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Understanding Bible Faith! The Spiritual Enemies to Your Faith? Part 8
(Ver 1.3) This is now Part 8 in a series of very advanced studies about the subject of Bible Faith. Today’s lesson will be a continuation of the lesson that I taught on last time about Using Your Faith to Possess the Promised Land. In this lesson the Promised Land was described to us to be entering God’s Rest found in Hebrews 3 and 4. What we discovered was that the children of Israel coming out of Egypt represented a natural type of the spiriutal church and God’s salvation from Satan and the world of darkness. We definitely learn from this type that salvation was not the end of the Christian journey, but rather the beginning of our spiritual walk through the wilderness where we hear and learn the Word of God personally. You might recall that after the children of Israel left Egypt they had to go through the Red Sea that was parted for them by the hand of God. We are taught in the N.T. that this was a type of natural baptism into Moses that corresponds to Christians that are now spiritually baptized into Christ during salvation (1 Cor 10:2). The symbolism in this O.T. story is quite extensive and has many applications and lessons for the church. The Red Sea is really a type of the Blood of Christ that we have been baptized into. The cloud by day and the fire by night is a type of the leading of the Holy Spirit today in the church. The Bible tells us that those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God (Rom 8:14). Just as the cloud led the children of Israel through the wilderness, so the Holy Spirit leads us today. The Promised Land in the story of the children of Israel represents the promises of God that God has given to the church to possess today. You see, the truth of Christianity is not about the promises that we make to God, it is really much more about the promises that God has already made to us. Just as God told Israel “I have given you the land”, God is saying to the church “I have given you the victory over poverty, sickness, emotional despair, distress and the other things that He has given to us as promises in His Word” and we are to go into the this spiritual land and take them by our faith. Here is another interesting parallel. The children of Israel wandered for 40 years into the wilderness until finally a generation came along to possess the promise land. If you consider the church age has been going on for approximately 40 Jubilees then you will realize that we are the spiritual generation prophesied to take the Promised Land. A Jubilee is a 50 year period where God’s plan has recorded many secret parallels. If you multiply 40 x 50 you get 2000 years. All of these are amazing parallels that speak that we are God’s people that will take the land already given to us. Here are just a few of the promises of God found in the Old Testament. I will give you these as examples so that you know what to look for.
Pro 1:23 “I will make known my words unto you”.
Joel 2:25 “I will restore to you the years..”
Joel 2:28 “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh…”
Jer 30:17 “I will restore health to you and I will heal thee of your wounds…”
Jer 33:6 “I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth”.
Nah 1:13 “For now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder”.
Zec 3:4 “I will clothe thee with a change of raiment”.
Whenever God tells you that He will do something, these represent God’s promises that have been given to you and He is committed to fulfill them. These are just a few of the promises of God found in His Word that can be possessed by men and women in the earth, if they mix their faith with them. Just as we learned that Israel was given the Promised Land, they did not possess it because God says they did not mix any faith with the Gospel that was spoken to them (Heb 4:2); this still applies to you today also. The only way to possess the promises of God that have already been given to you is by you mixing your faith to possess them. I’m sorry I sometimes repeat myself, but I want you to get it. Hopefully you have read all of these faith lessons in the series and you have been taking notes so that you can learn this important subject. In my opinion, Faith is one of the top three subjects that every Christian should know completely. We have found that faith is more complex than just simply believing in something or someone. We have seen that faith involves several independent subjects working together in harmony to produce a positive result. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start reading with “Part 1”.
Just as the children of Israel sent spies into the Promised Land to investigate their possession, we can do the same still today using God’s word. You see the spies of Israel went in and found giants and these are a type of something in our Promised Land. There are still many spiritual enemies trying to intimidate you and to try to keep you from walking in the victory that God has already given to you. Today I will be the spy that gives you the report of these enemies and what you do with this information is up to you, just like it was up to the children of Israel what they did. I plan on being a type of Joshua and not a type of the ten spies with the evil report, but hopefully you will learn what to do. The first spiritual enemy that I want to discuss is the giant of ignorance. Here is one of my favorite Bible verses because of what God teaches us:
Hos 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
To be destroyed is the opposite of being victorious so this sound like it applies to our story of the children of Israel and why they died in the wilderness. Ignorance is the opposite of possessing knowledge. What we have here is one of the primary reasons that God’s people are defeated easily. God reveals to us (His New Covenant People) that we will also be destroyed if we remain ignorant and unlearned. Therefore, the knowledge of God should be the number one goal for the people of God. Let’s put this into context with the subject of having faith. We learned that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rom 10:17). So if we have not heard the Word of God it is impossible to have any faith. If you have not heard the Word of God, then you are ignorant of the Word of God and therefore you are easily defeated. In order to not be ignorant you are going to have to hear from God and this involves Him teaching you His knowledge.
Pro 11:9 An hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour: but through knowledge shall the just be delivered.
God gives us clues in the Bible and here is one of them that I am attempting to teach you about today. God is saying that “knowledge” will cause His people to be delivered from their adversary. It is very obvious to me that the lack of knowledge is being stated as one of the key factors to why you are defeated. Because you never knew or understood what faith was, you were constantly defeated. But, now that you are learning about faith you are a potential threat to the enemy of ignorance and Satan. You see Satan wants you ignorant. He is doing all that he can to keep you from knowing the truth. As long as you are ignorant of the truth you are no threat of taking the Promised Land. Knowing this fact alone should cause you to become a more diligent Bible student. You should try to do what I do and spend hours a day in the Word of God. I know in today’s busy world this is almost impossible, but learn what God said in Proverbs “The knowledge of God is greater than obtaining gold” (Prov 8:10). You see God is saying knowing His word should be your number one priority above you working to get rich. Please understand that God does not care if you are rich, but know this that He does cares if you are ignorant. One of the wealthiest men in the entire Bible was Solomon. His wealth is still spoken of today. However please note how Solomon got this way. Solomon wrote some of the greatest wisdom books found in the Bible. Therefore, Solomon had the wisdom of God and this caused him to be rich mentally and physically. This ought to tell you something about you knowing the ways of God that it will cause you to become wealthy. Israel was primarily defeated in the wilderness because of their ignorance. So ignorance is the first giant of faith land that is attempting to defeat you. Let’s move on to the next giant in the land.
The next spiritual giant that will come against you is the giant of “fear”. The ten spies of Israel brought back an evil report and their words caused fear to spread throughout the people. It was this fear that caused the majority of the people of God to die in the wilderness never to see the good land that God had already given to them. Over the course of 40 years the children of Israel died one by one and were defeated, except for Joshua and Caleb. You see Joshua and Caleb said they were well able to take the land and they were never afraid. Joshua and Caleb did not allow fear to rule their lives or their outcome. Let’s look at a verse of scripture that Jesus is teaching us about the giant of fear:
Luk 8:50 But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.
If you read the context of this verse you will discover that this is another faith lesson within a faith lesson from the Lord God. A man comes up to Jesus and he asks Jesus to come to his house to heal his only daughter because she is dying. While Jesus is on the way to his house, the woman with the issue of blood comes and touches His clothes and gets healed as we have already talked a lot about her faith. Before Jesus could finish with the woman with the issue of blood, some messengers come to the man with the sick daughter and informs him it is too late, your daughter is dead. However, death is not the end of the story, is it? Jesus only looks at the man and says “Fear not, only believe and she will be made whole”. Do you see what is happening here? Here is a faith choice between two reports being given to a man in a highly pressure filled moment of time. One report is very evil and the other is a good report from God and the man has a critical internal decision to make in a split second. This man could get into fear and believe the evil report or stay in faith and believe the report of the Lord. Jesus heard the same report as the man did, but it did not affect Jesus in the least. If you go and continue reading this story Jesus does make it to the man’s house and Jesus makes everyone leave except for the parents. Jesus speaks to the daughter and she arises from the bed healed. Which report did the father believe? Do you think it mattered? I know that it mattered and he believed the words of God. This is again the story of the children of Israel who had a choice to make and they chose fear and death in the wilderness. This man chose faith and saw his daughter raised from the dead. That is pretty awesome if you ask me. Let us look at another faith story about the giant of fear in faith land:
Mar 4:40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?
If you read the context of this verse you will see that Jesus is asleep in the boat and the disciples are trying to sail across a large body of water and suddenly a storm arises. Now, Jesus had already said they were going to the other side so these were the faith filled words of God already spoken informing the disciples of the outcome before it happens. Just as God had told the children of Israel “I have given you the land” they let their fear of the inhabitants of the land conquer them without a battle or a fight. So when the disciples looked at their enemy of the wind and the waves, like the children of Israel in the wilderness they caved to the fear and were easily defeated also without a battle or a fight. They ignored Jesus’ words for the sight of the physical surroundings and circumstances and Jesus is awaken and was not happy at all with them. Jesus stills the winds and the waves with His words and then turns to the disciples and declares there is a major problem here. “Why are you so fearful?” Fear is always the opposite of having any faith. So when you see your situation to be unwinnable or insurmountable and you get into fear, you are about to sink your boat. Jesus was the only one on the boat that had any faith and fortunately for them He was there. What were the disciples expected to do differently? That is a really good question to consider. I personally believe that if they would have believed the words of Jesus, they might have gone to lay down with Jesus and gone to sleep also. I do not recall Jesus telling them they had to sail the boat to get across the body of water. Maybe you and they assumed this, but that is not always good to assume what Jesus wants you to do. Regardless of what they did or didn’t do, I do not believe that they would have drowned or that their boat would have been lost if they would have stayed in faith. Of course what the disciples really should have done was what Jesus did; get up and speak to the problem to cause it to stop. I never think it is wrong to do what Jesus did. Oh, yea they are not God, how can they do this? You see the problem with people is that they think that they cannot do what Jesus did because they think He is God in His omnipotent power. But, that is just not true. Jesus was God, but God had become a man just like you and me and if He could do something, then we can do the same thing. What Jesus did was to set us an example that we can do the exact same things that He did. Do you recall what Jesus said? Jesus said in John 14:12 “The works that I do, shall you do and greater works shall you do because I go to my Father”. Was Jesus telling us that we could do what He did? I believe that is exactly what He was saying to me, you can decide to do with it what you want to and even ignore it if you like. I believe that Jesus expected them to do what He did and they chose to believe the circumstances instead. The spiritual giants of fear, panic, dread, fright, and being afraid are all still very real and they exist today. Satan will cause the circumstances to look just as formidable as the children of Israel were facing and he will even cause people to come to you and tell you how bad it is, to get you into fear. This could be a doctor’s report that says you only have a short time to live. It could be many different things, but yet Jesus taught us that it will come and you will have to choose not to believe it. Let us move on to another faith land giant that is trying to defeat you:
Mat 14:31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
Here is another faith lesson from the God of creation. Jesus is walking on the water and the disciples are in a boat and Jesus is about to pass them by when they see Him and they think it is a spirit or a ghost. After all men can’t walk on water so they thought. Anyway Peter suddenly gets faith and thinks if Jesus can walk on water then I can do this also. Peter is beginning to catch on to what Jesus was teaching. Peter saw that Jesus was setting them an example showing them what they could do. So Peter says to Jesus “If it is you, bid me to come”. Of course Jesus had no choice but to say “Come” because it was Him. Peter steps out of the boat onto the water and he begins to walk to Jesus and this is a really amazing feat and I’ll tell you why. Peter was walking on the water by his own faith and not the faith of Jesus. He based his faith on the Words of God, but it was his faith that kept him from sinking, until he started thinking about what he was doing. You see the Bible says that Peter began to observe the wind and the waves and this caused something to change in his previous water walking faith level. This is an important faith lesson for you to learn today. It concerns the circumstances that you will also be faced with. If you begin to believe today that you are healed and tomorrow things look worse than they did today, what will your reaction be? You can clearly see by Jesus’s words that He told Peter you should not doubt. He asked Peter “Why did you doubt”. By Jesus asking this question it is obvious that it was Peter’s doubt that caused him to begin to sink, so it had to be Peter’s faith that caused him to walk on the water. What is doubt? Here is a definition from the Strong’s concordance of this word:
From G1364 properly to duplicate, that is, (mentally) to waver (in opinion): – doubt.
This word comes from a root word meaning twice. It is basically saying to us that those who are double minded are those who are in doubt. We can quickly learn that being single minded and focused is the state of faith and being double minded is the state of doubt. This word can mean to waver and this means to hesitate or change your confidence. It is sometimes difficult to understand when we are double minded and when we have thoughts from Satan that are contrary to having faith but we will have to learn the difference. Remember an earlier faith lessons I taught about the factor of having “confidence”? Having confidence today and not tomorrow is being double minded and allowing doubt to rule your life and your spirit. If you believe today that God has done what he has promised and tomorrow when it looks worse you no longer have the same confidence then you are in doubt. The Bible teaches us this that “We walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7). This means that we do not observe our surroundings with your physical senses and allow them to control us. What if Peter would have ignored the environmental circumstances while he was walking on the water and not looked at the wind and the waves, what would have happened? This is actually a very good faith lesson to learn and it teaches us to ignore the circumstances of life and to only focus on the rpomise of the Word of God. Keep your eyes on Jesus and the Word of God and ignore your external circumstances. Of course I’m not saying for you to stop taking your medicine or to do something stupid. I’m just saying keep your eyes on Jesus no matter what is happening around you. I believe that if Peter would have only looked at Jesus, they could have walked to the other side together. So this is the giant of doubt that will come to try to keep you out of possessing the Promised Land. I can almost guarantee you that all of these enemies will show up to fight against you. Even Jesus had opportunities to get into fear, to doubt, or to become worried, to waver or to allow the circumstance to overwhelm Him. But, He set the example for us to follow and we need to learn to follow Him and all of His ways. These are probably not all of the enemies in your faith battle, but they are some of the most important ones for you to learn about that I know of. Overcome the giant of ignorance by gaining the knowledge of God. Overcome the spirit of fear by resisting it. When the giant of doubt comes, keep your eyes focused on Jesus and He will see you through to victory. I hope that you enjoyed my Bible faith lesson about Possessing the Promised Land and that you can take away something that will cause you to become victorious. I still have a lot to talk about on understanding this subject of Bible faith, so please continue studying the Bible with me. God Bless.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons about Bible faith you can continue to “Part 9“.
Understanding Bible Faith! How to Use Your Faith to Possess the Promised Land! Part 7
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 7 in a series of very advanced studies about the subject of Bible Faith. Today’s lesson will be an extended message on a subject that I just barely mentioned briefly in my last lesson. Sometimes you cannot cover everything in one lesson and so you have to spread the information out to give the details in limited proportions. I try not to overwhelm people with too much complex information all at once. Hopefully the way that I teach a subject is in an arrangement of understandable chunks that allows you to learn it a little bit at a time. When I learned computer programming, this is exactly how they taught it in school to me. They taught an introduction to computer programming class first that was the basic concepts of the subject. This introductory class was a prerequisite to the next subject of computer programming and each class became progressively more advanced. If they would have covered the advanced subjects first, they would have had no one graduate or pass, but since they started with the basics and moved to the more complex subjects many more people were able to learn it and become programmers. Well this is the way you should approach your Bible study also. Subjects in the Bible range from basic to expert levels. My Bible studies are generally very advanced complex subject studies. They are intended for people who know the basics of the Bible already. Paul called this teaching the meat of the Word of God and Paul had the same problem that I do sometimes. Paul told the Corinthian church, I could not feed you meat because you were babes in need of milk (1 Cor 3:2). I do teach some milk basics occasionally, but not always. If you do not understand Bible basics you should find a really good Bible teacher who goes over these concepts or you should ask me questions and I will try to answer them so you will be able to better understand the complex things that God wants you to learn and grow in spiritually.
We have been progressively moving through the subject of Bible faith and today I want to teach a lesson on possessing the Promised Land using your faith. Of course this is a strange concept to teach since we are not of the nation of Israel who lived in the Old Testament and many of us therefore think that this Old Testament story does not apply to us. However, God teaches us something very profoundly different in the New Testament and this is what I will cover today. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1” first and work your way forward. Learn to look up the Bible verses that I include in these lessons in your Bible, take notes and learn to make hi-lights and underline important parts that you did not know or have never thought of before. Learn to see what the Bible says while you learn how to study the Bible and that will help you infinitely more than the things that I teach you today. If you can learn how to fish you will be much better off than depending on me to do all of your fishing for you. I hope you understand what I just said.
Heb 4:2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
Here is a very strange verse about faith. God is comparing two groups of people, us and them. But, who is us and who is them? You have to back up and read the context to find the answers to those questions. If you go back and read chapter 3 you will find references to the children of Israel coming out of the nation of Egypt. The entire chapter is focused in on the subject of entering into God’s rest. It is implied that the promise land was the land of God’s rest. But, the rest of chapter 3 informs us that the majority of Israel perished in the wilderness and did not enter into God’s rest. God’s rest is exactly a type of something that we are focused in on today. It says in chapter 3 very clearly that the children of Israel did not enter in because of their unbelief. I have only mentioned this maybe a couple of times in this series, that unbelief is the opposite of faith. Actually unbelief is belief, just wrong belief in the wrong words. You may recall that Israel sent 12 spies into the promise land and ten returned with an evil report saying we are not able to possess it. The majority of Israel believed the evil report and as a result entered into unbelief of what God had said. So the “them” in this verse that I gave you is concretely confirmed to be the children of Israel. Now, if you go to Hebrews 3:1 you will see who it says is the “us”:
Heb 3:1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;
Obviously then Christ Jesus is said to be the Apostle and High Priest of the church. The “us” in this verse is referring to those who have believed the Gospel that was preached. These are the Joshua and Caleb type of Christians who will actually get to enter into God’s Promised Land. Is that you also? I know that is me, but you may not know that this is you. Only you can believe for you. I cannot have faith for you to be saved. Everyone is required to have faith for themselves. So that is a basic faith lesson that you should have already learned or understood from the first six lessons in this series about faith. It might have never been taught to you directly, but it was an implied teaching in many of the lessons. Just learn that faith is personal and only your faith will cause things to happen for you. Jesus never looked at anyone and said “Be of good cheer, My Faith has made you whole”. Did Jesus have faith? I believe that He did, but I also believe that Jesus could not force His faith to work for anyone else either.
So we have discovered a concept of us versus them being stated. God says, according to Hebrews 4:2, the gospel was preached to both groups, but only one group called “us” is profiting from it. The concept of mixing faith with the Word of God is what is being taught and many people do not even know this is a requirement. If you think, you can see that there are many people who hear the gospel in churches and on TV and they are never saved. Why is that? God tells us, that it is because they did not mix any faith with what they heard. You can clearly understand that faith is a freewill choice of man and a personal responsibility that God cannot override. Mixing faith with the Word of God is described to be a partnership agreement. Think of it like God gives you some faith ingredients to make a faith cake. You are taking what He has given you and putting all of these faith ingredients for a faith cake into a large bowl and then you are supposed to turn the mixer on to combine the ingredients. This is exactly what God is saying. Bible faith consists of several key ingredients that I have mentioned to you and each of these is supposed to be added in the correct order to get the proper results. Using the analogy of the cake, what if you left out the eggs or the flour? Would the cake turn out? If you have ever cooked before you know that following the recipe is a requirement for repeated results. Well, this is what God is teaching you now. Learn the ingredients of Faith and then mix them together in the correct order to get results. God does His part and you are responsible for doing your part. I have heard numerous ignorant people try to tell me I am wrong, but I ignore them because they lack spiritual knowledge. I have also heard several misinformed preachers try to tell me that God is not a formula. That salvation is not a formula. That faith is not a formula. In their minds they have rejected the truth in the Bible for their own personal interpretation of reality. If God did not want you to learn about this subject, why would God have put so many examples, definitions and scriptures about it in the Bible? You see you can clearly find that it must be very important to learn and to implement if you can actually understand what it all says. So I’m not teaching you a formula for success, I’m just teaching you the Bible and you can do with it whatever you want.
Faith as you recall always starts with hearing the Word of God. Faith then progresses through a series of steps that includes you understanding what you heard and then choosing and deciding to believe it to be the truth. I then taught you that those who believe will speak what they believe and then do what they say. This is just a basic reality of how faith works and today I am going to show you why you still need to mix faith with the Word of God to produce any positive results.
Heb 4:1 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
Here is God telling the church that there is still a promise land left to possess. This verse is written to you and you are still required to possess the promises of God with your faith. God taught us that this is entering into His rest. We read verse 2 earlier so let’s skip down to verse 3 and see what God is saying to the church:
Heb 4:3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
Wow, this is very difficult to accept. Remember what believing is? Belief is the opposite of unbelief, so we are back to having faith. Remember that belief is accepting the Word of God as fact and that unbelief is rejecting the word of God in favor of someone else’s opinion. We learned this by studying the children of Israel and the 12 spies that they sent into the promise land. This verse in Hebrews 4:3 says those that have faith and believe the Word of God have entered into the rest. Wow, again and double wow! Do you feel like you are in rest? I just watched the evening world news and it is almost scary what is happening in the world. The evening news is reporting riots and people being killed. The price of the world basic necessity of gasoline is going sky high with no end in sight. The news is reporting escalating food prices and food shortages because of weather related catastrophes around the world. The government problems with the out of control economies of the world are in dire straits. There is trouble and confusion in every city and it appears to be getting worse and not better. So are you in rest? After hearing about the trouble it is a very difficult thing to consider. However, God clearly tells us that those who have believed have entered into rest. Rest represents the promises of God and the symbolic Promised Land. I personally believe that God is calling those things that be not as though they were and I’ll talk more about that soon.
If you recall, the children of Israel came out of Egypt by the mighty demonstration of the hand of God. God used His servant Moses to deliver the people of Israel from their bondage of Egyptian slavery that lasted 430 years. It is almost comical to not see the spiritual implications given to us in this natural historical story of deliverance. The children of Adam in the world were in bondage to Satan for 4030 years when the servant of God named, Jesus died on the cross in another mighty demonstration of the hand of God. Therefore, the deliverance from Egypt is a type of the salvation of Jesus from the dominion of Satan. Now, there are vast numbers of Christian churches that only emphasize deliverance from Egypt. They teach salvation like it is going out of style and then neglect to mention what happens in the wilderness? Does the story of the children of Israel stop with salvation? You see the story does not end at deliverance and salvation; it is only there that the beginning of the new story of life after salvation starts to appear and open up. Salvation is not the end all results for Christians in the world. If it were the end results, then we should get people saved and kill them so that they go directly to heaven. Obviously this does not make any sense does it? What we learn in reading about the children of Israel is that God had given to Abraham a land and this land was theirs but yet they did not possess it yet. God called this entering into His rest. That almost sound like an oxymoronic expression since Israel was required to take the promise land by force and to kill all of the giants that were in it. God called this fight a rest and it sounds much more like an extended effort of battle or work. That is the complexity of the Bible, isn’t it? Surely you can still see the parallels being given to us (the church) that we are required to possess the promise land. What exactly is this Promised Land that we are supposed to mix our faith with to possess today?
1Jn 2:25 And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
Do you understand that God has made you promises in His word? What is the definition of a promise? This Greek word “promised” means the following “to assert something respecting oneself”. A promise is always a word based commitment to do something. If I said I promise to meet you at 3:00 PM in the lobby. I committed to do something to cause the meeting to happen like I said. This is the nature of a promise and it is totally based upon the integrity of the person who spoke the promise. If someone makes you a promise that has no moral character or integrity, then you should know not to count on it happening. This is where the integrity of God comes into play. If you are a Christian then you should know Him well enough to realize that it is impossible for God to lie. Then you must accept that the Bible is God speaking to you personally. Therefore, if it is impossible for God to lie and you can find a promise in the Bible from God, telling you personally that He will do something, then that is your opportunity to go and possess it by mixing faith with it. This is the New Covenant Promised Land which comes from an Old Covenant pattern and I’ll give you another Bible verse to help you begin to see it:
2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
What does God say in this verse? Does He not say that you have been given promises? These are not just any normal promises according to this verse. God calls them exceedingly great and very precious promises. That means that they are free, but they did not cost Him nothing to provide them to you. What God is saying is that they are highly valuable to possess, but yet we do not all possess them do we? This verse says “that you might become partakers”. You could call these people the potential possessors of the Promised Land. But, this promise land is always conditional and it is never dumped into your laps with you doing nothing. You see using the natural nation of Israel as our examples, there were many of them who died in the wilderness and never entered into the best that God had already given to them. This was the land that flowed with milk and honey and many, many never saw it. What can we learn from this lesson? Obviously according to Hebrews 4 we saw that they did not mix any faith and therefore they died without it. They heard that God had given them the land, but refused to believe it. So they did not enter into it and died in their unbelief.
2Co 1:20 For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.
Here is another verse from the mouth of God telling us that He has given to us “Promises”. Is there only one promise? According to these last two verses there are many promises. We obviously do not know very many of them, do we? It would be very much worth our time to go through the Bible to discover what God has promised to give us. Maybe in a future Bible study series I will do this. God definitely tells us that He has given to us promises, but like the children of Israel we are required to mix faith with these promises in order to possess them. Let’s review another Old Testament example of God’s promise and how it was fulfilled to learn some more of the concepts of mixing faith.
Rom 9:9 For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son.
Here in this verse we are told that God made Abram and Sarai a promise to have a son. If you have read this story in Genesis, you know that Sarai was a barren woman unable to have children most of her life. So when God comes to Abram and Sarai they have a great desire for an heir, but did not know how to cause it to happen. God appeared to Abram and told him that his seed would become as the stars of the heaven and the sands of the sea shore (Gen 22:17). Yet, years and years went by and nothing happened. Sarai got desperate and gave Hagar to her husband so that they could have a child this way. We can learn that Abram and Sarai knew how babies were made, so that was not the problem. This turned out to be a huge mistake and we still see the conflict going on in the world today. This was man’s attempt to fulfill the promise of God and this never works. You cannot do by works of the flesh, what God has given to you to possess only by faith. So how did God get Abram into faith? That is a very interesting question to consider. Remember what I taught you about the woman with the issue of blood? “For she said” and then it happened. God tricks Abram into having faith. Before this next verse that I’m going to give you, Abram asks God “what will you give me seeing I go childless?” Abram saw himself as a childless man and this is not faith. What if God in the first chapter of Genesis saw only darkness and He could not envision light? Would light have come? Light came only because God could see the light inside of Him and then He spoke it out and then light was. This is the concept of “calling those things that be not as though they were” that I talked about earlier. Read this next verse that I will give you from the story of Abram:
Gen 17:5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.
God tells Abram I have made you a father of many nations even before he has had a child through his wife Sarai. This is God calling Abram a father before he was a father. God tells Abram, “no longer is your name Abram, but it shall be called Abraham”. This is a very tricky way of getting Abram to have faith. If you read my last Bible lesson you understand that almost every Hebrew name has a hidden meaning and the name Abraham is no different. The name Abraham means “a father of a multitude”. Now everywhere Abraham goes and speaks his name, he is calling himself a father of many. Is Abraham speaking what God said? Is Abraham now calling himself the father of many sons? Do you understand that this is the concept that the woman with the issue of blood also did? She called herself healed before she was healed. God told Abraham you are the father of many nations and now Abraham believes God and because he tells everyone his name, he speaks it before it happens. This is an amazing faith lesson and you should pay very close attention to it. Abraham’s faith was based upon the Word of God and your faith must be based upon the Word of God. Abraham had a promise from God; you must have a promise from God also. Abraham believed God and you must believe God before you see the evidence. Remember faith is your only evidence that you possess before it happens. Abraham learned to have confidence in God and you must learn to have confidence in Him. By Abraham speaking his name on a daily basis, he began to expect it to happen and in less than a year, he had the promised son through his wife Sarah. This is how faith works according the Word of God.
So go through the Bible and find your promise that you need and then mix your faith to possess it. If you want to live a full life, then go find the promise that says “With a long life I will satisfy you” (Psalm 91:16). If you want to be healed, the go find the promise of healing that says “By whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). These are just two of the promises of God and there are hundreds of others. If you want to possess them, do what Abraham did and call yourself with them. If you have no children or are unable to have children and you want children, begin to say I am the father of a son or a daughter. I am the mother of a son or a daughter. When you call yourself one and believe it, God says you will have it. This is how you poses the Promised Land and enter into the rest of God. Do not be naïve to think that it will happen like magic, be prepared for the enemies of this spiritual Promised Land to resist you tooth and nail. There are always spiritual giants that still exist today. However, possessing God’s Promised Land is a spiritual internal battle that will be fought on inside of you mostly in your mind. I believe that it will be worth the effort if you want to possess it. I’m sure that Joshua and Caleb were very glad after they had taken the land that was said by God to be theirs 40 years earlier. I literally poured my heart and my tears into this lesson so that I could help someone that is faced with a challenge today. I pray that you will learn to become a doer of the Word of God and not a hearer only. God Bless you all as we strive to enter into His rest. In the next lesson I will be teaching about the spiritual enemies to your faith fight.
If you like to continue reading this series of lessons about Bible Faith please go to “Part 8“.
Understanding Who Jesus Is! Identifying the Hidden Diety of Jesus Christ?
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 3 in a Bible Study series of unlocking the Myths of Jesus taught in the modern Church. If you have not read all of the series you might like to start with “Part 1“. My subject today is an introduction to a basic Bible truth of the deity of Christ. Was Christ a man or was Christ God in the flesh? I have recently had a few people ask me a question in implied terms that they did not understand who Jesus was. Some look at Jesus as being only the Son of God and certainly He was this. Some look at Jesus as being a Prophet of God and certainly He was this. Still others look at Jesus as being the Son of Man and again He was this also. However, the basis of salvation is hinged upon a much larger truth that states Jesus Christ was God coming to the earth personally in the flesh and dying for your sins. That is what is important to know from studying the Bible. The foundational basis of the entire New Testament is the Old Testament prophecies that state God will come to the earth in the flesh. Jesus Himself when confronted by the religious leaders of His day spoke some very interesting and important words that affirm man’s ignorance:
Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
As you can clearly see Jesus Christ was telling the religious leaders that their books of the Law written by Moses contained words that identified Him. Clearly this revelation took the religious leaders by surprise and they did not believe Jesus. However, here was God in the flesh speaking to His people and telling them I have come and they wanted to kill Him because He claimed to be the Son of God making Himself equal to God according to John 5:18. What does it mean to be equal with God? Who was Jesus claiming to be? Exactly what verses is Jesus referring to that testifies of God coming in the flesh? This is the problem that the Jews did not understand that this information was in the Bible. This information was not clearly presented in natural terms because it was hidden spiritual information and they could not comprehend it with their human minds. I am going to show you a few of the hidden references to the fact that Jesus is prophesied to come in concealed terms starting with Genesis 1. I have written on this fact before so I will not cover it in-depth, but I will just give you an overview of the concepts. 2 Peter 3:8 says that a day is as a 1000 years and 1000 years is even as a day to the Lord. This is a basic clue to the fact that every day mentioned in Genesis 1 is a prophetic day of human history. Since Adam was created, it has been approximately 6000 years and that would correspond to the 6 days of creation. On Day 4 God establishes two great lights to rule the day and the night. These great lights are the sun and the moon and the sun rules the day and the moon rules the night. Using 2 Peter 3:8 we can multiply 1000 by 4 days and get a period of 4000 years when this was to occur. What happened 4000 years after Adam? Guess what, Jesus came into the earth and was born in a manger in Bethlehem. Jesus is revealed to be the “Sun of Righteousness” in Malachi 4:2. Jesus Himself claimed to be the “Light of the World” (John 9:5) and this was a clear reference to God who is Light (1 John 1:5) coming into the world on Day 4 of human history. Therefore, Jesus was encoded within creation in the first chapter of Genesis to have an exact prophesied entrance into the world at the precise time that was written about by Moses many hundreds of years before it happened. I have written about this in other Bible lessons in more detail so if you did not understand it, you should go and search my blogs and find these lessons and study them. What I want you to see is a designed plan of God being revealed in hidden terms, but yet when discovered it is very profound and almost impossible to deny the deity of Christ.
Next, I want to give you another hidden prophesied statement found in the Bible that speaks of God coming to the earth in the flesh. Again it is hidden, but yet you can find it if you dig deep enough for it. This hidden prophecy comes in Genesis 5 and this chapter is widely ignored in the Bible, but yet it contains some very powerful evidence that you should see. Genesis 5 contains a genealogy of the first 10 descendants from Adam, stating the generations from Adam to Noah. Of course this is not all of the children of Adam and it does not include the vast majority of the descendants of Adam and Eve, but these are the selected people that God put in the Book for a reason. It is important to note that all of these people are real individuals that actually lived on the earth. God did not make up this information nor did He orchestrate it to force it to happen this way. Yet when you see what I am about to show you, you will wonder how this is possible. Let’s look at the list of these people who God gives in this chapter of Genesis and see what they say to us. Did you know they were speaking to you? If you understand how God writes the Bible, you already know that you will not find the information on the surface that you are looking for. If you could do that you would have no further choice, but to believe in the God who wrote the book. No, you have to dig deep and examine every word if you want to discover the hidden truths. Jesus gave us a law from God that states “He who seeks finds”. The opposite of that truth would be “He, who does not seek, does without”. What I am going to do is give you a chart of each name found in the Genesis 5 genealogy and then list the definition of that Hebrew name from the Strong’s concordance. Did you know that Hebrew names almost always have a meaning attached to them? This is one way that God uses to hide information in the Bible for us to find. Here are the 10 names:
|
Name |
Hebrew Definition and Meaning |
| Adam | Man |
| Seth | Substituted |
| Enos | Mortal |
| Cainan | Dwelling |
| Mahalaeel | Praise of God |
| Jared | To Descend |
| Enoch | To Initiate |
| Methuselah | Man Sword |
| Lamech | (Unknown) |
| Noah | Rest |
These are the first 10 names in the Bible from Adam to Noah along with their Strong’s definitions. All but one name has a known Hebrew meaning. We know from reading in Luke 3 that these names are repeated as fathers of Jesus, who was the son of Mary. I want to focus in on just the first 8 names in the genealogy of Adam and what they say to us using the Hebrew definitions of their names. If you combine them and read the Hebrew definitions all together as a sentence you get a basic decree that says something like this:
Man substituted mortal dwelling, but the Praise of God will come down to initiate a man sword.
This statement is the fall of man and the basic plan of redemption of God in a nutshell. Man failed, he sinned becoming a mortal resulting in him substituting the eternal for the temporary. But, God comes down personally as a human man to initiate a dividing force to be the sword of the Almighty that brings to us salvation. You may not understand what that means, but nonetheless it is very important. There are some words of Jesus in the book of Matthew where Jesus tells us why He has come down here on the earth and He says this:
Mat 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Why would Jesus claim to bring a sword into the world and not peace? This is a paradox when analyzed with other statements in the Bible. Jesus is called the “Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6) and yet Jesus says this is not why I have come. What does a sword do? I will do a teaching on this subject soon, so I will not explain it right now. However, you can clearly see the reference to the sword that was prophesied in Genesis 5. In Revelation 19:15, Jesus is described as having a sword that comes out of His mouth and this is not an accident or a coincidence. This is the location of the sword that Jesus brought into the earth with Him. You can clearly see by looking at the Genesis 5 name definitions a specific statement that shows us that God comes down and becomes a man with a sword. This is just another example of a hidden reference to God becoming a man.
Next, I want to show you another example of God coming to the earth using a story found in Genesis 22 and again we will see a story with hidden meanings. Here in this chapter of Genesis, Abraham is taking his only begotten son Isaac on a journey to a hill near the future city of Jerusalem. Abraham is taking everything that he needs to make a sacrifice to be obedient to what God has instructed him to do. On the way up the hill Abraham’s son Isaac asks his father a very specific and direct question:
Gen 22:7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
Isaac brilliantly notices there is no animal to sacrifice and says “Father, where is the lamb?” Obviously Isaac understood what they were doing and they must have done this before and he knew that you needed a lamb for a sacrifice. UH OH? That is a problem if you were the child. It would appear that you were the sacrifice. Isaac was not stupid. I can personally hear it in his voice as he asks the question. I’m sure that the words pierce his father’s heart since this is the promised son that he waited for to come and after many years he was born on the earth. Does any of this sound familiar to you? Do you see how Abraham is a type of God? Do you see how Isaac is a type of Jesus the Son of God? Here was Abraham’s response to his son’s difficult question:
Gen 22:8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
Wow, this is a faith statement if I have ever heard one. Abraham tells his son Isaac that God will provide the sacrifice. In fact what it says is that God is the sacrifice. So they continue up the hill getting ready to make the sacrifice for God. Abraham builds God an altar and is about to slay his son when an angel stops him and this is what happens next:
Gen 22:13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
It just so happens that there is a ram that is caught by his horns near where Abraham is, so Abraham goes and gets this animal and sacrifices it to God. The implications to this story are far reaching. Jesus is called the Lamb of God in the New Testament in John 1:29 and 36. Jesus is also referred to as the Lamb in Revelation several times. So Jesus is clearly the Son of God (1 John 5:20). Who is always the father of a lamb? In the natural world a ram is always the father of a lamb. So symbolically speaking this story in Genesis is about God coming to the earth in the flesh to die for the sins of mankind. There are many difficult and complex things to try to wrap your minds around in the Bible and this is certainly one of them.
You see the problem comes in when you think only naturally and you ignore spiritual truths. The Bible tells us that God is one (Deu 6:4)! Meaning there is only One True God. But, now we have to make the transition that this one God who is a Spirit, can be the Father and the Son simultaneously. That is the part of the Bible that starts getting people a little confused. In the natural this is not possible, but in the spiritual realm, it is entirely possible. When God becomes a man born in the world, he is equally human and divine at the same time. This is just another example of how God does things that are purposefully confusing to us to accomplish a greater spiritual goal. The trinity of God is a difficult subject to fully grasp. I have tried to do a lesson on this subject so I will not repeat that information here. If you do not understand the Triune nature of God you should go read “Understanding the Trinity of God”. What I want to do now is to demonstrate some definite scripture verses that clearly show us that Jesus was God come to the earth in the flesh.
Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Here is a famous Christmas verse that is often read concerning a prophetic statement of the birth of Jesus Christ. This verse clearly says that a virgin human female will conceive a son. This right there informs us in implied terms that God is coming personally into the world. It is impossible in the days of Jesus for a virgin girl to become pregnant. That is just not how God created it to work, but yet God says this is what will happen. Finally, this verse ends in the statement you will call his name “Immanuel”. As I described to you earlier, Hebrew names almost always have a meaning behind them. In other words people named their children based upon something important that was happening in their lives and this is the name that they were given. We will see that this name Immanuel is no different, it represents something important that is happening in the life of God and it conveys a hidden message. The Hebrew word transliterated as “Immanuel” consists of two root words that you can look up the definitions to. The first word is H5973 and it means “is with us”. The second Hebrew word is H410 and this is a name for God. So the meaning of this name “Immanuel” is “God is with us”. That is pretty self-evident to me that God is saying I will come down and be with you. So Jesus Christ was the Son of God, but it is very apparent that He was also God in the flesh.
Let’s explore briefly some statements that Jesus made and see if He confirms what I am trying to teach you today. I want to go to the fourteenth chapter of the book of John and listen to some words that Jesus is speaking to His disciples. Pay very close attention to the words for they are important:
Joh 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
Here is Jesus again making Himself equal to God. Jesus is using words that are indirect, but yet very revealing when He is telling His disciples if they believe in God they better believe in Him. This is an indirect way of saying I am God. Let’s continue reading down in the chapter and see what else Jesus says:
Joh 14:7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
Again we have some very difficult words to comprehend because of the indirect references being made. Jesus is telling his disciples “I am the Father God”. These are difficult words and the disciples could not gather their meanings with their natural minds. Jesus was a man, like they were but Jesus is inferring He was God. Look at the question that one of the disciples asks:
Joh 14:8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
Phillip is basically saying “we will be very happy if you take us and show us the Father”. Clearly this disciple did not know who He was talking to. This is a pattern still found in the world today. There are clearly many Christians in the world who do not really know who Jesus was and here is Jesus answer to this request:
Joh 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
If it is possible for Phillip to walk and talk with Jesus for three years and not recognize who He was, then it is still possible to read about Him and not understand this either. Jesus told Phillip I have been with you a long time and still you do not see? Why are you asking me, “Show us the Father”?
Joh 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
If you do not understand the concepts behind “seeds” then you will probably miss what Jesus is saying in these words. Jesus tells the disciples that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. This is one of the basic laws of seeds given to us in Genesis 1. You should probably go and read my Bible study series on “Understanding Seeds” so that you will better relate to what God is saying here. The net results of these words spoken by Jesus, is saying to us, that He and the Father are One God and you cannot separate the Father from the Son. Jesus was clearly saying that when you have seen the Son you have also seen the Father. Let me end this lesson with one more example of what I have been trying to teach you today. If you go to the first chapter of the book of John you will see a parallel N.T. scripture verse about the Genesis 1:1 creation. In John 1:1 it is says this:
Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
In the beginning was the Word and the “Word” is capitalized as a Name for God. It continues to say that the Word was with God and then it ends with the confirmation that the Word was God. So we have a perplexing puzzle of trying to figure out how the Word can be with God and still “be” God simultaneously. It is just another mystery of God, but one that has been repeated already several times in this lesson. How can the God of creation become a part of His creation? How can the Father of Spirits become the Son? How can a Spirit become human? These are just a few of the many difficult questions found in the Bible. But, we understand that the Bible says that which is impossible for man, is still possible for God (Mat 19:26). This chapter actually gives us a clue to the reality of how this is all possible by another verse found later in the chapter:
Joh 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Here we have God saying to you personally that He came in the flesh. Remember what the Word was? According to John 1:1 the Word was God. So if God = Word and Word = God, by the law of mathematics you can substitute these two words interchangeably and still have the same results and meaning:
Joh 1:14 And God was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
God the Word became flesh and bone and walked among us physically. This is how a Spirit becomes flesh. God speaks words and the words come to pass and manifest physically. You can see this principle demonstrated in Genesis 1 where God creates our world using His words. Did you know that you cannot separate anyone from their words? The words that anyone speaks reveals to us their character, their nature, their internal deepest thoughts and these Words of God are what comes down to become flesh that humans can see and feel. This is why Jesus could stop and look at His disciples and ask them “Have I been this long with you and you do not know who I am?” Jesus revealed God physically in the earth for the first time. Before, this appearing the men of Israel only had some words written on scrolls from God that were not understood. But, when the Word walked and talked among them, they killed Him by hanging God’s Word on a tree. This was Satan’s greatest mistake that he has ever made and it sealed his fate. If you have never read my Bible lesson on the “Top Ten Reasons Jesus Came to the Earth” you should do that. I do not give a lot of details, but I do introduce you to some of the reasons of why God became a man.
I hope that you have learned the importance of seeing who Jesus is. I did not say who Jesus was, because He is still the same God today alive in heaven forever more that He was before. There is only One True Living God who created everything that we see and this God became flesh and bone so that we could behold His glory personally. God became a man and even though God is not a man as the Bible states, it does not keep God from becoming what He was not. Only natural human reasoning limits what God can do and this never stops Him from doing it anyway. So I pray that you learned who Jesus was and is still today and what the Bible says on this subject. I know I did not cover every scripture that I could have in this lesson, but I think I gave you enough witnesses to the truth to get you to see them. May God continue to Bless you as you study His Word!
If you would like to continue readin in the series about unlocking the myths of Christ please continue with “Part 4“.
Understanding Bible Faith! What Is Bible Faith and What Makes it Different than Other Types of Faith? Part 6
(Ver 1.4) This is Part 6 in a series of very advanced studies about the subject of Bible Faith. Today’s lesson will be a discussion concerning the definition of Bible faith, then we will have a discussion about what faith is and then finally how your Bible faith is different from another person’s faith like those that believe in Islam, Buddha or whoever. If you have been reading this series of lessons, you should know that the subject of faith is a very complex topic to completely understand, like most other subjects found in the Bible. In the last lesson I discussed 8 basic factors that all contributed to you having faith. I also went into the Old Testament and even showed how faith was demonstrated in the life of David and how all of the steps that i listed were still valid for what was written about concerning David’s faith. You should be able to draw out these steps in the lives of anybody in the Bible that is said to have faith. Go through the list of faith heroes found in Hebrews 11 and see who God has inducted into the faith hall of fame and then go read about them again in the Old Testament. See how they heard God say something, see how they received what was spoken, understanding it and then believed it. Then watch and listen to everything that they say and do. See if they expect anything to happen. See if they have any confidence in God coming through for them. Elijah is a great faith man. He called down fire from heanven. He spoke words that caused it not to rain for three and half years. Go and read these stories again and you will see that God honored their faith when nothing else would work. Even though God never mentioned faith as a factor, God always moved the mightiest when a man was established in faith and believed God’s Word. Here are the steps that I have listed for you to review:
- Your Will
- Your Ability to Hear
- Your Understanding of the Word Heard
- Your Beliefs
- Your Confidence
- Your Words
- Your Expectation Level
- Your Actions
These are what I call the Faith Partners that must be present and working in unity to produce results. I hope that you have read all of the previous lessons for I will not be repeating that information in any great detail and it was all very important to know. So if you have not read from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start reading with “Part 1”.
In speaking of faith it is interesting to note that everyone in the world, saved or unsaved has faith to some degree. That sounds like a contradiction to a statement that I made in an earlier lesson where I told you that the Bible says “For all men do not have faith” (2 Th 3:2). But, what we must realize is that there are different types of faith and God is speaking of Bible faith in 2 Thessalonians 3:2 and not common human faith that everyone possesses. Faith is a basic human characteristic created by God. Faith is based upon ignorance and since every human is ignorant, we all have to have faith. Let me try to explain that last statement in different terms. Since none of us are God, our knowledge is extremely limited; would you agree with that statement? We therefore, on a daily basis accept many things by our faith and we do not even realize that this is what we are doing. For example, the sun rise this morning came by natural human faith. Now just because we have seen thousands of sunrises in the past does not necessarily prove or mean that there will be another one tomorrow. If you believe that there will be one then you are in effect placing your faith in your past experiences. You believe that the sun will rise tomorrow and thus your confidence and expectations are set based upon only on your past experiences or your current knowledge of how the earth rotates around the sun. There is no proof or evidence for the sun coming up tomorrow, because it has not happened yet. After it happens then you have the proof or evidence, but before it happens you can only believe that it will happen. This is common human faith, just not Bible faith. Let me try to give you another different example of having common faith. If you make a date with someone to have dinner at a certain time and place and you show up, then you had faith based upon what? Your faith is based upon the word of agreement from that person that you were supposed to meet with. Now depending upon who that person was, your confidence level and expectation level of them showing up might be great or it might be very small based upon your past experiences with them. This is acting out your faith in the real world, but this is not Bible faith. Showing up at a dinner date is an act of faith, you start with words with a friend, the two of you agree with the words that were heard to make the arrangements, you understand the arrangement, you believe the arrangement and then you wait for the time and go to the restaurant to meet with them. If your confidence level was correct you expect them to show up on time. That is how common faith works and we do it every day. Do you understand how human ignorance plays a role in both of these examples that I just gave you? In both cases you must believe in something that you cannot prove will happen. So let’s discuss what is different about Bible faith. The only difference is God is the one that we are expecting to show up; it is based upon His word that we are putting our confidence in. It is the Word of God that we must hear spoken and we must understand these words. Next we must believe the words and put our full confidence in Him and His Word. That is Bible faith and it is the exact same process that you went through to make a dinner reservation with a friend. Here is the challenge to Bible faith; no one has ever seen God. You cannot prove that God exists. So you take His existence by your faith and this is beginning of Bible faith, but not the end of it. God can then do many great things as your faith progresses upward to greater levels.
Do you realize that the Bible says it is impossible for God to lie? (Heb. 6:18, Tit. 1:2, Rom. 3:4) There are very few things in the Bible that it says that God cannot ever do and lie is definitely one of the few things that God is completely incapable of doing. Why is that important? It is important because it helps establish your confidence level in what the Bible says and the Word of God is the basis for Bible faith. If God says something in the Bible and you can claim it for yourself then God says you can have it (2 Cor 1:20). Many ignorant Christians have derogatorily called this a “name it and claim it” false religion. But, that is their problem and not mine, I’m just studying the Bible and seeing what it says and you can do whatever you like and ignore the parts of the Bible that do not fit your theology, if that is what you want to do. What these Christians do not realize is that faith is how they became a Christian and if they have no faith, then they are not Christians. The word of God is a handbook written to you personally. The words in it are written to you as a personal love letter and this is the basis or the foundation to your house of faith. You are building a faith house and your faith foundation must be the Word of God.
I am trying to teach you that everyone in the world has faith, but few have faith in God and even fewer have actual faith in His Word. Jesus taught us that wide is the path that leads to destruction and many are those that find this path (Mat 7:13). Jesus went on to say that narrow is the path to life and few are those who find it. Since both paths contain people with faith it is extremely sad to me that only a few get to live with God forever. What do the people on the wide path to destruction, have their faith in? They either believe there is no God, no judgment, no hell, no eternity, etc., or they believe in Buddha, Mohammed, Hare Krishna, the Dali Lama or some other false religion. Everyone believes something in the world, even the atheist believes there is no God, and the Hindu believes there is another chance coming in the next life, and on and on. Man was created by God to believe in something and this is what people do every day for good or evil.
That was my introduction to the definition of faith. As you can see it is complex while being based upon simple binary concepts. I learned this approach as a computer programmer. You take the complex system and reduce it to rudimentary understandable pieces and learn those and then as each part works together the complex system works as a whole. A binary concept is one where only two possible answers exist. In the binary world of computers everything is based upon either ones or zeros. That is the basis for the concepts of faith. You either, hear or you don’t hear. You either understand or you don’t understand. You either believe or you don’t believe. Just basic binary choices, yet making the right choices can result in great things and making the wrong choice can lead you down the wide path to destruction. I want to give you the classic Bible definition of what faith is according to the Word of God. This definition is found in the first verse of Hebrews 11 which is the famous “Faith Hall of Fame” chapter found in the Bible:
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
There are many people who have read this verse but do not understand what it means and I was one of those in the past. As you can see this verse contains the classic Bible construction of a definition being revealed to us. Whenever God gives us this information, it is a classic spiritual redefinition of a word that we thought we understood. This verse says “Faith IS” and then goes into what faith should be to us. I will take it word for word and hopefully elaborate on what it actually is saying. 
The first word in the verse is the word “Now” and this is a reference to time. Time is a concept expressed in three different dimensions. Time can be past, present or future. So we can clearly see that faith is said to be a present tense reality. In other words your faith that you had yesterday is not a factor and your faith that you will have tomorrow is also not a factor. It is only the faith that you have right now that is a factor to what happens to you right now. When people came up to Jesus, He would always rebuke them for having no faith or He would commend them for having great faith. When was their faith important or not important, effective or not effective to Jesus? You can clearly see that faith only mattered at the exact time when Jesus was speaking to them. Jesus never cared if they had faith yesterday and Jesus never cared if they might change and have faith tomorrow. Jesus never told anyone to go get more faith and come back tomorrow. If you had no faith right then and there, you got nothing from Jesus. The woman with the issue of blood got healed because she had right now faith at the instance when she needed it the most. All of the other people in the crowd had no faith while they were touching Him and none of them got healed. Do you understand now how important faith is? The next word in Hebrews 11 is “Faith” and since “Faith” is what we are defining, I will not be discussing that word.
So let’s move to the definition part of the Hebrews 11:1 verse and the words translated as “the substance”. This Greek word translated as “substance” is not easily understood unless you look up the definition in the Strong’s concordance and read what it says. This Greek word translated as “substance” means “confidence”. Here is one of the key 8 faith partners that I gave you earlier. Do you have any cofidence?
- Do you have confidence in the existence of God?
- Do you have confidence in the ability of God?
- Do you have confidence in God’s Word?
- Do you have confidence that God will do what He said?
Confidence is a multi-dimensional critical building block to having faith and I just listed four things that you need to have confidence in. if you have confidence in only 3 out of 4 of those things, then your confidence is lacking and you need to learn more of the Bible. Today, you might have confidence in one area but not every area that I just raised. Only you will be able to evaluate your level of confidence in each of those areas.
What is confidence based on? If you have experience with someone then you base your confidence level upon your experience. So what if you are new to someone? What do you have to base your confidence in? Confidence is a factor of trust. The better you know someone the more you trust them. This is another reason people fail to receive from God. They do not know God. They do not know the character of God. They do not know the integrity of God. They do not know the promises of God. You are going to have to ask yourself, do you trust God?
Psa 115:11 Ye that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.
There are too many verses in the Bible for me to give you them all about trusting in God. The word trust also contains multiple concepts. First, it means to have confidence in. Next, it means to be sure of. Next, it means to be certain of. There are a number of synonymous terms like be assured, be confident, be convinced, be firm and to be unquestioning. Trust and confidence go hand and hand and they are both essential partners to your faith.
The next Greek word in this verse is translated as “things hoped for”. This again is a very difficult word to understand unless you look up the definition in the Strong’s. The word translated as “hoped” is actually poorly translated in today’s English language. When we hope for something in the modern world we normally just wish that this was what was happening. I have heard many ministers about to pray for someone and they ask them “will you be healed now when I lay my hands on you?”, and the answer is usually “I sure hope so”. This means the people wished it would happen but that they did not actually have any confidence that it was going to happen. Let’s take this back to the woman with the issue of blood. Remember what she said? She said “If I touch His clothes, I will be made whole”. There is absolutely no doubts in that statement to her not having any confidence that it would not happen. What would have changed if she said “I hope I will be made whole”? You see she would not have been healed. Hope is not having full confidence and this Greek word in Hebrews 11 does not mean to “hope“, it means “to expect” and this is based upon your confidence level. So we are back to having confidence and expecting something to happen as the woman with the issue of blood did. The last part of this definition says this “the evidence of things not seen”. As we come to the conclusion we see that having faith from the Bible definition is our evidence of what we do not see with our physical eyes. What is evidence? In a court of law “evidence” is the “proof” of innocence or guilt. Why is God introducing you to legal terms and court room procedures in this definition? It is because God is the Supreme Judge and His ways are the Spiritual Laws that govern what happens to us. So you better understand that faith is the component that will either exonerate you or your lack of faith will convict you on judgment day. Did you know that Faith was a spiritual Law? This is why God is introducing legal court terms like evidence:
Rom 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
According to the Word of God, Faith is a spiritual law that is the opposite of another spiritual law called the “law of works”. Those in the Old Covenant were trying to achieve salvation by the law of works. Israel was given 5 books of the Law and these contained instructions from God of the does and don’ts of everything that was permissible on a daily basis. Jesus came and changed everything and said “He that believes on me shall have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus came to reveal the law of faith which professes salvation that is based upon believing. This was obviously a radical departure from the law of works. However, the Bible tells us very clearly that Christians have been justified by faith and that no flesh shall be justified by keeping the Law of Moses (Acts 13:39). You see the term “justified” in the Greek language means to be found innocent. Again we see the legal ramification of terms and words that are usually only associated with a court of law.
Let’s take this information and relate it back to the woman with the issue of blood. What evidence did the woman have from the time that she left her house until the time she touched Jesus’ clothes? At no time before touching Jesus did the woman feel differently or feel like she was healed, yet she continued to press through the crowd until she reached Jesus. Technically speaking at no time did the woman have any physical evidence to being healed or that she would be healed. But, by the definition of faith given to us in Hebrews 11:1, we see that her faith must have been her evidence. Because she heard and believed on Jesus and had confidence in what she heard to be the truth, she expected to get healed when she touched Him. Here is the law of faith and how it works. Faith must be present internally to see the external results. Because she believed that she was already healed internally in her spirit, the external manifestation of this reality showed up on the outside. This is still exactly how faith works in the modern world without Jesus being here physically. Like I told you before, you cannot go and touch him physically today, but that does not mean you cannot touch Him spiritually and that He is still looking for your faith to give you what you need.
If you would like to conintue reading in this series about Bible Faith, please continue to “Part 7“.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 10
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 10 in a series of advanced Bible lessons on the complex methods that God has used to conceal spiritual information in the Bible for us to find. If you do not understand these concepts of how God hides spiritual information, then you have not read the internet very much. When I read the internet on any given Bible subject, I can find 15 different interpretations to almost every verse in the Bible. Everyone is convinced that they know the truth and they teach it like there is nothing else to learn. We know by the sheer numbers that God is not divided into 15 different interpretive meanings of the Bible. God did not create but one actual truth and we have not learned it or we would not be seeing so many attempts at what is the truth. Therefore, we can clearly understand that out of the 15 possibilities that you can read on the internet at least 14 and maybe even all 15 of them are very wrong. Jesus taught us “that if you continued in His word, then you would be His disciples and then you will come to know the truth and this truth would then set you free” (John 8:31-32). So if you are not continuing in the Bible to obtain to this level of knowing the truth, you have already determined in your mind that you are free and you therefore, should not be wasting your time reading my Bible lessons today. What I have been attempting to do in this series of lessons is to point out recognizable, patterns, techniques and methods of hiding the truth using a plain text system of encryption. I have already covered a lot of information that will not be repeated, so if you have not read these lessons from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start your reading with “Part 1”. I will also tell you that I go back and update previous lessons with new information so it might be good for you to go back and reread from the beginning just to get up to date with the latest information on each topic that I have already covered.
Technique 10: Changing the Definition of Common Words, Using Code Names
This is now the tenth technique for concealing the truth in the Bible that I have covered and it is intermixed randomly in several different books, chapters and verses and it is often very difficult to find and recognize unless you know what to look for. One of the key ways that God uses to conceal information in the Bible is to give you a statement using words that you think you know and can easily define, but then later when you read other parts of the Bible you discover that God has a very different perspective to what these words actually mean. This is a common practice used in modern language found in the everyday conversations of people. People use slang words that mean one thing in the dictionary and another completely different thing when heard in the context of the rest of the statement of whoever is speaking. For example, a popular rock star use to sing a song that claimed “I’m Bad”. If you used the popular dictionary definition of this word you would think that it meant he was wicked or evil. However, to the rock star it meant I’m good and I know it. This is a classic example of changing the definition of a known word to convey a new message. We have a whole bunch of people in the world who do this every day. They have invented a new “slanguage” of ways to communicate to each other that others do not understand. This is a highly tricky method of concealing information using words that are clearly readable on the surface but, unless you know that God does this, you will be in the dark on what you are reading and not even realize it.
In an earlier lesson I taught you about God calling multiple things by the same name and then I taught how God can call one thing by many multiple names and these are certainly very similar techniques to what I am teaching today. You see God can selectively change the definition of a word only in certain few verses and in other verses the word means something completely different. Take the word “Day” and try to come up with all of the possible definitions for this one word. This can be a 24 hour time period, a 12 hour time period, or an 8 hour work day, or just a coming time on the calendar or an era, or it can be a specific time of an event like the day we met and this can be past, present or future and it can mean a time of existence like the day of the dinosaur. These are common dictionary definitions of the word ‘day” found in the Bible. But, to God it can also be a specific 1000 year time period based upon God definition of a day found in 2 Peter 3:8. You can clearly see in this verse that God says that “a Day is” and whenever God does this He is about to change the definition of the word that you thought you knew all about. It is like a spy or a policeman with an undercover code name. When someone is undercover they are never called by their real names. They would always use a code name like “mother goose”, “desert eagle” or “Hawkeye”. You can recognize that this might be a code name or you might not know that is what it is, nevertheless you would not know the identity of the person based upon this code name alone. This is a common technique used by the U.S. Secret Service when they are protecting the president, the vice-president and their families. Everyone is given code names so that they can be easily identified internally, but this name can be changed if compromised and they are clearly using this technique to hide the information about who they are protecting. In all of these examples, you would have to have a key or a clue to unlock the identity and this is how God also hides information in the Bible using embedded clues for us to find. If you don’t believe me you should really read the Bible more closely. I always strongly suggest that people use a Bible software search program that allows you to look up every occurrence of each Hebrew and Greek word found in a scripture. In doing this you will soon discover if God gives you a definition of the word in another book, chapter or verse of the Bible that may not be what you thought it meant. Regardless of if there is a new definition or not you will find out what else God says about the subject and learn something potentially new.
So this new concept you are looking for in the Bible is not that complex, but yet it can be very hard to find. You are looking for verses that say “something” IS “some definition”, or “This IS” something and then some definition. Of course getting a definition for the word “IS” is not that easy either. As you listened to a president on TV a few years ago there seems to be many possible definition to this word, but to me it means something that resembles the likeness of something else. You might call it a synonym or a synonymous term. I will give you several more examples of this found in the Bible so do not panic and think that you have to figure it out all by yourself. I already told you about 2 Peter 3:8 where God gives us a very different definition to the word “Day”. However, you cannot apply this definition to every time you see this word in the Bible or you will get confused. There will be times when you can use it as a double reference and see if it reveals something new in a verse that you thought you previously understood, but yet it is sometimes challenging to make the transition into the spiritual meanings behind a verse that is describing a natural story. Take the days of creation in Genesis 1 and 2. God lists six days of creation and one day of rest in Genesis 1 and 2. If you try to take the 2 Peter 3:8 definition of a day and make God’s creation last 6000 years, then you would be hopelessly confused. What you must do is see that Genesis 1 and 2 is describing actual creation 24 hour time periods that have a double referenced meaning for a prophetic day of human history attached to it. God says “I make known the end from the beginning” (Isa 46:10). So we must realize that from the information given to us in Genesis, God is revealing the end. Since it has been nearly 6000 years since the creation of man on the planet, we can understand that this corresponds to the 6 days of creation that are spoken of in Genesis 1 using 2 Peter 3:8 definition of a day. Therefore, each day of Genesis 1 is a prophetic view into the coming 6 – 1000 year time periods of human history. When you can see this, then you are approaching the hidden meanings attached to them. It is very much like solving a very complex riddle or puzzle. God is the master concealer of information in the Bible and He has implemented some very tricky ways to conceal information in the Bible for us to find. If you are not a puzzle solver type of person, then you should not be studying the Bible. I talk about the prophetic viewpoint of the days of creation in other Bible lessons that I have already done, so I will not get into that again in this lesson today.
I will give a few more examples of this technique in the Bible and you might learn how it works when you read about them. Take the words “eternal life”. These words occur only around 30 times in the New Testament in about 12 New Testament books. If you looked up the definitions of the words in the dictionary you might find something like “the condition or state of being alive forever” or “the immortal state of never dying”. Most Bible scholars associate God’s life span to be eternal or infinite. We look at God as having no beginning and no end. Therefore, God possesses eternal life qualities. But, is this what God is saying in the Bible when He uses these words? Let’s look at a sample verse:
Rom 2:7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:
Here we have a very interesting scripture verse. It speaks of men who seek some things from God. At least that is what it appears to me to say. However, notice the end of the statement and see the words “immortality” and “eternal life”. What is the difference between these two things? They would seem to be synonymous terms for the same thing from my viewpoint. Immortality would mean never dying or no end of existence. I guess “eternal life” could be slightly different when referring to men or to God, but I won’t go there right now. All men and women on the planet have a beginning when they are born into this world. So do people exist prior to conception? Actually that is a really good question, but I believe that from what I have seen in the Bible that people have a set beginning at conception and prior to this they do not exist. If you know of scripture that states anything differently I would be happy to learn about them. So now we have the problem of determining when does or if it is possible for a human to ever cease to exist and I do not believe that this is possible based upon what I know about the Bible. A human is a spirit being who lives in a body and after that body is dead; the spirit then departs to be with the Lord if they are saved (2 Cor 5:8) or they are relocated to hell to await judgment. If you do not like that explanation you need to learn to read your Bible and see that this is what happened by the words of Jesus himself in Luke 16:22 where God tells us of two men who died and what happened to them after they were buried. Several very ignorant and spiritually blind people have tried to tell me that this is just a parable, but that is clear fallacy and a feeble attempt to explain away the truth. Jesus never mentions the name of a real man in any parable, if He did this He would become a liar. Let’s get back to “immortality” and “eternal life” and why God uses both of these in that verse in Romans 2:7.
Jud 1:21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Here we have another verse containing the phrase “eternal life” and it appears that whatever this is comes from Jesus Christ. We are still guessing to determine the definition of these words and we are not any closer to a resolution so we must continue searching the Bible to see if God enlightens us to what we need to know about this subject. Fortunately I have already done this search and I found God’s definition of “eternal life” in this verse:
Joh 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
Here is God’s new definition using the classic “This IS” eternal life definition. If you can see what this verse says, it dramatically changes the definition of every other occurrence found in the New Testament of the phrase “eternal life”. Those that have eternal life are only those that know God. If you do not know God then you do not have eternal life. Of course both groups of people live forever somewhere, but they are in completely different locations within the spiritual realm. What we have discovered by searching the Bible is a clear redefinition of the words “eternal life” and these are not found in the dictionary definition anywhere. God is in effect changing our perspectives to how we saw these 30 occurrences in the New Testament that speak about eternal life. This is clearly a code name substitution method and a great example of how getting God’s definition to the words has revealed the truth to us. By getting God’s definition, I greatly increased my understanding of the verses that I thought I already understood.
I cannot give you every example, of this technique in the Bible, because I do not know them all. I will give you a table of some example code names and descriptions found in the Bible and you should go and look up the verses and read them to see how God is changing the classic definition of some common words and phrases. This is a prevalent method used by God to conceal truth in the Bible and surely you can see it if you study them carefully.
|
Scripture |
Bible Code Name |
Description |
| Psalm 119:105 | Lamp and Light | The Word of God |
| Proverbs 3:18 | Tree of Life | Wisdom |
| Proverbs 6:23 | Lamp | The Word of God |
| Proverbs 10:11 | Well of Life | The mouth of the righteous man |
| Proverbs 11:30 | Tree of Life | Fruit of the Righteous |
| Proverbs 12:18 | Health | Tongue of the Wise |
| Proverbs 15:4 | Tree of Life | Wholesome Tongue |
| Proverbs 16:22 | Wellspring of Life | Understanding |
| Proverbs 18:10 | Strong Tower | The Name of the Lord |
| Matthew 11:14 | Elijah | John the Baptist the messenger of the Lord |
| Luke 11:29 | evil generation | those who seek a sign |
| John 3:19 | Condemnation/Judgment | men who loved darkness instead of the light |
| John 6:29 | Work of God | Believe on Him who was Sent from God |
| John 6:40 | Will of God | See the Son of God and Believe on Him |
| John 6:50 | Bread of Heaven | Jesus who has come down from heaven |
| John 15:12 | My Commandment | Love one another |
| John 17:3 | Life Eternal | Know the true God |
| Romans 9:9 | Word of Promise | Spoken to Sarah about her son |
| Romans 11:27 | My Covenant | Take away their sins |
| 1 Corinthians 11:25 | This Cup | The new covenant in my blood |
| Galatians 4:25 | Hagar | Mt Sinai and Jerusalem who are in Bondage |
| James 1:27 | Pure Religion | Visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction |
| 2 Peter 3:8 | One Day | 1000 Years |
| 1 John 2:25 | The Promise | Eternal Life |
| 1 John 5:3 | Love of God | Keep His Commandments |
| 1 John 5:4 | Victory | Being Born of God |
| 2 John 1:6 | Love | Walk in His Commandments |
| 2 John 1:7 | Deceiver | He who denies Christ is come in the flesh |
| John 11:13 | Sleep | Jesus redefined sleep to be His viewpoint of death |
There are too many code names in the Bible for me to list them all. Jesus was given many code names that describe Him to us in many different hidden ways. Jesus is called “the Sun of Righteousness”, “the Word of God”, “Daystar”, “Bright and Morning Star”, “Alpha and Omega” and on and on I could go. Satan is called “the serpent”, “the dragon”, “the deceiver”, “the wicked one”, “the beast” and on and on I could go. These are all code name substitution techniques that conceal the identity of the one that they are referring to. By understanding this we begin to unlock some of the doors of the mysteries of God using the keys that He is teaching us how to use. Jesus told us “I give unto you the keys of the kingdom” (Mat 16:19); could these be some of the things that Jesus was referring to in Matthew 16:19? A data key always consists of words, letters, phrases or things that you use to unlock encoded information. For us to know the secrets of the Kingdom of God is the reason for why God put them in the Bible in the first place. God would have never hidden information if we were not intended to learn them before He comes back for us. I hope and pray that you have learned some valuable things from this series of lessons and I may write more about it later. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons, please go to “Part 11” next.
Understanding Bible Faith! Having Faith While Living in the Modern World? Part 5
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 5 in a series of advanced studies about the subject of Bible Faith. Today’s lesson will be a further expansion of the basic foundational truths surrounding faith and a discussion of the differences between having faith today in the modern world versus that of having faith back when Jesus walked the face of the planet. Are there any differences to having faith today to that of when Jesus was walking among us? In the modern world we are faced with an enormous set of challenges. There are the distractions of technology, the media and the internet. We have had numerous natural disasters, economic pressures, threats of violence, wars, riots, terrorism and other things that can consume our focus in recent days. Maybe you have been where I have been and have thought the same things that I have thought. I have personally thought it would have been nice to live in the days when Jesus was physically walking around and living with us. Life was just so much simpler back them and you could have seen the God of creation in the flesh. Wouldn’t it have been nice to see Him physically speaking, healing, walking on water, raising the dead and doing the things that we can only read about today? Sometimes people think that if I had just lived back then, it would have been easy to get healed and I would not have to put up with this disease anymore. I wouldn’t have to put up with this sickness or this disease if I only lived when Jesus was here. If, I could have just gone to see Him and bam I would have been healed like everyone else. However, when you study the Bible you actually come to a much different understanding of reality and that is what I will discuss today. If you have not been reading this series of lesson from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1”.
I want to start today by turning to the book of Mark chapter 6 and reading a story of Jesus that is often ignored. In this story of Jesus, He is visiting some old friends and relatives and we see a very different reality of how difficult it was back then to get healed even from the Son of God walking among you.
Mar 6:5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
Mar 6:6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.
People like to think that Jesus was God in His omnipotent power and that He could do anything that He wanted to on the earth when He was here. However, that is not what the Bible actually teaches us. According to these verses in Mark 6, it says that Jesus wanted to heal them, but He could not. Wow, that is very earth shattering to the theology of many confused Christians. This verse does not say that “He would not heal them”, it says very clearly that “He could not heal them”. That clearly tells us this is not God in His omnipotent power. What would cause God not to be able to do anything? What would limit God’s ability on the earth? You should really think about that before you try to answer. If you have been reading this series of lessons on Bible faith you have learned that Jesus rebuked people for having no faith and praised others for having great faith. Jesus would always emphasize a person’s faith and no other factors were given for anyone getting healed. So if no one gets healed here in this story in Mark 6, why didn’t they? Verse 5 says Jesus tried to do His mighty works there, but was not able to and then in verse 6 it reveals to us why He could not do anything there. In verse 6, it says Jesus marveled at their unbelief. The term “marveled” comes from a Greek root word to “to see” or “to perceive”. Jesus saw that they had no faith and was astonished. If you learned what I taught in the last lesson, you saw that believing was a key factor for having faith that grows and works. You first had to hear, you then had to understand what you heard and next you had to believe what you heard. This was the people’s problem in this chapter of Mark 6. These people heard that He was anointed, understood what it meant, but refused to believe it by a purposeful act of their own freewill. Pay attention to what I just said, it was not Jesus’ choice to not give them faith; it was there choice not to believe that caused them their problems. That is the first thing that you need to know about that I did not cover in the last lesson. You see I could not cover everything in one lesson or I would have overwhelmed you with too much information all at once. What you need to realize is that faith is more complicated than just four simple steps and miraculously you are healed, saved and delivered from every problem. Your “will” is a determining factor to whether or not you believe what you hear. What I am trying to show you is that faith is an internal choice that you make after you hear and understand. You can choose to believe or you can choose not to believe, it is always your choice. You can read in John chapter 5 about a story where Jesus teaches us this lesson about faith and you will see this point being emphasized. In John 5:6 Jesus approaches a lame man at the Pool of Bethesda and says this to him “Will you be made whole”? Why is Jesus asking this man, this question? Apparently it is not all up to God’s will but it was up to this man’s will to whether or not he was to be made whole again. That was a very direct question that reveals the man’s will played a major part in the man getting healed. What we must realize is that Jesus is not diminishing the man’s faith to be a factor; He was only emphasizing the man’s will needed to be adjusted. The man when asked this by Jesus said “I don’t have anyone who will help me”. In other words the man was making an excuse why he was not healed by blaming others that did not help him and this was what Jesus was trying to correct. Jesus was in effect saying to him it is not their fault that you are not healed, it is your own fault and that does not go over well with people who like to blame everyone else and not take any responsibility upon themselves.
Let’s discuss briefly what is your will? Your will is a key part of your internal unseen soul realm. Your soul is made up of your mind (ability to think, reason and your memory), your will (ability to choose and make choices) and your emotions (love, hate, happiness, sadness, etc.). Your will determines what you do today. If you get up in the morning instead of lying in bed all day, then you exercised your will to get out of bed. If you ate breakfast, you exercised your will to determine what to eat and then to eat. Your will is a conscious decision to do something. Jesus is basically informing us that if you are going to get healed then it is up to your will and not God’s will that makes it happen. In other words if you are waiting on God to heal you, you are not going to get healed. Let’s examine the woman with the issue of blood again and see what she did that fits this reality. She heard about Jesus, understood what she heard and believed it and then she did what? She made a decision to go get healed. If she had done nothing or waited for Jesus to come to her she would not be mentioned in the Bible. It was only because of a conscious act of her will that she is found in the Bible at all. So a decision that she made with her will played a huge role in the fact that she got her healing. I wish that was all of the factors, but that is not all of the factors and it gets more complex than this. So hang in there as we learn some more about faith’s prerequisites and partners to get answers using your faith.
Let’s get back to Mark 6 and see why these people did not let Jesus do any mighty works there. These people failed in step 3 of God’s faith building Bible class. Unbelief is a diametrically opposed force to faith. You cannot have faith and unbelief at the same time and get healed; they in effect cancel each other out. There is one story in the Bible that seems to show you can have both, but I believe that faith and doubt can occur in two different realms of reality. Real Faith is of the heart, and doubts can occur in your mind. What you are supposed to learn today is that Bible faith is of the heart or the spirit and it does not occur in your mind. However, to get faith into your heart takes a trip through your mind and I’ll talk more about that soon.
Luk 24:25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
Where does Jesus say you need to believe? You can actually see that Jesus is associating true faith to the spirit of man. To believe with your heart is the goal that you are after. That also implies that you can believe with your head as a mental choice and not with your heart. The mental realm is a doorway to your spirit, but it is not your spirit. In order for God’s word to work you are going to have to get it into your spirit. How do you do this? In elementary school as children, you would say the multiplication tables over and over out loud until you knew them by heart. Guess what that is how you get God’s word into your heart also. When you get something in your heart abundantly you do not have to figure out the answer, it will just automatically come out. In other words when asked what is 6 times 9 you would just say 54 and you do not have to do a calculation to figure out the correct answer. This is what you are after with the word of God also. You should be able to say exactly what the Bible says about your situation without looking it up. You do this by speaking and mediating on it day and night as God told Joshua in Joshua 1:8:
Jos 1:8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
This is God speaking to you today. If you think that this is a private message to Joshua, you do not understand God very much. God is saying that you must keep His words in your mouth all the time. The Hebrew word translated as “meditate” means to “murmur”. To murmur is a term that means to speak under your breath as in to mutter to oneself. God is telling Joshua how to be successful in life and this applies to you also. The net effect of this action is God builds faith in the heart of Joshua and he is able to lead his people into the Promised Land. It is very difficult to explain the difference between head faith and heart faith. If you learn God’s word and say it over and over until you get it inside your spirit, you will know when you have it and I won’t have to explain it to you. There will come a time when it will be obvious to you also. I will talk more about this soon.
What caused these people Mark 6 not to believe? You can obviously learn that believing with your heart is a key component to whether you will get healed or remain the same from this lesson. The people in Mark 6 were the people of Jesus’ hometown where He grew up as a child to become a man. All of these people knew Him intimately and personally, they saw Him physically for many years and yet after being baptized by John and anointed by God, they refused to believe that Jesus was anointed by an act of their will. You see the problem they had was that they could not overcome the mental conflict that was occurring in their minds when they recalled all of the years that He was with them and never did anything extraordinary. They had put Jesus into a box of familiarity and it caused them to miss the great works that He wanted to do. Apparently living back in the days of Jesus is not that much of an advantage to getting healed as I thought originally. It would seem that the more you knew about Jesus the less likely you were to believe that He was anointed and chosen of God. Did you ever think about this? Why did Jesus choose a bunch of strangers to be His disciples? It was simply because they did not know who He was that allowed them to follow Him blindly. It would appear from this information that knowing Jesus would have been a major stumbling block to you getting healed rather than the other way around. So after I read this story, I was glad I did not live back then and see Jesus personally.
In the last lesson on Bible Faith that I did, I gave you one of the greatest faith lessons found in the Bible about the woman with the issue of blood who was sick for 12 years and when she had heard of Jesus she risked public stoning and pressed through the crowd to touch His garment and she was healed. I have been using this story repeatedly because it holds valuable lessons on how faith works that we need to understand. In this lesson I further described that Jesus said it was her faith that had caused her to be made whole. In studying this story you should become aware that it was only this woman who got healed and no one else present was healed who was in the crowd. When Jesus asked “Who touched me”, the disciples told Jesus that everyone is touching you. Why were all of these people touching Jesus? They must have needed something. I do not think that Jesus was seen to be a rock star personality in those days. Jesus did not get up and sing love songs and the women would faint and scream. The crowds of people were there because Jesus had claimed to be anointed by God, but yet none of these people knew that it required more than just a physical touch to get their answer. What we learn from this information is that Jesus does not place any priority on people, but He does place a huge priority on faith. I want to go over another scripture in this story that I intentionally left out of the last lesson to teach you some additional factors about this woman’s faith. I want to show you why this woman had faith and no one else in the crowd did and we will begin reading in verse 27 of Mark 5:
Mar 5:27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.
We can clearly assume that everyone that was there to touch Jesus that day was there because they had heard the same thing that this woman had heard and that was He was anointed by God. So hearing was not the issue for anyone present, everyone present must have heard about Him the same way. They all must have understood what an anointed one meant. They all must have believed that He was anointed. They all came to touch Him, but only one woman got healed. It must have been another factor that caused this woman to get healed while others did not and that is why I want to show you what is found in verse 28:
Mar 5:28 For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.
We understand from reading this verse that it is out of sequence in time. In other words these are words spoken by the woman before she got to Jesus. Do you understand that? I want to describe the Greek word translated as “for” first in the verse. You see this word in the Strong’s means “to assign a reason”. In other words God is giving us the reason for this woman’s faith. That means it is important to understand. I alluded to this factor in my last lesson and I talked a little bit about it earlier when I mentioned Joshua, but today I want to emphasize it with some extra teaching on the subject of “speaking your faith”. If you have read my other Bible lessons, you know that I teach a lot about the power of words spoken. Here is another example, of this reality using this lesson in Mark 5. We already saw in verse 31 that Jesus said, “Daughter, thy faith has made you whole”. Therefore, we know that the woman had faith before she got to Jesus. Here is how I know that the woman possessed faith before she ever physically saw Jesus:
Luk 17:6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
Here is God speaking to you right here and right now. God says “if you had faith, you would say”. The opposite truth to this statement is “if you had no faith you would be silent”. Wow, that is really good stuff. Does God say that speaking is doing faith? Remember what step four of my last faith lesson was? God said you must 1) hear, 2) understand, 3) believe and 4) do. Step four is always doing your faith. We can clearly see that based upon God’s word here in Luke 17:6 that this woman had faith and was doing her faith because she has said something positive. Remember earlier I tried to teach you that real faith was of the heart and you get this faith by speaking to yourself over and over. This is what this woman must have done. Jesus taught us that “from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Mat 12:34). So whatever comes out of your mouth is what you have abundantly put into your heart. We can clearly understand that this woman had faith from her heart that God says resulted in her healing and that she possessed this before she arrived to where Jesus was because she was saying something.
However, it was not just saying something that was important; it was really more what she believed and then what said. She said “If I touch His clothes, I will be made whole”. Was this prophetic? Was this an amazing coincidence? You have to understand the power of words to see that she got exactly what she said. We should all learn to watch what we say after reading stories like this in the Bible. The woman is never focused on her sickness; her words are only directed at her being whole. If you walk around talking about how bad you feel and how sick you are, you are probably going to stay that way. God is teaching you a concept found in the Bible that is radically different than any concept you get from your doctor. Thinking positively, believing positively and speaking positively will result in good things happening to you. Do you remember what God says in Joel 3:10 “Let the weak say I am strong”. Why would God almighty teach weak people to say what they are not? Wow that is very strange isn’t it? However, God’s ways are not our ways and if you want the God kind of results you are going to have to change to do it His way. This is the major difference between this woman who got healed and the others who touched Jesus but did not get healed. It is obvious to me that none of the others believed or said that they would be made whole. They were just there to try it out and see if anything happened.
It is virtually impossible to teach about faith and not talk about spoken words. These two subjects are intimately connected to each other. The woman with the issue of blood was in effect calling herself whole before she was whole. This is a Bible faith concept revealed to us in Romans 4:17. In this verse God tells us that He called Abraham a father of many nations before He became the father of many nations. In this story of Abraham God changes the name of Abram to Abraham and this causes him to start saying what God said. Abraham was an old man now, but as soon as he starts saying “I am Abraham” which means “father of nations”, He becomes a father that year. God uses your words to produce the results in your life whether you want to believe it or not that is how it works. This faith concept of calling things that are not as though they are, will also work for you today. If you are sick and you want to get healed, be like this woman and start calling yourself whole before you are whole and don’t stop doing this just because it looks worse tomorrow than it does today. This woman could have given up and said there are just too many people for me to get through to Jesus. It is just too hard and it looks impossible. But, she went and made her way through the crowds of people pushing to get to Jesus and when she made it and touched His clothes and she was healed. Would it have mattered if she said “I might be healed”. I think it would have mattered a lot. You see might is a word that implies “might not”, or “depends upon something” I don’t know or some other factor that demonstrates a lack of confidence. If you have no confidence in the Word of God or the anointing you would say “might” or “maybe”. But, if you have great confidence and expect to get healed when you touch Him, then you would say “I will be made whole”. Because the woman had faith in God’s word and His anointing she could say this the way that she did. So I just introduced you to two new determining factors or faith partners that contribute to you having faith. Your confidence level determines your expectation level and these two factors are essential to receiving anything from God. I further showed you that “saying” is a part of doing and some tines it can be all you need to do.
As you can begin to see, Bible faith is a complex subject that is related to many other subjects. We have seen that being willing to hear something new is the introductory level of obtaining faith. Then we learned that you must hear the Word to get faith started. I then showed you how understanding what you heard is a determining factor to having correct Bible faith. I then showed you how believing is an essential factor to having Bible faith. Today I introduced you to your will playing a role in what you decide to believe. Then I taught you that doing is a part of having your faith work for you. Today I introduced you to “speaking” as being a part of doing and getting faith abundantly in your heart. I also showed you that what you say will be dependent upon your level of confidence in what you believe. Finally, the woman with the issue of blood expected to be healed when she touched Jesus, so expectation is another essential piece of having faith that receives. If you don’t expect to get healed you will not get healed. Bible Faith is complex, like a transmission in a car is complex. If you do not think so, you should go unbolt your transmission off of your car and take it apart and see if you are smart enough to put it back together correctly. It takes a lot of training and experience to be a great transmission mechanic and to rebuild a transmission. This is the same way with faith. There are many cross related subjects that you must study to fully understand this complex Bible subject. I wish I could simplify it more, but I did not write the Bible and I did not invent faith so I must learn to work with God’s definitions and the information given to us in the Bible, just like you must do the same.
When you begin to understand how faith works, you will better understand the examples of faith given to us in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. Take for example, the famous story of David and Goliath. Did faith have anything to do with what happens in this story? You should go back and read it again and see what you see that is different now. David heard there was a giant and asks what will be done for the man who kills this giant. It would appear that hearing was a factor in the story. When you read this story notice what David says very carefully and see if he is not speaking words of faith. It is a very powerful faith filled story with words that come from the mouth of David. David said “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine?” In other words who is this one that is not in covenant with the almighty God of Israel? Then David says to Goliath “this day will I take your head from your shoulders and feed your carcass to the birds of the air”. Before David did anything, he always said what he would do. Then David did it acting out his faith in His God. This story exhibits David’s high confidence level in his God’s ability and thus David expected to win the battle and not to be defeated. There were no doubts in the heart of the future King of Israel. But, also realize that before David killed the giant Goliath, David had faith experiences with a lion and a bear. In other words, faith is a progressive undertaking of experiences and previous victories that causes your confidence level to increase. If you start small, your faith can grow to the giant killing level, but if you start with the giant level, you might be easily defeated. Here is a modified list of faith factors that has increased significantly since the last lesson, but hopefully you can see and understand them better now.
- Bible Faith is based upon truth in the Bible.
- Being open to the truth allows truth the opportunity to come to you.
- Hearing the truth is the beginning of obtaining Bible faith.
- Understanding God’s Word spiritually will open the door to allow it into your heart.
- Believing and speaking the Truth will plant it firmly in your heart in abundance.
- Choosing to decide to believe it and do it are both conscious acts of your will.
- Your confidence in the truth determines your level of effort, your commitment and your expectation level for it coming to pass in your life.
- Expect the answer to occur even when it looks impossible. Expecting is like ordering a package from the internet and knowing it will arrive any day very soon.
- Do what you said and receive the answer.
These are the basic steps and factors to having Bible faith in the modern world. It just so happens to be the same as we found in the days when Jesus was walking the face of the earth that we learned about from the woman with the issue of blood. These faith steps also apply to other Old Testament saints like David and Joshua. Faith has not really changed at all, and Jesus has certainly not changed. So whatever He did back then is what is available to you today. I know you cannot touch His physical garment, but you can do everything else that the woman with the issue of blood did and get healed the same way by touching His Spirit. God still sees your faith today and it will still work the same. The Spirit of God is everywhere all at once and His power is available to you right now, but it is only accessed by your faith. In closing I want to emphasize one point that I have seen in the past. There are some people who believe if they throw away their medicine they will be healed. They look at this as an act of their faith. However, that is usually presumptive foolishness that gets you killed. Taking medicine does not heal you and not taking medicine certainly does not heal you. There are no examples in the Bible of people throwing away medicine and getting healed anywhere, so you cannot base your faith on this. Go to the doctor, take your medicine and believe and say that God has healed you and made you whole anyway. When you are healed you will know when not to take any medicine. Your words are much more important to your healing than you not taking any medicine. You begin to say that you are healed and whole and still take your medicine. “Let the sick say I am whole”, that is what Joel 3:10 could say if you want to see it that way. I also want to say that I write these lessons speaking about sickness because many people need to be healed and that is why I have focused in on only one part of receiving from God. But, I want to emphasize that every part of the steps that I just listed will work for whatever you need from God. Maybe it is a job? Maybe it is some money to help pay your bills? The only things that is going to change on my list is what scriptures you need to hear in order to get faith for your need. The Bible contains God’s promises and the New Covenant is built upon better promises than the Old Covenant. So go find the promises of God written about your need and use those to build your faith for what you need today. The rest of the steps are still the same. I hope that clarified a question that someone might have had about faith and how to make it work for a different need other than healing. Thanks for taking the time to study the Bible with me and to see God’s truth.
If you would like to continue reading in this series of Bible lessons on Faith you can go to “Part 6“.
Understanding Marriage, Can Our Marriage Continue Throughout Eternity?
(Ver 1.1) This will be an extremely advanced Bible study about a subject that many married Christians have thought on at one time or the other. Today, I want to focus in on a challenging question that I had presented to me from a reader. It was an excellent question and I appreciate getting stimulating questions form people. She wondered if her marriage between her and her husband would still be able to continue after this life ends. She told me that they loved each other greatly and did not want the marriage to ever end. She had read some of my other lessons where I taught some potentially troubling things that concerned her future marriage to her husband and thus the reason for the question. I do want to say up front that I admire this couple’s resolve and dedication to each other. It is a highly commendable attitude to take hold of and to keep. Anyone going into a marriage should be fully committed to that marriage for however long it might be and for whatever negative things that might occur. Recently on the national news a very prominent Christian TV personality was caught cheating on his wife. This couple after several years of counseling and help from God has decided to remain together and are attempting to rebuild the trust that was lost. While I do not admire the actions of the man to cheat, I do admire that he sees fit to change and get it right and for his wife’s ability to forgive. So this is a very hard question to answer without potentially offending someone or causing anyone to become discouraged, but I will try to do the best that I know how from my current level of knowledge of the Bible and then I’ll let you decide what you want to believe. Let’s first start talking about what marriage is.
Mal 2:14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
Jer 31:32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
You can surely see from these verses in Malachi and Jeremiah that God says a marriage is defined to be a covenant in His eyes. A Bible blood covenant is a legally binding contract between the husband and the wife based upon the Word of God. God told Israel, that I made a covenant with you when I took you out of Egypt and I was your husband. That would make Israel His wife in covenant with God. These are very clear definitions to what a covenant and a marriage are. A covenant and a marriage are clearly synonymous terms for the same thing. When a Christian couple unites in covenant marriage they become “one flesh” according to the Word of God and the law of marriage. You can read this fact in several places in the Bible, but the first time it is mentioned is when Adam and Eve are created in Genesis 2. The body of the wife was taken from the body of her husband and God says they are one flesh (Gen 2:24). This is God’s natural law of marriage covenant between a male and a female and this law is still in effect in the New Testament (Mat 19:5, Mark 10:8, Rom 7:2, Eph 5:31). You do understand that Adam and Eve were created before the Old Covenant. So anything that happens before the old covenant is still in effect after the old covenant has ended. In the eyes of God if you marry someone and consummate that marriage, you are now one flesh that cannot be legally separated for any reason except two Bible exceptions that are given to us by God. God gives us only one legitimate reason for divorce and this is infidelity (Mat 5:32, Mat 19:9). Divorce is the legal end to a marriage covenant contract and God says that this is only permissible if your spouse is unfaithful. If your spouse is adulterous and sleeps around, you are free to divorce them without fear of punishment, legal recourse or retribution from God. This is what the Bible says, so if you divorced for any other reasons you will have some future issues with God. I’m not going to go there anymore since divorce is not my primary subject. The only other legal end to a marriage covenant is when one spouse dies a physical death. According to God’s word that marriage is over.
Rom 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
According to this verse it is very clear that God says the law of marriage is null and void when death occurs. As long as you both are alive and neither is unfaithful you are bound by the law of marriage and God. But, as soon as your spouse dies, then you are not bound to that legal covenant any more. We can recognize that death is a legal separating force for the termination of covenants. This is actually a very important Bible concept that I might not get into fully in this lesson. This concept is introduced when Ruth says to Naomi I will go where you go and your people will be my people. Then Ruth 1:17 says until death part thee from me. This is a popular wedding vow phrase that many have spoken when they were married. The bride and the groom were promising to be faithful until death do we part. You can read about this in some of my other lessons of why God did this and how He used it to terminate His covenant with Lucifer. I want you to see the Greek definition for the word translated as “loosed” found in Romans 7:2:
From G2596 and G691; to be (render) entirely idle (useless), literally or figuratively: – abolish, cease, cumber, deliver, destroy, do away, become (make) of no (none, without) effect, fail, loose, bring (come) to nought, put away (down), vanish away, make void.
It would seem to me that this word is a very strong definition for the termination of a marriage covenant. You can read in the definition “vanish away”, “make void”, “render idle”, “abolish”, “cease”, “destroy” and you can clearly see that there is really no other way to take these statements other than literally. A death when it occurs in a marriage covenant represents a separating force that renders your previous obligations ineffective, useless and vain. So while you would like to think that your marriage is eternal you must take the words of the most intelligent being (God) to be a greater witness to what actually occurs. If you choose to ignore God’s words for what you want to believe it does not cause God’s words to fail or not to come to pass.
I heard a minister say once that he and his wife had made a covenant to stay together in heaven. They enjoyed each other so much that they could not bear to part like my reader. While he did not give any scriptures to back this promise, I’m totally convinced that it might be a possibility for them in some degree. You see I do not know of any scripture that says you cannot speak to others in heaven and establish relationships or friendships. This would further mean if you can speak with someone then you can do other things with that person as well, like walk the streets of gold, eat, fellowship, or whatever. While Jesus was on the earth, He constantly said “According to your faith…” and “As you have believed…”. Jesus seemed to emphasize the faith and beliefs of the people to be a determining factor to what happened to them on the earth. Is faith still a determining factor in heaven? Is how you believe still a defining influence to what you get throughout eternity? That is an excellent question to consider. I personally believe that God would not have gone to such extensive efforts to produce a people of faith, if faith was not a future eternal gift to possess and use. Here is a Bible verse that tends to give that impression also:
1Co 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
God says that there “abides” faith, hope and love and God seems to indicate that these will continue forever. Faith is mentioned first, but God says Love is the greatest of these three. Since the Bible says that God is Love, we know that love is an eternal concept that will never end. If Love will be a dominant characteristic in heaven then faith will surely be there also. The Greek word translated as “abide” means “to continue”, “to be present”, “to endure” and “to stay in a given place”. This word seems to indicate that faith will be present in heaven and if it is like it was on the earth, what you believe is usually always what you get out of life, good, bad or indifferent.
So I have concluded that it might be entirely possible to remain in a relationship in heaven if that is what you both believed for. Now the complexity factor is increased because of this additional emphasis which you must place on the Bible. Bible faith or beliefs are always based upon what God tells us in the Bible. If God says anything is for you, then you can believe it is yours and possess it. Then there is inverse truth to that law which is that you cannot believe God for something that violates His Word and expect to get it. Therefore, if you believe for something that is sinful, hurtful, harmful, lustful, or a violation of the Word of God you will probably not get what you were expecting. Let’s say a man wants to live with a woman in eternity that was another man’s wife on the earth, would that be permissible or even remotely possible? You can begin to see the complexity that is involved in multiple personalities wanting the same thing and what is the resolution? I guess what we need to do is figure out what the Bible actually says on the subject and then believe for that. In our world, people marry and divorce like it is no big deal. There are many people in the world who have married multiple times. Some have done this because their spouses have all died, but others have done it because they thought the grass was greener on the other side of the hill. What happens when a person in our world is married multiple times and then they are saved and go to be with the Lord? Jesus actually was presented this hypothetical question in the Gospels and here is this story:
Mat 22:24 Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
It is very interesting to note that the Law of Moses does not tell a woman to remain unmarried if her husband has died and she has had no children. In fact the Law that God gave to Moses actually commands the opposite. It is interesting to note that God is not opposed to being married multiple times and you should think about that. It is more important to God why you have been married multiple times and not if you have been married multiple times. Here in this story the woman’s dead husband’s younger brother is supposed to marry her and raise up children for his dead brother. This means to have sex with her and give her children. So we can clearly see that God is saying something can’t we? Now the additional complexity comes in if they have already had children, then there is not a requirement to remarry and it is permissible for her children to take care of her in her old age. The law was intended to give a childless widow an option that would cause her to not stoop to prostitution to feed herself. I believe that God was looking out for the widow in this law and that it has spiritual meanings attached to it that I cannot get into today.
Mat 22:25 Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother:
So in the hypothetical question being presented to Jesus there are said to be seven brothers and one woman. The first brother dies and leaves his wife to his brother, like the Law of Moses so states.
Mat 22:26 Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh.
They continue to go through the list of brothers in ordered succession and each has had their turn to be married to the same woman in this world. This is one woman who had seven different husbands. Surely you have read this in the Bible before? But, did you understand it?
Mat 22:27 And last of all the woman died also.
Finally the woman dies and is buried and then what? This is where we are today in this lesson of what happens next after this life? The men that were standing with Jesus are about to ask him a question. Here is the question finally presented after the long background discourse:
Mat 22:28 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.
Jesus was being questioned by a group of Jews who did not believe in the resurrection from the dead. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, so they were trying to get Jesus to see their point of view by asking a hypothetical question about it as a trick. The Pharisees did believe in the resurrection based upon words, from something that they had read in the Old Testament it gave them the impression that death was not the end of the journey. So the Sadducees ask Jesus which husband will this woman belong to since she was “one flesh” with all of them. Wow, that is a tough, tough question to answer unless you are God who knows how to handle hard questions.
Mat 22:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
So here we go with the response of the creator of the universe and this is a potentially explosive answer that can be interpreted many wrong ways. If you look at just the first part of the entire response you could say that these guys did not understand the scriptures and Jesus was saying there was no resurrection coming. But, that is not what Jesus said at all. Jesus literally said “You are in error not understanding the scriptures or the power of God”. This verse actually gives us some tremendous insight into two things. The answer to their question was clearly found in the Old Testament, if we can see it and understand it. The next item to consider is that the Power of God is involved in the solution to the mystery. Jesus was in effect saying if you understood how powerful God was, you would not be asking such a foolish natural question. Wow, that is tough right there to handle isn’t it? It almost sounds like my reader’s question of can I still be married to my husband in heaven? Would Jesus give the same answer to my reader’s question as He did to the one that these guys asked? I do not know for sure how to answer that. I just know that God says “With Him ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE”. So I’m not sure if I helped or hurt with that last statement. Let’s continue through the answer that Jesus gives us and see what else He has to say:
Mat 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
Here we have a very interesting statement where Jesus continues His answer to the men’s question. Did you see what Jesus said? Jesus definitely said there is a resurrection coming, it has not occurred yet, so it is a future event within God’s calendar. Next, Jesus said after the resurrection that people will neither marry or be given in marriage. Let’s stop there and think about that part of the statement. The Greek word translated as “marry” means to wed and applies to either sex, male or female. God says males and females will not marry after they are raised in the resurrection. Then the Greek word “given in marriage” is a term only for females when a daughter is given to her future husband to become his bride. These are very familiar topics and subjects that we are all familiar with in this world. We see this happening all around us. But, Jesus clearly says that this is not what will happen after the resurrection occurs. The question then shifts to why? Does it mean it is not possible or just not permitted or could it be a third option that you have not considered? You see in the world today you see things from a very narrowly focused point of view. What will change after the resurrection occurs? Is it possible that you will not have the same desires and your focus will experience a transformation which will permit you to see things completely different? Read this verse very carefully:
1Co 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
There seems to be some clues in the Bible that we do not see things very clearly in this world. In other words our spiritual vision is clouded and our perspectives are skewed. I believe what God is saying to us is that what we hold as valuable in this world, when reflected on could become very minor to us when viewed correctly in the next world. Think about this statement very closely and consider the words written there for you. If you can only see a small part of this world and only know a minor slice of the greater truth that will be revealed later, how can you make a determination now what you will want in the next spiritual dimension? Your desire to stay married with your present spouse might just change dramatically once you see the awesome power of God. Your spouse might be the center of your world today, but in the presence of God they could fade and become much less important to you. I do not mean to say that you will not love them, but according to this verse in first Corinthians you will see them more clearly along with God.
I can almost feel the disappointment that my reader no doubt might be feeling right now. But, let’s continue with the answer that Jesus is speaking of in his response to marriage after the resurrection. After Jesus says we will not marry, Jesus says something else that is very profound; he says “we will be as the angels of God”. We can clearly understand from this statement that angels pre-existed man. Angels were not created to look like us; we were created to look like them. But, how are the angels of God? Jesus implies that angels do not marry each other either. The implication is that they could marry but that this is not the design of God for them to marry. You can take this to mean that there must be both male and female angels can’t you? If there were not any female angels then God would not be able to compare us to them. We could never be like them, if there were only males. Do you understand that? You see when I read in Genesis where the “sons of God” (angels) had sex with the daughters of Adam (women) on the earth and created a race of giants, I wondered if there were any female angels. It is clear that God says there are male angels. If God created male angels with male sexual organs and no female angels it would not make any logical sense to me. I guess I’m getting off of the subject somewhat, but it is a very fascinating concept to consider. I have to conclude that if people who are resurrected can become like the angels and female humans are included in this group there has to be female angels that exist or they would not really be like anyone else. The major thing to learn from this statement is that after the resurrection, we will be like the angels of God. Whatever they do, we can do, whatever they are we are very similar, however they live, we will live also. Please remember this and I will try to talk more about the angels later. However, Jesus is not through answering the question and we must see the rest of the answer and put it together correctly:
Mat 22:31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
Here is Jesus beginning to give us another very deep revelation of the spiritual realm. As you can clearly read, Jesus has not finished speaking about the resurrection. This next statement is a direct revelation that is very powerful to know:
Mat 22:32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Wow, this is a hard saying from God. It will go over your head if you are not careful to observe the words that are being communicated on the subject of the resurrection. What was Jesus saying with this statement? The words of the prophet were written many hundreds of years after the physical deaths of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God is saying that at the time the prophet wrote these words, these three men were not dead. These words confounded the Sadducees who were listening and put them to silence. You see I have had several very ignorant commenters try to teach me about what happens after physical death occurs and they should have noticed what Jesus just said before they try to tell me what they think. Some have said the soul and spirit sleep and do not know anything until the time of resurrection. Some of them have tried to say that the human life is ended when a person dies and there is nothing else for them. But, God Himself says that they did not die and they are alive and the resurrection has not yet occurred. Here is one of the most important things you should learn from today’s lesson about spiritual things. If you are a Christian and your body dies in this world, the Bible says your spirit departs and is present with the Lord (Php 1:23). Jesus is saying that physical death is not the end; it is only a change of address. Death is a departure from the physical realm and an entrance into the spiritual realm. Did you understand what I just said? If you did not you should go and read it until you do understand it or just ask me some questions about the parts that you do not understand. What you need to see is that Jesus when speaking to these men on the earth said God is the God of the living and not the dead. God said Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who had died physically hundreds of years earlier, were not spiritually dead but were called alive. Let me give you a verse that I alluded to earlier about changing your of perspective after you die:
1Co 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
What I see from studying the Bible are people’s desires, viewpoints and perspectives are purely based upon what they know and have experienced up until this point in time. In other words your favorite food might be apple pie on the earth, but who knows what it will be when you get to heaven since God could have things there that you have never experienced. People think that because the love found in their current family has been so special and real to them, that it cannot get any better so I will be happy if I just have this throughout eternity. However, God says in 1 Corinthians 2:9 that we have no idea or clue to the great and awesome things that He has planned for those who love Him. I tried to tell you this before, but when you are standing on the streets of gold surrounded by mansions and an innumerable company of angels with the awesome light coming from the throne of God, if you still think and feel the same way that you do today, then God has failed in you knowing Him.
I heard a minister teach about a vision of heaven that he had once where he appeared there and saw things that were so amazing that they are difficult to describe in human terms. He saw spiritual things and even people he knew and talked to them. One of his relatives a sister was there and he got to speak to her. She had died a number of years earlier and she asked him questions about her family that she left there was doing and I think these questions shocked him. You see she did not know what was happening on the earth in the physical realm so she had to ask questions about it to her brother who had just came from there to visit. Her brother did not tell her that her husband had remarried but, said that they were all doing fine. You see people in heaven do not see things the same way and they do not care about the natural realm in what you ate today and what we are wearing or even who you are married to. People in heaven do not care what kind of car you are driving or what kind of house you are living in. Things in the natural realm are very unimportant to people in the spiritual realm. It is a complete opposite perspective to what people on the earth are focused in on. Those in heaven only care if you know Jesus and are saved and that you are growing up spiritually. The eternal things are so much more important than the natural things of this world, that our perspectives are totally different after we leave here. Here is a verse that certainly applies to what I am trying to say to you today:
1Co 7:34 There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
God is comparing two women in this verse and it clearly says there is a major difference between them. But, do not take it out of context or try to say that God is saying you should not get married. You see if people did not get married and have children, there would be no harvest for God to come back to get. God is simply showing us how a perspective changes when you are married. You see things differently than someone who is not married. You can also take this into the spiritual realm comparison between someone who is spiritual versus someone who is naturally minded. If you are focused on Jesus, then you want to please Him and if you are married your focus is shifted to your spouse. When you get to heaven, who do you want your focus to be on? What do you think God wants your focus to be on?
So I am not saying today that you will not love your spouse when you get to heaven. I’m not saying you cannot spend a lot of time with your former spouse in heaven. I am just saying that in heaven you will see things more clearly than you do today. You will be able to see God for the first time there and you will know Him better than you have ever known Him. I personally believe that the experience of heaven will truly be overwhelming. I believe God has some awesome things prepared for us and when we begin to see them, the past will become just what it was, a spec of inconsequential meaning that pales to the definition of an eternity with God. The human mind cannot fully comprehend infinite and eternal concepts of time. No doubt we will be able to do things in eternity that we never imagined in our short life span on the earth. So I have much more to say on this subject, but I have gone long enough today. I’ll give you a list of key points from today’s lesson about marriage before and after the resurrection.
- Marriage is a blood covenant union between a man and a woman.
- Divorce is not permitted except for infidelity.
- There is a physical resurrection coming where we get a new glorified body.
- Just because you die physically does not mean you are not alive spiritually. You exist just not here in the physical realm.
- After you die physically, your marriage in the natural realm is over.
- This does not mean Christians will not know each other in the spiritual realm in fact you will definitely carry over your memories and experiences in this life into the next.
- We will see things clearly then and not be limited in our perspective as we are now.
- Jesus said in the next realm we will:
- Not marry
- Not be given in marriage
- Be as the angels in heaven
I see marriage, children and families as natural things that God has created for us to teach us about spiritual things. If we did not have these things we would not be able to understand the future spiritual reality that we will soon all experience with Him. So my reader asked me if her marriage could continue and this is a difficult question to attempt to answer today. I hope I have not disappointed anyone in my answer with what the Bible says. I do not believe that you will be disappointed after you get to heaven in any degree. There are many things that you do not know yet, so keep learning them and you will see things more and more clearly as we approach Him who is calling us to a greater and higher ability to see.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 9
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 9 in a series of advanced Bible lessons on the complex methods that God has used to conceal spiritual information in the Bible for us to find. If you like solving challenging puzzles, riddles and mysteries then you should enjoy studying the Bible. The Bible is full of God’s hidden spiritual wisdom using words that we can plainly understand and I call this “Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight”. Not too many people have studied this subject primarily because they did not know that God had done this. But, by learning of the existence of these technical methods, what they are and how they work, we should greatly increase our ability to understand the truth of God’s Word. Hiding the truth using standard plain text writings is a very complex system to recognize and to understand and it clearly demonstrates the extreme intelligent design of a God who is capable of doing these things using the words placed in plain view where any man has the opportunity to break the encoded messages. Since I am a former computer programmer with over 25 years of experience and training I understand complex system design better than most laymen. I have worked on and developed some very large and extremely complex computer systems which would have been a challenge for anyone to learn. But, to introduce any new novice programmer to them it would have been overwhelming for them to try to learn and to understand them, much less to change or to maintain them without breaking the system. Now if you are not a computer programmer, you would be more than overwhelmed with trying to figure out how the system works externally, much less trying to figure out how it works internally at the code instruction level. This is why very few people understand the Bible when reading it. You see the Bible has an external message using words that anyone can read, but it also has an internal spiritual message that only Christians can come to understand. When I read the Bible, I can see God’s intelligent design using a series of complex system word components and concealing techniques that while He makes the words plainly readable, the underlying truth is completely hidden from the view of naturally minded men and women. You have to be extremely intelligent to design a system like this and I believe God definitely qualifies for the job. To me, learning about how God hides information in the Bible has furthered my beliefs that He is the author of this book. Hopefully as you read and study these techniques you will be able to recognize these methods also and learn how to decipher the hidden spiritual meanings behind the words that you are reading. I have covered a lot of subjects already in this series of lessons and I will not be repeating the information previously given in any detail. So, if you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start your reading with “Part 1“.
Technique 9: Speaking in a Third Person Style of Writing about Yourself
This next technique for concealing the truth in the Bible is intermixed randomly in several different books, chapters and verses and it is often very difficult to find and recognize unless you know what to look for. I call it God writing or telling a story about Himself from a seemingly unknown, unnamed or anonymous third person view point or perspective. In other words in this style of writing God speaks about certain people, events or actions all the while referring to Himself as a nameless man who does something natural like sow a seed in a field, get a wife for his son, cut down a tree or some other physical action that portrays or reveals a greater hidden spiritual reality to us. Authors in our world who write fictional books utilize this technique frequently when telling a story. This writing style allows greater creativity and multiple viewpoints to be established and it greatly complicates the landscape when you want to conceal information. I believe that God uses the anonymous third person writing style predominantly all throughout the Bible. I want to start by teaching you examples of what it is, then how it works and finally give you some specific hidden examples of it in the Bible. Let’s start at the beginning and read in the Book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1 that is written as if Moses was a witness to the creation events.
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
As you can read in these first three verses of Genesis there is someone watching or observing what is happening during creation who is never named directly. The observer is clearly an anonymous hidden personality. God is named directly by name in this example, but God is not the first person speaker or observer. What you can see is someone else is watching what God says and then telling us about it. Since Moses was not there to witness creation, we can assume that God is describing the events and He uses Moses to record them. Therefore, God is using a third person perspective for the references to His personal point of view, but every name, place and event is mentioned is that of a real person place and thing that actually exists and happens. In other words God names, names and describes actual events that transpired without saying “I saw the darkness” and “I did this”. God is directly quoted saying words, but God is not speaking directly. The words are heard as if someone was there to watch God create the world. This is a very complex tricky way of telling you something without telling you something directly. The writing style conveys implied and hidden information that is not directly mentioned. I hope you understand this simple example that I just gave you because it does get more complicated than this as we go forward.
I want to stop here and make another point that is important for you to know about. Just because God uses this writing style in Genesis 1 does not mean that God does not also utilize other techniques of concealing information in this same chapter. For example, I have discovered that the book of Genesis is widely symbolic information especially in the first three chapters. This use of symbolism allows God to hide the true identity of Satan as being the deceiving serpent for instance. Satan is later revealed to be this ancient serpent in Revelation 12, but you would not really know that by just reading Genesis. So clearly the serpent was a symbolic hidden reference name to conceal the identity of Satan. Then there are hidden analogies found in Genesis that are clearly much greater complex spiritual truths that hide this information and makes it very hard to find. This is just a small part of the complexity of the Bible and a demonstration of the intelligence of the design of God’s Word. God can use multiple methods of hiding information in the same book, chapter or verse of the Bible and you have to become smart enough to recognize them all to get the real meaning. Today’s lesson is about technique number 9 and I’m not convinced that I am done writing about them all. So reading the first three chapters of Genesis you might encounter seven of the nine techniques used to conceal truth in the Bible intermixed. For example:
- Widely dispersed Truths: Gen 3:1 The serpent is not revealed until Revelation 12. Adam is first mentioned by name in Genesis 2, but he is also mentioned in the New Testament and many other places in the Bible.
- Symbolism: Genesis 1:16, The Greater Light to Rule the Day, revealed to be Jesus the Sun of Righteous in Malachi 4:2 and other scriptures. The serpent is clearly a symbolic reference in Genesis 3:1.
- Referring to the Same Thing Using Multiple Names or Titles: The woman in Genesis 1, 2 and 3 is called “Adam” or “man” in Gen 1:27, “help meet” in Gen 2:18, “woman” in Gen 2:22, “wife” in Gen 2:24, “Eve” in Gen 3:20, “Mother” in Gen 3:20.
- Calling Multiple Things by the Same Name: This is found in Genesis 2:20 where God names the man “Adam”. This name is also given to Jesus the Last Adam in 1 Cor 15:45.
- Types and Shadows: Adam and his wife are shadows of Jesus and his wife the Church. Just as Eve was the Body of Adam, so the Church is the Body of Christ.
- Telling a Story Without Any Explanations: There is clearly the story of creation in Genesis 1 without any explanation of how it was created or when it was created. Genesis 2, God creates the woman from the man, but never explains why.
- Third Person Writing Style: As I have pointed out you can see in Genesis 1 an unknown or unnamed witness to creation is narrating the events that occurred. This clearly has to be God’s point of view but it is not spoken of or revealed to us directly.
This is the complexity of understanding the Bible. If anybody told you that the Bible was easy to understand they lied to you intentionally or they were heavily deceived into thinking they knew more than they actually knew. In just the first three chapters there are clearly seven or eight different concealing techniques intermixed to make the truth unrecognizable to the casual reader. I did not attempt to list every example or to even explain them in any great detail. So you either saw them or you didn’t. I have learned that Bible study is like digging for gold; you might get lucky on the surface, but to really strike it rich you have to dig deep. You must dig very deep and study for countless hours to come to the knowledge of the truth or you have to read the blogs of someone who has done this already and you will save yourself a lot of valuable time. Let’s continue our study of the third person writing style and discover some other ways God has used this technique to conceal information in the Bible
Some modern day fictional writers have copied what God has done in writing about a seemingly unknown or an anonymous man when they are actually writing about themselves in hidden terms. This technique is very similar to when Jesus would speak to us in parables describing new complex spiritual things in a story about a man who had a field. Let me give you a quick review of a parable and how Jesus used it to describe Himself:
Mat 13:31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
Here we have a statement that God is speaking a parable about some powerful spiritual truths using natural recognizable descriptions of some things that were found easily on the earth. Most of the people that Jesus was speaking to understood farming concepts and where food came from and how it worked, however few to none of them understood how to transfer this information into the spiritual realm and determine what it meant. So here in this verse Jesus is speaking using the technique of parables that I have covered before using encoded symbolic descriptors about the Kingdom of Heaven. We therefore understand what to look for in the statement by knowing these two important facts. Remember that a parable is almost always given to us in a statement that says “something” is like “something else” and this alerts us into a mental transition on how we think about the statements that are given next. Here in this parable Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed a grain of mustard seed in his field. We know from this information that God is speaking of spiritual things using symbolism in a third person anonymous writing style. In this chapter it just so happens that Jesus is telling the story about an unnamed man and this is the reverse logic we found in the first Chapter of Genesis where we saw an unnamed person telling a story of what God says. However, this unnamed man in the parable is clearly God. Therefore, we must make the mental transformation to see the man who sows the seed to be a hidden reference to God and what He will do or has done. It further goes to say that God has a garden which is a place to plant seeds. We can understand that the field is symbolic, the seed is symbolic, “sowing” is symbolic as well as the man is symbolic and we must convert these into their spiritual meanings in order to understand the story correctly. If you have read my series of lessons on “Understanding Seeds” in the Bible you will better understand what is being taught. So I will not go through and attempt to re-explain all of the elements in the parable in this lesson. What I want you to see is my key point that God is speaking of Himself as being a symbolic unnamed man that sows a symbolic seed into His field and that these natural things reflect much greater hidden spiritual truths.
That last example wasn’t too hard to figure out since maybe you already understand the parable concepts that I taught earlier. However, what if God took away the information about this is a parable and that something is like something else and He only told you the story? Could you be smart enough to put it together and recognize what God is talking about? By removing this information it would dramatically make it more complex to figure out what is being taught. If you would allow me I’ll change this one verse and omit those introductory facts so can see how it might change it if God would have chosen to do this:
Mat 13:31 A man took a grain of mustard and sowed in his field:
You see without the key information given that this is a parable which is conveying spiritual things about the Kingdom of Heaven, how would you ever figure out what God is talking about? I think you would not be able to put the two realities together without this information even though the information can still be determined by using some logical assumptions. It just makes it significantly more difficult to come up with the correct interpretation if God would do this and guess what? God has done this numerous times in the Bible. Here is a good example of this found in a statement that Jesus makes in Matthew 19:
Mat 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
Mat 19:5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Mat 19:6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Here is Jesus speaking again of marriage and the fact that God created them male and female in the beginning. However, did you notice what Jesus said and how He said it? Be precise and pay very close attention to every word spoken. In verse 4 Jesus says “Have you not read” and then He says “that he which made them”. Who was he that made them? It was the speaker of the question, “he who made them” was Jesus. The creator God is doing the speaking and He calls Himself an anonymous pronoun of “he”. That is a prime example of an anonymous “third person” reference to Himself using the personal pronoun of “he”. Think with me and see what is happening here in this statement. God is not lying or fabricating information, He is just not revealing everything that He could have. Jesus could have said “I created them male and female”, but this would have gotten Him stoned for claiming to be God. God is using this style for several reasons, but you can see that it is very clever to speak this way. It gives the information that you want to provide without revealing things that you do not wish to reveal. Next, Jesus is basically quoting from Genesis 2:24 and this is a prime example of how God is writing something about a physical man who we can all relate to, named Adam and it directly applies to the spiritual man named Jesus (the Last Adam) also. Remember that in Matthew 13:31 Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a “man” who sows a grain of mustard seed in a field. I have concluded that the symbolic man being referred to is God. Therefore, if you read this verse in Matthew 19:5 you will see another unnamed “man” being spoken of. You can assume that Jesus is only speaking about Adam or you can open your eyes and see that Jesus is revealing more than you know right now. Because Jesus does not name the man, the man is open to being a greater spiritual truth. Jesus of course called himself the “son of man” frequently. So Jesus was definitely a “man”. Therefore, we can make the jump that Jesus could be talking about himself in this verse leaving His Father in heaven and coming to the earth. We also know from studying the Bible that Jesus will soon be formally married to His bride and you can read about that in Revelation 19:7. Therefore we can see very clearly how the church becomes the body of Christ since it is by the law of marriage given to us in Genesis 2:24 that make this possible. God clearly tells us that the two shall be joined to become one flesh (body). Finally, in verse 6 of Matthew 19, Jesus makes this statement “what God has joined together, let no man put asunder”. This statement is not a quote from Genesis 2:24 and we must conclude that Jesus is associating this statement with Genesis 2:24 for a purpose. God is using some more cleverly designed words to hide spiritual information in this verse. Here, God is speaking and He says what God has joined together meaning God joined someone together by the law of covenant marriage. Again if you only think that He is speaking of Adam you are limiting your perspective to a natural pattern that does not take into account the spiritual information being concealed in it. Then Jesus says “Let no man put asunder”. When Adam was created there were no other men on the planet to put them asunder, so you can obviously see that Jesus is not talking about Adam and Eve in this statement. Who is Jesus speaking of here? Wow, that is a very tough question to answer much less to see. You see Jesus has come to the earth and taken on the form of His creation in the body of a man, for what purpose? I personally believe that Jesus is the man that came to put asunder Satan from God. I know you do not have enough information or knowledge to affirm what I have just told you. We have to understand the law of marriage that Jesus is speaking of in Genesis 2:24 and see that when Jesus is joined to His bride, according to the law of marriage He must leave his Father and his mother and become one with His bride. So covenant marriage is a dividing force that creates a new spiritual family. The Son of God is in the process of creating a new spiritual family for God in order to eliminate the old family members of God which include Satan and his angels. These are new concepts for many people, but if you study your Bible you will see that they are true.
There are numerous examples in the Bible of this technique of writing indirectly about yourself that God uses and I will give you another classic example found in Isaiah 53. This chapter should be very familiar to you because it is often referred to in many circles to be all about Jesus. However, not one time is the name of Jesus directly mentioned and most of the references to Him are in a third person style of writing where a certain man is being described externally and anonymously. I am not going to go through every verse in this chapter, if you desire to you may stop and read the entire chapter to verify that the name of Jesus is never mentioned.
Isa 53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Isa 53:7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
Isa 53:9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Isa 53:12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Chapter 53 of Isaiah is a very complex chapter to study. The viewpoint of the writer seems to change from an unknown and unnamed group of people who are observing to the viewpoint of another unnamed individual at the end of the chapter. This would appear to create a shifting landscape to how we should interpret these verses. These are just a few sample verses found in this chapter of Isaiah. You can clearly see a nameless man is being spoken of. This is the common theme of the entire chapter regardless of the changing perspective. In the beginning of the chapter, a group of people are mentioned as the observers. There are numerous pronoun references of “our” and “we”. Nowhere in this chapter is there the name of this primary individual being spoken of or the observers who are watching so clearly you can see a technique of concealing information by omitting some key details.
We could assume that the observing people are the natural nation of Israel, but you might be able to see that this group could also be the spiritual people of God, the church. Throughout this chapter, God is using prophetic words about an anonymous man who will come to the earth in the future. God is using a technique of a third person descriptive story to talk about Himself in a hidden way. God inserts several clues that any Christian today would clearly recognize is Jesus, but to the scribes and the Pharisees they missed it and did not understand that they killed their Messiah. Jesus was the Lamb of God sacrificed for the sins of mankind. Jesus was hung on a cross among criminals on either side of Him. There are just too many descriptive words in this writing of Isaiah that makes it obvious to me, but I can see the one that I know personally and it is easier for me to recognize than for someone who does not know Him. As you continue down the reading in this chapter you see a change of perspective taking place. Now we have another viewpoint being given to us. This viewpoint seems to be a singular view point of a person being referred to as “I” and “My”. Changing perspective in the middle of a chapter is a tricky way to conceal information. It can be easily overlooked and even ignored when you casually read the words. We are never told who the observers are; we just have to recognize that the observer changed. These are complex puzzles to try to solve, but God has placed these things in the Bible for a purpose. If you look closely in the Old Testament you will find this writing technique repeated in a very effective way to conceal the truth. God speaks about somebody and prophesies events in their life, but never says who it is and never says who is observing it. Usually when this is done it is always a reference to God Himself in a hidden plain text technique. Also the hidden perspective can also be from God’s point of view and this is what you should look for first. As you read your Bible look for it and see it and you will better understand what you are reading.
These are some of techniques that God has taught me from the Bible and these are not all of them that I can talk about. We will talk about more of them sometime in the future. Keep studying your Bible and digging for the truth and we will all find it together.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on understanding God’s spiritual hiding methods then please continue with “Part 10“.
Understanding Bible Faith! How Faith Comes? Part 4
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 4 in a series of advanced Bible studies about the subject of Bible Faith. Today’s lesson will be a basic foundational definition to how to get Faith. There are many people in the world who claim to have faith and yet when pressed for a definition of what faith is to them, they cannot tell you. Then if you asked them how did you get this faith, again they cannot tell you. Therefore, we are going to explore the basic Bible subject of faith to help people understand what faith is and where faith comes from. Technically speaking you do not have to know how transmissions work, to drive a car and faith is the same way to some extent. You can drive a car by just automatically learning which gear to be in and press the gas and you are off and running. Salvation can be this way also. You do not have to know that it takes faith to use your faith to be saved, yet your faith is still the determining factor to whether you are saved or not. So we could liken your faith to be your spiritual transmission and God and His power and Grace to be the spiritual engine to the car. Without both of these two key components working flawlessly together in harmony, your spiritual car is not going to move. Hopefully you will understand this analogy better as we continue through this lesson. If you have not read this series of lessons from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and read starting at “Part 1”.
In order to understand what faith is, let’s first find out how faith comes. If you did not know that faith comes then you did not read my first lessons very closely. In a previous lesson I described a verse found in Romans 12:3 that said that all Bible faith comes from God. This verse told us that God has dealt to every man (among you) faith. I explained that verse in that lesson, so I will not repeat the explanation here. Just read it and recognize that God has faith to give, so we as men and women must receive it. Also, in a previous lesson I taught that faith is measurable and quantifiable ranging anywhere from zero or none upwards to full of faith, the maximum that you can have. Remember that your faith can vary in that range of measurable numbers based upon something. Jesus would look at His disciples and rebuke them for having “no faith” and then for a few people that Jesus ran into, He would praise them for having “great faith”. Obviously there is a great deal of difference between those two ranges found on the faith value chart. We can conclude based upon the information that we learned in lesson 3 that faith comes in stages and can grow or increase up the chart to the highest levels. But, how do you get faith and how do you increase your faith that you already have. If you were a car, and your gas tank was empty you would simply go and fill it, does this simple concept also apply to faith? Can I go to the Faith station and fill my Faith tank? That is where we are at in the lesson today so let’s go to the Bible and see what God has to say to us.
Rom 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
God gives us a major revelation concerning faith in this verse of Romans. God ties the amount of faith that you possess to the amount of Words of God that you hear. Of course, it is much more complicated than that simple statement. If you could get faith by just hearing God’s Word, then you would just need to go buy the Bible on CD and play it all the time and you should have faith to move mountains left and right. Obviously it takes more than just hearing to get faith. But, hearing is where you faith lesson begins today to teach you about how to get more faith. Let me teach you the progressive steps to getting faith and then we will look at this in the scriptures to find if we can prove what I just said. Faith depends upon you doing the following steps and there are 4 possible reasons why faith does not come and only 1 instance where your faith actually grows. Read these 5 examples very carefully and see if you can see what God is teaching you:
Faith Comes by Hearing, but they:
- Don’t Listen or Refuse to Hear!
- Listen but don’t understand what is Said.
- Hear, Understand but don’t believe it.
- Hear, Understand, Believe and then don’t do it.
- Hear, Understand, Believe and then do it and finally they have faith that grows.
Wow, I do not know if you understood what I just said but it was good. These same concepts are how you learn things in school. You go to class, you either choose to hear your teacher or reject her words by closing your mind to them. Then you can hear her words, but not understand what was being taught. Right there is your opportunity to ask questions or remain ignorant. Next you can hear your teacher teach you about history and then not believe that it happened. Next, you hear your teacher teach you about algebra, understand it, believe it but just not do the work and you will fail that class. Finally, when you achieve to all of the first four requirements, hearing, understanding, believing and doing is when your faith will grow and increase and you can move to the next higher faith grade level. That was how faith works in a nutshell. It is the basis of how faith comes and how you put it to work for you. Let’s examine if we can find faith demonstrated to us in a Bible example that we are given and see if this is how it really works:
Mar 5:25 And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,
Mar 5:26 And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,
Mar 5:27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.
Mar 5:28 For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.
Mar 5:29 And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.
Here is story of a woman who was diseased for 12 years. But, did you notice what the Bible says happened to this woman? I tried to underline some of the important parts for your careful consideration. It says in verse 27 that she had “heard” of Jesus. How does faith come? According to Romans 10:17 faith comes by hearing. So right there we know that this is the first requirement for having faith. She obviously heard something that gave her faith and it must have been the Word of God according to Romans 10:17. What did she hear? While we are not told what she heard directly, we can make an assumption based upon other scriptures that it had to be something from the Old Testament. Remember what Jesus did after being baptized by John? Jesus went into the synagogue one day and open the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and read from it “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and He has anointed me” and then he continues to say “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18-21). If you think that Jesus did this only one time, you would probably be making a wrong assumption. I personally believe that Jesus read this verse of Isaiah everywhere He went to build the people’s faith. So I believe that this woman with the issue of blood had heard what Jesus had said. Now right there she must have understood what was spoken and you clearly see that she believed it by what these verses in Mark 5 say that she does after hearing. Here is a woman that should not be out in public, but she has heard of Jesus and decides to get healed. She does not ask Jesus or anyone else if it is permissible to do anything; she simply presses through the crowds that were also touching Jesus, sneaks up on the back of Jesus and touches His garment surreptitiously. The Bible says that instantly she felt in her body the disease was gone. Immediately, Jesus felt power had flowed from Him and he turned to ask “Who touched me”. Wow, this is one of the best faith lessons in the Bible that I know of and it clearly demonstrates the principles that I have outlined. A woman hears about Jesus, understands what she heard, chooses to believe it and then acts upon her faith and goes and gets healed and Jesus did not know it was happening until after it happened.
Mar 5:31 And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?
The disciples look at Jesus like He is crazy and say to Him, Master everyone is touching you. Here is a definitive clue to the difference between a physical touch and a spiritual touch. The crowd was touching Jesus physically, but this woman with faith touched Him spiritually and there is a major difference between those two realities. That is why I get some critics who write me and tell me how wrong I am and I get some people who have spiritual eyes to tell me “Wow that was good”. If I could make everyone see things the way God sees them, I would certainly do that, but I can’t and God won’t so we have what we have in the world today. Faith is a spiritual force and not a physical feeling.
Mar 5:33 But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.
The woman was caught, but now that she is healed it is legal for her to be in public again, so she goes to Jesus and falls down before Him. She is obviously grateful and thankful and she tells him the truth.
Mar 5:34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.
Jesus confirms to everyone present and to us His readers that it was the woman’s faith that made her whole. You see if it was only up to God’s power, everyone would be falling down before Him thanking Him for their healing, but no one else present got healed. Jesus clearly tells us that it was her faith that was the determining factor for her healing. It was her faith that made her whole. The Greek word for “whole” is the word “sozo” and it means to “save” or to “deliver”. This is the word that is translated many times as “saved” or “salvation”. Faith as you can see was the cause for her salvation. People, who do not want to see this, claim that everything that happens to them is what God has caused to happen. If is funny that God does not say this in the Bible anywhere. Jesus could have told the woman with the issue of blood “Be of good cheer, my power has saved you”, but God does not say this. Are you able to see the truth? I pray that you do. So what does this story in Mark reveal to us that the woman did:
- She heard the truth.
- She understood the truth.
- She believed the truth.
- She acted on the truth.
- She was saved because of her faith.
That was faith in a nutshell again and it confirms what God taught you earlier. So did you hear it? Did you understand it? Do you believe it? What will you do with it? Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. So if you want to increase your faith that is what you need to do. It technically means that you have to be an open and receptive type of vessel in order to hear. If you are not being open to the Word of God you will not hear it to begin with. So decide in your heart to be a vessel that is willing to change and then go and hear the word of God until you understand it. Next, if you believe what you have heard is the truth, then you are ready to take hold of the hem of His garment and receive the power of God for your answer. Your faith is the transmission that causes your spiritual car to accelerate and to go places. God’s Grace is the Motor that supplies the power to your spiritual car to change your location. You can keep your car in the garage and never use it to go anywhere in the world or you can do what Jesus taught “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you would say…”. I hope that you enjoyed this basic Bible faith lesson and that you learned something that can be useful with your walk with God. Until next time, I will let you go and review this lesson and see if you truly understood it and then you can write me and tell me about how it worked for you. God Bless.
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons on faith, you can go to “Part 5“.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 8
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 8 in a series of lessons on the methods that God has used to conceal information in the Bible for us to find. By studying these methods we will greatly increase our ability to understand the truth of God’s Word. So far I have covered seven different methods of hiding information without using standard modern encryption methods that make the text completely unreadable. You see the intelligence of God and the spiritual nature of God both are contributing factors to how God is able to accomplish hiding complex information using words that are clearly readable by every man. It is very much like how God created animals in our world that have the natural ability to conceal themselves using their surroundings and blending into their backgrounds. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.
Technique 8: Telling a Story without Giving Any Details or Explanations
This next technique for concealing truth in the Bible is found extensively throughout the Old Testament. When you realize that nothing in the Bible is found there by chance or accident, you suddenly begin to understand that every story has a purpose whether you comprehend it or not. God did not put any stories in the Bible just to fill up the pages because He couldn’t think of anything else to say. In other words even if there is a strange story of a daughter having sex with her father Lot after she gets him drunk in Genesis to give him children then it is there for a reason and we just don’t normally understand what it is because we are only thinking naturally and not spiritually. All that we can do is just read the story until God reveals to us what it means. God usually does this by showing us other verses in the Bible that clear up the reasons for it being there by shedding additional spiritual light on to the natural subjects found in the story. This is a very tricky method of hiding information in the Bible in plain sight. You can find this technique on almost every page of the O.T. Genesis starts it, and then Exodus continues it. As you progress through the Bible you find it repeated in Kings and Chronicles, along with Samuel, Joshua, Ester, Ruth, Daniel and etc. These books all contain natural historical stories of real people in real places doing real things at specific times for specific reasons. God chose these stories to show us and teach us some very valuable greater spiritual truths but he never told us that directly in the story. What we understand is that out of the entire history of man on this planet, God specifically selected these specific stories as being significant for us to know and to understand. However, God never tells us why they are there nor does He explain what these people did to get mentioned in His book for eternal notoriety. That is until you see the “why” revealed in the New Testament.
1Co 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
Here in this verse God gives us one of the clues that I talked about in the last lesson in this series to some degree about types and shadows. What we soon realize is that there are overlapping truths being progressively revealed to us by God. Today’s subject about hidden meanings is related to the last lesson of hidden types and shadows, but today’s lesson changes it slightly to reveal a new distinction in the subject. Here in this verse in 1 Corinthians, God informs us that the things that are written in the O.T. were written as “examples” for us to learn from. God is of course speaking of natural things in natural stories that teach us about spiritual truths that have been hidden from our reading abilities until we have been given the spiritual eyes to see them and to understand them internally and not just mentally. The Greek word translated as “ensamples” here is a word that means “to stamp”. This is representative of a process that occurs when they stamp out money or coins. Using engraved templates or plates they stamp out a coin using extremely high pressure to form the words and pictures that are easily recognizable when viewed. That concept is exactly what God is saying to us in this verse about things that are written in the O.T. God is saying that those natural things that were written originate from a spiritual pattern that cannot be observed by physical senses. In other words we have never seen the engravings that make the coins that we have in our pockets but we can see the coins. We can still know and understand that they are directly related in a one for one comparison by close examination.
I am going to give you a prime example of what I am talking about. Faith is a subject that is vastly hidden in the Old Testament, but one that is widely spoken of in the N.T. The word faith only occurs 2 times in the KJV of the Bible in the O.T, yet when you read Hebrews chapter 11 and see that God says that many of the stories found in the O.T. Bible are only there because that named person had faith. Then you should begin to see what I am trying to teach you today. Nowhere in the O.T. is this stated. Therefore, this is a key method being revealed to us of one way that God has conceived to hide information in the Bible for us to find. Because the reader of the O.T. did not understand the spiritual principles and laws of faith the acts are clearly missed by the reader.
If you go and read Galatians 3:23 you can see that God says that “faith” was a hidden subject that was later to be revealed after Jesus was raised from the dead. If you did not know it, faith is a spiritual subject found in the entire Bible. Why would God have to hide a spiritual subject in the Old Testament and then reveal it later in the New Testament? That is a very good question to figure out the answer to. I believe the answer is because God had a spiritual enemy named Satan who He had to keep from knowing too much and to soon. I would highly recommend that you take a minute and go and read chapter 11 of Hebrews very closely and then come back to this lesson. What we see in this chapter is that God lists approximately 16 people from the O.T. by direct name and many others are inferred by associated indirect references. Here is my list of the direct named references of people from the O.T. with faith found in Hebrews 11:
- Abel
- Enoch
- Noah
- Abraham
- Sarah
- Isaac
- Jacob
- Joseph
- Moses
- Rahab
- Gideon
- Barak
- Sampson
- Jephthah
- David
- Samuel
You can quickly look down this list and see the names of several famous people and recognize them to be O.T. Bible stories of renowned character and great exploits. God is revealing to us here in this chapter of Hebrews why they are mentioned in the Bible at all and God says it is because of their faith. God is revealing to us that there was a determining factor to their success on the earth and that this determining factor was their “faith”. Knowing this information should actually dramatically change your perspectives when you go back and read their stories found in the O.T. When you read these O.T. Bible stories you should now begin to see how that “faith” plays a major role in what the Bible says that they accomplished. But, now you will also have to stop and get God’s definition for what faith is and then go back and reread the stories to see how they used their faith to please God to get their names written in His eternal book. Most of these stories reveal some very profound concepts of faith in action. However you would not have known this until God tells you about it in Hebrews 11. Of course if you never see what Hebrews 11 says then you would remain ignorant to the truth. Therefore, this is a direct pattern to other subjects that can be found in the Bible also. You can apply this principle to your study of any subject in the Bible to see how the O.T. stories give us examples of them each.
For instance what about the subject of spoken words? Can you find out what someone said in the O.T. and then find out what happened to them? Sure you can. What about the subject of “love” can you learn how that God says love is the fulfillment of all of the law and how these men and women in the Bible used God’s definition to get mentioned in the Bible? Sure you can! This is a great revelation hint to finding the hidden truth in the Bible. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and learned something from it. God Bless you until next time.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lesson on how God has concealed information in the Bible you can go to “Part 9“.
The Riddle and the Puzzle in the Bible of the Missing Row on Satan’s Breastplate?
(Ver 1.2) There are many people who do not understand how the Bible was written. God has hidden a countless number of mysteries, riddles and puzzles in the Bible for us to solve with His help. These riddles are always word based puzzles. All of these puzzles are implemented with techniques that use hidden and spread out information that makes them very hard to find. These mysteries are of course much more difficult to solve than they are to find but many of the puzzles are also very hard to recognize by just reading the Bible. Today I am going to show you one of these very complex puzzles that I have been working on from the Bible for several years and so far have not completely solved the entire mystery of the puzzle. I want to share what I know today with those on the Web to challenge you to see it and then to think and help me to see things that maybe I have not thought of. There are certainly people on the web that have also found this puzzle, but clearly they have not understood it completely either. I believe that since we are so very close to the time of the end, that God is intending that we should know what these puzzles mean before He returns for us. The biggest problem that I have with most of the interpretations that I have found on the web concerning this mystery is that they are all someone’s opinion on what it means. No one gave any Bible verses to establish the truth. So that is a major problem with most interpretations, they are “Private Interpretations” and these are not allowed (2 Peter 1:20). This however, does not stop men from coming up with their own personal interpretations of what they think the Bible means. The Spirit of God began to show me this puzzle almost 20 years ago and even though I have studied it over and over, I have not come to a definite meaning to what is being taught. So, I will share with you what I know and maybe God can use someone else to help solve the mystery. In the Old Testament, Moses was given specific instructions of how to make the Temple of God and the garments of the Priests. There are several articles of clothing of the priests with some very specific items that all must have symbolic meanings. The garments of the priest are said to be holy. One of the key pieces of the Priest’s wardrobe was a breastplate. This breastplate was put on over the head and shoulders of the high priest and covered his chest and back areas of his body. This resembles what many soldiers wore while they were in battle to protect themselves from blows to their bodies. The breastplate was an outward covering of the body and specifically the upper torso.
There are two places in Exodus that specifically lists the qualities found in the breastplate and these verses describe the breastplate to us in some detail. One of the places this is found is in Exodus 28 and the other is in found Exodus 39. We will only focus in on the description found in Exodus 28 in this lesson today:
Exo 28:15 And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work; after the work of the ephod thou shalt make it; of gold, of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine twined linen, shalt thou make it.
The priest’s breastplate is called the Breastplate of Judgment. The word judgment means a judge’s verdict or degree, either for or against you. Every mention of titles, names or specific qualities of the breastplate I believe all have symbolic meanings. I believe that God is more interested in teaching us about spiritual things than He is making us look like we worship external manmade idols. The breast plate consists of three colors of threads. One is Blue, the second is purple and the third was scarlet. I believe these colors also have symbolic meanings attached to them. Now God begins to describe the stones that should be included on the external covering of the breastplate:
Exo 28:17 And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row.
As you can see God picks very specific stones and a very specific arrangement, placement and order to each stone. The stones are arranged as we discover in 4 rows of 3 stones each for a total of 12 stones in all. This is a very key number to remember. I believe that the number 12 is also symbolic of spiritual things. We know from study that Israel had 12 tribes, that there are 12 hours in a day, Jesus picked 12 apostles and the foundation of the New Jerusalem has 12 specific parts that we may look at later. Let’s continue through the rest of the rows of stones given by God:
Exo 28:18 And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.
Exo 28:19 And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.
Exo 28:20 And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings.
So we have a list of 12 unique individual stones with no duplicates arranged in a pattern of rows and columns. It just so happens that rows and columns are a sommone type of computer database concept and terminology. If you are familiar with Spread Sheets like Microsoft Excel, then you also can understand how rows and columns play a factor in what God is showing us by this specific diagramed information. If you understand these concepts it may help you to see where we go later in this lesson. Then in the next verse in Exodus we see another association being made.
Exo 28:21 And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes.
Each stone is engraved with the name of the sons of Jacob. What order to place the names, however is not given to us. We could assume that it is in the order of birth given to us in Genesis 29 and 30, or we could assume it is in some other order like the names of the tribes given to us in Revelation 7:5-8 or even Ezekiel 48:31-34. However, in each case example that I just gave you, God lists the 12 sons of Jacob in a different sequence. So which is the right one and does it even matter? Many have tried to come up with the sons of Israel names associated with each stone, but I am not convinced any of them are right. I have read at least 3 or 4 possible renditions on the web of who they thought the stones were and they were all different and nobody could tell us why they picked one to be associated to the other. It could be that the names being associated with each of the stones is not important, or it could be that it is still just hidden from our view and we have not found it yet. Here are the stones we found on the Priest’s breastplate listed in the specific Row order given to us by God.
|
Row/Column |
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
1 |
Sardius; H124 (3) | Topaz; H6357 (4) | Carbuncle; H1304 (3) |
|
2 |
Emerald; H5306 (4) | Sapphire; H5601 (11) | Diamond; H3095 (3) |
|
3 |
Ligure; H3958 (2) | Agate; H7618 (2) | Amethyst; H306 (2) |
|
4 |
Beryl; H8658 (7) | Onyx; H7718 (11) | Jasper; H3471 (3) |
I have listed the name of the stone from the KJV Bible as well as the Hebrew Strong’s number followed by a parenthesized number of times this specific word is mentioned in the O.T. As you can clearly see 3 stones are only mentioned a total of 2 times in the Bible and only in the description of the Priest’s breastplate in Exodus. This is Row 3 of the list of 12 stones. Next you can see that 4 stones are mentioned in the bible only 3 times, 2 stones are mentioned 4 times, 1 stone is mentioned 7 times and finally 2 stones are mentioned a total of 11 times. That is the makeup of the 12 stones and their frequency of word usage occurrence in the O.T. Hebrew Bible. All this tells me is that 7 stones are only mentioned in the descriptions of the breastplates and then 5 stones have varying references from 1 additional mention to 4 mentions and finally to 8 additional mentions. In reading these references I only saw Jasper mentioned in relation to the throne of God. I then noticed Topaz mentioned as coming from Cush. I did not see any references to any of the tribes of Israel so we still have a major mystery with relating the stones to the individual tribes of Israel. It would appear that God does not mention this in the Bible or it is definitely hidden using a method that God has implemented to conceal the information.
Heb 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
So here we go with the beginning of the enormous mystery puzzle. We know from the above verse in Hebrews that God gives us some valuable information of those things that were given to Moses in the O.T. Law. God specifically tells us that those things that Moses created for God’s temple on the earth were shadows of the heavenly things that already preexisted in heaven. That is very important information. God has a temple in heaven that resembled the temple on the earth created by Moses. This would have to mean that God had a high priest in heaven that also resembled the high priest here on earth. Are you getting it so far? We are now ready to see some more important clues found in Ezekiel 28:13 that seems to describe Lucifer or Satan as the type of or in the role of the high priest in heaven. Satan is described to resemble the role of the high priest on the earth, but with 3 less stones on his covering. Read this verse carefully:
Eze 28:13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
If you go through the list of stones and lookup each of the Strong’s Hebrew words, you discover that each stone listed in this verse is an exact match for a stone found on the Mosaic priest’s breastplate. They are of course listed in a completely different order. Then as you can determine by looking and counting, there are exactly 3 stones less with a total of only 9 stones being listed. So we have to reorder them to see which ones are present and which ones are missing. So not only does Satan have stones in a different order, he is missing a total of 3 stones. By closer comparison you can determine that it is Row 3 of the high priest’s breastplate that is missing from the covering of Satan.
|
Row/Column |
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
1 |
Sardius; H124 (3) | Topaz; H6357 (4) | Carbuncle; H1304 (3) |
|
2 |
Emerald; H5306 (4) | Sapphire; H5601 (11) | Diamond; H3095 (3) |
|
3 |
|||
|
4 |
Beryl; H8658 (7) | Onyx; H7718 (11) | Jasper; H3471 (3) |
All of this is just too amazing to be a simple coincidence. If you understand God you will know that God purposely hides information like this for us to discover. Using database concepts, this information would represent a missing record from a file. 
A record always contains related field information that is grouped, organized and associated to form the information in the row. A row would be like the name and address for a customer. Therefore, in database terms, we would have a table that has 4 rows of people’s names and addresses that we know. Each row would represent one person that we know and the information that we want to relate to that person, like their stree address, city, state and phone number. These are just basic database concepts, but they must certainly apply to the puzzle being presented to us by God. God is definitely trying to reveal something to us, but what it is, is the major question of the day? What can we derive from the fact that exactly Row 3 is missing and not Rows 1, 2, or 4? It would appear to me that since Row 3 is missing that it seems to be an indication that something was taken away from Satan and not just simply being added to the high priest on the earth. However, that is not a complete factual reality, since in any spread sheet or database you can add a row anywhere you like. So that is the mystery of the missing row in a nutshell. What is being added to the earthly priest that Satan did not have? Or what is being taken away from Satan that man still has? Since the Bible does not appear to answer the missing row question specifically from Satan’s breastplate, nor the names of the tribes of Israel can be directly tied to each stone, then this forced me to change my perspective and to look in the Bible for alternative related subjects and topics in order to come up with a better understanding for what God is trying to teach us. Sometimes I have learned that if you can’t understand it from one perspective then you better change your perspective to see it differently and this is what I’ll do for the rest of this lesson. I learned that the Bible says God does not change, so the Bible does not change either, it is only our view of the Bible that should be affected. Did you understand what I just said? It was very important!
You see, I believe the Bible clearly reveals to us that the people in the church are a spiritual pattern of the Old Testament Mosaic priests. These O.T. natural Priests were given to us as natural views into the coming spiritual truths and realities found in the New Testament. Let me briefly show you some scriptures in the N.T. that seem to indicate this to us:
1Pe 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
As you can see this verse both calls people in the church living stones as well as being a people who are called a “holy priesthood”. I do not think this is an accident that God mentions these two things in one verse. It would appear that there is a definitive association to the stones found within the breastplate of the O.T. priest. In this verse you can clearly see that we in the church are supposed to offer to God a spiritual sacrifice and not a physical one. So the people in the church are the new spiritual priests of God. Could we possibly be replacing Satan the original heavenly priest? If the church is also the spiritual priests of God, what kind of spiritual breastplate are we now wearing? If you noticed I did say a spiritual breastplate and not a physical breastplate. The O.T. breastplate is clearly a symbolic representation of something that we cannot see with our natural eyes.
1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Here is another witness to the fact that the church is called a royal priesthood of God. You see the word “priesthood” comes from a Greek word meaning to “execute the priest’s office”. To do what the priest did physically, but do it now in the spiritual realm for real. We have observed two major verses in the N.T. written to the church of God that tell us we are now God’s spiritual priests, but let’s look at one more for fun:
Rev 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Here is another witness found in the Bible that says the members of the church have been placed into the office of a “priest” unto God. You can clearly see from these three witnesses that the church is directly called priests. So we are at the point now to try to figure out what the breastplate might represent to us as God’s priests.
Eph 6:14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
As you can clearly see, this verse describes Christians as wearing a “breastplate of righteousness”. This statement is made in the clear context with a description of the armor of God and is starkly contrasted with the O.T. “breastplate of Judgment”. So it is not directly a high priest type of breastplate or is it? It still could be considered very similar. As you recall in the description of the high priests breast plate it was labeled the breastplate of judgment a figurative named title just as our breastplate is stated to also be a figurative described title. The one of judgment is obviously very different than the other that is given to us for righteousness. However, the Bible says that we have been justified and redeemed and therefore we are not under the condemnation or judgment of the law. Since we have been freely given the righteousness of Jesus, I believe that we would be wearing a different type of priest’s covering than the one found in the O.T. law.
1Th 5:8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
I am convinced that the Bible gives us many clues in little pieces that we need to put together correctly. Here we again see another reference to us wearing a breastplate, but this time it is mentioned in conjunction with two new terms called faith and love. Do you realize that faith and love are two of the fruits of the spirit mentioned in the New Testament? Do you also realize that there are 9 direct fruits of the spirit mentioned in this verse in Galatians? I believe the reoccurrence of the number 9 is again more than a simple coincidence.
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Gal 5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
So are these 9 fruits being mentioned in a list just a mere coincidence? The only way you know there are nine is by us counting them. Of course the only way you know there were only 9 stones on the breastplate of Satan was to count them also. How many stones did Satan have? You know by now that Satan had only 9 stones. We can logically conclude that since the High priest’s breastplate had 12 stones, 3 more than Satan’s breastplate that God is trying to tell us something very important. I personally believe that the 9 fruits of the spirit in Galatians are missing 3 fruits and here is one of the main reasons that I believe this:
Rev 22:2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
So I believe this verse has some more major clues in it that are applicable to our puzzle solution. This verse clearly mentions the number 12 and this is the same number of stones on the O.T. High Priests breastplate. Then there is a connection of the number 12 to fruit which we discovered this connection when looking at the fruits of the spirit and the breastplate of righteousness found in the N.T. It is also interesting to note another connection found in this verse connecting these 12 fruits to the tree of life. If you have ever read some of my other lessons you know that the tree of life is a clear reference to the people in the church. Here is an example of one of these verses:
Pro 11:30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.
As you should be able to see this verse says that we have “fruit”, “righteousness” and the “tree of life” all mentioned in one verse and there is no way that this is there by chance or accident. In the N.T. the people in the church are clearly those who have been given God’s righteousness. We clearly saw verses that said the breastplate of righteousness was part of our spiritual wardrobe. Then there is this very simple fact that almost all natural fruit grows on trees. You do not plant a fruit seed like an orange seed and get more oranges; you first get a tree and that tree will produce the oranges. So where does spiritual fruit come from? Spiritual fruit must also come from a spiritual tree. I believe these righteous trees are those who have been given eternal life by God.
Pro 15:4 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.
We are given another clue to this fruit that we are to produce and this is by our mouth and the words that we speak. This is one of the key reasons that I teach a lot on the importance of your spoken words. There are many verses that I can give you that are related and I will give you a couple of them:
Pro 12:28 In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.
Here in this verse we can see a reference to a pathway, righteousness and life and these are all being connected or linked together again. We saw in Revelation 22:2 that the tree of life was in the middle of what? This verse says that the tree of life was found in the middle of the street. Is a street a pathway? I believe it can be. It is often times called a highway, a parkway, a drive or other words in our English language but a way to go is the clear reference being given to us. So we can see in Proverbs 12:28 that the righteous are intended for life and this would imply the ability to produce the 12 kinds of fruit mentioned in Revelation 22:2 on the tree of life. If you study the Bible in the Old Testament, trees are many times used as symbols for people. So a symbolic a group of “trees of life” in Revelation 22 could also be a righteous group of God’s people.
It is also interesting to note that in Revelation 22:2 that there are 12 fruits that are produced every month. How many months are there? In our calendar there are 12 months in a year. So we have two number twelve’s being related together. If you multiply 12 x 12 you get 144 and this is a number that occurs other places in the bible. If you add 12 + 12 you get 24 and this number also appears in the Bible multiple times. So are these coincidences or simply clues to a greater mystery. I think I’ll end this lesson here today, for I do not want to overwhelm you with too many questions to consider all at once. What I want you to do is recognize that there are little clues found in the Bible that are repeated to display hidden information that has meaning and significance. I believe very firmly that the righteous ones are those who are supposed to be producing 12 kinds of fruits of the spirit. What the other 3 fruits are, represents the missing row on the breastplate of righteousness of Christians. This is another mystery of Biblical proportions. But, the patterns and information being given to us is clearly not by accident or chance. What we must do is study to show ourselves approved and continue to ask God to reveal to us the mysteries of the Bible. God Bless!
People Generally Don’t Know That They Know Something Important!
(Ver 1.1) I was watching the news on TV and there was a policeman speaking about a crime that had just occurred. He was on the news asking for people who were near the crime scene to come forward. He then made this statement, “People don’t know what they know”. In other words he was saying you might have been a witness to the crime and not realized that you were because you did not know it was a crime. Maybe you happened upon the crime right after it happened and saw the culprits walking or running away from it. Maybe you saw a car drive away from the scene and this is the key that will unlock the identities of the guilty parties. He was clearly saying that someone saw something and that if they would come forward with this information it might be very important to solving the case. When he said that statement, God spoke to me and said this is the way the Bible is. People will read something in the Bible and not realize how important it is because they do not understand what it says and how it relates to other subjects in the Bible. I wrote a very similar lesson a long time ago called “People Generally Don’t Know What They Don’t Know”. If you did not read that article you should go back and review the concepts given. They are very profound revelations. Today’s subject while being very similar to this concept is also diametrically opposed to it. In the first lesson you have the concept of not knowing the bridge is out and driving off of the missing expanse in the dark to your death. If you would have just known that the bridge was out, then you would have been spared the tragic outcome. This is a concept found in the prophet Hosea. In this verse God reveals some very significant Bible truths to us:
Hos 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
It would appear to me from this verse that “Knowledge” is the key to not being destroyed in this world. While this could apply to natural knowledge, this verse is speaking of spiritual things as being what is important to know. The Law of God at the time of this writing represented the Words of God. The Words of God are what is important for us to know. Knowledge of the Word of God is the opposite of Ignorance of the Word of God. A Lack of Knowledge is totally related to your current ignorance level. So in the one case God says people perish from this world because they do not esteem the Word of God and count it as valuable to know. They in effect kill themselves because they have rejected the truth. This in effect, is not knowing what you do not know. But, we also have the lesson today, which is very similar in nature. You might know a little bit, but not understand the importance or significance of that knowledge because you lack the knowledge of how important it is to know or to share with others. In the case of the policeman on the news someone held the missing link to identify the perpetrators but did not know that they had it.
Take for example, the virgin birth of Jesus. There have actually been churches who have taught that the virgin birth is not important to know to be saved. However, if Jesus was not born of a vrigin then He was just a man like me. If you have read my lessons on “Understanding the Virgin Birth” then you already know this is not true. To listen to an ignorant preacher who teaches something is not important in the Bible, is a very foolish thing to do. You should never let any preacher do your Bible study for you, and that includes me! If you hear me say something from the Bible then go and read your Bible and study it for yourself to see if it is true or not. It is only the Bible that you have seen for yourself that will do you any good in life. Your pastor’s Bible knowledge will not do you any good when Satan comes and attacks you. If you are a Christian then the Spirit of God is also inside of you and if I say something wrong the Spirit of God inside of you will bear witness that I am wrong. So you will have two witnesses that will always agree to show you the reality of every truth in the Bible. The Bible says the Word of God and the Spirit of God will always agree and bear witness to the truth (1 John 5:7).
So today’s Bible lesson is not a long or complex something to do or understand. It is actually a very simple concept of seeing what you have seen and then going back and figuring out if it was important. I do this all the time when I study the Bible. I constantly review my past Bible readings and notes for things that I may have learned but not fully understood. I then use these little facts to build a greater knowledge of the truth when reading today’s Bible studies. I think I have said this before, but it bears repeating for those to remember, that truth always builds upon truth. When building a house of truth if your house is built upon false teachings then these are weaknesses that will cause your house to topple like a house of cards. If you build your foundation on the rock of the Word of God, then your foundation is firm and unshakeable. God’s Word is Truth, Jesus is Truth, but yet the Bible is written in a complex spiritual way that forces us to divide the truth correctly. I wish I could say this was easy, but after over 20 years of studying the Bible, I am only a little bit closer to understanding everything that the Bible says. So learn the lessons given today about recognizing that what you don’t know is important. Then go and continue in your Bible studies to learn more.
Traps and Pitfalls, Common Mistakes in Bible Interpretation!
(Ver 1.4) In today’s Bible lesson I will discuss some of the common mistakes thattoo many people fall into when attempting to read and understand the Bible. If you can grasp these concepts it will help you tremendously in understanding the true meanings found in the Bible. I will give you a list of six or seven things that people tend to do that results in erroneous interpretations. By avoiding these common tricks, traps and pitfalls that the enemy Satan uses to distract, deceive and confuse us, we can help to avoid being tricked into the common pitfalls of deception and then we can continue to strive to walk in the paths of rightly diveded truths to learn what God desires for us to know today.
NO PRIVATE INTERPETATIONS
This is probably the number one pitfall to erroneous Bible teaching. It is absolutely esstential to let the Bible interpret itself. In the Bible, God tells us that no verse of prophecy is open to any private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20). God was smart enough to include explanations and interpretations to everything that He wanted you to know about a subject in the same book. So when you are reading through the book of Revelation for example, use the Bible to figure out what God is talking about. If you conclude that a reference is somehow a modern day empire and attempt to classify it as being the Roman Catholic church or the Pope, you are applying a private interpretation to the Word of God. Stick with the Bible and what God says and you will never be wrong. Come up with your own reasoning and logical explanations and you will be wrong 100 times out of 100 attempts. I’ll give you one more example that I’ve heard teachers attempt from Revelation. In the later part of the book there is a reference to a city surrounded by 7 mountains. This city is called the Great Whore of Babylon and many Bible teachers have attempted to associate it with Rome since it has seven prominent mountains. However, this again is a private interpretation, there is no Bible verses that I have found that say the city is Rome or that describe the region around Rome. So we have a problem, don’t we. When I searched the scriptures I was shocked to find 7 mountains mentioned in a specific region of the world, surrounding a specific named city. Since I don’t want to stir up a huge controversy in this blog, I’ll let you do the research yourself and see if you can find the same thing. I won’t tell you the name of the city, so good luck in your search.
THE BIBLE IS NOT TOTALLY SEQUENTIAL NOT IS IT IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
We know that the book of Genesis contains a lot of God’s account of creation , Noah’s flood, the rise of Abraham and the nation of Israel. We further know that the book of Revelation contains prophetic verses of the coming of the end of the age. All of the books in between these two while they are generally in time sequence, they can contain information that can be all over the board and anywhere in that timeline past, present or future. This is why Jesus told the Jews to search the scripture to find Him. If everything was obivously laid out, it would not be necessary to search to find anything in the Bible. There are verses in the New Testament that speak about both Adam and Eve and describe valuable information about the first man and woman and the fall of man. These are clearly out of time sequence with Genesis, but yet they give us some extremely valuable additional information that we must use to correctly interpret the verses in Genesis. If you only read the book of Genesis for the creation account, you will miss out on many of the details that explain key facts, events, participants and times. You have to understand that teaching the Bible involves researching your subject topographically. By examining the Bible by subject you gain a broader understanding of what God wants you to know. Not realizing that the Bible contains a widely dispersed random patterns of information on every subject, will cause you to miss a lot of the key points that you needed to know. Use key word searches to look for related verses. Many times God will purposely use the same exact Hebrew or Greek word to reveal to you related verses of scriptures. Other times, God will use completely different words or terminology to make it harder to find related scriptures. Let me give you one quick example about Abraham. His name is found 160 times in the Old Testament and 70 times in the New Testament. It is very obvious to me that if you want to study about Abraham you need to read all of these verses and see what God says about the man every where. If you only read Genesis and left out the other verses then you would miss around half of the total information given to you about Abraham in the Bible. Just know and understand that the information is spread out over the entire content of the Bible and not isolated to any specific one place.
JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS AND MAKING WRONG ASSUMPTIONS
Jumping to a wrong conclusion or making an incorrect assumption is one of the most prevalent errors that ministers and laymen make when studying the Bible. The Bible calls this private interpretation of the word of God. It is so easy to do, but yet it results in the spread of lies and confusion. Obviously confusion is what the enemy wants. Let me give you an example again of jumping to a conclusion or making an assumption. In the 12th chapter of Revelation we have a woman described as being pregnant with a male child. I know I’ve used this example before, but it is a classic example of what not to do. The conclusion has been made repeatedly that this woman is Israel because they assume the male child is Jesus Christ. Logically it doesn’t make sense that a symbolic woman is giving birth to a physical man Jesus Christ. I would say if the woman is symbolic, then the child is also symbolic. This is an example of both types of errors being exhibited from a single chapter and only a few verses. You know if someone could back that woman and child up with other scriptures showing their true identities I wouldn’t have a problem with what they were teaching. But, since they never give any verses to backup what they teach I categorically reject that as C.R.A.P. (Christian Reasoning Applied Poorly)! Please forgive my language and frustration. Most teaching on the book of Revelation that I’ve listened to is littered with private interpretations, assumptions and erroneous conclusions. People should stick with the Bible and leave their opinions out of the message and we would all benefit greatly.
USING MAN’S DEFINITION OF BIBLE WORDS INSTEAD OF GOD’S
God has given to us specific information in the Bible and once you see it and understand it, the true spiritual meanings can change Bible word definitions dramatically. What we must attempt to do in correct Bible interpretation, is to always seek God’s definitions for the words and subjects that we are studying. One huge mistake that many Bible students make is to look up words in Webster’s dictionary and think they know everything that a Bible verse is talking about using a man’s definitions of the words. Often times we read a Bible verse and think we know every word that is given to us and therefore we conclude that we understand everything that is being taught. What we do not realize is that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. Unless you have completely renewed your mind you are normally thinking naturally. God most of the time is writing to us in spiritual terms, using some natural and some spiritual words interchangeably. The Bible is so much more complex than you can imagine and one way to insure correct interpretation of the Bible is to always look up God’s definitions of every word and subject that you encounter in a Bible verse.
TAKING “A” TRUTH AND TRYING TO MAKE IT “THE” TRUTH
Here is another prime example of a common error of incorrect Bible interpretation in action. While private interpretation is probably the number one problem with a lot of Bible teaching, this one is probably number two on my list of things to avoid. I’ve seen people do this so many times across the board in every denomination. So what does it mean to take a truth and make it the truth? It basically involves jumping to a conclusion again that is true in and of itself. But that truth is not the complete truth on the subject. Some people want to take a well known Bible fact and attempt to say it is this way and no other way. The mistake is made that they ignore all other viewpoints on the subject in favor of the one they like the best. To be fair to most, I would say the problem is rooted in the fact that they just haven’t seen or even aware that other views exist because they are so focused on the one thing that they do know. It doesn’t discount what they know as being in error, unless they say that every other point of view is wrong and only we are right. This is predominantly the root of every denominational war through the centuries. We are right and everyone else is wrong. I’ve got bad news for you only God is right and everyone else is at the least a little bit wrong.
I once heard it put into an analogy of climbing a mountain. If you are on the north side of the mountain you have one view, the south side a different view, the east side a different view, the west side as yet another view. Everyone is trying to say only our view is correct and yours must be in error. People we are climbing the same mountain, understand and know there are different ways to view the same thing.
I use this example, but I don’t name names of who said it. If you know who said it, please ask him to forgive me. I heard a teacher say the church is the body of Christ and not the bride. Search the scripture and you won’t find anything that says we are the bride of Christ. What an idiotic statement of arrogance and ignorance. I wrote a blog series explaining how the church became the body of Christ so I won’t attempt to repeat that lesson here. What we have though is an example of someone taking a truth and trying to make it the entire complete truth. You see I don’t have a problem with the church being the body of Christ, I can see all of the scriptures that tells us, that is what we are. But, I asked another question and that is, how did the church become the body of Christ and I found the answer explained in the Bible quite literally and explicitly. So most people who make this mistake of taking a truth and trying to make it the truth, have probably not asked enough questions.
So taking a truth and attempting to make it the truth is based upon an accumulation of other errors and mistakes that people make of which could be one or more of the following:
- Jumping to Conclusions.
- Making Wrong Assumptions.
- Using Man’s Definitions instead of God’s.
- Not asking the right Questions.
- Insufficient Knowledge. Not knowing enough of the facts (or all of the facts if that is possible)
- Not having sufficient understanding of the subject
What we all need to realize is that there is more than one truth in the Bible. These truths fit together and work in conjunction with other truths. We should all be striving to understand as much as we can about what the Bible says. We should all strive to correctly divide the Word of Truth. We should also all give others who make mistakes some extended effort of forgiveness. Jesus while hanging on the cross said Father forgive them for they know not what they do. People today are the same as they were back then and they still do a lot of stupid things and think they are so right in doing them.
THINKING YOU KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING
This obviously goes back to people having the wrong attitude and approach to Bible study. I’ve seen some people that are extremely arrogant in what they say and think. While some might try to confuse confidence with arrogance there is a difference. You can be confident in what you believe and still be humble enough to admit you might have been wrong. No man is God and knows everything. If you have studied the Bible for 50 years and think you have arrived and know everything that you need to know you have been deceived:
Gal 6:3 For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.
Compared to what God knows, what you and I know would not fill a thimble. Any man or woman that has a teenager type attitude of thinking very highly of themselves and their knowledge has already deceived themselves.
INTERPRETING VERSES OUT OF CONTEXT
This is what I think I mean by this. I once had a minister say that the Bible says “Judas went and hung himself”. Then he quoted a part of another verse that said “Go and do likewise”. This was a humorous attempt to show a mistake many have made with Bible interpretation. People many times attempt to take two or more unrelated verses or just part of them and put them together and make them say something that they never really said. Sometimes I watch late night comics and during the presidential election they would take the words of a candidate making a speech and re-edit them and put them together so that when played all together they would say something that is completely false and sometimes funny. Well preachers and teachers have been guilty of doing this and using it to promote some false teaching that God never came close to endorsing. Find out who the verse was originally written to. Find out why it was written. Figure out if the verse has any implied references, double references, symbolic references, etc and only after going through logical reasoning can you actually justify putting together two verses and organize them correctly. Remember Bible study is like a puzzle, and the pieces of the puzzle must fit together correctly and always show the right big picture which is most always Jesus Christ.
In the Last Days Knowledge Shall Increase!
(Ver 1.4) This is Part 1 on the subject of God’s Knowledge in the Bible. I always try to teach how important it is in correct Bible interpretation to be open to new ideas, thoughts and to things that maybe you haven’t ever heard or considered before. Why do you think that this type of noble attitude might be important to have while studying the Bible? I think if for no other reason, it is based upon the factor of human ignorance and that we are not God who knows it all. We as ignorant humans still have a lot left to learn from our God. If you think that you know it all, or at least that you already know all that you need to know, you are already potentially deceived into believing a lie. Satan I believe wants you to think that you are smarter than you really are. Whenever this deception occurs you are then not going to make the effort to seek to know the truth of God’s Word. Satan wants you ignorant of the truth. You are easily defeated as an ignorant Christian. However, God also gives us another very good reason for having a positive attitude and he tells us something that is very profound in the book of Daniel:
Dan 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
This verse is a great witness to the fact that God has concealed the meaning of this book until the “time of the end”. To “shut up” means to hide, keep secret or conceal. This is a common methodology of God found throughout the Bible. God has hidden information for us to find. This information is revealed by the Spirit of God at the proper time. For some scriptures it was during the time of the Apostles and Paul when God revealed vast amounts of new revelation. But, it is also for our time based upon this verse in Daniel, that we live in right now. If you didn’t know it, we are in the time of the end, and guess what it is almost over. Many of you can look around and see how fast technology is advancing. But, the net revelation of this verse, to me speaks of both natural and spiritual things. We of course in the last 20 to 30 years can see the explosion of computers and the internet. As a result of this technology, man’s knowledge has grown astronomically. But, God not to be out done by man is also doing something new. He is revealing the Word of God like never before on a scale that is difficult to comprehend fully. I believe that if you are reading Bible commentaries that are 100 years old or older then you are reading information that has been updated and expanded so much that it sometimes doesn’t resemble the outdated theology. It doesn’t mean they were wrong, it just means God has shed more light on it and revealed a more complete meaning of the verses.
Pro 1:23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
Here is a promise from the Old Testament that God said he would pour out His Spirit and by doing so, the result is a new revealing of His word to His people. I believe that this is a prophetic verse that we can take hold of and claim for ourselves today. This also reminds me of some other verses in the Bible about the harvest.
Jer 5:24 Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the later, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
Natural rain involves water falling from heaven physically, but God is speaking of a spiritual rain in this verse. Spiritual rain is the water from heaven where Jesus is right now and this rain could be a new understanding of His Word.
Jas 5:7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
In the book of James, it basically quotes from Jeremiah the same reference, but this time it puts it into the context of the return of Jesus Christ. God is looking for the precious fruit of the earth and that is not apples, oranges and bananas. The reference and implied meaning of this verse is that when the Apostles and Paul wrote the New Testament that was the early rain. God poured out His spirit and men increased in spiritual knowledge like never before. Paul wrote 2/3 of the New Testament after being filled with the Holy Spirit and God revealing to him the meaning of many of the Old Testament scriptures. However, God did not reveal to Paul the meaning of Daniel, did he? Have you read anything in Paul’s writings that directly mention Daniel? I have not, however I do believe that Paul wrote many things that do help us to understand this book that we have yet to see and understand. You see in this verse in James, God also speaks of a later rain. The early rain is a reference to a beginning of the rainy season. The later rain could be implied the end of the rainy season. I do not think that means there are new books of the Bible to come, I believe that it has to be a new understanding of what has already been given to us by God. I believe that God has been pouring out His Spirit for the last 100 years and as a result, knowledge and understanding of God’s Word has greatly increased.
You can see this implied reference from Daniel 12:4 where the writer is told to seal up the book until the time of the end. Did you ever notice that there is no obvious encryption code found in the book of Daniel or any other book of the Bible? How is it that God can write things in a known language and the reader not understand what it means for hundreds or even thousands of years. Have you really ever thought about this and asked how God accomplished this task. Now is certainly the time of the end and therefore something should be transpiring to open up this book so that our understanding can be greatly increased. If now is the time of the end like I believe it is, then we ought to be learning new things at an exponential rate. If now is the time of the end there needs to be stuff happening to let us know it. We should be able to look around at the prophecies and see them being fulfilled all around us. Have you seen it happening? I have seen it almost everyday. We will only be privy to it if you are open to change and new ideas that God will be revealing very soon. Either decide to be ready for it or be prepared to miss it, for it will happen very soon and ver fast.
If you would like to continue reading in ths series about “Bible Knowlege” you may go to “Part 2“.
What Does God Think About Abortion? Pt 3
(Ver 1.4) We have been going through the Bible on the subject of abortion. More specifically in relation to what God thinks about this subject and ignoring the opinions of men and women. This is now Part 3 in the series. So if you have not read these lessons from the beginning I would recommend strongly that you go back and start reading with “Part 1” first. What else does the Bible reveal to us about the thoughts of God on abortion? Obviously, we have seen some very significant things in previous lessons from the book of Judges and Isaiah. These only become obvious when we study the subject searching for the truth that is related to the subject. But once we see it and understand it, then no one can take it away from us or deceive us into believing a lie. The Bible says in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established (2 Cor 13:1). So we don’t take a single scripture and make it a theological doctrine, but if we can find more than one verse that says the same things we better take it to heart, believe it and put it into action. I found another very good example given to us by God in the book of Genesis with the story of Isaac and Rebecca. Let us read the verse:
Genesis 25:21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him and Rebekah his wife conceived.
I read this verse and saw several similarities to the first scriptures that we read in the book of Judges in the first lesson. Here we have a story of a woman who was barren. This simply meant she was not able to have a child but yet she wanted to have one. Isaac prays to God and his wife Rebekah was able to conceive. So where did the child come from? Was he a gift of answered prayer from God? If this child is from God due to an a answered prayer request, does this imply that every child comes from God? Ask this question. Did God withhold the child from being conceived? It is obvious to me that Isaac and his wife tried many times to have a child and failed. Is this normal? Some couples do have a lot of trouble conceiving for many medical reasons, some are on the female reproductive side and others are on the male reproductive side. A barren women seems to indicate in this case it was Rebekah that had the problem.
One problem with abortion that needs to be addressed is that there are a lot of infertile couples in the world that would like to receive an aborted child and take care of him or her to raise them as their own. This is a very significant answer for women that get pregnant and feel like they are unable to keep or take care of the child. There are so many options other than murdering an unborn child for us to consider.
I knew of a lady that this happened to. She got pregnant when she was not married by falling into a trap of Satan to sleep and be intimate with a guy from a fit of temporary passion and pleasure. She did not consider the consequences of having this relationship at that moment but found out shortly afterwards what had happened. I mean this lady already had two daughters so she knew how things worked and what would happen. But, we all do foolish things on a spur of the moment poor choice.
This woman did not want to keep her child because of her single status and the fact her guy friend did not turn out to be so responsible for his part in the creation of the child. I’m sure this nice woman regretted her choice and even considered having an abortion. However, she found a friend that wanted the child and after she was born the friend took her and raised her. The real mother that gave birth was still able to watch her child develop and grow in a loving complete family environment. And the other couple that is caring for the child is thrilled that they had a child to love. We must understand that this other couple was unable to conceive and this solution that God provided kept the child alive and made everyone involved, including the child happy. God is able to do much more than we can think if we give Him the chance and believe (Eph 3:20).
If all this is true, about God’s ability, God’s involvement in the process, and God’s desire to meet and answer the prayers of people, who are we to terminate the pregnancy of God’s gift? Please understand the child that is killed has no one to defend them or stop even their mom from taking their life. This miraculous gift from God is a new him or her that has a purpose to exist! We can choose to do right to answer someone else’s prayer for a child or fail and resist what God desired to do for someone else. We should really think about that a long time before we end a pregnancy. Now let’s continue reading in this story in Genesis.
Genesis 25:22 And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.
This time of pregnancy there is not one child but twins, two children that are formed as gifts from God and answers to prayer. Did you notice that in verse 22 of Genesis 25, that God called them “children” even before they were born? They are still both within their mother’s womb and God calls them living “children”. Not a fetus, not an embryo, not a potential life form, not a future or potential child. God calls them H1121 the Hebrew word that means sons and children, the same title and name given to born babies. This Hebrew word literally means a person who is the builder of the family and the continuation of the family name. Wow, I pray you understood that definition.
If God calls them both “son family builders” and children while they are in the womb, who are we to call them anything else? Doesn’t this recognition provide us a very clear divine viewpoint of what God thinks of children in the womb? This is of course the antithesis of what Satan thinks about children in the womb. Satan knows the truth but uses a technique to deceive humans by relabeling the truth as a false concept by calling something truthful by a different false name. Satan does this in order to dehumanize and devalue them. This is also the plan of Satan today to end the design of the God created family structure. Satan has done this by calling babies an embryo, a fetus, a beginning nucleus, the stage after fertilization, developing tissues, rudimentary development or something else worse like a germ. I’m sure you have heard slang terms for a developing child as being called a bun in the oven, or a woman that is knocked up, or even she is just “late” (for her normal monthly cycle).
Satan brainwashes people into believing by the media and education institutes that narrate a constant flow of repetitive untruths that are used to distract us from learning the truth. For example, liberals do not call the murder of a child ant abortion anymore, it has been falsely promoted to “women’s healthcare” choices. WOW! But, what about the child’s healthcare choices? No, this goes along with the brainwashing that he or she is not a child being dehumanized to be only a blob of potential life. Liberals have designed this approach so that whatever we use to believe was the truth we can’t call an unborn child what God calls them. Let us get back to our Bible verses. Rebekah understood the children insider her were living beings and that they were struggling and fighting each other on the inside of her already. She uses wisdom in her situation and goes to God and asks Him about what is happening inside her body between her children. This is what God’s response was to her question.
Genesis 25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in they womb and two manner of people shall be separated from they bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger;
If this verse is not enough to set us straight on the subject of abortion and what God thinks about these unborn babies, then I do not know what is. God says these two children corporately represent two independent nations and two different groups of people living on the earth. That is really a very heavy statement made by the living God, our creator. What if there had been abortion available to Rebekah and she had ended the lives of these children? A great number of people would not have been born and two nations would not exist today. Remember that God called them nations and people while they were still unborn children and in the womb. God recognized who they were and what they would become long before they were ever born. That is pretty plain and very clear if you ask me.
Please recall who these two children were! The firstborn was named Esau and the second born son was named Jacob. Esau originates a nation called Edom with his descendants being called Edomites. Jacob on the other hand originate the nation of Israel having 12 sons that originated the twelve tribes of Israel and eventually our LORD Jesus Christ. Wow, thank God that both of these nations were born!
So we learn and confirm the fact that God knows not only who you are before we are born, but He also knows every descendant that will come from us after we are born. WOW! So how does a woman’s right to choose the life or death of her child, affect all of the potential human beings that were supposed to be here, but are not because of this personal decision to terminate the life created within them? Is God going to hold us responsible for the children that were not born here because of what we decided? I believe with all of my heart that He will and I do not want to find out the consequences for making that decision or for even voting for people that promote that right to choose. Are we willingly participating in murder by how we vote? Again I believe we are!
There are many other verses in the Bible like these that I can give you that will tell us the same thing. God knows us before we are born, even while we are in our mother’s womb and He already has a plan and a purpose for each of us to fulfill. God knows our name before we are born, he knows where we will live, work and play. God knows every child, grandchild and descendant that will come from us. We can go through the Bible and we will see this repeatedly if we are looking for it. However, let me show you another set of verses that I think is directly related to this subject and speaks volumes about a spiritual truth and a Bible principle that is relevant to this subject of abortion.
Hebrew 7:9 And as I may so say, Levi also who received tithes, paid tithes in Abraham.
Hebrew 7:10 For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.
I don’t know about you but I read these verses and they revealed so much, that I had great difficulty knowing where to start talking about them. The primary subject matter is about tithing, but the underlying revelation is far, far greater than that. Hebrews 7:9 speaks of a man named Levi who was a priest that received tithes from the nation of Israel. But did you notice that this verse also says Levi paid tithes in Abraham? I’m really not sure if you totally grasp the principle being given here. Levi was a great-grandson of Abraham. Abraham had a son named Isaac, Isaac had a son named Jacob and then Jacob had 12 sons and one of them was named Levi. How can Levi great-grandson of Abraham pay tithes long before he was born back in when his great-grandfather Abraham paid tithes? Verse 10 gives us the answer, it says he (Levi) was still in the loins of his father Abraham. The Greek word for loins here is a word that can mean the hip area. In other words the sexual organ area of Abraham. What we are learning is that whatever Abraham did, Levi also did. We are also learning that Levi existed in Abraham years before he was even conceived in his mother. Wow, wow, and wow! That is very strong and powerful information. People clearly do not have a clue what is in them and what they are doing to their children today. The spiritual law implications given here are incredibly far reaching. Out of the millions or billions of sperm cells in Abraham, God already recognized that one of them was representative of a future descendant named Levi. God then teaches us that whatever your father did, you also did because you were physically present inside your father, your grandfather and even your great-grandfather. If you can see it this of course is directly related to abortion, because everyone still comes from the union between one man and one woman. God sees and knows the exact individual specific parts on the inside of us (the exact egg and sperm) that will create every baby and He calls them by their name long before they arrive into the world.
CONCLUSION
I hope and pray that you are grasping the concepts being taught here by the Holy Spirit from His living Word! If you do grasp them, you should never think about having sex casually and aborting the resulting child in the same way again. This child is known by God. God knew exactly the two cells that would come together to form this child and He knew their name and their purpose for existence. He also knows every descendant that was supposed to come from them whether to create a new nation, a new President, a new scientist, etc. Please take this information and share it with others. We are in a spiritual warfare on this planet between good and evil. Satan is evil and he desires to kill every descendant and potential threat to conquering and overcoming his evil. God is good and came to give everyone life and that life even in abundance (Jn 10:10). Therefore we should do what God recommends to us in Deuteronomy 30:19, when He says “I have set before you life and death, therefore choose life that you and your descendants live”. Wow, that is an amazing recommendation and I pray I helped someone today to make the right choice. Thank for reading and studying the Word of The Creator God. I pray that it is a blessing to you and will help enlighten the choices that you may be faced with today. I love you and God loves you. There are alternatives to death and their are greater benefits to giving life than you can imagine right now.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons you can go to “Part 4“.
What Does God Think About Abortion?
(Ver 1.5) This is Part 1 of a series of advanced Bible lessons about what God thinks about the subject of abortion. In the news a while back there was a great controversial clash of opinion between the left and the right that took place. It appears that one of the nation’s biggest Catholic Universities invited one of our liberal Democratic Presidents to speak at their graduation commencement. The single point of confrontation was a delicate subject that has divided our nation since 973. So what is this subject that has caused such a major division and debate? It is the subject of abortion. This subject came to the forefront of U.S. history in 1973 when the Supreme Court ruled abortion to be legal in a case named Roe vs. Wade. It still amazes me how 9 people on a court can make such sweeping broad rulings of moral values. The 7 members of the Supreme Court that ruled in favor of legalized abortion were named 1) Harry Blackburn, 2) Warren Burger, 3) William Douglas, 4) William Brennan, 5) Potter Stewart, 6) Thurgood Marshall and 7) Lewis Powell. According to Deuteronomy 19:10 I believe these seven men have a lot of innocent blood upon their hands. I hope that they regretted their choice and repented before they died.
INTRODUCTION
Let’s begin with the basics. What is an abortion and how is it defined? One dictionary say abortion is “a medical procedure to end a pregnancy”. It uses medicine or surgery to remove the embryo, fetus and placenta from the female uterus. That was a medical description from an abortion provider. But the Merriam-Webster dictionary puts it this way gaining additional new and important information. They say abortion is the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, and resulting in the death of the embryo or fetus. Wow, that changes things dramatically. Isn’t it interesting how some organizations omit words that are not desired to promote a result that would not be allowed after birth? One definition admits there is a death that occurs while the other just leaves this detail out completely. I think as we study the Bible we will learn that Merriam-Webster was more in alignment with God.
It seems that almost everyone in the world has some opinion on this matter and that is really the basis and the root of the entire problem of conflict. You see what I think about the subject of abortion and what you think about abortion really doesn’t matter or count for anything after we die. I mean who are you and who am I? The University speaking Liberal Democrat President’s opinion was that we should all just try to find some common ground and get along on this subject of abortion. But what he thinks really doesn’t matter or count for anything either. In fact what the Supreme Court’s opinion is on the subject of abortion doesn’t really matter or count for anything at all. All human opinion is baseless unless we agree with the one that created us.
What should only matter to you and I and concern us, is what does God think about the subject of abortion? If we could go instantly up to heaven and stand before the throne of God to ask Him a direct question on His thoughts on the subject of abortion, what would His answer be to us? Would God’s opinion change our opinion on the subject or would we still hang on to our opinion in spite of whatever He said about the subject? We should really think about that before we answer.
I wonder if we were confronted by God and told we were wrong about something, what would our response be? We could say I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was wrong and I’ll change immediately to be right. That would be the response of someone that was humble and feared God. Or we could say, I was wrong but then try to explain why we believed what we did was right at the time to justify our thoughts, opinions and actions. We could even try to be like an Adam or an Eve and pass the responsibility to someone else and redirect the attention away from ourselves and say it was just not my fault that I believed abortion was good and right, the court and the President made me believe it was right. We could be a real idiot and say sorry God, you’re wrong and I’m right and I’m not going to change my opinion or what I think no matter what You say or do. This last type of person has absolutely no fear of God. Or we could just care less and be indifferent. Our attitude could be just let people do whatever they want to do, it doesn’t have anything to do with me.
Which kind of person are you? What is your attitude towards this subject? If you are here on earth and can read this lesson from the Bible you must have not been aborted by your mother. Are you happy that your mother didn’t kill you before you were born? I personally believe that now is the time to learn the truth and change our opinions to conform with God’s thoughts on this subject. I’ll let you know right now that there will be no opportunities on judgment day to defend our wrong thoughts, opinions and actions we lived today. If we think there will be this chance, please show us the Bible verse that says this.
BEGINNING TO SEE GOD’S VIEWPOINT
If we proclaim ourselves to be a Christian then we should be aware that the Bible is the inerrant Word of the Living Creator God. The Bible is a directly written personal message to us from our God. The Bible was written for our benefit so that we could know this awesome God who none of us has ever seen before. So what a Christian does should follow God’s Word, His thoughts, His commandments, His instructions and the examples that He has given to us in this book. Let me show something that Jesus said to help confirm this point:
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:
Jesus said a wise man is one that hears the Word of God and does it. What is the opposite of that statement? The antithesis truth would be “a fool hears the word of God but does not do it”. What are you today a wise man or a foolish man? We all make this choice everyday in everything we do. So what does the Bible say on the subject of Abortion? And of course what would make us become a wise man that we could learn to change to do? Wisdom always begins with knowledge and knowledge must begin with learning about what God says on the subject abortion?
Like many other modern day Bible subjects the the word “abortion” is not found in the entire book, but that does not mean that God did not give us His thoughts on the subject. All we have to do to become wise is to study and find out what He has said on the subject using the other synonymous words that ARE found on the subject, so let’s do that. I want us to start this lesson by reading a very important foundational verse that is short but directly to the point on the subject of abortion.
Exo 20:13 Thou shalt not kill.
What does God say in this verse? It is one of the stated 10 commandments of God from the Old Testament. Are these a part of the words and of the commandments that Jesus was speaking of for a wise human to do? The Hebrew word H7523 translated as kill in this verse means “You shalt not commit murder”. What exactly is abortion if not murder? We learned earlier that Webster defined abortion as a death. To cause an innocent life to cease from continuing and developing in existence is clearly murder in Bible terms. What is the difference from a developing child inside the womb to one that has exited the womb and is still developing for another 18 years. If it is OK, to kill a developing child inside the womb, would it be fine to kill the same developing child outside the womb? Why is it today that outside the womb killing a child is called murder and killing a child inside the womb it is called abortion? They are both the same child! They are both in developing stages of growth. They both have the exact same DNA structure. Here is where the liberals have become creative to redefine that a living baby in the womb is not really a child but rather just a embryo or fetus and therefore not a viable self sustaining life form. By redefining a living developing child to be simply being labeled as an embryo or fetus they have dehumanized the living child, him or her and eliminated them for qualification as a living being for murder. Why do they not use this same logic when they have passed laws to protect the eggs of unborn eagles? Please answer this question, can a newly born baby child survive on its own outside the womb without assistance? Who is going to feed the child? Who is going to care for the child? Since they are not self sustaining do they fall into the same category and the unborn child that is fed by the umbilical cord that is attached to their mother? Do you see any problems with this type of thinking between how we should treat the child on the inside differently than how we treat them on the outside?
Did you know that destroying an unborn baby eagle bird in its egg is a punishable criminal offense? People can go to jail for killing (murdering) an eagle egg! Clearly it is the exact same type of stated unsustainable developing life form as the child (embryo or fetus) in the mother. Can you tell me what the difference is between an eagle egg and an unborn human baby? Yet one developing life form has gained a much greater value than the other in some people’s mind based upon some unknown reasoning. Why is that? How can that not be viewed as the same logical comparison that should not be ignored? Is the value in one species increased simply based upon the numbers of that species; are numbers what really matter? Because the eagle is endangered, does that make them more valuable to be protected than humans that are more populous on the earth? What do you think? Does God care more about eagles or for people? Did you know Jesus answered this question for you? In Matthew 10:29-31 Jesus speaking of two sparrows says God knows about them, but then tells humans they are much more valuable to Him than many sparrows.
Let me ask you this question, did God come to the earth to save just sparrows and eagles or did He come to save human people? If we do not know the answer to that question then we are in big trouble. John 3:16 gives us the answer by informing us that God loved us in the world so much that He died to save all those that believed in Him. Only a human is capable of believing.
Let us permit God to speak to us further on the subject of abortion and tell us His thoughts and then let us see how we react to His words:
Jdg 13:4 Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing:
Jdg 13:5 For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
Jdg 13:6 Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible: but I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name:
There are so many things to learn from the Bible, if we are open to the truths that it contains. We begin to learn when we allow God to show us what it actually means. Here is an example of a woman that had not had any children and the messenger of God shows up at her house and tells her that she is going to have a son. How did God know this? I think that is a really fair question and that the answer is probably more revealing than you can imagine. God knew of the child and what he was going to become and do long before he was even conceived. I will tell you that knowing this Bible fact alone will eliminate a woman’s right to choose an abortion. If God knows every child before they are born or even conceived and what they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to accomplish within their life, then who is a woman to overrule God to decide that the child should not be worthy to be born?
We know for a fact from biology class that the sex of a baby is determined by the male sperm from the father. Yet God knew which sperm cell was going to fertilize the egg in this woman in order for a male baby to be born. God knew that there was a future deliverer about to be born and according to many today, they would have said that this decision for him to be born should have been left up to the woman who conceived him. Is that what God thinks? Does a woman’s desire play a role in the plan of God for a child? Would a woman wanting a child be different from another woman not wanting her child? I personally do not believe it does based upon the Bible. We will hopefully look at this question more later.
Did you notice that God gave this woman specific instructions about what she did before she gave birth or this child was even conceived yet? In verse 4 God tells the woman not to eat or drink things that are bad for her or for the future baby. WOW, that is clearly a message that is very profound. God was basically informing us that what she did would affect the future child’s ability to fulfill his purpose. This truth places human responsibility on the mother that is way beyond what the world thinks right now. I believe that women and men will be judged for what they did to their future children good or bad.
This woman, the future mother described in Judges was told not to drink or eat any unclean thing before she conceived and while she carried this child in her womb. Why is this significant? If this was not a viable life form, why does it even matter what a woman eats or drinks? No, you see it does matter because this is not just an embryo or fetus in the eyes of God, or a blob of developing cells. In the eyes of God this was a child and God said it matters what you feed him. If it matters to God about this child and what he is fed in the womb, then it also matters to God and what every other child is fed in the womb. If it matters to God what this child was fed before it was born, then it clearly matters to God if this child was born at all.
Whose responsibility was it to eat the right things and drink the right things for the development of this baby? Was it God’s responsibility to see that his mother did the right thing or not? Did God make her do the right things here? These are not loaded questions! These are not hard questions to figure out the answers to either. If it matters to God about one baby in the Bible, then it matters to God about every baby that is supposed to be born. God does not treat one baby differently than the other, only people do that.
So what happens to all of God’s future planned roles and responsibilities of all of these babies that are aborted in our world by the mother’s choice to override God’s will? Do you think that the aborted children’s responsibilities in this life are just given to others that were not aborted? Or do you think that it is possible that there are a bunch of things that are not taking place and getting done, because the one that was going to find the cure for cancer was aborted? What if this child in Judges would have been aborted? What if his mother would have drunk wine and ignored the commandment of God? Would God had another deliverer to raise up or would Israel not have been delivered? I personally believe that this is a major problem with abortion and that there would have been no other one to take this child’s place.
Therefore, how many doctors, lawyers and teachers do you think have been aborted since 1973? Who or what exactly are we missing out on? Because of the abortion of the millions of future skilled workers, tax payers and roles that are being unfulfilled. How many church pastor’s, preachers, teachers and evangelists have been eliminated from coming into the world to help others get saved and not go to hell? Satan has used murdering people that some call doctors to create a population imbalance and reduction. Satan is trying his best to eliminate humans from coming into this world because they are threat to him.
CONCLUSION
This was just the introduction to the subject of “What does God think about Abortion?” I pray that you can begin to see from just one story in the Bible that it must matter greatly to God if a child is born. Why do you think Satan wants to kill all of the future children and keep them from entering the world? Could it be that one of these are the preacher that will reach the whole world with the truth? Does Satan think by eliminating future Christians that he can remain on this planet a little longer? I tell you that there are many things to consider on this subject. One is why has Satan been motivated to kill human children even since early in the book of Genesis? When Moses was born babies were tossed into the river to be drown, if they were males. This was a repeated occurrence when Jesus was born in Bethlehem and every child under 2 years old was killed. You see Satan is attempting to fight against whatever God has planned and is doing. We need to learn the truth and figure out whose side we want to be on. Abortion is a demonic evil plan of Satan to eliminate future humans and potential Christians. God is a pro-life God and is opposed to ALL abortion. We will continue to learn this as we go through this series of Bible lessons. Thanks for reading and studying the Bible with us today. I pray that what was stated has helped you to see what God really thinks on the subject and importance of future life.
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons on what God thinks about abortion, please continue to “Part 2“.
Genesis 1:4 Day 1 of Creation
(Ver 1.2) We are of course still in the beginning of the creation of our world system in God’s Day 1. It is important to note what God does on each day of creation. It is important to note the order of the events of creation. I believe from years of Bible study that each day of creation is a prophetic view into God’s overall plan for the future of mankind. I believe sincerely that each day of creation reveals something that either already occurred or will occur at a specific time in the natural timeline of man’s existence on the earth.
Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
We learn these concepts from reading verses like Isaiah 46:10 that says God “declares the end from the beginning…”. From this information we understand that the story of the beginning of our world also reveals to us the end of our world and it’s timetable. Since we are discussing day 1 and a day is to the LORD is as a 1000 years we further understand day 1 until the end of day 6 have already passed by. It is only the end of Day 6 that is still occurring right now. Then we will learn that Day 7 will be the coming millennial day of the LORD described in the book of Revelation. You might say I’m jumping to conclusions and making some radical assumptions, but nevertheless I will stand by that statement. I hope as we continue to go through this chapter that you will begin to see it also.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
So what did God do on the first day of creation? God looked at the earth and saw darkness and said “light be”. According to Genesis 1:4 God informs us that this first act was done in order to “divide” light from darkness. That is a amazing revelation if you choose to understand it. We know from 1st John 1:5 that God is revealed to be “light” and then the verse goes on to teach us that in Him is no “darkness”. If we search the Bible using our Bible Search software we should look for verses containing the words “light”, “darkness”, “day” or “night”. These verses connect us to a revelation of a spiritual realization that we can see being initiated first in Genesis 1:3-5. If God is Light, what is darkness? We all understand that darkness is defined as the absence of light. Therefore, spiritual “darkness” would include anything not being a part of God.
The implied meaning of this verse is that God has separated himself (God=Light) from darkness (Eph 6:12). Let’s look briefly at the word “divide” in the Hebrew. According to Strong’s the Hebrew word H914 means to “sever”, “separate”, “divide asunder”, “make a difference”. This word implies a cutting into two pieces using a sharp knife. I could probably go into a lot more detail right here but that might just cloud the issue. What we should take away from the 1st day of creation is that there was a plan of God implemented for the separation of light from darkness. I will also mention this for the sake of argument later, if the world was introduced to light on day one the “sun” has to also already exist doesn’t it? It is an interesting puzzle, but one that we will address later.
Correct Bible Intrepretation Rules Part 2 — Recognizing that Every Word of God is Important!
(Ver 2.1) This lesson is Part 2 of the Correct Bible Interpretation Rules series. If you have not read from the beginning I would recommend that you start with “Part 1“. In this series I discuss the proper approaches and rules to interpreting and understanding what God has given to us to know. When reading and studying the Bible, I have learned that it is absolutely critical to pay close attention to every word that is written. If it wasn’t important, God would not have written it down for us to read and study. Think with me and consider the fact that God could have written us any words and these are the ones that the most intelligent being in the universe wrote down for you to personally read. That tells me that God thinks they are important. Did you ever notice that God pays attention to the smallest details in your life? The Bible says He knows how many hairs are on your head (Mat 10:30). Since this number changes on many people’s head daily this is an amazing attention to some details that we do not even know. That is an amazing revelation to the level of detail that God is interested in you. If He cares that much for you, I believe that He expects you and I to care that much for Him and His words.
2Ti 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
This scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 informs us, that every word of God is important for us to see and learn. If you continue reading in the next verse you will that it claims that these words will help a man to grow up spiritually and become mature to do great works. Sometimes I think we either do not understand what this means or we forget that this is true. Especially when we read through boring genealogies or lists, laws or something that we are not interested in. Does “ALL” mean every word? I believe it does and we need to read it like God is saying something very important to teach us or correct our life’s course.
Luk 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
You can clearly read from the mouth of God some words that are extensively ignored by some Christians. According to God Himself, He says that man will only live by knowing every Word of God. God is comparing His Word to that of symbolic natural bread. It just so happens that I really like bread so I can relate to this analogy and type of symbolism with ease. You see I also like the Word of God and that is what makes me different than a lot of people. What I want you to see is the emphasized qualifier in this verse that it states that “EVERY” word of the Bible is important to feed on spiritually. The next time that you read a genealogy like in Genesis 5 you should change your attitude towards it and find out why God put it there and then try to learn what it means. When I discovered that the Genesis 5 genealogy had a hidden message within it, I changed how I looked at the Word of God. Suddenly every word seemed to have more significance and meaning attached to it than I ever realized before. I began to look at every word differently and just because I did not understand why it was there, it did not deter me from taking away what I could find out about it and then making notes about what I still needed to learn. Writing down your questions and praying to ask God to answer them will open the door for Him to show you what they mean.
Maybe I’m different than you are. I learned as a computer programmer to pay close attention to every jot and tittle that existed within the programming text. Every bit and byte of information had great significance to whether the program that I wrote worked or failed. Believe it or not, this is what God is trying to teach you today about the Bible. Become a detail oriented person in your Bible study and it will change your point of view and I will guarantee that you learn more than you ever have before. Learn to feed your spirit on every word of God and treat them all as being valuable for your life. There is a famous quote that states “Success is in the details” and I believe this more today than I ever have. I hope you do this also! Ignoring little details will most often lead us into errors of wrong interpretation. Taking a portion of a verse out of context is often a main way people fall into error.
I thank you for reading this short lesson on Correct Bible Interpretation. It had only one main point and I pray that you understood the significance. If you would like to continue reading in this series please continue to the next lesson called “Part 3“.
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