oneness with Jesus Christ.

Rom 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

It is important to notice that the Gentiles of the earth were never previously in a covenant marriage with God Almighty the Father at any time. You can learn this by the specific context of this verse in Romans 7. These specific verses are only written to natural Israel (those that know/knew the law). You see the natural Jews were previously in a marriage covenant with God the Father. But, we have also learned from reading here in Romans 7:4 that through the death of Jesus on the cross, the natural Jews were now freed from their previous covenant in order to become married to another, Jesus the risen Lord. This was an important point given to us by God in the seventh chapter of Romans because God clearly tells us to be in covenant marriage with more than one husband simultaneously is an act of adultery. One of the major points being made in the beginning of this chapter is the fact that if the husband dies the wife is now freed from the law of her previous husband in order to marry another and then God tells natural Israel in verse 4 He has given this freedom to natural Israel because Jesus died on the cross. This information means God the risen Son is not the same God that was in covenant with natural Israel. I’m sure that is going to go over really big with people, but that is what is being taught by God in these verses. This is not that complicated, but yet it is so very different than anything you have probably ever heard taught before that it makes it controversial.

There are many very tough and complex subjects found in the Bible and this one probably qualifies to be the most complex that I have ever attempted to study in the Bible up until this point in time. Recently I had a commenter say to me that they believed that God intended marriage to be between only one man and one woman and that this was His perfectly designed plan for all of humanity. I have to say that I totally agreed with that comment and their analysis of the Bible. The difficulty now comes since I have tried to teach you that the Bible says God the Father had two wives simultaneously and that information seems to conflict with our current idea of the perfect designed plan of God for man. Just because God designed something to work one way is not an indication that God does not permit alternative lifestyles. I think you can clearly see that by looking around us every day. The ignorant state of New York recently passed the Gay marriage law that legalizes same sex marriage and that is clearly not what God designed or intended. However, I personally believe that God permits many things to occur that were never His original plan. Also, I will say that just because God was married in covenant with two wives at the same time does not mean that this is how it will be forever. I can clearly see that God in the beginning had only one spiritual wife named Heavenly Jerusalem and then reading in the last chapters of Revelation I again see that God at the end will only have one spiritual wife named New Jerusalem. However, it is the interim period of transition where we struggle to wrap our minds around what God has done and why. Let me see if I can explain what is going on to you so that you can understand it.

Before God created our present world, God was married in covenant with only one spiritual woman in heaven named the Heavenly Jerusalem. This was God’s perfect plan for all of His creation right up until sin was found in His wife (Eze 28:15). Who was God’s wife that sinned? This was Lucifer (the anointed cherub) and the other angels that were with him. Lucifer latter became known as Satan in the Bible. But, when did this name change occur? Was it before Adam or after Adam? We know that according to Revelation 12:9 when this anointed angel appeared in the Garden of Eden for the first time in Genesis 3 he was already named Satan and not Lucifer. Lucifer is never called by this name here on the earth; he is always called by the name Satan and other names and symbols. What does the name Satan mean? According to Strong’s it means “adversary”, “opponent” and “enemy”. Who did God say were His enemies in Micah 7:6? God tells us that those of His own household were found to be His enemies. Now God has a major problem on His hands. God cannot legally divorce His wife nor can God cast Satan and his angels into hell without casting Himself into hell with her. According to the Bible they are all “one” Spirit joined by covenant marriage (1 Co 6:17, Eph 4:4, 1 Co 12;13). The angels and God the Father are all from one family in one spiritual household. The problem becomes infinitely more complex when you realize that God was living within the eternal spiritual realm of existence now in an eternal covenant marriage to other eternal spiritual beings who have now committed sins.

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

There was no time, no concept of death, no legal separation, no concept of legal divorce and no laws that could be created after the fact to solve the problem within the spiritual realm of heaven. There has always existed the concept of sin even before God created our world, but yet there were no consequences for that sin if it was present. You can clearly see this from reading Romans 4:15. So what does God need to do to solve His problem? He creates all of these needed components within the natural realm. God created our world with a limited time constraint of only 6000 years. Now there is no more eternity. God creates the opportunity for sin but with only one law for Adam to follow and to obey. Now we have the creation of the law with sin consequences. God creates major consequences for disobedience and for sin and all of these are radical new concepts that never existed before. God said to Adam, “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the die that you do it you will surely die”. Adam of course disobeys God’s one law and fails and he eats from the wrong tree and now sin and death have both entered into our world to initiate their reign over all that God created in the natural realm (Rom 5:14-21). Uh oh that sounds like another new problem for God to solve. Have you ever thought that sometimes to fix a problem you may have to create some new problems to solve first? I guess I won’t go there, but it is an interesting concept.

The concept of death was a new concept for any previous spiritual beings to be faced with. Adam had absolutely no comprehension to what death was. It is clear to me that Satan did not understand the concept of death either. Satan told Eve “You will not surely die, you will be as God knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:4-5). Wow, did you hear that statement that Satan just made? I know this is not what the KJV Bible says, but it is what the Hebrew text says. Satan now reveals the status of God to His new creation. We know from reading Genesis 1 that everything that God created in our world was by His own definition “very good”. Therefore, Adam and Eve knew nothing but good from the beginning. This is why Adam had no comprehension of death; death is not or never will be a good thing. However, Satan clearly tells Eve that God already knows about both good and evil. Where did this evil come from that God already knew? God is revealing His personal problem here in Genesis 3. In Genesis 3:22, God says “The man has become as one of Us, knowing both good and evil”. God confirms by speaking this statement the fact that Adam has now become entwined in a covenant with both good and evil and he now has the same major problem that God has. To “know” evil is a covenant term. God says “Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived”. This was the exact same Hebrew word that God and Satan used when speaking about God knowing evil. Hopefully you can begin to understand the problem God was facing. It was impossible for a Spirit being to die or to cease to exist. According to what we learned in Romans 4, marriage covenants are binding until the husband dies. That makes God’s problem impossible to solve unless God creates death and comes to the earth in the flesh to fulfill it and to participate in what He has created personally. Are you beginning to see how smart God is? Are you beginning to see God’s motivation for what He has done? God is motivated to end His covenant relationship with evil and this is the solution to divide His family up.

God takes and creates a new separate family on the earth apart from His spiritual household in heaven using the man Adam and his new wife Eve as the newly repeated natural pattern of God’s existing family. Like God’s family in heaven, it started with Adam and Eve started by only knowing “good”! However, we can see from the allegory being presented in this story of Adam as also applying to God’s family situation. Again we see the duplication of a spiritual pattern of the one husband and one wife concept who only knew “good” to begin with. Also, notice where Eve came from in Genesis 2? God took Eve from the physical side of Adam in Genesis 2 and this reveals where God’s spiritual wife the Heavenly Jerusalem also came from. The Heavenly Jerusalem had to be taken from the Spirit of God’s side. God then tells Adam “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife” (Gen 2:24). These are more of the patterns that I believe have reoccurred when Jesus came into the world as the Last Adam (1 Co 15:45).

However in the interim transitional period (4000 years) between Adam and Jesus, God the Father comes into another covenant with another woman named Jerusalem here on the earth. What is God doing? Why didn’t God just establish His covenant with Adam and include the population of the whole earth? I think that is an excellent question to consider. The current population of Israel is around 8 million people and around 75% of those are natural Jews. That is not very many people in comparison to the total population of the world that is now very close to 7 billion. You really need to think about what God has done on the earth to see what God is doing in the spiritual realm. These are patterns that have great significance. God took a single nation of people on the earth and made a covenant marriage with them (Jer 31:32). God became their husband and they became His natural people and His wife. God is intentionally dividing the entire natural family of Adam and revealing that this is what He will do again with His spiritual family. You see by definition a marriage is the union and the simultaneous division of two people (a male and a female) to each other and from all other people. When I married my wife I forsook all others. Meaning I do not go after other’s because I am joined to my wife. When God joins Himself to one nation of people on the earth, He has now forsaken the rest of the planet. Uh oh? That was not good news for all of us gentiles. We of course now know that is not what God did or had in mind. God is only making this temporary covenant with natural Israel to teach us the concepts about what is happening in the spiritual realm. I know that I just stepped on someone’s religious toes by saying God entered into a temporary covenant with natural Israel. I’m sorry you are going to have to learn what the Bible actually says or you will be forever confused and misguided. If you think the covenant with natural Israel was eternally binding to God, you have a tremendous number of things still left to learn. For example, read this verse and apply it to how many men try to interpret the Bible concerning natural Israel:

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.

Of course this is some more new controversial information for many Bible students. Are you able to see natural Israel every day in the news and all around us? Can you go to the country of Israel and visit the physical city of Jerusalem? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then God clearly informs us it is TEMPORARY! That means the natural nation of Israel was never intended to be around eternally. Wow, that is going to upset a lot of people. Am I reading the Bible? Am I applying the Bible fairly? Am I using the Bible to interpret the Bible? From my viewpoint I have done all of these. In 2 Corinthians 4:18 God is telling ALL Christians to shift their focus off from the natural things of this world and change to look at only the eternal spiritual things that will endure. There is nothing within the current natural realm that will survive in eternity and that will certainly include natural Israel. You see I am not teaching against natural Israel, I am only teaching that they better get saved if they want to be in the new family of God. They better get married to the risen Jesus because their old covenant with God the Father is OVER! The spiritual realm will remain and those that have accepted Jesus Christ as the Messiah will remain, but there is a major difference between the temporary natural things of the earth and the eternal spiritual things of God. God requires you to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven by the one open door named Jesus Christ. There will come a time when this door will shut and then the foolish virgins on the outside will be crying let us in, but Jesus will say what He has already said. “Depart from me, for I never knew you”.

I do not curse natural Israel. I try to bless them by telling them the truth to turn to their God and Savior Jesus Christ. Satan is out to kill natural Israel for reasons that are very important for you to understand. Natural Israel is still the holder of the Law of God. We learned this from reading Galatians 4 and 5 and other places in the N.T. Earlier I showed you that without Laws there are no consequences for sin. Therefore, Satan has realized that it is this Law of God that will convict him of his sins and soon he will be thrown into the lake of fire. Satan’s only recourse or solution is to try to wipe natural Israel from the face of the planet; to drive them into the sea with their law. Satan will not rest until he has accomplished this goal. This is why Iran is building nuclear weapons. This is why the Middle East is currently in great turmoil in Egypt, Libya and Syria and other places. The overthrow of all of these ruling dictators will usher in a new Islamic government that is not friendly to Israel. When Egypt elects an Islamic government, they will no longer recognize their peace treaty with Israel. The world united against Israel is coming and it is already well advanced in structure and organization. Be warned Israel for there is an approaching evil spiritual force against you. I believe that God has blessed Israel and will keep Israel up until a certain point in time. All of this is another Bible lesson so I will move on to another pattern of the family of 5 that I taught you about previously.

Seeing the allegorical information given to us in Genesis 11-21 we know that God’s wife the Heavenly Jerusalem gave God the Earthly Jerusalem because she was called barren. So God entered into a covenant with a second temporary wife in order to have a son or an heir of the Family of God. There I go again saying God’s covenant with Israel was temporary, but did you notice that is what God says when He uses Hagar for the type of natural Israel? Was Hagar a temporary wife to Abraham? Did Hagar get cast out of Abraham’s family with her son? These are questions you need to begin to consider to see how they fit with the nation of Israel right now. There are several new verses in this picture diagram. God and read them for yourself and see what they say. God having a Son was a part of His greater divine design to create a new family for God. This risen Son of God will finally repeat the original design of God in the spiritual realm and this will again result in only one Husband in covenant with only one wife who knows nothing but good. So God is not a polygamist nor does God desire polygamy. God however used this approach to achieve a greater purpose and plan. I am not promoting more than one wife at all. The New Testament does not promote the idea of multiple wives. But, we clearly see in the Old Testament things that are very different than those found in the New Covenant. I guess we need to ask the question did Abraham sin by having more than one wife? According to God I believe he did not. If Abraham sinned, then Jacob sinned twice as much for having 4 wives. Then Solomon sinned 600 times as much for having even more wives than he could ever hope to satisfy. I believe there was a time that things were permitted by God, but that they were never intended to be to be the final outcome or even how things should have been. For example, let’s briefly speak about another very difficult subject found in the Bible concerning the Gentile woman named Ruth. Who was Ruth? Where did Ruth come from? Hopefully you understand that Ruth was a Moabite. There is a very complex story about the origination of the Moabite people found in Genesis 19. I read this story and I wondered why in the world did God put this in the Bible? How is this story relevant to real Christianity? Why is this information valuable for anyone to know? Sure men are strange and do many wrong things, but why tell everyone about it? The Moabites are the descendants of Lot. Who was Lot? Lot was a nephew of Abraham? Wow I think this is really cool allegorical information being given to us? Who was Abraham a type of? Abraham was a type of God’s family. So Lot is not in God’s family yet he is still a near relative of God. Is that not what Adam was? Adam was not in God’s family but he was a son of God (Luke 3:38) a near relative who left his father and mother to be joined to his wife.

Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt while fleeing from Sodom. Now we have a story that twists and turns to even a stranger something to explain when Lot’s daughters get their father drunk to keep their father’s seed from disappearing from off of the face of the earth. Each daughter has a child from an incestuous relationship with their own father. Why is this recorded in the Bible? Is it TMI or just misunderstood information? When I see how God uses allegory in the Bible with natural patterns reflecting spiritual realities, it makes me wonder. I do not believe that any of these stories of Lot was God’s perfect design either but God still uses it to produce the future King of Israel, David. You see Ruth would not have existed if there was no incest and therefore since Ruth was the type of the church and the great grandmother of David, there would have been no David and if there would have been no David, there would have been no Jesus born on the earth either since He is called the son of David. These are very tough subjects to try to figure out. Yet you have to say God wrote them with a specific purpose in mind and it was not to teach you that incest was good.

It is entirely too complex to see everything that God allows, permits or even uses to accomplish His greater plan but I believe that God uses these natural patterns to reveal His problems and solutions for His own spiritual family situations. Just know that there are always positive and negative things that can occur whenever you deviate from God’s perfect plan and wander into the paths of sin. Because Satan chose to sin originally after God had implemented a plan of perfection, I believe that God was forced to compromise His perfect plan for a new alternative solution that could cause the return of something that was at least closer to the original pattern of perfection called “very good”. God was certainly perfect in all of His ways. God’s creation was originally perfect in all their ways. But, the perfect creation chose to rebel, in order to become imperfect. According to Psalms 119:96, God says all “perfection” has ended. If the Hebrew definition of the word “All” is correct it means “All”. The New Jerusalem that is coming is not the same perfect Heavenly Jerusalem that existed before. There are changes and there are modifications that have occurred. I cannot call them improvements; I can only call them perfection modifications, adjustments or even compromises. I believe personally that the way God created our world originally will again be how the New Jerusalem will be in the future. God said our world was originally “Very Good” and that means it was not perfect. It also means The New Jerusalem will not be free from the order of the Law. However, the New Law of God in the New Jerusalem will be written on our hearts by the Spirit of God and it is the New Law of Love.

I am totally convinced that God’s perfect plan was for the angels to never sin. I am also totally convinced that it was God’s perfect plan for man (Adam) to never sin. But, since both have sinned, God comes up with the greatest plan of redemption and salvation for all those who want to bow their knees and become subservient to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Since Satan is not interested in anything like that, he will be cast down to the pit with all of his followers. Every human being that is also willfully ignorant can also count on being cast down with their ruler of their darkness. These are those who are not interested in freedom or righteousness and they remain in their sin and pride. There is coming a division of God by God that will cast out a great part of the old Family of God. For all those who bow their knees to the Lordship of Jesus they will be saved. That is the way it will be and it will happen if you believe it or not.

God’s plan of repentance, salvation and redemption dictates the requirement for the prior existence of sin and imperfection. If there was no sin, there would be no need for a Savior. Just like in the story of Ruth if there were no debts there would have been no need for a redeemer and no redemption. The bride Ruth is bough out of her debt that she could not pay and Boaz the redeemer paid a debt that he did not owe. This was God’s pattern for Jesus’ redemption for His bride also. Ok, I’m going to open a new controversial subject using allegorical information encoded in the Bible. If Ruth is a type of the church and Boaz is a type of Jesus our Redeemer, who was Boaz’s mother? Do you know the answer to that question? Did you know that Rahab the Harlot was the mother of Boaz? Is God trying to tell you something? How many times in the Bible, is natural Israel called a harlot? There are so many times that I will not even try to give you the references, but you can find them very easy. You can read the book of Hosea and see the theme being developed by God. These are not subjects that are taught very often in churches are they? The subject of being a whore is a very relevant spiritual subject to understand or you may be guilty of committing the same thing that Israel did. You better learn from the mistakes of others or you will find yourself repeating them. If you study your Bible you will find two or three times that God tells Israel “I divorce you”. A divorce is a termination of a marriage covenant. This is more evidence for the covenant with natural Israel being temporary. You see God could legally divorce Israel and not Heavenly Jerusalem because of the Laws that God gave to Israel to abide by. Because Israel was unfaithful to their husband, they have been kicked out of the family of God forever and that is not good news for them. Go and study the O.T. laws about divorce. It is illegal according to the law for the first husband of a wife to take her back as his wife. God calls it an abomination. So that covenant marriage is irreconcilable. I know I am stepping on a lot of religious toes who think Israel has a future in God’s plan, but you better look deeper to see what is really being revealed in the Bible.

Ok, I have tried to teach you about how the perverted things that occurred before the New Covenant are not how things will end up after the New Covenant is completed. Polygamy is an Old Covenant concpet and God will permit you to live in the Old Covenant and to die in the Old Covenant still to this day. Hopefully this cleared up the concerns that my commenter had about a future monogamous plan of God being reinstituted. This was how God originally created the Heavenly Jerusalem, this is how God created Adam and Eve and this is how it will end again with Jesus and His bride. Monogamy and heterosexual marriage was always the intended plan of God for man and it will be that way again. So those out there who claim differently with their alternative life styles you are now warned this is not acceptable in the eyes of God just because you can do it now. Your personal freedom to sin will not matter when you are with your lovers in hell. There will be no wild parties in hell with sex, drugs and alcohol. Sorry I got of the main subject again.

I guess I will need to do a future lesson on the subject of just Biblical Patterns. I have been talking a lot about how God creates and uses the concepts of design patterns and I have given you many examples of this practice throughout this lesson. Today’s lesson is primarily about God’s usage of these repeated pattern concepts as it specifically relates to the family of 5. The story of Abraham is a great lesson to understand how and why God has done what He has done. Just as Abraham started with one wife named Sarah, so God started with one wife named the Heavenly Jerusalem. There must have been recognition in heaven of the need for an heir of God after sin had occurred in the spiritual family. Since the Heavenly Jerusalem is connected by an allegory in Galatians 4 to Sarah we know that she was called barren and unable to provide the heir for God. Therefore we can better understand why God took upon a second wife on the earth. The Earthly Jerusalem was this Hagar the slave woman from Egypt. In the last lesson I showed you how she was bound by the law of God and that she is still in bondage to this reality even until this very day. You have to admit that Abraham’s relationship with Hagar was not a permanent marriage. Sarah the older wife cast the slave woman and her child out of the house and that in effect ended the marriage covenant. This is a very legitimate type and shadow of God’s relationship to natural Israel using the precise allegorical information found in Galatians 4.

I do not deny God’s blessings are still upon the natural nation of Israel. This was further confirmed because God said to Hagar that He would also bless her son after she left Abraham’s house to become a great nation (Gen 21:17-18). The blessings of God appear to be unconditional towards natural Israel to some extent, but the covenant of God with natural Israel is very much conditional and very temporary. You see you cannot look at all of Israel’s history and say that she was forever protected and blessed by God. There are many times and places even in the Bible that Israel is taken captive by foreign nations. The Babylonian Empire is a prime example. The Roman Empire is another prime example. Adolf Hitler tried to exterminate the Jewish population of the earth and came very close to it. Stalin killed probably more people than Hitler and he included the Jews in his plan. Where were the blessings of protection from God during these times in Jewish history? Sure Hitler, Stalin, Rome and Babylon do not exist and Israel still does exist, but tell that to the millions of Jews that have been killed over the years.

If you do not agree with my point of view of the scriptures, it is OK! I’m not mad at you! So don’t be mad at me! I’m not a Jew hater. I do not wish any Jew any harm. I am like a Paul, when he wrote this:

Rom 10:1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

This is my prayer for Israel also. But, I pray the same thing for Islamic believers and Buddhist believers and any other religion that is currently going down the wrong path. There is only one way to God and that is through salvation and faith in Jesus Christ. God clearly tells us in Romans that only a remnant will be saved. A remnant means only a very few of them (Rom 9:27, Isa 10:20-22). That is extremely bad news for the natural Jews. In their attempt to serve the true living God, they missed His personal appearance, His purpose, His plan of Redemption and their Messiah. Take time to reread the story of Abraham in Genesis. Then notice how this story both parallels and reveals God’s relationship with Israel who is called Hagar. Then see that Sarah is named a type of the Heavenly Jerusalem, the first wife of God. Now, use all of this new information to re-interpret the rest of the Bible. It will dramatically change your perspective on how you view the slave woman from Egypt. God and read Revelation 11:8 where God speaks of the great city called Earthly Jerusalem where Christ was crucified. God reveals to you that this woman is spiritually named Sodom and Egypt. God is connecting her to immorality and godless people. This is just further confirmation that Hagar is a valid type of natural Israel. These are more patterns that are being transitioned and projected from an individual named Hagar onto a group of natural people named Israel. If God did not want you to understand these things, He would not have written them in His Holy Word.

The Story of Abraham in Genesis has had a dramatic influence for why I believe what I believe today about many things that I did not really understand before. When God came to Abraham He knew by design what He was doing and who He was doing it with. I showed you twice already within the Family of Abraham the repeated pattern of the family of 5 that is divided 3 against 2. First, I showed you in Genesis 20:12 that the Bible clearly says Sarah was a half-sister of Abraham and she became his wife. Sarah had a different mother than Abraham, but the same father. This pattern was an exact match for the family of 5 given to us in Micah 7:6 with every family title being a perfect match. After Abraham and Sarah were married, God told them to leave their family and to go to a land that He would show them. This again is the patter of the son leaving his father and his mother to be joined to his wife the commandment of God found in Genesis 2:24. We see that this makes a house that is divided 3 against 2 and this pattern is repeated in the spiritual family of God. We saw the pattern repeated again in the family of Abraham with the addition of Hagar and when both wives have sons, the bond woman and her son were cast out of the family of 5 dividing it 3 against 2. These are not coincidences; they are specific patterned examples that convey spiritual information of what God is doing in the spiritual realm.

I know this series is very complex. I know it is totally new to you. I know it is hard to accept like anything new. People are naturally resistant to change. So if God wants to change your knowledge of the Bible, too many Christians would rather remain ignorant than to accept change. Wow, if we are not open to change, then we are not open for God’s internal transformation. That is a very dangerous stance to take with God. When God commands us to “renew” our minds in Romans 12:2; it really is not an optional request. In this verse God says “do not be conformed to this world’s ideas, thought processes, or their natural ways of doing things, but be transformed…”. There is a transformation process that needs to take place. God is comparing natural thinking to spiritual thinking and when you become accustomed to think this new spiritual way it is a life changing experience. I hope that I have challenged you to learn a few new things today on this subject. I hope and pray that you will come back for at least one more lesson in this series. In the next lesson I will again show you the complexity of God’s wisdom in a NEW hidden pattern of the family of 5 within Abraham’s life and then I’ll try to explain it so that you can correctly understand how it applies to God’s spiritual Family. It will be worth your time to come back and to read it. If you could see my heart as God sees my heart you would know that I love God and the Bible more than anything. May God continue to bless you until next time!

If you would like to continue reading in this series about the Spiritual Family of God you may continue with “Part 9“.

Posted in Bible Study, God's Spiritual Family, Understanding

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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Church, Covenants, Family, Genesis, God, Jesus, Knowledge, Prophecy, Religion, Revelation, Satan, Truth, understanding

Understanding How to Be Led By the Spirit of God! Your Introduction to the Good Shepherd! Part 1

Jun 26

Posted by agapegeek

(ver 1.4) This is Part 1 in a series of basic Bible lessons on the subject of Being Led by the Spirit of God. I have taught one introductory lesson to this series that you might want to start with and it is called “Recognizing the Voice of God“. There are many Christians in the world who do not understand spiritual things in the degree that is necessary to allow God to direct them into truth, peace, safety, prosperity and health. Of course because they do not understand how God speaks, they assume God is in control of everything that happens in their life. So when positive things do not happen to them, they often conclude that it must be the will of God for them to be experiencing these negatives. Or some think that it is just God’s way of teaching them, testing them or correcting them. There are more erroneous doctrines in some churches than there are Bible based doctrines. Jesus looked at the Pharisees and said “Your traditions have made the Word of God ineffectual and worthless”. That was my paraphrase of a verse in the N.T. that actually says:

Mar 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

We can look up the Greek Word definition for the word translated as “none effect” and see that it means to invalidate. It was a common practice of religious people in Jesus’ day to take the Word of God and to add to it or to replace it with their own rules and manmade doctrines. Whenever you do this according to Jesus you invalidate God’s word. Do you understand how foolish that is? Yet people still do it today in almost every church denomination. Teaching things that are not found in the Bible gives people the wrong impression that what is happening to them right now is the will of God for them. They can pray about it and ask God to do something, but if it does not change things that they are facing, they simply think that it is up to them to stay humble and to accept it. After all you just never know what God has in mind? The ways of God are just so far above ours that we cannot comprehend them. That is what many churches teach. That is also a very poor reality to endure when it is not what God said in the Bible at all. I believe God says His Church will go out victorious and not defeated. So you have to decide very fast, what does “victory” mean to you? Does it mean poverty, sickness, depression, despair and sadness? I believe these are the signs of being defeated and not of victory. I never saw a victorious sports team fall down in agony and despair. They are always jubilant and shouting with great happiness. Yes, we will all have none of these negative things when we get to heaven, but who says we are to endure them now in the mean time? These are the doctrines of men that are taught in many churches that ignore God and the Bible. I call it a “Mother Theresa” Christian philosophy. I do not mean to criticize Mother Theresa, but people who look up to her as an example for Christianity; I have a major problem with them. Sure it looks good to many on the surface, a woman going around the world feeding the poor and the hungry and she does not own even a good pair of shoes herself. That is an extreme religious concept not found in the Bible, to do without so that others can have. If everyone would suddenly become Christians, we would all be homeless and shoeless people. She gives away all of the good shoes to others and takes only what others do not want. That is just not what Jesus did and Jesus was our example and not mother Theresa. I like what Jesus says to us:

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

Jesus said to us that He has set before us an example to follow. Therefore we need to learn what Jesus did and did not do in order to learn what this example is that we are supposed to be following. People have tried to say that Jesus owned nothing and that He gave away everything and these are two erroneous doctrines of men that promote the poverty Mother Theresa mentality. Do you recall that Jesus had a man of His 12 disciples that carried the money purse? Judas was the treasurer and there was so much money in the bag that he could take some of it out and people would not notice it was missing. Then when Jesus was crucified, His robe that He was wearing was so valuable that the soldiers gambled over who would possess it. They refused to rip it up into pieces because it was a seamless fabric construction. These were the types of robes that were worn only by wealthy men and the rulers of the country. That is why they wanted it as a complete garment piece. Neither of these two stories fit the Mother Theresa philosophy of poverty. When Jesus saw that the crowd was hungry in the Gospels, what did Jesus do? Did Jesus give away all of His food to feed them? No that is not what Jesus did. Jesus sought for what the crowd had to give him to bless and then He multiplied that to feed everyone. Someone in the crowd had to give first or no one would have eaten. These are just some of the examples that Jesus gave us to follow. When was the last time you saw a Mother Theresa do any of these? If you say never, then she was NOT following Jesus’ examples.

What God do you serve? Are you serving the God of the Bible or the God of someone’s religion? I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone today that is not my intention. Today’s subject is being led by the Spirit of God and we need to learn how to do this if we are to understand that a Mother Theresa type of God is not the God of the Bible or the Jesus of the Bible. Let me give you another example of what Jesus said:

Mat 11:5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

Here is Jesus speaking to the people of Israel and proclaiming He is anointed to change their current circumstances and situations around. Jesus specifically names three diseases as being cured. Then Jesus says the dead are raised up to life and finally He ends the verse with the poor have the Gospel proclaimed to them. What is this Gospel? The Greek Word translated as “gospel” literally means “Good News”. What is good news to a poor man? This is really not that complicated, but people twist the word of God to say things that it does not say. First, look back at the context of what is said about the sicknesses and the diseases. Isn’t every diseased situation turned around 180 degrees to the opposite of what they had. The blind now see! The filthy lepers are now clean! The deaf can now hear. The dead are made to live. But, all of sudden we want to say the poor are not made rich. I will tell you very plainly that if every other situation is turned completely around, that means it applies to every situation named. If you do not do this you are being selective in your interpretation of the Bible. I believe that according to this verse God says that “you should not be living in poverty”. Uh oh? I’m sure I’m going to hear about that from somebody who disagrees with me. Maybe after you learn how to be led by the Spirit of God, you will see that He will lead you from where you are now to where you should be. I am also not preaching that you will become a millionaire or a billionaire. That is not what I am saying, I am just saying there is a great deal of room for improvement and God will help you turn around to get there if you learn to listen to Him. So much for my introduction, let’s get into being led by the Spirit of God:

Rom 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Here is my foundational scripture for this entire series of lessons. This verse is a conditional verse. In other words it is valid for only those who qualify for it. It clearly tells me that not everyone is a son of God; only those that have chosen to be led by God are His children. To be led by the Spirit of God, means many things to many people and few people actually understand the concept of being led. First let me say if you can be led, you can also choose not to be led. Uh oh? We have a major problem developing for people who teach predestination and fatalism. People who teach these erroneous doctrines obviously ignore or explain away verses like these in the Bible that are clearly conditional statements which convey human responsibility and accountability as being the determining factors to if they qualify to be called a son of God.

The concept of God leading His people brings to mind many other subjects that are related. The concept of a shepherd leading his sheep comes to my mind immediately. We should know that in the book of John the tenth chapter that Jesus calls himself the “Good Shepherd” or the “Shepherd” approximately four times. You need to read this chapter in its entirety if you have not done so recently. The shepherd concept is the concept of how God leads His people with His Spirit. A shepherd will always lead the sheep by going before them with his staff and calling to his sheep to follow him to the green pastures or to the still waters (Ps 23). This is a directly related subject to how the Holy Spirit will speak to you to ask you to follow Him. In order to know that God leads, you must first recognize the fact that God speaks and then that He speaks to you. Wow, that is a tough concept for many Christians. There are literally hundreds of times recorded in the Bible that God is said to speak directly to a man. You can see God speaking to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah and on and on I could go. I guess people are struggling to think that God still speaks today and that God will more specifically speak to them. I am here to tell you today that if you are a born again Christian, God will speak to you in order to fulfill His word. God promises to lead His people and He does this with His voice. But, do not jump to the wrong conclusions that this was or is with an audible voice. We will get to that later in this series.

Joh 10:4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.

Here is a basic confirmation for what I just taught you. This verse tells you exactly how God will lead you. God will go before you and guide you into the path that you need to go by speaking directly to you. If you are His sheep, then Jesus says you will know His voice and be able to recognize it. So if you have never heard from God, I would check to make sure that you are one of His sheep first. How do you know you are one of His sheep? There is a specific requirement in the Bible and that is for you to follow. I have a webpage dedicated to knowing you are His so if you do not know for sure you can know for sure today by reading and following the instructions given. Then determine if you are listening to hear His voice. When you learn to recognize His voice you can begin to follow Him because you will associate God’s character and His ways to His voice. People will only follow Him if they want to follow Him. This is the major problem with why many Christians are not being led; they do not understand the character or ways of God. If God was not good, or was not loving, or was not feeding them and protecting them, then why would anyone want to follow Him? Many churches teach about a God of judgment and condemnation and thus people are reluctant to be led by someone who is out to cause them to have cancer or cause them to be poor or cause them to do without even the basics of life. Maybe I should have taught on the character of God first, but hopefully for most of my readers they already understand the goodness of God.

Today’s lesson is just the introduction to the subject of God still leads and how God leads His people. God leads by a Sheepfold principle of Shepherd management. God will speak and show the way, but God will never force you to follow. Wow, that is so important I want to say it again. You have a choice to make to whether you follow or do not follow Him and His voice. That further means that you have the choice to either hear, or not to hear His voice. That also means you have the responsibility to understand that He will lead you, then to learn to recognize your shepherd’s voice, to know His character, His ways, His intentions and His love for His sheep. It is only then that you will be trusting and willing to go blindly walking behind Him to where He wants to take you. Faith and trust are two key factors to being led by the Spirit of God. God may not tell you where you are going, He may just say follow me. If you trust Him you will listen, obey and follow. If you do not trust Him then you have a greater problem of not knowing Him.

Here is my Top 10 list of things to learn from the basics of today’s lesson:

The Spirit of God always leads His people.
God uses a Shepherd Guidance principle to lead His people.
God will go before His people and show them the way calling them by name.
People are responsible to listen for their Shepherd’s voice. In other words you do not know exactly what will be said or when it will be told to you until you hear the directions.
People are responsible to know and to recognize His voice.
People are required not to follow the other voices that do not come from the Shepherd.
People are responsible to obey and to follow His voice.
People will only follow a Shepherd when they trust that He will not hurt them.
Thus we as Christians walk by faith and not by sight based upon our trust in His Word.
God may not tell you where you are going so you must follow Him by using your faith and trust in only Him.

As you can see from my list, God places the majority of the responsibility of what people do to be led by the Spirit upon us, the sheep. You can always count on God’s faithfulness and His goodness to lead you, but after that it is all up to you if you choose to follow Him. God will not tie a rope around your neck and drag you behind Him. That is a manmade doctrine of predestination. Once saved always saved is another concept that does not fit with this shepherd and sheep analogy taught by Jesus. The responsibility of following the Shepherd is always placed on the sheep and not the Shepherd. God is not going to use sheep dog angels to keep anyone from straying away from the flock. Any sheep can walk away from the flock and follow the voice of any stranger at any time. Any sheep can be deceived and devoured by the wolves while they are not within the safety of the protecting Shepherd. These are God’s words and not mine, if you do not understand them you can pretend to stay in your man made doctrines and hope that you have not already been deceived into following a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I would suggest that you learn to listen for the voice of the “Good Shepherd” and begin to follow Him instead of your manmade doctrines.

I’ll end this lesson with a warning. You do not seek for voices to lead you. That is not what I am saying. There are many spiritual voices in the world that can lead you down many different wrong paths that end in destruction. Your number one goal is to get to know your Shepherd by reading in His word to find His character. When you see the moral fiber of God is goodness and love you begin to see that His ways are different than Satan’s ways. Jesus said that “Satan has come to kill, steal and to destroy you”, but then Jesus your shepherd said “I am come that you might have life and that life more abundantly”. One voice is death and the other is life. This is what God said in Deuteronomy “I have set before your life and death, blessing ad cursing, therefore choose life that you and your seed may live”. You are therefore not seeking for a voice, you are seeking for the giver of Life and He will speak to you. There is a major difference in what you seek and who you seek. If you seek first the Kingdom of heaven, Jesus said all these other things would be added to you. So you are only seeking to know the Good Shepherd, His love, His Mercy, His Compassion, His Grace and His Power. When you seek Him then He will speak to you and you will learn His voice. Spend time in the Bible and study to learn His Marvelous Ways. Spend time in prayer to know Him personally, then Be Still and know that He is God to listen for Him to speak. Until next time, God Bless You!

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