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The Torah Hidden Jesus
(Ver 1.0) This will be a mini lesson on a prophecy of Jesus written in the Hebrew word translated as “LAW”. The Hebrew word is H8451, and it is spelled “Tav” + “Vav” + “Resh” + “Hey”. We have covered most of these letters in other lessons or soon will be published, the LORD be willing. We will only be concerned with the Ancient Hebrew pictographic language representations of each of these alphabet letters. This language was the original manuscripts written by Moses at the times of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian captivity. It is unknown who originally created and wrote this language’s letters first, but Joseph could be a great possibility due to his contributing role as 2nd in command of the nation of Egypt. Nevertheless, if Joseph was the first author, he only did it with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Because, it becomes more obvious that it was divinely inspired by an in-depth study of each letter and how they were designed, the prophetical messages they contain, their letter organization and order, their connections, their arrangement in word designs, etc.
Let us go over the alphabet letters found in the word “Torah”. The first letter “Tav” as you hopefully recall is the last letter of the alphabet. Remember Jesus revealed in Revelation 1 to be this letter directly saying “I am the Alpha and the Omega”. But this was written in the Greek language for Gentile readers. Jesus would have been most likely speaking these words to John who was a Jew, by speaking to him in the Hebrew language and would have said “I am the Alef and the Tav”, “the beginning and end”, and the “first and the last”. Therefore, we know like most prophecies we are re-discovering Jesus again.
The letter Tav pictographic symbol is that of a “cross” representing a marked destination for God and humanity. This would be the instrument where God in the highest vertical dimension would come down to the earth to die within the human horizontal dimensions of space and time. The Cross design has a center point of intersection. This center cross point represents the crossroads of God’s design for a human decision point. By God coming from the Holy spiritual heavenly realm to be joined with us in the natural sinful world, He could offer us all an exit door out of this lost hopeless darkness, and from our coming eternity in hell. Therefore, the first letter is another confirmation that the word Torah translated as “Law”, is a pointer to Jesus.
The second letter of the word “Torah” is the letter “Vav”. This letter’s pictographic representation is that of a “Nail”. Uh oh! That means this is another “connector” to Jesus. Please understand what nails do. Nails are designed to join together disjointed wooden boards. After they are nailed together they are essentially a single entity. Does that sound like what happens during salvation? According to the Bible it is exactly what happens. Remember what 1 Corinthians 1:16 says, “He that is joined to the LORD is one spirit”. That verse describes the “Vav” application in Christianity precisely.
Also remember that we have learned this in the name Jehovah which was “Yod” + “Hey” + “Vav” + “Hey”. Perhaps you remember the name Jehovah in English terms means “Behold the hand, Behold the nail”. We can clearly see this primary name of God is a prophecy of His hands being nailed to a cross! This definitely happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross (Tav).
The third letter of the alphabet is the letter “Resh”. This letter’s pictographic representation is that of a man’s head and it has the meaning of “a prince”, “a chief”, “the head”. This is a man that is above the authors under him in a position of highest authority. It is like the apex of a mountain. The peak of the mountain is the highest point, and the rest of the mountain is under it. Perhaps you recall in Isaiah 9:6 that Jesus is named to be the “Prince of Peace”. This too confirms this word Resh in the Torah is about Jesus.
The final Hebrew letter of the word “Torah” is the “Hey”. As we have learned before, this letter means “Behold”, “LooK”, “See”, here is found something that will take your breath away in amazement. We know that this letter “Hey” occurred twice in the name Jehovah. So, we are getting some amazing pointers to God and His Son Jesus in this revelation of the word Torah. All these letters have direct connections to our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. But what about the prophecy hidden in this word?
Perhaps you already have seen it! Placing the individual letter meanings found in the Hebrew word Torah into joined sequence, we arrive at meaning “A cross nailed head man, behold!”. But let us read it backwards from right to left to get a better understanding of what we have seen. Remember in the English language and most Gentile nations west of Jerusalem all read words and letters moving from left to the right, the opposite of Hebrew. By reading the letters in reverse, this would change the letter meanings to say, “Behold the Prince Nailed to a Cross”. The reverse reading of the Hebrew alphabet, sure makes it very plain what the hidden message of the Torah word written as Law is. It also appears to say to us that this will be largely a Gentile church that it will apply to like in the book of Ruth as the bride to the kinsman redeemer named Boaz.
Conclusion
Joh 5:46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
This is a truly significant revelation. When we view what Jesus said about the Law, we can clearly find that He confirmed this hidden message about Him. Notice what Jesus said in John 5:46. Who was Moses? Everyone knows he wrote the Law. It was the Law, that Moses was given directly from God. Moses wrote the spoken words of God on scrolls and these have been handed down from generation to generation until today. Moses being raised in Pharoah’s household would have been trained in the art of writing. Moses would have been an expert in at least two languages, if not more.
According to Hebrews 11:24-25 Moses selected to identify with his birth parents and the nation of Israel, rather than to enjoy the temporary sinful riches and pleasures of Egypt. This strongly indicates that Moses knew who He was in the language of his natural family. Perhaps you will recall that it was his natural mother that was his nursemaid for Pharoah’s daughter. This time together with his mother had to have a bonding experience that lasted for years. Now remember this verse:
Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
Jesus again speaking of the writings of the Law, told the Jewish leaders that if they searched their scriptures they would find Him. But like most promises it was conditional. They had to desire and want to find Him. They had to search beyond and deeper that the words that they had read all of their lives. Remember that Jesus said in Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened”. This statement implies work that must be done, effort that must be extended, and patience to uncover Him.
God has hidden Himself in the Bible using a masterful most highly intelligent design. But He made it possible for anyone to Him if they would seek Him with their whole heart (spirit). Let us examine a few other requirements that must be met to find the real hidden Jesus:
Eph 1:17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
Notice the prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit. God instructs us that if we want to “know” Christ, we need to ask Him for the Spirit of wisdom and Revelation in order to know Him. This is why a lot of people even saved Christians are unable to read the Torah or the rest of the Bible to become interested in it. They are unable to see anything because they do not ask to see Him. Remember James wrote in chapter 4 and verse 2; “you have not because you ask not”. Please stop and pray before you read any more. Ask the LORD God to show you Jesus Christ in every verse of the Bible. Ask Him to show you something new you have never seen before about Jesus even in the verses that you think you know. This will begin your journey to finding Him everywhere. But now go to the second phase He called “Seek”:
Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Uh oh! This could be another reason why not many find Jesus in the Bible. Does anyone want to spend hours searching? If not, that is your next major challenge. Setting time away to diligently seek Him must be a priority. However, how many hours it requires to find, should not matter, as much as your desire to seek. Notice that we just read that we also must do our search for Jesus by faith. This means we believe we are going to find Him, and expect it to happen as we hear, read and speak the Bible out loud. This is another major challenge to finding the savior. Let us analyze an example of knocking next:
Act 12:13 And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda.
Act 12:14 And when she knew Peter’s voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in, and told how Peter stood before the gate.
Act 12:15 And they said unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel.
Act 12:16 But Peter continued knocking: and when they had opened the door, and saw him, they were astonished.
Look at this story of Peter who was just released from being held in captivity by an angel. Peter must have been led by the Holy Spirit to go to this house where he knew the mother of John Mark lived. Why did Peter pick this house? We are not clearly told this reason. But we do know in the previous verse that Peter wasn’t even sure that this was really happening to him. So, this is your first clue to knowing where to knock. Trust God to show you where you need to go. The bible instructs us all to “walk by faith, and not by sight”. Don’t be mysteriously expecting for an audible voice to tell you where to read. Nor should you read while your doubting that God heard your prayer and He will lead you. But rather just expect by faith that He heard and that He is doing what He said in His Word, and it will happen. Just go and open your Bible and ask the Lord to reveal to you Jesus. Then start reading by faith.
Peter may not have known that many of his believing friends were in the house praying for him to be saved. And he probably thought it stranger when they did not answer the first time that he knocked. Nevertheless, he went and began knocking on the door to find someone who expected to be his friend and not his enemy indicating there was faith present. Verse 16 informs us that just because no one immediately answered that it did not frustrate Peter and He did not give up. But rather he continued patiently knocking to find a friend that he wanted to find. This is the qualities of patients as well as persistence. Both are important qualities in searching for Jesus in the Bible. There may be many times He is not found immediately. But you will find that the more you learn about Him in the Bible, the easier it will become to find Him. He is literally everywhere.
Ask, Seek and Knock. Pray every time you read the Bible. Ask God for eyes to see new insights into fresh things that you have never seen before. Trust God to lead you, guide you, direct you, show you where to walk, then begin to move through the Word to seek and to find Him. When you get to a verse that stands out as something special to you, that could be your clue that you’re standing in front of the right door. Now comes the real work of knocking patiently at the words written and selected by God in the verse. Why did God choose each word in the verse? Why were they organized in their selected order? Why are they spelled the way that they are? How does God define each word? And on and on our study should continue.
Thank you for taking your valuable time to study the Holy Scriptures with us. May God richly continue to lead you and bless you into finding all of Him, that you are willing to search for. God loves you, we love you and will continue to pray for you as the Spirit leads us to do. Leave a comment, question or a prayer request if you desire. Share the lessons with your friends and family. Be blessed and strong in the Lord and the power of His might! Amen.
Understanding the Divine Spiritual Laws and Court System of Heaven
(Ver 1.4) This is Part 1 in a series of advanced spiritual Bible lessons on the revealed subject of God’s Divine Spiritual Laws, Systems and Legal Proceedings. Are there spiritual laws found in heaven? Is there a heavenly courtroom? Are there trials that have taken place in this heavenly realm? If yes, who is the judge? Who is the one that brings charges and against who are the charges addressed at? There are so many things to learn from the Bible that we will not abe able to answer every question in one Bible study. To attempt to do so would do each answer an injustice.
It has always been my priority to teach what God has given to me for free and give it to others without any charge. If you knew my heart you would understand that I don’t only want to teach you what God has given to me, but I also desire to teach you a better way to study and learn from His glorious Word. Hopefully, the LORD has used me to teach you how to fish for yourself and not just for me to feed you a fish for a single day.
Like many other lessons that I believe the Lord has given to me, today’s Bible lesson should be viewed as a very advanced spiritual topic intended for Christ followers that are fully committed to grow to become a spiritually mature student of God’s Word able to partake of spiritual meat. Please judge if you meet this requirement before continuing to read this lesson further. It is one of my greatest heart’s desires to not offend or cause any newborn or spiritually immature Christian to stumble or fall causing them to depart from the LORD. I believe that the Apostle Paul wrote with this same quality when he said I would have liked to feed you meat but you were unable to receive it and therefore I could only give you milk. Ok that was my paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 3:2. But, I believe the hidden heart of Paul’s message contained in that verse is that of one of his greatest desires for his students to grow up spiritually. I believe Paul desired people to grow up so that they were able to receive a much stronger spiritual message of truth. Then I believe Paul wanted for each of them to go and spread his message from the word of God to others with the same love for people. Please judge for yourself before you continue.
INTRODUCTION
We in the United States have three branches of Government. These three are a Legislative Branch, an Executive Branch and a Judicial Branch. This was the idea framed by our founding fathers of our nation and they were mostly Christians that I believe modeled their government beliefs on God’s Bible principles. I believe this was not by chance or accident but rather by divine design. I believe God placed His hand on their efforts and blessed them to know things way beyond their natural ability.
In this lesson we are going to focus upon God’s Judicial Branch found in heaven and how the earthly U.S. court system is a pattern of that which God originally designed. Maybe you did not realize that God’s heavenly spiritual government (Kingdom) had a Judicial Branch? If you have read the Bible, I am really not sure how this fact has escaped you but if you search for it you will find that it is very true from Genesis to Revelation. For example, in the Bible the LORD God reveals Himself as the Most High Righteous Judge in so many verses. A named existence of a Heavenly Superior Divine Judge implies very strongly that there also must be found present laws, a courtroom, some legal proceedings and rules, lawsuits, trials, a plaintiff or a prosecuting attorney, a defense attorney and a defendant. I will prove to you using the Bible that these all exist in a form or pattern using the Bible. I will also teach you that there are innumerable court cases that are taking place every day including today right this moment while you are reading about them. Wow, that should at least peak your interest a little bit to desire to learn more about God’s revealed truth.
If you have read very much of the Bible you should already know who the Heavenly Judge is and that is certainly the LORD God and Jesus Christ according to Genesis 18:25, Acts 10:42 and Hebrews 12:23 to list just three of many confirming witnesses of truth. But, there are also so many new implied questions that need to be answered. Who is the plaintiff or prosecuting attorney bringing the charges and cases against someone in God’s Court System? I’ll tell you right now it is Satan and I will prove this later in the lesson. Who is the defendant being charged or sued? I’ll tell you up front again that you are the one being charged by Satan and I will prove this with scriptures also. We will also begin to learn about the charges being made to God by Satan. This should interest you because we will learn that it is our human wrong actions here on the earth that open the door for Satan to bring a lawsuit against us.
Is there a defense attorney in this trial? If so, who is the defense lawyer in the case? I’ll tell you right now we have access to a legal defense team ever since the LORD Jesus Christ died and was resurrected from the dead. You can be introduced to this part of the message by reading an older Bible lesson that I wrote called “Understanding How to Make Jesus Your Legal Advocate Right Now”.
I’m sure you must be asking “How can there ever be a spiritual case of law being brought into a heavenly trial to be heard by God for a Christian if Jesus has truly paid for every sin that we have ever committed or could ever commit in the future?” Many would say “I thought we were not under law but under grace therefore can there really be a spiritual trial now before we die?” Others ask the question “I thought the only judgment was after we die according to Hebrews 9:27?” We know from reading the end of Revelation that there will be a Great White throne Judgment but I believe that there are also other named judgments that will occur after death and even now before death. If there is a judgment that can take place before we die, “What could be the charge brought against a forgiven saved Christian?” These are complex deep questions to answer and God gives us the revelations in the Bible if we dig for them and find them. Seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you and ask and it will be answered (Mat 7:7).
This Bible lesson is a response to a question raised by a good reader doing their homework. They asked the question concerning a message being taught within certain churches that appear to conflict with what is taught in other areas of the Bible. The controversy comes from a modern extreme Grace teaching that is being taught that since Jesus paid for all of our sins, past, present and future there are no longer any consequences for committing any sin or any need to ask for any future forgiveness of a sin. In other words sin is presented to be harmless without any negative penalties. In fact at least one very popular grace preacher teaches we do not even need to ask for forgiveness for any sin and they explain away 1 John 1:9 using illogical natural human reasoning to be written to only unbelievers. But this is certainly not what the Lord has taught me about a better way of Bible interpretation and more specifically sin. This Bible study series will address this topic using several ignored scriptures that must be balanced with the doctrine being misrepresented by some extreme unnamed grace teachers.
You see I do certainly believe that Jesus died once for all sin that has ever been committed, is being perpetrated today and will occur tomorrow. We know this truth from verses like Romans 6:10, 2 Corinthians 5:14 and Hebrews 10:10 to name a few foundational truths on this subject of the comprehensive power of the blood sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. I will say it again for emphasis, I am a very firm believer that there was one sacrifice for every human sin and no further sacrifice was or is necessary. However, we cannot ignore other verses that declare very plainly that the sin of even Christians can still have some major potential consequences. Please do not misunderstand what I am teaching. I am not saying every little sin we commit can cause something significantly bad to occur nor am I teaching that a Christian can lose their salvation by committing a sin. But, I am definitely teaching that Satan is looking at each of our lives very closely to gain an access and entry into our lives to kill, steal or destroy us (John 10:10). That is exactly what we will learn next.
SATAN IS SEARCHING FOR A LEGAL WAY IN
There is another part of the extreme Grace message that must be addressed immediately. While it is true that Satan was defeated by the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, it does not mean that he is not presently trying everything in his power (and he is still very powerful) to get you to fall away from Jesus or not produce any savable fruit to be harvested by Jesus. We need to study the parable of the sower and I wrote about this awhile back so I will not repeat it all here again. Just understand that every soil type in the parable “heard” the word of God and only one group produced any harvestable fruit. Satan successfully destroyed the harvest in every other soil type. Satan desires access into our lives after we hear the Gospel and are saved by believing, accepting and confessing Jesus as our LORD (Romans 10:9-10). There must be some insight given by God that shows us what grants Satan access to be victorious over some and not over others. We could talk about this a long time but we need to get to one of the foundational verses for the lesson:
1Pe 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
We are starting with a verse that was written directly to “saved born-again” Christians. I take this verse personally as an inspired word of warning written to me and so should you. It is so very clear to me that Satan desires to devour every Christian but can’t. What is it that allows Satan access to attack some Christians and not others? If you do not believe you can do anything to grant or permit the devil access into your life to devour, you have definitely been deceived by an extreme grace teacher. It would be very stupid for the LORD God to inspire Bible writers to warn us about something that could not occur and God is not stupid!
I am now going to begin to introduce you to God’s heavenly court system. There are four main participants in every court case. Those that are the accused can also be known as a defendant, the defense attorney may be present, the prosecutor also known as the plaintiff and then the Judge. Many know of these truths better than others. But, these are the basic main participants of every trial in this natural world and these are all parallel truths for the divine heavenly court cases going on today also.
Notice what I just said. I said this is happening everyday of your life here on the earth. I say this because I believe that every day Satan is looking (seeking, searching and plotting to gain access) using a legal charge to accuse and condemn us with. I want to go back to 1 Peter 5:8 and give you one of the key words that will help us verify one of the key principles that I am teaching. The primary word is “adversary”. This Greek word is G476 and it literally means “your opponent in a court trial”. According to this verse Satan is bringing a legal lawsuit before God on a daily basis in order to gain access to someone (even a Christian) to devour them. What this verse implies is that God must judge the “access demand” to be just in order for Satan’s entry to be legal. Wow, that does not sit well with a lot of modern extreme grace teachers. But, I’m sorry it is what the Bible says, not me.
This Greek word G476 translated as “adversary” occurs in the New Testament only in four verses and it is always applicable to a legal battle between two opponents in a court of law. You may look up these verses to verify these truths by reading verses in Matthew 5:25, Luke 12:58 and Luke 18:3. In every case there is a stated defendant, an adversary and a judge. While there is no legal counsel it may be assumed or implied based upon our knowledge of how natural court cases transpire. We will look deeper to verify the identities of the spiritual participants in God’s heavenly court cases very shortly. But, please understand that God’s word selection of G476 establishes a direct word and subject association to a court trial case that must also be occurring in 1 Peter 5:8 and this is a very critical lesson to learn and apply in a better way of Bible interpretation. See how a word selected by God is used in other verses and it will help to establish the definition in the verse in question.
Based upon 1 Peter 5:8 we can learn by implied reference who the defendant is and who the plaintiff is. Since the verse was a written warning to us in the church, that makes Christians the direct implied defendant being charged. We then can certainly see very plainly that since the devil is stated to be our “adversary” we know clearly that he is the one bringing the case before the Judge. Therefore, the case is being brought up before the implied Judge (God) by Satan in order to accuse us and gain access to attack us.
Let’s get another verse to help us verify this truth. After all God instructs us to use the mouth of two or three witnesses to establish every truth which is another best practice to correctly interpret the Bible. Again this truth must be occurring in a judicial spiritual courtroom before God the Spiritual Judge. I believe that God will always require at least two witnesses to establish every case truth. Please turn in your Bibles and read the following verse found in the Book of Revelation:
Rev 12:10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
Wow, this verse is of such great significance to our Bible subject that I cannot emphasize it strongly enough. I would like to begin by stating the fact that this verse is a future prophecy that has not yet occurred. We know this by the fact that God tells the author John in Revelation 4:1 to come up to heaven in order to be shown things that will occur in the future. I am a firm believer that everything in Revelation 4 to the end of the book is future prophetic statements that have not yet occurred. I also believe that they are written in Chronological order of occurrence. Therefore, since Revelation 4 through 11 has not occurred Revelation 12 has also not occurred.
What does this verse say? We must really read the context in order to discover the true identity of one of the central figures being named and discussed in this verse. We can read back a few verses in Revelation 12: 7 to begin to learn that Satan is also called the ancient serpent and the great dragon as figuratively speaking titles. Satan has also just been cast down out of heaven after a significant spiritual war. Let’s read these verses to verify where Satan will be cast out of. Turn in your Bible and begin reading with verse 7 to get the more complete revelation of what is going to occur very soon:
Rev 12:7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
Rev 12:8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Here are the future prophesied facts given to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. First, a spiritual war will occur. It is definitely a spiritual battle and not a natural conflict. Second, the participants of the war are spiritual beings. There is Michael and his angels defending heaven against the dragon (Satan) and his angels attacking heaven. Third, Satan and his angels lose the battle. Fourth, God states that Satan has ONLY NOW lost his place (right and ability) to enter back into heaven ever again in verse 8. What does this teach us? Verses 7 and 8 are teaching us by implied truth that before this event occurs Satan HAD FULL ACCESS and the ability to come and go from and to heaven any time that he wanted. Why do you think this was granted? I personally believe it is because of two main factors. The first factor is that God is just and that God must honor His Word. I believe we are about to learn more by a deeper study that the access granted was for the purpose of putting God’s people aka. Christians on trial.
We now should know that Satan had access into heaven very clearly from the statements found in verses 7 through 10. Now, look at what Satan is called in verse 10. Satan is referred directly by the Word of God to be the “accuser”. In fact the name Satan literally means “adversary”. Remember that “adversary” means “your legal opponent in a law case” and this firmly connects us back to 1 Peter 5:8. The Greek word translated as “accuser” is a very synonymous legal title to “adversary”. An accuser (Greek word G2725) is literally defined by Strong’s as someone that brings a compliant of law before a judge to gain an advantage over an opponent. I added the last part of that definition simply because that is what is being implied by the definition. Why would Satan come up to heaven before the LORD GOD’s court to accuse a “brother” in Christ? It would be extremely wise to give that question a lot of thought before answering quickly.
I believe God is telling us from verse 10 of Revelation 12 that Satan came up to heaven before Him both night and day to bring up complaints and charges against the people of God. We learn this truth by applying the key word “Brethren” to make it personal to Christians in the family of Jesus Christ. The Greek word translated as “brethren” is found over 300 times in the N.T. It can be used for natural or spiritual brothers. But, we use the context to understand that it must be “spiritual brothers” because everything else in the chapter appears to use natural symbols to point us to spiritual truths. I can see this and I pray you can also. You can search your Bible for G80 to learn how Paul and other N.T. writers applied this term “brethren” to the church family members.
Brethren here in this verse 10 must also be interpreted as those that are still living here on the earth since Satan was just thrown down form the spiritual realm of heaven back to the earth in a great fury of rage to wage war against those still not in heaven. I understand that there will be a lot of people that call themselves Christians that will not agree with what the Lord is teaching us here today. But, I’m not responsible to make anyone believe the Bible. All that any teacher can do is to present the facts given and then let the reader decide what they wish to believe for themselves.
While we are on verse 10 of Revelation 12 we must see and learn the second legal word term being mentioned. This term is the Greek word G2723 that was translated as “accused”. Let me review the part of the verse statement that I wish to emphasize. God says here “which accused them before God day and night”. Wow, this is critical to understand. This Greek word G2723 literally means “to be a plaintiff” in a court case. This word plainly means to bring a charge of offence/crime against a defendant. This is clearly describing spiritual court cases that were taking place 24 hours a day where God was the stated judge, Christians were the stated defendants and Satan was the stated plaintiff bringing the charges. All of this legal activity stops after Revelation 12. According to Revelation 12 these spiritual court cases do not cease until half of the tribulation’s seven years have gone by. That literally verifies to us that they are happening right now as you are reading this lesson believe it or not.
BIBLE EXAMPLES OF SPIRITUAL TRIALS
I will end this lesson today with three examples of spiritual trials that have taken place. The first one is a trial that occurred before Jesus was ever born on the earth. I am talking about a trial that is found in the oldest book of the Bible, the book of Job. The story of Job probably occurred way over 4000 years ago. My best guess would be sometime after Noah and before Abraham.
I am not going to go through every verse that I could, but I would recommend that you go and reread Job chapter 1 using the information we have learned in this lesson so far to verify that this is an example of a literal court case being waged against Job a righteous man. In fact it would be good to read the entire book of Job looking at it from a legal court perspective.
This case is being brought before God by Satan who is bringing charges up against him to the Judge. We learn by reading Job 1:6 that the trial definitely takes place in heaven as we have learned he had access to heaven from reading Revelation 12. Satan appears before God and the omniscient Judge asks him two questions. The first question in verse 7 is where have you come from? You know God knows the answer but he asks the question for our benefit to connect us directly with vital information found in 1 Peter 5:8. Remember what this verse said? Satan answers the question truthfully and states he has just come from going to and fro in the earth. Do you now see the direct connection to 1 Peter 5:8? Your adversary the devil (Satan) goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. God is giving us direct connected insight into Job’s court case by connecting us with a verse that helps us to understand the legal procedure taking place in heaven.
The second question asked by God to Satan was “Have you considered my servant Job”. Omniscient God understands that Job was why Satan came up to heaven to start this court case. Satan then asks God a question “Does Job fear God for nothing?” This is the beginning of Satan’s introductory opening statement for his case against Job. Any way I am not going to go through this all in depth in this lesson . But, please understand and apply what we have learned from 1 Peter 5;8 and Revelation 12. “Your adversary the devil goes about the earth like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour” and “Satan accused them before God night and day”.
We also learn from reading and studying Job that God informs Satan that he has access to devour Job (all that he has is in your power Job 1:12) and this is what proves that Satan won that court case. Satan obviously has found someone that is able to be devoured.
Satan then goes about Job’s life and kills, steals and destroys a great portion of his family and possessions. It was a very clear victorious court case won by the devil over a righteous man on the earth.
But, what won the case for Satan? I will let you into a couple of significant clues to why the court case was easily won by Satan. There are at least two major things that Job did to open the door in the hedge of protection that God had placed around him. First, it says in Job 3:25 that Job said “the thing that I greatly feared has come upon me”. This verse informs us of the presence of “fear” in Job’s heart and it was this spirit of fear that helps open the door for Satan to win a case against him. Fear is the opposite spiritual force of faith and without faith it is absolutely impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). Therefore, fear is not a connecting force to God but it must be considered an attracting force of Satan.
The second mistake Job made was pride. The Bible says that God resists the proud but gives grace unto the humble (James 4:6). If you read the book of Job you will find that Job was found guilty of judging God and judging others (his friends) without sufficient knowledge to do either. We should be able to understand that judging others and God is a clear sign of pride. Job spoke many things that he was later rebuke by God for saying.
We learn these truths by reading the rest of the book of Job where he is speaking to his friends and later when God speaks to him. Notice in Job 38:2 that God asks Job a question “Who is this that darkens counsel with words without knowledge?” Here is a very good verse that informs us of another legal term. A “Counselor” can be applied to a person of law or legal advice in a courtroom trial. Perhaps you have seen this before. What I am trying to say here is that words spoken in judgment of others without full knowledge can be an access point for Satan to win a judgment against you.
I have said enough about Job to get you started. Now, let’s go read another example court case that transpired only about 2000 years ago.
The second spiritual trial that I want to point out from the Bible occurs while Jesus walked the face of the earth in the flesh with His 12 disciples about 2000 years ago. We will begin reading in Luke 22 and verse 31:
Luk 22:31 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:
Reading only the English language translation we miss so very much of the stated truth. Jesus is talking directly to Peter and calls him by name twice to emphasize the critical importance of the next statement to follow. Satan as we learned from Revelation 12 and 1 Peter 5 was the direct adversary seeking access by legal complaint against the human Peter in this case. Therefore, we understand that Satan is the plaintiff in this statement of Jesus. The key word that must be examined with deeper understanding is the Greek word G1809 and it is incorrectly translated as “desired” in this verse. While it is true that Satan desires to get to us all but that is not what the Greek word that was selected and written was intended to have been spoken by Jesus. This Greek word literally means “to demand for trial”. Jesus is warning Peter that he has done something that Satan believes gives him access to sift him like wheat. Perhaps you should do a little research about how wheat is sifted. Sifting of wheat is definitely not a nonviolent or peaceful act. Anyone sifting wheat represents someone using their power, ability and force over the wheat being sifted to remove some good from the bad. It would be good to learn more about this but that is not my primary subject. I just want us to focus on the legal issues that must have occurred to give Satan the right to “demand” by a trial to have access to Peter’s life. But, we later learn after this verse that Jesus (Peter’s implied attorney) prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail. This does not mean that the sifting would not take place it only means Jesus asked the Father to help Peter come through the trial’s verdict being rendered. It would be great to go and study more about what Peter may have done to be sifted but I don’t really have the time in this lesson.
A MODERN DAY TRIAL
I am not able to go into every sin that a person can commit in order to be bought into spiritual court by Satan the accuser but I will end this part of the lesson with a third true life firsthand experience of this reality that I experienced a few years ago. This testimony concerns the life of my father. I learned of it by living it and hearing from others about it and I trust the testimony of those witnesses that have shared it with me. My father was a pastor for several years. I grew up attending his churches and hearing him preach his sermons.
My father was going to his second Bible school to learn and expand his knowledge of God and the Bible by attending good classes with great teachers. In his second year of this Bible school attendance in the first semester, he was sitting and taking notes when suddenly the man of God giving the lesson stopped and looked right at my father. God was giving the instructor a vision of a great dark cloud resting above the head of my father. The instructor knew from experience what this meant. He knew it was a death cloud that was warning my father that he would die soon. The Bible instructor called my father to the front of the class before all the other students. He put his hand on him and rebuked death and prayed for him. But, the instructor then asked my father to come see him privately so that he could share what else the LORD had given to him in his warning. I was not present when all of this occurred but my mother was in the class and she is one of the primary witnesses to the story and my mother was not a liar. She recounted this testimony after my father died.
I guess you already know that my father did not ever go and see the Bible teacher in private to hear the rest of the warning message from the LORD. A couple of months later my father had a stroke and was carried unconscious in an ambulance to a local hospital. My brother was home when all of this happened and he can testify to the truth of this part of the story. My father died a few days later after being transported. He never regained consciousness. He died like the Bible teacher warned he would.
The Bible teacher performed the funeral for my father and after the funeral my mother learned the rest of the message directly from the teacher that prayed for him. The Bible teacher informed my mother that God had told him to warn my father about his love walk with people. I should rather say that it was a lack of his love that concerned him more. Jesus gave us in the church a new commandment of LOVE and this is one way that Satan gained access into killing my father through his disobedience. I believe very firmly that because my father was not walking in love towards others that Satan brought him up on trial. I believe very firmly based upon spiritual laws that God tried to warn my father by even giving someone a vision of what was about to happen even before it happened. Like the prophet that warned the king in the Old Testament to get his house in order for you shall surely die, the same occurred for my father. However, the king in the Old Testament repented and prayed and he was granted more years on the earth. I believe this was what was happening with my father also. If he had repented and changed he might have lived a much longer life.
But, my father did not cooperate or may not have believed the warning or may have even wanted to go ahead and die. We don’t know the reason why he did nothing to prevent Satan’s attack. But that is what happened to him. The thief came into his life and killed my father just as John 10:10 states.
There was also another door that my parents opened to allow Satan access into their lives in this spiritual court case. After they were first married and before I was born, they went to a fair where they were just having fun. They ran across a fortune teller/palm reader tent and went in to play Satan’s deceptive game in ignorance. The fortune teller informed my mother that she had a long life line and would live a long time on the earth, but when she looked at my father’s hand she told him he would die young. I believe this foolish act set spiritual laws into motion and gave Satan a plot and a plan to bring up before God in my father’s trial. Had my father not gone into the fortune teller based upon his knowledge of God’s word this may have changed his life significantly. Had he rebuked the words spoken over him this may have also changed his life significantly. But doing nothing is certainly the worst option that anyone can choose. My mother informed me of all this after my father had died.
My father was barely 44 years old when he died. My mother lived to the age of 80 and the palm reader’s words both came true. Become aware of the things that can open the door for Satan before it is too late. Dabbling in the occult, fortune tellers, Ouija boards and the like, I believe opens the door for Satan to bring you before God’s court system. Spiritual laws are put into motion by words spoken by us, over us or about us. I believe that if we do not renounce them and rebuke them they will become seeds that grow and produce thorns and thistles in our lives.
CONCLUSION
Psa 43:1 Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation: O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.
This was only a basic overview and introduction of a much deeper subject. There are many other things to learn on this subject of God’s divine justice system. I do appreciate your time in reading and studying the Bible on this website. There are many other lessons that can be freely accessed by searching or clicking on topics and dates. May God bless and keep you until the return of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ.
If you would like to continue reading in this series you may click here for “Part 2“.
More Things That Satan DOES NOT Want You To Know About! Part 2 The Kingdom of Darkness! Learn God’s Word Applying the 5 W’s of Bible Study.
(ver 1.1) This is now Part 2 in the series of Bible study lessons concerning our unseen spiritual enemy Satan. These lessons contain some of the most significant things that Satan does not want us to learn or know about him. If you did not read “Part 1” I would recommend that you start with that lesson before you continue with this one. However, if you do not have the time to do that, the truths found here in this lesson should still stand alone and be helpful to your Christian walk in this life. Today’s lesson contains basic Bible truths that every Christian needs to know. If you are a very mature Christian you might already know many of the things that will be taught in this lesson. Please just allow the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart as you read with an open mind. I will warn you up front that this lesson will be long. But you can read it one section at a time and this will help break it down for you. Thank you before we begin for your dedication to study the Bible.
INTRODUCTION
I recently read a comment that someone made and I could not disagree more with what they said. They said that we should not be concerned about learning anything regarding Satan since he was defeated by the Lord Jesus Christ. However, they ignored the fact that Satan still exists, is still present here in this world and that he is stated by God to still be our adversary that we must exercise our authority over in order to keep Satan from running or controlling our lives. Consider this warning from God when asking this basic question if should we learn about Satan:
2Co 2:11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.
To be intentionally ignorant of Satan means someone does not know that Satan is their opponent or does not consider him as a formidable adversary. But, God clearly tells us in this verse that Satan has implied power which he can utilize to gain an advantage over us if we allow him to. Paul then wrote to the church in this verse that we “should not be ignorant”, unlearned or uninformed about Satan’s devices. This statement of God written by Paul contradicts directly with my reader’s comment. I firmly believe that the more we know about our enemy the least likely we are to permit him to take this advantage over of us. These truths go a long with what God said to us in Hosea 4:6 which is one of my favorite Bible verses. God says in Hosea 4:6 that His people are destroyed because of their ignorance a word meaning “no knowledge of” or “insufficient knowledge of”. I hope that you can see these are very good reasons to learn everything that you can learn about this enemy.
In the first lesson we quickly went through 6 important things that God has shown us in the Bible about the spiritual adversary named Satan. Satan has tried to stop these things from being preached and taught to the body of Christ. Perhaps you have noticed this reality if you have observed the lack of meaningful spiritual lessons that should have been taught in all churches. It is obvious to me that Paul taught about this adversary based upon what we just read in 2 Corinthians 2:11. What we must begin to realize is that we have a spiritual foe that is trying to kill, steal and destroy us (John 10:10).
These days there are too many Christians that want to look only at natural flesh and blood as the source of all of their problems in this world but this is not what the Bible teaches us that we are fighting against. If you read in Ephesians 6:12 you should be able to plainly see a spiritual opponent truth being stated. Not knowing that Christians are in a spiritual battle with an unseen spiritual force causes many of them to be easily distracted by the natural world and then to be easily defeated by the spiritual world. Not understanding how their spiritual enemy operates causes another portion of Christians to be easily attacked and overwhelmed. Then not knowing how to fight against this spiritual adversary will cause others to be effortlessly beaten. What we do not know is Satan’s greatest advantage over us. The goal of this lesson series is to inform Christians about their enemy and give them as much good Biblical information to help overcome Satan’s many assaults.
In this Bible lesson today I will be teaching something new that was not covered in detail in the first lesson about Satan. This new truth will be a complementary important fact that Satan is trying to stop you from learning about. I have taught on today’s subject in other lesson series but this one will be a little different with some new verses to consider.
If you recall in the first lesson I taught that one method of deception that Satan uses is distraction to keep people away from seeing God’s truth. Satan does not want the truth of the Word of God to be planted firmly and unmovably in our hearts. When the Word of God is confidently implanted in our hearts with solid deep roots it will produce spiritual fruit that causes Satan’s hold on our lives to be greatly diminished. The more truth you know from God’s Word the less likely you are to ever be deceived or overcome by Satan’s schemes. This knowledge of the truth is exactly what God wants you to achieve and it will become a great threat to the kingdom of darkness. The kingdom of darkness happens to be my key subject today. Satan will do everything in his power to keep you from knowing about this subject. One of the primary reasons for Satan wanting us not to know this is because no one will ever try to escape from a prison if they do not first know that they are in one.
As a final note for the introduction I will mention that in this Bible lesson I will be using at least 9 or 10 different basic Bible study laws to help us understand what God teaches us. Here is a quick list overview of these essential Bible Study techniques and rules. We will be using:
- the Law of Self-Interpretation
- the Law of Spiritual Definitions
- the Law of First Mention
- the Law of Contextual Application
- the Law of Antithesis Truth
- the Law of Synonymous Association or Relation
- the Law of Mathematical Equality (If A=B & B=C, then A=C)
- the Law of truth building upon truth
- the Law of Truth never contradicting Truth
- the Law of 2 or 3 Witnesses
I have covered these Laws of Understanding the Bible in more depth in other Bible lessons but I will emphasize them again today for anyone that is new to my website that has not yet read every Bible lesson. Today I will be going over a lesson using a specific style of Bible study that I call the 5 W’s study method. This method will focus on answering the questions of “Who”, “What”, “When”, “Where” and “Why”. In this study we will focus on the following questions:
- Who is the main subject about?
- Who does the main subject affect?
- What is the main subject about?
- What does the main subject mean to a Christian?
- What does the main subject mean to a non-Christian?
- When did the main subject come into existence?
- When does the main subject end or cease to exist, if ever?
- Where does the main subject take place or exist?
- Why is the main subject even in the Bible?
- Why is the main subject important to learn, understand and know?
We will be studying the Bible to answer these questions concerning the main subject of the “kingdom of darkness” today. We will also be touching on the related antithesis subject of the kingdom of light. I hope you will take the time to continue and read the entire lesson. Let’s get started.
NUMBER 7
7. Satan DOES NOT want you to know that he still rules a kingdom and you might be in it.
This is the seventh truth that Satan would rather you not learn. Since Jesus defeated Satan as we all should now know, does Satan still have a rule of authority over anything or anyone in the “here and now” present world? The answer to that question is a resounding yes. There are at the very minimum 4 different spiritual kingdoms mentioned to us in the Bible and you may not be able to name them all right now. Understanding spiritual kingdoms is a difficult seldom taught Bible subject but yet a rewarding subject to study nonetheless. There are a number of confusing factors that challenge us when we study about spiritual kingdoms. One spiritual kingdom in the Bible can be called by several different names, symbols or titles but these are still the same kingdom. Another spiritual kingdom can be a similar name or type or even have a similar appearance but God can be speaking of a completely different kingdom within a different time or even a different realm with an entirely different spiritual ruler of that kingdom. The Bible is much more complex than many Christians understand. However, today I am only writing about one specific spiritual kingdom in this lesson and this kingdom is called the “kingdom of darkness”. The kingdom of darkness is Satan’s independent empire. Satan is the sovereign ruler of this dark empire. This kingdom is not a part of any other kingdom. It is also not a sub-kingdom of God’s spiritual empire. This kingdom of darkness is vast and has many subordinate individuals that are within it right now.
Understanding the Kingdom of Darkness – WHO!
I’ll explain this section title later in the Bible lesson. Also I will say at the beginning of this section that I believe after the death of Jesus and His resurrection that Satan’s kingdom was greatly diminished from where it was at one time but we will still learn in this lesson that Satan has significant rule and power. For example in Revelation we learn that Satan potentially rules over 1/3 of an innumerable number of angels that appear to follow him (Rev 12:4, Heb 12:22). Then in other scriptures that I am going to get into in this section we learn that Satan rules over many millions and even billions of unsaved people in this world. Let’s begin this study by looking at a N.T. verse that informs Christians that they were once within this same vast kingdom of darkness to help us establish its manifestation, presence and existence:
Col 1:13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
There are two separate and very distinctly different spiritual kingdoms being referred to concurrently in this verse. One kingdom is directly mentioned and the other kingdom is indirectly described by God. First the indirect kingdom is being associated with the “power of darkness”. This is of course Satan’s kingdom of darkness. But, God then informs us that we have been translated from out of this darkness into the directly named “Kingdom of His dear Son”, Jesus Christ. The Son’s Kingdom was the establishment of a new spiritual kingdom that never existed before that I alluded to earlier. You may not understand that last statement right now but please don’t throw it away because you don’t understand because it is an advanced Bible truth that I do not have the time to teach fully today in this lesson. This “Kingdom of His dear Son” is also known by other names called the “Kingdom of God”, “the Kingdom of Light”, “ the Kingdom of the Day”, “the Kingdom of David” as well as by several other descriptions. This verse clearly teaches us that we (the Christians) have been “taken out of” and “removed from” the kingdom of darkness that belongs to Satan who is the implied unstated power of this realm. Christians now reside within a new spiritual Kingdom founded, established and confirmed by the Lord Jesus Christ. I think I will give you another verse to help settle this:
Act 26:18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
These words in Acts 26:18 were written in red ink in my Bible and this means Jesus is speaking again. Notice that there are two antithesis spiritual kingdoms being mentioned directly in this verse. These kingdoms are called “Darkness” versus “Light”. There are also two opposing rules of authority established in this verse being called the “power of Satan” versus the power of God. Satan is directly associated to be the power of darkness that was indirectly mentioned in the previous verse and God is only called the Power of Light. Both of these two previous verses directly mentioned the very important hidden kingdom subject keyword “power”. God will often talk about a subject using a related keyword and you need to become aware how to connect it to the current subject that you are studying.
This Greek word is G1849 that was translated as “power” holds the meaning of “delegated influence, authority, jurisdiction, power and strength”. Notice the implications from this definition. It means this individual that holds this “power” has the ability to make independent rules of law over those that are under them. This literally means that one power does not exist together with the other power or there would be no delegated power that was given to them. Nor can this power being mentioned be ruled or controlled by the other power. Think about this in terms of the United States and another country like Russia. The Russian government cannot pass a law to imprison the citizens of the United States and this is true for the United States not being able to imprison the people of Russia. Both are independent sovereign rules of law.
In fact the mere names of the kingdoms light and darkness denote a clear separation of powers. Wherever light exists darkness is not found and wherever darkness exists light is never found to be present. These are just basic natural laws that were created by God to teach us how these spiritual realities work. In the natural we can walk into a very dark room and be overwhelmed with the darkness until we turn the light on and then suddenly there is no more darkness. It is just amazing how that works, isn’t it. Now consider another N.T. verse that is relevant to teach on this subject:
1Jn 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
God is clearly declared to be light in 1 John 1:5 and in this verse it further says that “IN HIM” there is no darkness found in this Light. This reality of God being called light without any darkness denotes an implied antithesis truth that within the darkness of Satan there is no Light of God found. However this becomes greatly complicated when we consider the “omnipresence” of God. I do not believe that there exists a place where God cannot be found present. Psalms 139:7 teaches us this truth using the voice of a man asking, where can I go that you are not found?
However this verse in 1 John still teaches us that there must be a huge separation of one from the other using an implied dividing partition. Light and darkness cannot coexist in the same room without a partition to block the light. I personally believe that God is teaching us that He is not evil. We will begin to learn more of this as we continue to study that evil exists in Satan and goodness and mercy comes from God. We need to know this and never forget it when reading and studying the rest of the Bible or else we will become confused how to understand what is being stated by God.
I am not going to teach anything else found in this verse of Acts 26:18, because that would take too long. You can take the time to meditate and think on this verse to see what else God reveals to you about it if you wish. Please just begin to embrace and believe in the basic concepts of the powers of light versus darkness being separated, detached, divided, disconnected and disjointed from each other. Both kingdoms will not stand or coexist together. Clearly the Kingdom of Light is superior to the kingdom of darkness. Darkness can never prevail over light or drive out the light. But God still declares the kingdom of darkness to exist with power and this teaches us that God is not present there. These verses also teach us that Christians were once found to be a part of the darkness and have now been removed from it. But yet this truth implies those that are not Christians right now are still residents within the power of darkness. I know there will be some Christians that do not believe me. But normally this is because they have never studied to find these truths in the Bible. I’m not able to give you every verse that exists on this subject but I will mention a few more that apply. I have taught on this subject in other Bible lessons. Let’s read the words of the Lord Jesus again to continue with learning about this spiritual kingdom of darkness truth:
Mat 12:26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?
Jesus makes an amazing statement here that should not be discarded, thrown away or ignored because you don’t believe it. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and the creator of everything seen and unseen that was created (John 1:1-3, 14) and He declares that Satan is not fighting or even working against himself. Jesus also teaches us very clearly that Satan has his own independent kingdom apart from the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven mentioned repeatedly in the Gospels. There is a very basic truth established and confirmed with this message that there exists another spiritual kingdom that is separate from God’s domain. This would have been a great opportunity for the Lord Jesus to tell us how this kingdom of darkness was sovereignly ruled by God but He does not even imply this to be true. In fact Jesus in describing this kingdom referred to Satan using the third-person pronoun “his” which means that this kingdom is possessed, owned and controlled by him. This clearly denotes separate ownership of this kingdom being mentioned which must be different from the Kingdom of God that I just mentioned. In other words Jesus did not say “my” kingdom He said “his” kingdom and we need to see this. Jesus is not Satan and Satan is not Jesus. Therefore whatever Jesus rules over was not what Satan ruled over. Let’s go into another New Testament verse revealing who rules this kingdom of darkness:
Eph 6:11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
God starts in verse 11 by revealing that we are in a spiritual war and have need of His spiritual armor. This spiritual opponent is called the devil. This is just another title for our enemy Satan. If we look up the meaning to this Greek word G1228 translated as “devil” we will find that it means a person who is a traducer. Do you know what that is? This is literally someone who tells lies about another person. This is very revealing information about what type of battle we are in. The battle is raging in a spiritual court and we are the defendants that are being accused by the devil. It is a clear battle between what is truth versus the words of lies being thrown at us. We need to know this because it will become very important due to our fleshly sin nature.
Please observe our primary subject related “keyword” in this verse translated as “rulers”. Remember the primary subject is concerning the “kingdom of darkness” and this kingdom certainly must have a “ruler” in control of it. This Greek word is G2888 and it literally means a “world ruler”. Any natural kingdom of the world has a leader that reigns over it. This is normally like a royal family that inherits the throne from their parent after they die. Much like King David’s son inherited the kingdom when David died. These natural concepts will apply to the subject of spiritual kingdoms also. But that is a different Bible lesson. What we should be learning is that the ruler of the spiritual darkness is Satan.
Please allow me to give you a couple of further confirming witnesses to the reality that unsaved people and fallen angels are revealed subjects of this dark empire of Satan. We will look at some additional words of Jesus to see who He claimed to be and why He came into the world and this is vital spiritual information and truth to know:
Joh 12:46 I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
What is Jesus claiming to be here? Jesus asserts to be the “Light”. This statement literally means Jesus has called Himself “God” using the symbolic title “Light”. Do you remember that we read previously in 1 John 1:5 that God is stated to be “Light” and in Him is no darkness at all? This verse in 1 John was a spiritual definition for the Greek word translated as “light” and we need this information in order to understand what Jesus just said in John 12:46. Since Jesus was not speaking literally He must have been speaking figuratively. Therefore in order to understand figurative light we need a God given definition for the word. This is the correct way of “Rightly dividing the Word of Truth” and “Letting the Bible Interpret itself”. Both of these verses use the exact same Greek word G5457. Therefore they are linked by God’s direct word selection design to teach us about the subject of spiritual light. Light is the antithesis for darkness and this further confirms that God does not dwell in darkness here in John 12:46. Perhaps you do not understand the divinely created laws of mathematics. I have made mention of this law in other Bible lessons, but I will review it briefly for the new readers on my website. In 1 John 1:5 God = Light. Then in John 12:46 Jesus = Light. Therefore by the laws of mathematics “Jesus = God”. This is just a very basic Bible study principles and I hope you learn how this works today.
Now notice what Jesus claimed for one of the reasons why He has appeared in the flesh here in this world. Jesus claims to be the spiritual light to show us the way out of the darkness that we were stated to be in. Most unsaved people still do not realize that they are in this darkness because they do not see it. I will emphasize once more that Jesus is not claiming to be a natural light. He is claiming to be a spiritual light and that will become greatly significant as we continue on in this study.
What we have been learning only concerns the subsidiary subject of “who”. The “who” subject study is nothing but a sub-category study within my primary subject of the “kingdom of darkness” study. We have discovered the existence of two spiritual kingdoms in this section. One was called “Light” and the other was called “darkness”. We have discovered that Satan rules the kingdom of darkness and God in Jesus Christ rules the Kingdom of Light. We have discovered the implied existence of a separation of powers and a partition of division between these two kingdoms. We have also further understood the existence of subordinates within both kingdoms. As Christians we were told that we were once in the kingdom of darkness but have been removed from it by the Grace of God and taken into the kingdom of light by Christ Jesus. This literally means that those who have NOT been saved remain in the darkness and there are several other verses in the N.T. that we can find to confirm this. Let’s move on to the sub-category study of “what” now.
Understanding the Kingdom of Darkness – WHAT!
What is the Kingdom of Darkness? What does God reveal to us about this kingdom realm? Is it spiritual or is physical or is it both? We should have established in the first section the beginning basic truths of “who” is in the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. We found the ruler of this kingdom of darkness to be Satan. Satan was directly linked to the possession, ownership and control of this kingdom of darkness. I should have told you that no created being like Satan is capable of establishing their own kingdom of authority without it being given to them by God. We can learn this simple truth from a statement that Jesus made to Pilate in the book of John:
Joh 19:11 Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.
The Greek word G1849 translated as “power” in this verse means a literal “right of authority”. Jesus speaking to one ruler named Pilate was telling him there is no power/authority except it came from God. Jesus was declaring the sovereignty of God as well as the important fact that He is omnipotent and without God willingly giving us anything we would be completely unable to take or possess anything like power from Him. No human ruler on the earth is able to have any authority unless it was given to them from God. This is certainly true of Satan as well as for us. Satan’s kingdom of darkness and authority had to have been given to him from God. God has a reason and a purpose for whatever He does even if we do not yet understand it.
Then we further learned that the citizens in this kingdom of darkness were the unsaved people of the world. In addition to the unsaved people of the world there are also the fallen angels that reside in this realm. I could have given you Jude 1:6 to read concerning the angels that have fallen which are now held in the realm of darkness but I did not give you this verse in the previous section. There are just so many Bible verses to be found but we must search for them. Now we need to learn what this kingdom of darkness represents. What exactly is it? Why is it called “darkness”? Is this darkness symbolic of something else? What could this symbolic darkness represent?
If the kingdom of darkness consists of both fallen angels and unsaved people this kingdom has the potential to be both physical/natural and spiritual. This is because unsaved people live within a natural domain and fallen angels exist within a spiritual domain. It does become a bit distorted when we learn that unsaved people are really just spirits that reside in a natural body. When the unsaved person dies it is just like the saved person when they die. The spirit of the dead body departs the earth at the time of natural death. The saved person goes up to heaven and the unsaved person descends to be in hell. So far I have concluded that the kingdom of darkness can only be spiritual but we still need more evidence to draw a conclusion.
Hopefully you already understand about what was taught earlier that darkness represents the absence of light. Since God was called Light, the kingdom of darkness represents a realm of domain apart from God. In other words the name darkness implies that there is no God (Light) within the kingdom of darkness. However that is a difficult concept to embrace because it conflicts with the known divine quality called the “omnipresence” attribute of God stating that He is everywhere at every time. We will hopefully come to a conclusion as we continue how these two truths can co-exist where both can be true simultaneously. Let’s begin our study of what darkness is using the information found in the book of John to help establish what occurs in the domain that Satan rules and how this differs from a realm where God is in full control like in heaven currently.
Joh 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
I indicated the fact in the previous section that whatever God (Light) is the darkness is definitely not. That type of subject study for what God represents would take many, many days to complete so I will not attempt to write an entire book about what God represents including His revealed personality, His revealed character, His reveal moral values and even His revealed names. I will keep this type of complete subject study for another series of lessons in the future. However we must understand a few of the simple and basic principles about God in order to comprehend what the kingdom of darkness represents and how it is different from the Kingdom of Light.
Jesus said here in John 10:10 that the thief (Satan) came to primarily do three things and these were to kill, steal and to destroy but then Jesus reveals His antithesis purpose for coming to the earth saying “I have come that you may have life and that life more abundantly”. This single verse confirms the contrasting reality between the kingdoms of darkness verses light. Jesus clearly reveals to us that the kingdom of darkness brings to us death and the kingdom of light brings to us life. Then Jesus said the kingdom of darkness takes away from us and the kingdom of Light does the opposite. Finally Jesus said the kingdom of darkness “destroys” and the opposite of that would be to create something good and worthwhile that has a positive purpose. I think that is very plain and self-evident which kingdom realm that we should desire to be in and remain a part of, don’t you? Just ask yourself would you rather die or live life fully and abundantly? This is not a difficult question. Let’s take these truths found in John 10:10 further into a new confirming dimension of study, reading in Ephesians:
Eph 2:1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Eph 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
These verses are teaching us the clear separation points between two opposing kingdoms. These principles contain the rules of basic opposition between hate versus love, evil versus good, condemnation versus mercy and death versus life again. Life and death are simply a repeat of John 10:10 but the subjects of steal and destroy are also found in the term doing evil. These are strong and distinct negatives versus positives. Such straightforward truths are presented to us by God in the Bible and these should be known and believed by every Christian. We need to know these simple truths in order to conclusively apply this knowledge to what we read in the many other verses found in the Bible and in our life situations. God will not contradict these uttered truths in any other part of the Bible. If we think there is a contradiction then it is simply our misunderstanding or our misinterpretation that needs to change. God’s Word will not ever change.
In this section we have just barely started to touch on this sub-category study of the “what” found within the “kingdom of darkness” study. I could have taught for many pages on this subject but I am trying to move through the more complete study of the basics for how to study the kingdom of darkness subject. We should by now at least understand what the kingdom of darkness represents. Darkness represents symbolically whatever is evil in the world. We should also know that the kingdom of darkness represents whatever is contained within the realm of the dead and death. We should further comprehend that the kingdom of darkness represents whatever is of condemnation. We should have just learned that the kingdom of darkness represents whatever the concept of “hate” represents. These were all opposites of what God’s kingdom of light represents and offers to everyone. Knowing these basics should help motivate us to tell others about this and help them to come out of this satanically controlled kingdom of darkness. You should not want your worst natural enemy in this kingdom. I hope you will agree and tell them how to get saved. Let’s move quickly into the sub-category of “when” next and learn when the kingdom of Satan came into existence.
Understanding the Kingdom of Darkness – WHEN!
In order to understand the kingdom of darkness more clearly we now should investigate when this kingdom originated and when Satan obtained the official rule of this kingdom. These are two different dates within time past as we should be able to learn as the lesson continues. Ask God, did the kingdom of darkness always exist or did the kingdom of darkness have a beginning? We should remember from studying previous sections that Jesus declared in the Gospels that Satan possessed this kingdom at the time of His appearing on the earth. Jesus was born of the virgin approximately 4000 years after Adam’s creation and this has occurred approximately 2000 years from the present date for a total of nearly 6000 years. These numbers will become more significant in learning about the kingdom of darkness when I tell you about what God reveals in certain verses on this subject. I will warn you up front that in this section there are potentially controversial hidden Bible realities presented. These can be complex and intended for more mature Christians. I did not expect for this lesson to become advanced but this part of the topic will cause a transition from milk to meat to occur. This sub-topic study will be much more unconventional in nature than any of the previous sections. It will require more thought and study and potentially a deeper understanding of other Bible basic truths that will not be taught here. Therefore, if you are reading this lesson being a new Christian, you might want to skip this section for now. Thank you for judging yourself in your ability to eat more meat than milk.
Many times in the Bible, God does not present all of the information in plain viewed terms for everyone to automatically see and understand and this part of the study will certainly be an example of one of these. The time of the origin of the kingdom of darkness is not directly stated and can only be found by searching and studying the hidden clues that are concealed by God using natural symbolism and metaphorical terminology. We must find these hidden clues with the Holy Spirit’s help and then allow Him to teach us what they exactly mean for our subject study. I will probably get several negative comments about how my Bible study methods do not fit within all of the rigid set of man’s created exegesis standards, methods and steps. However, I cannot help how or where God shows me what He wants to say and if you wish to ignore what He is saying then I have no problem with that. Just please don’t leave me any negative comments if you do not see it or agree with it. My salvation and your salvation does not hinge upon when the kingdom of darkness came into existence. Therefore this is not a subject that is needed for our initial or continued salvation.
Let’s begin our study of “when” the kingdom of darkness came into existence with some strange verses that you may not directly associate with this spiritual kingdom of darkness subject study:
Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
This is a very controversial and easily misunderstood verse of the Old Testament. Many Christian people believe that it tends to say on the surface that God created both darkness and evil for an implied purpose. In other words people use the extreme sovereignty of God teaching to believe that God designed darkness and evil to fulfill a divine purpose to intentionally accomplish something wicked in our world. However, this type of belief would violate and contradict other revealed truths that God is good and in Him is no darkness (evil). So how can evil come from a God that is only good? “Create” in this verse is the Hebrew word H1254 and it certainly means “to create” something. But, were these words “I create darkness and evil” what God intended for us to emphasize from this verse? Even I will admit that it does say that God created darkness and evil in half of the phrases in this verse but that is not the entire phrase statement and taking a small part or even half of a statement out of context will normally produce an erroneous interpretation and understanding. Here is another rule for sound Bible interpretation, “Study the context and apply the surrounding word meanings to understand the meanings of the words being focused upon”. I hope you understand this rule. This is exactly what we are about to do.
The term “create” is H1254 and it is used by God to describe His verb action that was placed upon the noun “darkness”. This term is used by God repeatedly in this way in the O.T. including in the first verse of Genesis 1 where God says “In the beginning God created (H1254) the heavens and the earth”. Therefore I do not deny that “darkness” appears to be a created substance from God. However we must realize that there is more than one way to create something. Wow, I’m not sure if you understood that last statement yet. It was a very deep statement. A process of creating is so diverse and can be accomplished in so many ways that it boggles the mind to comprehend them and place them together as acts of creation. For example, to create can be any of the following:
- To Make
- To Generate
- To Produce
- To Manufacture
- To Assemble
- To Form
- To Fabricate
- To Craft
- To Build
- To Construct
Most of these terms represent someone taking one or more existing substances to produce a newly designed substance or article. For instance a cotton shirt is created first by a farmer picking the cotton from the field. The cotton is then cleaned, processed and dyed and becomes thread. The threads are loomed together to make fabrics. The fabrics are then shaped, cut and assembled to create the shirt. These are all creative steps of a more complete process and this is something you need to consider when reading anything about creation or creating in the Bible. Determine what was created and then back up to see what was used to create it. There is also another challenge to consider about creation of objects.
You see darkness is not technically a created substance. We cannot package and sell a substance of darkness to anyone like it was gold, silver, oil or whatever. If we could sell darkness, the person buying it could open our package and see that there was nothing present because any light would cause the darkness to vanish. I also want to say that there is a satanic line of thought going on that claims darkness is the greater substance and light only exists because the darkness is not present and that is stupid. As we continue please remember that darkness is nothing but the absence or the removal of Light and this is so critical to understand.
Let’s go back to the beginning phrase and study this initial statement for the contextual application to the secondary verse statements. Reread the entire verses statement all together. Did you notice the antithesis of two opposing realities in this verse? Both light and darkness are being mentioned as they have been in many other verses that we have been studying. Now ask God “Why didn’t you say “I create the Light” here in this verse anywhere? Did you notice that God used a different Hebrew word (H3335) for the verb action that He applied to the noun light? Why is that? You are going to have to get into the details if you ever want to understand the Word of God. If you are not asking God deep questions when you read His Word you will never find any deep answers. Do you understand this? Now let’s allow God to show us the deep answers.
We have previously seen that God declares Himself to be Light in 1 John. Remember God equals Light by the stated law of spiritual definitions and the laws of mathematical equivalency. In other words whatever qualities exist for God these must also exist for Light and this is basic applied logic and math. Was God created? If God was not created then Light was not created either. Because God always existed, Light always existed. God did not ever change from darkness to light at any time and does not change from light to darkness at any time. This comes from the Bible truth found in Malachi 3:6 where God declares to us His never changing consistent nature.
God did not use the term “create” for Light in Isaiah because Light always was in God. The Hebrew term (H3335) translated as “formed” is a new word that means to form or shape an existing substance and that is totally different than creating any brand new substance. Forming a substance would be like molding clay as a potter. In other words God is saying the clay (light) existed but that He applied the pressure to the existing substance (light) to direct it into a new form for a very specific shaped purpose. Did you hear what God just said? Did you understand it? What happens to light when it is focused? Think of a dark theater with a man singing on the stage. A light appears at the back of the theater but this light does not usually light the entire room. Why because it is highly focused. This is called a spotlight or spotlighting and it is used to direct focused illumination upon the person that needs your attention and in this way it will cause our vision to only see him and this is basically what God is saying in this verse in Isaiah. Now are you beginning to understand who this focused attention represents? Who is the majority of the book of Isaiah about? Is it not Jesus Christ? God just said that by Him directing or focusing the light the darkness was created so that we could see Jesus Christ. Wow, I think that was pretty awesome if you understood it.
Think in terms of created natural light concepts because these contain hidden spiritual light concepts. The sun produces our main source of natural light. The earth turns and one side of the planet has the light visible and the other side has only the presence of darkness visible. This is exactly the process of focused light occurring. It is also the process of an object blocking the light from shining to create a dark place and this must also be considered. What I want you to learn here from this verse in Isaiah is that Light always existed and darkness is nothing but the absence of light because the light was either blocked by an object or was focused (formed) by God to direct us to a new focus. I do not have the time to go into this verse in any more depth today so let’s move on in this study to a new set of controversial verses:
Psa 136:8 The sun to rule by day: for his mercy endureth for ever:
Psa 136:9 The moon and stars to rule by night: for his mercy endureth for ever.
These are either some of the strangest verses in the Bible or they mean something that we do not yet comprehend. Why would God mention two antithesis realms of natural reality using kingdom terms in direct succession? There are also two opposing kingdom rulers mentioned here in these verses. Did you notice that? If you will observe there are at least 5 important keywords in these verses that are critical to link to our spiritual kingdom study. When studying a Bible subject we need to look for hidden verses that are about our subject but do not mention the subject directly and these verses are hidden examples of this principle. I call this the law of synonymous association or relation. God will often hide information for us to find anywhere in the Bible using natural symbolic phrases that are directly related to a subject like darkness but never mention the word darkness anywhere in the verse. He will hide the connection to darkness by selecting a word like “night” instead which is dominated by darkness. These types of verses are little concealed clues that present information that we may not relate without His guidance and direction. If you will observe closely in this verse God is speaking of two opposing realities again. One is called “day” and the other is called “night”. Of course day is where sunlight prevails and night is where there is no sunlight and darkness prevails. Did you notice how this information conforms to what I taught earlier? Day is not night and night is not day. They do occur simultaneously together but rather night becomes day as we have been learning about from verses in the New Testament.
Do you remember this concept of Christians being brought out of the spiritual darkness into the spiritual light? This is the exact same natural concept of night becoming day when the sun rises. I hope you have read all of my other Bible lessons on this subject. According to the N.T. salvation is the rising of the Sun of Jesus Christ in our hearts as revealed by God in 2 Peter 1:19. In this verse God describes the spiritual Day Star (Sun) to be rising in the spiritual hearts of all those that believe in Jesus Christ. This was taken from the concept of the natural sun dawning or breaking forth and becoming brighter and brighter at the beginning of every day. This daily natural concept occurs in the Spiritual realm and it has not been widely taught or understood by Christians. However this was hidden within creation and revealed by God for us to learn from. What we have just learned is that light and darkness can be synonymous terms for day and night.
Now notice in these verses that there is a Hebrew word, Strong’s number H4475 which was translated as “rule” in the English language. This Hebrew word is very important. It is a word that means “to rule”, “to govern”, “to have power over” and “to have dominion over”. These are clearly “kingdom” terms where a kingdom potentate like the king oversees his subjects. Why is this relevant? Do you already see the connection to the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light that we have been learning about in the New Testament? God simply uses the approach of applying new synonyms for calling what is light and darkness by different names or titles in order to hide this information in these verses for us to find.
This Hebrew word H4475 was first used by God in the book of Genesis. This is called using the law of first mention where God takes us to a subject introduction to teach us overall important subject principles. The first mention of “rule” occurs in the very first chapter of Genesis during God’s description of day 4 of creation. If you have read my other Bible lessons on Genesis and creation you already know and understand that each day of creation represents a “day” period of natural human history. God created our world in 6 days and then rests on the seventh day. Each of these creation days represent a 1000 year “day” period of time and I came to this conclusion by using what God revealed to Peter in 2 Peter 3:8. In this verse Peter quotes an O.T. verse from Psalms 90:4 and this verse informed us that to God a spiritual day can represent a 1000 year period of time. This is again called God’s spiritual definition of a day and it helps us to understand how certain verses within creation can be interpreted to be understood from both a spiritual and a natural perspective concurrently. Please do not misapply what I just said. I believe that almost every verse has a natural literal interpretation and that God uses this natural information to give us a view into something else within the spiritual realm. However, this is a very advanced spiritual topic. So I will move on. Let’s review some spiritual explanations of day and night using the New Testament briefly:
1Th 5:4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
1Th 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
1Th 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
1Th 5:7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
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.
1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
We could go over a lot of detailed information in these verses but I will give you the quick overview only. God is teaching Christians that they abide in the day and are walking in the HIS light. God just connected day to be equivalent with light and this light is the Word of God and His voice that leads us. Then God teaches us that those that are not saved are sleeping in the night and living in darkness. God just connected night to be equivalent with darkness and this is why I could find those verses about night and day in the Old Testament and they related to my subject study. All of these are very clear descriptions of two opposing kingdom realms. Christians should be living and acting differently than those that are not saved because of the presence of Light (God). God further declares that those in the light will obtain mercy and those in the darkness will obtain wrath and this is so important to know. It saddens my heart tremendously to think of people who do not want to know the truth.
We should be beginning to see how these subjects of “day” and “night” apply to our study of the kingdom of darkness. Let’s go back and read the first chapter of Genesis from the beginning to end. As I said day 4 is when God sets the Greater light (sun) to rule the day and the lesser light (moon and stars) to rule the night. Again these are opposing spiritual kingdom symbolic representations with opposing symbolic rulers. What God is telling us is that after 4000 years of human history He will separate and establish a rule of the spiritual light/day which is different from the rule of the spiritual darkness/night and this occurred when Jesus came to the earth to save us. Please take note that I did not say that the kingdom of darkness came into existence on day 4 during this 4000 year time after Adam when Jesus came to die for our sins. I only said that Satan was given the rule of this kingdom of darkness and night which God called different from the rule of Jesus over the kingdom of Light and Day.
Now if we go back and refer to light and darkness in Genesis chapter 1 to find the initial references to our subjects, we can apply God’s law of first mention again to discover these two entities were to be separated by God on day 1 of creation. In this verse God says He called the light day and He called the darkness night further connecting the two together forever. Therefore whatever night is darkness is by the law of mathematical equivalency. However you will still find in Genesis that prior to the beginning of day 1 that darkness already existed in verse 2. God appears to give us this fact when declaring that darkness covered the earth at the beginning and I believe that this was a hidden way to say that the earth was already dominated by the kingdom of darkness when the earth had been destroyed completely. Remember what John 10:10 said? Jesus said that Satan (the ruler of darkness) only came to kill, steal and destroy and this is clearly the status of the earth before Day 1 of creation begins. It is safe to conclude that Satan had destroyed the earth.
However, we should then begin to see how from Days 1 through day 6 that God continues to give life one day at a time and this further matched what Jesus taught us in John 10:10 where He said I came to give life and give you that life more abundantly. We can clearly see after 6 days of creation that now life dominated the earth without the introduction of any death into this new world. Let me say this again a little differently. The world began in darkness and then notice on Day 1 of creation God says “Light Be” and then light was. God was symbolically giving us more clues that He was coming to the earth to create a new kingdom of light separate from darkness in order to give us life. Go back and review day 1 closely. In verse 4 of Genesis 1 you should see where light is separated from darkness and in verse 5 God calls the darkness night and the light He calls the day. These are all symbolic representations of two opposing spiritual kingdoms moving through transitions during the 6000 years of human history.
I know this will not be received by all Christians. But that is OK, your salvation and my salvation does not depend upon when Satan’s kingdom came into existence so please do not call me a false teacher that leads people to hell simply because you don’t agree with me. Perhaps if you knew what I knew you would see why I believe this way. I also think if you continue to study the Bible deeply that you will find that there are other Bible verses that give us more clues of clarity to this being a reality. I am just not going to try to explain this in any detail in this lesson. The details of these truths are found in other lessons on this website. Find them and read about what God has hidden.
What I have done in this section is to review in a very quick format the timing of when the kingdom of darkness was established. The moon in this verse in Psalms 136:9 and Genesis 1:16 is a symbolic representation for Satan. Night is a symbolic representation for the kingdom of darkness and this is ruled by Satan according to Ephesians 6:12. The sun in Psalms 136:8 and Genesis 1:16 is a symbolic representation for the Lord Jesus Christ who is called the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2). The kingdom of Light is found within our spirits according to 2 Peter 1:19. God is establishing a separate Kingdom of Day through Jesus Christ apart from Satan’s kingdom of night. If this was not important I would not be teaching this repeatedly in several lessons. We need to understand when God does things, why God does things, who it affects and even how God accomplished them. I will recall that I call this the “Who, What, When, Where and Why method of Bible study. So far I have answered the first three questions of who, what and when by studying what God has revealed and given to us to know in His Word. I will now move on to the subject of “where” is the kingdom of darkness?
Understanding the Kingdom of Darkness – WHERE!
Where is the kingdom of darkness at this very moment? Has it always been there? Is it in one location or in multiple locations? Will the location ever change? Is it within a physical location or within a spiritual location or even both? These are the basic questions we will focus upon using the Bible in this section. We have already learned from the Bible that the kingdom of darkness exists and that Satan a created spiritual being is in control of this realm but, how do we define its present location? If someone asked you to describe where the kingdom of darkness is right now, what would you tell them? I have already given a brief introduction to this subject of where earlier. In that introduction to the subject we talked about that the kingdom of darkness could be spiritual, natural or even both at the same time. Hopefully we will learn more about how to resolve these questions as we continue in this section.
This will probably be the last of the “W” questions that I will answer in this 5 W Bible study because I am running very long. In order to find where the kingdom of darkness exists today we will need to search the Bible for scriptures about darkness and see if any of these hold direct clues for us to learn from about this location. However, there is also another technique for searching the Bible to find where the kingdom of darkness is located and this is by us searching where the Kingdom of Light is located and knowing wherever light is located the darkness is not there by God’s created laws of antithesis truth. Perhaps you have never heard of this law either but it is a very basic rule of understanding created by God. For many subjects that we study in the Bible we can easily find the opposing subject which can be of greater, equal or even lesser magnitude to learn what our subject is not. The opposite of good is evil, the opposite of alive is dead, the opposite of being present is being absent and on and on we could go. There is always more than one way to learn about any given subject so we must be open to however God wants to teach us. We will begin this section with the words in red spoken from Jesus Christ.
Luk 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
I know this verse does not mention light or darkness but it does mention “kingdom” and “God” and since we have determined in this lesson that Jesus is God and He rules the kingdom of Light then this verse fits with what we need to know and apply to the location of the kingdom of darkness. Jesus is talking to the Pharisees answering a direct question about when the kingdom of God is coming to the earth and Jesus answers this question with a mysterious response. Jesus does not say when but rather He says where and this answer probably just confused the hearers. The natural Jews were looking for a physical natural kingdom of God led by a great physical messiah to establish this kingdom here on the earth. But Jesus shakes the foundation of Judaism by saying stop looking on the outside in the natural because the kingdom of God will be on the inside in the spiritual. Wow, that is a very tough concept to understand for natural minds. How is it even possible for a kingdom to be internal and not seen by the physical eye? You can clearly read in the context in verse 20 that Jesus says it will not be found in any visible place. Jesus was teaching them and us about spiritual kingdoms and this is a key to understanding the kingdom of darkness also. We must begin to realize that the kingdom of darkness is not a natural kingdom nor can it be seen either.
This is where correct Bible study becomes a little trickier. We need the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to correctly be led how and when to apply the laws of interpretation. Also learning when and how laws apply to interpretation will become clearer as you continue to learn more Bible subjects. Truth will always build upon truth and will fit together rightly without conflict. Truth will never contradict truth and these rules always apply to whatever you study. If the kingdom of light is spiritual and not natural as Jesus implied does that mean that the kingdom of darkness is natural by the law of antithesis? After all natural is the opposite of spiritual in many viewpoints. We could easily make that wrong assumption but still we would need confirming witnesses to determine what we believe no matter what laws we apply. One law of interpretation that is always in effect is the law of 2 or 3 witnesses that God says we must follow to establish any truth. Therefore if the kingdom of darkness is a natural location we should be able to find at least 2 scriptures to point us to that conclusion.
I’m going to take a brief bunny trail side trip journey on another unrelated subject for a moment just for the benefit of my serious students and readers. I received an ignorant comment from someone that I will not identify and he said most of my Bible lessons violate my own rules of interpretation. He failed to ask any questions assuming his own ability to perceive what I knew and in his pride and arrogance made himself unwise. I do not always give 2 or 3 witnesses in every Bible study on every subject that I mention. If I did this I would probably have to double the size of every Bible lesson and would publish far fewer lessons and less frequently. I must balance all of the words that I could say with your time and ability to study them. Just because I don’t show 2 or 3 witnesses to every statement made does not mean there are NO OTHERS that are available. Before you criticize someone it would be extremely wise to find out what they know and what you don’t know by asking basic questions instead of assuming you know everything that God has taught me. Let’s go back to the kingdom of darkness study.
We should have learned from this that one primary location of the kingdom of light is inside the human spirit. But is the kingdom of darkness the same? Let’s look at a new verse that we have not covered to see what God said to us on this subject of location.
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:
If Christians have now been called out of the darkness into the Light of Day Kingdom then this could change the antithesis truth focus to a brand new perspective. If you are a Christian let me ask you this question, were you previously in a physical dark kingdom or a spiritual dark kingdom? I believe it is obvious that I was in a spiritual dark kingdom. I hope that you believe that you are now in a spiritual light kingdom because the kingdoms of this world are those that Jesus said for us to not look at. However the concept of light and darkness sounds like the cycle of day and night when the sun rises every morning.
What I am attempting to do is to cause you to think in a brand new way from a different spiritual perspective. A natural kingdom in the natural world can be in darkness for approximately 12 hours and then it would transition into the natural light of the sun for another 12 yours. This day and night concept teaches us a central or single point of change reality. In other words the physical location did not change because it was only the entrance of the light on the location that changed to bring it into the day to leave the night. Wow, I don’t know if you got that or not but this is exactly what we need to know.
This new information about one physical location being changed should cause us to begin to think differently about spiritual kingdoms. The Kingdom of light should be viewed to be the same location as the kingdom of darkness but now with the entrance of light. This means we need to know what light represents in the Bible and that becomes an entire study in itself. If you have read the other Bible lessons that are on my website you should have already learned that God’s light is us knowing his word. We can learn this simple truth by reading Psalms 119:130 for example.
Therefore, the kingdom of light and darkness must be a spiritual condition within the same internal unseen part of the human spirit where God’s word is now present where it did not exist in the darkness before. What I am saying is that the kingdom of darkness are those people that do not have the light of God’s word and the kingdom of light are those that have the light of God’s Word. Did you understand what I just said? What God is saying is that if Christians have now been transformed into the kingdom of light then it was the same internal region that had previously been darkened until the light arose. Therefore it is only the non-Christians or the unsaved people of the world that are those that are in the kingdom of darkness right now because they have not let God’s light inside their hearts. Here is a new verse to help us further understand this reality:
Eph 5:8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (KJV)
Eph 5:8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (NASB)
I included two different translation versions to help us understand it more clearly. The KJV translation seems confusing and contradictory that we can flip between light and dark at almost any time. But the NASB states it differently to say that we have changed once from darkness to light and the light is now present so we must choose to believe it and walk like the light is present by faith since we do not see any literal light. Practically everything that we have received from God in the N.T. is faith based and you should already know that. I am going to provide a new verse that regresses to the subject study of what the kingdom of darkness is to help us learn where the kingdom of darkness is located. Read this next verse very carefully:
2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Notice that God links the Genesis 1 symbolic topics of speaking light into the darkness in this verse and this information directed us to learn about the subjects of day and night during the creation event. God just gave us a huge clue that the Genesis account meant more than just the natural appearance of our world. Now notice the spiritual application of this creation event where the Light is commanded to shine in the New Testament. The light is shining in our hearts (spirits). Wow, Wow, Wow!!! This is called symbolic typology where God uses naturally created things in the seen world to teach us about unseen spiritual things in the N.T. Again this is all a “where” reality but now notice the inclusion of the “what” reality being connected directly to the subject of “where”. Spiritual Light is defined by God to be the “knowledge of Jesus Christ”. Knowledge is a very deep subject that I do not have the time to fully cover in this study. However this knowledge can only be the knowledge of the Word of God. So we have a second witness to what I just said before. I get really excited about the Word of God and how it comes together.
I have really only introduced this subject of where the spiritual kingdom of darkness is located but I just can’t teach the entire subject in a sub-section of a bigger lesson topic. Let’s further confirm the internal location of darkness with a new verse that has not been mentioned so far. We will turn our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4 and start reading with verse 17:
Eph 4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
Eph 4:18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
What is natural blindness? Natural blindness is the inability to see natural light. What is spiritual blindness? Spiritual blindness is the inability to see spiritual light. What was spiritual light according to the definition we just observed in 2 Cor 4:6? Spiritual light is God’s Word and this means spiritual blindness is not being able to see God’s Word. These are just more spiritual basics that every Christian must become aware and learn. What we have seen is a spiritual way to think about two kingdoms that were in the same location but do not exist at the same time in that location. This location is the human spirit and we are all either in one kingdom or the other based upon if we have received the Word of God or not to bring us light.
Now let’s end this section with a new and different perspective on where the kingdom of darkness is located. We should have just learned that the kingdom of darkness resides in the spiritual realm from the several verses that we have encountered on this subject. However, have you ever considered that even spirits have limits to their realm of travel? There are many Christians that believe spirits can go wherever they like but that is not what the Bible teaches. We will be going through a few of these verses to demonstrate the limits that God has imposed upon spirits.
Rev 5:13 And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
Have you ever read this verse and observed what was stated? In this verse there are several domains or realms of existence mentioned. Within these realms there are specific “creatures” that exist in each realm. The three main realms given to us by God in this verse is first heaven, second on the earth and third under the earth. It is implied that the creatures of these realms do not normally travel from one place to the other places. It is interesting to note that the land and sea of the earth are mentioned and these are also two realms that do not normally cross over into each other. People can go underwater for a limited time with proper breathing equipment but normally fish and other sea life cannot live upon the dry land and I think this is an interesting natural concept that relates to the spiritual realms mentioned.
Let’ talk about the realms of heaven and earth to begin. We should know from reading several Bible verses that angels do come from heaven to enter into the earth realm and then can return back to the heavenly realm. We can see this for example in Daniel 10:13 where God sends Gabriel and Michael from heaven with a message to answer a prayer that Daniel prayed. We can also read in Job chapter 1 where Satan and his angels can even go back to heaven from the earth. Maybe you will remember that this reality was expressed by God in Genesis 28:
Gen 28:12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
Hopefully you can see that God tells us the angels are capable of traveling or moving between heaven and earth with what appears to be a staircase like access portal of transportation. The Hebrew word used for ladder can mean something like a “stair case”. This verse implies that there is a way for God to remove the ladder and close this method of transportation between the two realms, but I do not have a direct verse for that right now so that is just my opinion. Now let’s briefly talk about the realms of earth and under the earth mentioned in Revelation 5:13.
Luk 16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
Luk 16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
Here is an example of the realms of earth and under the earth and their participation to how the two interact with each other. Two men on the earth die in this story and Jesus said Lazarus went to Abraham’s bosom and the rich man goes down to hell after their death. This is direct information from Jesus about how the people of the earth traveled after death to below the earth’s surface before the resurrection of Jesus. Both went below the earth but to two different locations. However after the resurrection of Jesus the Christian people no longer go down to Abraham’s bosom but rather go up to be with the Lord in heaven as described by the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:8. But there is more information found here in this story concerning the rich man and Lazarus that should be considered. For example the rich man if you read down in the chapter asks Abraham to send someone back to the earth to warn his brothers not to come to this place of torment. This literally means that the rich man was unable to return to the earth to do this even desiring to return and that is very important to know. It appears from this that people in hell are limited to that location indefinitely. But, we can also learn clearly that people in the realm of Abraham’s bosom can return to the earth if God permits based upon reading the account of the Mount of Transfiguration where Elijah and Moses show up on the earth to talk with Jesus in the flesh (Mark 9:2). The disciples witness this event and want to build a tabernacle to honor the occurrence but Jesus ignores them.
If you have not yet figured out what I am doing I am going through the recorded interactions between three different realms of stated reality in the Bible. We can find where heaven participants can come to the earth. We can find where earthly participants can go up to heaven. We can find where under the earth participant from Abraham’s bosom can come up from there to the earth and we can find where earthly participants can die and go down to under the earth. We have pretty much covered the general terms of interactions between these realms. However, we still need to notice something else found in Luke 16 to help confirm what I taught on spiritual limitations and boundaries being found present. Read this verse very carefully notice what God says through Abraham:
Luk 16:26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
Wow, this verse claims that spirit beings can be limited to one place never able to go to the other place. Abraham very clearly states there is a great gulf fixed between us. What this verse claims is that God can put up an implied partition that prevents even spiritual beings from traveling from that place that is being referred to or even to that place. Do you understand the implications of that statement? It is implying that those in hell will not be getting out. It also implies that those that are saved will not be able to visit hell to see their relatives, friends, spouse or even children in hell. What this further implies is that even with a glorified body, people will not be able to go wherever they think they want to go. Now let’s move into a new realm of thought concerning these three different dimensions of existence. Read this next verse very carefully and determine what is missing and not included:
Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
One of the three stated realities is missing from this statement that Jesus spoke of. Why was the realm of under the earth omitted from the rule of Jesus’ authority? Why didn’t God give Jesus authority over the underworld? I guess I should have explained that the Greek word translated as “power” means authority. This word translated as “power” denotes delegated control over both on the earth’s surface and in heaven. What this statement implies is that the location for the kingdom of darkness is not in either of these two realms of existence called in heaven or on the earth. The kingdom of darkness cannot be anywhere that the kingdom of light exists and the kingdom of light is definitely all of the realms of Jesus’ authority. What we are learning is the final location of the kingdom of darkness. God is teaching us by indirect reference that wherever Jesus does not rule, Satan will rule. We have already seen that Satan controls the hearts of unsaved people. Now we are seeing that these unsaved people will reside in hell and this is where they will be ruled for an eternity. Let’s look at another Bible verse about this truth found in 2 Peter.
2Pe 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
Hell is described to be a place that exists under the earth. I have another series on the reality of hell so I will not repeat all of those verses in this study. This verse contains more confirmation and further information of the inability to come out of the realm of hell. The angels that sinned are those that have fallen with Satan and these are further reduced to mean that those that had sex with the daughters of men in Genesis 5. These were the angels that have been bound in a realm of darkness using a symbolic representation of chains keeping them from leaving that realm. We have just observed God’s ability to limit even angels from moving place to place. These were angels that previously walked in heaven but now have left their place there to be cast into hell.
I have just introduced you to the subject of where is the kingdom of darkness. It is presently in the hearts of men and women that have not heard the Gospel or did not believe the Gospel because of the blindness of their hearts. These people have the chance of leaving that kingdom of darkness to enter into the kingdom of light if they receive the knowledge of Jesus by faith before they die and then as we have observed there is no second chance given to them.
CONCLUSION
We have been going through the 5 W’s (Who, What, When, Where and Why) of the kingdom of darkness. We did not cover the subject of why the kingdom of darkness exists. That is a very complex deep and controversial subject and would probably take more than what I wrote here to describe it. This could be your homework if you want to extend the effort and if you are brave I would like to hear about what you find in the Bible. Please do the homework and share your answer with everyone to “why the kingdom of darkness” exists.
I thank you so very much for being a faithful reader and serious Bible student. If you have enjoyed learning from these lessons please tell your friends about the website so more can come and see what God is doing. Until the next lesson may God continue to bless you and keep you strong spiritually, mentally and physically as you grow in His marvelous grace! God Bless.
Understanding How To Make Jesus Your Spiritual Legal Advocate Right Now!
(Ver 2.1) This is Part 3 in a lesson series on “Understanding the Heavenly Laws and Court System of Heaven”. I wrote this lesson a long time ago, but I have learned so much new while studying this subject that I felt that I needed to rewrite it to included more new information. I love this subject. It is one of the most important topics for a new Christian to learn after becoming saved. Knowing this should change you and motivate you to become more like God who is Holy. I hope you have read the entire series from the beginning but if not please click on “Part 1” now. When I originally wrote on this subject I was thinking of a Christian only missing out on one judgement by making Jesus their personal Legal Advocate. I knew that there was coming a great white throne judgment at the end of this age after the Great Tribulation. We can read about this judgement in Revelation 20:11. Only unsaved people will be judged during this time of judgment. Therefore, I knew that by making Jesus my Lord right now, I would not be standing before the Great White Throne of Judgment then. That was the main message of this lesson. However, since continuing to study the subject of the “Courts of Heaven” the LORD has revealed so much new information in the last few months.
What the LORD has been saying to me and teaching me about this subject is very profound and essential to understand. Christians are being brought before the throne of God right now by Satan our legal adversary and accuser (Rev 12:10). In 1 Peter 4:17 God reveals that judgement begins with His House right now in the church age of Grace. Paul wrote and warned the Church in 1 Corinthians 1:11 that IF we JUDGE our self, we will not be judged. I know a lot of people say they are Christian today but don’t believe this is what the Bible says and what the Holy Spirit has been teaching His Church. What I would suggest to you if you don’t believe is that you pray and ask the LORD to reveal this to you if it is true. Then open your Bible and become a Berean type of Bible student (Acts 17:11). Ask the LORD, do I need a personal legal Advocate right now. Let’s get into the lesson and permit the Holy Spirit to speak.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SPIRITUA ADVOCATE
Today is a Bible lesson on “Understanding How to Make Jesus Your Spiritual Legal Advocate” now. We will discuss what a Spiritual Legal Advocate is and what He does for us and then we will discuss why we as humans need a Spiritual Advocate. Let’s start by defining the word “advocate”. A legal advocate is always someone who holds superior knowledge on the subject of the law. In our world people have to go to school for many years of legal study, graduate and then must pass an extensive legal bar exam in order to become a licensed legal advocate. Some people call these individuals lawyers, attorneys or others call them counselors. A counselor is someone who uses their wisdom and knowledge of the law to give you “advice” or “counsel” on what you should do in the given situation that you are in before the court and judge. A lawyer is of course someone who practices the profession of defending, prosecuting, administrating or judging the laws passed by the legal bodies in power.
Today in our complex legal court systems, if you try to show up before a judge without a highly knowledgeable and skilled attorney you are in some serious legal jeopardy. Let me tell you about one man I know of. This man was chatting on the internet with a girl. He was over 21 and she said she was 16. He asked to meet her and set a location and time for the meeting. As he neared the location the Police officers arrested him. It turns out that this man had been talking with undercover Police on the internet in a sex sting. Well this man could not afford an attorney to help defend him. Even though he had not committed any crime by talking or meeting anyone, the district attorney threw the book at him and threatened him with many years of jail. This prosecutor after scaring the man then offered him a plea deal. In this deal he would not go to jail but needed to agree with counseling, become a registered sex offender and he would be on probation for a couple of years reporting to a parole officer. This was all because this man could not afford the proper legal defense. Now, I’m not saying he was right for doing what he did at all. No, we must all understand that even the intent of sin has consequences. What I am saying is that this man needed a good lawyer. Let me give you another example quickly that makes the point a little more.
In another legal matter in past years I recall a very famous court trial for the very serious offense and charge of murder. I will not name names, but I will tell you that this one trial that I am using as an example today was concerning a gruesome set of murders of two people. You may know who I am talking about as I go. This individual was charged with the crime, but he hired a “dream team” of legal counselors because he was a rich man and could afford the best that money could buy. While the prosecution seemed to present a good case, they were no match for the highly paid legal minds of the “dream team” lawyers who cleverly made the prosecution look foolish. To me the evidence presented in the trial was very compelling, but to the jury this man was found not guilty and thus got away with murder because of his lawyer’s abilities.
You see in our legal system all the lawyers have to do is to present reasonable doubt for someone committing the crime to allow the judge and the jury to acquit them. This was the approach of the “dream team” lawyers. They discredited the truth with as many doubts as they could invent. They introduced unrelated distractions that had nothing to do with the evidence presented. They manipulated the jury to believe what they wanted them to see and they won. There is a basic rule of law that the judge and the jury must judge and find for the prosecution or the defense based upon the evidence being presented. Whoever, does the best job at this is usually the victor.
I learned a lot right from these cases that the truth didn’t matter, justice didn’t matter, fairness didn’t matter and even the proof and evidence didn’t matter. No, what mattered the most was if you had a good advocate on your side to help you plead your case then you could be set free. This man accused of this horrific crime never got up to testify and never opened his mouth to defend himself one time. The only people that spoke for him were his masterful attorneys and they prevailed. You can obviously disagree with what I just said, but that would clearly be your opinion vs. mine. So let’s drop our opinions and see what God and the Bible says to us on the subject of our legal advocate.
1Jn 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1Jn 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1Jn 2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
We can clearly learn several important things from these verses if we allow the Spirit of God to show us what they say. The primary subject of these verses is “sin” and more specifically the sin of a Christian. There are teachers in the world today that claim a Christian does not sin. There are teachers today that claim that it does not matter if a Christian sins because there are no consequences for it. There are even teachers today that claim we never have to obey these verses in 1 John 1 to ask God to forgive us for our sin. Wow, what a deception that is being given to the Church. That is exactly what Satan wants a Christian to believe.
Sin can be defined as many different things. The Greek word G266 translated as “sin” simply means “to commit an offense””. An offense simply occurs when a person commits an illegal act by disobeying the law. For today’s discussion I will define sin as committing a violation of the law of God since we are discussing legal matters in a court of heaven. There are certainly many other more complex aspects to the subject of what sin is or is not, but I will not be discussing those today. Please do not get distracted on the subject of sin from me reading just a couple of verses from 1 John on the subject. I simply can’t teach everything in one lesson, so let’s move on with today’s subject of why we as Christians need an advocate.
The Bibles tells us clearly that “ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). John 1:10 says to Christians that if we say we have never sinned we make Jesus a liar and His Seed is not in us. So it is not so much “if” a Christian will sin as to say “when” a Christian sins as verses 9 and 10 imply. However, these verses are also clearly implying that the goal for a Christian should be that we should never sin. But, if we do sin, then this verse 2:1 very clearly teaches us we have a major advantage over many other unsaved people in the world. This advantage is because we have the Spirit of Jesus our righteousness living on the inside of us acting as our spiritual legal advocate, adviser and counselor to help us to change from repeating that sin.
Perhaps this will be a good time to further define the word translated as “advocate” in these verses. This Greek word is G3875 and was translated as “advocate” in 1 John 2:1 because of the legal descriptions being made in the contextual verses. This Greek word can also be translated as a “counselor” which is an equivalent name for a “trial lawyer”. It is also translated as “comforter” in the Gospel of John verses where Jesus said “I will send you another comforter (G3875)…”. The word comforter describes someone who provides “consolation” and that simply means someone that speaks or provides comfort or aide during a great time of loss or suffering. I believe all of these can be applied to a legal court case.
Is there a court in Heaven with Laws?
Jesus our righteous advocate is now seated at the right hand in the presence of the supreme judge who is God (Heb. 12:2). If we are Christians then we also learn that the Holy Spirit lives inside us (1 Cor 6:19) to further help us, and advise and counsel with us. That is a great legal advantage for Christians against our adversary the devil. In fact I would call this legal team the Ultimate and Unlimited Dream Team of Spiritual Lawyers. These verses we just read in 1 John 1:9-2:1 and others that I have not yet covered clearly state that Jesus our righteousness is said to be our personal spiritual advocate.
Conditions for Having Jesus as Your Advocate:
- if we are Christians, (1 John was written to the Church)
- if we confess our sins, (1 Jn 1:9)
- if we ask for forgiveness (Lk 11:4, 1 Jn 1:9)
- if we repent (Acts 26:20, Rev 3:19)
- if we turn and change our sinful way (Acts 26:20, Rom 11:26, 2 Cor 3:16)
Please notice that there are conditions to this legal court arrangement with your Advocate. God is Sovereign but yet we still have responsibility to ask and participate willingly in obedience.
If you are not a Christian, then you have serious legal issues when it comes to being judged by God and I would not wish to be in your shoes when this occurs. I have heard people say that will never happen, or I am not a bad person and do bad things. But, that is not true when you compare your goodness with God’s Holy Standards. In this section I want to address the fact that Law exists on the earth and that this LAW on the earth came from Heaven. Let’s examine verses that reveal where the earthly Law came from next:
Mal 4:4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
Here we have scriptural evidence and proof to the fact that God gave the law to Moses and Moses wrote it down for the children of Israel. This represents a scriptural witness of the testimony of God. This is what occurs during a trial. What I am demonstrating to you is that God invented laws, courts, judges, prosecutors, lawyers and judgments. These are not man made ideas, but we can see that they originated from our creator. Our courts in America were modeled by our founding fathers after God’s courts in heaven, if you did not know that you should learn and study that fact until you accept it. These founding fathers of the USA came from England to worship God freely without government control. They read their Bibles extensively and wrote about it clearly. I don’t have time to teach this and there are many other people that have books dedicated to this subject. Go search for them and read them please. Let’s read another witness testimony:
Neh 10:29 They clave to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and his judgments and his statutes;
God said to let every word be established in the mouth of two or three witnesses. So here we have a second witness to the fact that the Old Testament books of the Bible were dictated by God to Moses His servant and these are the statutes and judgments of God. A statute is just a written law, so this is not that complicated. A judgment is a verdict issued by the judge, either of guilt or innocence towards those that are under the law.
Ok, I can hear the questions being raised by my last paragraph. Many will ask doesn’t the Bible say the Church is under Grace and not the LAW? We can all read Romans 6:14-15 where Paul teaches us that the church is not under the law, but now is under Grace. Many people take these truths and attempt to make them the only truth and that is still a problem. For example, Jesus said “A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE YOU, THAT YOU LOVE ONE ANOTHER, AS I HAVE LOVED YOU”. Does Romans 6 overrule the statement of JESUS? ABSOLUTELY NOT! This new law given to Christians is still in effect.
In another Bible lesson that I did on this subject of the Courts of Heaven, I taught a lesson that I learned from my family. Perhaps you read it. My natural father was judged and died at a very young age because he did not walk in love and obey this commandment. If you don’t believe me, that is not my problem because I know it is the truth. My father did not take advantage of his access to his legal advocate. He did not confess his sin, He did not repent or try to change his way. How, do I know? Because he died. He was warned by a man of God to come and see him and talk to him about this issue. My father did not go and he died 3-4 months later. My father was a Christian, a graduate of two Bible schools, a pastor of 3 different churches and yet he died a young man. If you believe that this cannot happen to you then that demonstrates Satan’s victory over your mind.
We have clearly shown from the Bible that God has an established legal system in place now on the earth by His law given through Moses. We have learned that this law came from Heaven. I wonder if it was modeled after what already existed? We can clearly see that God is the author of these laws. I believe these Words stand for eternity on the earth and in heaven based upon Luke 16:17 alone.
I can still sense resistance in the spiritual realm rejecting this teaching on the application of the law in the New Covenant. Do you remember what Paul wrote in Romans 13:10? Paul clearly teaches us that Love is the fulfillment of the law. In other words when we love our brother on the earth, we will not murder him, steal from him, commit adultery with his wife, lie to him, etc. Do you see the New Covenant direct connection to the O.T. LAW? It is right in front of your face just accept it. If we don’t love, we are breaking the LAW.
I’ll give you another example very quickly that is also very important. In Ephesians 6:2 Paul very clearly quotes one O.T. Commandment that if we honor our father and mother that this was the first law that promised us a long life on the earth. Wow, that means if we don’t do this we can die young. Paul did not teach us that this did not apply to those under grace, no in fact he taught the opposite. I hope and pray you receive this.
Are you perfect in walking in love? I know I am not yet. I am trying my best with the help of the Holy Spirit to improve in this area and I hope you are also. What I am saying is that we are all still under a new law. We don’t have to sacrifice animals anymore to atone for our sins because Jesus the Lamb of God was our sacrifice. But, we are still required in the New Covenant to confess, ask, repent and change for not walking in love. This is true whether you know it or not. You ignorance of the truth or the law is NOT a legal defense that will stand in God’s Court or on the earth.
So who is the most qualified to defend us against any charge raised against the law of love if not for the creator of the law Himself? This is just basic logic and I hope and pray that you can see it. This is why when the Bible calls Jesus my advocate, I feel very confident that I have the best legal advice possible because He is the one that wrote the law that He is defending me from.
We have seen a couple of verses that reveal many legal terms concerning judgments and statutes. Let’s examine the Bible for scriptures to see if we even need a spiritual legal advocate or not. We will focus first on the ending White Throne Judgment:
Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
According to the Word of God, the Bible clearly declares a day is coming when the books will be opened before the Supreme Court Judge of the Spiritual World. This verse also clearly tells us that God keeps records in books of everything that has transpired on the earth. So everyone who thinks that they have gotten away with things on the earth will be severely disappointed to know they have actually gotten away with nothing. This verse implies the need for a good advocate and spiritual legal counselor before entering because God is going to judge people whether they want Him to or not.
This verse says that the “dead” were judged from what was recorded in these books according to their works. The dead is simply a name for people that have never accepted Jesus or they accepted Jesus and turned back to love their old ways more. A more accurate definition of “being spiritually dead” literally means a person that does not know God and does not have the further opportunity to change to get to know God. We understand this from the definition of “eternal life” given by Jesus in John 17:3 where Jesus said “This is life eternal that they might know thee the only True God and Jesus Christ who you have sent”. The antithesis of knowing is not knowing and the opposite of life eternal is death eternal.
Therefore, this Judgement taking place in Revelation 20 is not about saved Christians that have already given their lives to the Advocate. Also the works mentioned here are of course either positive or negative things said or done in the body. Maybe you think differently and believe that you can get by on this Judgment Day by your own merits and good things that you have accomplished in your life on the earth. I’m sure you have never lied, or stolen anything in all of your days on the earth. I’m sure you have never spoken an evil word about your family or your neighbor. You have been a perfect example of a man or a woman that we could all look up to. This would a very self-righteous attitude that I think many believe. But, Judgment Day will come when these books are opened, then we will all see exactly what was said or done and it will be read for everybody whose names were not found in the Book of Life. Their works will then be revealed completely on this day. I think many will be very surprised on when the verdicts are read.
Act 13:39 And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.
To be justified is a Greek word that means to be found innocent. This is clearly a term for a positive judicial verdict from a judge or a jury. To be justified by my faith in Jesus is what this is verse is speaking of. We can read this in Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38 for they all say that the just shall live by faith. Again we see in these verses that those who are justified and found innocent are those that live by the faith of God and what was accomplished by Him in Jesus Christ.
Being found Innocent is the directly opposed positive position for the negative verdict of being found guilty. Whenever we are found innocent there is no punishment phase of the trial necessary. An innocent man or woman gets to walk out of the front door of the court house like everyone else. However, a guilty man or woman is not so blessed or fortunate. Ok, let’s shift our focus to living as a Christian in the world today. Are we ever judged? Many teach that we are not, but that is not what the Bible says:
1Co 11:32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
This verse is written to Christians about Christians. The key point to this verse will be for Christians to not be “condemned” with the world. By stating it this way God warns us that we still can be condemned with the world. The term “condemned” means to be found guilty, which represents a judgment against us containing a sentenced punishment for a crime. This verse compares two radically different types of people; 1) those unsaved people of the world that will be condemned versus 2) Christians who have the potential to overcome the world, the flesh and the devil to not be condemned. This verse clearly teaches us that Christians can still be judged and corrected by the Judge in heaven. Notice that this judging is implied to be happening right now in this life before we go to heaven. That agrees completely with the verse in Revelation 12:10 that I mentioned earlier. I hope you know this verse. It is so very important that I want to give it again:
Rev 12:10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
Please memorize this verse. It is a future prophecy that has not yet happened. When it does occur at the midpoint of the tribulation Satan will be cast out of heaven and loud voice will proclaim salvation for those in the kingdom of God (the Church). But, notice the end of the verse says the “accuser” (legal opponent in court) of Christian Brothers and Sisters will end. It also says that it has been going on both day and night up until this point in time. That is critical to learn. That means these accusations and judgments are being handed out for someone today, believe it or not.
Therefore, when Christians are judged we can accept the chastening (correction) and confess, ask, repent and turn our course back to holiness or we can still suffer the consequences of our sin and this may result in our early death. Satan has many ways to gain access into your life. I can’t name them all. We are all in need of prayer to ask our Advocate to help show us what is allowing Satan this entrance. Pray and ask Him. See what He says and then agree and repent quickly.
I can still sense the opposition to this type of teaching in my spirit. There is so much of the Bible that we do not know that we resist whatever is not pleasant to our itchy ears. We want an easy life of salvation with no issues or problems. We don’t want to be warned. We don’t want to admit guilt or responsibility. We don’t want to be corrected and told we are wrong and that we must change our ways. I would strongly suggest that everyone go and read the letters written to the seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 over and over. Jesus is speaking to the church and warning them to change, make corrections, repent or else He can blot their names out of the book of life and they can be condemned with the world like we just read in 1 Corinthians 11:32.
Please look up the Greek words in 1 Corinthians 11:32. The word translated as “judged” can mean “someone is suing you in a court of law”. Wow, I did not know this 10 years ago. The Lord has been teaching the body of Christ this and it is eye opening. There are more legal terms in the Bible than you can possibly imagine. They are found from Genesis to Revelation. This verse in 1 Corinthians teaches us that we can be judged in court as a Christian and a correction can be sentenced. This occurs if we fail to judge our self and make corrections. If we are hard hearted and refuse correction we may be devoured by our legal adversary (1 Peter 5:8). I hope you are reading all of these lessons in the series because they are so critical to know before Jesus returns.
CONCLUSION
We can clearly see the need for a spiritual advocate named Jesus Christ by placing our faith in Him now we will miss the Great White Throne Judgment that will occur after the Great Tribulation. But, we learn in the Bible that there are other trials happening before the tribulation. These are court cases occurring for Christians because Satan our adversary brings us up before God’s court to accuse us day and night. God must be fair and just. God must hear the case if he has legal grounds he must render a verdict.
In every trial the one that is being charged it is always demanded for the accused to plead their guilt or innocence of the accusations being read before them as the trial begins. I believe very seriously that this is the way judgments are being given out by God even today. How can we plead our case now in this life? We find part of the answer in 1 John 1:9 where the Holy Spirit said to the church “If we confess our sins (meaning to agree), He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. We find another part of the answer in Revelation 12:11:
Rev 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
You may not understand that it is totally dependent upon your faith confession is what Jesus has accomplished for us now that will determine how we will be judged, but this is exactly how the Bible declares. Verse 10 was speaking of Christians and this verse is no different. We must “plead the Blood of Jesus” in every court case we are in. After a charge is brought for the Supreme Judge and you are asked how you plead, answer “I plead the Blood of Jesus”. According to this statement God also says we will overcome our adversary with His blood and our spoken testimony. What does that mean?
The Greek word G3141 translated as “testimony” literally means “evidence given in a court of law”. Can you see the direct connection to a heavenly courtroom? Why would a Christian need a testimony in God’s Court in addition to the Blood of Jesus? Many believe the Blood of Jesus is all sufficient and all powerful so that we need nothing else. Those that believe this truth alone are easily swayed into an extreme teaching of “Universal Salvation” that claims God saves everyone, including Satan. But, that is not what the Bible teaches us.
No, we are required to speak as a witness in our own defense. But, I believe that this is done now on the earth and not when we get to heaven. What you say now determines where you will be after you die physically.
Heb 4:14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession (confession, testimony).
Heb 10:23 Let us hold fast the profession (confession) of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
Why are Christians told to hold fast our professions now? Why must we have a profession in the first place? Then what is it that we should be professing right now? A profession by the Greek definition of this word is a verbal confession. This word also comes from a Greek root word that means to “promise” or “covenant”. That begins to make more sense to me. When a husband and wife get married, they repeat marriage vows where they promise to be faithful to each other. This is really what these verses are saying to us. In our marriage covenant to Jesus Christ, we exchange words of promise to covenant together with our God to be faithful to Him. So our confession by definition is the spoken words that come out of our mouths in this world to covenant with Him. These are the words that we are told to hold fast to. In God’s court system in heaven it only matters what you say here in this world and you will not be allowed to speak and say something different up there after you die. I hope you understand this, for it is very important.
The Bible and Jesus said something that is highly relevant to any judgment trial that will take place. Jesus said in Matthew 12:37, by your words you are justified and by your words you are condemned. This is a very clear admission of our own innocence or quilt being a statement that comes from our own mouth today. Did you know this? Did you know that God said you will be judged and either convicted or found innocent based upon your own words? Did you know that Jesus said that what you say right now is what determines your guilt or innocence in His Court in Heaven? This is what God said and not what I said so either learn to accept it now or be judged by it. This is why it is important to learn to control what we say now and then to do what God said in this verse in Hebrews to hold fast to our good profession or confession of Christ as our Lord. I will wrap this lesson up by telling you what Jesus will say on your behalf in court now or on the final Judgment Day if you are a Christian right now.
Mat 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.
Here is a statement that confirms what I have been teaching you from the mouth of God Himself. This verse clearly says that if you confess Jesus before other men on the earth today, right now, He will confess you before God His Father in heaven. So again it matters what you say today to what He will say in heaven. Get it? Here is another verse that declares this only using different words and descriptive terms:
Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Here we can again see that it matters what we say in the world. God tells us that if we believe in Jesus being raised from the dead and we then “confess” Him to be our Lord, that we would then be saved. To be saved is the opposite of being condemned or sentenced to death. These are simple legal terms and profound Bible truths. To many ignorant critics who believe that God controls everything including our final outcome in eternity, you are just deceived into believing what Satan wants you to believe. By people not doing what Jesus and the Bible say to do, people seal their fate to a Godless eternity. Jesus will not be there to defend you if you do not accept Him as your defender here in this life right now. Learn the legal lessons given to us in the Bible and accept Him as your advocate today, you will be extremely happy that you did later, I promise.
Rev 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels
God Bless, you all and please share these lessons with all of your friends and relatives. If you would like to continue reading about God’s Heavenly Legal and Court System please .
Understanding How to Keep the Sabbath Holy! The Fourth Commandment!
(Ver 1.3) This is now “Part 3” of a series of lessons on Understanding the Purpose of the Law. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start your reading with “Part 1” first. What is the Sabbath? Today’s lesson is a response to a readers question about keeping the Sabbath Holy. To many traditional Jewish people the Sabbath is a day of rest on Saturday. To many Christians it is a day of worship on Sunday. To many Muslims it is a Holy Day on Friday. So what are we to do as Christians on this day? Are Christians supposed to view the Sabbath like Jews or Muslims? This is a potentially controversial subject, because many view this subject using extremes. This is traditionally the downfall of the Jewish people. They were so consumed with their attempts to please God that they invented pages of rules to make sure that no one ever violated God’s law to keep the Sabbath Holy. However, Jesus said “Your traditions make the Word of God null and void” (Matthew 15:6, Mark 7:13). If you read the Gospels closely you should see that the main reason why the Jews crucified Jesus, was for the Sabbath conflict that existed between Jesus and their self imposed Sabbath rule violations. They refused to believe a man was from God who would violate their traditional Sabbath rituals. Jesus was criticized more for doing things on the Sabbath than anything else that He did. Of course Jesus purposely violated their rules to demonstrate the Law Giver was standing before them. Jesus was not required to keep their rules, they were required to keep His rules and they were doing a very poor job at that. In Luke 6 Jesus is standing before the scribes and the Pharisees and they are watching him closely to see if He was going to violate their Sabbath rules so that they could accuse Him. Jesus turned to them, looked at them and asked them a very direct question. Jesus asked “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil on the Sabbath?” You can clearly see Jesus was making a point that they could not answer. Jesus was saying that their definition of work was NOT His definition of work. You can also see that Jesus infers that doing “Good” was more important than their idea of a law of not working. Jesus confronted this issue with the Jews repeatedly and revealed to them many new things that they refused to see:
Luk 13:15 The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?
Here Jesus calls the Jews hypocrites because of their Sabbath rules. You can clearly see that giving your farm animal some water was a good thing that was acceptable in the eyes of God even if this could be considered to be work by many people. So is doing Good a job or work? Not according to God! Jesus clearly calls religious people who think their external rules are the solution for keeping God’s law hypocrites. Yet people in some churches today still have this same attitude.
Luk 6:2 And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days?
So the Jews were consumed by trying to obey the letter of the law and they failed to recognize the one that gave them the law was standing before them speaking to them. So what was Jesus’ response to this question?
Luk 6:3 And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him;
You see the Pharisees saw the disciples of Jesus going through a corn field and picking ears of corn to eat and according to the Jewish rules this was a violation of the Law of Moses. Anyone can clearly see that this is obviously a laborious task to pick corn in a field. I do not know if you can read sarcasm or not, but that was a sarcastic remark I just made. Of course it wasn’t really work it was just their idea of what the Law of Moses said. To the disciples they were hungry and saw food and went and got it. It is really not that complicated and Jesus told them, “Didn’t you read what David did”?
Luk 6:4 How he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone?
Jesus looking at the Pharisees told them that David violated the law and entered into the temple to eat that which was reserved for only the priests of God and David also gave to the others that were with him. It is funny that God, who was standing before them, did not strike David dead for violating this law, did He? Normally, if even a priest entered into a Holy place with sin they fell down dead and had to be dragged out with a rope that was tied around their ankle. So obviously God’s view of things is different than man’s view of things, aren’t they?
Luk 6:5 And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
So God’s point is that He is the one that gave the law of the Sabbath, He is still Lord of the Sabbath and only He determines what is acceptable to do and not you. In other words you are not God so do not pretend to be God and make rules up that define what is acceptable on a Sabbath and what is not acceptable on a Sabbath. This is what got the Jews in the major hot water that they were in and we have some Christians in the world today trying to do the same.
Here is the other side to the problem of trying to keep the Sabbath Holy today as a Christian. God says in the Bible that “NO FLESH shall be justified by keeping the LAW” (Acts 13:39). If keeping the Sabbath Holy is the fourth commandment and it is impossible for any man to be justified by keeping it then what are we to do as Christians? That is a really good question. I believe that we should be doing what Jesus did. If Jesus did anything on the Sabbath, we should be doing the exact same things. Jesus spent a lot of time going about teaching and preaching the Word of God and healing those that were oppressed of the devil. According to the Bible this was God doing Good in our world (Acts 10:38)! So doing GOOD is what the church should be doing on the Sabbath and every other day of the week. So everywhere you go and in everything that you do it should be in making an effort to do good for someone that needs good to be done to them or for them in the world. This is what I believe the Bible teaches us about the keeping of the Sabbath. I’ll give you an example, one day I was walking through a mall with my uncle and my son. We came upon a little boy that was crying alone in the middle of the mall. We could have kept walking but I decided to stop and asked him what the matter was. It seems that the child had gotten lost from his mother and was scared because he couldn’t find her. So I called to the nearest store clerk and asked them to call mall security to help find the mother. The young child was eventually reunited and there was a happy ending. So what if I had not decided to do this good deed? I could have hoped that someone else would have come along and done it. Or a bad man could have potentially come along and taken advantage of the situation and this child could have never been heard from again. So what would you have done? What is your definition of doing good? Jesus gave us an example of doing good in the story of the Good Samaritan. You can see in this story that some passed by the wounded man that was hurt and kept going. Those that passed by were a “Priest” and a “Levite” two religious zealots who would not be willing to lift a finger on the Sabbath to help even a hurt man. But, Jesus said the Samaritan came by and helped this man and made an concerted effort to do something good for him. Jesus praised the Samaritan and put down the priest and Levite. Who was justified in the eyes of God that day? It certainly was not the Jewish religious leaders?
Today we have many people in churches trying to do what the Jewish religious leaders did and they are looking for ways to accuse other Christians of violating their Sabbath rules. However, the Bible says “I am Holy so you be Holy” (1 Peter 1:16). So observe what Holy God does on the Sabbath and then do likewise. Be led by the Spirit of God to do good and you will see that God may praise you someday as being a Good Samaritan also. If you disagree you should take it up with God and not me, for I did not write the Bible. God Bless!
Understanding Spiritual Laws Found in the Bible! Part 2 The Law of Marriage!
(Ver 2.0) This is now Part 2 of a series of studies about the reality of spiritual laws found in the Bible. We have covered a lot of information that is not going to be repeated, so if you have not read these lessons from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1”. In the first lesson that I did on this series I gave you 3 basic spiritual laws that I discovered in the Bible. These were first the spiritual law of faith, the second was the law of the Spirit of Life vs. law of sin and death and third the spiritual law of sowing and reaping. I know I did not fully cover any of these subjects extensively, but I believe I gave you enough information for you to go further and explore them in your Bible. I will say upfront that this is an advanced lesson series that is intended only for spiritually mature Christians that have studied the Bible extensively. If this is not you I would recommend that you go and read a more basic subject to learn things that will help you mature. It is very much like Paul told the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3:2 that he was unable to teach them meat because they were still in need of the basic milk from the Word of God. Please be the judge of yourself before you continue. I do not want to offend anyone with an advanced Bible subject that they are unable to spiritually chew.
I would like to warn you at the beginning of this lesson that I will primarily be addressing spiritual subject truths as the primary focus. But in order to understand these advanced spiritual truths we really first need to understand some basic natural truths also. Therefore, I will be jumping between the subjects of natural marriage and spiritual marriage. It might appear confusing at first but this is the way Jesus taught using parables. Jesus would teach very advanced spiritual subject using only simple farming tools and concepts. So I thank you for your understanding in advance.
Today I want to readdress a Bible subject that I have blogged about before, but it bears repeating for those who have never studied the subject of the law of marriage. Marriage is a spiritual law found in the Bible from cover to cover. Often times Bible students only look at the Law of Moses and think that is the only law that God has established in the Bible. However, when God created man, Adam and Eve, He established a multitude of spiritual laws which have only been revealed after Jesus was resurrected from the dead. Why do you think that Jesus could not reveal and teach everything that He knew? It was primarily the fact that God could not let the secrets of the Kingdom of God out of the bag until God had first died and established a Kingdom. All Satan would have had to do was to not crucify Jesus Christ on the cross and that would have ended God’s plan of salvation and redemption for the human race. Satan would have had a future and we would have had no hope for any type of future. You must understand that even though God prophesied the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus hundreds of years before it occurred; Satan did not understand it or he would have not done it. Here is a verse of scripture that I think is very relevant to this point of my conversation:
Gal 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
You see the Law of faith that I talked about in the first lesson was a spiritual law that existed when God created Adam. But, God never revealed this law until after Jesus was raised from the dead. Faith was not a new concept; in fact the law of faith is recorded in every part of the Bible. If you read Hebrews 11 this chapter is often times called the “Faith Hall of Fame”. It goes through instance after instance, example after example, of men and women found in the Bible that had faith and used it. So you can clearly see that just because faith was not revealed like Galatians 3:23 says, faith still played a key role in the life of every Old Testament saint. They either believed God or they did not and the results that they got were demonstrated for us to learn by. So the Law of Faith is not a new concept for the New Testament church, it is just one that we are better understanding.
Marriage was also a hidden spiritual Law of God. However, I have discovered that God has placed great priority on this subject. Why does God place such emphasis on a subject that modern men and women seem to take so casually today? Why is the devil trying to pervert the God established institute of marriage between one male and one female into a same sex union? Why do people get married today and divorced tomorrow like it was normal way of life? It seems that way over half of the marriages in our world today end in divorce and this is happening even in the church. I do not feel that these are things that please God. How many have been married multiple times in our society? Why is it that when a couple gets divorced that it appears to become the easy way out for the next time something is not going their way in their next marriage? Do you realize that there are no perfect people in the world? I think people get married to someone they do not know and eventually find out what they are really like and then realize that they shouldn’t have done that. So they leave their spouse and go looking for mister wonderful or misses trophy but they will never satisfied because these people do not exist. Divorce typically breeds more divorces. Children learn divorce from their parents and the parents pass the curse of divorce down to their children. Divorce becomes a repeated cycle because some think that just because their parents got divorced so that means it’s OK for me also. So that was part of my non-popular introduction to a natural problem that I recognize in our society. We simply do not understand the significance of a Godly marriage covenant contract.
Many times I find that people do things out of ignorance and they think that ignorance is a valid excuse for why they did what they did. You will find that this rarely works when you are standing before the judge in a natural court of law. A judge sees the law, knows the law and sees the actions you took to break the law and then assigns the penalty for your transgressions of that law. If you disregard the law and do what you want to you will eventually get caught and have to pay the price. This is the way it is with spiritual laws in the Bible also. In Hosea 4:6 God says “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. Knowledge is the opposite of ignorance that God says destroys people. So therefore, knowledge is the power and ability to do the right thing. If you know speeding in a school zone will get you a huge fine, it is best to slow down and avoid that penalty. Every law has benefits and every law has punishments or consequences. This is true whether you are talking about the law of gravity or the law that says thou shalt NOT steal. The attitude of many people is that they like to push the envelope of how far they can go and get away with violating the laws of nature. They like the thrill of jumping out of airplanes and free-falling and they do it over and over until their parachute fails to open and then they do not do it anymore. I wonder why?
So we talked all around a lot of the basics that surround laws. I hope you can understand the importance of learning about spiritual laws in the Bible from my simple three or four paragraph introduction to today’s subject of the Law of Marriage. God says many things about the covenant bond of marriage in the Bible and it is inadequate to take just one verse to try to think we understand the whole entire subject. But I will need to start somewhere so I will look at a verse in Romans 7 first:
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.
This is a very easily misunderstood Bible verse? A spiritual law is a designed principle of God that conveys a cause and effect observable and repeatable reality for all of those that are affected by the law. In other words God says something and if you follow it you gain the benefits from it and if you ignore or abuse it you suffer the consequences from it if you abide under the jurisdiction of that law. I do not know if you understood what I just said, but it was important. In Romans 7:2 God teaches us that when two people are married according to the law of Moses that they were intended to be joined for life. This verse was actually a two way street and it was not just applicable to only women.
This verse was written to a covenant woman so that is why the male covenant husband is not directly mentioned. You may not understand my last statement either, but you should read some of my other blogs and you could be closer to knowing these more advanced truths. I will briefly try to explain. You see the nation of Israel was designated to be God’s covenant wife in the Old Testament (Jer 31:32) and this verse here in Romans was written to those who were previously married to God the Father. If you look at verse 1 of Romans 7 you will find Paul’s target audience to be those that “know” the law. To “know” the law is a covenant relationship term written to only the Nation of Israel. Gentiles did not “know” the law and were never in covenant with the Mosaic law or with the living God. So these next verses in Romans 7 after verse 1 do not apply to ANY Gentile believer. But yet these verses can still teach us all and we all can learn from them.
God is always faithful to His covenants but God will break the marriage covenant if His covenant partner does not keep their part of the marriage agreement. Like any natural marriage a spiritual marriage covenant takes two willing committed partners. If only one is willingly committed and the other is not, then what is the other faithful partner supposed to do? That is a new complicated twist to the equation, isn’t it? This is what God was faced with in the Old Testament repeatedly. The nation of Israel left God’s covenant so many times that it is difficult to count them all.
If you look in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Jeremiah and other places you will soon discover language that called God’s wife Israel a “harlot”, “whore”, “adulteress” and many other very unflattering words. Many people do not realize that a covenant is a marriage and that a marriage is a covenant. Learning God’s definitions for words is a vital part of knowing about spiritual laws and we must do this by discovering God’s definitions of the subject. We will begin with a verse in Malachi:
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.
As you read the Bible you discover that God has placed very important and significant clues in some of the most unlikely spots like this minor prophet book of Malachi. God says that your wife is the one that you are in covenant with. Perhaps the problem is that you do not understand what a covenant is? A covenant is a legally binding eternal contract that is legally divisible by death of one of the covenant partners. When God makes a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 there are animals that are killed and split down the spine in two bloody pieces. Then the two covenant parties are supposed to walk between the pieces and this signifies a blood covenant bond and union. Now if one party breaks the covenant they are saying to the other party that it should be done to me what was done to these animals laying on the ground. Wow, that gives each covenant partner a very strong motivation to keep the covenant. If only marriages were done this way today.
God was married and in a blood covenant relationship with the natural nation of Israel in the O.T. but His wife Israel did not take this covenant relationship seriously and this resulted in Israel’s divorce (Isa 50:1 and Jer 3:8). God ended the covenant marriage with Israel and this is also a pattern for natural divorce. Anytime a spouse leaves their spouse I believe this is a legal pattern for when divorce is permissible. Leaving your spouse shows your lack of commitment to the promises made. God has done all of this however as a pattern to another coming covenant that would be established as an eternal spiritual contract between us the church and Jesus Christ and we’ll talk more about that in a bit.
Mal 2:15 And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.
This next verse in Malachi alludes to a principle that is very important to understand. It says “Did He not make one?” Within the context we can surely see that God is speaking to us of the law of marriage found in Genesis 2 when God created Adam and Eve and Adam looked at his wife and said this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh because she was taken from his body. So reading and understanding Genesis God says that a woman is one with her husband. You can also say that a man is one with his wife; it is definitely a two way street being referred to. This was God’s original design and this was God’s original plan. God took one body and made two and this was the physical and spiritual laws of marriage being defined. When people get married, God declares that they have become one flesh:
Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
When we started reading this lesson we began with a verse found in Romans that said a woman was joined to her husband as long as he was alive. This verse in Genesis 2 is the reason why God could say this. This is the law of marriage covenants, the two will be one. This is why God is writing to the Hebrews in Romans to tell them about this law. Since Israel was married to God the Father in the O.T. we can therefore conclude that God had become one flesh with his wife Israel. Do you understand that statement and the importance of understanding the implications behind that statement? God was joined to a natural nation of people under the law. Whenever you are one with someone whatever happens to you also happens to your spouse and vice versa. Whatever you have they also have. This is just the basis of a sound Biblical marriage. I can see why Israel would want to join in this relationship, but why would God want to join in this relationship? God was not under the law, but obviously He chose to join Himself to a woman who was. That is an amazing question to ponder. You might recall what Jesus said about this subject, he said “I did not come to do away with the law but to fulfill it”. You see you probably do not understand the purpose of the law. I wrote a lesson on this subject called “Understanding the Purpose of the Law of Moses”. You might want to go read that and it might help you to understand what I’m going to say next. In order for God to cast Satan into hell, God must first convict Satan of a punishable crime under the law. Did you know that our courts cannot make up laws to throw you into jail? Back in our history child pornography use to not be a crime, therefore no one went to jail for that obscene behavior until they passed a law making it a crime. Did you know that applies to Satan also? Just because he sinned, there is no punishment for sin until he is in a state that says that he committed a crime. Even though child pornography has always been sinful and wrong, it was not a crime until the law was passed and you were convicted of it. I just do not know if you understand what I’m saying or not? But, it is so important that you try to get what I am teaching to you.
Rom 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
The Bible has many difficult and hard sayings in it and this is surely one of them. The direct implication is being given to us that God died in Jesus Christ. We obviously understand that it is impossible for God to die and cease to exist. This is certainly not what this verse is saying to us. What this verse is saying is that because the Spirit of God was in Christ on the cross, these Hebrew people who this is directed at are now free from their Old Testament covenant marriage with God, so that they can now be legally “married to another”. To be married to another is a clear reference to becoming the bride of Christ who was raised from the dead, the firstborn from the dead. This allows Jewish believers to become legally married to our Savior Jesus Christ without becoming an adulteress like this chapter speaks of. You see you cannot divorce someone and legally marry another because God says you are one flesh. This is a complex puzzle and a riddle of Biblical proportions being given to us. God, who is one God, tells us He died to implement a new covenant through Jesus Christ and one of the reasons He died was for the Hebrews sake. Because of His death on the cross, it is now legal for any Old Testament Hebrew to enter into a new eternal spiritual union with Jesus Christ. If Jesus hadn’t died then they would have been joined to God the Father and God the Son simultaneously and that would have been adultery according to the law. Go through this chapter in Romans and read every verse very carefully, it says some things that are very powerful and they do apply to you regardless of who you are. These verses apply to natural Israel and they apply to us the church. These verses also apply to natural people being married to other natural people. All of these are marriage covenant relationships.
From what I can read in the Bible, there are only two legal reasons for getting out of a marriage to marry another, and these are 1) infidelity or 2) death. If your spouse is unfaithfully sleeping around on you, you should not be married to them. Then God clearly tells us that marriage is a covenant contract “till death do us part”. We can of course see our world is more complex than those two simple rules. There are certainly cases where one spouse can be abusive physically or mentally and that is not a healthy environment for a safe peaceful family. Recently in the news here a man shot his wife and then killed himself. Clearly that was a tragedy that should never have happened. If people knew more about God and the Bible, I believe these things would not ever happen. People are guilty of making emotional illogical and irrational snap decisions out of anger or other emotions that do not convey the life and love of God. So we live in a world that contains both good and evil and this is our greatest challenge. Trying to determine what is right and good vs. what is wrong and evil and this is what we do every day of our life. We can learn from God how to deal with every situation in life and this gives us hope of a positive outcome for our decisions. I hope that you can at least begin to see that marriage is something that you should not enter into on a casual whim. God says that once you are married, in the eyes of God you become one flesh with that person for the rest of your life. Obviously today in our loose immoral society there are people like rock stars who are joined to hundreds of others and do not know it.
1Co 6:16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
Marriage in the eyes of God is simply having sex with someone whether we believe it or not. That statement really goes over big in our modern world of casual sex today, doesn’t it? Please read this verse very carefully. God only refers to the law of marriage found in Genesis 2:24, four times in the entire New Testament. These can be found in Matthew Why is this verse the only reference that is ignored by pastors, teachers and Christians today. According to God’s Word, He says very plainly that if you go and have sex with a prostitute that you are now one flesh with her and in marriage covenant. What if a man has had casual sex with 1000 prostitutes, is this still true? I believe that it is. Wow, how many times some people have been married in the eyes of God is probably unbelievable! God is using a natural truth of sex to teach a spiritual truth that is greater. God does this over and over and over in the Bible and this is just another example of that.
We can use the context of this verse to prove the last statement. We should be able to learn that God is speaking about a spiritual marriage covenant relationships between Christ and the church. Back up in verse 15 directly before this verse. You should find that God is telling the church not to be joined to a harlot. God teaches us directly in this chapter that we are members of His body and that we are one spirit with Him in verse 17. Yet according to verse 16 we still have the choice to go make the members of His body to be one with a devil. These verses are spiritual warnings from God. But yet since men have been given a freewill by God, they are still capable of making wrong choices.
Natural things were created by God to provide views into unseen spiritual realities. These natural and spiritual things and laws of God were intended by God to be parallel truths with the greater truth always being the spiritual. I believe that natural sex is equivalent to what the Bible says is spiritual knowledge of God. Having simultaneous multiple natural sex partners in this world I believe is the equivalent to worshiping God and idols at the same time.
There is a basic law of Bible interpretation called the “Law of First Mention”. Using this law we can learn many facts about God’s Law of Marriage. Adam and Eve were God’s established pattern for marriage and this was between one man and one woman. God’s design of marriage was for it to last eternally. If Adam had chosen not to sin and rebel against God, they could have been alive today to demonstrate the plan of God. But since Adam failed in the natural realm, Jesus came to the natural realm to restore God’s law and plan for marriage in the spiritual realm. The way it was in the beginning is how it will be in the end. It should be the goal of every marriage to be patterned after the design of God’s purpose. However, it still takes two that are committed to each other to fulfill this law. A marriage with only one covenant member being committed like God to uncommitted natural Israel will always fail.
Please understand that I do not want to sound like I’m being self-righteous or condemning anyone that has been married more than once or that has had sex with multiple partners in this lesson. The Bible says that to those who are “in-Christ” and walk after the Spirit, there is therefore no condemnation extended towards them (Romans 8:1). There are many spiritual laws in the Bible and you cannot just teach one and omit all of the others. In my first lesson on this subject I gave you a key verse that said “The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has freed us from the Law of Sin and Death” (Romans 8:2). The Blood of Jesus covers all of our sins that we have committed and we all have sinned (Romans 3:22). So just because someone has been married to one woman for over 50 years does not make them better than you, even if you have been married 6 times. The mercy, compassion and love of God are very strong spiritual forces. The faithfulness of God to forgive us of our past transgressions is one divine trait of God that we should all possess. God said “I will not remember your sin, as far as the east is from the west I have put it away from me” (Psalm 103:12, Isa 43:15). If even God does not remember our sin that you have already asked Him for forgiveness for, then the only part left is for you to not condemn yourself for your past. God only expects us to learn and grow and to use our past mistakes so that we do not fall into them again. So I do not know if I helped you today or said anything that was truly beneficial to your situation, but I pray that I did so that you will continue to follow after God and to keep trying to know Him better. God Bless!
A New Commandment I Give Unto You!
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 2 in a series of Bible lessons on the subject of Understanding the Purpose of the Law of Moses. I covered a lot of new information about the Law already and I do not think that I will review any of what I have already covered. Therefore, if you did not read the first lesson, I would suggest that you go back and start your study with “Part 1“. I will say that in my last lesson I introduced you to the fact that the Law was a positive thing given to us by God. In other words I believe that the law was an intentional good thing designed for the benefit of the entire human race. Without laws we would not know or understand sin, guilt, punishment, consequences, to name a few things that the knowledge of the law teaches us. Laws give us guidelines, structure, organization and meaning or definition to what is right and what is wrong. Without laws we would live in a world of full of nothing but chaos. This would be a type of world where everyone would be doing what was right in their own eyes while ignoring the effects to what their actions did to those all around them. Today’s lesson will be an introduction to another brand new concpet. Are Christians in the church today under the Old Law, or under no law or under any new New Law? Many today believe that we are noy under any law and that is not actually what the Bible says. They base this belief on verses like Romans 6:15 which is an example of taking one truth and attempting to make it the only truth. This is just an example of not finding the complete truth of God’s Word on a given subject. Many are guilty of this and it is an easy trap to fall into. Just because we are not under the Law of the Old Testament does not mean that we are not under any New Law. That is the primary subject of the rest of my lesson today.
What is the difference between what is old and what is new? New sometimes can be a relative term. Is it new to you or is it new just because no one else has ever possessed it before you? New to me is definitely stated not to be the old. Old to me is definitely stated not to be the new. I view this concept in the same terms like the Old Covenant versus the New Covenant which are totally separate and distinct covenants of God. Both the Old and New Covenants bare a resemblance of characteristics and features, but they are totally and completely not the same. That was my introduction to the Law of the New Covenant. Let me now take you to some important verses in the New Testament and discuss this New Law of God.
Gal 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
So I asked you a question in my last blog on this subject, did God put Satan under the law? This verse in Galatians is very clearly a clue into the answer to that question. Why was Jesus Christ born a man under the law of Moses? Jesus’ physical mother was a virgin woman named Mary, a direct descendant of David the King of Israel. We know that Jesus is therefore a natural born Jew from the tribe of Judah, by birth. Therefore, God in the Flesh being born under the Law is now bound to all of these laws, commandments, and statutes written in the O.T.. Exactly why did God do this? The God that was outside of the Law and who gave the law has now placed Himself under the law that He gave. That means whatever the law requires applies to everything that God can do and can’t do. Those are pretty strong words aren’t they? Why would God put any limitations upon Himself? Obviously God gave the law, so He must have designed the law to serve a specific purpose that would help Him to accomplish something of greater value. What was that something that God needed accomplished that only the creation of Law could do? You should really think about things like this and search for them in the Bible to see if you can find them. What you should take away from this verse in Galatians 4:4 is, if it was necessary for God to be born under the law of Moses, then it would be necessary for Satan to be put under the same law also. As I tried to teach in the first lesson, that laws only apply to those that are under them. No law is ever applicable to anyone not under the authority of that law.
Jesus made the statement that “I did not come to do away with the law, but I came to fulfill it” (Mat 5:17). So what did Jesus do while he was in the flesh walking under the law to fulfill the law? What did he accomplish to fulfill all of the Mosiac law? Was it just the fact that he did not commit any sin? Was this the fulfillment of the law? I do not think that is the entire picture of what that actually means. Did you notice that Jesus died on the cross? So being sinless under the law did not save Him, did it? We know from other scripture that the Bible says that “No flesh will be justified by God, for keeping the law” (Gal 2:16). So was Jesus in the flesh? Yes, then He was not justified or saved by keeping the law either. This is not what made Jesus righteous or justifed Him. We can discover some valuable clues by searching the scriptures and finding out God’s definition of what this means to fulfill the law:
Gal 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
We can begin to understand what the fulfillment of the law was in the eyes of God by reading this verse in Galatians. God tells us that all of the law is fulfilled in just one word. What was that word? That word was Love! This of course is not a human kind of love, but it is a God kind of love and that is totally different. Humans love Coke, pie, hamburgers because they make them feel good or do something good for them. That is not the God kind of love. God does not love us because we do something good to Him or for Him. Bible, love is not a feeling or even an emotional state. Love is a choice to do the right thing for others even when you do not feel like it.
Rom 13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Here we have another witness to the fact that God says the law of Moses is fulfilled by the single isolated word of Love! To do the right thing for your neighbor means that you do not steal from them, you do not hurt them, you do not lie to them, you do not covet or lust for what they possess, and on and on we could go. Clealry God is defining a new definition for what the fulfillment of the Law represents to us.
Rom 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
All of the law of Moses is summed up into the word “Love”. We can only comprehend the rest of the law by understanding what Love is in the eyes of God. This is why Jesus makes this statement in the Gospels:
Joh 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
If the Law was a negative thing God would be wanting to get rid of it. However, we have discovered that the law is a positive and good thing and that is why Jesus gives us a New Law. You do understand that we are still under the law being in the church right now? It is not the Law of Moses, but it is the Law of Jesus. Jesus initiated a New Covenant in His own shed blood and in doing so, He established a New Law. This New Law is significantly less complicated than the old law while at the same time including all of the Old Law in the single statement. It is amazing how complex the laws created by our government are. I believe the Health Care bill was a very thick stack of papers that are still being argued over to what they mean. Would you say that more laws are better than less laws or are fewer laws better than many laws? According to God less is better. God replaces a thick book of written laws with a single statement and calls it better. God is not opposed to the law, it is more what the law is intended to do and its purpose that God is most concerned with. By Jesus giving us the Law of Love, we are now required to follow ONLY one rule. When faced with a problem in the natural we should always stop and ask, “What would Love do with that?” Did you notice that Jesus said you must love like I have loved you? In other words we are not to love people like we love a can of Coke. I do hope that you understand this profound concept.
Rom 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
God says that by walking in the New Commandment of Love we now establish the law. Isn’t that an interesting concept? What all of Natural Israel was unable to do, God says that we are capable of doing. Why is that? For one thing we have God on the inside of us helping us to do it. Plus we are not worried about hundreds or thousands of rules, because God has simplified it down to just One Rule! That just makes it easier to follow doesn’t it?
If you would like to continue to read this series on understanding the Law you can go to “Part 3“.
Understanding The Bible Definition and Purpose of the Law of Moses! PT 1
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 in a series of Bible lessons on Understanding the Purpose for the Law. Why was it necessary for God to give Moses the Old Testament Law? The reason for these spiritual rules of do’s and don’ts are critical for Christians to understand. While Christians do not rely on keeping the law to be saved, they should still be intimately familiar with what they mean and the underlying reasons for God giving them to the natural nation of Israel. God says my People are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6), so the more we learn and understand the less likely we are to being destroyed in this world. So let’s learn about the O.T. Law and determine what it is and why it was given using the Bible:
Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
God declares a truth about the law that is essential to understand. The O.T. law is based upon “Works”. Works is man’s attempt to do something that they think pleases God by doing without something that they really want to do. I hope you understand what I just said. Every religion in the world is “works” based. Man trying to achieve a state of self sacrifice in order to appear pious or worthy in the eyes of God. In some religions men beat themselves with whips and chains until they bleed. They think through this self inflicted pain and suffering that they have achieved favor with God. They have been deceived into stupidity and foolishness. This religion also teaches that life is like a balance scale and the good deeds that you do will be weighed against your bad deeds and if the good deeds outweighs the bad, you have earned your salvation. This is just another example of Satan’s deception. In Galatians 2:16, we see works being contrasted with true Christianity. True Christianity is based upon Faith in Jesus Christ and what He has done and provided for us. That is completely different than the law of works and the works of the law. This verse clearly tells us that nobody will make it to heaven based upon their works. That is not good news for natural Israel or the other religions of the world.
Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
We can clearly see one of the primary reasons that God gave the law. God declares that No flesh will be saved by obeying the law. So we immediately discover that the law was not given to save us. We can take this reason off of the list of potential reasons for the law. Then God says that by the law is the knowledge of sin. What does that tell you? Before the law was given into the world, no one really knew what sin was. It was only because the Bible said “Thou shalt not commit murder” that you would know that this is not an acceptable thing to do. To know that there is a law that has consequences for doing something and then to do it anyway is the act of a fool. However, to do something that is still not right, but there is no law against it is still sin, but yet God said how would you know it. So one of the primary reasons for God giving the law is to teach everyone what sin is and that these sins have consequences. With the Law comes the Knowledge of Sin!
Rom 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Here is another witness to what I just said. This verse clearly tells us the same thing and gives us another example. By God saying “thou shalt not covet”, we know it is a sin to lust after what our neighbor owns or possesses. So the Law is not an evil, bad or negative thing, but a good thing. It helps us to learn and know what is good and what is evil. The law helps to guide us into what are the right things to do.
Rom 7:12 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
So the Bible again confirms what I just said about the law. The law is Holy, the law is good and just. The law is a positive thing meant to teach us the difference between right and wrong. God gave us the law to show us that we cannot make up our own rules and think that we are good in our own sight. That is exactly what most people in the world do, they reason in their own minds what is good and what is right and they follow their own desires and God says that is wrong.
Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
The word “transgression” means violation. If you get arrested in our world, it is usually because you violated some law that was passed by the lawmakers of the city, state or federal governments. So again we see a principle being established for why the law was necessary. Without law there is no “violation” being committed. People in the world usually pass laws to make people stop something that is potentially harmful or hurtful to themselves or others. For example, driving too fast in a car can cause loss of life and property. So people have developed laws to limit the speeds that cars can go in certain areas. The speed limit varies depending on where the area is located, like it is slower in front of school zones. If you are caught speeding you are charged and if found guilty, you pay fines and there are consequences such as points on your license. So without laws, people could go 100 MPH through a school zone and cause great damage and loss of life and there would be nothing that the government could do to them. This is a key lesson of why God gave the law, so take note of it.
Rom 5:13 For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Without laws in the world (physical, natural, spiritual and governments), the world would be in a state of chaos. Everybody doing whatever they felt like, whenever they wanted to, to whoever they wanted to and there would be no consequences legally speaking that they would ever be faced with. I do think that without law we would also see a vigilante retribution being enacted and people would be forced to come up with their own definition of justice. But, Romans 5:13 informs us that sin has been in the world, before the law existed. But, then it says that these sins would not be charged to their account without the existence of the law. When you read and learn verses from the Bible like these you should automatically think how do these apply to me? How does this apply to Israel? How do these apply to Satan? How do they apply to all of the other spiritual entities in God’s spiritual realm? If you do not think in these terms you will miss out on what God is trying to teach you. Let me ask you a question and get you to thinking. If it is as the Bible says and Satan was found with sin in him from the beginning, what can God do about this, if there is no law against it? I believe you can start to understand the problem that God had. Legally speaking there is nothing that God can do with Satan, unless he is put under the law. That is an amazing thing to consider and probably a key reason for why the law was given. Learn to think while you read and to ask questions and you will learn so much more than just reading it. I’ll get into this more later.
Rom 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
This is an interesting twist and is highly informative. God tells us that the law applies to the spiritual realm and not just the natural realm. We know that God gave Moses the law on Mt Sinai and that it was written down in the natural realm by a man. But, think about it, God is a Spirit and the words that He spoke to Moses came from the spiritual realm. God is clearly telling us that these words found in the law apply to all spiritual beings, including God himself, the angels, you and I and Satan and his demons.
Gal 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
Here is a very scary statement about the O.T. Law. God says that anyone under the law is under a curse, if they do not obey all of the law. Do you know of anyone that has obeyed all of the law? For one thing I do not think you know all of the law and the other thing is you certainly can’t do it all consistently, I do not believe anyone on earth is capable of it. The law is more than following 10 simple commandments, the O.T. law is 5 large books of rules, commandments, instructions, and it is vastly not understood even by the Jews who read it every day. I may be wrong but I believe that this is one of the reasons for God giving the law, to show man that he is incapable of making a perfect score. It is impossible to bowl a perfect score in the game of life playing according to the rules of the “works of the law”. I assume natural Israel has not yet gotten the news yet, they must still think they are able to save themselves.
Jas 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
Here is a second witness to the reality that man is required to keep all of the law. If any man offends or violates a single commandment, this verse in James says that he is found guilty of violating every commandment. I am certainly glad that is not the way our courts work. We would have to have everybody in a prison cell and there would be no free people in the world. If you drove your car too fast you could be sentenced to life in prison. That is what God says about his law in the O.T. Too many times people like to rate and compare sins. This sin is bigger, or greater than another. This sin is just a little one and that isn’t as bad as doing this or that. But, God says every sin is equal, there are no big ones, and no small ones. These are very tough rules to follow. In fact they are impossible for man to follow.
Gal 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
So God says that the Law was designed to be a teaching tool for mankind. An instrument that was intended to point them to Christ. Is this the way the nation of Israel views the law? Obviously not! Is this the way you should view the O.T. law, absolutely. You should use it as a teacher who is pointing you to a savior, the Messiah.
1Ti 1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient,for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
God tells us who the law was given for. To me every human would potentially qualify, but also this sounds more like Satan’s resume than anything else. You do realize that this is why our government passes laws, don’t you? If nobody did bad things you wouldn’t need any laws against doing them. So we pass laws to keep people from doing stupid, foolish things. This is another one of the key purposes of the O.T. law. Because, there are bad, evil people in the world, because there is a bad, evil spiritual force in the world, God was forced to enact spiritual laws. I hope you are getting what I am saying.
Let’s review briefly what we have learned so far and make a list of the key items concerning what the Bible says about the law:
- Sin will always Sin with or without the existence of Law.
- God’s Law is a Positive Thing that Helps us to see.
- The Law is Works Based. Obeying the Law is man’s attempt at earning Salvation.
- No Flesh can achieve Righteousness by the O.T. Law.
- Therefore, no one can be saved by observing the O.T. Law.
- However, Sin is not put on your account, if there is No law.
- Without the Law, no one knows what Sin Is.
- Without the existence of the Law there is no legal consequences for Sin.
- If you violate even one Law you are guilty of violating EVERY Laws!
- The Law given in the natural realm is Applicable in the Spiritual Realm.
- The Law was designed to teach us we need a savior and to point us to Christ.
- The Law was given because of the evil that existed prior to the law.
That was a quick synopsis of the information we have learned from the few verses about the law. We start to begin to understand what the law is and why it was given by understanding these verses. There is of course much more to learn about the law. There is different types of laws. Human laws, laws of nature, laws of science, and spiritual laws, just to name a few types of laws. Let’s continue this lesson with another verse found in Romans:
Rom 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
This is one of the most outstanding and revealing verses in the Bible about the Law of Moses. It reveals some hidden spiritual principles that are critical for Christians to understand. The principle is given to us that the law only applies to them that are under the law. In other words Mexico cannot pass a law that affects me, because I live in the USA. Now, if I go to visit Mexico, then I am under that law system, but as long as I stay in the USA, nothing they do can affect me personally. That is what Romans 3:19 is saying. God tells us that the law is only effective over those that are under that system of spiritual government. USA laws do not affect Chinese citizens or companies unless they come to America. Think about that and ask the questions that I asked you to think about earlier. Does the O.T. law affect you? Does the O.T. law affect the natural Jews? Does the O.T. law affect Satan or any other spiritual entity? Is God bound by the Laws of the O.T.? These are all important questions to consider. You see if Satan is not under the O.T. law, then there is still no punishment for his sins that God can convict him of in any heavenly court. You need to consider these questions and determine, did God somehow put Satan under the Law in order to convict him of his sins? If you do not realize that God is a legal minded God who does everything in a fair and just way, you do not know God very well. God will not throw Satan into hell without him being found guilty and being convicted for his crimes of sin. If God did this, then he would be more like a foreign country that throws people into prison because they just don’t like the way they look. Think about the character of God and realize that God is the supreme judge of all spiritual matters. In the heavenly judicial system, there must be laws that can convict someone like Satan or God would be unjust. God says in Romans 3:9 that the law was given, so that every mouth could be stopped. You see if Satan was unjustly accused of God, he has a legal defense against such actions. However, if Satan is under the law and can see clearly that he is in violation and guilty, he no longer has a defense against such charges.
I think I will end this lesson on that note. I hope and pray that you learned something that was of benefit to your walk with Christ. I’ll try to continue this lesson in a future blog.
If you would like to continue reading this lesson, you can go to “Part 2“.
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