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People Generally Don’t Know What They Don’t Know
(Ver 2.0) Here is an interesting statement to ponder. People generally don’t know what they don’t know. I don’t remember where I heard that statement for the first time or if I got it from God. I just realized that it was the truth. It is certainly related to another subject that people are generally resistant to change. In one of my last blogs on this subject I talked about the importance of having an open mind as being a key to understanding new things in the Bible. Change is inevitable, but most of the time people like the status quo and are creatures of habit. They learn something and then live it out on a daily basis, being repetitive and finding it hard to accept something new. These days technology is changing so fast, that you either have to live in a cave somewhere to not realize that what you have today will be obsolete tomorrow.
Now back to what people know. What makes one man a doctor and another man a homeless bum. The main difference is knowledge. One has extended an effort to learn and knows how to help other people and the other one lacks this knowledge and motivation to obtain and use the knowledge. In effect he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. You know one thing I noted about doctors was that it appeared people who learned a lot to be a doctor are more readily able to accept that there is so much more to learn. People who know little to nothing sometimes come across as the kind of people who talk the loudest and think they know everything they need to know. The doctor is usually smart enough to know when his expertise is exhausted and he needs to call in a specialist that knows more than he does. These are all examples and lessons that can be easily applied to us and the Bible, knowing the Bible, understanding the Bible and applying the Bible to our lives. Because people don’t know what the Bible says, when God sends a teacher with something new they resist it automatically, they criticize the speaker, they do stupid things that result in the rejection of Jesus himself. When Saul persecuted the early church and he threw them into jail, beat them and stoned them, Jesus took that very personally. Here we have an example of Saul not knowing what he didn’t know. Being raised a Jew under the law he thought he was doing all the right things. This is a very strong lesson for all of us to learn from even today. God is not through with teaching His people new things so you need to be open to hear it and to accept it. You need to keep your stones in your pockets and quit throwing them at God’s chosen servants.
Act 5:38 And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:
Act 5:39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.
Be as one of the wisest men in the Bible did, choose to keep your mouth shut and tell the others that if it is of God it will grow and prosper, if it is not of God it will die. This man knew to fight against God was a very foolish thing to do. If you read the verses prior to this statement, he gives examples of men who rose up with false messages and how they came to naught. It is very much like the story of Balaam in the Old Testament, he said “How can I curse what God has blessed”. This is a lesson for STUPID Christians in the world who are fighting against God’s servants. Learn the lesson given in Acts 5 and ignore false teachers. Do not attack false teachers, if they are from God they will prosper, if they are not from God they will come to nothing. It is not up to you to put it down, God has not appointed anyone as the watch dog of the Theology that men are preaching and teaching. The main reason for this, is the fact that you just do not know what you do not know. So if someone comes around teaching something new, it could very well be of God and thus you will not be able to stop it. If it is not of God, then it will die of its own self destruction. Learn this lesson and it will cause you to be much wiser.
Here is a natural example of what I’m talking about today, of not knowing what you don’t know. Say you are traveling down a dark highway in the middle of the night. You are going along with little to no traffic on the road. Up ahead a tragic accident happened and a barge hit the bridge and took the bridge completely out. If you continue at your current speed in the dark you will soon come upon the missing span and be unable to stop and plunge into the river. What is the lesson of this story? The lesson is you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know the bridge is out. You don’t know you are about to die. If you only had a flashing warning sign or cop in the road with flashing lights and a flashlight flagging the oncoming traffic down to stop you have a chance at being saved. Otherwise, you are doomed to go to a tragic outcome in this life. This is generally symbolic representation a true story of the situation of the world today. We have a tremendous number of people traveling on the road that Jesus called the road to destruction. This road is wide and long and many people will go that way not knowing the outcome that the symbolic bridge is out. But God has sent certain individuals into the world to draw attention to the fact that the bridge is out and to try to warn them. Jesus said that those who believe it will be saved and those that don’t believe will be damned. Those are tremendously important words to consider today. Try to figure out what you don’t know, because it just might save your life someday.
What Does God Think About Abortion? Pt 3
(Ver 1.4) We have been going through the Bible on the subject of abortion. More specifically in relation to what God thinks about this subject and ignoring the opinions of men and women. This is now Part 3 in the series. So if you have not read these lessons from the beginning I would recommend strongly that you go back and start reading with “Part 1” first. What else does the Bible reveal to us about the thoughts of God on abortion? Obviously, we have seen some very significant things in previous lessons from the book of Judges and Isaiah. These only become obvious when we study the subject searching for the truth that is related to the subject. But once we see it and understand it, then no one can take it away from us or deceive us into believing a lie. The Bible says in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established (2 Cor 13:1). So we don’t take a single scripture and make it a theological doctrine, but if we can find more than one verse that says the same things we better take it to heart, believe it and put it into action. I found another very good example given to us by God in the book of Genesis with the story of Isaac and Rebecca. Let us read the verse:
Genesis 25:21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him and Rebekah his wife conceived.
I read this verse and saw several similarities to the first scriptures that we read in the book of Judges in the first lesson. Here we have a story of a woman who was barren. This simply meant she was not able to have a child but yet she wanted to have one. Isaac prays to God and his wife Rebekah was able to conceive. So where did the child come from? Was he a gift of answered prayer from God? If this child is from God due to an a answered prayer request, does this imply that every child comes from God? Ask this question. Did God withhold the child from being conceived? It is obvious to me that Isaac and his wife tried many times to have a child and failed. Is this normal? Some couples do have a lot of trouble conceiving for many medical reasons, some are on the female reproductive side and others are on the male reproductive side. A barren women seems to indicate in this case it was Rebekah that had the problem.
One problem with abortion that needs to be addressed is that there are a lot of infertile couples in the world that would like to receive an aborted child and take care of him or her to raise them as their own. This is a very significant answer for women that get pregnant and feel like they are unable to keep or take care of the child. There are so many options other than murdering an unborn child for us to consider.
I knew of a lady that this happened to. She got pregnant when she was not married by falling into a trap of Satan to sleep and be intimate with a guy from a fit of temporary passion and pleasure. She did not consider the consequences of having this relationship at that moment but found out shortly afterwards what had happened. I mean this lady already had two daughters so she knew how things worked and what would happen. But, we all do foolish things on a spur of the moment poor choice.
This woman did not want to keep her child because of her single status and the fact her guy friend did not turn out to be so responsible for his part in the creation of the child. I’m sure this nice woman regretted her choice and even considered having an abortion. However, she found a friend that wanted the child and after she was born the friend took her and raised her. The real mother that gave birth was still able to watch her child develop and grow in a loving complete family environment. And the other couple that is caring for the child is thrilled that they had a child to love. We must understand that this other couple was unable to conceive and this solution that God provided kept the child alive and made everyone involved, including the child happy. God is able to do much more than we can think if we give Him the chance and believe (Eph 3:20).
If all this is true, about God’s ability, God’s involvement in the process, and God’s desire to meet and answer the prayers of people, who are we to terminate the pregnancy of God’s gift? Please understand the child that is killed has no one to defend them or stop even their mom from taking their life. This miraculous gift from God is a new him or her that has a purpose to exist! We can choose to do right to answer someone else’s prayer for a child or fail and resist what God desired to do for someone else. We should really think about that a long time before we end a pregnancy. Now let’s continue reading in this story in Genesis.
Genesis 25:22 And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.
This time of pregnancy there is not one child but twins, two children that are formed as gifts from God and answers to prayer. Did you notice that in verse 22 of Genesis 25, that God called them “children” even before they were born? They are still both within their mother’s womb and God calls them living “children”. Not a fetus, not an embryo, not a potential life form, not a future or potential child. God calls them H1121 the Hebrew word that means sons and children, the same title and name given to born babies. This Hebrew word literally means a person who is the builder of the family and the continuation of the family name. Wow, I pray you understood that definition.
If God calls them both “son family builders” and children while they are in the womb, who are we to call them anything else? Doesn’t this recognition provide us a very clear divine viewpoint of what God thinks of children in the womb? This is of course the antithesis of what Satan thinks about children in the womb. Satan knows the truth but uses a technique to deceive humans by relabeling the truth as a false concept by calling something truthful by a different false name. Satan does this in order to dehumanize and devalue them. This is also the plan of Satan today to end the design of the God created family structure. Satan has done this by calling babies an embryo, a fetus, a beginning nucleus, the stage after fertilization, developing tissues, rudimentary development or something else worse like a germ. I’m sure you have heard slang terms for a developing child as being called a bun in the oven, or a woman that is knocked up, or even she is just “late” (for her normal monthly cycle).
Satan brainwashes people into believing by the media and education institutes that narrate a constant flow of repetitive untruths that are used to distract us from learning the truth. For example, liberals do not call the murder of a child ant abortion anymore, it has been falsely promoted to “women’s healthcare” choices. WOW! But, what about the child’s healthcare choices? No, this goes along with the brainwashing that he or she is not a child being dehumanized to be only a blob of potential life. Liberals have designed this approach so that whatever we use to believe was the truth we can’t call an unborn child what God calls them. Let us get back to our Bible verses. Rebekah understood the children insider her were living beings and that they were struggling and fighting each other on the inside of her already. She uses wisdom in her situation and goes to God and asks Him about what is happening inside her body between her children. This is what God’s response was to her question.
Genesis 25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in they womb and two manner of people shall be separated from they bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger;
If this verse is not enough to set us straight on the subject of abortion and what God thinks about these unborn babies, then I do not know what is. God says these two children corporately represent two independent nations and two different groups of people living on the earth. That is really a very heavy statement made by the living God, our creator. What if there had been abortion available to Rebekah and she had ended the lives of these children? A great number of people would not have been born and two nations would not exist today. Remember that God called them nations and people while they were still unborn children and in the womb. God recognized who they were and what they would become long before they were ever born. That is pretty plain and very clear if you ask me.
Please recall who these two children were! The firstborn was named Esau and the second born son was named Jacob. Esau originates a nation called Edom with his descendants being called Edomites. Jacob on the other hand originate the nation of Israel having 12 sons that originated the twelve tribes of Israel and eventually our LORD Jesus Christ. Wow, thank God that both of these nations were born!
So we learn and confirm the fact that God knows not only who you are before we are born, but He also knows every descendant that will come from us after we are born. WOW! So how does a woman’s right to choose the life or death of her child, affect all of the potential human beings that were supposed to be here, but are not because of this personal decision to terminate the life created within them? Is God going to hold us responsible for the children that were not born here because of what we decided? I believe with all of my heart that He will and I do not want to find out the consequences for making that decision or for even voting for people that promote that right to choose. Are we willingly participating in murder by how we vote? Again I believe we are!
There are many other verses in the Bible like these that I can give you that will tell us the same thing. God knows us before we are born, even while we are in our mother’s womb and He already has a plan and a purpose for each of us to fulfill. God knows our name before we are born, he knows where we will live, work and play. God knows every child, grandchild and descendant that will come from us. We can go through the Bible and we will see this repeatedly if we are looking for it. However, let me show you another set of verses that I think is directly related to this subject and speaks volumes about a spiritual truth and a Bible principle that is relevant to this subject of abortion.
Hebrew 7:9 And as I may so say, Levi also who received tithes, paid tithes in Abraham.
Hebrew 7:10 For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.
I don’t know about you but I read these verses and they revealed so much, that I had great difficulty knowing where to start talking about them. The primary subject matter is about tithing, but the underlying revelation is far, far greater than that. Hebrews 7:9 speaks of a man named Levi who was a priest that received tithes from the nation of Israel. But did you notice that this verse also says Levi paid tithes in Abraham? I’m really not sure if you totally grasp the principle being given here. Levi was a great-grandson of Abraham. Abraham had a son named Isaac, Isaac had a son named Jacob and then Jacob had 12 sons and one of them was named Levi. How can Levi great-grandson of Abraham pay tithes long before he was born back in when his great-grandfather Abraham paid tithes? Verse 10 gives us the answer, it says he (Levi) was still in the loins of his father Abraham. The Greek word for loins here is a word that can mean the hip area. In other words the sexual organ area of Abraham. What we are learning is that whatever Abraham did, Levi also did. We are also learning that Levi existed in Abraham years before he was even conceived in his mother. Wow, wow, and wow! That is very strong and powerful information. People clearly do not have a clue what is in them and what they are doing to their children today. The spiritual law implications given here are incredibly far reaching. Out of the millions or billions of sperm cells in Abraham, God already recognized that one of them was representative of a future descendant named Levi. God then teaches us that whatever your father did, you also did because you were physically present inside your father, your grandfather and even your great-grandfather. If you can see it this of course is directly related to abortion, because everyone still comes from the union between one man and one woman. God sees and knows the exact individual specific parts on the inside of us (the exact egg and sperm) that will create every baby and He calls them by their name long before they arrive into the world.
CONCLUSION
I hope and pray that you are grasping the concepts being taught here by the Holy Spirit from His living Word! If you do grasp them, you should never think about having sex casually and aborting the resulting child in the same way again. This child is known by God. God knew exactly the two cells that would come together to form this child and He knew their name and their purpose for existence. He also knows every descendant that was supposed to come from them whether to create a new nation, a new President, a new scientist, etc. Please take this information and share it with others. We are in a spiritual warfare on this planet between good and evil. Satan is evil and he desires to kill every descendant and potential threat to conquering and overcoming his evil. God is good and came to give everyone life and that life even in abundance (Jn 10:10). Therefore we should do what God recommends to us in Deuteronomy 30:19, when He says “I have set before you life and death, therefore choose life that you and your descendants live”. Wow, that is an amazing recommendation and I pray I helped someone today to make the right choice. Thank for reading and studying the Word of The Creator God. I pray that it is a blessing to you and will help enlighten the choices that you may be faced with today. I love you and God loves you. There are alternatives to death and their are greater benefits to giving life than you can imagine right now.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons you can go to “Part 4“.
Genesis 2:8 The Confrontation Between East and West
(Ver 2.0) When you read the Bible and begin to understand that every word has significance and meaning, you start to pay much closer attention to which words God selected to describe the events within creation. Knowing that God is so much smarter than we are and that He could have chosen any words that He desired to convey His thoughts to us, we must realize that He chose these exact words found in Genesis to describe creation to us. Recently in my blogs I have been skipping around in Genesis 2 for no particular reason, just giving you glimpses into the variety of subjects found there. Today we are going to look at verse 8 of Genesis 2 and see what God says to us.
Genesis 2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
I often times wondered why God said that he planted a garden eastward in Eden. We can clearly see from the information in this verse that man or Adam came from or was created somewhere to the west of Eden. Isn’t that interesting? Why is this so important that God included this fact in the Bible out of all the information that He could have given us? We don’t know exactly where Eden was located; we are only given the general location of Eden using the names of 4 rivers which are said to have flowed through it. We can assume using the general information of the location of these four rivers given to us that Eden must have been somewhere in or near the area between Israel and Iraq or in that general vicinity. I don’t really feel that the exact location is that important, but I believe that the general principles and concepts surrounding them are very important to today’s lesson. We can also assume based upon this location that somewhere to the west, probably in Northern Africa, the Man was created and then moved to the Garden. So why is this significant? It is the first mention of any compass direction in the Bible. The first mention of any subject in the Bible always has significance. There are many implied truths given to us in this scripture. We can see that much clearer later when we get to what happens later in chapter 3 after the fall of man.
What I will tell you now is just some overall concepts of the differences between human civilizations and the developmental differences between the east and the west. If you’ve never thought of this before, it is very fascinating to see the spiritual implications of east vs. west. The Far East as it is called has always been dominated by spiritual darkness; religions of the mind, religions of the body and the religions of idol worshippers. All of these types of religions focus more upon worshipping creation and ignoring the creator. You can go to places in China, Japan, Indonesia and other places and see the temples and idols of gods that have dominated that part of world. These are gods made by the hands of men and worshipped by ignorant and deceived humans. As a result we can see the rise of communism and dictatorships of godless governments that do everything in their power to attempt to limit and restrict Christianity, the Bible and the spread of the truth. Nowhere else in the world is this so prevalent as it is in the eastern Asia.
Then we can see another conglomeration of religions centered around the region of Eden which are primarily dominated by Judaism along with Islam and some Christians. Moving to the west we see the rise of more dominate Christianity and free societies and governments. What we begin to see is a dividing line and a growing trend of a clash between the cultures of the east and the west. Of course we understand that we wrestle not with flesh and blood but the spiritual forces, the rulers of the darkness of this world (Eph 6:12). It seems that these spiritual forces while attempting to make inroads into the west have predominately through history have controlled more of the far eastern nations. In the book of Acts and in the Epistles there are a couple of mentioned times that Paul is not allowed by God to go to the Far East.
Acts 16:6 Now when they had gone throughout Phyrgia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia,
Paul is directed specifically by God to go west only. In fact it specifically says God forbid them from going into Asia. I would assume from this that it was too dangerous and the people in those regions would have just killed them. If you look at the world today, the hardest places for Christians to go into and teach and preach are still predominately in areas of the Far East and the continent of Asia. In recent news articles there were several aid workers who were giving the people of Afghanistan free medical care; these good Samaritans were executed by the Islamic extremist. The claim was that they were preaching the Bible trying to get Muslims to convert. Isn’t that religious tolerance and freedom and the free will exercise of the people’s mind? Why is it that Islam wants to force you to become a Muslim and then once you are a Muslim they will kill you for leaving? There are no choices in Islam your decisions are made for you, is that your God? The control of people by fear seems to be their only message. Other than fear they have no message of salvation. They cannot stand up to the truth so they have to shut up those who try to teach it to others. What I want you to think about is how different the cultures are in these two parts of the world. Communism still dominates China and Russia. The country of India is dominated by people who revere cows. Between those three countries lies almost half of the world’s population. I cannot thank God enough for being born in the free country of the United States of America. We are not a perfect country but at least I can go to church without fearing that the Government will come in and throwing everyone into prison, at least today I can. I’ll bring out more information about east and west as we get into chapter 3 of Genesis, but I just wanted you to start thinking along these lines and notice what God said about it in chapter 2.
What Does God Think About Abortion?
(Ver 1.5) This is Part 1 of a series of advanced Bible lessons about what God thinks about the subject of abortion. In the news a while back there was a great controversial clash of opinion between the left and the right that took place. It appears that one of the nation’s biggest Catholic Universities invited one of our liberal Democratic Presidents to speak at their graduation commencement. The single point of confrontation was a delicate subject that has divided our nation since 973. So what is this subject that has caused such a major division and debate? It is the subject of abortion. This subject came to the forefront of U.S. history in 1973 when the Supreme Court ruled abortion to be legal in a case named Roe vs. Wade. It still amazes me how 9 people on a court can make such sweeping broad rulings of moral values. The 7 members of the Supreme Court that ruled in favor of legalized abortion were named 1) Harry Blackburn, 2) Warren Burger, 3) William Douglas, 4) William Brennan, 5) Potter Stewart, 6) Thurgood Marshall and 7) Lewis Powell. According to Deuteronomy 19:10 I believe these seven men have a lot of innocent blood upon their hands. I hope that they regretted their choice and repented before they died.
INTRODUCTION
Let’s begin with the basics. What is an abortion and how is it defined? One dictionary say abortion is “a medical procedure to end a pregnancy”. It uses medicine or surgery to remove the embryo, fetus and placenta from the female uterus. That was a medical description from an abortion provider. But the Merriam-Webster dictionary puts it this way gaining additional new and important information. They say abortion is the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, and resulting in the death of the embryo or fetus. Wow, that changes things dramatically. Isn’t it interesting how some organizations omit words that are not desired to promote a result that would not be allowed after birth? One definition admits there is a death that occurs while the other just leaves this detail out completely. I think as we study the Bible we will learn that Merriam-Webster was more in alignment with God.
It seems that almost everyone in the world has some opinion on this matter and that is really the basis and the root of the entire problem of conflict. You see what I think about the subject of abortion and what you think about abortion really doesn’t matter or count for anything after we die. I mean who are you and who am I? The University speaking Liberal Democrat President’s opinion was that we should all just try to find some common ground and get along on this subject of abortion. But what he thinks really doesn’t matter or count for anything either. In fact what the Supreme Court’s opinion is on the subject of abortion doesn’t really matter or count for anything at all. All human opinion is baseless unless we agree with the one that created us.
What should only matter to you and I and concern us, is what does God think about the subject of abortion? If we could go instantly up to heaven and stand before the throne of God to ask Him a direct question on His thoughts on the subject of abortion, what would His answer be to us? Would God’s opinion change our opinion on the subject or would we still hang on to our opinion in spite of whatever He said about the subject? We should really think about that before we answer.
I wonder if we were confronted by God and told we were wrong about something, what would our response be? We could say I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was wrong and I’ll change immediately to be right. That would be the response of someone that was humble and feared God. Or we could say, I was wrong but then try to explain why we believed what we did was right at the time to justify our thoughts, opinions and actions. We could even try to be like an Adam or an Eve and pass the responsibility to someone else and redirect the attention away from ourselves and say it was just not my fault that I believed abortion was good and right, the court and the President made me believe it was right. We could be a real idiot and say sorry God, you’re wrong and I’m right and I’m not going to change my opinion or what I think no matter what You say or do. This last type of person has absolutely no fear of God. Or we could just care less and be indifferent. Our attitude could be just let people do whatever they want to do, it doesn’t have anything to do with me.
Which kind of person are you? What is your attitude towards this subject? If you are here on earth and can read this lesson from the Bible you must have not been aborted by your mother. Are you happy that your mother didn’t kill you before you were born? I personally believe that now is the time to learn the truth and change our opinions to conform with God’s thoughts on this subject. I’ll let you know right now that there will be no opportunities on judgment day to defend our wrong thoughts, opinions and actions we lived today. If we think there will be this chance, please show us the Bible verse that says this.
BEGINNING TO SEE GOD’S VIEWPOINT
If we proclaim ourselves to be a Christian then we should be aware that the Bible is the inerrant Word of the Living Creator God. The Bible is a directly written personal message to us from our God. The Bible was written for our benefit so that we could know this awesome God who none of us has ever seen before. So what a Christian does should follow God’s Word, His thoughts, His commandments, His instructions and the examples that He has given to us in this book. Let me show something that Jesus said to help confirm this point:
Mat 7:24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
Jesus said a wise man is one that hears the Word of God and does it. What is the opposite of that statement? The antithesis truth would be “a fool hears the word of God but does not do it”. What are you today a wise man or a foolish man? We all make this choice everyday in everything we do. So what does the Bible say on the subject of Abortion? And of course what would make us become a wise man that we could learn to change to do? Wisdom always begins with knowledge and knowledge must begin with learning about what God says on the subject abortion?
Like many other modern day Bible subjects the the word “abortion” is not found in the entire book, but that does not mean that God did not give us His thoughts on the subject. All we have to do to become wise is to study and find out what He has said on the subject using the other synonymous words that ARE found on the subject, so let’s do that. I want us to start this lesson by reading a very important foundational verse that is short but directly to the point on the subject of abortion.
Exo 20:13 Thou shalt not kill.
What does God say in this verse? It is one of the stated 10 commandments of God from the Old Testament. Are these a part of the words and of the commandments that Jesus was speaking of for a wise human to do? The Hebrew word H7523 translated as kill in this verse means “You shalt not commit murder”. What exactly is abortion if not murder? We learned earlier that Webster defined abortion as a death. To cause an innocent life to cease from continuing and developing in existence is clearly murder in Bible terms. What is the difference from a developing child inside the womb to one that has exited the womb and is still developing for another 18 years. If it is OK, to kill a developing child inside the womb, would it be fine to kill the same developing child outside the womb? Why is it today that outside the womb killing a child is called murder and killing a child inside the womb it is called abortion? They are both the same child! They are both in developing stages of growth. They both have the exact same DNA structure. Here is where the liberals have become creative to redefine that a living baby in the womb is not really a child but rather just a embryo or fetus and therefore not a viable self sustaining life form. By redefining a living developing child to be simply being labeled as an embryo or fetus they have dehumanized the living child, him or her and eliminated them for qualification as a living being for murder. Why do they not use this same logic when they have passed laws to protect the eggs of unborn eagles? Please answer this question, can a newly born baby child survive on its own outside the womb without assistance? Who is going to feed the child? Who is going to care for the child? Since they are not self sustaining do they fall into the same category and the unborn child that is fed by the umbilical cord that is attached to their mother? Do you see any problems with this type of thinking between how we should treat the child on the inside differently than how we treat them on the outside?
Did you know that destroying an unborn baby eagle bird in its egg is a punishable criminal offense? People can go to jail for killing (murdering) an eagle egg! Clearly it is the exact same type of stated unsustainable developing life form as the child (embryo or fetus) in the mother. Can you tell me what the difference is between an eagle egg and an unborn human baby? Yet one developing life form has gained a much greater value than the other in some people’s mind based upon some unknown reasoning. Why is that? How can that not be viewed as the same logical comparison that should not be ignored? Is the value in one species increased simply based upon the numbers of that species; are numbers what really matter? Because the eagle is endangered, does that make them more valuable to be protected than humans that are more populous on the earth? What do you think? Does God care more about eagles or for people? Did you know Jesus answered this question for you? In Matthew 10:29-31 Jesus speaking of two sparrows says God knows about them, but then tells humans they are much more valuable to Him than many sparrows.
Let me ask you this question, did God come to the earth to save just sparrows and eagles or did He come to save human people? If we do not know the answer to that question then we are in big trouble. John 3:16 gives us the answer by informing us that God loved us in the world so much that He died to save all those that believed in Him. Only a human is capable of believing.
Let us permit God to speak to us further on the subject of abortion and tell us His thoughts and then let us see how we react to His words:
Jdg 13:4 Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing:
Jdg 13:5 For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
Jdg 13:6 Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible: but I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name:
There are so many things to learn from the Bible, if we are open to the truths that it contains. We begin to learn when we allow God to show us what it actually means. Here is an example of a woman that had not had any children and the messenger of God shows up at her house and tells her that she is going to have a son. How did God know this? I think that is a really fair question and that the answer is probably more revealing than you can imagine. God knew of the child and what he was going to become and do long before he was even conceived. I will tell you that knowing this Bible fact alone will eliminate a woman’s right to choose an abortion. If God knows every child before they are born or even conceived and what they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to accomplish within their life, then who is a woman to overrule God to decide that the child should not be worthy to be born?
We know for a fact from biology class that the sex of a baby is determined by the male sperm from the father. Yet God knew which sperm cell was going to fertilize the egg in this woman in order for a male baby to be born. God knew that there was a future deliverer about to be born and according to many today, they would have said that this decision for him to be born should have been left up to the woman who conceived him. Is that what God thinks? Does a woman’s desire play a role in the plan of God for a child? Would a woman wanting a child be different from another woman not wanting her child? I personally do not believe it does based upon the Bible. We will hopefully look at this question more later.
Did you notice that God gave this woman specific instructions about what she did before she gave birth or this child was even conceived yet? In verse 4 God tells the woman not to eat or drink things that are bad for her or for the future baby. WOW, that is clearly a message that is very profound. God was basically informing us that what she did would affect the future child’s ability to fulfill his purpose. This truth places human responsibility on the mother that is way beyond what the world thinks right now. I believe that women and men will be judged for what they did to their future children good or bad.
This woman, the future mother described in Judges was told not to drink or eat any unclean thing before she conceived and while she carried this child in her womb. Why is this significant? If this was not a viable life form, why does it even matter what a woman eats or drinks? No, you see it does matter because this is not just an embryo or fetus in the eyes of God, or a blob of developing cells. In the eyes of God this was a child and God said it matters what you feed him. If it matters to God about this child and what he is fed in the womb, then it also matters to God and what every other child is fed in the womb. If it matters to God what this child was fed before it was born, then it clearly matters to God if this child was born at all.
Whose responsibility was it to eat the right things and drink the right things for the development of this baby? Was it God’s responsibility to see that his mother did the right thing or not? Did God make her do the right things here? These are not loaded questions! These are not hard questions to figure out the answers to either. If it matters to God about one baby in the Bible, then it matters to God about every baby that is supposed to be born. God does not treat one baby differently than the other, only people do that.
So what happens to all of God’s future planned roles and responsibilities of all of these babies that are aborted in our world by the mother’s choice to override God’s will? Do you think that the aborted children’s responsibilities in this life are just given to others that were not aborted? Or do you think that it is possible that there are a bunch of things that are not taking place and getting done, because the one that was going to find the cure for cancer was aborted? What if this child in Judges would have been aborted? What if his mother would have drunk wine and ignored the commandment of God? Would God had another deliverer to raise up or would Israel not have been delivered? I personally believe that this is a major problem with abortion and that there would have been no other one to take this child’s place.
Therefore, how many doctors, lawyers and teachers do you think have been aborted since 1973? Who or what exactly are we missing out on? Because of the abortion of the millions of future skilled workers, tax payers and roles that are being unfulfilled. How many church pastor’s, preachers, teachers and evangelists have been eliminated from coming into the world to help others get saved and not go to hell? Satan has used murdering people that some call doctors to create a population imbalance and reduction. Satan is trying his best to eliminate humans from coming into this world because they are threat to him.
CONCLUSION
This was just the introduction to the subject of “What does God think about Abortion?” I pray that you can begin to see from just one story in the Bible that it must matter greatly to God if a child is born. Why do you think Satan wants to kill all of the future children and keep them from entering the world? Could it be that one of these are the preacher that will reach the whole world with the truth? Does Satan think by eliminating future Christians that he can remain on this planet a little longer? I tell you that there are many things to consider on this subject. One is why has Satan been motivated to kill human children even since early in the book of Genesis? When Moses was born babies were tossed into the river to be drown, if they were males. This was a repeated occurrence when Jesus was born in Bethlehem and every child under 2 years old was killed. You see Satan is attempting to fight against whatever God has planned and is doing. We need to learn the truth and figure out whose side we want to be on. Abortion is a demonic evil plan of Satan to eliminate future humans and potential Christians. God is a pro-life God and is opposed to ALL abortion. We will continue to learn this as we go through this series of Bible lessons. Thanks for reading and studying the Bible with us today. I pray that what was stated has helped you to see what God really thinks on the subject and importance of future life.
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons on what God thinks about abortion, please continue to “Part 2“.
Genesis 2:7 – The Redemption of the Body
There are so many ways to look at scripture that it is a challenge to know which way to go. If you have been reading my blog, you know that I try to provide new perspectives into standard teachings. I always use the Bible to explain and interpret the Bible so I’m not making stuff up. However, since a lot of what I teach is new, I’m to you and stuff you never heard, it will be difficult for you to see at first. That is just the way the Bible is. People can look right at a verse of truth and never see what it says.
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
We can learn a lot by seeing inside the implications associated with property ownership. Since the man’s body was formed from the dust of the ground, that automatically implies the body can be bought and sold as any piece of property can be bought and sold. If you have ever bought a piece of property you will understand this concept. But what does that have to do with Adam?
Isaiah 52:3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; ye shall be redeemed without money.
Here are the words of God spoken to us. God declares that Adam sold himself for nothing. In other words Adam did not gain anything from the sales transaction with Satan. There was a transfer of ownership of a piece of property and Adam lost everything. After the fall of man we now have a new god of this world (2 Cor 4:4) who was in charge until Jesus came and died for us. Did you notice the last part of Isaiah 52:3, God says, I know you sold yourselves for nothing, but I will redeem you without any money.
Redemption is a fascinating concept. In natural terms, people in our world pawn or sell items to stores called Pawn Shops. The establishment gives the person some money for their items of value and then sets a time limit that the person who sold the item can come back and repurchase the item back, usually for a premium. If the time limit expires, the item is now property of the store owner and he can sell the item for usually more than he paid for it. That is an interesting concept and actually a parallel to what the Bible says happened to Adam. Adam sold his property to Satan, but God had an established time period to redeem it and God said I will pay the price to get it back, and it won’t cost me any money. We know that God paid the price with His life and His blood, so even though it didn’t cost money, it wasn’t free or cheap.
Romans 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
In Romans 8:23 we can see a statement that declares the time period for land transfer has not completely expired. If we are waiting, like Paul was waiting what are we waiting for? When is this expiration or redemption period over. When will the property revert to the correct ownership? Well this is what God’s law said about personal property and ownership.
Leviticus 25:10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man his family.
You see God instigated a time when every possession that was sold would be returned to the original owner. Every 50 years, a Jubilee would take place, a time of liberty a time of freedom for everyone. Any person who had been sold into slavery would be returned to his family. Any property sold to pay a debt would be returned to their original owners. This was God’s law and God’s solution to Adam selling what he couldn’t afford to sell.
Genesis 6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
I found Genesis 6:3 fascinating, did you notice that it said “man is also flesh”. This verse places a higher importance on something that man is above his body. Man is of course a spirit being that lives in a body. But in the eyes of God the man belongs in a body. Paul said in the New Testament, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” So we can see that the man’s spirit can be separated from his body. In which case if the man’s spirit leaves his body we know the body is dead. If you die and go to heaven that doesn’t mean that you are not still waiting for your glorified body.
So many will question this reasoning, but I can see it based upon other scriptures in the Bible so I believe it. In Genesis 6:3 God speaking about the years of man said they will be 120. Most people these days don’t live that long, but a few have reached ages near that number. But I don’t think God was talking about that, or I guess I should say God was implying something else. If you take 120 and multiply it by 50 (Jubilees) you get what? The answer comes to 6000, that is an amazing number in light of the Genesis 1 prophecy. It seems that man’s time period of physical redemption is 6000 years. At this time the property will revert back to the original owner. There are really no coincidences in the Bible, there are really just a lot of clues. Putting the clues together is where we come in and that is our job. God has given us an assigned task to figure out the clues. In a short Blog like this, I can’t really give you every scripture reference and all the information that you probably need to figure these things out. All I can do is give you some snippets and a few references to help you search for the truth in a new way.
Genesis 2:2 The Seventh Day, God’s Coming Day of Rest
Genesis 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
It is fascinating to me to know that God works and God rests. I don’t think God get’s tired like we do sometimes, but yet this is what it says. In Genesis 1 it said that man was made in the image of God, so if God works I would guess that He expects man to work. That is a big reason I’m not in favor of welfare and free hand outs by the government, the church or by any individual. I’m not opposed to helping people, but I believe people should be willing to work to get the help. So many people today just want a free ride and a hand out. I’m not for giving those types of people anything. It sounds pretty harsh, but people need to read the Bible and find out what God thinks is right. I’m pretty sure I read in my Bible, you don’t work, you shouldn’t eat. Oh, well I’ll move on and get off my soap box.
Verse 2 of Genesis 2 is the first mention of Day 7. We have already learned that each day of creation corresponds to a 1000 year period of human history. I’ve already alluded to the fact that this day 7 corresponds to the millennial 1000 year reign of Christ which will occur directly after the 7 year tribulation period. During this time period I’ve been told Christ will return to earth and establish a kingdom on earth without the presence of evil. During this time period Satan and his demons will be bound and unable to tempt or deceive anyone. At the end of this 1000 year time period the Bible says that Satan will be released to deceive again and anyone born during this 1000 year time period will have the opportunity to choose to believe the deception and be cast into the lake of fire.
There are verses in Hebrews chapter 4 that speak of this coming day of rest. These verses directly confirm the prophetic nature of Genesis and declare that this day will soon be coming. We are also told that we must make an effort to enter into this rest in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4. Those who choose not to believe will not enter into God’s rest we are told. It appears that the ball is in our court on whether we enter into God’s day of rest.
Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Revelation 14:13 I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.
So apparently God sees our works and acknowledges them. He has determined a time of rest for His saints. But, now is not the time. Now is the time of harvest and if you have ever had a farm you know harvest is not easy or restful.
Genesis 2:1 The Stated End of God’s Creative Work
Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them.
(Ver 1.1) This is “Part 1” in the series of lessons on the study of the verses of Genesis Chapter 2. Today we will begin the series looking at only verse 1. The first verse of Genesis 2 begins with a statement of completion that basically says God has “finished” or “ended” His works of creation both in the heavens and on the earth. It is interesting to note that this verse says “finished”. This is the Hebrew word H3615 that means “to end”. What ended? We should have learned in chapter 1 that God spoke ten times in order to return order back into the initial state of disorder found in Genesis 1:2 when the earth was fully covered by water.
What we are learning by this statement of completion the earth and the heavens have been restored to their originally created state of order. This again affirm something major occurred between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 to cause this chaos and I believe this chaos occurred during Satan’s initial rebellion described in Ezekiel 28:11-19.
This is a good time to confirm how God works. We learn from reading John 6:29 that Jesus defines God’s work as Him doing something that causes humans to believe in the sent Son of God, Jesus. This would imply that someone was speaking right words about Jesus that cause someone to believe in Him. Spoken Words are a major part of God’s work. We also learn from reading John chapter 1:
Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
Joh 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
This should be a review of things we learned from chapter 1. But we can see again that the Word of God was With God in the beginning and we further confirm that this Word was God. God teaches us that we cannot separate Him from His Word because they are the same. When then learn more important information that His Word created everything that was created in the three dimensional realm of space and matter. What we can conclude is that God speaking to create has ceased. There is nothing else that needed to be spoken to be created in order to fulfill His plan for humanity.
Since we have discovered in this verse that God’s work has been fully completed and yet there are more works being described in this chapter, we must understand that everything else in this chapter after this statement has to be a detailed recap or explanation of things that have already occurred in chapter 1. If you didn’t know, everything in the Bible is not sequential, or in ordered time sequence. In other words from this point forward in the Bible (verse 1), God is done working and won’t be doing anything else to create anything else new in the natural realm. That of course does not mean God doesn’t do anything to maintain, deliver, or work in the lives of his people. It just means creation of the world system is complete.
It is very interesting to note that this verse ends with “and all the hosts of them”. If you look up the Hebrew word for hosts, it refers to a military term for a group of people organized for war. Isn’t that interesting? We can see major prophetic implications here concerning the church. The book of Genesis was not divided into chapters until much later, so what we see at the beginning of Chapter 2 is really the ending of Chapter 1 and could still be talking about day 6. There are many places in the New Testament where Christians are instructed to put on armor, which includes shields, breastplates, even swords. But then we are told that our enemy is not with flesh and blood but with the spiritual forces of darkness. There are huge implications all over this verse if you can see it.
6 Days of Creation – Genesis Chapter 1 Review
(Ver 1.2) In my Blogs the last couple of weeks I have been exploring an overview of the 6 days of creation and teaching how each day fits a prophetical view into God’s timeline for the 6000 year period of human history. I know this is a controversial viewpoint and it is probably brand new information to many. However, it is there if you research it and studyit from a prophetic perspective. Some have probably wondered how did I come up with the idea that the 6 days of creation were prophetic windows? I beleieve that it is just what the Bible says and therefore it is not my opinion or my personal interpretation of what God says. What we must do is to allow the Bible to interpret itself, so we must look for God’s definitions, His commentary and explanations and we must put these together with the words written in Genesis to understand them. Look at this verse and see what it says for yourself:
Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things which are not,…
You see from this verse God says I have declared or stated the end from the beginning. In other words God has prophesied the ending from the beginning. Genesis chapter 1 definitely declares the beginning of our current world system. So somewhere in that description is information about what is going to occur in our history and its final conslusion. To declare something that has not occurred is clearly a statement of prophetic proportion. The only to verify that a prophecy is from a real prophet is for us to examine the words and see if they have been fullfilled, have transpired or are coming to pass presently. Here is another scripture that speaks to us along these lines:
Ecclesiastes 1:9 The thing that has been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done, is that which shall be done,….
Again in this verse we see a powerful reference of something to look for when reading and studying the Bible. We can use these words to imply that God declares that what He has done during creation is that which will occur again. You see as I have read the Bible I have discovered a series of repeated patterns that have occured over and over. That is why that I believe that we should study the book of beginnings like it was a raod map to our future. Of course since we are at the very end of the 6th day or 6000 years, we should realize that we do not have very much time left. This actually makes our research more sure, since the majority of recorded history has already occurred and we are nearing the end now.
We started the chapter analysis by looking at the fact that the earth as stated in the Bible is much older than 6000 years, but we are not specifically told how old it is anywhere. It could very well be millions or billions of years old. We looked at scripture that speaks to us about a pre-Adamic civilization or world that existed prior to our current world system. We found scriptures that indicate that this world was completely destroyed and apparently God started over with us, or for us.
We looked at the work of God during creation and identified God’s first act as being division. God divided Light from darkness. We can imply from this that prophetically speaking God is breaking away or dividing himself from something that He does not want to associate with. At least 3 times in the chapter we can see that God divided something from something else. I can tell you right now that most Bible teachers and preachers don’t have a clue to the significance of these words of God so they ignore them. I’m sorry that I just don’t have time to teach you all of that right now.
The next significant point about creation is how God created. I might have alluded to the fact that God looked at the problem and always spoke the answer or the solution. As it is written in the New Testament, God is a God who calls those things that be not as though they were and as we can see from creation, they become exactly what they are called. Since man is made in the image of God this implies that man operates the exact same way that God operates. Of course not at the same level or capacity that God is, but you would be amazed at what the Bible says about our spoken words and the Bible is very strong in this area and says many things that are very hard to accept by many Christians.
During our study we identified some of the key symbolic elements and researching them in the scriptures discovered what they meant and how they are applied within creation. Light is symbolic of God. Seas are symbolic of people. Day and night are symbolic of the conditions of men’s hearts. Some have allowed the sun of God to light their hearts and then others have been kept in darkness because they have allowed Satan to blind their minds. We have identified the symbolic Sun as being Jesus Christ. Then we have identified the symbolic moon as being Satan, the ruler of the darkness.
In the creation of Adam on day 6 I took you through an analysis of the Hebrew words for man and Adam as being the same word. I then showed you from scripture how Genesis 1:27 should have been translated as Adam instead of man, because God calls both the male and the female by the same name. The inference of and application to marriage is of course easily seen.
Finally we looked at the coming into maturity of the body of Christ. We also looked at the delegated authority of the body of Christ. We are at the end of Day 6 of God’s established timetable and God has the planned return of Jesus Christ next on the agenda. I believe very strongly that Jesus’ return is not very long from now. I know I did not attempt to cover everything that the chapter speaks about. My goal was to give you some new perspectives and things to think about that you hadn’t seen before. Things that can be tremendously important to understanding a large portion of the Bible. I hope you have enjoyed Chapter 1 of Genesis and we will move into Chapter 2 next. I probably will not go verse by verse but I will change to a larger what are the key concepts given to us level of study. There are some awesome things in Chapter 2 and 3 if you can see them. So continue reading in Genesis and see what else God has to reveal to us.
The Bible Contains Riddles, Puzzles, Mysteries and Secrets
(Ver 1.4) This of course is a very difficult subject for many Christians to accept or acknowledge. So many Christians struggle with believing the concept that God would intentionally hide important information from us. How could a loving God ever keep us from easily finding that which He desires us to learn and know? I once heard a minister say that studying the Bible is like a natural man searching for natural gold and I found that I could really not improve on that analogy so I’ll use it to help you understand how the Bible was written by God’s design. If you’ve ever panned for gold in Colorado or California you will have already discovered how difficult it was to find anything of significant value on the surface. I tried it but I came up empty even after several attempts when I was in Colorado, I guess it was fun, but it would have certainly been better if I had left with something that I could have said WOW, look at this!!! Look at what I found. This is a lot like reading the Bible and many do it everyday, but never walk away with the WOW, look at this. “Look what I found in the Word of God”. Why is that? There are probably a lot of reasons and I cover many of them in this Blog. Here is a verse of scripture about God and it describes a characteristic of His nature that must be understood if you are going to be a serious student of the Bible:
Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.
What an amazing statement of universal truth. This verse clearly states that God is glorified by Him hiding information for us to find. Oh yes, I should have told you first that we are the kings and priests of God that He is referring to in this verse. Jesus is called the King of kings and the Lord of lords (Rev 19:16). The reference to “kings” is us! I know that bugs the heck out of religious people, but please get over it see what the Bible says.
Like digging for gold in the natural world so it is in the spiritual world with the Word of God. People don’t usually find many big gold nuggets of truth on the surface of God’s Word by just reading the it. There we must ask, how do we find them? We find them by digging deep for them. It involves work and that is a four-letter word to many. Proverbs 25:2 said that the honor of kings was in the searching of the information. Searching involves effort and that is spelled W O R K! There is a lot of information that can be found on the surface of reading the Bible, but the really good stuff is always found much deeper within the text. Did you ever notice the world’s largest gold producers are finding most of the valuable stuff deep underground using tunnels, blasting, digging and a whole bunch of effort. Occasionally they might find a large vein and strike it very rich by digging deep. Bible study is the exact same thing. I noticed this scripture in the Old Testament that confirms that God has secrets:
Amos 3:7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he reveal his secret unto his servants the prophets.
This verse informs us that God has secrets, but it also says that God will not do anything without first revealing his secrets to His servants, His prophets. That tells me the Old and New Testaments both have the potential of an extraordinary number of hidden secrets of God. Some we have discovered and most that we have not yet found.
Proverbs 1:23 Turn you at my reproof: behold I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
God says in this verse in Proverbs that He will make known His words after He has poured out His Spirit. We can see that the work involves the Holy Spirit. We can also see the clear implication that the meanings of the words must be hidden if God is going to make them known. You see we have had these words recorded for us to read for thousands of years. But yet the implication is that there is still more to know. Many will try to explain this away as having happened back with the apostles. But that event was only the former rain and now is the time of the later rain. Now is when God is again pouring out His Spirit unto men. Now is the time for the harvest. There are so many scriptures that tells us the same information, here is one from the book of Daniel:
Daniel 2:20 Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: 21 And he changed the times and the seasons: he removes kings and sets up kings: he gives wisdom unto the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding. 22 He reveals the deep and secret things: he knows what is in the darkness and light dwells with him.
You see from these verses that God is the one that holds all wisdom and that He gives it to us so that we can become wise. But verse 22 says the main point of this Blog, God reveals the deep and secret things to us. A “Deep” thing is an implied truth that is not easily understood or seen. These are very strong statements of truth and teach us a lot about the Bible. It tells us that everything in the Bible is not shallow and easy to find or understand. It implies that there is an extended effort and a commitment necessary from those who want to find these “deep” secrets. Let’s jump into the New Testament and look at another verse:
1 Corinthians 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory.
Here we read another verse that declares God has hidden things in the Bible and it even refers to them as mysteries. What is a mystery? A mystery to me would be a complex puzzle, a code, riddle or something that is not plain or obvious. If you could look at it and immediately know what it was, it wouldn’t be a mystery would it? So apparently if you haven’t figured it out, the Bible is written in a style that conceals many things and makes hidden much of the knowledge, understanding and wisdom of God.
Romans 16:25 Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.
This is another great example of the fact that God hid the revelation of Jesus Christ from the very beginning of our created world. We can observer clearly in this verse that God must reveal this information to us in the form of a revelation given to us in this instance by the writer Paul. If you didn’t know it, there are still Pauls in the world today that God uses. God is revealing things, giving revelation to many within the body of Christ and all you have to do is recognize it when you hear it. Yes, there will be false teachers, prophets and etc. in this world But, the Word of God will always be correct when rightly divided. Judge what people say by the Bible. So we can see so many verses that declare that the Bible contains the mysteries and secrets of God, here is just one more:
Colossians 1:26 Even the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations, now is made manifest to his saints.
This is a fantastic verse if you are one of God’s saints. For if you are a saint of God then this verse assures that you are potentially destined to know these hidden secrets. The implication is clearly given that they are intended for God’s saints to know and understand. Some will attempt to explain, that was only for them, the early church and not for us now. I can hear it all now. But there is no way it is not for us right here and right now. This is what Jesus said about the secret things of God:
Luke 8:17 For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest: neither anything hid that shall not be known and come abroad.
This is of course a little difficult to see in the King James version of the Bible, but it basically says that there is nothing that was hidden or secret that will not be made known or revealed so that we can see them, understand them and know them. That is a powerful prophecy and the words of God himself speaking. Has this occurred yet? I really only think we have scratched the surface of this prophecy, but I believe it will be fulfilled before Jesus’ return. You of course can believe whatever you like. You might ask how can this be, is it possible that the body of Christ could unify and see the truth? I think it is possible if we allow God to do it. This scripture in Daniel shows us what God is capable of by just one Old Testament prophet:
Daniel 2:47 The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is that your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets seeing that thou could reveal this secret.
So the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar recognized the power of God. By God revealing a bit of information to him the king was convinced that he was the true God. You see God just has to reveal a few key things to get people to see and He knows what those are. I believe that is why we will see major changes in attitudes and major changes in the true church of the living God.
So what have we seen? That the Bible contains mysteries, secrets, riddles and puzzles that God is starting to reveal to us in these end times. If you start looking for them, and expecting them to happen, God will make sure that they do happen. But since there are so many false teachings going around, here is what the Bible recommends for us to do:
Acts 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
You should follow this example of the early church. Be open to hear and learn, but search God’s Word everyday to see if they are really true. Don’t buy into anything I say or anything anyone else says just because they said “Thus saith the Lord” or I have a revelation from God. Too many ignorant people have done that and burned or died in a compound when their leader suddenly said it was time for them all to die. God can and will show us if what is being taught is true or not in His word if we stop and ask and listen to His leading. If God doesn’t bear witness within your own spirit that its right, reject it and run far away very fast. Just remember that God still expects us all to search and work for it and to see what His word says. God will reward them that diligently, meticulously, conscientiously, thoroughly seek Him. It will be up to you, what you learn in these last days, more than it will be up to God. Thank you for reading these Bible lessons and I pray that they are all a blessing to you. Please tell someone about this website and help the Gospel go forth to as many as we can reach.
Genesis 1:24-31 Day 6 God’s Delegated Authority
(Ver 1.1) There are so many things to learn in the Bible it is a challenge to figure out what do people already know, what do they need to know and what is important. So I plan on wrapping up my blog on Day 6 of creation with this last bit of information. When I worked for a small software company many years ago, I met a man there that had graduated from a seminary (which will remain nameless). He had some very strange ideas about the Bible and had been taught many things by people who obviously didn’t know God. There is a difference in knowing about God and knowing God. Well any way this man told me that in first chapter of Genesis when God said “Let them have dominion”, that didn’t mean they were in control of anything. In other words he read the scripture and immediately threw away the verse because it did not fit his theology. That of course is a huge problem. We should always make our theology and beliefs fit what we read and learn and not the other way. What does it mean to have dominion? Here is what Webster defines the word as:
Dominion: dominance or power through legal authority
Adam was given legal authority over the planet. That would make him the ruler of the earth, wouldn’t it? If you are brave you might have called Adam the “god” of this world”. God’s statement gave Adam dominion, and that implies a transfer of ownership. A legal status change or transfer from God to man. Legal authority is a right that is bestowed upon you, something that can only be transferred upon you by a higher authority. You can’t make your self a policeman, but if you sign up go through the training and are accepted you can be given the authority of a policeman by the local city government. A policeman has a transferred authority to carry out and enforce the law. Power and authority are sometimes used as synonymous terms. But really they are quite different, many strong men have the ability to exercise power over people to make them do what they want, but most do not have the authority backing them. When God created the world he turned over the authority to rule it to his creation.
Psalm 115:16 The heavens, even the heavens are the Lord’s: But the earth he hath given to the children of men.
This verse in Psalms tells us very clearly that the earth was given to the children of Adam. Do you recall in the Gospels when Jesus walked the earth he constantly referred to himself as “the son of man”. Jesus of course was a Hebrew and in the Hebrew he was saying I am a son of Adam. Remember man and Adam are the same Hebrew word. The Pharisee’s would ask him where do you get your authority to do these things? They recognized that he taught with authority, spoke with authority, cast out devils, healed the sick and did many other miraculous things. But Jesus never told them where he got this authority. I personally believe that God had given it to him when he created Adam.
So what is the huge controversy about this delegated authority of man? The main problem that the seminary graduate had was that it violated his idea of God’s sovereignty. If man was in control of the planet, that meant God was not. If man was responsible to work and keep the garden, then that means God was not. The implications are huge and it helps to explain a lot of things in the Bible when we see these things clearly. Why did Jesus have to come in the form of a man in order to redeem us? Why did the omnipotent God have to be birthed through a woman on this planet to do everything he needed to do to free us from sin, Satan, death and evil. There are so many things to think about and to consider. But, we first must start by reading the Bible finding out what God says happened and then attempt to understand how that affected us.
When I started this blog, one of my statements was probably very offensive to some. I called Adam the god of this world when he was created. It is funny how many things that are in the Bible that people ignore. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 God calls Satan the god of this world, how did he get this title? It had to be transferred to him from Adam. Remember when Jesus was tempted by the devil? Satan came to him and said “worship me and I’ll give you everything that you can see.” Satan told Jesus that it had all been given to him. So who gave it to him? It had to be Adam, because God had given it all to Adam. Only the owner has the right to transfer ownership. I can’t come up to your house and tell you that I am giving your house to someone else that wants it. If I don’t own your house I don’t have a right to tell you who lives in it. So many things to consider, isn’t there? So then what do Christians do with John the 10th Chapter when Jesus tells humanity, “Is it not written in your book of the law, I said you are gods.”. Most religious people and denominations stay very far away from that verse and never touch it. Act like it does not exist and we don’t have to address it. If we acknowledge that it’s there, then we have to come up with excuses of why it’s not true. Heaven help us all!
When Jesus was raised from the dead he makes a statement that blows you away. In Matthew 28:18 Jesus says this “All power is given to me, both in heaven and in earth.” What a radical statement, according to what many theologians teach, you would have thought that God already had all power in heaven and in earth. Apparently Not! Do you see the problem? Here we have another very direct statement that God (the highest authority) has delegated all authority to Jesus both in heaven and on the earth. How could God do that? It was because Jesus was a son of Adam and had the right to take back what his father Adam had given away. See right there so many religious people are going to scream and say I said Jesus’ father was Adam and not God. But I didn’t say that. Jesus was the Son of God, but He called Himself the son of Adam. Naturally born a child of Adam a man, but spiritually conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. The combination of God’s word and Mary’s egg, produced a man called Jesus Christ. A man who was 100% God and 100% man.
That concludes my short lesson on delgated authority. If you study the subject you will clearly see that God had the right to do whatever He desired with His creation and He clearly desired to create a man and give it all to him and his children. Jesus came to the earth to get back what Adam had given away to Satan and do other things that I have not touched on as of this point in my Bible lessons. Please continue to read and to learn what Jesus has done for us. God Bless!
Genesis 1:24-31 Day 6 Part 1 Prophecy of Man
(Ver 1.1) We have arrived at the last day of creation, the last day of God’s work to create our current world system. We again see the law of Genesis being restated in the creation of the animals and the rest of the creatures that inhabit the earth. Everything on the earth produces after its own kind. Squirrels produce only squirrels, mice produce only mice, horses produce only horses, cattle produce only cattle, etc. It is very interesting to note that everything is completely created before man arrives. God has provided everything that man would have need of and there was nothing lacking. No there were no cities, houses, cars or roads, not even any computers or internet but God provided every raw material necessary for man to create all of these. It is also interesting to note that God created man to be an inverntor and a creator. Man does not create on the level of God, but we create, music, art, machines, tools, on and on. I’m sure God gave many these ideas for these great inventions and creations and maybe even helped them build them. But creating stuff is in man and no other creature possesses this feature to man’s creative degree. I’ve never seen a monkey paint a Mona Lisa.
We can see that God created everything that man would have need of physically, but spiritually would be another question. I don’t know how preachers can teach poverty and self sacrifice. It seems religious minded people have a tendency to look at a mother Theresa and think she is some kind of saint because she owns nothing. I personally think that is slap in the face of God who created everything for his creation to enjoy, to possess and to use. If God had not intended for man to have any of it, why would He have went to so much trouble of putting it here in the first place. If you have children and your two year old wants to play with a knife would you put it on the table and say leave that alone it’s not for you. Any two year old will forget quickly whatever they are told and pick that knife up and do whatever they want to with it. In order to keep somebody from having something that is harmful the best things to do is not to put it any where within their reach in the first place. So obviously God is smarter than parents if He thought wealth and riches were not good for His children because it would hurt them, the would He have put them here anyway? Do you see how idiotic people’s opinions can get? No you see in Revelation that heaven is paved with streets of Gold. That sounds like wealth to an extreme. It doesn’t sound like God thinks that wealth is harmful does it? Oh well let’s move on to another subject. Let’s skip down to verse 27 and look at the creation of man.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
I firmly believe that starting in verse 27 that the creation of man is a prophetic event signifying or prophesying the coming into maturity of the new creation of those in the church or those called the body of Christ. Man was the last part of the process of creation and if you want to get technical, woman was the actual last work of God’s creation process. Man was created and came into being at the end of the 6th day of creation. I believe that as the Bible says, that in the last days knowledge will increase and I believe that men and women in the church will again start to resemble their creator. Reading verse 27 we see the explicit statement that God created man in his image. What exactly does that mean to you? To me that means if you looked at Adam and Eve you would immediately think they look like God. Did you ever notice red headed parents normally produce children with red hair. Looking at the red headed children you can say they were made in the image of their parents. You immediately identify one from the other. You can look at one child and recognize the source or origin. That is what I believe God is prophesying about his church, we will finally be able to see a Christian and say wow! he looks like Jesus. God’s family resemblance should be there for all to see. There are several scriptures that I could include here but search your KJV Bible for words like “perfect”. This word is a little bit misleading because it means “mature”, “complete”, “fully grown”. There are several verses in the New Testament that ask us to wait for this perfect man to come and I believe the time is now.
Genesis 1:20-23 Day 5 of God’s Creation
Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
(Ver 1.1) According to Day 5 of creation, God caused the seas to fill with every type of fish and sea creature. During this time period we also see the fact that every type of bird is said to develop to fill the sky above the earth. It is interesting to note that I guess evolutionists seem to believe every animal on the planet originated from the sea. At least this is the way that I understood what they were saying. I do not profess to be an expert on evolution theory and whoever has studied it is of course no expert either, since they can’t prove anything they are saying. According to the Biblical record of the creator, the fish did come first, followed by the birds. But in no way does it say they evolved one from the other, in fact it declares the total opposite. I alluded to the law of Genesis when we discussed tree and plant life development. The law of Genesis says everything produces after its own kind. Every fish, bird, mammal, insect, reptile, or whatever, has within itself the ability to self sustain it’s own species. Each one has the ability to reproduce itself and to keep it going. Every species has the seed within itself to reproduce.
Using the study of DNA recent scientists have made a lot of discoveries. DNA is an extremely complex coded formula that dictates what a creature will become even before it starts to develop. There are no overlaps or DNA evolution between species that I know of concerning God’s creation. I know that humans contain a similar DNA characteristic to that of monkeys but on close examination they are completely different from that of a monkey Therefore a monkey will never be able to reproduce or to transition to the form of a human. They are just too different. DNA research using what is known as “mitochondrial” DNA has determined that all of the human race originated from a common woman they so appropriately have named “Eve”. I remember reading this in the News Paper several years ago. Of course they buried this information on one of the inside pages, but the result of the article was the conclusion that the Bible was more accurate than we thought. We didn’t come from monkeys, but rather from a single woman named “Eve”. Since that publication the world’s scientific atheists have done their best to explain away the findings. I pretty much just ignore their ramblings. I know the Bible is true, I know that it is the words of the one that created it all and therefore I would rather read the Bible than listen to the words of an ignorant man attempting to say there was no God involved.
I would like to be able to discuss the prophetic implications of these verses but, I have to be honest and say that I don’t know of any right now. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, it just means I don’t know them. I do know that they early church used a symbol of a fish and this is an event that occurs on the early part of day 5. So if you can see any prophetic implications from Day 5 in how it would relate to the early church please let me know. I’ll be happy to learn.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 5
(Ver 1.1) After I learned this information that I have been attemting to teach to you, it changed my perspective on much of the Bible. I started to understand a lot more of the parts that use to be very hard to follow. I hope that you too are beginning to see some glimpses of the light of how the scriptures harmonize and fit together. We have been discussing the two different realms or spiritual states of the human heart. Those who are in darkness and those who are in the light. We have seen that Jesus Christ represents the sun and we are beginning to understand how the word of God causes Christ to arise and shine into our hearts. I think it is a good time to talk about the identity of the moon.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
I once heard a minister say that the church is the moon (lesser light). That we are the one’s that live now in this dark world and we are to rule over it. Of course on the surface I understood what he was trying to say but he got it all very wrong. We are certainly in the world, but we are not of this world. In fact if you look at scripture it says we are seated with Christ in heavenly places (Eph 2:6). No, just think about all of the the known moon’s characteristics. The moon is a lifeless chunk of rock that has no ability to do anything. The light it shines at night does not originate from itself, no it is simply a reflection of the light from the sun. Some would say that fits the church, we don’t have any ability within our self but we depend upon Christ who gives us the ability to do whatever. Of course that is true, but let’s take the analogy deeper. The moon is lit in the sky in different phases. The moon goes from completely lit to completely dark. How does that fit the church? Are you saying God shines on us sometimes and sometimes He doesn’t? Or are you saying man hides from God so that God cannot shine on him? Either one doesn’t really make any sense to me. The moon is also only lit on one side. There is a dark side of the moon that we don’t see. Is this descriptive of the church? Does the church only show the world the part they want to see and hides the part they don’t want people to see in the darkness. That shouldn’t fit a true Christian in the church either. These are major problems to the moon being the church from my view point.
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
We know from reading Genesis 1:18 that the sun rules the day and the moon rules the night. We could also say that the moon rules the darkness. Night and darkness are synonymous terms. Here is a scripture that should help to clear up the confusion of is the moon the church. Let’s look at a verse in Ephesians 6:12:
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Did you see what that this verse says? Who is this verse talking about? It is speaking of Satan and his demonic forces. These are the spiritual forces that are our enemies and as this verse states, they rule the darkness, not the church. In fact the Bible tells the church that we are not of the darkness (John 12:46), it also says what association has light with darkness (1 Th 5:5), meaning there should be none. You are welcome to study this subject in more depth, because I did not attempt to give you every scripture that there is on the subject. My goal is to point you in the right direction and help you learn. God Bless you and I hope you enjoyed Day 4. I’m sure I didn’t cover everything, but I hope I helped you to see some new things in the Word of God.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 3
I knew this day would take a lot to explain and even more effort on your part to understand. But I’ll do the best that I can in a limited space to teach you as much as I can. In the last lesson we concluded with the revelation of the identity of Sun as being Jesus Christ. Before we move on to the moon, let’s back up and address the purpose of Day 4 from God’s perspective. We saw that Day 4 was an emphasis of a division occurring. I believe the divisions already existed back from at least Day 1 when God said let there be light. The implication of Day 1 was light did not reach the surface of the planet and therefore darkness prevailed upon the face of the earth. When God said let there be light He allowed the light to penetrate into the darkness. This is probably a mixture of my personal opinion and the implied references found in the word of God. Unless I find some scripture to back that statement I really don’t expect you to believe it.
Back to the subject of Day 4. We can see in the scripture the reference to the existence of two distinct realms or dimensions. One is called “Day” and the other is called “Night”. I think it would be good to look at the symbolism of these two divisions. Let’s start with the obvious, the day is the time where we experience the presence and warmth of the sun and it’s light. The night is the period of time when normal people sleep and the sun is not present. One division has the sun light and the other does not. From what we have seen Jesus Christ represents the Sun. Scripture also tells us that God is light. We can already begin to see a spiritual reality being stated. The day is for those who are in the light of the Sun of God, the night is for those who are without God. Do you understand this? This is the division that took place when Jesus died on the cross and after He arose.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:5 God writes to the church and says to them “You are all children of the light and children of the Day…”. I already mentioned this next verse in the last lesson, but I’ll show it to you again in 2nd Peter 1:19, God writes that “The Day will dawn out of the darkness and the Day Star will shine in our hearts.” I know I paraphrased that verse a little bit but I didn’t change the meaning. God is saying that Christ will dawn in our dark hearts and light them up with His light and cause us to be the children of the light. Let me give you one final scripture from Romans 13:12 God tells the church “the night is far spent and the day is at hand, let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light”. All of the key elements are mentioned, day, night, darkness and light. Where do you stand today? The Day and Light symbolism goes through out the New Testament. You are welcome to study it and find out how the physical characteristics of the night and day are symbolic of the spiritual conditions of men’s hearts.
So we have established the identity of the symbolic night and day as being the spiritual condition of men’s heart. In our next lesson we will continue to expand the identities of the other symbolic elements that we have found in these verses.
Genesis 1:9-13 – The 3rd Day
Gen 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
(Ver 1.1) Day 3 of creation is very interesting and contains a lot of information. It begins by confirming to us that the world was covered with water and God commands the water to gather and separate from the earth. Maybe you realize and can understand that this is also a stated division of land from water. The separation of the waters from the land is what God says caused the land to appear. To appear means it was clearly hidden before. It is not that complex yet people ignore the little details given to us by God to beleive an alternative reality of what happened. It is very obvious to me now that Genesi 1:2 describes a universal flood that covered every land mass on the earth. If you study this out you will find that there is more than enough water in the oceans to accomplish this. All it would take is a shifting of the depths of the oceans nd the water would again cover the earth very easily.
Gen 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
I want to point out in this verse that God declares a defintion for the Hebrew word translated as “earth”. God very clearly says “earth” is dry land. This is so obvious to me but many have not seen it, that God says in Genesis 1:1 that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. The “earth” Hebrew word in Genesis 1:1 is the same Hebrew word that God defined here in verse 10. Theefore, by God’ definition, God declares in Genesis 1:1 dry land existed in the beginning. There is a major conflict that is given to us in Genesis 1:2 where the world was covered with the deepness of water. I have concluded from this information that Genesis 1:2 is describing a time after the begininning where something catastrophic occurred to cover the earth completely in water.
Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Then God commands the earth to produce grass, trees and living vegetation. God also gives us the Seed law of Genesis and a key to understanding the Kingdom of Heaven. God says the seed is always in itself. That is a fascinating concept. Basically it states that there was a creation event that occurred once and that this resulted in a process of self perpetuating events. What we learn from this concept is that each part of God’s creation had within itself the ability to reproduce and produce more of their own kind. In other words God created things ONLY once and then these tings had the ability to self sustain, propogate and continue to spread and grow indefinitely. That is a very important conept to grasp both phsycially and spiritually.
Since God creates plants on Day 3, I believe that it would be noteworthy to analyze a plant’s growth requirements. What are the basics that any plant needs to sustain growth and produce fruit for example? Of course all plants require earth, fertilizer, nutrients, correct atmosphere, water, the correct climate and light. What was the last requirement in my list necessary fundementals? It was light. Do you know what that means? It means that the sun already existed as of Day 3 to help to regulate the earth’s temperature and provide the necessary light for any plants to grow. Without the sun’s existence, the earth would have been an ice cube and vomplrryrly unable to produce any plant life. You’ll hopefully understand why I went into this level of detail when we get to Day 4 next.
Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
God declares the earth’s ability to produce plants existed on Day 3. Please keep in mind that all of the laws of agriculture that God created for the earth to be able to do this must have been in existence at this time. Also consider the timing and the order of what is occuring. Before the existence of any animal God first produced food. This is the basic requirement for higher forms of life like birds or animals. If there was no food supply nothing would have survived long. God’s intelligent design is clearly outlined in what He has accomplished the order of mention declares the wisdom and intelligence of a creeator.
Understanding Bible Interpretation! Getting God’s Definitions!
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 6 in the study series of Correct Bible Interpretation Rules. If you have not read from the beginning I would recommend that you go back and start reading with “Part 1” first. The last time I taught on this subject of Bible interpretation rules we talked about a very specific type of erroneous interpretation called the private interpretation. We of course now realize that a private interpretation simiply is one that is dominated by our opinions and they contain our personal subjectivity in determining the meaning of what we have read in the Bible. If you are smart you will realize that your opinion is not what is important to God or to me. Just as my opiniion should not be important to you. God is not going to ever ask our opinion on what we think the Bible means. You do realize that, don’t you? So as a result we discovered that we should let the Bible interpret itself. What we think has no determination on the final outcome of what truth is. God is so smarter than all of us combined and He wrote down very specific words that mean very specific things and we should find out what He said and what He thinks and then we should go by that as being the truth only.
So here is a related topic to no private interpretations allowed. Let God define the Words in the Bible and not you or even Daniel Webster. I look up words all the time in dictionaries to learn what they mean, but I have found that God’s definitions of these words are many, many times not in the dictionary. Let me give you a couple of quick examples. We have been studying the 1st chapter of Genesis and it refers to the 6 days of creation and then the 7th day when God rested. But if you have been following the lesson, the term “day” is defined a little bit differently in the Bible. When the Bible says “A Day is…” that indicates a direct definition is about to occur. It is about to tells us what God thinks a day is equivalent to.
2Pe 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
So if God says a day is as a 1000 years and that a 1000 years is as 1 day we can attempt to apply this definition to the scriptures we find “day” mentioned. I know this doesn’t work everywhere all the time but it does help us in many places, especially Genesis the 1st chapter. The difficulty comes when we realize that words have multiple definitions and this is the same with Bible words. We are going to have to use the word in context to see if it fits. I know this defintion fits nicely with Genesis 1 based upon what else the Bible says on the subject. You can read about a coming 1000 year day of rest in Revelation chpater 20, for example. This day of rest is described as a coming event in Hebrews chapter 4. Therefore the clarification of a day being as 1000 years directly applies to Genesis 1 with ease.
Let me give you another example of when God’s definition is better than a man’s definition. In the 9th chapter of John, Jesus comes upon a blind man and his disciples start asking him questions of why. I’m not going to get into the details of this story just one comment that Jesus makes in answering the question. Jesus says “I must work the works of him that sent me…” in John 9:4. In reading this verse I automatically assumed like many others that healing the man was the work that Jesus was talking about because we can see that this is what Jesus did at least at first. If we look up the word “work” in the dictionary it would refer us to a manual labor task or a place of employment or occupation among other related meanings. Of course none of these definitions would help us to understand what Jesus did and why. What is work to God? What is God’s definition of work? Did you realize Jesus tells us the definition, if we only look for it. If we back up in the book of John to the 6th chapter and the 29th verse we can see God’s definition for what work is:
John 6:29 “This is the work of God, that we believe on him whom he has sent.”
That definition changes everything so dramatically about what we read in John 9 that it is almost ridiculous and it shows us why we should be looking for God’s definitions in the Bible and leaving our opinions and our definitions out of the mix. You can now go back to chapter 9 of John and reread the entire story based upon this new definition and you will see that God did accomplish this work. Jesus met up with the former blind man and asked do you believe in the Son of God (John 9:35)? The man asks who is that to Jesus and Jesus says it is who you are speaking to now. The man then says “Lord I believe”. This was the defined work of God demonstrated. Getting people to believe in Jesus in still our primary work today.
Let me give you one more example on getting God’s definitions to help you see that this is a very important subject to learn. We are all told in the Bible to expect eternal life as our reward. However, every spiritual being in the world saved or unsaved will live forever somewhere. Those that are saved will live with Christ and those that are not will be in hell. So what is the Bible defintion for eternal life? Let’s read God’s definition of eternal life for the believer:
Joh 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
There is a direct explicit definition for eternal life in this verse and there is also an indirect definition for eternal death in this verse. Since every truth has an opposite truth associated with it, we can learn both definitions from a single verse. Eternal Life is us knowing the True God forever. We can conclude that Eternal Death is the opposite of not knowing the True God forever but knowing the false God Satan forever. These are very important definition of eternal ife and death. Because they came from God’s word and not the dictionary they contain truth that is unrefutable by human reasoning.
I just gave you three quick examples of letting God define the words we read in the Bible but there are so many others to be found in the Bible. It will help you so much in understanding what God wrote if you let God show you what those things mean. The Bible is one Book by one Author and He is smarter than I am. God Bless!
Genesis 1:6-8 God Divides the Waters from the Waters!
Gen 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
(Ver 1.3) The first three chapters of Genesis are very full of a literal and historical account of the events of God’s creation of our present world. These descriptions were masterfully designed using God’s specific selection of carefully chosen words that simultaneously teach us a potentially greater spiritual truth, through the usage of symbolism. I believe the 6th verse of Genesis 1 is no exception.
In Genesis 1:6 God clearly speaks of natural things, but these things all appear to have simultaneous spiritual meanings that were hidden from man but also, they were very clearly hidden from Satan. Notice that God again deals with the subject of division on the 2nd day of creation. In this verse God seems to establish a separation between two bodies of water and He calls this expanse of separation the firmament.
It is interesting to note that our sky separates two very large bodies of water. We of course know the oceans and the seas are very large bodies of waters, but we also know through scientific studies that the clouds and the atmosphere above contain a very large amount of evaporative waters. Rain obviously falls from somewhere and waters the earth. It is a process created by God to water the plants of the earth and to give us a fresh drinking water supply. All of this was certainly good, and all this natural meaning is very interesting, provable scientific fact. But God also appears to be giving us some additional hidden information in this chapter that we might need to become aware of.
What does the symbolic term “waters” represent in the Bible? How does God define this symbol of “waters”? It might surprise some of you, but the seas and large bodies of waters are often times referred to as a type of “peoples or nations”. Isn’t that an interesting concept? Let me quickly give you a scripture that supports what I just said. In Revelation 17:15 God gives us a definition of the term “waters”. In this verse God again uses the word “waters” in Revelation 17 and it is used to be something that must be understand symbolically and so please read this verse very carefully and observe what it says:
Rev 17:15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
God specifically says that the symbolic “waters” are representative of many languages, people and nations. So, if we look again at the 2nd day of creation, God says he has separated waters that are below from the waters that are above. If we apply the definition we found in Revelation to these scriptures and apply them to the context of them being prophetic, what conclusions can we arrive at?
What happened 2000 years after Adam? Looking at the Bible timeline we can discover God made a covenant with Abraham. This occurred approximately 2000 years after Adam. The establishment of the nation of Israel occurred on the 2nd day of God’s timeline. In Genesis 15 God made a covenant with a specific group of people that he called the nation of Israel later. He chose to marry this nation of people as is stated in Jeremiah 31:32. Notice that God chose not to “covenant” with the entire human race, just the descendants of one man named Abraham and then only with the descendants of one of his son’s Isaac.
What was the result of this sovereign act of God? We had one smaller group of people now in covenant with the creator God and the rest of the descendants of Adam being separated or divided from the covenant. That represents a clear division which corresponds to the establishment of differences between two or more “waters” representing potentially nations of people or even angels. The waters from above were now different than the waters that were below.
It is very interesting to note that 7 times in the first chapter of Genesis, God says what He has done was either “Good” or “Very Good”. But, on the 2nd day of creation there is no mention of anything being “good”. The first time we saw something that was stated to be good was the mention of Light being separate from darkness on day 1. The next time anything is said to be good is on day 3. I can only conclude based upon this evidence that whatever God did on day 2 of creation was necessary but was not something that God wanted to do or what He considered to be good for all the created humanity in our present world. I conclude this because of the verses of John 3:16 and 2 Peter 3:9. In John 3:16 God says, He loved the whole world to send Jesus to die for everyone that chooses to believe. Then in 2 Peter, God says “He is not willing that any should perish, but all be saved. Some might say that this was my opinion, but I find it fascinating.
Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with Agapegeek. God Bless, you all!
Correct Bible Interpretation Rules Part 4 — Introduction to Symbolism in the Bible!
(Ver 2.2) This is Part 4 in the series of Bible lessons on Correct Bible Interpretation Rules. If you have not read this series from the beginning it would be advised that you go back and start reading at “Part 1” first and continue forward through the series. Getting a firm grasp on God’s usage of symbolism is very critical to correctly understanding and interpreting the Bible. Many times we read the Bible and see the mention of something that can be taken either literally or symbolically and this makes correct Bible interpretation infinitely more complex. The Bible is full of symbolism from the very 1st chapter of Genesis to the very last chapter in Revelation. We will eventually discuss why God uses symbolism but for now let’s attempt to define what it is. I like to view symbolism as a method used by God to convey hidden spiritual information in a coded format or reference. Symbolic Bible reference almost always describe concealed and hidden spiritual things using the terms, descriptions, names or titles of natural things, events or people that we all should be familiar with or at the least should be able to look at them and then learn to understand them with study. For example, have you ever seen God? No, God is a hidden spiritual being and the Bible says no man has ever seen God, but yet for you to get to know who God is, He describes Himself in the terms of natural things like the Sun so that we can understand Him and learn about His hidden qualities.
If while you are reading the Bible you encounter a reference to something or someone that doesn’t make a lot of sense to be a real physical entity it would be a good time to ask is this a symbolic reference to a higher spiritual truth. Let me give you an example in Genesis 3, the Bible speaks of a creature called the serpent in Genesis 3:1. Most Bible scholars agree that this is Satan, but the controversy comes when they attempt to say that Satan appeared in the garden of Eden as a physical snake. If you ever attended Sunday School as a child you have seen the picture of a naked man and woman in the garden with an apple in their hand and a talking snake near them tempting them. I guess this is the picture that these verses in Genesis 3 have conjoured up within the minds of men and women who have read the story. I could give you several scriptures in the Bible that directly contradict this account that helps us to see the real meaning behind this symbol, but I guess because of the time it would take to do that, I won’t go into that level of detail until we get to those verses in Genesis 3 later. What I will say is that this serpent in Genesis 3 is a symbolic reference and not an actual literal physical talking snake and you will have to wait for why I know this until later.
Please realize that the first three chapters of Genesis are heavily covered with symbolic references and not literal references. God is attempting to teach you about spiritual things and not about natural things and this is the failure that many Bible students fall into by simply ignoring which references are natural and which ones are just symbolic of a much greater spiritual reality. The book of Daniel has many symbolic references throughout the book. The beasts seen in the visions, are all symbolic of earthly empires and spiritual beings behind them. The book of Revelation is literally the most symbolic book that I know of. There are very literally few things in the book of Revelation that are mentioned that are not symbolic of something that is spiritual. You can find Daniel’s beasts repeated in Revelation, you can find the serpent from Genesis 3 repeated and finally being revealed to who this was in Revelation 12. There are two major symbolic women in Revelation, one in Revelation 12 and the other in Revelation 17 called the Whore of Babylon. There is another symbolic city called a woman in Revelation 21 named the New Jerusalem and the bride of the Lamb.
I hope that you understand symbolism and can learn to identify God’s usage of this technique. God Bless!
Genesis 1:3 – Let There Be Light!
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
(Ver 1.3) This is now Part 5 in the Bible study series helping us to understand Genesis 1. We have been moving through the chapter verse by verse and studying it using some new ingsights from the written Word of God. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would recommend that you start with “Part 1” first and then move through it in numbered sequence. Genesis 1:3 begins the account of God’s creation of our present world system that we all currently live in. We have already looked at verses 1 and 2 and have seen that the world as described at that time was covered completely with water in a lifeless state of darkness and utter destruction. From God’s choice of words I have determined that there is enough scriptural evidence that this was not the way that it started initially in the beginning. Therefore, something catastrophic had to have occurred to cause the world that was originally created by God in Genesis 1.1 to perish and to become completely and utterly destroyed resulting in an uninhabitable planet. Why is it even important to study this part of the Bible and what relevance does it have for Christians today to know and understand this information? I think that is a very important question to ask and to answer. I want to answer that question by again telling you something else that God says about the beginning in another part of the Bible:
Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
First notice God’s usage of the key Hebrew word “beginning” (Strong’s H7225). This Hebrew word is used in only 49 verses of the Old Testament and that is not too many to go and read them all to see if they apply or shed light on the subject of Genesis 1. In Isaiah 46:10 God uses the exact same Hebrew word translated as beginning in Genesis 1:1. Therefore we have a direct link to subject content based upon God’s word selection. Then notice what God declares and the implications associated with this statement. God says I speak of the end from the beginning. Wow, that is a radical concept and a revelation of monumental proportions. It means that if you do not understand the beginning that you will never be able to understand the end. Uh Oh? That does not sound good for a lot of Bible Prophecy teachers today. God says that you can read what I wrote in the beginning and see what is coming in the end. How is this even possible? Are you beginning to now see the importance of learning the correct interpretation of Genesis 1? I mean do you want to know what Revelaion means? If yes, then you better start with Genesis 1 and find out what that means because there you will find the keys to unlocking the understanding of the book of Revelation. Wow, I just taught you something that is so far off of the charts of current Bible teaching that I wonder why I said it. I just let you in on something else to look for in Genesis. The first thing that I mentioned was that Genesis 1 was about Jesus and I told you to look for Him in every verse. Now I have sprung another revelation on you and said in every verse to look for the end from the stated beginning descriptive words. Therefore we have three direct priorities in reading every verse. We want to understand what they mean in the stated beginning context first, we want to then know what they mean for Jesus the creator second, and then finally, we want to know what they mean for the future end of the world. Please allow me to list these again so that you can remember them and learn why it is important to study the creation account in Genesis:
- Study Genesis to see and understand the creation event first.
- Study Genesis to see and understand the God who created everything second.
- Study Genesis to see and understand the end of the world.
In studying just the first three verses of Genesis 1, I have counted over 15 different direct subjects to study in the entire Bible and I omitted the smaller more common Hebrew words from this count. Here is a list of the primary or dominate subject Hebrew words in these three verses. Every word occurs at least once and when more than once I included a count after the word in parenthesis.
- Beginning
- Created
- Alef-Tav, A-Z, Alpha-Omega
- God (3)
- Heaven
- Earth (2)
- Without Form
- Void
- Darkness
- Face (2)
- Deep
- Spirit
- Moved
- Waters
- Said
- Light (2)
Surely you can begin to see how complex the Bible is by examining this short list of subjects. Searching the Old Testament for every one of these words would be a large task, but one that would be very beneficial to our understanding. Then crossing over into the New Testament would be of even greater benefit if we could determine which Greek words corresponded to these 16 Hebrew words. That is possible and maybe I should teach you how to do that here in this lesson. In order to cross languages barriers to find the New Testament Greek words that are directly related or associated to the Hebrew O.T. words we need to find an Old Testament quoted verse in the New Testament with that word exact in it. This is difficult but not impossible to do with a computer and a version of the Bible that helps to identify them. For example I like the NASB version of the Bible for this cause. They capitalize every Old Testament verse quoted in the New Testament so that they are all easily recognicable. I then do a search for the words that I am looking for like “heaven” and “earth” and then find them in a N.T. quoted verse. I did this search and found both words in Hebrews 1:10. This verse quotes Psalms 102:25. Then I go to Psalms and verify that the Hebrew words in that verse for “heaven” and “earth” are the same words found in Genesis 1 and they are, so I now know that the Greek words G1093 and G3772 are equivalent words for the Hebrew words H776 and H8064 respectively. Do you understand what I just did and why? It can be a bit complex and take some time and effort to accomplish, but yet it is very important and very beneficial for the subject study.
When reading verse 3, it is very interesting to note that the first act of God in this creation event was stated to be the introduction of light back into the planet. Why was that God’s first action and how would that even be possible, if the literal sun did not exist already to shine on the earth? You see I believe the first chapter of Genesis is both literal and symolic of many greater spiritual truths simultaneously. This is the only way that one verse can teach you three different things using the same words. I believe that Genesis 1 was God’s way of teaching us some very complex hidden things by God selecting the specific stated order of every event performed, how it was recorded and described, how it was performed, and then by the timing of the event in the overall 6 day process. What God does is reveal to us greater hidden spiritual truths while creating our world system concurrently. In other words everything recorded in Genesis 1 is by divine superior design and has a hidden purpose to reveal a greater mystery.
We should know from reading and studying the Bible that God has described Himself to be Light. Light is an important concept found throughout the Bible in many forms using many synonymous terms. The first recorded mention of light is here in Genesis 1:3. One of the last direct mentions of light occurs in Revelation 22:5 and says some awesome things about this subject of how God will be to His people their eternal light. Therefore, when God said in Genesis 1:3 “Let there be Light”, what exactly did that mean and what are the imiplied reference for Jesus and the end of the age?
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.
If you only think naturally or carnally you will miss all of the spiritual messages from God hidden in His word. This is why when Jesus taught us the scriptures that said repeatedly “Let him that has ears to hear, hear” (Mat 11:15). What Jesus was claiming was that there was more said in the scriptures than what their natural ears were currently understanding. Let’s get into what the symbolic meaning of the “Light Be” command could represent in Genesis 1:3. We can see from several other scriptures in the Bible that there is no place that we can go that God is not already present there (Psalm 139:8). God is clearly an omnipresent being and all that means is that the Spirit of God is present everywhere simultaneously. Therefore, to attempt to teach that God was introducing Himself into the world, I believe would conflict with the omnipresent part of God’s nature. What then can these verses possibly represent?
We can see from studying the rest of the chapter that God is repeatedly dividing something from something else and here in verses 3 through 5 God separates Day (light) from Night (darkness). In day 1 of the six day creation event God defines what day is and what night is and that is a much more significant revelation to consider than you know right now. It is also a stated major problem if the sun does not exist on this day of creation since day and night could not possibly occur without the existence of the sun and the earth’s rotation around it.
Here is the first time we see God doing anything specifically in direct reference to a specific creation task. We should begin to ask the question “How does God create anything by definition and revealed methodology”? This is a critical point to understand as we will later learn why it is so significant. Men typically create things with their hands, they build a car, write a song, mow the grass all natural things involving the work of our hands. Where were God’s hands during this work? As we see later in the chapter God rests on the seventh day from all His work so we know that He was working while He was creating. But, I believe we can clearly see that God’s work methods were by a radical new method of labor. I believe, knowing how God works will help us learn how we should be working. But, I guess I won’t go there today.
So what did God do? God looked out on the darkness that covered the earth in verse 2 and then what happened? What does darkness represent literally, figuratively and symbolcically? I believe this is a concept we need to define using the Bible. God spoke to the darkness and said “Light Be”. This is a pattern that will be repeatedly emphasized as we continue through the rest of the chapter and this work methodology is also found throughout the Bible in the lives of a number of key examples given to us by God. Most people who read the Bible don’t really understand what they read. As a result they gloss over their minds and basically ignore the words that are written for them to turn to alternative preconceived ideas or thoughts that they think that they do understand. It sure changes everything when you finally see what the actual words and meanings say; it will change your entire outlook on God and His Word if you let it in and accept it as truth.
Let me introduce you to a brand new concept called symbolism. I personally believe that practically everything in Genesis 1 is symbolically linked to a greater hidden truth of something that God is doing in the spiritual realm. Genesis chapter 1 is so heavily saturated with this symbolism that it has very rich and deep meanings attached to every verse. Every day of creation is symbolic of a spiritual day to God and I believe this is a new concept that you need to take hold of in order to understand how near we are to the end of our time here on this earth. As we will soon see the 6 days of God’s creation are symbolically representative of each day of human history on our planet. Since Adam’s creation man has been on this planet very nearly for 6000 years. We can calculate this duration using the genealogies found in the Bible and the ages of the men given to us in those geneaologies. This is how many Bible teachers have come up with the popular theory of the age of our earth being only 6000 years old. However, they are misapplying the information and missing the greater truth that God hid for them to find. Let me stop here and introduce you to some of God’s critical commentary of the creation events found in Genesis. You need to begin to understand that God reveals more information in other parts of the Bible that are essential for you understanding what is occurring in Genesis. If you only study Genesis in a vacuum void of these verses you will never perceive the truth of God. Turn with me in your Bible and read these verses found in 2 Peter:
2Pe 3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
2Pe 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
2Pe 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
2Pe 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
2Pe 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Notice what God reveals in these verses. In verse 8, God gives us the redefinition of the Genesis term “day”. This definition represents a new spiritual “day” concept and not a literal day reality. God is revealing a specific clue to the duration of the world by informing us that each day of creation represents a 1000 year period of God’s time. Peter is quoting a part of a verse found in Psalms to make this information plainer and to give it significance to our study. By examining the context of this statement you should be able to clearly understand that Peter is linking this new “day” length information back to the original Genesis creation account. Go back to verse 4 and you will see a clear reference to the “beginning of creation” a clear reference to the information found in Genesis 1:1. Peter immediately follows this verse with a statement concerning Genesis 1:2 where the world was completely covered with water. Then Peter in verse 6 declares that the world that then had perished. Did you know that there was a world that existed before our world? God was teaching us a revelation and giving us explanations concerning the first two verses of Genesis in this discourse. Next in verse 7 God declares information about the end of the age linking the beginning to the end again as we read in Isaiah. Immediately following this statement is verse 8 concerning the definition of a day as being 1000 years. God has placed such key detailed information here that it is amazing when you can see it.
Did you notice that in verses 5 and 7 were two significant references to the Word of God? This reference is also a critical part of the Genesis Bible study. I believe if you do a search in Genesis 1 for the phrase “and God said” you will find it written 10 times in 10 different verses. God places extraordinary importance on His Word in the creation of the world. Peter reveals to us that the world that perished was created by the spoken Word of God and that the world that we live in currently was also created by the spoken Word of God. We learn as we continue that this is how God worked so keep this information in your mind as we continue in this series.
Do not misapply 2 Peter to attempt to say each day of creation is a literal 1000 year period of time. That would be another misapplication of spiritual information. God uses natural things to help us to understand spiritual things. Therefore, I am a firm believer that the 6 days of creation are literal 24 hour periods of time. Take the information literally in Genesis whenever possible but also realize that every literal word has a symbolic meaning potentially attached to it. What I am doing is viewing the information as being literal and symbolic at the same time as I have stated before.
Correct Bible Intrepretation Rules Part 2 — Recognizing that Every Word of God is Important!
(Ver 2.1) This lesson is Part 2 of the Correct Bible Interpretation Rules series. If you have not read from the beginning I would recommend that you start with “Part 1“. In this series I discuss the proper approaches and rules to interpreting and understanding what God has given to us to know. When reading and studying the Bible, I have learned that it is absolutely critical to pay close attention to every word that is written. If it wasn’t important, God would not have written it down for us to read and study. Think with me and consider the fact that God could have written us any words and these are the ones that the most intelligent being in the universe wrote down for you to personally read. That tells me that God thinks they are important. Did you ever notice that God pays attention to the smallest details in your life? The Bible says He knows how many hairs are on your head (Mat 10:30). Since this number changes on many people’s head daily this is an amazing attention to some details that we do not even know. That is an amazing revelation to the level of detail that God is interested in you. If He cares that much for you, I believe that He expects you and I to care that much for Him and His words.
2Ti 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
This scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 informs us, that every word of God is important for us to see and learn. If you continue reading in the next verse you will that it claims that these words will help a man to grow up spiritually and become mature to do great works. Sometimes I think we either do not understand what this means or we forget that this is true. Especially when we read through boring genealogies or lists, laws or something that we are not interested in. Does “ALL” mean every word? I believe it does and we need to read it like God is saying something very important to teach us or correct our life’s course.
Luk 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
You can clearly read from the mouth of God some words that are extensively ignored by some Christians. According to God Himself, He says that man will only live by knowing every Word of God. God is comparing His Word to that of symbolic natural bread. It just so happens that I really like bread so I can relate to this analogy and type of symbolism with ease. You see I also like the Word of God and that is what makes me different than a lot of people. What I want you to see is the emphasized qualifier in this verse that it states that “EVERY” word of the Bible is important to feed on spiritually. The next time that you read a genealogy like in Genesis 5 you should change your attitude towards it and find out why God put it there and then try to learn what it means. When I discovered that the Genesis 5 genealogy had a hidden message within it, I changed how I looked at the Word of God. Suddenly every word seemed to have more significance and meaning attached to it than I ever realized before. I began to look at every word differently and just because I did not understand why it was there, it did not deter me from taking away what I could find out about it and then making notes about what I still needed to learn. Writing down your questions and praying to ask God to answer them will open the door for Him to show you what they mean.
Maybe I’m different than you are. I learned as a computer programmer to pay close attention to every jot and tittle that existed within the programming text. Every bit and byte of information had great significance to whether the program that I wrote worked or failed. Believe it or not, this is what God is trying to teach you today about the Bible. Become a detail oriented person in your Bible study and it will change your point of view and I will guarantee that you learn more than you ever have before. Learn to feed your spirit on every word of God and treat them all as being valuable for your life. There is a famous quote that states “Success is in the details” and I believe this more today than I ever have. I hope you do this also! Ignoring little details will most often lead us into errors of wrong interpretation. Taking a portion of a verse out of context is often a main way people fall into error.
I thank you for reading this short lesson on Correct Bible Interpretation. It had only one main point and I pray that you understood the significance. If you would like to continue reading in this series please continue to the next lesson called “Part 3“.
Genesis 1:2 Was there a Long Period of Time Between Verses 1 and 2? Part 1
(Ver 2.1) This is now Part 3 in the Genesis 1 Bible study series. If you have not read it from the beginning you should go back and start with “Part 1“. So far in our study we have not encountered any deep controversial discussions, but then again we have only just now gotten to the 2nd verse in the Bible. Here is where I believe it begins to potentially change. I’ve alluded to the fact that many Christians believe that creation took place a short time ago, ranging from 6000 to 10000 years at the most. I can not disagree with that erroneous belief more strongly than to say there is “No WAY” that can be true based upon a full study of the entire Bible! While many people like to hang on to a young earth theological theory, because that is what they think the Bible says, I have spent a lot of time looking deeper for the truth in the Bible and I want to discover what God really says happened. The problem with most young earth Bible teachers is that they do not study the Bible in its completeness allowing God to teach us what else we need to know on the full subject. So I have spent the time and will try to point you to other verses in the Bible that you need to know about that teaches the earth is much older than 6000 years. Let’s start by reading the second verse and then continue the lesson:
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
As you can read in the 2nd verse of Genesis 1, it starts with the statement “And the earth was without form and void…“. I want to start by saying there are many Hebrew scholars that know the language better than I do. But, according to some of them that I have listened to, this statement could very easily have been translated as “the earth became formless and void”. You can see this repeatedly demonstrated by the word usage throughout Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and many other places in the Old Testament Bible. The word almost always demonstrates a change from the previous status or state to a new status or state of the given object being described. In this case in verse 2, the given object is the “earth” and the stated transition is to become formless and void from some other previous state that was not formless or void. What is the opposite of “formless and void”? I guess that is what we need to learn today.
This is an incredibly important and informative statement about the condition or state of the planet at that time in the creation of our world and it helps us to establish the reason why God did everything else that He did in the rest of the chapter. You see, I believe that God gives us the current earth status in verse 2 to differentiate it from from the original earth status from the beginning of creation which was clearly stated to have occurred in verse 1. Do you understand that no where in this entire chapter dialog did God ever create the earth by saying “Earth Be” and then the earth was? This direct omission of creation appears to inform us it did not occur during these 6 stated days of God’s divine work. Notice how this work took place in Genesis 1. We will soon observe in the rest of the chapter that whenever God desired to create something that He would speak to the problem area and the the problem area would be bring forth a change, transformation or correction. This problem of their being no missing earth that was spoken to to cause an earth to be, is a major clue to understanding Genesis 1, did you notice that? This leads me to believe that the earth was not a problem originally in verse 1 when God says it was created. What Genesis 1:2 appears to imply, is that there was a potential vast expanse of unstated time in between verses 1 and 2 where something drastic happened to cause the state of the world to become a desolate and uninhabitable planet. We will soon see verses that will confirm this. This belief for a long time has been labeled as the “Gap” theory, but as we continue to study the Bible in more depth, we will discover that God gives us many very important clues that can technically mean nothing else but this gap had to actually occur.
There are several great factual reasons why I do not believe in a young earth theory, but instead of reviewing any scientific evidence and reasoning, let’s just stick with what the Bible says. You see I am not interested in debating the subject with you and I could really care less about any of your opinions on the subject of when creation occurred. I only want to know what God has said to us and only that truth will overrule all my opinions and yours.
What does it mean to be “formless” and “void”? These are actually very important words that help us to confirm what has transpired up until this point in time. The Hebrew word (H8414) translated as “without form” means to “lie waste”, “a desolation”, “desert”, “wilderness” and “empty place”. Doesn’t sound very good does it? The Hebrew word (H922) translated as “void” is a word that means “an undistinguishable ruin” and “emptiness”. All of these synonymous terms describe an uninhabitable environment after an implied destruction not do they conform to the creation event that was clearly mentioned in verse 1. This would mean that something must have occurred to cause the earth to become uninhabitable. I know you can very easily reason away my logic saying God is just transitioning creation from a formless blob of mass to make it inhabitable. However, I believe that by reading just the first part of this verse and studying the definitions of the words, we can conclude that something catastrophic occurred to cause this situation or state of all matter on the earth to fail and I’ll try to explain why I said that next.
Here is a valuable lesson that will help you with correct Bible interpretation. No single verse, single phrase or single word in the Bible is “an island” and stands alone by itself. In other words there are no isolated or independent verses of scriptures in the Bible. The Bible is ONE BOOK by ONE AUTHOR and He says more than ONE THING in it about the same subjects. We must learn to use the entire Bible to interpret any single verse in the Bible and when we do this by researching the subjects and the words that we find to look for them in other places and this helps us to define them or explain them. Here is an important fact. God is the b best Commentator of His own Work. God explains every problem and issue somewhere else in the Bible to resolve our potential conflicts. God through His infinite foreknowledge anticipated our every question in His Word and placed them scattered randomly though out the book for us to find like a puzzle solving word search game. God chose every word in the Bible with great precision, on purpose and by His divine sovereign design. For example, if we search the Bible for occurrences of the Hebrew word H8414, which is translated as “without form” we will find a very key verse in Isaiah that will shed tremendous light on the subject of what has happened in Genesis 1:2.
Isa 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
You see in Isaiah 45:18, it specifically says that God does not create anything that is “without form”. I know the word was translated as “vain” in this verse, but it is the exact same Hebrew word and refers to the same state. So if we are smart just a little bit, we can see clearly that in Genesis 1:1 that when God created the heavens and the earth that it had to have been in an inhabitable state when it was first created in verse 1. You see God is giving us all a direct commentary on verse 1 of Genesis 1 here in Isaiah. We only found this verse by searching for God’s usage of the same Hebrew word. Since God is again speaking of the creation of heaven and earth we know it has direct association and meaning to our study subject. People who are not thinking correctly try to explain this verse in Isaiah away as being a Genesis 1 transitional phase of the creation account in Genesis 1. You see because Genesis 1 ends in an inhabitable form, they have reasoned that it first started uninhabitable and then became inhabitable by God’s design. They have further reasoned that Isaiah is stating the overall summary account of the end of Genesis 1 and that Genesis 1 is the detailed account of how it became this way. However that logic has some great flaws in its reasoning.
I want to stop here and ask those that believe in a young earth, “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” Did God create a formless blob of cells and then He spoke to these cells for them to become a chicken or did God create the fully formed chicken that laid the egg that became another chicken? You see you have to believe in a evolutionary transition if you believe in a Genesis 1:1 lifeless and formless entity evolving, transitioning or becoming a life form supportable type of truth. You are trying to mix apples and oranges teaching that you do not believe in evolution but yet embrace an evolutionary concept of lifeless substances becoming life substances and that is clearly an inconsistent approach to correct Bible interpretation. You see I am forced to believe in a Genesis 1:1 life supporting planet as being a fully formed, inhabitable earth because I also believe in a God that created a fully formed chicken and not a transitional blob of cells that became the chicken. You of course can believe whatever you like and remain mixed up and inconsistent.
In verse 2 of Genesis 1 it says the earth was now or became”without form” and “void” and I believe based upon the Biblical evidence in Isaiah that this represents a change of state from the original matural creation state where it was inhabitable. To deny this is to say that God was not able to create the final product and was forced to create it within phased limitations. Therefore, we can logically determine that based upon Isaiah 45:18 that something or someone destroyed the original creation inhabitable planet and made it or caused it to become a place of utter destruction. The only person in the Bible that qualifies for this type of destruction to God’s creation is Satan in my opinion. Satan is the one that Jesus described in John 10:10 as the thief who had come to “kill”, “steal” and to “destroy”. That fits the description of Genesis 1:2 very well.
Why would God need to hide an almost random and remote verse somewhere else in the Bible within a major prophet named Isaiah (45:18) in the Old Testament that speaks to us clearly about creation and teaches us a new perspective on the things that we suspected, but yet we did not see in the original writings of Moses in Genesis? Why did we have to go and search to find this reference if the verse was truly connected to what was written in Genesis 1? Why did God not just plainly tell us the whole factual truth at the beginning of the Bible? Why does God do things like this to spread out information? To me that is truly a mystery, yet God does this by His divine sovereign choice and by His intelligent design of His written Word. I have suspected that God has hidden this information in the Bible for a couple of reasons. First, so that we could learn to search for His truth in the word as it says in Proverbs 25:2. Then second so that He could reveal what was hidden to us at the appropriate time. Third, I believe that God has hidden the truth in His word to allow any human the right to believe in a lie. If God would have placed every truth in clear understandable words, no man would have any right to believe anything else. I strongly believe that we must use the Bible to interpret the Bible, if we don’t, we are merely standing on our own opinions and those aren’t worth anything are they?
MORE OF GOD’S COMMENTARY ON CREATION
I want to take you to some additional verses found in the Psalms that gives us major insight into the works of God’s hand during creation. I would recommend that you read the whole chapter but for time sake I will not attempt to teach every verse found there. Start reading in verse 1 and see God describing His majesty and glory as being first and foremost above all else. Notice very plainly the order of mention because this reflects what occurred during creation in Genesis 1:1 to the end of the chapter. The chapter begins with only a description of God the Creator with no other beings that are mentioned to be equal to Him or even in existence. In verse 4 God suddenly mentions the angels as being created spirits. Then notice in verse 5 God declares that He laid the foundations of the earth so that it would never be removed but only after the mention of angelic creation that was clearly stated before this fact. I am trying to make a point that angels existed before the earth existed. What I want you to see is that now here in verse 5 of Psalms 104 these words correspond to verse 1 of Genesis 1 and that we can now be in sync with the same creation event being described in both from two different points of view. The stated order is God always existed, then came the angels and then the earth was created afterwards. Verse 6 is where I want to begin teaching since it is certainly about Genesis 1:2:
- Psa 104:6 Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. (KJV)
- Psa 104:6 You have covered the deep as with a robe; the waters stood above the mountains. (LITV)
I just gave you two translations of this verse . One is the KJV and the other is the Literal Bible translation. The Hebrew word (H3680) that was translated as “coveredst” or “covered” literally means to conceal, hide, cover or clothe an object. We can determine from the statement that the object being covered was the earth. I then want you to notice that this is a past tense statement declaring it to be a finished work of God. Yet we clearly look around us today and see the mountains not covered, don’t we? Then I want you to understand that in order for God to cover the mountains they must first have been uncovered! Uh oh! We are learning critical informed details that transpired in Genesis 1:2. What this description is teaching us is like when I make my bed. I can take my bedspread and cover the sheets and the mattress and they suddenly disappear because of the layer of covering. At night I can turn the covers back to reveal the bed and get into it and that is what is being revealed by God in this verse that occurred and in the verses that are about to come. Let’s read the next verse:
- Psa 104:7 At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away.
Here in this verse there is a direct connect with the subject from the previous verse. The primary subject of the last verse was the waters that covered, but here God says it was by His rebuke of them that they fled away. What exactly is a rebuke? I seriously want you to consider that question before you jump out with an answer. According to the dictionary a rebuke represents a verbal expression of sharp disapproval or criticism. Now I want you to think again using God’s commentary on the Genesis 1:2 creation event. Why would God need to rebuke the waters if it was not how He wanted it in the beginning? Did God make a mistake at the beginning to have the earth covered by waters? Would God have created a state of chaos that needed to be rebuked? Why wouldn’t an all knowing God just have created it right the first time? Wow, those are great questions. Perhaps the next few verses will help you find the answers:
- Psa 104:8 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.
This is a description of what occurred in verse 9 of Genesis 1 at the beginning of day 3 of creation and we are technically getting ahead in the Bible study of the rest of the chapter but that is what occurs many times in deep Bible study. What I am doing is trying to teach you that if you want to find the truth that you are going to have to search for it. Quit reading one chapter in Genesis 1 and think that you know everything that you need to know. These are great verses that I am giving to you and I hope that you are seeing what they say. I think I am only going to give you one more verse in this chapter even though there are others that are applicable to what we need to learn. Please read carefully verse 9:
- Psa 104:9 Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.
- Psa 104:9 You have set a boundary that they may not pass over; they shall not return to cover the earth.
I once more gave you two translations of the same verse from the KJV and the LITV for comparison. What does this verse say? Can you read? What does the term “pass over” mean? Is that not a transitional statement of before and after? If the waters passed over the mountains then the mountains were not covered to begin with! What does the term “again” mean? What does the term “return” mean? Both of these translations tell us that the water was not there and then it was there and now it is again not there and will never return again. Uh oh again! I mean this teaches us something that is ignored or not known by most Christians. Did you learn anything from it? Do you believe God? Learn to put 2 and 2 together correctly and see how that they consistently make 4 every time.
Let me end this Bible lesson on Genesis 1:2 with another question. If the “earth” was created in Genesis 1:1 and that Hebrew word translated as “earth” literally means dry land why was the earth’s dry inhatibable land now covered with water completely in verse 2 being totally destroyed and uninhabitable? I think that is an outstanding relevant question that many Bible teachers ignore or fail to ponder. I believe the original Hebrew language has demonstrated that the earth was there in the beginning and then changed states to become the formless and void condition that we have observed. This is clearly what God is revealing in His own commentary on the event that we just read in Psalm 104. What we need to know next is why did this happen and how did this happen? Only by attempting to learn can we discover the truth. The greatest enemy to us knowing the truth is when we believe that we already possess it. Thanks for studying the Bible with me and we will continue our lesson on Genesis 1:2 in the next lesson.
If you would like to continue to read in the Genesis 1 series you may proceed to “Part 4“.
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