Blog Archives
Understanding Bible Faith! How Faith Comes? Part 4
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 4 in a series of advanced Bible studies about the subject of Bible Faith. Today’s lesson will be a basic foundational definition to how to get Faith. There are many people in the world who claim to have faith and yet when pressed for a definition of what faith is to them, they cannot tell you. Then if you asked them how did you get this faith, again they cannot tell you. Therefore, we are going to explore the basic Bible subject of faith to help people understand what faith is and where faith comes from. Technically speaking you do not have to know how transmissions work, to drive a car and faith is the same way to some extent. You can drive a car by just automatically learning which gear to be in and press the gas and you are off and running. Salvation can be this way also. You do not have to know that it takes faith to use your faith to be saved, yet your faith is still the determining factor to whether you are saved or not. So we could liken your faith to be your spiritual transmission and God and His power and Grace to be the spiritual engine to the car. Without both of these two key components working flawlessly together in harmony, your spiritual car is not going to move. Hopefully you will understand this analogy better as we continue through this lesson. If you have not read this series of lessons from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and read starting at “Part 1”.
In order to understand what faith is, let’s first find out how faith comes. If you did not know that faith comes then you did not read my first lessons very closely. In a previous lesson I described a verse found in Romans 12:3 that said that all Bible faith comes from God. This verse told us that God has dealt to every man (among you) faith. I explained that verse in that lesson, so I will not repeat the explanation here. Just read it and recognize that God has faith to give, so we as men and women must receive it. Also, in a previous lesson I taught that faith is measurable and quantifiable ranging anywhere from zero or none upwards to full of faith, the maximum that you can have. Remember that your faith can vary in that range of measurable numbers based upon something. Jesus would look at His disciples and rebuke them for having “no faith” and then for a few people that Jesus ran into, He would praise them for having “great faith”. Obviously there is a great deal of difference between those two ranges found on the faith value chart. We can conclude based upon the information that we learned in lesson 3 that faith comes in stages and can grow or increase up the chart to the highest levels. But, how do you get faith and how do you increase your faith that you already have. If you were a car, and your gas tank was empty you would simply go and fill it, does this simple concept also apply to faith? Can I go to the Faith station and fill my Faith tank? That is where we are at in the lesson today so let’s go to the Bible and see what God has to say to us.
Rom 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
God gives us a major revelation concerning faith in this verse of Romans. God ties the amount of faith that you possess to the amount of Words of God that you hear. Of course, it is much more complicated than that simple statement. If you could get faith by just hearing God’s Word, then you would just need to go buy the Bible on CD and play it all the time and you should have faith to move mountains left and right. Obviously it takes more than just hearing to get faith. But, hearing is where you faith lesson begins today to teach you about how to get more faith. Let me teach you the progressive steps to getting faith and then we will look at this in the scriptures to find if we can prove what I just said. Faith depends upon you doing the following steps and there are 4 possible reasons why faith does not come and only 1 instance where your faith actually grows. Read these 5 examples very carefully and see if you can see what God is teaching you:
Faith Comes by Hearing, but they:
- Don’t Listen or Refuse to Hear!
- Listen but don’t understand what is Said.
- Hear, Understand but don’t believe it.
- Hear, Understand, Believe and then don’t do it.
- Hear, Understand, Believe and then do it and finally they have faith that grows.
Wow, I do not know if you understood what I just said but it was good. These same concepts are how you learn things in school. You go to class, you either choose to hear your teacher or reject her words by closing your mind to them. Then you can hear her words, but not understand what was being taught. Right there is your opportunity to ask questions or remain ignorant. Next you can hear your teacher teach you about history and then not believe that it happened. Next, you hear your teacher teach you about algebra, understand it, believe it but just not do the work and you will fail that class. Finally, when you achieve to all of the first four requirements, hearing, understanding, believing and doing is when your faith will grow and increase and you can move to the next higher faith grade level. That was how faith works in a nutshell. It is the basis of how faith comes and how you put it to work for you. Let’s examine if we can find faith demonstrated to us in a Bible example that we are given and see if this is how it really works:
Mar 5:25 And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,
Mar 5:26 And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,
Mar 5:27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.
Mar 5:28 For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.
Mar 5:29 And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.
Here is story of a woman who was diseased for 12 years. But, did you notice what the Bible says happened to this woman? I tried to underline some of the important parts for your careful consideration. It says in verse 27 that she had “heard” of Jesus. How does faith come? According to Romans 10:17 faith comes by hearing. So right there we know that this is the first requirement for having faith. She obviously heard something that gave her faith and it must have been the Word of God according to Romans 10:17. What did she hear? While we are not told what she heard directly, we can make an assumption based upon other scriptures that it had to be something from the Old Testament. Remember what Jesus did after being baptized by John? Jesus went into the synagogue one day and open the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and read from it “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and He has anointed me” and then he continues to say “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18-21). If you think that Jesus did this only one time, you would probably be making a wrong assumption. I personally believe that Jesus read this verse of Isaiah everywhere He went to build the people’s faith. So I believe that this woman with the issue of blood had heard what Jesus had said. Now right there she must have understood what was spoken and you clearly see that she believed it by what these verses in Mark 5 say that she does after hearing. Here is a woman that should not be out in public, but she has heard of Jesus and decides to get healed. She does not ask Jesus or anyone else if it is permissible to do anything; she simply presses through the crowds that were also touching Jesus, sneaks up on the back of Jesus and touches His garment surreptitiously. The Bible says that instantly she felt in her body the disease was gone. Immediately, Jesus felt power had flowed from Him and he turned to ask “Who touched me”. Wow, this is one of the best faith lessons in the Bible that I know of and it clearly demonstrates the principles that I have outlined. A woman hears about Jesus, understands what she heard, chooses to believe it and then acts upon her faith and goes and gets healed and Jesus did not know it was happening until after it happened.
Mar 5:31 And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?
The disciples look at Jesus like He is crazy and say to Him, Master everyone is touching you. Here is a definitive clue to the difference between a physical touch and a spiritual touch. The crowd was touching Jesus physically, but this woman with faith touched Him spiritually and there is a major difference between those two realities. That is why I get some critics who write me and tell me how wrong I am and I get some people who have spiritual eyes to tell me “Wow that was good”. If I could make everyone see things the way God sees them, I would certainly do that, but I can’t and God won’t so we have what we have in the world today. Faith is a spiritual force and not a physical feeling.
Mar 5:33 But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.
The woman was caught, but now that she is healed it is legal for her to be in public again, so she goes to Jesus and falls down before Him. She is obviously grateful and thankful and she tells him the truth.
Mar 5:34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.
Jesus confirms to everyone present and to us His readers that it was the woman’s faith that made her whole. You see if it was only up to God’s power, everyone would be falling down before Him thanking Him for their healing, but no one else present got healed. Jesus clearly tells us that it was her faith that was the determining factor for her healing. It was her faith that made her whole. The Greek word for “whole” is the word “sozo” and it means to “save” or to “deliver”. This is the word that is translated many times as “saved” or “salvation”. Faith as you can see was the cause for her salvation. People, who do not want to see this, claim that everything that happens to them is what God has caused to happen. If is funny that God does not say this in the Bible anywhere. Jesus could have told the woman with the issue of blood “Be of good cheer, my power has saved you”, but God does not say this. Are you able to see the truth? I pray that you do. So what does this story in Mark reveal to us that the woman did:
- She heard the truth.
- She understood the truth.
- She believed the truth.
- She acted on the truth.
- She was saved because of her faith.
That was faith in a nutshell again and it confirms what God taught you earlier. So did you hear it? Did you understand it? Do you believe it? What will you do with it? Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. So if you want to increase your faith that is what you need to do. It technically means that you have to be an open and receptive type of vessel in order to hear. If you are not being open to the Word of God you will not hear it to begin with. So decide in your heart to be a vessel that is willing to change and then go and hear the word of God until you understand it. Next, if you believe what you have heard is the truth, then you are ready to take hold of the hem of His garment and receive the power of God for your answer. Your faith is the transmission that causes your spiritual car to accelerate and to go places. God’s Grace is the Motor that supplies the power to your spiritual car to change your location. You can keep your car in the garage and never use it to go anywhere in the world or you can do what Jesus taught “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you would say…”. I hope that you enjoyed this basic Bible faith lesson and that you learned something that can be useful with your walk with God. Until next time, I will let you go and review this lesson and see if you truly understood it and then you can write me and tell me about how it worked for you. God Bless.
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons on faith, you can go to “Part 5“.
Understanding Satan’s Abilities! Can Satan Read Your Mind?
(Ver 1.4) This will be an extremely complex Bible study today of a highly spiritual nature about the spiritual abilities of your enemy Satan. We will explore many difficult and different scriptures found in the Bible that help us to see the truth. In studying your enemy you should learn both his strengths and his weaknesses so that you can be better prepared when he comes to tempt, test or attack you. Satan is definitely this enemy that I am talking about if you are a Christian. God tells us that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood (people) but the principalities, powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world and the spiritual wicked in high places (Eph 6:12). The Bible clearly tells us that we are in a spiritual warfare with a spiritual enemy that we cannot see. Since we do not perceive Satan with our physical senses we must read the Bible and see what God tells us about this unseen spirit and how he operates. Today I am going to focus in on one aspect that many Christians have wondered about. I was asked this question recently by one of my readers so I thought it would be a good topic to share with all of my readers. Here was their question:
Can Satan Read Your Mind?
Let’s start by addressing the question “What is your mind”? Most people associate your mind with your physical brain, an internal organ in your head. But this is not technically true. While the physical brain has some vital functions within the natural realm, we must ask “what happens to our mind when our body dies?” Does it cease to exist? Absolutely not, the mind is just a part of your internal soul realm. Your soul is comprised of three elements; your intellect, your will and your emotions. Your intellect is comprised of your ability to think and reason along with your ability to recall the memories that you have learned or experienced. Let’s look at a story that Jesus taught us to learn about the mind after death:
Luk 16:20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
Luk 16:21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
Luk 16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
Luk 16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
Luk 16:24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
Luk 16:25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
Luk 16:26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
Luk 16:27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:
Luk 16:28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
Luk 16:29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
Luk 16:30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
Luk 16:31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
Reading the story that Jesus teaches us of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:20-31, we can see the actual account of two men who lived on the earth and then died with their bodies being buried. After they have died physically they are still alive spiritually and are able to speak verbally, think and reason mentally in this story without their bodies. Therefore, we know they had conscious awareness and the same mental capabilities that they possessed when they were here on the earth in their bodies. We are told that the rich man was now in hell and he asks Abraham to send someone back to the earth so that his 5 brothers would not come to this place of torment where he currently was. In this conversation Abraham tells the rich man to use is mind to “remember”. This clearly tells us that you will take your past memories of this world into the next eternal realm. The rich man was able to recall that he had a father’s house and even five natural brothers. The rich man was further able to mentally reason and come to the conclusion that he did not want his brothers to die and come to this place. This demonstrated a measured capacity for compassion. This is a very powerful real life specific lesson about the afterlife experience of three specific men. It further teaches us that the human spirit and the human mind will be complete together during this afterlife. The rich man’s ability to think, reason, feel and remember was not tied to whether or not he had any brain cells. Get it?
The human mind is a very complex and powerful feature of God’s creation. We use it to think and create many things in our world. How do we do this? We take mental concepts and process them and then make determinations and decisions based upon these ideas or thoughts. It is this advanced reasoning mental ability that humans have that makes us completely different than the animals on our planet.
There are really only three basic states of thought origination, we can make up our own mind thoughts to one point of view, we can change our mind to the opposite perspective or we can attempt to be double minded and accept both realities simultaneously. Jesus actually warns us about doing this when He said “I would that you were either hot or cold, since you are lukewarm I will spew you out of my mouth (Rev 3:16). God is speaking of a man who is not committed to either way of direction. God is declaring that the choice is clearly a binary one to make. Either choose good or choose evil but do not try to fall back and forth into both. God actually teaches us in the book of James that this is called a “double minded” man:
Jas 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
God is warning us about being a man who is indecisive, uncommitted, trying to appease everyone and God says this man is unstable in all of his ways. The term translated as “double minded” in James 1:8, is the Greek word that can mean a man who has two spirits controlling him. Therefore, we see a definite connection from our mind to our spirit and that is very important to understand. We know that when Lazarus and the rich man died their souls which included their minds, memory, reasoning facilities and even emotions did not die with their physical bodies. These were still fully intact with their spirits. Therefore our ability to think is tied directly to our spirit and not our body. A thought is a process that occurs and is associated with the human mind, but what is the source of a thought? Where does a thought take place and how does it work?
Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Here is the first occurrence of the thought process of man being stated or described in the Bible directly by name. We of course realize that the thought process of Adam and Eve were involved in their decision making back in Genesis 3, but God never mentions it directly. Here in Genesis 6, God looks down on the men on the earth and sees that they only think evil things in their hearts (spirits). We can again see the connection of thoughts to the spirit of a man and not his physical brain. So a thought must come to rest in your spirit. I’m not sure if it originates there, but it is definitely connected as a resting place.
Here in this verse in Genesis 6, God implies that the thoughts of man’s heart could be one of three states, good, evil or both as I previously stated. We can understand this based upon the words “only” and “continually” used with evil. The antithesis of these two states would be a man that thinks “only good” and “never evil”. We could further stipulate someone who is in the middle as being “occasionally evil or intermittently good”. I personally believe based upon this information that there are three sources of thoughts in the human mind and that these are as follows:
- A Thought can originate from a man’s spirit (Self)
- A Thought can originate from a good God’s Spirit (Good)
- A Thought can originate from another spiritual being, either a holy angel (Good) or Satan, devil, unholy angel, demon, or unclean spirit (Evil)
A thought represents the potential seed from an unseen realm of influence that can be birthed and expressed in the external actions or words of a human. Having an evil thought does not make you an evil man, unless you act upon it and live it out. I believe that a person can be influenced to do good or evil according to what they entertain and allow to remain in their minds. This is what we just read in Genesis 6 when men only thought evil and acted evil. God’s
There is a verse of scripture that occurs in the N.T. that says “Those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom 8:14). This verse is a scripture that demonstrates the potential for spiritual influence on humans. It teaches us how a spirit can encourage people to do the right things. To be led is the human action of choice to following a guide who shows us the way to go. However, to be led means we have the opportunity to go the other way and not follow their directions. It further implies that there are other spirits that can also lead us to do the wrong things in life. This means that all spirits good or bad can give you direction and that each spirit speaking to us know exactly what they said to you. This does not mean they read your mind, it only means they provided the guiding thought. They spoke something to your mind and your spirit and what you do with it is totally up to you. You can be led by it or you can be a person who ignores it or even one that rebels to do the opposite. It really boils down to your ability to discern the origin of the voice (thought) being spoken internally. The good news is that you can know the difference between God and a demon and this is because God says this to you:
Joh 10:4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
Joh 10:5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
Joh 10:14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
We can clearly see Jesus speaking to us and we are called His sheep. He says we will be able to recognize His voice because we belong to Him. We should know that this is a faith proposition being presented to us, but there is also an internal spiritual knowing that will be present. It is very difficult to explain this to people, if you have never experienced it. Some have called it an intuition, but we could call it a hunch or awareness or an instinct. You do not know how you know, you just know. This has happened to me repeatedly, I have a thought and just based upon the content of the thought I know it came from God. It is very hard to explain in natural terms because it is a spiritual experience.
2Co 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
This is a fairly popular verse of scripture that you should already be aware of. But, since we are speaking about the realm of the mind and the origination of thoughts let’s examine what God is saying. We can see that God is speaking to us to do something. God tells us to “Cast Down” imaginations. Then God says to “Take Captive” every thought that does not align with the Knowledge of God. These are two aggressive actions that we are required to take based upon what? If you read the context of this verse you can see that God is again describing a spiritual warfare that is taking place. This means you must interpret this verse within the context of spiritual warfare and this is how you fight against your spiritual enemy Satan. Where do these thoughts and imaginations come from that you are to “make captive” and “cast down”? They must come from Satan, otherwise if they were from God we would not need to do anything but follow His leading. We can assume by indirect reference that the source of these things in our mind that are NOT supposed to be there are from Satan and it is our responsibility to police them out. It is also obvious to me that if Satan puts these thoughts in our mind then he certainly knows what we are thinking at that instance. But, he is waiting to see what we do with the thought to see if it worked or not.
Mat 6:31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
Here is a vital spiritual principle to understand. Jesus said that you can take a thought or reject the thought by reverse implied reference. This is also a demonstrated choice or act of our freewill. God never says that He will control our thought in the Bible. A thought is like if someone offered you some money, you could take it or you could walk away from it by your own choice. More than likely you will take it because it is desirable. However, if I handed you a poisonous snake and you took it from me, then you may be called a fool.
This is the nature of the spiritual battle found within our mind. Jesus is teaching us not to take every thought that we have and to speak them verbally, or act on them, or accept them, etc. To take a thought means you accept it into your heart and then you begin to speak out what you were thinking. This is how Satan knows his mind seed trick has succeeded. As soon as you think something that is contrary to the Word of God you should immediately think what does the Bible say about that? When Satan tempted Jesus, Jesus would automatically say “It is written” and inform Satan what was written to counter what Satan had just said to Him in his mind. This is what we need to do also. However, this assumes that we have studied and read the Bible in order to know what to say in response. Satan is not going to wait for us to go and get our Bible and look up a scripture. Satan is going to find you alone in the wilderness without anyone there to help and then bring thoughts into your mind. It is at these times of isolation that we better have something to say from our heart. Here in the context of this verse in Matthew 6, Jesus is speaking of how people can let worry consume them into saying and doing things that they should not. Worry is another negative mental process that is thinking on the wrong things and allowing them to control us. Jesus is giving us some important information to know about the mental and spiritual realm of reality. I hope you can see it.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GIVING US A THOUGHT AND MINDREADING
I personally do not believe that Satan can hear your thoughts or read your mind. However, Satan can certainly give you these thoughts as we have seen to try to influence you through your mind. I do not believe that Satan is omnipotent, omnipresent or omniscient based upon my study of the Bible. Satan as the being Lucifer was a created spiritual being who was created to be the high ranking ruler of the angelic order or class of beings. I believe that Lucifer was a being second in rank only to God who was and is still Supreme. God created Lucifer to be the “anointed cherub” and you can read about this in Ezekiel 28. For him to have the title “anointed cherub” implies some supernatural abilities were given to him by God.
For example, in Acts 10:38 says “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil”. Jesus was also anointed by God according to this verse in Acts and by His title of “Christ” which means “anointed one”. You can clearly see that an anointing represents a supernatural power over the natural. Jesus it says did good with His anointing and healed people because He possessed this anointing. It further implies that Satan using his anointed power caused all these sick people to be in this condition by his implied anointed power. Therefore, we can logically conclude that God’s anointing to heal in Jesus was and is greater than Satan’s anointing to make ill.
So far in my Bible study searches I have not seen any direct verse that says a spirit like Satan can know what you are thinking. However, God is the exception; according to many Bible verses He does know our thoughts (1 Cor 3:20, Ps 94:11, Ps 139:23). There are many verses that inform us God knows what we are thinking all of the time and that God revealed these to Jesus sometimes when He walked the face of the earth (Mat 9:4, Mat 12:25, Luke 5:22, Luke 6:8, Luke 11:17). I do not believe that Jesus knew everyone’s thoughts all of the time based upon scripture. If you recall the woman with the issue of blood snuck up on Jesus and touched Him and got healed and Jesus knew it happened because He felt power leave Him, but He still did not know who it was that touched Him (Mark 5:30). Get it? Let’s now change our focus on other spiritual beings.
Let’s look at some examples of Jesus running into people who were possessed by evil spirits and see what these stories say to us. The first one I want to read about is found in Mark the first chapter. Jesus is in the synagogue on the Sabbath teaching when He encounters a man with an unclean spirit who says:
Mar 1:24 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.
As you can read this unclean spirit recognizes Jesus for who He really was and speaks directly to Him. It is very interesting to me that evil spirits knew who Jesus was, but the natural Jews did not. Did you notice what this spirit being asks Jesus? This spirit asks Jesus “Did you come to destroy us”. Any spirit who could read minds would already know this fact and would not have to ask this stupid basic question. Do you understand what I just said? It is very obvious to me that evil spirits cannot read the minds of God, men or even other angels if they have to ask them questions to why they are here what they are doing. You can clearly see this example repeated in Luke 4:
Luk 4:34 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.
What we observe is a second witness to the fact that evil spirits are not all knowing or mind readers. Jesus was God in the form of a man who walked the face of the planet as any other human man would. God the omnipotent supreme power of the universe lowered Himself and becomes an intimate part of His own creation. Evil Spirits would consistently say we know who you are; you are the Holy One of God. Then they would ask Him are you come to destroy us? They did not know why Jesus had come in the flesh and for what purpose He had manifested as a human being. This act of God obviously took them by great surprise and they were afraid and very confused to know what to do with Him.
1Co 2:8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Here in 1 Corinthians, God further confirms what I just said. This verse clearly says that if Satan would have known why Jesus was here, he would not have had Him crucified. Satan does not understand acts of love; God who is Love, so loved the World that He gave Himself for us (John 3:16). There are many God concepts that Satan does not understand. We know that God’s ways are not our ways according to Isaiah 55:8, but we can also clearly see and understand that God’s ways are not Satan’s ways either or Satan would have understood the plan of God and countered it with more effectiveness.
Jud 1:9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
There are other instances in the Bible that are related to this topic of Satanic mind reading. For example here in Jude we see Michael another high ranking angelic being having a confrontation with Satan (Lucifer) about the body of Moses. If Satan could read the mind of this angelic being that was sent to him, there would be no need for a fight. The existence of an implied verbal confrontation confirms that there was no mind reading abilities in either created spiritual being either good or bad.
So while the Bible does not have a direct verse that says Satan cannot read your mind, you have to find out what the Bible does say on the subject and put the pieces of the puzzle together to understand what he can and can’t do. We can clearly see that Jesus walked the face of the earth for over 33 years and that at no time could Satan read His mind and find out why He was here. If you believe that Jesus was a man like yourself, then you have to conclude that Satan cannot read your mind either. 
So the subject is a very complex one that is probably difficult for many to grasp. I believe sincerely that Satan cannot read your mind directly, but in this same lesson I teach you that he can give you thoughts to think on and that he knows what he said to you. These thoughts are his seeds that can take root in your spirit and grow into weeds3if you let them. You spirit was created and designed by God to be His garden and God has put you in charge of weeding it out by casting down vain imaginations and evil thoughts. These are the ways that Satan can take control of your external life behavior and he does this by planting internal seeds into your spiritual component. If you want to learn about how things work in the spiritual realm this is one of the most important subjects for us to know. It also tells us that Satan can cause people’s minds to be blinded so that we do not hear or accept the truth of God (2 Cor 4:4). The spiritual battle is primarily a war of the thoughts in your mind. Satan wants to control your thoughts and by controlling your thoughts he is able to control your actions through his negative influence. However when we meditate on God’s Word we are able to replace Satan’s thoughts with God’s. I hope that you learned something new today that will help you in your walk with God, until next time may God continue to enlighten the eyes of your spirit that you may know Him.
Understanding Bible Faith! Your Faith is Measureable! Part 3
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 3 in an advanced series of lessons on understanding the basic concepts of faith found in the Bible. To have basic and advanced in the same sentence is almost an oxymoronic expression, but I am attempting to simplify a very complex subject so that anyone who wants to can understand it. In the first lesson I gave you an overview of the origin of faith and how that God had faith when He created the world so therefore I taught you that faith was not a brand new concept found only in the New Testament. I further showed you definitive scriptures from Hebrews 11 that described Old Testament faith examples even though God never emphasized or taught this to be a required quality to possess. However, you can clearly see that many people are included in the Bible simply because of their faith. For example, we are told that Rahab the harlot had faith and then we are told in Matthew that she becomes a key figure in the life and genealogy of Jesus (Mat 1:5) because of her faith (Heb 11:31). I taught you that faith is a rudimentary subject of Bible theology which is foundational to you being a real Christian. I also showed you that faith was an essential element for your salvation. Many people want to emphasize God’s sovereignty and ignore man’s faith. I had a commenter like that yesterday. He blasted me pretty well with his religious rhetoric and I’m just going to smile and ignore it. When you discover the balance in the Bible of putting things together correctly you learn to ignore unbalanced ignorant people who know about God but, who do not know God personally.
We have not yet technically defined what faith is, or determined where faith comes from fully, or how you get faith to grow or described how faith works, but we will eventually get there, but probably not today. Today I want to show you some more very important foundational Bible concepts about faith that God reveals to us from a series of scriptures that describes to us, that the amount of faith that we possess is quantifiable or measureable. In other words not everyone has the same amount of faith and that is going to upset some people’s theology greatly. You see I have heard it taught in some churches that God gives everyone the same amount of faith and that all faith comes from God. However, both of those statements are only partially true or I should say just a part of the complete truth. When people teach things like this, they claim that it is not up to us to do anything to have faith and they alleviate us from having any responsibility or accountability for our actions. They in effect seem to place all of the responsibility upon God and that relieves them from having to do anything. This is what I call the “Blameless Christian” theology; a theory of which some confused men on the earth teach. They believe that whatever happens to them in the world, it was just not their fault and therefore they could have done nothing to change it from happening, whether it was good, bad or indifferent. Wow, someday these men and women are going to be very disappointed when God begins to ask them some very basic direct questions about what they were thinking. If you have not read this series of lesson from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start reading with “Part 1”.
What do I mean when I say that faith is measureable or quantifiable? Here in the U.S. we have a set of standards that may be different than you are used to in your country. However, the concepts are identical regardless of the standard being utilized. We measure the size of boards when building a house and precise calculations are made to keep the house level, plumb and square. Then here in the U.S., almost everything in the grocery store is sold by weight, volume or some other identifiable and quantifiable quality that makes them more fairly priced. If you go to the market and buy some grapes, they are normally weighed and then the price is calculated from that. This is the only fair way of buying and selling grapes since grapes can vary in size and the number of grapes on each vine differs. This is what I am trying to teach you today, that faith even though you cannot see it, it is also a measureable spiritual substance according to God and He is able to tell how much that you possess, even if you can’t. Like buying grapes, God is also able to measure your faith to determine how much you enjoy. In the natural realm, this would normally involve a measuring device like a scale along with a computation or calculation for the total amount found, but since we are discussing a spiritual reality this is going to be a little bit more complex than that. I think I want to start this lesson with a Bible verse that is widely taught that confuses people. Here in this verse it would at first seem to imply that faith is a substance that God has given to everyone in equal amounts, but upon closer examination, I believe it says something much different:
Rom 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
Here is God teaching us where Bible faith ultimately comes from. If God can give faith to a man, then all Bible faith must ultimately come from God. This is a further confirmation that faith existed with God before God created man. I mean it only makes since that if He can give something away, then He must first possess it before He can hand it to you. I certainly believe this statement that Bible faith comes from God and the Bible. That is the first key element to note in this verse. However, just because God has given you something, does not mean that you have possessed it or that is all there is to give. In other words I could give you a drink of water in a cup, but you only took a sip and threw the rest away. Did you possess everything that I gave you? Was it up to me to make you drink the water? Do you think that I had any more water or was that all of the water that I had? Do you understand the complexity of spiritual things based upon a simple example of a glass of natural water? There is absolutely no way that I can make you have all of the water that I have and drink it. I could have another pitcher of water to refill your cup after you drank that one. I could have a well of water that is able to refill that pitcher after you drink that much. It could be a never ending supply of water. So to say that God gave faith to every man and that they all received the same amount is pretty crazy using my cup of water example.
Bible faith is clearly a spiritual substance given to us by a spiritual God. Then it says that God has given every man “the measure of faith” and this is where the controversy begins to get deeper. This verse cannot be talking about every human on the earth or it would contradict what the Bible says in other places and God’s Word does not contradict itself ever when interpreted correctly. You see the Bible clearly tells us in other places that every man does not have faith and if you look in 2 Thessalonians 3:2 you will see this is true. Therefore, we have a potential scripture conflict that needs resolution. The way to resolve this conflict is to note the context of the given verses. If you read the entire chapter in 2 Thessalonians you will see that God is speaking about unsaved wicked and evil men not having faith and in Romans 12:3 the context is clearly written about men who are Christians because God says “to every man among you”. Romans 12:3 is written to church members who have to possess faith to be a Christian. So we can conclude that even if God has given faith to every man (saved or unsaved), that everyone does not possess it because they have not received the free full gift from God. This is like if you have a party and invited 12 people and you put out 12 pieces of cake for them and say come and get it. Whose responsibility is it now to take the cake and enjoy it? The host of the party is not responsible to make you take your cake and eat it, so if you choose not to come and get it, you lose out and the host of the party has done their job. This is how salvation works, God is not responsible to make you take your salvation cake and eat it. It is totally up to you to partake of Christ by faith and taste and see that He is good. You see you may not know that you like cake, until you try it by faith. I guess I got off the main subject of did God give to every man “faith” and the same amount. Here is where the controversy continues. I have heard several preachers say that this verse in Romans 12:3, proves that we all have the same amount of faith, but in actuality that is not what God is saying and if you teach it that way you contradict several other scriptures that clearly teach a radically different truth. Let’s start by analyzing the word translated as “dealt”. If you were playing a card game you would normally deal out the cards equally to every participant and this is where people probably get the initial idea or concept of everyone having the same amount or an equal distribution of faith cards, but here is the actual definition for this word from Strong’s:
From G3313; to part, that is, (literally) to apportion, bestow, share, or (figuratively) to disunite, differ: – deal, be difference between, distribute, divide, give part.
Nowhere in this definition does it ever say or even imply that the portions divided are equal. In fact I get the opposite inference from reading this definition that the portions are greatly varying from each other. Do you see this when you read it? But then I have heard that it is the words “the measure” given in this verse that implies everyone is given the identical portion of faith. However, let’s look at the definition of the word “measure” also from the Strong’s:
An apparently primary word; a measure (“metre”), literally or figuratively; by implication a limited portion (degree): – measure.
Here in this definition it does not say “the” measure it says “a” measure and that changes it dramatically. When you read all of the definition it says that out of all of the faith that is possible we have been given a very limited portion of it and if you try to say that means we are all equal you would be assuming incorrectly. The translators of the KJV Bible obviously thought wrong and put the word “the” in their translation instead of the word “a” and came up with this incorrect wording. If you like you can check other translations like the NASB and Young’s Literal Translation and see that they translated it correctly to say “as to each God did deal a measure of faith”. What I will do now is try to show you this position of everyone possessing differing amounts of faith using the Bible to help us establish this truth. Let me give you some Bible examples of this in order to make my point more clear.
Mar 4:40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?
Here is a verse of scripture where Jesus and the disciples are crossing over a large body of water which appears to be the Sea of Galilee and a storm arises that appears to be their demise. However, Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat and the disciple have to wake him up and after Jesus calms the sea and winds, He looks at them and rebukes them for having no faith. The state of “No Faith” would have to represent a complete absence of the spiritual substance of faith from them. If you had a scale that weighed grapes, this would be zero or the state of having no grapes. If you had a bucket this would be the state of it being empty or void of any substance. You do understand this don’t you? If Jesus is saying “where is your faith”, then Jesus is clearly expecting them to have faith and they do not. Why is Jesus looking for faith? You should ask yourself that question and try to come up with the correct answer. In reading this story it would appear to me that Jesus is not a happy faith leader and He clearly tells them they better get with the God faith program. I also believe that He is talking to you and I right now also.
Mat 17:17 Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.
Here we can read another rebuke from the God of creation to His followers. I have only noticed one thing in the Gospels that Jesus ever rebuked His followers for, maybe you can find something I did not and if so please let me know. But, it appears to me that Jesus is blaming the disciple’s lack of faith for their inability to cast out the devil from this man’s son. This is a further confirmation that faith represents the power to remove an evil spiritual force or enemy. So clearly faith is a number one priority to Jesus and these are two examples where Jesus declares that He expected His followers to have some faith and He could not find any when He looked at them. So this is two examples of where people had no faith. Now let us go up the spiritual faith scale to where Jesus said someone had just a little bit of faith.
Mat 6:30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Here is the first occurrence of the word “faith” in the New Testament. Jesus is speaking and it is clear to me that Jesus has some inside information that we do not normally possess. Jesus is comparing some natural things that God accomplishes by clothing the grass of the field and He compares this to clothing people who He says are much more valuable than grass. Then Jesus says something very profound. Jesus said these people that he was speaking to had “little” faith. The word “little” here means “puny” or an “insignificant” amount of faith. If I had a 5 liter bucket and I poured a couple of drops of milk into it that is what Jesus is talking about here in this statement. Jesus is clearly saying that faith is a measureable substance and that you can have just a very tiny portion of it. Do you understand this? There are five times found in the Bible that Jesus refers to people having “little faith” and these can be found in Matthew 6:30, 8:26, 14:31, 16:8 and Luke 12:28. Let’s move on to another very different example of contrasting faith that Jesus gives us from that of no faith or little faith:
Mat 8:10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
Here is the second time faith is mentioned in the New Testament and this time it is dramatically different than the first time. Jesus is speaking about a Roman centurion here in this verse. A Roman centurion was a military man that Jesus said had “great” faith. The term “great” means a very large amount in quantity. You can clearly see that this is the complete opposite of the term “little” faith. In my bucket analogy it would be like pouring in milk to reach almost the top. These verses fascinate me tremendously. They clearly tell me that Jesus was looking for faith by His reaction to when He found it and didn’t find it. It also clearly tells me that the amount of faith that people possessed was not up to God or Jesus. Otherwise Jesus would have not been surprised to find a Roman centurion with great faith and the children of Israel with little faith to no faith. If it was God who was dealing out the faith and He wanted Israel to have great faith, then they would have clearly had it. Do you see my logic here? This tells me that “faith” while it comes from God it does not depend upon God solely and completely for how much we have. In other words we have a major part and role to play in the situation and we will definitely talk more about this in other lessons. Let me give you another example of great faith:
Mat 15:28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
There are only a very few number of people in the Bible that Jesus ever commended for having “great” faith and this woman in this chapter of Matthew is certainly one of them. Later in these lessons on faith we will discuss why some had great faith and why some had little faith but that is not my subject today. What I want to demonstrate to you is the fact that Jesus said “faith” was measurable and that the amount that a person had was not dependent upon God’s actions alone. It is very interesting to note in this story that this woman is another example of a Gentile being ministered to by the King of the Jews who clearly said that He was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Yet Jesus ministered to her and the Roman centurion and Jesus said both of them had “great” faith. It is very clear to me that great “faith” gets God’s attention no matter who possesses it. I firmly believe that we as Christians should be doing whatever it takes to achieve to this level of great faith so that we can be praised by God. Did that sound arrogant? Do you want God to say to you “well done thou good and faithful servant”? If you do then I believe it is going to take you having great faith.
Mat 9:2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.
Here is a scripture that I have touched on some before, but I will give you another perspective on this verse given what we have learned. We have clearly seen that Jesus rebuked his disciples for having no faith. Jesus also said of others that they had little faith. Then we saw that Jesus clearly said some had great faith. Because, Jesus does not appear to measure or qualify the amount of faith that is being observed, I make the logical conclusion from that information that Jesus puts their faith somewhere in the middle of the scale. In other words their faith was not just a little bit and it was not a huge great amount, I believe that it was just right faith for the situation they were in. I’ll call this the Goldilocks Faith, just for the sake of argument. In the Goldilocks story she is always looking for the just right fit for her size. It is an interesting concept to consider, if you can have varying degrees of faith from zero to a whole bunch, then you should be able to evaluate your faith and measure what you can and cannot do with it. Many times people want to have million dollar faith when they don’t have the faith for 50 cents. This is where faith gets a bad rap in churches and people begin to teach this faith stuff doesn’t work. You should read the life story of a man named Smith Wigglesworth and learn that he did not start out raising people from the dead and that this only came after years of developing his faith to this level. Smith Wigglesworth also started an orphanage that when he began he had nothing with little faith to even get it going. But, by the time of the end of his life came he ran a home for hundreds of orphan children that cost big bucks to sustain. Smith Wigglesworth learned the conepts of faith from God and learned how to grow his faith. He wrote a book about this called “Ever Increasing Faith” teaching us that faith grows. Let’s think briefly about the men who carried the lame man up on the roof, if they had no faith or little faith, they would not have gone through such extraordinary ways to get to Jesus. However, if they had possessed great faith, they would not have had to go through such extraordinary efforts to get to Jesus. It is a complex paradox of how faith works. The Roman centurion told Jesus “You do not have to come to my house to heal my servant, just speak the word only and he will be healed”. You see if the Roman centurion had middle of the road faith, he would have had Jesus come and lay hands on him. If the Roman centurion had no faith or little faith he would have not even come to Jesus and his servant would have probably died. Wow, I just gave you a quick introduction to how faith works and what faith does depending upon the amount of faith that you possess. That was an introduction to stuff to come.
It is also imperative to make another observation from these few verses that we have read in Matthew. Jesus has not died on the cross, been raised from the dead nor ascended back into heaven and yet Jesus is speaking of “faith” as being a critical element to who receives a miracle from Him and who does not. This fact further proves the existence of faith as being an essential and present factor in the Old Testament even though it has not technically been revealed in the Word of God up until this point in time of the physical ministry of Jesus. Let’s move on to another quantifiable measure of faith found in the Bible.
Act 6:5 And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:
Here we have a measurement of faith that should be the ultimate goal of every Christian. Here in this verse of Acts God describes a man named Stephen. In this verse God says that Stephen was “full” of faith. Using my bucket analogy again, that would mean a bucket that overflowed with milk; in other words a bucket that you could not put any more faith into. This was the condition of this man and this concept is totally difficult for me to even comprehend. God is clearly contrasting the amounts of faith in at least five different levels. We had no faith, little faith, just right faith, great faith and full of faith and we could logically assume that there are varying ranges of faith in between these levels given to us like a gas gauge. In fact using my bucket analogy we could have a totally empty bucket all the way to the overflowing bucket level.
We have learned a lot about faith today. Faith is a measureable and quantifiable spiritual substance that the total amount of faith contained in every human can vary dramatically from none to overflowing amounts. We have seen repeatedly that faith was a substance that God expected to be present in every person that was ministered to by Jesus and we can conclude that God expects this in us Christians the same way. Here are some other facts about faith that we have discovered today:
- Bible faith ultimately comes from God.
- However Jesus and the Bible said some had No Faith.
- Jesus taught us that some people had only Little Faith.
- Jesus taught us that some people had “Just Right” Faith to be made whole.
- Jesus also taught us that a few people had Great Faith that exceeded His expectations.
- Later in Acts we saw Stephen being described as being Full of Faith.
- All of these are differing levels of the same spiritual substance from Zero to Maximum.
- We again saw that Jesus was looking for faith in everyone that He encountered.
- People were praised by God for having faith and rebuked by Him for not having any or just having a little bit.
- Finally, we can logically conclude from all of this infrmation given to us today that since faith is measureable that the current level of our faith can be increased no matter where we currently are at on the faith scale.
Do you understand the importance of studying this subject of Bible Faith? Are you beginning to see the significance that God put on this subject of faith in the Bible? I hope you have learned something that will help you in your walk with God and that this new knowledge will be put to use to help further the Kingdom of God. God Bless you until next time.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on Bible faith you can go to “Part 4“.
Understanding the Brotherly Love of the Lord in the Family of God!
(Ver 1.1) Today is a lesson to me because I am challenged at times with turning the other cheek when people write me hateful self-righteous comments on my website, my flesh wants to strike back, but my spirit feels compassion and love for them. This is a very constant internal struggle that we are all faced with over the course of our lives. This is a battle of our wills, between what our flesh wants and what our spirit wants to do and as long as we live on the earth this is a never ending cycle. Satan is bent upon getting real Christians to come out of the spiritual dimension and to get them back into the physical fight with our brothers and sisters but, we must learn that there is a higher path and ground to stand on. So when a commenter left me a message yesterday telling me I’m not a Christian, my flesh wanted to write them back and tell them they were a self-righteous idiot to stand in the seat of judgment against a fellow Christian. They didn’t know me, so they had no idea what I was or was not. They obviously just read some words on a web-site and I guess I didn’t believe like they did so they have concluded I don’t know God. Wow, I find that attitude very humorous. People can act so foolishly and not even know it. The Bible says in Isaiah 5:20 “Woe to you who call evil good and good evil”. In the very next verse in Isaiah God says “Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes”. In other words God calls someone who judges incorrectly and raises their own self higher than others, a person who is in jeopardy of being judged by God.
So rather than doing what my flesh wants to do today, I will teach on love towards your brother. In doing this I will feed my spirit on the right things to do and build up myself to become stronger in this area. You see I technically do not know if my commenter was my brother or not, but I will give them the benefit of a doubt since they were reading a Christian’s blog about Advanced Spiritual Bible study.
Rom 12:10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
To be kind means that you have the opportunity to not be kind at times. It would seem that this occurs more often than you might think. People can be easily misunderstood; their words can be taken incorrectly very easily. Reading someone’s writing is not like hearing a person’s voice where you can pick up on voice changes, inflections, sarcasm, humor and emphasized or deemphasized expressions or whatever. I have found that writing online is probably harder than just talking to someone in person because of these challenges. So while I do not intend to offend anyone, I know sometimes I do. The term translated as “kind affection” is a Greek word that is interesting to note in this verse. The word means an “emotional cherishing or fondness of a family member”. Did you know I was in your family that is if you are a Christian? Obviously if you are not a Christian you are not in my family which is the family of the Most High God. I am in the family of Jesus Christ and I know this for a fact whether you do or not. Did you know that God has a spiritual family? Christians need to learn this first and then learn how to treat their fellow family members with kindness.
Here in this verse we have another word that is translated as love, but is a different type of love. The Greek word “philadelphia” is the word that is translated as “brotherly love”. Brotherly love is a “fraternal love” of your family again. If you did not know that there are different types of love in the Bible you should do a study on that subject. Most intelligent people understand that you love your wife differently than you love your sister. Unless your sister happens to be your wife, like Abraham’s wife was. In John 3:16 it says “God so loved the world that He gave…”. In John 3:16 the Greek word for love is “agape”. This word in John 3:16 is the God kind of love where God loved us while we were even sinners and died for us when we did not deserve it, earn it, or ever could. The Bible tells us that God is “Agape” in 1 John 4:8. It does not say that God has Agape, it says He is Agape. Then if you are a Christian this Agape is now a part of your spirit. Agape is an unconditional God kind of love that every Christian possesses in their spirits. However, getting “Agape” out to the external is a different subject entirely. Philadelphia is similar but yet different. It is kind of like the saying you can choose your friends but you cannot choose your relatives. Well sometimes your natural relatives can be the most challenging to love, so it is in the spiritual family of God also. In the real world you can walk away from someone being hateful, but if this is your brother doing this at the family dinner, then you have an opportunity to overcome the same internal challenge that I have been going through today. Do you retaliate or do you try to smile and say something kind. Wow, that is a bigger challenge than you can imagine.
Next, in this verse it says “in honor”. This is an interesting concept. This word in the Greek means “something valuable” or “a great price paid”. This word in 1 Peter 2:7 is used to describe Jesus Christ as being the “precious” stone that the builders rejected. This is the exact same Greek word used in Romans 12:10 as “honor”. Anything that is “precious” in the eyes of God should be precious to you also. I believe that God is saying to treat others as being precious as you are. Wouldn’t it be a nicer church if people would just do what God said? I hope and pray that someday they will become a doer of the word of God and not just a hearer only. The last phrase in this verse Romans 12:10 says to “prefer one another”. This is another amazing truth that is very profound. This Greek word translated as “preferring” means to “lead the way for others”. Wow, is that a strong statement. So obviously when someone hits you verbally and you want to hit them back, God instructs us to become an example to them so that they can be directed into the right path. I use to have a sign in my office that said “He who leads when no one follows, only takes a walk”. So today I am attempting to take a few people on the internet down a path of brotherly love and I am hoping someone will learn to follow.
1Co 11:1 Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.
I’m not Paul and I’m certainly not Jesus, but I’m trying to follow their examples. The Christian way is a complex life style that can be simplified if you approach your existence using God’s words to guide you into the right things to do. Because people do not know the Bible they do not follow the Bible. God says in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. Instead of getting the right knowledge from God, a lot of the time people are deceived into a distracted priority for a lesser way of learning and doing. I am attempting to come up to a higher spiritual dimension today and to set an example of what to do when someone calls you names unjustly. This will probably not be the last time that someone does this to me, so this will probably not be the last time that I write about love on this website. I trust that those of you, who can see the difference, you have some understanding in what kind of spiritual battle I have been going through today. Now that I read the Bible about love and looked up the definitions, reminding myself of the truth, I have a better and stronger resolve to do the words of God towards others. So if you have been a faithful reader of this website, I apologize for writing a Bible lesson directly and mostly at myself. I hope that you will display some grace towards the things that we probably all face at one time or the other and to my brother who left me this hateful comment, I will tell you that I love you anyway and I will pray that you will do the same in the future. God Bless!
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight – Part 11 – Understanding God’s Old Testament Hidden Secrets!
(Ver 1.3) This is “Part 11” in a series of Bible lesson about “How God Hides Spiritual Truth in the Words of Natural Truths”. If you would like to begin reading from the start please select “Part 1“. Today is a lesson on Understanding that there are many Hidden Spiritual Secrets of God in the Old Testament. I have written on this subject before, but God won’t let me get away from it. He keeps bringing it back up again and again for a reason. I guess there are still so many people in the world who need to learn this, that He wants to keep bringing it back up until they get it completely. What we find in every in-depth Bible study is that there are many subjects in the Old Testament that are clearly hidden and only revealed by God to those in the New Covenant. This is the number one reason why the natural Jewish people did not see or understand their God given Holy Book of the Law or the books written by their prophets. The cause for this inability to understand the truth comes from the the basic design of God’s Word. God has written to the Jews a highly complex book of hidden spiritual information using some natural words, rules, instructions and the historical stories of some natural people and places. I can see these realities looking at them from a New Testament perspective, but they cannot observe them from their Old Testament point of view. I call this technique of God’s writing “Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight” and today I am going to discuss a number of these hidden subjects concealed within the words of the Old Testament.
Mat 13:35 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.
It is very clear from my Bible study that God has an immense number of hidden subjects in the Old Testament. Of course if you did not know this, your attempt at understanding the O.T. would be severely hampered. Not knowing how the Old Testament was designed, written and constructed with these hidden and concealed pieces of spiritual information means that you are attempting to interpret and understand the Bible using only your mental capacity and that is clearly not talented enough to achieve the necessary level of intelligence, maturity and wisdom to overcome God’s ability to conceal these things from you. It would be like you attempting to crack a 128 bit encryption with your calculator and if you understand code systems you know this is virtually impossible to do anyway using a large scale computer. In other words God is so much smarter than you, that without His help to understand what has been written is why we see so many confused people in the world today searching for the truth. So here is a list of some of the hidden subjects in the Old Testament books:
- Jesus, the Personal Appearance of God on the Earth in the flesh.
- Why Jesus Came to the Earth.
- The Death of Jesus.
- Salvation
- Satan
- Resurrection
- Faith
- Seeds
- Spiritual things like Fruit, Gifts
- God’s Spiritual Family
- The Kingdom of God
- The Creation of the Church and the New Covenant
- The fact that there were Hidden Secrets was clearly a Secret
These are just a few of the hidden subjects of the Old Testament that God has revealed to us in the New Testament. I have written several blogs on many of these subjects and if you have read them and understood them, then you know that God is pretty smart. I plan on doing more of these topics that I have not touched on before in the future so hang in there and keep reading my blogs. You will be glad that you did as we continue.
THE HIDDEN JESUS
Let’s go through the list of subjects and briefly touch on them for an introduction. Jesus of course is described on almost every page of the Old Testament, but using very complex hidden methods of concealment. These can range from multiple names, titles and descriptions, symbolism, analogies which are hidden allegorical natural stories and even indirect prophetic statements where He is not directly named. For example, Jesus can be called an “angel”, (Gen 48:16), “Shiloh” (Gen 49:10) or “Rose of Sharon” (Song 2:1) or “Branch of Righteousness” (Jer 23:5) or “Sun of Righteousness” (Mal 4:2) to name a few hidden names of Jesus in the O.T. If you want to see more names of Jesus you can go to my list “Names, Titles, Symbols of Jesus”. There are probably more hidden references to Jesus in the Old Testament than any other hidden subject. This is mainly because He is the most important subject for you to know. I have another Bible lesson on “The Hidden Jesus in Genesis” and this may help you to see more of the techniques that God has used to conceal Himself in His Word. If you have not read my series on “God’s Methods of Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight” then you should definitely do that very soon.
THE HIDDEN REASON FOR JESUS
Why did Jesus come to the earth? There are so many hidden reasons for why Jesus came to the earth that there is no way I can get into them all in this brief synopsis. To provide salvation for us is one of the key reasons for God’s personal appearance on the earth, but definitely not the only reason that Jesus came. I think I wrote a lesson called “The Top 10 Reasons Jesus Came to the Earth” and you should probably check that out if you have not read it already. When you begin to realize that God is multi-dimensional and able to accomplish multiple things in one planned work then you start to realize the extreme intelligence of God. Too many people think one-dimensionally and only accomplish one task at one time using a single threaded approach to life. This is like computers of old, which were sequentially threaded devices that could only do one instruction at a time. However, in today’s modern computer world with multi-processor capabilities it is much easier to visualize the mind of God who clearly is speaking to millions of people on the earth simultaneously. That is pretty awesome stuff if you asked me. I will challenge you to go through the Old Testament and find the concealed reasons why Jesus was prophesied to come to the earth. It is a fascinating Bible study to do.
We know from reading 1 Corinthians 2:8 that Satan did not know that the death of Jesus on the cross was his greatest mistake. Had Jesus not been slain and shed His blood, the world’s situation would be exactly the same as before Jesus came into the world and that was not a good situation to be in. We can clearly see that Jesus coming into the world to die was a hidden secret from God. We can further explore this information in many other verses of the Bible. I like the words of Ruth where she revealed to us that it was only “death that was a separating force” that could divide her from her mother-in-law Naomi. God uses His death on the cross to separate Himself from the evil one named Satan. This is not a widely taught subject, because I believe it is a new subject revealed in the last days by God.
THE HIDDEN SATAN
In reading the Old Testament there is seldom any direct reference of the spiritual being named Satan. When he is mentioned it is widely using some symbolic title like the “serpent” in Genesis 3:1. Other times God speaks of an individual like the “Prince of Persia” (Dan 10:13) and this is Satan. Still other times there is the “King of Tyrus” in Ezekiel 28:12 and this is widely believed to be a hidden reference to Satan. If you would like to read more “Names, Titles, Symbols of Satan” then you should go and do that. Why does God hide our enemy in the text of the Old Testament writings? It is a fascinating concept to consider. Why does God hide any information in the Bible? From my view point, there is no reason to describe Satan in great detail since in the Old Testament the human race could not do anything about him. Satan is called the “god of this world” in the N.T. (2 Cor 4:4). Therefore we realize that as the god of this world Satan had ultimate control or influence over many of the things that transpired here. I know that goes against the theology of a lot of confused individuals who believe that God is in control of everything that happens, but that is just too bad because the Bible teaches us some quite different realities. I believe that Satan was hidden from plain view for the safety and protection of the people in the O.T. If people would had known about him in greater detail, probably many more people would have made him their god. In addition to this other than being in the protection of obedience to God’s word there was nothing that any human on earth could do about Satan. It was not until Jesus died that Christians were again given authority over Satan as you can read in Luke 10:19.
THE HIDDEN SUBJECT OF FAITH
Faith is a subject that was definitely hidden in the Old Testament very well. In the Old Testament God honored the people’s faith and allowed many people to perish because they had no faith. You can clearly see this in the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness. They sent 12 spies into the Promise Land to check it out and they come back and only 2 had a good faith filled report. The majority came back with the evil report of doubt and unbelief. Everyone that did not believe the good report died in the wilderness over the course of time, but these two men named Joshua and Caleb led the younger generation into the Promise Land by faith. You can read about what happened in this Old Testament story in the book of Hebrews chapters 3 and 4, where God said the children of Israel failed to mix their faith with God’s promise so they did not enter into His rest. Faith is therefore a dominate New Testament revealed truth that was not made known to those in the Old Testament. Galatians 3:23 clearly teaches us that faith was a revealed New Covenant reality. This literally means that faith was previously hidden to those under the law. If you would like to read my latest series on “Understanding Bible Faith” then please do that. In this series I talk about the Genesis or beginning of faith and I teach you that faith existed eternally. Therefore the subject of faith was a factor in the Old Testament the same as it is a predominate factor for the New Testament. Being concealed in the Old Testament does not mean it cannot be found for those that are truly seeking to know and find it. I challenge you to do this and you will be enlightened beyond word’s descriptions.
FINDING THE HIDDEN SECRETS OF GOD
There are just so many hidden subjects in the Bible that I cannot fully speak to all of them in this introduction. What I wanted to do was to get you interested in searching your Bible for hidden information. Learn to open your eyes to spiritual things and then read your Old Testament using new ways to look at this old natural information. It will amaze you if you believe it and allow God to teach you these things. Remember when the early church was first started, the only Words of God that they had were the writings of Moses and the Old Testament prophets? So Peter and the other apostles were limited to teaching the church only from these O.T. books. Keep this in mind when you read from them and see if you can see what they used to teach Jesus, salvation and all the other hidden subjects.
Act 17:2 And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,
Paul preaches using only the Old Testament and He starts churches in many cities where he later writes them letters from prison. We know that churches in Ephesus, Galatia, Rome and Corinth were started this way. Until Paul was thrown into prison the only Bible the church had were the Old Testament writings. They then had to be able to see that Jesus was there along with many of the New Testament concepts that have been since written about and expanded in the New Testament.
Act 18:28 For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.
You should be able to do the same thing that Apollos did here in Acts 18. You should be smart enough to learn every verse that you can in the Old Testament so that you can show Jews their Messiah is Jesus. If you have a legal mind and can speak like a lawyer you will be able to convince many of the Jews that Messiah has come. But, do not go and speak like an ignorant fool to someone who knows more than you do. You are going to have to study and become more informed than they are.
Act 8:30 And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?
I’ll wrap this Bible lesson up with a short story of how God will cause some amazing supernatural things to occur when a man is hungry to know the truth. In Acts 8 is a story where we hear a question from Phillip that is still relevant today. A man from Africa was reading the book of Isaiah and Phillip ran to him and asked him a very basic question. If it was easy to understand what you were reading then it would be unnecessary and even stupid to ask someone this question. However, it is very obvious to me that understanding what you read in the O.T. is the ultimate goal, but that this does not automatically happen just because you read it. In doing this advanced Bible Study blog, I have met many men and women who know how to read these verses, but I have met few who can see what they mean. Having the eyes of your understanding enlightened to see the truth, this is what God desires to do today.
Act 8:31 And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
This Ethiopian man was an extremely intelligent individual and possessed great wisdom based upon his answer to Phillip’s question. I have had far less intelligent men and women write me ignorant comments. This foreigner Gentile man came all the way from his country to Jerusalem to read God’s words written by the prophet Isaiah. I believe God notices people who are hungry and thirsty for the truth and this is why Phillip was sent to him. I believe that God will help any man or woman who truly desires to know Him in this way. The man displayed a key quality for learning and it was called being open minded to hear about what you do not understand. If only more of my reader’s had this quality they would benefit the same as this man did.
Act 8:32 The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:
Act 8:33 In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.
Act 8:34 And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?
Do you see the heart of this man? He had so many admirable qualities that caused God to do supernatural things to get him the answers to his questions. First off the man was humble and this opened the door for God to do mighty things. Next, the man was hungry for the truth no matter what it was. Then this man was open to hear the truth and this allowed him to hear with his spirit. Finally, after hearing the truth spoken to him from a complete stranger, this man believed it and was saved. Wow, what a powerful story that God has given to us of how salvation works. Here we have a story of how a foreign man saw a hidden Jesus in Isaiah and that allowed God to send another man to him to help him understand the truth. This is an extremely valuable lesson for what to do and what God will do in response. Begin to understand that the Bible has many complex hidden mysteries and then seek to know them. Allow God to answer your questions however He wants. It may be Him sending you someone with the answer to knock on your door. It may be a complete stranger that you do not know. It could be a blog on the internet. God can use anyone, anywhere but you are going to have to be ready to respond.
So we have looked at a lot of different scriptures today. We talked about God’s hidden subjects and the fact that they still exist in the Bible today. If you do not believe that, then you should go read Revelation and tell me what it all means. I’ve studied Revelation for many years and I’m a long way from knowing everything that is written there. In fact if you search the internet you cannot find two people who completely believe everything the same 100 per cent. I believe that God is revealing this information before He returns for us. But, we are going to have to be like the Ethiopian and be open to hear and learn the truth. Ask questions and allow the answers to come from God. Learn the hidden information in the Bible and see them for the spiritual truth that they are. God Bless you until next time.
If you would like to continue reading in this series, please go to “Part 12” next.
Understanding the Davidic Covenant and the Rapture Connection!
(Ver 1.2) This is a basic rebuttal to a man who left me a very ignorant comment on one of my posts. He was adamantly opposed to the concept that Jesus could possibly come back and catch His church up before the tribulation occurred. He basically took some verses out of context and gave them some natural interpretations to justify his ignorant position and beliefs. I have learned not to reply to my critics and their hateful words because they are not interested in getting help or learning the truth. I may read their comments to see if I can learn something, but I then delete them and move on. So if you want to leave me a hateful bunch of reasons of why I’m wrong, please do not waste either of our times. So today’s lesson is not for my commenter but, only for those who are willing to hear the truth and to change. That is what makes me different than my commenter, I am perfectly willing to change if anyone can give me spiritual Bible verses that say I am wrong, and then I will change very fast. What this man was guilty of is an attempt to put his limitations and definitions on what God can do. It is very clear to me that God will never violate His word. You can always count on the fact that God will do whatever He says. However, it is also very clear to me that there are many people in the world who do not understand God’s word so they have come up with erroneous conclusions that put limitations on what God can do in their mind. It is interesting to note that God is not limited in His ability to what you have in your mind and what you think that He can do. Your interpretation of God’s word does not limit His ability to do what He said He would do. Your wrong interpretations of His word will only affect you personally and what He will do for you and it will have no effect when He comes to rapture me out of here in a very short time from now. I am going to start by giving you his main scripture that this man said was proof for why Jesus could not come back before the tribulation ended and then hopefully show you how narrow minded and blind his argument was.
Act 3:21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
According to my very ignorant commenter, he claimed that this verse says that Jesus has returned to heaven and must remain there until the time when all things that have been written about have been completed, fulfilled, accomplished or performed. In other words according to him Jesus cannot ever come back to the earth to rapture the church before the tribulation because every prophecy has not been fulfilled in his mind. I wonder who died and made this reader God. Clearly he acts like he knows more than God when he can tell God what he can do and what he can’t do. Clearly he does not know how to read the Bible and see that Jesus has already been back to the earth several times since ascending into the heavens and being seated at the right hand of Majesty. He is attempting to put God into his little box and God is not interested in his mindless interpretations. According to my reader he saw where Scofield said that Israel must be restored to the seed of David before Jesus returns. Therefore he has concluded that a pre-tribulation rapture of the church is impossible without understanding that the Seed of David has already been restored His Kingdom. I went and reviewed Scofield’s notes on the subject and I do not have any idea how this man came to his conclusions based upon this information. It is very clear to me that he is thinking of spiritual things in the terms of natural interpretations, definitions and realities and not seeing that they have already been fulfilled in Christ. Let’s go back and see what God said to David:
2Sa 7:16 And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.
The basis of the Davidic Covenant is established when the prophet Nathan comes to speak to David in 2 Samuel 7. You can go and read the entire chapter if you like. I just want to focus in on one verse for now and this occurs in verse 16. God says to King David that He will make David’s house and kingdom an eternal everlasting one. Since David died physically and has not been resurrected, God was obviously not speaking to David who was incapable of fulfilling this prophecy. In fact there were no sons of David who were ever capable of fulfilling this prophecy until God became his son in Jesus. If you understand the genealogies of Jesus given to us in Matthew and Luke you know that these are two different ancestries of two different people. If you do not know this you better go and study it again in detail. Both lineages go through David, but after David the one in Matthew is through David’s son Solomon and the other one in Luke is through David’s son Nathan. So it is very clear that they are not the same person who comes to the end of this list. Both do not end up at Jesus, only one does. So how do you resolve this problem? You have to realize that the genealogy in Matthew is that of Joseph and the genealogy in Luke is that of Mary the mother of Jesus and I do not have time to prove this to you in this lesson. Use your brain and read it and hopefully you will see it. What we understand from the Bible is that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, so in order for Jesus to be born a physical son of David his physical mother must have been a daughter of David. This is the only way the Davidic covenant would ever be fulfilled eternally. Jesus Christ is the only son of David that is alive today to take his father’s throne and since Jesus is eternally alive His kingdom is also eternal.
What I am going to do now is to change subjects for a bit to show you that Jesus is not limited to the words of an ignorant commenter to what He can do. According to my commenter, it is not possible for Jesus to return to the earth because we read in Acts 3:21 that heaven has received him until all things have been restored in the earth. It is very obvious to me that my commenter is expecting an earthly Kingdom to be reestablished like David’s kingdom and that only this would fulfill the prophecy in his mind. However, Jesus is not limited to your interpretation of the scripture, so He can return to the earth as often as he likes and you can’t do anything about it. Let’s look at a couple of examples in the Bible where it clearly tells us that Jesus came back to the earth after being seated in heaven:
Act 9:17 And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.
Uh oh? What did this verse say? Did Jesus appear to Saul on the road to Damascus? Didn’t Jesus know this was not permitted according to my deceived commenter? I guess Jesus didn’t read Scofield commentary and decided to show up and talk with Saul anyway. This verse also says that Jesus was the one that sent Ananias personally to Saul. How did Jesus accomplish this while being in heaven? Apparently Jesus appeared to Ananias and told him to go to see Saul. You can read this in the surrounding verses of chapter 9 how that Jesus appears to Ananias in a vision. What is a vision? A vision is the appearing of Jesus in a spiritual form on the earth where a man is permitted to see him spiritually. Maybe you do not understand spiritual visions because you have never had one. So that is probably the most difficult obstacle for you to overcome. You need to learn about what visions are and how visions occur using the Bible. I wrote a Bible lesson about this subject so you should go and read that if you want to know if they are “Real or Fantasy”. Here we have a verse that says very clearly that Jesus appeared to two different people on the earth after going back to heaven and you will have to ignore them completely to hold on to your deceived ideas of what Jesus can and can’t do in the earth before the tribulation occurs. Here is a much more detailed account of the appearing of Jesus to Saul on the road to Damascus and you should pay close attention to this story to see if God is saying this is the way it happened or not:
Act 26:12 Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests,
We can definitely see that Paul is describing his journey and the reasons behind the journey. Saul was given authority of the chief priests to persecute the church of Jesus Christ. That is what he intended to do when something happened to interrupt his plans:
Act 26:13 At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me.
A very bright light shines from heaven into the natural realm on the road to Damascus and Saul and his traveling companions see it. This light is compared to the light of the sun. Of course Jesus is called the Sun of Righteousness in Malachi so this is not uncommon to describe the appearing of Jesus as being a very bright light from heaven. In fact if you look through your Bible you will see that Jesus is described to be either light or various synonymous terms for the sun around ten times just in the New Testament. If you do not know where these verses are you can check out my post on the “The Names, Titles, Symbols of Jesus”.
Act 26:14 And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
You see in my Bible, the words of Jesus are in Red Ink so that they are easily recognizable. If Saul is on the earth on the road to Damascus, how is it possible that Jesus can appear and speak to him, since Jesus is obviously not permitted to come back to the earth until the restoration of all things be accomplished? Wow, I wonder how stupid you have to be to come up with some of these false teachings. People really need to open their spiritual eyes and see what the Bible actually says before they open their mouths and prove how ignorant that they are. It is very clear to me that my commenter has a scriptural dilemma to resolve; a conflict of monumental proportions. Either the prophecies that he says have not been fulfilled and God is a liar or the prophecies have been fulfilled in the spiritual realm.
Act 26:15 And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
This verse must baffle the minds of many of the mindless deceived people in the world. Saul was persecuting the church and Jesus says he was persecuting Him personally. How is that even possible? If you think only naturally it is not possible, but if you begin to think spiritually it is very possible. You see the problem is when people do not see things spiritually they are limited to their natural view points and these are clearly not what God intended for us to use. The Bible clearly says that the people in the church are the “body of Christ” and members in particular (Rom 12:5, 1 Cor 12:27, Eph 4:12, Eph 5:23). Just as the human body is made up of millions and billions of individual cells, God is saying my spiritual body is made up of millions and billions of individual people. I’m about to blow some of your minds with my next statement of revelation so get ready for a new bomb shell. You can clearly see according to the Bible that Christ has NEVER technically left the earth fully yet! As long as the church is here Christ is here since we are His body and He is our head. So obviously my ignorant commenter is just a bit confused and does not know what he is talking about in this instance. If Jesus never left the earth then it is perfectly legal for Him to return anytime He likes for any reason He likes and this would include the rapture of the church, His body. When the church is raptured and only when the church departs the earth has Christ fully left the earth. However, it is more complicated than that since even after the rapture occurs more people on the earth can become Christians also and choose to believe.
Act 26:16 But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee;
So according to the words of Jesus himself, He has appeared to Saul to make him a witness to the truth. Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus would do this with everybody on the earth? However, there is no Bible verse that says He will do this so do not pray for Jesus to come and appear to you, for more than likely your prayer will be answered by Satan and not God. You can clearly see in this verse that Jesus is saying that He has appeared to Saul for a specific purpose and then in the final statement of this verse Jesus claims that He will come back to teach him more things in the future. The statement that Jesus made goes from present tense to future tense and it is very important for you to see this. Jesus is able to appear to anyone that He wishes at any time. It is His choice to do this and not yours. I have heard more than one modern minister say that Jesus appeared to them in a vision and that He taught them something very important to tell us. So if Jesus wants to come back to the earth, He is not going to check with you and see if it is OK for Him to come. Get it? He is the head of the church and not you!
Act 23:11 And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
Here is just another Bible example of how Jesus came to Paul and appeared to him on the earth without asking for anyone’s permission. Please understand the precedence that is being established and is presented to you. If the Bible records these specific instances where Jesus appeared on the earth after His physical ascension into heaven, then there is absolutely nothing stopping Him from coming to rapture His church body out before the tribulation has started. This is really not rocket science but you do have to have the eyes that see spiritual things. You do understand that Jesus does not have to set foot on the earth to catch His church up to where He is, don’t you? So technically speaking the rapture of the church is not Jesus setting foot on the earth at all. We are going up to meet him and he doesn’t have to come down to get us. Therefore, your argument for no rapture is purely fictional rhetoric.
So back to the Davidic covenant; let’s return to this and see what else the Bible says. We know that Jesus Christ is called the son of David in Matthew 1:1, 9:27, 12:23, 15:22, 20:30-31, 21:9, 21:15, 22:42-45, Luke 1:32, Rom 1:3, 2 Tim 2:8, and Rev 22:16 to name a few of the verses that reveal this information to us. Then you can read in Revelation 1:8 that Jesus says “I am alive forevermore”. So clearly Jesus has been resurrected never to die again. Based upon these scriptures Jesus certainly qualifies to be the eternal ruler of his father David’s throne which was prophesied in the Old Testament.
Luk 1:31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
Luk 1:32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
Luk 1:33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
What we must do after reading this angelic prophecy given to Mary about her coming son Jesus is determine if God is declaring a natural kingdom or a spiritual kingdom. There are obviously many Christians who do not understand that there is a difference and this is their first mistake. What these Christians do is to think naturally first, without considering or finding out if there is any other way that this prophecy could be fulfilled in the spiritual realm. For example, in many of my Bible lessons I have taught you that the Bible declares that there are three different cities named Jerusalem. So when you read a prophecy of Jerusalem you must determine which city is being spoken of. I guess this concept blows the mind of many people and they are just not making the connection. I believe that they are having trouble making the leap from natural into spiritual things. There is only one city in the natural named Jerusalem in the Bible and this is all they can wrap their minds around, but the Bible teaches us that there are two other cities in the spiritual realm called by the exact same name. This makes correct Bible interpretation infinitely more complex. By assuming that a scripture is speaking of the natural city you are more than likely missing the truth. You see we can find many verses in the Bible that reveal there is a major difference between these two realms. For example, read Matthew 5:34 and 23:22 to see God’s throne being described as a place in heaven. This is clearly a spiritual location, a spiritual throne and a spiritual kingdom based upon the fact that God is a spirit (John 4:24). If you can see the existence of parallel realities in the Bible you will be far above the capabilities of many people who read the Bible using their natural one dimensional mind. I guess I need to do a Bible teaching on the reality of the spiritual nation of Israel. I have avoided this subject because of the potential controversy that it can stir up. You see I have read other people’s blogs after they have written about spiritual Israel and they are attacked vehemently by narrow minded spiritually blind people who cannot see the truth and what the Bible says. Let me ask those who fight this Bible subject so enthusiastically if there is like the Bible says a spiritual city called Jerusalem, what is it the capital of? We can clearly understand that natural Jerusalem was and is the capital city of the natural nation of Israel here on the earth. Can you not think logically enough to conclude that a spiritual nation of Israel must exist if God names his new heavenly city Jerusalem in Revelation 21? I mean come on and use your brain.
I guess I have gone long enough in today’s lesson. I have not fully covered the subject about the Davidic Covenant and there are many other scriptures that we could add to this discussion. I want you to think with me if God tells David in 2 Samuel that his kingdom will be an eternal one, what do you think that implies? To me it is obvious that it is not a natural kingdom here on this earth. There are many Bible verses that say that Jesus will come back and establishes a 1000 year reign of peace on the earth. This is God’s day of rest prophesied from Genesis 1. I think that there are some confused people who are expecting Jesus to set up His eternal kingdom in this 1000 year time frame and that is why they say that the rapture cannot take place until this happens. However, this is just more misguided interpretations of the Bible while they clearly are not looking for the real answers. Did you know that the 1000 year natural reign of Christ is not forever? I mean think! It clearly only lasts a 1000 years and then what? The Bible tells us that Satan will be released from the pit to deceive again. So everyone who is born during the 1000 years of the righteous reign of Christ will be given the opportunity to make a choice and to be deceived like we have all had these same choices to make. There is an eternal Kingdom of God and the Bible says it is in me right now. Jesus clearly taught us where His kingdom was located when He said “the Kingdom of God is in you” (Luke 17:21). So men are looking for external things while God has established His kingdom on the inside of us in a spiritual realm you cannot see. Either change your perspective to see the truth or choose to remain in your deception. Thanks for reading my Bible lesson on the Davidic Covenant and why the rapture can take place at any time. God Bless!
Understanding why People Murder People! Genesis 4 – Cain and Abel!
(Ver 1.2) This is a very tricky complex subject. In light of the events in America this weekend in Arizona, I thought it would be a good topic to discuss briefly. I do not like evil and this is not my favorite subject in the Bible to study. Clearly the murder of defenseless people is an evil action which should be viewed as an abomination to God and not the plan of God. While it is possible for God to cause something positive to come from any evil negative, there is absolutely no way that God planned it, authorized it or was a party to it. If you think that He was you are probably very ignorant! People read stories in the Old Testament like how Joseph spent years in slavery and prison and think that it says God caused this injustice to happen to him so that Joseph could fulfill a greater plan of God, but this is just a religious philosophy to help explain away the existence of the devil who influences evil men in the world to do stupid things. You see in the Bible it clearly teaches that Satan was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). So if a man ever killed anybody, where would they have learned it from? Was it God or Satan? Let’s look at the first murder in the Bible and see what God says about it.
Gen 4:3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
Gen 4:4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
I like verses like this in Genesis. It says “in the process of time” which represents a scientific principle of creation. In other words, before creation there was no time, but now we live within the designed process of time constraints. Cain was the firstborn son of Adam and is said to be a farmer who grows things and his younger brother Abel as we are told is a shepherd of sheep. Kind of sounds familiar doesn’t it? Jesus was both a shepherd and the Lamb of God and his brother Satan killed him also. Uh oh, maybe I shouldn’t have told you that already. Here in these verses we are told that both men are attempting to do service to God and try to do the right thing, but one does it much better than the other. Did you notice the difference? It wasn’t the fact that one brought sheep and the other brought their crops from the field like I have heard some preachers try to teach. What they brought was not the key difference being revealed to us. God says that Abel brought the “firstlings” and this is not what Cain did at all. So what does this word mean? It basically means the “firstborn” or those who have the birthright of man or beast. So God had respect for Abel’s offering because He gave the best and Cain only gave some of his crop and not necessarily the first fruits like Abel did. Oh well that is not my subject today so I’ll move on. Hopefully you understand what I just said because I will not explain it any further today.
Gen 4:5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
So here is where Cain’s offering mistake hits the fan. Since God did not respect Cain’s offering it made him very angry. Emotions are one of the greatest blessings and the greatest curses that we have been given depending how we use them and where they directed. Let’s think logically again and determine whose fault is it for God accepting Abel’s offering and not Cain’s? In today’s society no one wants to accept responsibility or accountability for doing the wrong things. You see in the news recently a young Mexican man was killed by a U.S. Government border agent because he started throwing rocks at the agent, so the agent had to defend himself and stop him. Well, the news media interviewed the young man’s mother and she was very upset calling the shooting a crime against her son of major proportions. Isn’t it funny how the mother ignored all of the crimes that the young man was guilty of only to say that an officer defending himself was the real problem. You see the young man crossed into the U.S. illegally and was not supposed to be there to get shot. Then if he hadn’t thrown any rocks at the officer he would have just been sent back to Mexico and not shot. Does the young Mexican man have any responsibility for what happened to him? I believe he holds all responsibility, whether you want to see the truth or not. So it was in Cain’s day also. Cain could have done the right things like Abel and God would have respected his offering also.
So up until this point nobody has been killed, but yet the seeds are planted in the mind of Cain. Here is where the story repeats in today’s murders also. We have a man who has done wrong and has become emotionally unbalanced because of his past wrong thoughts, choices and actions. Cain let’s jealousy overrule the love for his borther and doing right. Since Cain has justified his actions as not being the problem it is now much easier for him to escalate his actions to a much greater sin level. Are you learning anything about how people become murderers?
Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
It is very clear to me that God tells Cain what I just taught you. God says to Cain change and do the right thing and I will accept your offering. However, Cain refuses to conclude that he has done anything wrong. So a smaller insignificant sin is about to become the entrance door to a much greater path to sin. This is exactly how murderers become murderers. They hardly ever start out at the murderer level; it is usually always some smaller petty crimes that are committed first and then they grow into a harder more callous state of the hardness of their heart towards others. It is a progressive build-up within an evil process over time to become a murderer. These are the seeds of Satan being planted in the hearts of men that cause them to do progressively evil things. It always starts with little things and then grows to the greater. That is why God tells parents in the Bible to “train up a child in the way that they should go and when they are older they will not depart from it” (Prov 22:6). That is the root to how children without any correct training are becoming murderers in our world.
Gen 4:8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
So instead of Cain making corrections he became more hard-hearted towards God and took it out on his brother since God was unable to take the wrath that he wanted to display to him. Here is another factor to why people murder; people will take out their anger towards God on whoever they see first. Because God has mistreated them and not been fair in their minds, they have become mentally bent to relieve their frustrations on somebody and sometimes anybody. God tells us that Cain began to talk to his brother and because his brother was the only one there at the time and of course God treated him differently then he became Cain’s solution. Instead of talking to God, Cain thought that by getting rid of his brother that would solve his problem and now God would have to accept his offerings. Isn’t it amazing how twisted the human mind can become when all it took was for Cain to take responsibility to do the right thing? Believe it or not this is why the young man also killed those people in Arizona. This man took out his misguided frustrations and anger upon the person who he thought would take away his responsibility for his own past bad choices and self-justified actions. It’s craziness I know and borderline insanity, yet he clearly knew it was wrong based upon his notes that he left asking for forgiveness. He was not insane, he was just deceived and took out his foolishness upon those who could not defend themselves. It is extremely sad when this happens in the world, but yet I believe God says these things will happen more as the time of the end grows nearer. It is important as Christians not to let murderers think that have won anything.
Heb 11:4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
Here is God’s commentary to the story of Cain and Abel. You can clearly see that God honored Abel because of his faith. You can assume that it was the lack of faith that caused God not to honor Cain’s offerings. You see the Bible says that God is not a respecter of persons, but it does not ever say that God does not respect someone’s faith. If you have been reading my lessons on Bible faith you understand this by now, I hope. Here is the other major thing to see from this verse of scripture in Hebrews; God tells us that Abel was deemed righteous and you can assume Cain was not. This is the difference between going to heaven and going to hell. I will not be surprised when I meet Abel in heaven. Abel’s righteous actions still speak the Bible says and they are profoundly greater than those of his brother, the murderer. I would much rather be in Abel’s shoes than Cain’s shoes today so it is with the killer of those in Arizona also. I’ll wrap today’s blog up with a statement from Jesus that you should take note of being a Christian.
Mat 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Here we have a major revelation being presented to us. Jesus is declaring the life in this world is only temporary so we should not be so afraid of anyone who could kill us physically. Jesus is clearly saying that there is an eternity after this life that we better be concerned with. Fear God who is able to save or throw you into hell forever. This life is only a time of preparation; it is not a permanent lasting situation. Jesus is clearly saying that just because someone kills your body, the real you (the spirit being) is not dead. You are just not here in this world alive physically anymore. Jesus is warning you that we should be eternity aware and not so much concerned with the natural realm where crazy evil men will try to take your life. I guess that is enough for one lesson today and I pray that you at the least learned a little bit that helped you get through the events that happen daily on our news. God Bless.
Understanding Bible Faith! The Genesis of Faith! Part 1
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 in a series of lessons on understanding the basic concepts of faith found in the Bible. Faith is of course a rudimentary subject of Bible theology which is foundational to being a real Christian. According to the Bible, without faith it is not possible to even be a Christian. However, you do not technically have to know how you became a Christian to be a Christian. In other words you do not have to understand that it took your faith to become a Christian to have the faith to be a Christian. I know that was a complex statement that I just made. But think about it logically for a second, it is very much like a new born little baby does not have to know or understand how they got to be here to be a real baby in our world. But, any Christian who doesn’t know how they became a Christian is practically incapable of knowing how to get others to become a Christian with them. That is why so many people join a church and they think they are Christians, but are not. It is like a natural child cannot have another child. It requires a maturing physical process of the human body to be able to have children, so it is within the spiritual realm also. You need to learn to grow up spiritually in order to know how to have spiritual children. One of the basics of the spiritual birth process is found in the concept of “faith”. Having faith in Jesus Christ allows God to come into your heart to abide. Today’s lesson title is called the “Genesis of Faith”. Genesis is a word that means “beginnings”. So we will attempt to learn where faith came from and when it started to be important from a spiritual Bible perspective. The Bible says a lot about this subject, but most of the direct references of the subject are only found in the New Testament. Why is that? I believe that is a very good question to understand and I will attempt to start to explain it today using several Bible verses. Is faith something new to the New Testament? I’m going to start by explaining why faith is important to know and then we will get to where faith came from and when it came into existence and finally we will touch on a small portion of what Bible faith is.
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Here we have a popular verse that is widely taught and greatly misunderstood. The primary subject of the verse is “salvation” and that is what you should see first. The next thing you should understand is that salvation is the gift that is given to us from God. God is directly teaching us two key factors about the gift of salvation. Salvation is a term that means to be completely delivered, physically, mentally and spiritually. The word “saved” actually means to be made whole. This definition informs us that unsaved people in the world are clearly missing key factors that cause them to be incomplete beings. A human being is a spirit that lives in a body and that has as soul. So God’s salvation must address all three of these human dimensions in order for us to be made whole. Therefore, God’s salvation is an all-inclusive work. In other words God did not save a small part of you and leave the rest of you out in the cold. Of course it is much more complex than that and I cannot get into that level of detail in this blog. Just keep in mind that salvation is a gift from God. Meaning we did not buy it, earn it or even deserved it, yet He gave it to us freely. But, like any gift salvation can be rejected, lost, thrown away or discarded if not cared for, esteemed and held as valuable. There is nothing that I could give you that you could not completely disdain and treat with contempt. So it is with God’s gift of salvation, we can understand that we must value this gift and take care of it in order for it to remain in our life. The first of the two predetermining factors to salvation mentioned in the verse is “grace”. Grace is of course what God has given, extended and done for us even though we did not deserve it or could do anything to earn it. The grace of God is often associated with two other deity qualities called mercy and compassion. God exhibited His mercy and compassion by extending us His grace. To allow a guilty man to go free instead of being put to death is an act of either stupidity or great mercy depending upon what that free man does with his new freedoms. This is the state of the human race today. They have been granted God’s clemency and God is watching to see what man will do with it. The next key factor in the verse is of course my main subject today and it is called “faith”. So we understand that in order for anyone to be saved, it at the least takes these two given factors to be working together in harmony. Of course this subject is vastly more complex than that and I cannot get into all of the other related things all at once, so you will have to exercise your patience and bear with me as I try to teach a very complex set of truths. Just take away from this verse the fact that “faith” is a requirement in order to be saved and we will learn more later the why, how and where it came from as we go through the series.
If you search your KJV Bible for the word “faith” you will discover that the word is only found two times in the Old Testament and well over 200 times in the New Testament. One time in the O.T. is in Deuteronomy and the other is in the prophet Habakkuk which is later quoted for us in Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38 saying “the just shall live by faith”. So we can clearly see a direct imbalance to the distribution of the subject of faith, with it being totally under emphasized or hidden in the Old Covenant while seemingly being revealed to us in the New Covenant. Again I’ll ask you, why is this? Is faith something new to us? This of course is by God’s design and I will hopefully explain why as we go. In order to understand why faith is not mentioned directly in the O.T., we need to read some more Bible verses and learn what God says about the subject of faith in the N.T.:
Gal 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
If you just read the first part of this verse you might begin to think that “faith” is something new in the New Testament. The first part of the first seems to imply that faith originated at some point in time and before this there was no faith. However, that is not what this verse is actually saying if you read the entire statement correctly. Too many people only read a part of a verse and walk away from the Bible with thinking or assuming they know what it said; when in fact they did not see the real meaning that God had given to them.
What we should be able to see clearly in this verse if we look closely in Galatians 3:23 is the fact that faith is not new and preexisted before the New Covenant in a hidden state. Hidden simply means covered or concealed. God tells us in the end of the verse that faith was later uncovered and revealed after Jesus died and was resurrected. Why do you hide anything? That is a very good question to consider. To hide something is often an act of someone trying to protect it or keep it from being stolen, lost or damaged. My mother use to hide her silverware thinking no one would break into her house and find it and of course no one did, including her because she forgot where she hid it and never knew what happened to it. Why was it necessary for God to hide faith from the Old Testament readers? Who is God trying to keep from this hidden information? To answer this question you must understand that too much information can be a very dangerous weapon in the wrong hands and since we are talking about spiritual realities that are much greater than natural things. Who is this spiritual enemy that would benefit from this information? Let’s think naturally for a second. I believe that it is very much like knowing how to build a nuclear bomb today in our world. To those peaceful nations who know how to make one, it is a deterrent to keep others from attacking them, but to a terrorist it is the ultimate weapon of destruction. This is why Iran wants this weapon of mass destruction right now! So what I am trying to do is to show you that faith involves revealed spiritual power and ability and that this is equivalent to knowing how to build a nuclear bomb in our natural world. You still may not understand these statements, but I’m not finished, so hang in there.
Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Here is another widely misunderstood Bible verse about faith and words. Here is a verse of scripture that basically reveals how the world was created. God says that everything that we can see came from two spiritual power factors that God possessed. Did you see what they were? The two factors were God’s faith and God’s words. Too many people read this verse and think that it is talking about our faith and that we have to believe in order to understand, but that is just a lack of understanding of the wording of the statement to causes many to think wrong. The main problem with the Greek language is the lack of punctuation such as a comma. The presence of a comma can change the meaning of a verse dramatically and this verse is an example of this. Take the words “we understand that” and put them at the first of the sentence and reread the statement:
Heb 11:3 We understand that through faith the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
We can basically get the same statement meaning by simply adding the appropriate comma after “By Faith, we understand,” in the original version. Hopefully you can begin to understand that God has faith and God used His faith to create the world that we live in. If God has faith, let me ask you this question “God has existed for how long?” I guess I’m getting ahead of myself somewhat by teaching you that faith was a spiritual force that has always existed with God. But I want us to learn in this lesson that faith was definitely not something that was new and only came to exist in the New Testament. We will verify this further as we continue.
For example, this chapter 11 of Hebrews is commonly referred to as the “faith” hall of fame. This is because the chapter is dominated by the subject of “faith” and it reveals to us the names of individuals throughout the Old Testament who exhibited faith even though they did not understand that this is what they were doing. According to Hebrews 11, the first mention of anyone with faith in the Bible was the firstborn son of Adan and Eve named Abel who was slain by his younger brother Cain. In verse 4 of Hebrews 11 it says “by faith” Abel offered unto God a far better sacrifice than his brother Cain. So it was the existence of Abel’s “faith” that caused his sacrifice to be accepted by God and not so much of what was sacrificed or given. According to the Bible “without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6). According to this statement whatever we do or say in this world it is imperative for us to do it in faith in order to be considered pleasing to God. That could have been the most important thing that I said in this entire lesson and it reveals to us the great significance that God places upon the spiritual factor of “faith”. There are very few things in the Bible that God says are impossible and this is a prime example of one of the most important lessons about spiritual impossibilities.
You can continue reading in Hebrews 11 and see time after time God mentioning and commending the faith of these Old Testament saints. If you did not understand it, Faith is one of the central themes of the entire chapter. The word faith occurs over 23 times in this chapter proveing God is making a point on the subject. Verse 5, “by faith Enoch…” Verse 7, “by faith Noah…” Verse 8, “by faith Abraham…” Verse 11, “through faith Sarah…” I could go on, but you get the point, I hope and pray? You see the faith of a man or a womean was the key factor for everything positive that happened in the Old Testament and why their names even appear in the Bible at all. We can clearly learn by reading just Hebrews 11 that faith existed in the Old Testament even though it was never revealed directly to anyone. God just wrote about them in ways that taught these Bible concepts without telling us what those concepts were called. That was very tricky if you ask me!
Earlier I spoke of faith as being a powerful spiritual force that helped to create our world. This of course is probably a new concept to you that you do not yet understand. So I will attempt to give you another Bible verse that exhibits this reality to us in the words of God written to the church. In this way, we will hopefully see that we have this power within us right now and that we should learn how to use it.
1Co 13:2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
Here in this chapter of 1 Corinthians God is saying some things about the spiritual reality of faith from a God perspective. I am not going to go through the entire verse and try to teach everything that it says in order to shorten this lesson. I want to focus in on the words in the middle of the verse about faith. God says that we can possess this force of “faith” that is able to move mountains. But, then He says without us having any love we are still nothing. That is an amazing statement of potential power without us even realizing its full impact. You see what does it take to move a real physical mountain? Since I live close to the mountains I know that this task takes some dynamite and some really big equipment. I’m talking about big trucks, bull dozers, scoops and on and on we could go. All of these things are natural examples of physical power. These natural examples are what God is saying faith represents in the spiritual realm. Do you understand this? You can either use your faith to move a physical mountain or a spiritual symbolic mountain and both are valid in this verse since God does not qualify the noun with an adjective limitation. This is called a double reference, where a scripture crosses the natural boundary to apply even to a spiritual domain equally and simultaneously.
We can understand natural mountains, but what is a spiritual mountain? A spiritual mountain can be any spiritual obstacle or obstruction that is in your spiritual way to any spiritual success. In the eleventh chapter of Mark we see Jesus himself speaking to His disciples in the 22nd verse He tells them to “Have faith in God”. Another very legitimate translation of this verse is “Have the faith of God”. Young’s literal translation reads this way and Young was a Greek expert more than I am. If you look at the context you will see that Jesus had just cursed a fig tree and the disciples were pointing this out to Him and God says to them you are capable of doing this also. Jesus who was God tells His followers if they would have the God kind of faith they would be able to speak to the mountain in verse 23 and say to it be removed and not doubt it in their heart but believe what they say would come to pass, Jesus said they would have whatever they said. Jesus was describing how He created the world to them and telling them they could do what He did and remove the obstacles that were hindering them. This is why Paul could write the same in 1 Corinthians 13:2 to us the church. Both of these represent two witnesses to the fact that faith embodies God’s powerful spiritual force. We need to read Mark 11:23 over and over and decide if we are a “whosoever” that God was speaking to.
So faith is a spiritual force, but that is not the only way that it is described to us in the Bible. You see faith is a multifaceted spiritual reality that can be used for offensive or defensive actions. We can read in Ephesians 6 where God is describing the spiritual armor of the church which consists of a number of spiritual entities and one of these is called the “shield of faith” and this is clearly a defensive weapon of force.
Eph 6:16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
The verse starts by saying “above all” meaning there are other parts but this one is one of the greatest that is an essential necessary part to possess. What God is doing in this chapter is describing the spiritual warfare components that are essential to know and understand. First off you need to know you are in a spiritual war and if you do not know this you are already defeated. The Bible says for us to “submit to God and to resist the devil” (James 4:7). What does it mean to resist? That is not a passive verb, if anything it is an aggressive verb of action. To resist is when you are in a war with an opposing occupying force and you choose not to submit to them. You do know that Satan is the occupying force that we are now in resistance to, yes? God gave man the earth and put Adam in charge, but Satan came and took it from him and has been occupying the earth illegally for the past approximate 6000 years. His time of occupation is growing significantly shorter now and it is time to demonstrate his defeat and he is not happy about this at all.
God says to take the shield of faith so that we might quench all of the fiery darts of the enemy. What is a fiery dart of the enemy Satan? Satan is a spiritual being so a fiery dart is a spiritual weapon thrown at the unseen part of you and this is your mind. You are to use faith to counter these offensive weapons of Satan. What we have not done is to talk about everything that faith is, how you get it so that you can know and understand how to use it as a defensive or offensive weapon. Perhaps in a future lesson on this subject we will see how to go about increasing our faith. For example, did you know you cannot find anywhere in the Bible that God says for us to pray for Him to give us faith? That is probably the second most important thing that I said today but you might have blown it off as a non- important or trivial statement. This could be because you just do not understand very much about faith yet. Let me review some of the things that I have taught you today so that you can go back into your Bible and review them:
- Faith is one of the requirements for Salvation.
- Faith was a hidden spiritual concept until revealed by God.
- Faith is the spiritual power to move physical or spiritual obstacles or obstructions.
- Faith is a spiritual defense against the spiritual power of your enemy Satan.
- Faith pre-existed the New Testament but was only formally revealed to us after Jesus died on the cross.
- Faith was active in the Old Testament but never directly identified to be faith.
- God used faith to create the world so God had faith before time existed.
- Therefore faith existed with God eternally.
I just taught you several very key basic elements that are essential to understanding the spiritual subject of faith found in the Bible. This was just a basic introduction to the subject of faith so I hope you can continue to read and study this subject as I am able to continue it with God’s help. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series, you can continue to “Part 2“.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 8
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 8 in a series of lessons on the methods that God has used to conceal information in the Bible for us to find. By studying these methods we will greatly increase our ability to understand the truth of God’s Word. So far I have covered seven different methods of hiding information without using standard modern encryption methods that make the text completely unreadable. You see the intelligence of God and the spiritual nature of God both are contributing factors to how God is able to accomplish hiding complex information using words that are clearly readable by every man. It is very much like how God created animals in our world that have the natural ability to conceal themselves using their surroundings and blending into their backgrounds. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.
Technique 8: Telling a Story without Giving Any Details or Explanations
This next technique for concealing truth in the Bible is found extensively throughout the Old Testament. When you realize that nothing in the Bible is found there by chance or accident, you suddenly begin to understand that every story has a purpose whether you comprehend it or not. God did not put any stories in the Bible just to fill up the pages because He couldn’t think of anything else to say. In other words even if there is a strange story of a daughter having sex with her father Lot after she gets him drunk in Genesis to give him children then it is there for a reason and we just don’t normally understand what it is because we are only thinking naturally and not spiritually. All that we can do is just read the story until God reveals to us what it means. God usually does this by showing us other verses in the Bible that clear up the reasons for it being there by shedding additional spiritual light on to the natural subjects found in the story. This is a very tricky method of hiding information in the Bible in plain sight. You can find this technique on almost every page of the O.T. Genesis starts it, and then Exodus continues it. As you progress through the Bible you find it repeated in Kings and Chronicles, along with Samuel, Joshua, Ester, Ruth, Daniel and etc. These books all contain natural historical stories of real people in real places doing real things at specific times for specific reasons. God chose these stories to show us and teach us some very valuable greater spiritual truths but he never told us that directly in the story. What we understand is that out of the entire history of man on this planet, God specifically selected these specific stories as being significant for us to know and to understand. However, God never tells us why they are there nor does He explain what these people did to get mentioned in His book for eternal notoriety. That is until you see the “why” revealed in the New Testament.
1Co 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
Here in this verse God gives us one of the clues that I talked about in the last lesson in this series to some degree about types and shadows. What we soon realize is that there are overlapping truths being progressively revealed to us by God. Today’s subject about hidden meanings is related to the last lesson of hidden types and shadows, but today’s lesson changes it slightly to reveal a new distinction in the subject. Here in this verse in 1 Corinthians, God informs us that the things that are written in the O.T. were written as “examples” for us to learn from. God is of course speaking of natural things in natural stories that teach us about spiritual truths that have been hidden from our reading abilities until we have been given the spiritual eyes to see them and to understand them internally and not just mentally. The Greek word translated as “ensamples” here is a word that means “to stamp”. This is representative of a process that occurs when they stamp out money or coins. Using engraved templates or plates they stamp out a coin using extremely high pressure to form the words and pictures that are easily recognizable when viewed. That concept is exactly what God is saying to us in this verse about things that are written in the O.T. God is saying that those natural things that were written originate from a spiritual pattern that cannot be observed by physical senses. In other words we have never seen the engravings that make the coins that we have in our pockets but we can see the coins. We can still know and understand that they are directly related in a one for one comparison by close examination.
I am going to give you a prime example of what I am talking about. Faith is a subject that is vastly hidden in the Old Testament, but one that is widely spoken of in the N.T. The word faith only occurs 2 times in the KJV of the Bible in the O.T, yet when you read Hebrews chapter 11 and see that God says that many of the stories found in the O.T. Bible are only there because that named person had faith. Then you should begin to see what I am trying to teach you today. Nowhere in the O.T. is this stated. Therefore, this is a key method being revealed to us of one way that God has conceived to hide information in the Bible for us to find. Because the reader of the O.T. did not understand the spiritual principles and laws of faith the acts are clearly missed by the reader.
If you go and read Galatians 3:23 you can see that God says that “faith” was a hidden subject that was later to be revealed after Jesus was raised from the dead. If you did not know it, faith is a spiritual subject found in the entire Bible. Why would God have to hide a spiritual subject in the Old Testament and then reveal it later in the New Testament? That is a very good question to figure out the answer to. I believe the answer is because God had a spiritual enemy named Satan who He had to keep from knowing too much and to soon. I would highly recommend that you take a minute and go and read chapter 11 of Hebrews very closely and then come back to this lesson. What we see in this chapter is that God lists approximately 16 people from the O.T. by direct name and many others are inferred by associated indirect references. Here is my list of the direct named references of people from the O.T. with faith found in Hebrews 11:
- Abel
- Enoch
- Noah
- Abraham
- Sarah
- Isaac
- Jacob
- Joseph
- Moses
- Rahab
- Gideon
- Barak
- Sampson
- Jephthah
- David
- Samuel
You can quickly look down this list and see the names of several famous people and recognize them to be O.T. Bible stories of renowned character and great exploits. God is revealing to us here in this chapter of Hebrews why they are mentioned in the Bible at all and God says it is because of their faith. God is revealing to us that there was a determining factor to their success on the earth and that this determining factor was their “faith”. Knowing this information should actually dramatically change your perspectives when you go back and read their stories found in the O.T. When you read these O.T. Bible stories you should now begin to see how that “faith” plays a major role in what the Bible says that they accomplished. But, now you will also have to stop and get God’s definition for what faith is and then go back and reread the stories to see how they used their faith to please God to get their names written in His eternal book. Most of these stories reveal some very profound concepts of faith in action. However you would not have known this until God tells you about it in Hebrews 11. Of course if you never see what Hebrews 11 says then you would remain ignorant to the truth. Therefore, this is a direct pattern to other subjects that can be found in the Bible also. You can apply this principle to your study of any subject in the Bible to see how the O.T. stories give us examples of them each.
For instance what about the subject of spoken words? Can you find out what someone said in the O.T. and then find out what happened to them? Sure you can. What about the subject of “love” can you learn how that God says love is the fulfillment of all of the law and how these men and women in the Bible used God’s definition to get mentioned in the Bible? Sure you can! This is a great revelation hint to finding the hidden truth in the Bible. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and learned something from it. God Bless you until next time.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lesson on how God has concealed information in the Bible you can go to “Part 9“.
Understanding the Coming Anti-Christ! And the Homosexual Agenda! Part 4
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 4 in a series of lessons on understanding the coming antichrist. If you have not read this series from the beginning, I would recommend that you go and start with “Part 1”.
Gal 4:16 Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
Today I may lose some readers, but I am going to speak the truth and I do not care what your response is to what I have to say today. According to what Paul wrote in Galatians 4:16 he experienced what I may experience today also. Paul wrote some tough words for the church at Galatia and many of the hearers were clearly offended and could not handle the truth. I will warn you that today I will be very blunt at times and at times very direct in what I teach. The country of America has been in a rapidly progressive moral decline for the past 50 years and recent events have only come to confirm this. There is an evil spiritual agenda to erode and eventually erase the moral fiber of the established Biblical history and foundation of our country. While the United States is by far not a perfect country, the establishment of a Christian nation caused God to bless us tremendously for over the past 250 years and to cause us to grow to be the leading power of the world. Around 390 years ago, the people of Europe were tired of the religious oppression and control that was being forced upon them and so they came to America to worship God freely without persecution. The United States and its founders were highly motivated by God and the Bible and they built and designed our government using established Bible principles. While the founding fathers of the U.S. incorporated and defined the freedom of religion to be the moral background to worship the One True Living God of the Bible, they left in obvious loop holes that allow other choices to be made. Obviously this is another Bible principle being written into our constitution that is backed up by God’s Word. You see, God does not promote a Forced Salvation theology, despite what a lot of my ignorant commenters like to tell me. Man was created with freewill to choose and this was a choice to either believe in Jesus or not to believe in Jesus as their Savior and Lord. So while our country goes through these changes from the Godless leadership of our President and Congress, it saddens me tremendously while not surprising me in the least little bit. I of course am speaking of the recent government decision to allow homosexuals in our military openly. There has been an openly aggressive agenda from the spiritual realm to redefine morality and what is acceptable to God. I call this the homosexual agenda and I will discuss this agenda in conjunction to its relationship of the subject of the coming antichrist. Here are the progressive steps of the homosexual agenda that have transpired up until this point in time of the homosexual agenda:
- Pervert the human sexual orientation, identity and behavior and cause personal confusion.
- Redefine morality and sin to be an open minded concept free from the Bible’s input.
- Encourage sexual identity development using the coming our process.
- Highlight established social acceptance emphasizing diversity using the stars found in the media and television.
- Show the gay lifestyle in the movies and TV as being a viable reality.
- Nominate gay TV shows, movies and actors for awards to promote them as being great role models for our children.
- Introduce children to the gay life style early so that they can better determine their true identity.
- Shame any church or preacher that teaches against homosexuality as being a sin by calling them intolerant, biased, bigoted and hateful.
- Never show the consequences, hurt and true pain caused by the homosexual life style nor the suicides it causes.
- Overly emphasize any negative acts committed against a gay man or woman as being a hate crime of great evil against a good person and a clear violation of their civil rights to gain sympathy for the cause.
- Promote human sexuality as being a pre-ordained design pattern and not a human life choice.
- Elevate the homosexual life styles to be a legal civil right of a minority group of consensual adults.
- Hide or downplay the abusive perverted homosexual behavior of child molesters unless they are committed by a religious figure or leader.
- Never mention any serial killers as being homosexual even though they killed many young boys.
- Shift human choices off of the individual and alleviate any personal responsibility for sin.
- Redefine marriage to be between any two adults regardless of sex and ignore the Bible.
These are just a few of the observable patterns that I have personally witnessed in my life time on the earth from the homosexual agenda. They are clearly represented in the news media, on TV talk shows, in movies, magazines and now on the internet and the determined purpose is to change the thinking minds of those who are being raised in the ignorance of the truth. It is a clear technique in brain washing the people to accept the coming antichrist. They are all cleverly designed ploys of deception to cause people to buy into a lie.
I had a commenter ask me why I used a blanked out picture of the face of the President in my recent article on the “Antichrist”? Was I saying that Obama was the antichrist? No, I was not saying that at all. Obama does not fit the information given to us in the Bible about the antichrist. I do not know who the antichrist is right now. However, I have learned by studying the Bible how the antichrist will operate and what he will do to gain his power and control, to change the world and redefine the freedoms of our founding fathers. No you see when a man rises rapidly to power that has no basis to be in power, and has done so in a fashion causing so many people to buy into his smooth way of talking, it says to me BEWARE A DECEIVER! No I do not believe that Obama is the antichrist, but I do believe that he is a forerunner to the coming agenda of the antichrist and also a pattern of this man. I believe the similarities are unmistakably recognizable. I believe that this is the exact way the antichrist will come to power and that is why I used the picture and for no other reason. What I see is a man who says one thing and then does something that is the opposite. Here is a man that promotes himself as a Christian in speeches, but acts more like a godless non-believer in his decision processes. You see Jesus said you will know them by their fruit and not by their words. Anybody can say I am a Christian, but only a few will actually back up those words with appropriate corresponding actions to prove it. According to Jesus you can tell who is a Christian and who is not a Christian simply by observing the external actions of a man. Here is a man that promotes and drives abortions and the rights of women to choose, human genetic and stem cell research, homosexuality and I could go on and on. All I know is that he does not act like a Christian so you decide what he is. So, while I believe that Christians are not supposed to preach against sinners, I do believe that we should teach how not to be deceived by the words of someone who does not bear the fruit of righteousness. There is absolutely no way that our President got voted into office without the clear support of a great number of deceived Christians who voted for him. I can tell you plainly that I was not one of these. So today’s lesson is about the coming deception of the antichrist and how the slow creeping infestation of the homosexual agenda being forced upon the world fits directly into his perverted plan.
We will begin our study of the antichrist using a couple of verses found in the Book of Daniel. The book of Daniel has a lot of prophecies concerning this coming individual and these will be important to see and understand. We will read beginning in Chapter 11 and verse 36:
Dan 11:36 And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
Daniel was God’s prophet and he speaks the words of God given to him. Daniel is speaking of the coming antichrist king and tells us more about his personality and character. We again see clear references to his ability to speak things against the “God of gods”. That is a very interesting title and an important revelation to be understood, but I won’t get it into it in this blog. The antichrist continues to magnify himself to be God and clearly is attempting to deceive the simple minded people of the earth. It is interesting to note that this verse says that Satan is doing his will and not the will of God. Too many ignorant Christian believe that God is in ultimate control of everything that happens in the world, but that is just not what the Bible says. Here is a prime example of how another’s will is done and not God’s will. The Hebrew word in this verse translated as “indignation” is a very strong word. It means to “froth” or “foam” at the mouth. In my last blog on this subject I taught you that this man will have power coming from his mouth and this verse is just further connection to his mouth and his words being a determining factor. God says that this “indignation” of his mouth will continue until someone puts an end to it and shuts him up and I believe that someone is God and His Word. The final word in this verse that I want to point out is the Hebrew word translated as “determined” and this word means “to wound”. If you do not know it God prophesied in Genesis 3:15 that the woman and her seed would bruise his head and I believe that God is giving us a direct prophetic reference to this event in this verse. The man of sin will continue to speak great boastful words against God until God bruises the head of the serpent under the feet of the church (Romans 16:20) and causes him to be wounded. However, this will not be the end of the antichrist because he will later appear to miraculously recover from this head wound as we will see in Revelation.
Dan 11:37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
Here is the verse that I wanted to focus in on today in regard to the homosexual agenda being forced upon the world. It is very clear to me that God is telling us in this verse that the antichrist is a male who is not interested in women. What do you call a man like this, besides crazy? You call him a homosexual. This tells me that the antichrist will fully embrace the homosexual agenda and that he is actually the one that is behind it all in the first place. If you think about this you will see why he is doing it. The anti-Christ is opposed to everything that God does. If God created them male and female then the anti-Christ is for the opposite which would be male and male or female and female. Whatever Christ did or is doing, the anti-Christ will do the complete opposite. The Bible clearly informs us that Christ the Lamb of God will clearly marry a bride in Revelation 21:9. So it is very easy to assume that if Christ has a wife, the anti-Christ will have a same sex partner that will pervert what God has created. Of course the anti-Christ is technically a spiritual being in a physical body and he will use this knowledge to try to get out of the sentence of being tormented in hell for an eternity. But, this will not be successful. We can see however, that when the antichrist comes on the scene he will definitely promote and embrace the homosexual lifestyle as a normal way of life and this is what is happening in the U.S. right now.
Let’s shift gears and talk about the easiest way to deceive people. How do you get a dog to eat strychnine poison? You always wrap the poison in a tasty steak before you give it to them. This is what the homosexual community has been doing in America for the last 50 years. The homosexual community saw how the civil rights movement worked to become so effective and they jumped on the same band wagon. They chose to compare their sinful lifestyle to the color of someone’s skin and call them the same things. Obviously no man chose the color of their skin in this world. We were all born here without given a choice to being a male or a female. We were all born in the world without selecting our nation of origin. We did not even get to choose our parents or our relatives; so obviously all of these factors transfer to morality, sin and other elements in life, or not! They have introduced a fabrication of the truth to say “we were born homosexual” and they deny any choices ever being made on their own part. The problem with this logic is how do you differentiate between a homosexual and a child molester type of pedophile? Why can’t the pedophile use the same argument and just say this is the way I was born? What about the murderer who just loves to kill people for fun? Can’t they be smart enough to jump on the civil rights band wagon and say this is just how I was born? I’ll bet you that homosexuals love the “Predestination Theology” so that they can attribute that this was the way that God created them to be and they cannot change so we should just all accept them exactly like they are.
In all fairness to homosexuals and other sinners in the world, most of them do what they do out of ignorance. When Saul persecuted the church and threw them into jail and caused the death of some of them, Paul later wrote that what he had done was done out of ignorance (1 Tim 1:13). In other words Paul didn’t know any better but he still sinned against God anyway. While he thought he was doing the right thing before God, he was actually a direct enemy to God. So sinners also do not understand that there are spiritual forces controlling and influencing what they do. They do not understand demon possession and how that a spirit can cause you to do something like sin. They do not understand that everything we do has consequences in this world good or bad. Since they are oblivious to spiritual things, they do not even know who or what they really are. Many say they are females trapped in a male body. Others say they are a male trapped in a female body. Heaven forbid that they are a spirit trapped in a human body? Since they do not know they are a spiritual being and not just a body they simply are controlled to follow what feels good to them and what satisfies their thoughts of perverted fantasies that are being placed in their simple minds by evil spirits. No, they choose to embrace a message that evil spirits do not exist and only what matters is what they want to do in this present world, so therefore you should be more open and tolerant to how God has created them to be. I’m sorry but I just cannot do that. While I love you, I do not love your sin and I will not receive it to be an acceptable lifestyle. If I did that today, what would I do on judgment day? There is coming a time of judgment from God when you could look at me and say, why didn’t you tell me the truth and I will be at the least able to say I tried to, why didn’t you listen and look for the truth while you could? In this way your blood will not be on my hands. If I remained silent your blood could be on my hands in the future. What do you think I should do? Am I being intolerant for speaking the truth? Or am I just shooting a warning shot across your bow to get your attention before it’s too late?
The homosexual agenda wants the world to say “I understand and it’s OK!” They think that by getting the majority of the world to agree that their lifestyle is acceptable that this will somehow affect the way God feels about them. Unfortunately for all sinners in the world God does not run a democratic system of spiritual government where the majority rules. God is the only one that makes the majority decisions and He is the only one whose opinion matters. My opinion is worthless, your opinion is worthless and your lover’s opinion is also worthless. In fact the Supreme Court’s opinion is worthless and so is the opinion of the lawmakers of our country. Just because they passed a law this weekend that further promotes a sinful lifestyle to be a normal and an acceptable civil right freedom, does not and will not ever make it right or change what God thinks about it. You can do whatever you like and ignore the Bible if that is what makes you feel justified in your life style choices. You can rip the pages out of the Bible where it says that when a man lies with another man like a woman it is an abomination to God and they both should be put to death (Lev 18:22, Lev 20:13). You can rip out the page that says when a woman dresses like a man or a man dresses like a woman that it is also an abomination to God (Deu 22:5). You can rip out the pages of Genesis 13 where God sends two angels to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for living their ungodly homosexual lifestyles. You can pretend that these two cities never existed, even when the Bible says that these cities were destroyed as an example for those who would come after who do the same (2 Peter 2:6). This verse is a clear warning to those that desire to call their lifestyles normal. These are verses that declare clearly the homosexual lifestyle to be a perversion and not the way that God created people to be. If they only knew the truth, Jesus said the truth would set them free from their bondage.
The next key step in the homosexual agenda is the universal redefinition of marriage. It is already started in many states and when the Vice President was asked about Gay marriage, he spoke on TV this morning about the country becoming an evolving community of openness. This is exactly the homosexual agenda in action, however I call it the evolving level of deception, but I’m sure they do not see it this way. Take away God’s Word and introduce a new world order for the definition of marriage and morality. By allowing men to marry men and women to marry women it further enforces their normalcy in the minds of those that practice it. The antichrist will love this work that is being accomplished for him and I’m sure he is watching anxiously for the completion of the deception. I hope that you join with me in praying for those that are deceived so that they will come to know the truth before it is too late. God Bless!
Understanding the Coming Anti-Christ! The Man with Power in His Mouth! Part 3
(Ver 1.0) This is now Part 3 of a series of lessons on the Coming Antichrist. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would highly recommend that you start your reading with “Part 1”. Everyone who studies the Bible wants to know about the coming antichrist. Very few Christians have never heard of this soon rising world leader, but few actually know much about him. While the Bible does not directly tell us who the antichrist is or where he comes from, I believe the Bible gives us enough clues to help identify him, what he will represent and what he will attempt to accomplish in the world. I’ll start today by saying the term “antichrist” is technically only found in the books of first and second John. However, this does not mean that other books speak about the same coming individual using different names and titles. This is a widely popular method utilized by God to conceal the truth in the Bible; call the same thing by many different names, titles, descriptions and symbols. The term “antichrist” is certainly a valid name found in the Bible so that it cannot be easily explained away by those who do not believe in this man. The word antichrist can be easily defined as a man with an opposite anointing to Jesus. Whatever Jesus did, the antichrist will do the opposite. Since Jesus was the truth, then the antichrist will be the liar. Since Jesus went around doing good healing people (Acts 10:38), the antichrist will be here to do evil, hurt and kill people. Take a look at what Jesus did on the earth and then inverse those qualities and actions and this is what the antichrist will be. So while the name or title antichrist does not appear but in two books directly found in the Bible, there are other names to look for. For example, Jesus gave us a clue of one called a “false Christ”.
Mat 24:24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
A false Christ is easily defined as anyone that is a deceiver who claims to be a Christ. We have seen many men in the modern era who have exalted themselves to this level and the end result has widely been the death of many of their followers by self-inflicted or forced suicides. You can see this in the lives of those who followed David Koresh in Waco and those who followed Jim Jones in Guyana. It is clear that people will be easily deceived by the right charismatic personality if they do not know or understand the Bible. To hear the words of one of these men in the early stages of their deception you would have thought they were good men; however the later end was not so good. This is a standard methodology of deception, to wrap your poison in tasty morsels of steak that are highly desirable. Any way Jesus gives us a name called a “false Christ” who will come to deceive you in the later times. Jesus who was the master of signs and wonders informs us that these false Messiahs will also be able to imitate what Jesus did on the earth. Jesus raised the dead and I would not be shocked to find that Satan can do the same thing when comes into the world. Perhaps later we will look at scriptures in Revelation that indicates that the antichrist will miraculously recover from a major head wound. It would almost sound to me that he is raised from the dead back to life from this wound that was inflicted upon him. It sounds like it could be that miraculous. What you should realize is that just because someone does something supernatural, does not make them a follower of Christ. Jesus pretty clearly says that we should not be followers of signs and wonders, only followers of Christ and the Word of God.
So today we will continue our walk through the Bible looking for more of the clues to the coming antichrist. You may recall in the first two lessons we talked about him being the “man of sin” and the “son of destruction” found in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and I taught you that I believe this helps to confirm that this will be Satan’s attempt to repeat what God did in the earth through Jesus Christ. Satan rarely has an original thought, so whatever he does is normally a perversion of something that has already been done in the past by God who has initiated creativity into the world. I call the antichrist, Satan incarnate. This is exactly what God did in the man Jesus when He became flesh and walked among us healing people and doing things that were good to all of humanity. However, the antichrist will not be here to do you any good and we will see this in several scriptures that I will give you today. I personally believe that Satan is very desperate knowing that his time is growing very short and that he is running out of options to try to save himself from the coming appointed time when he will be cast into hell. In the second lesson we begin to look at the book of Daniel and how this man is again mentioned in a very negative regard being called a different type of king that will come. I want to continue today’s lesson by giving you some more scriptures in Daniel that talks about this different king that will arise. We will begin by looking at Daniel 8:23 first:
Dan 8:23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.
A king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences shall come forth. Let’s start by looking at the words “fierce countenance”. The Hebrew word translated as “fierce” means to be strong, mighty, fierce, greedy and powerful. These are traits and characteristics of an evil being like Satan. The Hebrew word translated as “countenance” means the “face” and that is an interesting statement of where his power is located. You can find over 300 times in the Old Testament that this Hebrew word is directly translated as the word “face”. In this verse in Daniel the translators seemed to want to translate it as how the face looked and not the direct mention of the meaning of the word. However, on the face of every human, is an opening called the mouth and this is the external expression device for the internal spirit inside of the body. In fact if you study your Bible you will see that this is the only way that the internal human spirit can be expressed externally is by your words that come out of your mouth. So Satan when he is here as a physical man, he will demonstrate fierce power coming from his face or mouth. You should understand why this is being stated by studying the Bible about the power of spoken words. I wrote a lesson on “Understanding God’s Spiritual Power and the Power of Spirits” and it might help you to go and read that if you do not understand what I just said about your mouth having spiritual power.
Understanding “dark sentences” is a complex part of the verse to technically explain. Let’s start by understanding what “dark sentences” are. According to the Hebrew word’s definition from Strong’s, this word means a riddle, a puzzle, a hard question, a trick, a conundrum, sententious maxim, a dark sentence, a proverb. If you do not realize it or not, this is exactly how the Bible was written and describes God’s writing methodology found in the Bible. God hid a wealth of complex spiritual knowledge in some words that are very difficult to understand for even Christians and for unsaved people entirely impossible to comprehend. Satan has learned the hard way that he should not have crucified the Lord Jesus Christ on a cross, even though this event was prophesied for hundreds of years before it happened. Because he did not understand the consequences of killing God on a cross, God tricked Satan into doing it anyway. Satan has now learned that he better not do something so stupid again, but of course now it’s too late and his fate is sealed. However, I guarantee you that Satan is studying the Bible and looking for ways out more than most Christians are studying the Bible to find out the truth. To understand something means that you comprehend the meaning of what is being stated. There are many Christians who read the Bible occasionally, but few who understand what they just read. Satan, I believe is bent on understanding the Bible and it says this in this verse in Daniel that he will come forth with great understanding. This understanding would explain how it is possible for Satan to manifest in a flesh form. This understanding would also demonstrate how it will be easy to deceive the simple minded people of the world who do not understand the Bible. We have only gone through one new verse and I wrote two paragraphs of some very important information about the antichrist. I hope you are grasping these things that I just said. Let’s look at the next verse found directly after:
Dan 8:24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
Here we again see a reference to him as being a powerful type of individual. Let’s stop there and reemphasize where the power of a spiritual being resides in a physical world. You can obviously look at this verse in two different perspectives if you choose to. First there is physical power and strength we know from the Bible that spirits can give physical being greater natural strength to do amazing feats that are not normally achievable. You can see this demonstrated in the life of Sampson in the Old Testament and you can also see it in the opposite evil way when Jesus cast out evil spirits from a man in the country of Gadarenes in Mark 5:1. In this story it says that people could not even bind this demon possessed man with chains, because he was able to break them. Both of these examples are obviously supernatural examples of spiritual power being displayed on the earth. Is this the power that the antichrist will exhibit? While I do not discount that it is possible, I believe the spiritual power coming from the antichrist’s mouth will cause much greater devastation and harm. Did you notice what this verse said? It said that his power shall be mighty but not by his own power. That is a perplexing statement, isn’t it? It sounds like a riddle to me? How can a man be strong but not use his own strength? To me it only makes sense if you change from a physical perspective and see it from a spiritual perspective. The physical man’s ability will not come from his physical body is what I believe this is trying to tell us. I believe that this antichrist’s power will come from his spirit and his mouth. Again I’ll make references to Satan doing what Jesus does and Jesus is described as the man with the sword coming out of His mouth in Revelation 1:16, 2:12, 2:16 and 19:15-21. You can clearly see that Jesus’ power is said to be in His mouth as a symbolic double edged sword in these verses. So again if Satan has learned and understands the Bible and where his power is, then he will also imitate whatever Jesus will come and do also. Let’s look at another verse in Revelation about this coming antichrist:
Rev 13:5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
Hopefully you know that the tribulation period is scheduled to be a period of 7 years on the earth. This period is described as being a week of years. If you multiply 7 years by 12 (months) you get 84 months of total time. We can clearly see that for 42 of these months or half of the entire duration of the tribulation, a man will come forth with great demonstrations of power in his mouth. Here in this verse you can see that there is an indirect mention of the antichrist. If you read the context of the chapter you know that this chapter corresponds to some verses that we can find in Daniel about the beast with ten horns. What we see in this chapter is the same basic information being restated from a different perspective. So chapter 13 of Revelation is definitely related to the vision found in the book of Daniel of the beasts and the antichrist. The main reason I wanted to give you this verse is to demonstrate a couple of important things that I said about the earlier verses in Daniel. Here we have several key words being reiterated. We have “power” and we have the direct mention of a “mouth” that speaks. Wow, that is too amazing to be a coincidence. This again shows us or at the least implies that this man is an incarnate Satan who has power to speak words to cause harm and deception. The occurrence of mouth and power in the same verse is not there by chance. I also believe that because 42 months is mentioned here that the antichrist will use the first three and half years of the tribulation to rise to power with his promises of peace. Then when he comes into his full power I believe that he will use his new position of authority to try to destroy that peace.
The subject of the antichrist and the tribulation is a vastly complex subject and I do not profess to know it all right now. I’m learning stuff new every day that I study this subject. This is the way it works. You learn what you can and you continue to build upon it until you get it all done, if that is even possible. I have found that God’s knowledge of His Word is pretty inexhaustible. Just when you think you understand everything about a single verse, God can show you something new and sometimes this new information changes everything that you thought before, but most of the time it only adds to what you know. I think for today I’ll end this lesson and continue again on it in the future. Here are some of the names of the antichrist that we have seen so far:
- Man of Sin (2 Thes 2:3)
- Son of Perdition (2 Thes 2:3)
- A King (Daniel 8:23)
- Antichrist (1 Jo 2:18)
- False Christ (Mat 24:24)
- Destroyer (Daniel 8:24)
- Deceiver (Mat 24:24, 2 Jo 1:7)
- Supernatural Miracle Worker (Mat 24:24, 2 Th 2:9)
- Blasphemer (Rev 13:5)
- Murderer (Dan 8:24)
I know some of my titles are not directly found in these verses, but are derived from a logical association of what is stated in those verses. I tried to take the verbs and adjectives given to us in these verses and change them into nouns to describe this individual, so do not criticize; just learn what they say and then use your brain like I try to do. Hopefully we will continue in this study in my next lesson, but sometimes the Lord leads me to write about other things also to try to remain in a balanced state of teaching the Bible. If you have information about the antichrist that I do not have or have not covered I would welcome your comments and Bible information. So until next time God Bless you.
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons on the antichrist you may now go to “Part 4“.
Understanding How To Make Jesus Your Spiritual Legal Advocate Right Now!
(Ver 2.1) This is Part 3 in a lesson series on “Understanding the Heavenly Laws and Court System of Heaven”. I wrote this lesson a long time ago, but I have learned so much new while studying this subject that I felt that I needed to rewrite it to included more new information. I love this subject. It is one of the most important topics for a new Christian to learn after becoming saved. Knowing this should change you and motivate you to become more like God who is Holy. I hope you have read the entire series from the beginning but if not please click on “Part 1” now. When I originally wrote on this subject I was thinking of a Christian only missing out on one judgement by making Jesus their personal Legal Advocate. I knew that there was coming a great white throne judgment at the end of this age after the Great Tribulation. We can read about this judgement in Revelation 20:11. Only unsaved people will be judged during this time of judgment. Therefore, I knew that by making Jesus my Lord right now, I would not be standing before the Great White Throne of Judgment then. That was the main message of this lesson. However, since continuing to study the subject of the “Courts of Heaven” the LORD has revealed so much new information in the last few months.
What the LORD has been saying to me and teaching me about this subject is very profound and essential to understand. Christians are being brought before the throne of God right now by Satan our legal adversary and accuser (Rev 12:10). In 1 Peter 4:17 God reveals that judgement begins with His House right now in the church age of Grace. Paul wrote and warned the Church in 1 Corinthians 1:11 that IF we JUDGE our self, we will not be judged. I know a lot of people say they are Christian today but don’t believe this is what the Bible says and what the Holy Spirit has been teaching His Church. What I would suggest to you if you don’t believe is that you pray and ask the LORD to reveal this to you if it is true. Then open your Bible and become a Berean type of Bible student (Acts 17:11). Ask the LORD, do I need a personal legal Advocate right now. Let’s get into the lesson and permit the Holy Spirit to speak.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SPIRITUA ADVOCATE
Today is a Bible lesson on “Understanding How to Make Jesus Your Spiritual Legal Advocate” now. We will discuss what a Spiritual Legal Advocate is and what He does for us and then we will discuss why we as humans need a Spiritual Advocate. Let’s start by defining the word “advocate”. A legal advocate is always someone who holds superior knowledge on the subject of the law. In our world people have to go to school for many years of legal study, graduate and then must pass an extensive legal bar exam in order to become a licensed legal advocate. Some people call these individuals lawyers, attorneys or others call them counselors. A counselor is someone who uses their wisdom and knowledge of the law to give you “advice” or “counsel” on what you should do in the given situation that you are in before the court and judge. A lawyer is of course someone who practices the profession of defending, prosecuting, administrating or judging the laws passed by the legal bodies in power.
Today in our complex legal court systems, if you try to show up before a judge without a highly knowledgeable and skilled attorney you are in some serious legal jeopardy. Let me tell you about one man I know of. This man was chatting on the internet with a girl. He was over 21 and she said she was 16. He asked to meet her and set a location and time for the meeting. As he neared the location the Police officers arrested him. It turns out that this man had been talking with undercover Police on the internet in a sex sting. Well this man could not afford an attorney to help defend him. Even though he had not committed any crime by talking or meeting anyone, the district attorney threw the book at him and threatened him with many years of jail. This prosecutor after scaring the man then offered him a plea deal. In this deal he would not go to jail but needed to agree with counseling, become a registered sex offender and he would be on probation for a couple of years reporting to a parole officer. This was all because this man could not afford the proper legal defense. Now, I’m not saying he was right for doing what he did at all. No, we must all understand that even the intent of sin has consequences. What I am saying is that this man needed a good lawyer. Let me give you another example quickly that makes the point a little more.
In another legal matter in past years I recall a very famous court trial for the very serious offense and charge of murder. I will not name names, but I will tell you that this one trial that I am using as an example today was concerning a gruesome set of murders of two people. You may know who I am talking about as I go. This individual was charged with the crime, but he hired a “dream team” of legal counselors because he was a rich man and could afford the best that money could buy. While the prosecution seemed to present a good case, they were no match for the highly paid legal minds of the “dream team” lawyers who cleverly made the prosecution look foolish. To me the evidence presented in the trial was very compelling, but to the jury this man was found not guilty and thus got away with murder because of his lawyer’s abilities.
You see in our legal system all the lawyers have to do is to present reasonable doubt for someone committing the crime to allow the judge and the jury to acquit them. This was the approach of the “dream team” lawyers. They discredited the truth with as many doubts as they could invent. They introduced unrelated distractions that had nothing to do with the evidence presented. They manipulated the jury to believe what they wanted them to see and they won. There is a basic rule of law that the judge and the jury must judge and find for the prosecution or the defense based upon the evidence being presented. Whoever, does the best job at this is usually the victor.
I learned a lot right from these cases that the truth didn’t matter, justice didn’t matter, fairness didn’t matter and even the proof and evidence didn’t matter. No, what mattered the most was if you had a good advocate on your side to help you plead your case then you could be set free. This man accused of this horrific crime never got up to testify and never opened his mouth to defend himself one time. The only people that spoke for him were his masterful attorneys and they prevailed. You can obviously disagree with what I just said, but that would clearly be your opinion vs. mine. So let’s drop our opinions and see what God and the Bible says to us on the subject of our legal advocate.
1Jn 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1Jn 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1Jn 2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
We can clearly learn several important things from these verses if we allow the Spirit of God to show us what they say. The primary subject of these verses is “sin” and more specifically the sin of a Christian. There are teachers in the world today that claim a Christian does not sin. There are teachers today that claim that it does not matter if a Christian sins because there are no consequences for it. There are even teachers today that claim we never have to obey these verses in 1 John 1 to ask God to forgive us for our sin. Wow, what a deception that is being given to the Church. That is exactly what Satan wants a Christian to believe.
Sin can be defined as many different things. The Greek word G266 translated as “sin” simply means “to commit an offense””. An offense simply occurs when a person commits an illegal act by disobeying the law. For today’s discussion I will define sin as committing a violation of the law of God since we are discussing legal matters in a court of heaven. There are certainly many other more complex aspects to the subject of what sin is or is not, but I will not be discussing those today. Please do not get distracted on the subject of sin from me reading just a couple of verses from 1 John on the subject. I simply can’t teach everything in one lesson, so let’s move on with today’s subject of why we as Christians need an advocate.
The Bibles tells us clearly that “ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). John 1:10 says to Christians that if we say we have never sinned we make Jesus a liar and His Seed is not in us. So it is not so much “if” a Christian will sin as to say “when” a Christian sins as verses 9 and 10 imply. However, these verses are also clearly implying that the goal for a Christian should be that we should never sin. But, if we do sin, then this verse 2:1 very clearly teaches us we have a major advantage over many other unsaved people in the world. This advantage is because we have the Spirit of Jesus our righteousness living on the inside of us acting as our spiritual legal advocate, adviser and counselor to help us to change from repeating that sin.
Perhaps this will be a good time to further define the word translated as “advocate” in these verses. This Greek word is G3875 and was translated as “advocate” in 1 John 2:1 because of the legal descriptions being made in the contextual verses. This Greek word can also be translated as a “counselor” which is an equivalent name for a “trial lawyer”. It is also translated as “comforter” in the Gospel of John verses where Jesus said “I will send you another comforter (G3875)…”. The word comforter describes someone who provides “consolation” and that simply means someone that speaks or provides comfort or aide during a great time of loss or suffering. I believe all of these can be applied to a legal court case.
Is there a court in Heaven with Laws?
Jesus our righteous advocate is now seated at the right hand in the presence of the supreme judge who is God (Heb. 12:2). If we are Christians then we also learn that the Holy Spirit lives inside us (1 Cor 6:19) to further help us, and advise and counsel with us. That is a great legal advantage for Christians against our adversary the devil. In fact I would call this legal team the Ultimate and Unlimited Dream Team of Spiritual Lawyers. These verses we just read in 1 John 1:9-2:1 and others that I have not yet covered clearly state that Jesus our righteousness is said to be our personal spiritual advocate.
Conditions for Having Jesus as Your Advocate:
- if we are Christians, (1 John was written to the Church)
- if we confess our sins, (1 Jn 1:9)
- if we ask for forgiveness (Lk 11:4, 1 Jn 1:9)
- if we repent (Acts 26:20, Rev 3:19)
- if we turn and change our sinful way (Acts 26:20, Rom 11:26, 2 Cor 3:16)
Please notice that there are conditions to this legal court arrangement with your Advocate. God is Sovereign but yet we still have responsibility to ask and participate willingly in obedience.
If you are not a Christian, then you have serious legal issues when it comes to being judged by God and I would not wish to be in your shoes when this occurs. I have heard people say that will never happen, or I am not a bad person and do bad things. But, that is not true when you compare your goodness with God’s Holy Standards. In this section I want to address the fact that Law exists on the earth and that this LAW on the earth came from Heaven. Let’s examine verses that reveal where the earthly Law came from next:
Mal 4:4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
Here we have scriptural evidence and proof to the fact that God gave the law to Moses and Moses wrote it down for the children of Israel. This represents a scriptural witness of the testimony of God. This is what occurs during a trial. What I am demonstrating to you is that God invented laws, courts, judges, prosecutors, lawyers and judgments. These are not man made ideas, but we can see that they originated from our creator. Our courts in America were modeled by our founding fathers after God’s courts in heaven, if you did not know that you should learn and study that fact until you accept it. These founding fathers of the USA came from England to worship God freely without government control. They read their Bibles extensively and wrote about it clearly. I don’t have time to teach this and there are many other people that have books dedicated to this subject. Go search for them and read them please. Let’s read another witness testimony:
Neh 10:29 They clave to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and his judgments and his statutes;
God said to let every word be established in the mouth of two or three witnesses. So here we have a second witness to the fact that the Old Testament books of the Bible were dictated by God to Moses His servant and these are the statutes and judgments of God. A statute is just a written law, so this is not that complicated. A judgment is a verdict issued by the judge, either of guilt or innocence towards those that are under the law.
Ok, I can hear the questions being raised by my last paragraph. Many will ask doesn’t the Bible say the Church is under Grace and not the LAW? We can all read Romans 6:14-15 where Paul teaches us that the church is not under the law, but now is under Grace. Many people take these truths and attempt to make them the only truth and that is still a problem. For example, Jesus said “A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE YOU, THAT YOU LOVE ONE ANOTHER, AS I HAVE LOVED YOU”. Does Romans 6 overrule the statement of JESUS? ABSOLUTELY NOT! This new law given to Christians is still in effect.
In another Bible lesson that I did on this subject of the Courts of Heaven, I taught a lesson that I learned from my family. Perhaps you read it. My natural father was judged and died at a very young age because he did not walk in love and obey this commandment. If you don’t believe me, that is not my problem because I know it is the truth. My father did not take advantage of his access to his legal advocate. He did not confess his sin, He did not repent or try to change his way. How, do I know? Because he died. He was warned by a man of God to come and see him and talk to him about this issue. My father did not go and he died 3-4 months later. My father was a Christian, a graduate of two Bible schools, a pastor of 3 different churches and yet he died a young man. If you believe that this cannot happen to you then that demonstrates Satan’s victory over your mind.
We have clearly shown from the Bible that God has an established legal system in place now on the earth by His law given through Moses. We have learned that this law came from Heaven. I wonder if it was modeled after what already existed? We can clearly see that God is the author of these laws. I believe these Words stand for eternity on the earth and in heaven based upon Luke 16:17 alone.
I can still sense resistance in the spiritual realm rejecting this teaching on the application of the law in the New Covenant. Do you remember what Paul wrote in Romans 13:10? Paul clearly teaches us that Love is the fulfillment of the law. In other words when we love our brother on the earth, we will not murder him, steal from him, commit adultery with his wife, lie to him, etc. Do you see the New Covenant direct connection to the O.T. LAW? It is right in front of your face just accept it. If we don’t love, we are breaking the LAW.
I’ll give you another example very quickly that is also very important. In Ephesians 6:2 Paul very clearly quotes one O.T. Commandment that if we honor our father and mother that this was the first law that promised us a long life on the earth. Wow, that means if we don’t do this we can die young. Paul did not teach us that this did not apply to those under grace, no in fact he taught the opposite. I hope and pray you receive this.
Are you perfect in walking in love? I know I am not yet. I am trying my best with the help of the Holy Spirit to improve in this area and I hope you are also. What I am saying is that we are all still under a new law. We don’t have to sacrifice animals anymore to atone for our sins because Jesus the Lamb of God was our sacrifice. But, we are still required in the New Covenant to confess, ask, repent and change for not walking in love. This is true whether you know it or not. You ignorance of the truth or the law is NOT a legal defense that will stand in God’s Court or on the earth.
So who is the most qualified to defend us against any charge raised against the law of love if not for the creator of the law Himself? This is just basic logic and I hope and pray that you can see it. This is why when the Bible calls Jesus my advocate, I feel very confident that I have the best legal advice possible because He is the one that wrote the law that He is defending me from.
We have seen a couple of verses that reveal many legal terms concerning judgments and statutes. Let’s examine the Bible for scriptures to see if we even need a spiritual legal advocate or not. We will focus first on the ending White Throne Judgment:
Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
According to the Word of God, the Bible clearly declares a day is coming when the books will be opened before the Supreme Court Judge of the Spiritual World. This verse also clearly tells us that God keeps records in books of everything that has transpired on the earth. So everyone who thinks that they have gotten away with things on the earth will be severely disappointed to know they have actually gotten away with nothing. This verse implies the need for a good advocate and spiritual legal counselor before entering because God is going to judge people whether they want Him to or not.
This verse says that the “dead” were judged from what was recorded in these books according to their works. The dead is simply a name for people that have never accepted Jesus or they accepted Jesus and turned back to love their old ways more. A more accurate definition of “being spiritually dead” literally means a person that does not know God and does not have the further opportunity to change to get to know God. We understand this from the definition of “eternal life” given by Jesus in John 17:3 where Jesus said “This is life eternal that they might know thee the only True God and Jesus Christ who you have sent”. The antithesis of knowing is not knowing and the opposite of life eternal is death eternal.
Therefore, this Judgement taking place in Revelation 20 is not about saved Christians that have already given their lives to the Advocate. Also the works mentioned here are of course either positive or negative things said or done in the body. Maybe you think differently and believe that you can get by on this Judgment Day by your own merits and good things that you have accomplished in your life on the earth. I’m sure you have never lied, or stolen anything in all of your days on the earth. I’m sure you have never spoken an evil word about your family or your neighbor. You have been a perfect example of a man or a woman that we could all look up to. This would a very self-righteous attitude that I think many believe. But, Judgment Day will come when these books are opened, then we will all see exactly what was said or done and it will be read for everybody whose names were not found in the Book of Life. Their works will then be revealed completely on this day. I think many will be very surprised on when the verdicts are read.
Act 13:39 And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.
To be justified is a Greek word that means to be found innocent. This is clearly a term for a positive judicial verdict from a judge or a jury. To be justified by my faith in Jesus is what this is verse is speaking of. We can read this in Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38 for they all say that the just shall live by faith. Again we see in these verses that those who are justified and found innocent are those that live by the faith of God and what was accomplished by Him in Jesus Christ.
Being found Innocent is the directly opposed positive position for the negative verdict of being found guilty. Whenever we are found innocent there is no punishment phase of the trial necessary. An innocent man or woman gets to walk out of the front door of the court house like everyone else. However, a guilty man or woman is not so blessed or fortunate. Ok, let’s shift our focus to living as a Christian in the world today. Are we ever judged? Many teach that we are not, but that is not what the Bible says:
1Co 11:32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
This verse is written to Christians about Christians. The key point to this verse will be for Christians to not be “condemned” with the world. By stating it this way God warns us that we still can be condemned with the world. The term “condemned” means to be found guilty, which represents a judgment against us containing a sentenced punishment for a crime. This verse compares two radically different types of people; 1) those unsaved people of the world that will be condemned versus 2) Christians who have the potential to overcome the world, the flesh and the devil to not be condemned. This verse clearly teaches us that Christians can still be judged and corrected by the Judge in heaven. Notice that this judging is implied to be happening right now in this life before we go to heaven. That agrees completely with the verse in Revelation 12:10 that I mentioned earlier. I hope you know this verse. It is so very important that I want to give it again:
Rev 12:10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
Please memorize this verse. It is a future prophecy that has not yet happened. When it does occur at the midpoint of the tribulation Satan will be cast out of heaven and loud voice will proclaim salvation for those in the kingdom of God (the Church). But, notice the end of the verse says the “accuser” (legal opponent in court) of Christian Brothers and Sisters will end. It also says that it has been going on both day and night up until this point in time. That is critical to learn. That means these accusations and judgments are being handed out for someone today, believe it or not.
Therefore, when Christians are judged we can accept the chastening (correction) and confess, ask, repent and turn our course back to holiness or we can still suffer the consequences of our sin and this may result in our early death. Satan has many ways to gain access into your life. I can’t name them all. We are all in need of prayer to ask our Advocate to help show us what is allowing Satan this entrance. Pray and ask Him. See what He says and then agree and repent quickly.
I can still sense the opposition to this type of teaching in my spirit. There is so much of the Bible that we do not know that we resist whatever is not pleasant to our itchy ears. We want an easy life of salvation with no issues or problems. We don’t want to be warned. We don’t want to admit guilt or responsibility. We don’t want to be corrected and told we are wrong and that we must change our ways. I would strongly suggest that everyone go and read the letters written to the seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 over and over. Jesus is speaking to the church and warning them to change, make corrections, repent or else He can blot their names out of the book of life and they can be condemned with the world like we just read in 1 Corinthians 11:32.
Please look up the Greek words in 1 Corinthians 11:32. The word translated as “judged” can mean “someone is suing you in a court of law”. Wow, I did not know this 10 years ago. The Lord has been teaching the body of Christ this and it is eye opening. There are more legal terms in the Bible than you can possibly imagine. They are found from Genesis to Revelation. This verse in 1 Corinthians teaches us that we can be judged in court as a Christian and a correction can be sentenced. This occurs if we fail to judge our self and make corrections. If we are hard hearted and refuse correction we may be devoured by our legal adversary (1 Peter 5:8). I hope you are reading all of these lessons in the series because they are so critical to know before Jesus returns.
CONCLUSION
We can clearly see the need for a spiritual advocate named Jesus Christ by placing our faith in Him now we will miss the Great White Throne Judgment that will occur after the Great Tribulation. But, we learn in the Bible that there are other trials happening before the tribulation. These are court cases occurring for Christians because Satan our adversary brings us up before God’s court to accuse us day and night. God must be fair and just. God must hear the case if he has legal grounds he must render a verdict.
In every trial the one that is being charged it is always demanded for the accused to plead their guilt or innocence of the accusations being read before them as the trial begins. I believe very seriously that this is the way judgments are being given out by God even today. How can we plead our case now in this life? We find part of the answer in 1 John 1:9 where the Holy Spirit said to the church “If we confess our sins (meaning to agree), He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. We find another part of the answer in Revelation 12:11:
Rev 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
You may not understand that it is totally dependent upon your faith confession is what Jesus has accomplished for us now that will determine how we will be judged, but this is exactly how the Bible declares. Verse 10 was speaking of Christians and this verse is no different. We must “plead the Blood of Jesus” in every court case we are in. After a charge is brought for the Supreme Judge and you are asked how you plead, answer “I plead the Blood of Jesus”. According to this statement God also says we will overcome our adversary with His blood and our spoken testimony. What does that mean?
The Greek word G3141 translated as “testimony” literally means “evidence given in a court of law”. Can you see the direct connection to a heavenly courtroom? Why would a Christian need a testimony in God’s Court in addition to the Blood of Jesus? Many believe the Blood of Jesus is all sufficient and all powerful so that we need nothing else. Those that believe this truth alone are easily swayed into an extreme teaching of “Universal Salvation” that claims God saves everyone, including Satan. But, that is not what the Bible teaches us.
No, we are required to speak as a witness in our own defense. But, I believe that this is done now on the earth and not when we get to heaven. What you say now determines where you will be after you die physically.
Heb 4:14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession (confession, testimony).
Heb 10:23 Let us hold fast the profession (confession) of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
Why are Christians told to hold fast our professions now? Why must we have a profession in the first place? Then what is it that we should be professing right now? A profession by the Greek definition of this word is a verbal confession. This word also comes from a Greek root word that means to “promise” or “covenant”. That begins to make more sense to me. When a husband and wife get married, they repeat marriage vows where they promise to be faithful to each other. This is really what these verses are saying to us. In our marriage covenant to Jesus Christ, we exchange words of promise to covenant together with our God to be faithful to Him. So our confession by definition is the spoken words that come out of our mouths in this world to covenant with Him. These are the words that we are told to hold fast to. In God’s court system in heaven it only matters what you say here in this world and you will not be allowed to speak and say something different up there after you die. I hope you understand this, for it is very important.
The Bible and Jesus said something that is highly relevant to any judgment trial that will take place. Jesus said in Matthew 12:37, by your words you are justified and by your words you are condemned. This is a very clear admission of our own innocence or quilt being a statement that comes from our own mouth today. Did you know this? Did you know that God said you will be judged and either convicted or found innocent based upon your own words? Did you know that Jesus said that what you say right now is what determines your guilt or innocence in His Court in Heaven? This is what God said and not what I said so either learn to accept it now or be judged by it. This is why it is important to learn to control what we say now and then to do what God said in this verse in Hebrews to hold fast to our good profession or confession of Christ as our Lord. I will wrap this lesson up by telling you what Jesus will say on your behalf in court now or on the final Judgment Day if you are a Christian right now.
Mat 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.
Here is a statement that confirms what I have been teaching you from the mouth of God Himself. This verse clearly says that if you confess Jesus before other men on the earth today, right now, He will confess you before God His Father in heaven. So again it matters what you say today to what He will say in heaven. Get it? Here is another verse that declares this only using different words and descriptive terms:
Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Here we can again see that it matters what we say in the world. God tells us that if we believe in Jesus being raised from the dead and we then “confess” Him to be our Lord, that we would then be saved. To be saved is the opposite of being condemned or sentenced to death. These are simple legal terms and profound Bible truths. To many ignorant critics who believe that God controls everything including our final outcome in eternity, you are just deceived into believing what Satan wants you to believe. By people not doing what Jesus and the Bible say to do, people seal their fate to a Godless eternity. Jesus will not be there to defend you if you do not accept Him as your defender here in this life right now. Learn the legal lessons given to us in the Bible and accept Him as your advocate today, you will be extremely happy that you did later, I promise.
Rev 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels
God Bless, you all and please share these lessons with all of your friends and relatives. If you would like to continue reading about God’s Heavenly Legal and Court System please .
Understanding the Coming Anti-Christ! The Man of Sin! Part 1
(Ver 1.1) This is Part 1 of a series of lessons on Understanding the Coming Anti-Christ revealed to us in the Bible. This will probably be a very different lesson than most things that you have heard about this coming individual, but I will give you Bible verses for everything that I say so that you can go and look them up and study them all for yourself. I will warn you that I will say some things that you may have never heard before, but that does not make them wrong, it just makes them something new to learn. Some of the things that I will write about today, I believe that God spoke into my spirit and revealed them to me. I then spent the time looking into the Bible to see if they were actually true. I have always found that whatever the Spirit of God says to me, the Bible will agree with, for these two are one and they always are in agreement. So, if you have an open mind and a heart that wants to learn from the Bible, then I would say continue reading, otherwise you will not offend me if you go read somebody else’s blog today. Today’s Bible lesson about the anti-Christ is not a theological doctrine or even a dominant Christian teaching that your salvation hinges upon. Therefore, if you do not agree with everything that I say today, it’s literally OK, it really is not that important. I do not believe that anything I say today will affect your salvation even in a minor way so it is not that critical to believe in. However, this knowledge found in the Bible must have been important for someone to know otherwise God would not have recorded it for us to find. Here is one of my foundational verses:
1Jn 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
According to God we are living in age of the “last time”. This is a time period designated by God of predetermined duration with a designed set ending. In other words God keeps a calendar of set events and has appointed the appropriate time for some things to occur. This would be like if I set up a birthday party for a friend and invited some people to show up at a specific place, day and time. This is what God has done on the earth for the coming of Christ. The only difference is that the Bible says only God know the exact day and hour of this event. God has established a set party in heaven and invited everyone to come by sending out a Book of invitations without giving us the set time. God simply says be ready for it, for it is coming. So we must all be ready to go when this time arrives. However, there will be many who reject this magnanimous offer and will be very sorry that they did. In this verse in 1 John God describes a coming individual called the “antichrist”. This word is comprised of two Greek words, one being “Christ” or the “anointed” and the other meaning the “opposite”. In other words God is saying that this coming individual will be the opposite of the Real or True Christ who was Jesus. This antichrist will be a person who is diametrically opposed to everythting the Real Christ represents! So in reading and studying the Bible you need to discover all you can about the Real Christ and then you will be able to better understand the negative qualities of this coming false-Christ. Every postive qualitie of Jesus Christ has a direct antithesis of revealed antichrist truth. Hopefully if you are already a Christian you already know the real Christ intimately so I will not spend much time talking about the real man Christ Jesus in this lesson but I will give you some valuable clues to the coming fake. It is also noteworthy that even in John’s day back when he wrote this letter to the church, he informed us that there were already some antichrists in the world. However, these false Christ’s were certainly different than the coming antichrist being spoken of in this verse. Being like the coming antichrist is by far different than being the named antichrist. I hope you understand that. We will see why I say that as we continue on through the Bible.
Almost every major religion in the world today is looking for a coming “messiah” or “savior”. You can find this in Judaism, Islam and even Buddhism. Therefore, when the antichrist comes there are already countless numbers of people in the world who will buy into the deception being presented with eager hearts! Satan has set this up on purpose to deceive people when this False Christ suddenly appears on the earth. What I will do is start by giving you some basics about what the Bible says about this coming individual:
1Jn 2:22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
We can clearly see that this antichrist will come to deny that God has sent His son into the world. He will deny that God is a Father. He will deny that God had a Son! He will deny that there is a way of salvation. This clearly means that he will deny the Bible, Jesus and every Christian claim for Him being the way to salvation. Why is it so important for the antichrist not to admit what God has already done through His son Jesus? For one thing it seals your fate in not being saved and then he thinks that it helps him not to be thrown into hell for what he has done. Satan is in denial of the works of Christ in the earth because what He accomplished was so detrimental to his long term kingdom plans establishing himself to be god.
1Jn 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
Again we see another verse that says the coming antichrist will deny Jesus came in the flesh. Jesus Christ was God incarnate meaning the God who took upon Himself the human nature of created flesh so that He could die and pay the price for our sins with His shed blood. Do you realize why Satan is denying God came in the flesh as a man? He is in effect saying this was a stupid and foolish act of God and it was not even possible for God to do something so crazy. He is placing doubts in the minds of people so that they will not believe in the truth. By discrediting one thing found in the Bible Satan in effect is attempting to discredit every other truth in the Bible. Pretty soon you will see some more reasons why I believe Satan will do this. In this verse it is important to note that spirit beings are behind this teaching and that it does not come from men on the earth. However, these spirit beings deceive men into teaching these things and these were the antichrists that were present back when the Bible was written.
2Jn 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
We again have a third witness that says the antichrist will deny that Christ has come in the flesh. Therefore, this must be a pretty important revelation to understand. It is also very important to note that any antichrist is also called a deceiver. Deception is a complex lesson that I have written on before. Not all deception is a sin, but most of it is if it is intended for evil to cause harm or hurt to someone else. It is fairly clear that this is Satan’s motivation, he wants to cause as much havoc and destruction as possible. It appears to me that Satan has decided that if he is going down, he is going to take as many as he can with him. Satan does this by using deception and lies that are intentionally designed to trick and cause you to fall.
The coming antichrist:
- Is a Liar with Evil Intent and Motives
- Will Deny Christ Has Come in the Flesh
- Will Deceive many to believe his Lies
- Is always a spirit being behind the message
Wow, so far no great controversial information, which is just amazing for me isn’t it? I guess it is about to change and here are the new things that I warned you about that we need to learn. I can remember a while back I was thinking on the Word of God and the Spirit of God spoke to me and told me that Satan would come to the earth in the same way that God came to the earth. So I thought about this and started to ask some more questions and began to search my Bible for the answers. You see what is Satan’s greatest weakness in the earth today? If you did not realize it, Satan is a spirit being and it is illegal for a spirit being to be here in a natural world to tempt you. The Bible says there has no temptation overtaken you except which is common (natural) to man (1 Cor 10:13). What this verse means is it is illegal for Satan to tempt or test you supernaturally. Therefore, Satan is forced to uses people in the world to overcome this limitation. Have you ever thought of this before, why doesn’t Satan just kill you if he wants you dead so bad? Did you know he can’t kill you, unless he talks you into killing yourself? Satan can enter into the body of a man on the earth and cause them to say and do great evil to others, but Satan’s hands are tied because he cannot do it himself. We can clearly see this in anyone who has committed mass murder of the human race, like an Adolf Hitler. You can clearly see that a man has potential to do great harm to many others. You can also see this in the Gospels when Satan entered into Judas and caused him to betray Christ to the leaders of the Jews (Luke 22:3). So from Adam until now Satan has always entered into people and used these people to hurt and deceive other people. So how does Satan overcome this severe limitation? How did God overcome this limitation? God became flesh and walked among us (John 1:14). Is it possible for Satan to do the same? Before you answer that question you better read the rest of this lesson and see what else I teach you today.
Let’s examine a familiar parable that Jesus taught us. I have talked about this before, but God woke me up last night and related this lesson to the antichrist. I’m talking about the parable of the wheat and the tares, do you remember this parable and it’s interpretations from studying about seeds? God had a garden and planted good seeds of wheat. While God was away from the garden, Jesus said an enemy came and sowed tares in the same field. God said let them grow together until harvest time and I will send the angels to reap my crop of wheat and then to burn the tares of the enemy. In this parable the wheat represents righteous saved people, the tares represents wicked lost people. This is not a highly complex parable to understand; but let’s think about something new today from what we have been discussing. Using this parable as a reference, God Himself became a grain of wheat when He took on the flesh of a man. This is the amazing fact that the coming antichrist will vehemently deny. God becoming a man, why is it so important for Satan to deny this ever happened? You really need to see how important that question is. Here again is the very difficult question that I o presented you with a few sentences ago and that is “If it is possible for God to be born into the world as a natural symbolic grain of wheat, can Satan do the same as a symbolic tare?” Wow, you should really think about that before you answer. I had one reader say that Satan has no creative power or any supernatural ability and they obviously ignored a lot of what the Bible says about Satan in order to make that statement. How did God get Mary pregnant? The Bible says God spoke words to her and said you will conceive after the Spirit comes upon you. Is Satan a spirit? Does Satan also speak words? Wow, your religious minds are probably spinning right about now and that is probably not very good. Nevertheless I am convinced from the Bible and what the Spirit of God said to me that it teaches us that the coming antichrist will be Satan incarnate the opposite or antithesis of God incarnate. Satan the antichrist will be the personification of hate and evil while God in Jesus was the personification of love and good. What I will do is show you some Bible verses now that while they do not spell it out completely there is enough information to derive some logical conclusions to support what God told me. Here is the first verse that I want to examine carefully:
2Th 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
There are many ignorant people in the world that can’t read or can’t see what this verse says, I guess? If you look at the context God is clearly talking about the coming of Jesus and the gathering together of the church in verse 1. Then in verse 2 you can see God’s comforting words to us (the church) not to be troubled or worried about the coming “Day of Christ” that it is soon approaching or eminently at hand. Of course when this was written it was much further away than it is today. Nevertheless, in verse 3 God says that this “Day of Christ” will not come except 2 things happen first. The first thing is said to be a “falling away” and I will not comment on that event in this blog. The next thing that will occur is the revealing of the “man of sin”. To me it is very clear that this is the coming antichrist. However, the Greek word translated as “man” in this verse means “man faced” or a literal “human being”. This is the definition for me and this is also you today in the world. However, this verse says that this is someone who will be revealed. The word “revealed” here means “to take off the covers”. In other words this word means to make seen something that was hidden. What was hidden that will be seen in the coming time of tribulation? This is so critical that you think about this carefully before you answer that question. God is clearly informing us that this time will be uniquely different than the times before. Let me help you by asking you another question, has anyone ever seen Satan in the physical realm? Could this be what is revealed that was previously hidden? I believe that it could very well be that.
To reveal something clearly means to uncover that which was kept secret and hidden so that it can now be literally and plainly seen. That is what we are talking about here, right? Doesn’t this describe what God did when He came into the earth in the form of the man Jesus who was born of the natural woman named Mary? Jesus, who was the eternal hidden God, became the visible incarnate God so that we could witness Him in person and so that He could give His life for us. God took off the hidden spiritual covers from Himself and revealed to us the Savior Messiah in the flesh. This is why I believe that these verses are saying that Satan who was the hidden spiritual enemy of God will also be uncovered so that people on the earth can see him visibly for the first time. However, this man will not be here to save you; this man will be here to kill you. This verse says very clearly that the “man of sin” will be revealed to us. What is sin and where did it come from? Did God create sin? That is of course a deep theological question that I cannot get into today. But, according to the Bible, sin originated from Satan if you do not know that you should go and read it in your Bible (Ezekiel 28:15). So according to the Bible, Satan was the originator of the first sin in the Bible and is the one that I believe will be called the “man of sin” in the near future. This is a human title for clearly a spiritual being, which I will refer to as Satan incarnate. The next set of key words to examine in this verse is the man is called “the son of perdition”. The word “son” is simple enough because it simply means one (a child) born from a father and a mother’s conception. Jesus clearly called Himself both the Son of God and the Son of Man. So Jesus clearly exemplified the demonstrated and established definition of the union of a spirit being and a natural being. Therefore, God establishes this fact as being a viable reality and not a fantasy proposition of your imagination. However, this verse is not speaking of the Son of God, here; the term “perdition” means “destruction”. Who is responsible for destruction in the world? If you associate John 10:10 with this verse and see what Jesus said about Satan you can see who this description fits. In John 10:10 Jesus said “The thief (Satan) comes not but to kill, steal and to destroy”. So Satan is responsible for the destruction on the earth. So we now can see that the revealed man of sin can be related to being the son of the spiritual being Satan, the destroyer. The Bible is complicate like that; you have to dig to find the hidden truths that are in it. Sometimes it is obvious and other times like today it is more difficult to see, especially at first.
From this one verse we can conclude several new things about the antichrist and these are:
- The antichrist is a physical man
- The antichrist is a natural son from a woman
- The antichrist comes from Satan
- The antichrist is Satan incarnate
- Every man always has a spirit within him and he will be Satan
Continuing to read in this chapter of the 2 Thessalonians we learn some more information and some further confirmation of what I have just said:
2Th 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
Here God starts to tell us what this antichrist will begin to do in the earth. He is said to be directly opposed to the real God, the Bible, the church and everything that they represent. He will exalt himself as being greater than all of these. You see if you use your brain and think you will know that this is only possible if Satan is here in the flesh. Otherwise he cannot fulfill this specific prophecy. The next statement says ‘he as God sits in the temple of God”. I have heard many preachers try to teach that Israel will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and reestablish the sacrifice before Christ’s return. I could not disagree with them more than to say; can’t you see what the Bible says? Where is the temple of God today? Because many men think naturally they focus on the wrong things and they look at what God did in the past is what they expect or want God to do over in the future. However, God is not this way and rarely repeats Himself. What we can see from the O.T. is the fact that what God did in the natural realm was a pattern for what He was going to do in the spirit realm. The Bible says very clearly that God does dwell in the buildings made by the hands of men (Acts 17:24). So even if Israel did build a new temple in the city of Jerusalem, God would not be there to dwell in it. Do you get it? So the question needs to be changed from where is temple of God to who is the temple of God. The Bible says “Now we are the temple of God” (1 Cor 3:16). Uh oh? This definition changes everything, doesn’t it? The human body is now the spiritual temple of God today. That is ME! That is YOU! If you are a Christian then you are now the temple of God. This is the temple made without the hands of men. So this verse in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 fits with the revelation that Satan is an incarnate man of sin. If the antichrist is Satan incarnate, then this man will have a body which was originally designed by God to be the temple of God, but this man will have the spirit of Satan in him and will proclaim himself to be God in this human temple. Wow, I hope that you understand what I just said. What we see is Satan’s attempts to duplicate what God has done so that he can be like the Most High God. This verse makes no sense if this is not speaking of an incarnate Satan. Satan cannot manifest himself spiritually in the earth and proclaim himself to be God unless he becomes a man like God became a man. Only as a physical man can Satan look like one of us and set himself up to deceive so many people in the world. When people see the antichrist on TV walking, speaking and acting like the one with all of the answers to the world’s problems, many will fall for his deception because the world will be in chaos and they will all be looking for the quick and easy answers to their problems.
2Th 2:6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
God said that this man will be revealed at the right time. I believe the right time is very close at hand, since God told me to write this Bible lesson to tell the world he is coming soon. To be revealed or uncovered requires that he be physically born and grow to be a man just like Jesus did for 30 years before He did anything spectacular. So no doubt the antichrist is already in the earth somewhere right now waiting for the opportunity to seize control. That of course was my opinion, but I believe it is certainly self-evident that the time is very short.
2Th 2:9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
This whole chapter does not say anything good for the people who are left in the world during this time of deception of this antichrist. God gives a strong warning in these verses for people to learn now before it is too late. As you can see in this verse, it is not a great translation; the translators added two words at the beginning and these really only cause confusion. If you take the words out, it says “who comes after the work of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders”. In other words, this is further confirmation that this man is Satan incarnate. This man will have smooth words that will deceive the minds of the simple. This man will have the ability to do signs and lying wonders. Kind of sounds like Jesus doesn’t it, except these will be the opposite of what Jesus did. When Jesus walked the face of the earth, He did many positive signs and wonders by healing the sick and raising the dead (Acts 10:38). This is not what Satan will be doing. Satan’s signs and wonders are intentionally designed to deceive people and cause them to buy into his ways of deception. He will come doing many miraculous, spectacular and amazing feats that only a powerful spiritual being can accomplish. It is also interesting to note that Jesus only did miracles after He was 30 years old. I believe that this is a pattern of what Satan will mimic also. Satan has to appear as a man with some level of authority and experience. No one will follow after a teenager to be easily deceived. If Jesus would have started ministering at the age of 12, very few would have followed him, if any. But as man of 30, He got the attention of enough to start a church that would grow.
Christ vs. antichrist, this was the lesson for today. God vs. Satan, one good and one is evil. One became a grain of wheat and the other a tare. While Satan has been effective at deceiving people in the world using humans, when Satan shows up in the flesh, he will be no match for the simple minded people left on the earth. They will buy into the lies in droves not knowing what they are doing nor knowing who they are doing it with. You should go back and read the entire chapter of 2 Thessalonians and see if you can see what God is saying about this coming “man of sin” also called the “son of destruction”. Maybe you can help someone with this information and save them from this future deception. I believe it is worth a try. So I hope you enjoyed this Bible study on the antichrist and have learned something. Remember that the antichrist is a man like you and me who will wield great power to deceive many. He will be opposed to everything that Christ stood for. He will deny that Christ ever came in the flesh so that he can deny that he is Satan in the flesh. After all if he is just a miracle working man, it will be much easier to deceive the people. Perhaps in my next lesson on this subject I will give you some more perspectives on this individual from other parts of the Bible. God Bless you in your attempts to learn the truth!
If you would like to continue reading in this series please go to “Part 2” now.
Understanding How To Be Thankful in a Thankless World!
(Ver 1.1) We are living in a day when many are not thankful for anything. Teaching children when they are young to be thankful is a difficult assignment which too many parents ignore. When I was a child being raised in the south, many parents taught their kids to have manners. They would say Yes ma’am, No ma’am, Yes sir, No sir, please and thank you and if they didn’t their parents would correct it swiftly. This seems to be a lost skillset in the world today. Not only do many children grow up without manners, they grow up without any regard to being thankful to the ones that even brought them into the world. I know not everyone had a rosy childhood and a great set of parents and that life is much tougher on the outside than it could be or should be. But, there is what appears to me to be an over emphasis for people on their current situations in life that ignores the fact that these are always a relative set of temporary circumstances. In other words ALL problems are always relative and they do not last forever. If you look arond you closely you can always find someone that is much worst off than you are. So many look at their temporary problems and are consumed by what they don’t have and miss out on being thankful for what they do have. I have learned one thing in life that is of most importance for me and my relationship to God and that is I need to stop worrying about what could happen or what I don’t have and only focus on what God has already done in my life and given to me and give Him thanks for that. This is the Thanksgiving season and this is my message today for you, begin to be thankful for something. Look for something to be thankful for and start with that.
So I usually do not get personal, because this blog is not about me. But, I am going to relate to you something that my family went through over 20 years ago. My wife and I were expecting our second child and it was a great time for us, we thought. Everything progressed in the normal way and when it was time to have the baby, we went to the hospital like we had done before. However, this night our world was going to be shaken and change dramatically.
Our new son was born and the doctors started checking him over and then started calling in specialists and things happened very fast from there. The doctors did tests and x-rays and determined my new son was born with a major heart defect and deformity. The heart surgeon did immediate open heart surgery to save my new son’s life while I called my mother to help me pray to God. My wife was in another hospital recovering and I went to the children’s hospital where the surgery was taking place. After several hours of wondering, what was happening, the doctor came out and told me that he was alive and that we were very lucky. I knew that my wife was going through a very tough time being alone without her new son in her arms in another hospital. But we were doing the best that we knew how to do at the time. We all made it home eventually and we lived the best that we could a couple of more years before he needed another heart operation. So we went to the hospital and went through the pain again and the outcome was good again. You see the hand of God was with me and my family when I did not even know it sometimes.
My son continued to grow and he turned 4 years old. All during this time we went to church and prayed and kept hoping for a miraculous outcome. We would strive to look for little victories whenever we could. A couple of weeks after his fourth birthday my son and I were getting ready to go to church like we always did. My wife had to be at choir early so she went on first ahead of us. My son and I stopped in at McDonald’s and had pancakes for breakfast and were about to head to church when all of a sudden he collapsed in my arms and his eyes rolled back in his head. I knew something was not right immediately and I yelled for someone to call an ambulance. I then waited until I could not wait any longer and put him in my car and drove him to the closest emergency room Hospital about a mile away. They started working on him as fast as they could and I could hear him scream as I filled out paper work for the hospital. They worked for over an hour and I tried to call the church to leave a message for my wife where we were, but she was on stage singing in the choir and the church services was on TV so they could not go and get her until she came off of the stage. My other son was away at a church camp retreat this weekend so God was watching over us in many ways that I cannot tell you. While my wife sang in the choir praising God, my son died at the hospital. We were probably 15 to 20 miles from the church. I cried very hard when the doctors told me the news. I sat outside on the curb of the hospital waiting and finally my wife drove up and I had to tell her that our son was with Jesus now.
I wish things could have been different, I wish things could have been better, but yet I was thankful for the four years that I had with my son. He taught me many things that I would have not known otherwise. There were times in the car when he sat in the back seat in his car seat praising God and raising his hands in praise. Oh, to have a son with the heart of a child that was thankful for what he had and was not missing what he didn’t have, that is what changed my life forever.
I will see my son again, so I know he is not gone forever. I will talk to him in eternity and we will run together and play like he never could on the earth. Now learn the lesson of a child’s heart today and become thankful for everything that you have even if that is only a very little. I believe that God honors a thankful heart and blesses them that give Him thanks. So if you would only concentrate on what you have and be thankful, I believe that God will bless you and cause you to have more eventually.
This is the season of Thanksgiving here in the U.S. I pray that you become highly focused on everything that truly matters in your life and less focused on the things that you do not have. Problems I believe are only temporary and they are always relative. No matter how bad you think you have it, you can always find someone who has less or a worse situation and you can do something to be a blessing to them in whatever way you can. Being a blessing is why I do what I do on this website. If you could see my heart right now you would understand my tears while I wrote this blog. I hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving wherever you are while you give thanks to God for all that He has already accomplished in your lives. God Bless!
Understanding How To Do The Greater Works of Christ! More Hard Sayings Found in the Bible!
(Ver 1.4) Caution Men at Work! This is Part 5 in the advanced study series of Understanding Hard Sayings found in the Bible! You may not realize it, but this web site is dedicated to doing the greater works of Jesus Christ on the earth today. I saw a sign that once said when men work they have to put up a sign, but women work all the time and I thought that was a good statement. I at least had to laugh while I agreed. However, that is not my primary subject today. While Jesus walked our planet in the flesh He made a statement to us that many Christians do not understand nor fully accept. It is just one of the many “Hard Sayings” of the Bible that too many have not received or tried to understand. Today’s lesson is Part 5 in a series of advanced Christian studies about “Understanding the Hard Sayings” foudn in the Bible and my primary subject is about work. But, what is work? How do you define work? How are we intended to work for God today? Here is this hard saying from God spoken through the mouth of our Lord Jesus:
Joh 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
Do you believe in Jesus? If you do, then you qualify to do the rest of this verse. This statement is a conditional statement or command that comes from God and is spoken only to those that believe. If you believe in Jesus pay very close attention to what Jesus says to you and then see what you should be doing for Him. In this verse Jesus is speaking of a four letter word called “Work”. Jesus is speaking about the “works” that He did in this verse on the earth. What were these works that Jesus is referring to? How did Jesus work on the earth when He was here? What examples of work did He do for us? What did He do on a daily basis? Where was the majority of His time spent? In the minds of many Christians there is a wide variety of possibilities for the answers to these questions. There are many who read the Gospels and see how Jesus healed the sick people, cast out devils, open blind eyes and caused cripple men to walk again. These are the works of God in the minds of many. While I do not deny these, I do not believe that the Bible says these were the works of God that Jesus was referring us to in this verse. Wow, I know I just stepped on some religious toes right there. Let me see if I can heal your toes that I just stepped on before we go any further. What is work? To many people work represents a job that needs to be done. A job or work can be something that a person is paid for doing, but not always. A job or work can be something that is fun to do or something that is totally the opposite of fun. There are people who get paid for cleaning bathrooms and picking up garbage and these cannot be fun jobs, in my mind. So how do any of these definitions of human work apply to God’s definition of work? Did God ever get paid for doing work? Was it fun for God to do this work? It is interesting to note that God says He is working, but our problem is we do not know what He was doing and why. How does God work? I want to shift your focus to a verse that you may or may not be familiar with:
Act 10:38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.
Here in this verse God informs us about some of the things that Jesus of Nazareth the man did on the earth. God says that He anointed this man Jesus to “do” good by healing all that were oppressed of the devil. This verse clearly tells us where sickness comes from, but that is not the subject of today’s lesson. So according to God’s definition, healing is doing good and not necessarily work. Doing good can be work, but I do not believe that it is entirely a one for one exchange of meanings. Do you understand the difference? Take the Queen of England, does she work? No! Does she do any good? I guess it depends your definition of doing good? Anybody can work, but few actually do that which is good according to God’s definition of what doing good is. So I do not find a verse in the Bible that says work is healing or healing is work. Maybe I’m being too picky or maybe I’m just seeing what the Bible says. Let’s go back to the first occurrence in the Bible of the word “work” and see what God reveals to us.
Gen 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.
So God clearly tells us that He worked to create our world. This is the very first time this word is used in the Bible so God must be giving us some insight into His definition of this word by the law of first mention. So how did God create the world? If we can figure out how God works then we can better understand this subject of doing the greater works of Jesus. When you read the first chapter of Genesis and see God’s work, you only notice God doing two primary things. First you notice God looking at a problem and then you see God speaking words to fix the problem. God saw darkness in verse 2 and in verse 3 God said “Let there be light”. This must be work by God’s definition. So speaking words must be how God works. Does this make any sense to you? You should read the first chapter of Genesis and see how many times God said and maybe you will understand this definition better.
Mat 4:23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
As you can see in this verse the Bible says that Jesus spent a significant amount of His time teaching and preaching the people. Isn’t this speaking words? Wasn’t this God’s definition of work from Genesis 1 and 2? You can see in Matthew 9:35, Matthew 11:1, Matthew 21:23, Matthew 22:16, Matthew 26:55, Mark 4:1, Mark 6:2, Mark 6:6, Mark 6:34, Mark 8:31, Mark 12:14, Mark 14:49, Luke 5:17, Luke 11:1, Luke 13:10, Luke 13:22, Luke 20:21, Luke 21:37, Luke 23:5, and John 3:2 that Jesus is revealed to be a teacher. These 20 verses all tell us that Jesus spent a lot of His time teaching the people. This is clearly speaking words with His mouth so that the people can hear what He said and then hopefully understand and believe. I believe this was the work of God being stated in the Bible that Jesus was speaking of. I’ll give you one more very important definition of work found in the Bible that will help you to see what Jesus is teaching us:
Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Here we have the most important definition of work that I have found in the Bible and it clearly states what Jesus was attempting to get people to do on the earth. So whatever Jesus did on the earth that was good was designed to get people to believe who He was. Therefore, God’s work was the intentional effort to get people to believe in something that they had never known before. This is clearly the definition of work to God and the reason why Jesus spent so much time teaching people the truth with His words. Stop and analyze what is the definition of “believing”? To believe something means you must have heard something and are now at the crossroads of accepting it or rejecting it. If I said “God spoke to me today”, you now have to choose, do I believe this since you were not there to hear it also. If you believe me, then you are accepting my word by faith, since I do not have any proof or evidence of this to present to you. Wow, this has turned out to be a basic faith lesson today. Faith is probably one of the top three most important lessons to learn in the Bible, in my opinion. But, I guess I’ll get back to teaching on doing the greater works that Jesus said we should be doing.
What have we learned today? Work to God is speaking words to get people to believe in Him. So what would the greater works be? I believe that these are just presenting the greater truths that God has given to us to share with others so that they would also believe in Him. Jesus said we would be able to do the greater works, only because He was going to leave the earth and go back to His Father in Heaven. Therefore, something that Jesus has now accomplished has allowed us to do a greater work than He could have done here personally. You see all of the multitudes of the people that Jesus taught, He could not get anyone saved until after He had died on the cross, was resurrected from the dead and returned to heaven. Helping to get people saved today by preaching and teaching the Word of God is clearly a much greater work that Jesus could not perform while He was here personally on the earth. Does that make any sense?
Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
In this verse Jesus is contrasting two different types of people on the earth. Both groups of people are teachers, did you get that? Did you know that you were a teacher before you got saved? You might have been teaching in a bar or a strip club, but you were teaching. It is very clear to me that Jesus said by doing and teaching others the right things that you would be called one of the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. But, by doing and teaching the wrong things you would be the least. So that is your marching orders today from God. Do what Jesus said to do and make an effort to teach others so that they can believe and do right things. Only by teaching others the Word of God will you be able to make a lasting difference in the world. Only the Word of God and the Spirit of God changes people. This is why Jesus could say go and teach.
Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teach all nations, that is why I can say that this website is dedicated to doing the greater works of God on the earth today. I am a teacher called by God, anointed by God, taught by God and directed by God. I hope and pray that you understand the difference between doing good (healing) and doing the works of God (teaching). I am definitely not preaching against doing good to anyone using God’s definition of what doing good is. In fact, I embrace it fully. I also hope you understand how important it is to get God’s definitions for the words that we are studying in the Bible. By looking up God’s definition of what work is to Him, this helps us to understand how it is even possible for us to do greater works than Jesus did. Otherwise, you would feel very intimidated by this Hard Saying of Jesus. Jesus clearly raised the dead, caused blind eyes to open, cleansed lepers and caused cripples to walk; when was the last time you did any of this? Then figure out if you could do any of this for someone what could you do that was greater than that? I cannot think of anything. Maybe in a future lesson we will talk about the “anointing” factor that we read about in Acts 10:38. Why did God have to anoint Jesus who was God to heal the sick? If you have never understood about the anointing factor from God it is another subject that you need to study. I am anointed to teach and that is why it is possible for me to write Bible lessons on the web. This was God’s doing and not my choice. I did not pray and ask to be a teacher, God chose me and anointed me and that is why I can do what I do. It is very much like David didn’t anoint himself to be King of Israel. God chose him and sent the prophet to anoint him to be king.
You will discover by reading the Gospels carefully that Jesus would almost always teach first and then heal. I know not always and that you can find some cases where Jesus operated in the gifts of the Spirit of God and just healed someone, like the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda. But, whatever Jesus did, is what you should be doing in the same way. Today’s emphasis was on teaching and who knows what I’ll teach on tomorrow. I enjoy teaching the Word of God and that is why I do what I do. I reach people all over the world and I hear from them and they are a blessing to me. I am blessed to be a blessing and so the work of God is spreading around the globe. I am convinced that doing the greater works of God is first learning what the Bible says, doing it and then going and sharing it with others. Get involved in what God is doing and see that the time is very short to do it in. God Bless!
If you would like to read on in the series you may go to “Part 6“.
The Riddle and the Puzzle in the Bible of the Missing Row on Satan’s Breastplate?
(Ver 1.2) There are many people who do not understand how the Bible was written. God has hidden a countless number of mysteries, riddles and puzzles in the Bible for us to solve with His help. These riddles are always word based puzzles. All of these puzzles are implemented with techniques that use hidden and spread out information that makes them very hard to find. These mysteries are of course much more difficult to solve than they are to find but many of the puzzles are also very hard to recognize by just reading the Bible. Today I am going to show you one of these very complex puzzles that I have been working on from the Bible for several years and so far have not completely solved the entire mystery of the puzzle. I want to share what I know today with those on the Web to challenge you to see it and then to think and help me to see things that maybe I have not thought of. There are certainly people on the web that have also found this puzzle, but clearly they have not understood it completely either. I believe that since we are so very close to the time of the end, that God is intending that we should know what these puzzles mean before He returns for us. The biggest problem that I have with most of the interpretations that I have found on the web concerning this mystery is that they are all someone’s opinion on what it means. No one gave any Bible verses to establish the truth. So that is a major problem with most interpretations, they are “Private Interpretations” and these are not allowed (2 Peter 1:20). This however, does not stop men from coming up with their own personal interpretations of what they think the Bible means. The Spirit of God began to show me this puzzle almost 20 years ago and even though I have studied it over and over, I have not come to a definite meaning to what is being taught. So, I will share with you what I know and maybe God can use someone else to help solve the mystery. In the Old Testament, Moses was given specific instructions of how to make the Temple of God and the garments of the Priests. There are several articles of clothing of the priests with some very specific items that all must have symbolic meanings. The garments of the priest are said to be holy. One of the key pieces of the Priest’s wardrobe was a breastplate. This breastplate was put on over the head and shoulders of the high priest and covered his chest and back areas of his body. This resembles what many soldiers wore while they were in battle to protect themselves from blows to their bodies. The breastplate was an outward covering of the body and specifically the upper torso.
There are two places in Exodus that specifically lists the qualities found in the breastplate and these verses describe the breastplate to us in some detail. One of the places this is found is in Exodus 28 and the other is in found Exodus 39. We will only focus in on the description found in Exodus 28 in this lesson today:
Exo 28:15 And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work; after the work of the ephod thou shalt make it; of gold, of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine twined linen, shalt thou make it.
The priest’s breastplate is called the Breastplate of Judgment. The word judgment means a judge’s verdict or degree, either for or against you. Every mention of titles, names or specific qualities of the breastplate I believe all have symbolic meanings. I believe that God is more interested in teaching us about spiritual things than He is making us look like we worship external manmade idols. The breast plate consists of three colors of threads. One is Blue, the second is purple and the third was scarlet. I believe these colors also have symbolic meanings attached to them. Now God begins to describe the stones that should be included on the external covering of the breastplate:
Exo 28:17 And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row.
As you can see God picks very specific stones and a very specific arrangement, placement and order to each stone. The stones are arranged as we discover in 4 rows of 3 stones each for a total of 12 stones in all. This is a very key number to remember. I believe that the number 12 is also symbolic of spiritual things. We know from study that Israel had 12 tribes, that there are 12 hours in a day, Jesus picked 12 apostles and the foundation of the New Jerusalem has 12 specific parts that we may look at later. Let’s continue through the rest of the rows of stones given by God:
Exo 28:18 And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.
Exo 28:19 And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.
Exo 28:20 And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings.
So we have a list of 12 unique individual stones with no duplicates arranged in a pattern of rows and columns. It just so happens that rows and columns are a sommone type of computer database concept and terminology. If you are familiar with Spread Sheets like Microsoft Excel, then you also can understand how rows and columns play a factor in what God is showing us by this specific diagramed information. If you understand these concepts it may help you to see where we go later in this lesson. Then in the next verse in Exodus we see another association being made.
Exo 28:21 And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes.
Each stone is engraved with the name of the sons of Jacob. What order to place the names, however is not given to us. We could assume that it is in the order of birth given to us in Genesis 29 and 30, or we could assume it is in some other order like the names of the tribes given to us in Revelation 7:5-8 or even Ezekiel 48:31-34. However, in each case example that I just gave you, God lists the 12 sons of Jacob in a different sequence. So which is the right one and does it even matter? Many have tried to come up with the sons of Israel names associated with each stone, but I am not convinced any of them are right. I have read at least 3 or 4 possible renditions on the web of who they thought the stones were and they were all different and nobody could tell us why they picked one to be associated to the other. It could be that the names being associated with each of the stones is not important, or it could be that it is still just hidden from our view and we have not found it yet. Here are the stones we found on the Priest’s breastplate listed in the specific Row order given to us by God.
|
Row/Column |
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
1 |
Sardius; H124 (3) | Topaz; H6357 (4) | Carbuncle; H1304 (3) |
|
2 |
Emerald; H5306 (4) | Sapphire; H5601 (11) | Diamond; H3095 (3) |
|
3 |
Ligure; H3958 (2) | Agate; H7618 (2) | Amethyst; H306 (2) |
|
4 |
Beryl; H8658 (7) | Onyx; H7718 (11) | Jasper; H3471 (3) |
I have listed the name of the stone from the KJV Bible as well as the Hebrew Strong’s number followed by a parenthesized number of times this specific word is mentioned in the O.T. As you can clearly see 3 stones are only mentioned a total of 2 times in the Bible and only in the description of the Priest’s breastplate in Exodus. This is Row 3 of the list of 12 stones. Next you can see that 4 stones are mentioned in the bible only 3 times, 2 stones are mentioned 4 times, 1 stone is mentioned 7 times and finally 2 stones are mentioned a total of 11 times. That is the makeup of the 12 stones and their frequency of word usage occurrence in the O.T. Hebrew Bible. All this tells me is that 7 stones are only mentioned in the descriptions of the breastplates and then 5 stones have varying references from 1 additional mention to 4 mentions and finally to 8 additional mentions. In reading these references I only saw Jasper mentioned in relation to the throne of God. I then noticed Topaz mentioned as coming from Cush. I did not see any references to any of the tribes of Israel so we still have a major mystery with relating the stones to the individual tribes of Israel. It would appear that God does not mention this in the Bible or it is definitely hidden using a method that God has implemented to conceal the information.
Heb 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
So here we go with the beginning of the enormous mystery puzzle. We know from the above verse in Hebrews that God gives us some valuable information of those things that were given to Moses in the O.T. Law. God specifically tells us that those things that Moses created for God’s temple on the earth were shadows of the heavenly things that already preexisted in heaven. That is very important information. God has a temple in heaven that resembled the temple on the earth created by Moses. This would have to mean that God had a high priest in heaven that also resembled the high priest here on earth. Are you getting it so far? We are now ready to see some more important clues found in Ezekiel 28:13 that seems to describe Lucifer or Satan as the type of or in the role of the high priest in heaven. Satan is described to resemble the role of the high priest on the earth, but with 3 less stones on his covering. Read this verse carefully:
Eze 28:13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
If you go through the list of stones and lookup each of the Strong’s Hebrew words, you discover that each stone listed in this verse is an exact match for a stone found on the Mosaic priest’s breastplate. They are of course listed in a completely different order. Then as you can determine by looking and counting, there are exactly 3 stones less with a total of only 9 stones being listed. So we have to reorder them to see which ones are present and which ones are missing. So not only does Satan have stones in a different order, he is missing a total of 3 stones. By closer comparison you can determine that it is Row 3 of the high priest’s breastplate that is missing from the covering of Satan.
|
Row/Column |
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
1 |
Sardius; H124 (3) | Topaz; H6357 (4) | Carbuncle; H1304 (3) |
|
2 |
Emerald; H5306 (4) | Sapphire; H5601 (11) | Diamond; H3095 (3) |
|
3 |
|||
|
4 |
Beryl; H8658 (7) | Onyx; H7718 (11) | Jasper; H3471 (3) |
All of this is just too amazing to be a simple coincidence. If you understand God you will know that God purposely hides information like this for us to discover. Using database concepts, this information would represent a missing record from a file. 
A record always contains related field information that is grouped, organized and associated to form the information in the row. A row would be like the name and address for a customer. Therefore, in database terms, we would have a table that has 4 rows of people’s names and addresses that we know. Each row would represent one person that we know and the information that we want to relate to that person, like their stree address, city, state and phone number. These are just basic database concepts, but they must certainly apply to the puzzle being presented to us by God. God is definitely trying to reveal something to us, but what it is, is the major question of the day? What can we derive from the fact that exactly Row 3 is missing and not Rows 1, 2, or 4? It would appear to me that since Row 3 is missing that it seems to be an indication that something was taken away from Satan and not just simply being added to the high priest on the earth. However, that is not a complete factual reality, since in any spread sheet or database you can add a row anywhere you like. So that is the mystery of the missing row in a nutshell. What is being added to the earthly priest that Satan did not have? Or what is being taken away from Satan that man still has? Since the Bible does not appear to answer the missing row question specifically from Satan’s breastplate, nor the names of the tribes of Israel can be directly tied to each stone, then this forced me to change my perspective and to look in the Bible for alternative related subjects and topics in order to come up with a better understanding for what God is trying to teach us. Sometimes I have learned that if you can’t understand it from one perspective then you better change your perspective to see it differently and this is what I’ll do for the rest of this lesson. I learned that the Bible says God does not change, so the Bible does not change either, it is only our view of the Bible that should be affected. Did you understand what I just said? It was very important!
You see, I believe the Bible clearly reveals to us that the people in the church are a spiritual pattern of the Old Testament Mosaic priests. These O.T. natural Priests were given to us as natural views into the coming spiritual truths and realities found in the New Testament. Let me briefly show you some scriptures in the N.T. that seem to indicate this to us:
1Pe 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
As you can see this verse both calls people in the church living stones as well as being a people who are called a “holy priesthood”. I do not think this is an accident that God mentions these two things in one verse. It would appear that there is a definitive association to the stones found within the breastplate of the O.T. priest. In this verse you can clearly see that we in the church are supposed to offer to God a spiritual sacrifice and not a physical one. So the people in the church are the new spiritual priests of God. Could we possibly be replacing Satan the original heavenly priest? If the church is also the spiritual priests of God, what kind of spiritual breastplate are we now wearing? If you noticed I did say a spiritual breastplate and not a physical breastplate. The O.T. breastplate is clearly a symbolic representation of something that we cannot see with our natural eyes.
1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Here is another witness to the fact that the church is called a royal priesthood of God. You see the word “priesthood” comes from a Greek word meaning to “execute the priest’s office”. To do what the priest did physically, but do it now in the spiritual realm for real. We have observed two major verses in the N.T. written to the church of God that tell us we are now God’s spiritual priests, but let’s look at one more for fun:
Rev 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Here is another witness found in the Bible that says the members of the church have been placed into the office of a “priest” unto God. You can clearly see from these three witnesses that the church is directly called priests. So we are at the point now to try to figure out what the breastplate might represent to us as God’s priests.
Eph 6:14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
As you can clearly see, this verse describes Christians as wearing a “breastplate of righteousness”. This statement is made in the clear context with a description of the armor of God and is starkly contrasted with the O.T. “breastplate of Judgment”. So it is not directly a high priest type of breastplate or is it? It still could be considered very similar. As you recall in the description of the high priests breast plate it was labeled the breastplate of judgment a figurative named title just as our breastplate is stated to also be a figurative described title. The one of judgment is obviously very different than the other that is given to us for righteousness. However, the Bible says that we have been justified and redeemed and therefore we are not under the condemnation or judgment of the law. Since we have been freely given the righteousness of Jesus, I believe that we would be wearing a different type of priest’s covering than the one found in the O.T. law.
1Th 5:8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
I am convinced that the Bible gives us many clues in little pieces that we need to put together correctly. Here we again see another reference to us wearing a breastplate, but this time it is mentioned in conjunction with two new terms called faith and love. Do you realize that faith and love are two of the fruits of the spirit mentioned in the New Testament? Do you also realize that there are 9 direct fruits of the spirit mentioned in this verse in Galatians? I believe the reoccurrence of the number 9 is again more than a simple coincidence.
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Gal 5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
So are these 9 fruits being mentioned in a list just a mere coincidence? The only way you know there are nine is by us counting them. Of course the only way you know there were only 9 stones on the breastplate of Satan was to count them also. How many stones did Satan have? You know by now that Satan had only 9 stones. We can logically conclude that since the High priest’s breastplate had 12 stones, 3 more than Satan’s breastplate that God is trying to tell us something very important. I personally believe that the 9 fruits of the spirit in Galatians are missing 3 fruits and here is one of the main reasons that I believe this:
Rev 22:2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
So I believe this verse has some more major clues in it that are applicable to our puzzle solution. This verse clearly mentions the number 12 and this is the same number of stones on the O.T. High Priests breastplate. Then there is a connection of the number 12 to fruit which we discovered this connection when looking at the fruits of the spirit and the breastplate of righteousness found in the N.T. It is also interesting to note another connection found in this verse connecting these 12 fruits to the tree of life. If you have ever read some of my other lessons you know that the tree of life is a clear reference to the people in the church. Here is an example of one of these verses:
Pro 11:30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.
As you should be able to see this verse says that we have “fruit”, “righteousness” and the “tree of life” all mentioned in one verse and there is no way that this is there by chance or accident. In the N.T. the people in the church are clearly those who have been given God’s righteousness. We clearly saw verses that said the breastplate of righteousness was part of our spiritual wardrobe. Then there is this very simple fact that almost all natural fruit grows on trees. You do not plant a fruit seed like an orange seed and get more oranges; you first get a tree and that tree will produce the oranges. So where does spiritual fruit come from? Spiritual fruit must also come from a spiritual tree. I believe these righteous trees are those who have been given eternal life by God.
Pro 15:4 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.
We are given another clue to this fruit that we are to produce and this is by our mouth and the words that we speak. This is one of the key reasons that I teach a lot on the importance of your spoken words. There are many verses that I can give you that are related and I will give you a couple of them:
Pro 12:28 In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.
Here in this verse we can see a reference to a pathway, righteousness and life and these are all being connected or linked together again. We saw in Revelation 22:2 that the tree of life was in the middle of what? This verse says that the tree of life was found in the middle of the street. Is a street a pathway? I believe it can be. It is often times called a highway, a parkway, a drive or other words in our English language but a way to go is the clear reference being given to us. So we can see in Proverbs 12:28 that the righteous are intended for life and this would imply the ability to produce the 12 kinds of fruit mentioned in Revelation 22:2 on the tree of life. If you study the Bible in the Old Testament, trees are many times used as symbols for people. So a symbolic a group of “trees of life” in Revelation 22 could also be a righteous group of God’s people.
It is also interesting to note that in Revelation 22:2 that there are 12 fruits that are produced every month. How many months are there? In our calendar there are 12 months in a year. So we have two number twelve’s being related together. If you multiply 12 x 12 you get 144 and this is a number that occurs other places in the bible. If you add 12 + 12 you get 24 and this number also appears in the Bible multiple times. So are these coincidences or simply clues to a greater mystery. I think I’ll end this lesson here today, for I do not want to overwhelm you with too many questions to consider all at once. What I want you to do is recognize that there are little clues found in the Bible that are repeated to display hidden information that has meaning and significance. I believe very firmly that the righteous ones are those who are supposed to be producing 12 kinds of fruits of the spirit. What the other 3 fruits are, represents the missing row on the breastplate of righteousness of Christians. This is another mystery of Biblical proportions. But, the patterns and information being given to us is clearly not by accident or chance. What we must do is study to show ourselves approved and continue to ask God to reveal to us the mysteries of the Bible. God Bless!
Understanding the Collapsing Timeline of the End of the World!
(Ver. 1.2) This is Part 1 in a series of advanced Bible Lessons about the signs of the end times. Many people in our world do not understand that we are at the end of the end of our age. A time called the end of the “last days” on earth. The door to this Age of Man’s dominance upon the earth in conjunction with the works of Satan is closing rapidly. Most of the world proceeds in the darkness and grows more evil for they do not know the signs of the time. It is true what the prophet Hosea said “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. No doubt if people only had the right knowledge, they would also be able to see the times of God’s seasons are concluding quickly. However, I heard a TV preacher the other day make a statement that I agreed with 100%. This pastor of a church here in the U.S. prophesied a coming reveal of God’s Word; his statement said every mystery of God will be revealed in the next 2 years. While I do not know if 2 years is the time frame for Christ’s return or not, I believe that there are countless numbers of mysteries in the Bible to be discovered by God’s people and that God will reveal them by His Spirit to His people before Jesus returns. I mean think about it, why would God hide information in His book if it was not going to be revealed? What do we need with mysteries and hidden information from the Bible in heaven? I had a commenter say that it will sure be nice when we get to heaven and God can teach us all the things that we missed out on down here. Why can’t God teach His people the truth, here and now? Do you think that God is incapable of teaching His people what the truth is in the Bible? All it takes is for God to show us some little keys and suddenly the whole book could unfold right before us like a giant puzzle solved. You see when we get to heaven, there will be no enemies up there, no evil, no crime, and no deception and then what will we need with the truth? From my vantage point on the earth, the church needs to know the truth now so that we can become one body in harmony and accord with each other. That means we have a lot to learn in a very fast time frame. If you are interested in learning these secrets of God with me, then get involved with what God is doing in these last remaining days on the earth.
1Th 5:1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
Why did God not have to write about the times and the seasons to these His people? What the Bible does is reveal something that implies we will be able to see these times and seasons and understand that the coming of the Lord is at hand. You can certainly look at the world around us and see many of these things mentioned in the Bible about the end are happening all around us. There have been earthquakes, wars, rumors of wars and many going here and there saying peace, peace! The signs of the times surround us every day. Technology, computers and the internet have made it possible for the Anti-Christ to take control of the world’s finances like never before. The Arab nations are building nuclear weapons and the nation of Israel is in perilous times. There are terrorists and people killing people and people dying all around us. In our calendar year, the seasons are used to determine the times of planting and reaping. God has been planting seeds for the last 2000 years. The knowledge of God has exploded like never before, but there is also a coming time of harvest, where God says that’s it, it is finished! How do you tell people this and not sound crazy in our world today? You sound like a chicken little saying the sky is falling! You come across as a fool, but at least you can be a fool for Christ.
1Th 5:2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
So we have a verse that contradicts the previous verse. This verse says the coming of the Lord will be like a thief in the night. You just never know when a thief will show up. But, what we have here is the same event from two perspectives. Those who know Christ will be able to see the coming times and for those who do not know Christ it will happen suddenly without any warning.
1Th 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
We certainly see everyone today in the world calling for this illusive peace. What they do not understand is who is behind these wars, the spiritual forces that manipulate and control people in doing the evil that they do. This verse is again given in contrast to other verses in the Bible that reveal the church is not appointed to wrath. Sudden destruction is not coming to the church, if you think it is then you are very confused in who wins this spiritual war. Sudden destruction will come upon the evil people in the world who do not want to see the coming of Jesus. The church of Jesus will be taken up and out of this destruction before it happens.
1Th 5:4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Here we have the previous verse to verse conflict resolution given to us very clearly. We the church, are not those who are in the darkness. The destruction is only for those in and of the darkness. Those who walk in the darkness are those who have been blinded not to see the truth of God. These are those who have been deceived into believing lies. These verses in 1 Thessalonians 5 are contrasting the end events from two perspectives, one is light and the other is darkness. Do you understand this?
1Th 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
We again see that the church of God is those who walk in the light of God. Anyone who has light can see what is happening in the world because of the light that God is shining upon us. This is in stark contrast to those in the darkness who cannot perceive the times or the seasons.
1Th 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
God says let us therefore be awake while we are in the light of day. This is a spiritual statement and not a physical statement. People still sleep at night and work during the day physically. But, these natural realities correspond to spiritual realities that we must understand clearly. To watch and to be sober is another contrasting statement to those who like to party during the night and get drunk. These concepts are not that difficult to grasp if you have eyes that see spiritual things.
1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
For God has not appointed us to wrath. I spoke of this verse earlier because I wanted to show you that God is not angry at the church. Wrath is a coming time of punishment for being evil and rejecting the truth. Wrath will never be given to anyone who has been delivered from it by the blood of Jesus. Jesus became sin that we might become the righteousness of God and this makes us saved from the impending doom of the world. The Bible says that we (the church) have been reconciled back to God. That means to be brought back into right relationship with Him. I do not understand how people ignore verses like these in order to teach a mid-tribulation or post-tribulation rapture of the church. The church will not be here during the time of wrath and that means we will be taken out of here very soon. Jesus almost 2000 years ago said this about the times that we are living in:
Rev 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
In being able to recognize the times and seasons, it requires that you understand the Bible and what it teaches on these subjects. If Jesus could make this statement of coming soon almost 2000 years ago, how close do you think that we are today to the return of Jesus? How could Jesus say this and it be a truthful statement? To human perspectives 2000 years is almost an eternity. But, we of course understand that God lives outside of the dimension of time in an eternal self-sustaining mode of existence. God is called the ancient of days in the Bible, so time to God must be completely different than time to us. To man 2000 years is a very long time since man only lives to be a 100 years old, but to God, it is just a yesterday. If I said to you today, “I’ll see you tomorrow”, is that a long time to you? To most people, tomorrow is not a long time. We are simply talking about at the most 48 hours. So when you see Jesus speaking of 2000 years as a short time you must find God’s definition of what time is in order for you to understand the real truth of the Bible. This is called letting the Bible interpret itself:
2Pe 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
So by God’s definition of time on the earth, one day can represent a time period of 1000 years to Him. What God is doing is changing our definition to His definition so that we can see things from His perspective. This is one of the most important concepts for correct Bible interpretation that you can find. This definition gives us a reference to time that was hidden in the Bible. When you start analyzing the Bible using this information you can begin to see why Jesus could say that He would see us at the end of the day tomorrow and it be nearly 2000 years on our timeline. Therefore 2000 years would not be a long time in God’s eyes. Seeing things the way God sees them is one of the most important keys to understanding the Bible. Let’s break down this information we just read for a future point of reference:
1000 / 24 = 41.6667 years = 1 God Hour. So One hour in God’s timeline would be just over 41 years of our calendar.
41.6667 / 60 = 0.6944 years = 1 God Minute. One minute to God would be approximately .7 of a calendar year to us.
0.6944 * 365 = 253.47 days = 1 God Minute. One God minute is just over 8 months of our calendar.
253.47 / 60 = 4.2245 days = 1 God Second. 101.388 hours = 1 God Second. 6083.25 seconds = 1 God Second.
While I have not found a reason why these numbers are significant, the concepts behind them are what I am trying to convey. To hear when God tells you to wait a minute, that it could mean wait up to 253 days for the answer. Even God’s Wait a Second, could be over 4 days long. It is a radical shift in our perspective of time concepts. It causes us to come up to a higher dimension of spiritual understanding. It forces us to renew our minds with some new spiritual facts and knowledge. What I am attempting to show you is that many times in the Bible God is defining words differently than we do. Do you understand that any verse in the Bible can change dramatically depending on the definitions of the words found in the verse? If we use man’s definition of the word found in the verse, there is a high probability that we just got it wrong.
By the law of first mention, we must go back to Genesis 1:5 to see the first time the word “Day” is used in the Bible. God goes through a series of 7 days of creation, doing something new every day that is unique to the world that we live in. This is a God week by definition and according to the definition of what a day is it means a period of 7000 years. However, we must also change our perspectives to see what else is hidden in this information. I do not believe that it took God 7000 years to create our world; I believe that God is trying to teach us something else about these days of creation. If you have read my other blogs, you already know that these 7 days of creations are prophetic statements of the history of man on the planet. Every day of the creation account has symbolic meaning of something that transpired in the earth during that millennium. The 7th day is a representative pattern of the coming millennial reign of Christ. This is God’s day of rest upon the earth where we have no enemy to fight or defend against. The first 6 days of creation are days of work for man, where we definitely have a great challenge presented to us by God. Our enemy Satan has come with great fury knowing that his time is very short. So while we do not know the exact day or hour for Christ’s return we can clearly see that the harvest season is fast approaching. There is no way to know how long of time that we have exactly on the planet. Our year 2010 is a corresponding year of 5771 in the Jewish calendar. The Jewish people have supposedly calculated from the time of Adam’s creation to today and they think it has been just under 6000 years by a few hundred years. I think that they are close but that it is much closer to that magic number of 6000 years than we think. There is no way that God is going to wait over 200 years to come back to the earth, people would not survive that long. If I had to guess a number I would say that the Jewish year is closer to 5985 to 5991. But, that is just me pulling numbers out of the air that mean nothing. It is only logical to see that Biblical prophecy is falling into place very rapidly around us. I do not think that the coming of the Lord can wait more than a very few years. If God does wait, then we are in trouble. The world’s economies are declining and the wickedness in the world is increasing at rates that are off the charts. I’m not going to explain the 6 day time line of creation like I have tried in other blogs. So please if you do not understand these concepts go and search my website for additional information on this subject. Using this information let’s look at some Bible verses that certainly apply:
Mat 17:1 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
When you realize that Jesus did nothing by chance or accident, you begin to see important prophetic verses in the Bible with hidden double meanings within them. In this verse it says Jesus went up to a mountain top and took with him Peter, James and John. The symbolic representations in this verse are very clear. If a day is as a thousand years then after 6000 years (6 God Days) of time on the earth Jesus will come to take His church up to be with Him. This is what I see that this verse implies, you of course can believe whatever you like. While on the mountain top Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah. These are also two symbolic representations of those who were dead (Moses) and those who were caught up alive (Elijah) to be with Christ. This whole story in this chapter of Matthew is giving us a prophetic confirmation of God’s timeline on the earth in hidden terminology. I hope and pray that you can see it and how it fits together with other Bible verses.
Mat 24:37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Here Jesus is telling us some more secrets about His impending return. It says that as it was in the days of Noah it will be again in the coming of the Lord. So how was it in the days of Noah? In Noah’s day, the people mocked Noah for building an ark. They laughed because they knew not the impending coming disaster nor could they discern the times or the seasons because they were in darkness. They lacked “knowledge” of the truth and perished because of this lack of knowledge. Jesus says in this chapter of Matthew that they ate and drank and had parties. They married, built houses and went about their ways ignoring the coming disaster. This is a very important lesson for the coming of the end of the age that we are living within. Noah was considered righteous and is a type of the church family of God. Noah knew exactly when the disaster would start and how it would end. Noah was prepared for the disaster, so Noah was saved from the disaster. Noah escaped the wrath of God, and so it will also be with the church. This is a clear pattern of the true church in the world today. These are those who can read the signs of the times and understand the seasons. The Lord’s coming will not come as a thief in the night just like the rain did not come as a thief in the night to Noah. If you are prepared for Christ’s return then you will know and see His return clearly. In the parable of the 10 virgins, there were 5 who were foolishly not prepared and went away for oil. These are types of the people in the world who do not know God. They will not perceive that the time is too short to try to get more oil. While you are away Jesus will come back and those who are ready will go up. This parable is an attempt by God to tell you to get ready now before you realize the time is too close at hand to get more oil. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, do you think that this could be a symbolic indication of the coming 6000 years of Christ’s return? I certainly do. Let’s look at one more verse about the end of time in relation to a historic type:
Luk 17:28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
I take these verses very literally. When Jesus says the coming of the son of man will come like it happened in the days of Lot, what does that tells us? The righteous were taken out and the destruction began to rain down immediately upon those cities. This again gives us a picture of the pre-tribulation departure of the church. God does not appoint the righteous to His wrath. This verse says those in the earth will be eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building and their consumed focus on these activities will cause them to miss the coming of Jesus.
Joh 2:1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:
God gives us little clues in the Bible in vastly spread out verses. Here we have a reference to a real event that occurred during the days of Jesus on the earth, but God uses it to inform us of a spiritual event that is coming. These types of verses are allegorical and they are real events that happened on the earth, but they show us a spiritual reality. After two God days (2000 years) there is coming a wedding feast that will occur in heaven on the third day. While the earth is experiencing the vials of Revelation, the church will be in heaven getting ready for a wedding feast. Verses like these are very interesting and potentially controversial because it appears that I am pulling something out of context to teach a spiritual prophecy. However, God uses this technique throughout the Bible in symbols, types and shadows and allegories. I mean think about it, God could have used any number of days in this verse and it could have been accurate, but God chooses to use 2 days and then Jesus went to a weeding. Do you think this is an accident? I certainly do not!
Joh 4:43 Now after two days he departed thence, and went into Galilee.
Again we see that Jesus could have stayed however many days that he wanted, but it is recorded that Jesus stayed here 2 days and then the departure occurred. Is this another coincidence or is this a prophetic picture of the coming departure of the church? Only you can decide what you believe, it is. I will believe that it is a prophecy.
Joh 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Approximately four times in this chapter, Jesus uses the term the “Last Day” in conjunction with a time of resurrection and new life. What is the last day of the week? The “Last Day” of the week would be to the Jewish people the Sabbath, also called the day of rest. The God Sabbath is also called the Millennial Reign of Christ. We can very clearly see that Jesus is saying that there is coming a God Last Day where some things will change dramatically for us. There are a bunch of verses like this one in the Bible that make much more sense when viewed in the context of the prophetic creation week. When you apply God’s definition correctly you can understand how they are telling us our time on this earth is closing to an end, when we return to reign with Christ on the 7th day.
Joh 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
Wow, there are so many verses that we could go into that give us this repetitive clue of the coming “Last Day” when the feast will come. This of course will be the covenant marriage feast of the Lamb of God to His bride, the church. You must search your Bibles for these little hidden clues and then you will begin to understand them. God uses some very tricky methods of hiding information in the Bible in plain sight.
Joh 12:1 Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
Again we see an amazing coincidence of 6 days and then a feast. The Passover was a representative symbolic meal of covenant between God and Israel. This is a pattern of the coming Marriage Supper when the church eats and drinks with Christ. So God could have put any number of days here in this verse but, chooses 6 as being significantly important for us to see. This verse also speaks of being raised from the dead after these 6 days, so that is again too amazing to be an accident. These are just more prophetic pictures of the coming to the end of our current earth age.
So while the Bible does not give us exact dates and times, it gives us enough information to discern the times and seasons that we are living in. I hope that you are beginning to understand the concepts being taught and can see the references to the soon return of Christ. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series you may go to “Part 2“.
People Generally Don’t Know That They Know Something Important!
(Ver 1.1) I was watching the news on TV and there was a policeman speaking about a crime that had just occurred. He was on the news asking for people who were near the crime scene to come forward. He then made this statement, “People don’t know what they know”. In other words he was saying you might have been a witness to the crime and not realized that you were because you did not know it was a crime. Maybe you happened upon the crime right after it happened and saw the culprits walking or running away from it. Maybe you saw a car drive away from the scene and this is the key that will unlock the identities of the guilty parties. He was clearly saying that someone saw something and that if they would come forward with this information it might be very important to solving the case. When he said that statement, God spoke to me and said this is the way the Bible is. People will read something in the Bible and not realize how important it is because they do not understand what it says and how it relates to other subjects in the Bible. I wrote a very similar lesson a long time ago called “People Generally Don’t Know What They Don’t Know”. If you did not read that article you should go back and review the concepts given. They are very profound revelations. Today’s subject while being very similar to this concept is also diametrically opposed to it. In the first lesson you have the concept of not knowing the bridge is out and driving off of the missing expanse in the dark to your death. If you would have just known that the bridge was out, then you would have been spared the tragic outcome. This is a concept found in the prophet Hosea. In this verse God reveals some very significant Bible truths to us:
Hos 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
It would appear to me from this verse that “Knowledge” is the key to not being destroyed in this world. While this could apply to natural knowledge, this verse is speaking of spiritual things as being what is important to know. The Law of God at the time of this writing represented the Words of God. The Words of God are what is important for us to know. Knowledge of the Word of God is the opposite of Ignorance of the Word of God. A Lack of Knowledge is totally related to your current ignorance level. So in the one case God says people perish from this world because they do not esteem the Word of God and count it as valuable to know. They in effect kill themselves because they have rejected the truth. This in effect, is not knowing what you do not know. But, we also have the lesson today, which is very similar in nature. You might know a little bit, but not understand the importance or significance of that knowledge because you lack the knowledge of how important it is to know or to share with others. In the case of the policeman on the news someone held the missing link to identify the perpetrators but did not know that they had it.
Take for example, the virgin birth of Jesus. There have actually been churches who have taught that the virgin birth is not important to know to be saved. However, if Jesus was not born of a vrigin then He was just a man like me. If you have read my lessons on “Understanding the Virgin Birth” then you already know this is not true. To listen to an ignorant preacher who teaches something is not important in the Bible, is a very foolish thing to do. You should never let any preacher do your Bible study for you, and that includes me! If you hear me say something from the Bible then go and read your Bible and study it for yourself to see if it is true or not. It is only the Bible that you have seen for yourself that will do you any good in life. Your pastor’s Bible knowledge will not do you any good when Satan comes and attacks you. If you are a Christian then the Spirit of God is also inside of you and if I say something wrong the Spirit of God inside of you will bear witness that I am wrong. So you will have two witnesses that will always agree to show you the reality of every truth in the Bible. The Bible says the Word of God and the Spirit of God will always agree and bear witness to the truth (1 John 5:7).
So today’s Bible lesson is not a long or complex something to do or understand. It is actually a very simple concept of seeing what you have seen and then going back and figuring out if it was important. I do this all the time when I study the Bible. I constantly review my past Bible readings and notes for things that I may have learned but not fully understood. I then use these little facts to build a greater knowledge of the truth when reading today’s Bible studies. I think I have said this before, but it bears repeating for those to remember, that truth always builds upon truth. When building a house of truth if your house is built upon false teachings then these are weaknesses that will cause your house to topple like a house of cards. If you build your foundation on the rock of the Word of God, then your foundation is firm and unshakeable. God’s Word is Truth, Jesus is Truth, but yet the Bible is written in a complex spiritual way that forces us to divide the truth correctly. I wish I could say this was easy, but after over 20 years of studying the Bible, I am only a little bit closer to understanding everything that the Bible says. So learn the lessons given today about recognizing that what you don’t know is important. Then go and continue in your Bible studies to learn more.
Understanding the Symbolic Nature of Genesis 1, 2 & 3! Spiritual Symbols Found in Genesis!
(Ver 1.4) In reading and studying the Book of Genesis I have found that it is essential to look at the first 3 chapters of this book using symbolic spiritual eyeglasses which allow us to see the concealed spiritual meanings that were hidden from the surface only reading that many Christians do. By studying the book of Genesis I have discovered that most of the subjects written about in these three chapters contain natural symbols that convey a much greater and complex spiritual truth. The difficulty comes in rightly dividing what is natural and what is spiritual and then interpreting both of these at the same time correctly. Clearly the book of Genesis and especially the first 3 chapters contain both real naturally created realities and people, but at the same time it contains a vast number of spiritual symbolic references that are intermixed throughout the text in almost every verse. This makes correct Bible interpretation of Genesis infinitely more complex, especially for carnal minded Christians.
1Co 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
I put this verse in this lesson to show you how important rightly dividing the Bible is to correct interpretations. Here God says there are many who teach things in the Bible that are just from man’s own wisdom. You can still find this in churches and on the internet everywhere. But, God says there is a better way, let the Holy Ghost teach you spiritual things and then compare these spiritual things with other spiritual things. Most Bible scholars would certainly agree that this complexity is repeated in other books of the Bible like the prophets and especially the Book of Revelation. Revelation is dominated by symbolic references throughout the entire book and it is widely one of the most controversial books with the most widely dispersed interpretations surrounding it. So symbolism is an added layer of complexity that makes understanding these Bible books with it, much more difficult to comprehend and to understand correctly. For example when God mixes natural fruit with symbolic spiritual fruit in the same chapter this forces us to see what is being discussed by the context and then to use the rest of the Bible to help us interpret the meanings of the spiritual side of the information given. This is called “Comparing Spiritual Things with Spiritual Things” and “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth” and we are required to see it correctly or we will remain hopelessly confused. We must therefore, choose to rightly divide the Word of God deciphering or decoding every word between the spiritual definition and the physical definition or we will wrongly divide it and make them all spiritual or all physical references. To make them all spiritual or all natural, we would get most of our interpretations wrong when doing this. So God did this all by a grand design. God purposely hid complex information in the Bible to keep it from Satan and to allow Him to reveal it to us His church in His perfect time. It is the designed process that I call “Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight”. So in today’s blog I am going to focus on the symbols recorded in the first three chapters of Genesis and give you a list of the most important ones that I have found. Here is the List of Symbols in Genesis 1, 2 & 3:
|
Symbol |
Description |
Chapter Verse Reference |
| Adam | A real man, but also a symbolic representation of the man Jesus Christ | Genesis 2:18-26; Romans 5:14 |
| Afraid | The symbolic spiritual force of the fear of the consequences of sin and death | Genesis 3:10; Heb 2:15; |
| Ashamed, Not | Symbolic Spiritual Innocence | Genesis 2:25; 1 John 2:28 |
| Cleave | The symbolic covenant of marriage between Christ and the church to be JOINED! | Genesis 2:24; 1 Cor 6:17 |
| Darkness | The spiritual kingdom domain of Satan and those in it | Genesis 1:2; Rom 2:19 |
| Day | Those in the Kingdom of God where the Sun of Righteousness has arisen | Genesis 1:5; Malachi 4:2; 1 Th 5:5; |
| Day | The days of creation were symbolic 1000 years of the history of Man | Genesis 1:5, Genesis 1:8, Genesis 1:13; Genesis 1:19; Genesis 1:23; Genesis 1:31; Genesis 2:2; 2 Peter 3:8 |
| Divided | Symbolic separation of spiritual beings | Genesis 1:4; 1:7; Luke 12:51 |
| Dust | The Symbolic Spiritual ground and the possession of man for 7000 years (7 days) | Genesis 2:7; 3:14; 3:19; |
| East | The Symbolic direction of the rising Spiritual Sun | Genesis 2:14; 3:24; Mat 24:27; |
| Eat | Spiritual enlightenment and understanding either of good or of evil | Genesis 3:6; 3:11-19; 3:22; John 6:51 |
| Firmament | A spiritual division or separation, an expanse or spiritual dimension as a partition. Above the firmament is heaven the throne of God. Below the firmament is the future expanse of Satan’s domain. The air realm represents man’s current position and where Satan currently resides. | Genesis 1:7; |
| Flesh, One | The symbolic covenant of marriage between Christ and the church | Genesis 2:24 |
| Fourth Day, the | The 4000 year appointed time of the coming of Christ into the world | Genesis 1:19 |
| Fruit | That which is produced by a Spiritual Tree either good or evil | Genesis 3:2, 3, 6; James 5:7 |
| Garden | The heart of man, the symbolic soil of the earth where God plants His seeds to grow spiritual fruit | Genesis 2:8; 3:2; 3:10 |
| Greater Light, the (Sun) | The symbolic Jesus, the ruler of the spiritual day Kingdom of Light | Genesis 1:16; Mal 4:2 |
| Hand | Symbolic Spiritual Power | Genesis 3:22 |
| Lesser Light, the (Moon) | Satan the ruler of the darkness of this world; the Prince of the Kingdom of Darkness | Genesis 1:16; Eph 6:12 |
| Light | The God of Creation, God is Light | Genesis 1:3; 1 John 1:5 |
| Meat | The symbolic food of a spiritually mature man | Genesis 1:29-30; Heb 5:12 |
| Naked | The External Shame of Sin also the unclothed spirit of man | Genesis 3:10; 2 Cor 5:3 |
| Night | Those in the spiritual darkness, who stumble and sleep and get drunk in the world; kingdom of Satan | Genesis 1:5; 1:14; 1:16; 1:18; 1 Th 5:7 |
| Rain | The symbolic outpouring of the Spirit of God, the former and the later | Genesis 2:5; James 5:7 |
| Sea(s) | Peoples/Nations of the earth | Genesis 1:10; Rev 17:15; |
| Second Day, the | The Covenant of Abraham to separate God’s people from the other people on the earth | Genesis 1:8; |
| Seed | The symbolic representation of children, words, and several other types of spiritual things | Genesis 1:11-12; 3:15; |
| Serpent, the | Satan the spiritual ruler of the darkness, the deceiver of the nations | Genesis 3:1; Rev 12:9; Rev 20:2 |
| Seventh Day, the | The Millennial Reign of Christ; God’s symbolic Day of Rest | Genesis 2:2; Heb 4:4; Rev 20:6; |
| Sixth Day, the End of the | The prophetic coming into maturity of the church of God before His return. | Genesis 1:26 |
| Skin | The outward clothes of the spirit of man; God later removes this with the circumcision of the heart | Genesis 3:21; Rom 2:29 |
| Third Day, the | God starts planting seeds and expecting fruit to grow in His garden; Moses given the Law | Genesis 1:12 |
| Thorns and Thistles | The Weeds of the Enemy Satan | Genesis 3:18 |
| Tree(s) | Any man who makes a choice to either produce good fruit or evil fruit | Genesis 2:9; 3:8 |
| Tree of Life | Those men who have chosen to receive the Word of God and produce fruit unto righteousness | Genesis 2:9; 3:24 |
| Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil | Those men who have seen good but chosen evil | Genesis 2:9, 3:11; |
| Waters | Symbolic people, the voice of many waters | Genesis 1:6; Rev 17:15; |
| Way, the | Symbolic Spiritual Path to Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom from God | Genesis 3:24 |
| Woman | The symbolic type of the Church who was taken out of Christ | Genesis 2:22-23; 3:15; Eph 5:32 |
These are certainly not every symbolic reference in these three chapters of Genesis; these are just the ones that I have seen and feel are important to know. You of course are welcome to look for others and if you find them please let me know so that I can add them to the list. I will certainly confirm that I do not know everything and I like to learn new things. God teaches me new things almost every day and it is very exciting when He does this. I pray this list will be a helpful tool in your study of the Bible and specifically the book of Genesis. God Bless!
Understanding the Concepts of Deception in the Bible! Righteous vs. Evil Deception! Part 4
(Ver 1.2) Today is Part 4 of a series of very advanced lessons on Understanding Deception in the Bible. We have covered a lot of important information about this subject, so please do not start reading here in the middle of the series, go back and start reading with “Part 1” so that you can better understand what has already been covered in more detail than what I can do today. The church world has widely been taught that Satan is the initiator, instigator, mastermind, leader or distributer of deception in our world and that this deception is always evil. I of course concur with these facts whole heartedly. However, in the last lesson in this series I introduced you to the concept of “Righteous Deception” and I will carry this lesson further today so that you can better understand these new concepts revealed to us in the Bible. What I have discovered by Studying the Bible is that there are several types of deception mentioned in the Bible and some are positive and some are negative. By the Bible definition we can understand that evil deception is when someone comes to you with hurtful or harmful intentions and lies to you to get you to do something that you should not have done. However, I also showed you in the last lesson that the Bible speaks of “Self-Deception” as being a condition where a man or woman has deceived themselves into doing something that they should not have done. You should have gone and looked up the verses that I gave you so that you can better understand this situation so that it does not happen to you. So I gave you several brand new concepts about deception that you should at least be a little bit familiar with by now. According to God’s definitions, a deception in order for it to be a sin must be directed at a person to cause hurt or harm or an expected evil outcome. We clearly saw in Genesis 38 that Tamar used deception for a positive outcome and for the good of God, Judah and the nation of Israel. Tamar was exalted by God for what she did so that she was included in the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1. Without Tamar’s intentional deception of Judah there would have been no King David, no Solomon and no Jesus. I know these statements rock your religious boats to no end. I totally warned you in these lessons that I was going to upset you evil deception apple cart so that you would have to see this subject in a new more complex and different way going forward and I hope that you are doing just that.
I’m going to start today’s lesson by giving you another natural example of the use of deception for a good or more positive outcome. Say you are working late at night at a restaurant and about to close up and go home. You hide the majority of your daily money and receipts in the hidden vault in your office and you put the rest of the money in your petty cash drawer. Say you have $5000 in the vault and $500 in the petty cash drawer. Then suddenly an armed robber comes into your business to steal from you. He demands your money or your life so you hand him your petty cash drawer and tell him to go. He asks for more money and you say I gave you money now go. You are clearly attempting to be deceptive while not telling a lie and you convince him to finally leave. You call the cops and they show up and so on. So was what this man did a sin of deception in the eyes of God and the Bible? You see I do not think so, because it matters who are trying to deceive and why. You are not trying to harm this thief you are just trying to keep him from taking everything that you have. This is the way Satan is in the world also. Satan is an evil thief that has come to “kill”, “steal” and “destroy” your life’s work (John 10:10). So how do you handle an evil spiritual thief like Satan if you are God? I believe that sometimes you have to deceive (trick) these evil people into doing the right things. I know there are religious people who are just having fits right now because I implied that God can legally use deception. To deceive someone without sinning requires great wisdom to do and God is the ultimate authority of all wisdom. Why am I giving you this example? I want to show you what the Bible says that God did and then you can better understand this concept of “Righteous Deception” a little better. Read this next Bible verse very, very carefully using your eyes and your brain:
1Co 2:8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
In this verse it declares a concept that right “knowledge” is the key to doing what is best for you. What we learn is that if we would have known that the highway was closed, we would not have gone that way, for example. The Bible says in Hosea 4:6 that my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. So again knowledge is the key to not being destroyed in the world. Here in this verse, we have an instance of implied active righteous deception being taught to us. The princes of this world are references to Satan and his demonic angels. They are the rulers of this world that God is speaking of. If you look up the Greek word translated as “Prince” it means “ruler”. This verse then tells you that if they had known what was going to happen to them by killing God on a cross, they would not have done it. Do you understand this very complex concept being given? Satan hung Jesus on the cross because he didn’t know what was going to happen and he thought if he killed Jesus this would just get Him off of his planet. It appears to be a clear case of the lack of information from God and wrong assumptions on the part of Satan. This sounds exactly like what Abraham did in Genesis 12, doesn’t it? Abraham withheld information and the king made wrong assumptions and thus the wrong choice. It is very clear that God withheld important information from Satan and as a result Satan did the right things that God needed done. This is really an amazing example of God’s ability to control information in order to get a powerful spiritual being like Satan to do the right thing for God but the wrong thing for himself. You see it was God’s death on the cross that ended His covenant relationship with Satan and the angels forever. Satan is now only in covenant with the humans on the earth, the sons and daughters of Adam. I cover this in other blogs so I cannot repeat everything here. So just understand that the death of God on the cross caused something to happen to Satan that he greatly regrets today. Do you understand how God used deception because He had an evil enemy and how God is justified in using this deception because he was deceiving a deceiver. You can clearly see that this type of deception is a potentially powerful tool when used properly and not for evil. What I am trying to do is to get you to think outside the box and to see that not every deception in the Bible is an evil or a sin. This of course represents a two-edged sword in what I am trying to teach, because there will obviously be some who try to use what I say to justify their evil intentions and only God knows your heart better than you, so you will never get away with using this wrongfully.
So let’s go back to Genesis and look at another example of “Righteous Deception” used for the good of God’s chosen people. In the story of Isaac in Genesis 25-27, Isaac and Rebekah have two twin sons. They however are not identical twins because they look and act completely different. Esau comes out first and becomes the first born in the family who is slated to inherit everything that his father Isaac owns. However, the implication from the birth is that Esau did something underhanded to come out first and Jacob stuck his hand out and caught his brother by the heel. These are clearly symbolic types being given to us of what was going to transpire in the future. So Jacob the “heel catcher” was born second and he is in the natural line to serve his older brother. I’m sure that you are familiar with this story because it is widely taught, but it has probably never been taught in the context of it being a “Righteous Act of Deception”. Jacob’s mother Rebekah comes to him with a plan and here are some of the concerns that Jacob brings up in this chapter of Genesis:
Gen 27:12 My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing.
The mother’s plan was for Jacob to get his father’s blessing by the use of deception. You can clearly see that Jacob is concerned with being labeled a deceiver by his father, so we are definitely talking about a clear case of the act of deception in this story of Genesis. In this story you see that Jacob’s mother comes up with this plan of deception for her husband and two sons. I don’t know why this is the second story concerning the righteous act of deception by a woman. Rebekah tells her son Jacob to go and kill some animals that she can fix his father favorite meal. Then she tells Jacob to go and get some skins to cover his arms, hands and neck with. Why did Rebekah instigate this deception and for what purpose was it done? You might have to go back to chapter 25 to see part of the answer to this question. When the children were still in the womb of Rebekah, she noticed that they were already fighting inside of her. She went to God to find out why and God spoke to her some inside information (literal pun) that was very relevant to this lesson of deception.
Gen 25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.
God says these are two nations of people and only one will be called by my name. Not good news for one of them, is it? Here we have a story that is very difficult to grasp and accept. Esau is clearly a child of Isaac and the firstborn from him, the rightful heir of all of his father’s wealth. But, God said that the elder firstborn would serve the younger second born. You should understand the concept of “Analogies” from the Bible if you have read my other Bible lessons. This is a concept that a natural real story gives us spiritual information about two spiritual brothers that I just cannot get into today. Just understand that there is more information hidden in this story than is on the surface and then go and dig for it. I will help you and tell you that the younger son is a type of Jesus so now go and figure out who is Jesus’ older brother.
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
So God knew the sons of Rebekah before they were born and God also knew what they would do in this world before they were born. So God let Rebekah in on a secret and this was why she could do what she did and be justified in the eyes of God. So why was Jacob justified in doing what he did in deceiving his father for the blessing?
Gen 25:31 And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.
In Genesis 25 Esau comes home very hungry and not thinking and asks his brother for food. His brother says “sell me your birthright”. The birthright is the right of the firstborn to own everything of his father. So Esau reasons in his mind that unless he eats his birthright will not do him any good and says this:
Gen 25:32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
So then Jacob tells his brother to swear that the birthright will be his.
Gen 25:33 And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
So you can clearly see that Esau sold his birthright to his brother for a bowl of soup and some bread. Esau also gave his word to his brother and in the eyes of God your word is your legal commitment to do what you have said. If you did not mean it you should not have said it, the Bible says. It could be that Esau was playing Jacob for a fool because he clearly still expects to go and inherit the blessing from his father later in this book of Genesis.
Gen 25:34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.
You can see that God says the man Esau “despised” his own birthright. This Hebrew words means to NOT Esteem or to disdain, scorn. It is the act of a vile person the definition says. This is certainly not a positive confirmation for what Esau has done in the eyes of God. It also gives legal justification for what Rebekah and Jacob did to deceive Isaac for the blessing that now rightfully belonged to Jacob. There is a lot of things to learn from this story, and one thing is that even though Jacob was justified in what he did, the Bible says that God is not mocked whatsoever a man sows that will he also reap. So Jacob planted the seeds of deception and these came up when he was working for Laban for his wife Rachel. Laban deceived Jacob 10 times it says in the Bible changing the terms and conditions of his employment. Jacob thought he was working for 7 years for Rachel and ended up working 14 years for her. So while you can be justified in doing deception, it usually always comes back to bite you later in life. God however, did not abandon his man Jacob and continued to bless him even though Laban was attempting to steal from him and to use him.
So it is interesting to note that Esau was legally the heir of his father Isaac, but God caused this blessing to go to his younger brother Jacob who became the father of the nation of Israel. So we learn that not everyone that came from Abraham can be called Israel, only Jacob’s descendants. This is an example of righteous division or separation. The sons of Esau were not the chosen ones. What we have seen is a clear use of deception initiated by God. God told Rebekah about the sons in her womb before they were born. I do not know if you like everything that the Bible says or not. Many of these types of stories are very difficult for many to accept. I sure if you wanted to you could come up with alternative meanings and interpretations to everything that I just have taught on this subject of deception. But, I hope that you can see who God was dealing with and why deception was used to cause a positive designed result. I think that I will end this lesson here today. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series about deception, please go to “Part 5“.
****************************************************************
If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?
Understanding the Concepts of Deception in the Bible! Righteous vs. Evil Deception! Part 3
(Ver 1.4) Today is Part 3 of a series of lessons on Understanding Deception in the Bible. I do not know if you can tell why I write this blog or not? My number one goal is to help you to understand the Bible better today than you did yesterday. If I can help just one person accomplish this, I believe that is worth the countless hours that I have invested in writing these advanced Bible lessons. If you know God better than you did after you read my lessons then I have succeeded at accomplishing my goal. Today’s lesson is about the complex subject of deception, but this lesson is much more advanced than the first two in the series. The first two lessons were general overviews of your enemy Satan and the techniques that he attempts to use to deceive people in the earth today. The first two lessons dealt with only one side of the subject of deception that I refer to as “Evil Deception”. Today I will introduce you to the other side of deceptin to show you that it can be used for positive outcomes and that will shock many Christians who have never been taught this side of the subject. If you have not read this series of lesson from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1”. Also today’s lesson is intended for spiritually mature Christians since I will probably go into many things that you have never heard before from anyone and I do not want to cause anyone any confusion so please judge your level of spiritual maturity and make the determination if you want to hear something that is potentially new and controversial. If you do not want to learn anything new, then just go read someone else’s blog for today.
In the previous lesson on deception I talked about Satan being called a deceiver (Rev 12:9, 20:10) of the nations and how God looks upon these actions very unfavorably. One technique that Satan uses for deception is to take a truth and pervert it with an attached or alternative meaning. Another technique of deception that Satan uses is to associate a Bible truth with a false religion, causing Christians to reject it as the truth. Another technique of deception is to take a Bible symbol of truth and to possess it as a satanic symbol so that Christians again reject this truth completely. There are so many complex methods of trickery involved in deception and you should become intimately knowledgeable of every method that you can so that you are not the one deceived in the future. However, today I am going to flip the evil deception apple cart and introduce you to a brand new concept that you probably have never heard anyone speak on before in your life, especially in church. Obviously everyone teaches that deception and lies are an evil sin. But, today I am going to attempt to show you the positive side of deception found in the Bible. Right there your religious mind is probably giving you fits saying “I didn’t know deception had any positive side or use”. What I will show you in today’s lesson is that there are different kinds of deception found in the Bible and how that the Bible says not every deception is considered evil or a sin by God. I guess most people struggle with this subject because they do not realize that there are multiple types of deception found in the Bible and therefore they do not understand how that any level of deception could be permitted at times to achieve a positive outcome. Many religious people look purely at the existence of only one type of deception that they associate with someone telling someone a lie. They then lump all deception into this same basket category as being an evil sinful lie. I had a reader who read one of my Bible lessons on Abraham and left me a comment saying that Abraham sinned. In this story of Abraham, he went around telling everyone his wife was his sister so that no one would kill him to get her. If you read this Bible lesson called “Genesis 12: Was Abraham a Liar?” you should have learned that Abraham never lied, his wife Sarah was his half-sister (Gen 20:12). They both had the same father but different mothers, so they were clearly brother and sister to each other by definition, yet Abraham married his sister and she became the wife who gave birth to the promised child Isaac. So Abraham was clearly guilty of remaining silent on the important fact that Sarah was also his wife and not just his sister and this is all that you can accuse him of based upon what the Bible says. Let me start by asking you this question, is silence a sin? Can you find anywhere in the Bible where it says if I’m silent even on a key point of information that I have committed a sin? I searched my Bible and I could not find one verse that said silence was a sin.
Of course it gets more complex than this because your silence is also tied to your motivation of why you are being silent and that fact alone make this subject infinitely more complex. We’ll talk more about your motivation shortly but, I searched and searched the Bible for a verse that said silence was a sin and I could not find it anywhere. So my reader claimed that Abraham committed a sin of an invented name called a “lie of omission”. According to his definition, a “lie of omission” would be to remain silent in any area that left out any important information that could have been said in order to purposely deceive someone. However, after I confronted my commenter, he had to agree that this term “lie of omission” and its definition was not found in the Bible anywhere and therefore what he had said was a sin came from his own human reasoning. The human intellect is an amazing God given blessing, however it is rarely God inspired thoughts unless you have thoroughly renewed your carnal mind with God’s spiritual knowledge, understanding and wisdom. Therefore, you cannot count on anything that comes from your carnal mind as being the truth. After all of this, my commenter refused to say that Abraham didn’t sin in what he did and he held to the concept that Abraham was therefore still a deceitful liar because he withheld information from the king. Wow, this is a very dangerous approach to take in your Bible interpretation. In Matthew 7:26 Jesus called this action of ignoring God’s word a foolish man who has built his house on sand. To base your beliefs on your own human reasoning instead of the Bible will cause you to be wrong 100 times out of 100 tries. What we must do is to build our house on the Rock of the Word of God and base our beliefs on what God says and only what God says, in order to be assured and have confidence in what we know and teach to others. You know I do not have to be right about everything that I say and teach. I am perfectly willing to change if you can show me the chapters and the verses that say something different than what I teach. I would rather change and be right than to stay with believing an error. However, if you are just telling me your opinion that I’m wrong because that is not what you think is true then you have a major problem, not me. Here is a web definition for the word “deceive” that I found:
Deception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth (as in half-truths or omission). Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda, sleight of hand. It can employ distraction, camouflage or concealment.
Here are some synonyms for Deception from the Thesaurus:
Trick, Trickery, Sham, Fraud, Con, Cheating, Pretext, Duplicity, Deceit
Wow this is a pretty amazing definition that is all encompassing, isn’t it? However, I noticed two things directly missing from this definition of deception;w with one being the motivation of the individual doing the deception and the other being the purpose for the deception or you could say the expected outcome for the deception. It further does not say or even imply that there are potentially times when deception is good and the results of the deception can cause a positive outcome to occur either. According to this lone definition that I found on the internet you can clearly see that Abraham was absolutely guilty of committing a level of deception for either evil or for whatever purpose. However, I believe that to remain silent is still a key area that is totally different than to deceive someone by telling them a lie. I can find many verses in the Bible that say “Thou Shalt not lie” (Lev 19:11, Zep. 3:13). But, to be silent I have still not found any verses yet that says this is a sin. In this story found in Genesis 12 and 20 of Abraham telling the kings that his wife was his sister, I could not find any verses where God rebuked, chastised or punished Abraham for what he did or in this case didn’t do. Can you find this anywhere? You can clearly see that these kings were either plagued (Gen 12:17) or had a dream from God that told him that he was a dead man (Gen 20:3). So God’s attention was focused on what the kings did and not what Abraham did or still in this case did not do. Do you understand this? So I want to introduce you to the first new factor about deception today that will upset your deception apple cart. This concept is called “Self Deception” where a person has deceived themselves into doing the wrong thing based upon their own personal thoughts, motivations or their natural physical or emotional desires. You can clearly see that the kings in these stories of Genesis 12 and 20 were only interested in themselves and what they wanted. Nobody asked Sarah what she wanted, did they? Of course back then it was a male dominated world and when a male king wanted a woman, there were no options for the woman given to her. When Abraham tells the kings she is my sister, the kings ASSUMES that she is available to be taken like a stray dog that doesn’t belong to anyone. They make a very wrong assumption based upon not knowing all the facts that they could have found out if they had just asked some more direct questions in order to find the truth. You can read scriptures about being “Self Deceived” in Jer. 37:9, Oba. 1:3, 1 Cor. 3:18, Gal 6:3, James 1:26 and 1 John 1:8. There are many factors that cause self-deception and these can involve pride, arrogance and wrong thinking where you think too highly of yourself and see yourself to be wise in this world. You should go and look up these verses to learn how people can deceive themselves and you should be able to see how these verses can easily apply to the kings in Abraham’s story.
There are three basic factors to deception that are critical to understand that are not normally taught. First, there are different types or methods of deception. You can clearly see this by someone telling a lie, but you can also see this by someone just failing to tell the truth. They are dramatically different types of deception in the eyes of God. Second, there are different reasons or motivations for using deception and the intended outcome for the deception. In other words is the person doing the deception doing it for someone’s harm, hurt or destruction or for a purpose of overall good? Then the third factor to consider is who the intended target for the deception is. Is the one being deceived a good person or an evil person? Can the one being deceived do me any harm if they are not deceived? All three of these factors matter in order for any deception to be called a sin in they eyes of God. You see there is an implied problem with deception that you have not fully thought of or comprehended fully. If you take the literal internet definition of deception and apply it as it was written that the omission of information or truth is called “deception” then God is quilty of deceiving us all. Is your God a deceiver? If you only take this definition, He is because He knows things that we clearly do not know and many of them.
Some have tried to conclude that all deception is sin like my commenter and this is just not what the Bible teaches. That statement is really going to shock many of my readers. However, what people have done is taken a complex subject and oversimplified it and caused all deception to be thought of in a negative light. But yet as we continue through this lesson we will see that this is not true. Let me give you an example of some deception that occurred in my life that might shock you. My own mother was a known and practicing deceiver; my mother deceived me when I was just a child in grade school. She tricked me into eating squash when I was a kid by mashing it up and stirring it into my cream corn. They were both yellow vegetables and when they were mixed together I could not tell that the squash was present. You see I liked cream corn but I did not like the squash and I refused to eat it. However, by her trickery and deception of her mixing the squash with my cream corn and then by purposefully not telling me about her methods, I ate it without knowing I was eating it. Clearly she withheld key information and truth from me and clearly it was an intentional act of a hidden deception. By the definition of deceive that we looked at, she is clearly guilty as Abraham was, but, was this deception a sin? Did my mother sin by hiding squash in my cream corn and not telling me about it? According to my commenter he would have said that she did. However, was this not just an example of the practical use of deception to achieve a positive outcome for me? I think that you can see it was the only way that I was going to eat squash so it worked. What was my mother’s reasoning and motivation for deceiving me? Was it to do evil and harm to me or was it to do something good and positive for me so that I benefited? In her mind it was to do good so that I would eat my vegetables and grow up strong and healthy. So hopefully you can see that not every type of deception is a sin from this one simple example. I do not believe that my mother was committing a sin by hiding squash in my cream corn, do you? So let’s change the scenario and say someone hid poison in your food. This of course changes everything dramatically. Now we have a different motivation for a different purpose and the expected outcome of the deception is completely different. Clearly anyone who would do this is well within the realm of committing a horrific sin by using a very similar deception method that my mother was guilty of. I hope that you can begin to see the impact that motivation and purpose play into the role of deception. Do you see the potential dilemma being presented to us from my two examples of food deception? It matters who is deceiving, why they are deceiving, who is deceived and what is the intended purpose of the deception in order to make a determination if it is a sin or not. Just because my mother hid squash in my cream corn and did not tell me that she did it, does not constitute an evil act of the sin of deception. Are you grasping these very important concepts? You see if you only used the web definition of the word “deceive” you can clearly see my mother was guilty of “deception”, therefore she should go to jail or hell. But, her reasons for doing it were justified to achieve a positive outcome for me. This is called “Righteous Deception” and I will show it to you in the Bible so that you can better understand how it works. I pray that you are beginning to see the complexity of the subject of deception and the potential use of deception to achieve a positive outcome for someone.
So let’s go back to the story of Abraham and see who did what, where and why? Abraham was traveling into the nation of Egypt where a foreign government was ruled by a people who didn’t know God. In fact in the Bible Egypt was a type of the world and Pharaoh a type of Satan. According to Abraham’s reasoning, he told his wife to tell everyone that she was his sister so that these godless people would not kill him to get to her. So the motivation of Abraham was not to do any evil to anyone, but to preserve his own life in an uncertain set of circumstances surrounding evil people. It was Egypt who was doing the evil and not Abraham by taking a woman just because she was pretty and good looking. You could compare this to rape today and this is clearly a crime. No one asked Sarah what she wanted; they simply decided what to do based upon what the king wanted. Was that the right thing to do? Obviously God did not think so and that is why He put plagues on the nation for what they had done. So Abraham was dealing with an uncertain evil nation of people who could potentially do great harm to him for what they wanted. So do you see any differences now in this type of deception initiated by Abraham? Abraham never had any intention of harm for any evil purpose to anyone in being deceptive. So by not telling them all of truth; did Abraham lie? I still do not think so! Did Abraham sin? I still do not think so. Abraham’s heart was clear before God. I hope that you can see this.
What I am attempting to show you is that not every deception is a sin in the Bible and you will see some more examples of this in these next verses also found in Genesis. This is a story in chapter 38 is one that is very informative of many things, but I’m only going to talk about the concept of “Righteous Deception” given to us in this story. In Genesis 38:6 you see that Judah the son of Jacob had a firstborn son named Er and Judah got him a wife named Tamar. However, verse 7 said that Er was wicked in the eyes of the Lord so God killed him. Not good for Er! So Judah had three sons the firstborn Er is now dead so Judah gives Tamar to Onan his next oldest son and tells him to have children for his dead brother Er. Onan is also wicked in the eyes of the Lord because he refuses his father’s request and God kills him also. Wow, Tamar is either really bad luck for the children of Judah or something else is going on here. We can read in this chapter that Judah tells Tamar to go to her father’s house and wait for his third son to get old enough and she will be his wife next. So Tamar waits and waits and Judah never mentions it again and finally Judah’s wife also dies. So Tamar does what? What is Tamar supposed to do? In Genesis 38:13 it says that someone told Tamar that her father-in-law Judah was going to a certain city to shear his sheep. So Tamar comes up with a plan of deception:
Gen 38:14 And she put her widow’s garments off from her, and covered her with a vail, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place, which is by the way to Timnath; for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife.
Here we have a part of the story that is easily missed. You see Tamar could see that Judah’s third son was grown up and she knew that Judah had not fulfilled his word to her. By not doing what he said; Judah has become a liar and that is not good is it? Therefore, Tamar takes off her widow clothes and disguises herself with a veil. In doing this Tamar has taken on the outward appearance of a prostitute and she places herself in the path of Judah on purpose.
Gen 38:15 When Judah saw her, he thought her to be an harlot; because she had covered her face.
So Judah sees the woman Tamar and thinks to himself that she is a harlot available for hire. It is very important to note that Tamar does not ever say she is a Harlot; it is only Judah who has assumed the wrong things based upon a perceived impression of outward looks. Judah could have asked to see her face or spoken with her in many ways to find out the real truth, but he has been self-deceived with natural human male desire. Isn’t that interesting? What we see is Judah has deceived himself into thinking the wrong way based upon human desire and lust and outward appearances. It sounds a lot like what the kings did when looking at Sarah in the first story of Abraham.
Gen 38:16 And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee; (for he knew not that she was his daughter in law.) And she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me?
So technically speaking while Tamar never says she is a prostitute you have to look at what she says very carefully. It would appear that she is asking for money for her sexual favor, but examine her heart and think again. She is really just asking for what she was already promised by Judah. Nowhere in this story is her deception an evil intentional act for harm to Judah or an attempt to get back at him for his lie.
Gen 38:17 And he said, I will send thee a kid from the flock. And she said, Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou send it?
Judah tells Tamar he will send her a kid from the flock, but Tamar know who she is dealing with and says she needs some security to insure that he will do what he says. So she says this:
Gen 38:18 And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave it her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him.
So we can see that Judah is still negotiating the price and the collateral like any normal business transaction. Tamar asks for his signet, his bracelet and his staff for collateral. Do you understand the principle and symbolic meaning of these items? A signet was like giving your credit card to someone today. With it they could command you to pay everything that they charge with it. The first time bracelets are mentioned in the Bible it was when the servant gave Rebekah two bracelets for her to become Isaac’s wife, so this is a clear parallel to this story in Genesis 38. The staff was of course a symbol of power and the main instrument of a shepherd to herd his sheep. So Tamar was not asking for trivial things, these were signs and symbols of this man’s identity. In the Bible you can find where it says that having sex with a prostitute causes you to become one flesh with her. So the sexual act is considered to be a marriage covenant between Judah and Tamar. Therefore, Tamar was gathering items that could easily be used to identify him later as the one who had sex with her. Anyway Judah must have missed sex a lot so he agreed and gave her these three items and then he made Tamar pregnant with his children and then he went back home.
Gen 38:19 And she arose, and went away, and laid by her vail from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood.
Tamar departs back to her father’s house and changes her clothes back to the widow garments and then waits. Meanwhile, Judah sends people to find the prostitute with the sheep that he promised so that he could get back his possessions and they cannot find her. Nobody has ever seen this woman, so she was clearly not a prostitute for financial gain or income. So if money was not Tamar’s motivation what was the motivation of Tamar and who did she deceive? It is very clear that it was deception in the “nth” degree. But, I did not see anywhere that said that Tamar ever lied with her lips to achieve this deception, nor do I see where she did it to cause hurt or harm to anyone else. The purpose of this deception was not for evil but for the good outcome of the continuation of the family name of Judah. So in effect this deception of Tamar was only done for the good of Judah and not to do him any evil. This is a very important story in the Bible and you just do not realize its importance right now. So Judah finally hears about Tamar when she begins to show her pregnancy. It’s funny how words in the rumor mill can travel so quickly to everyone. Everyone knew that Tamar was a widow so when she shows up pregnant it is a perceived problem for Judah and the community. So Judah calls for Tamar so that they can put her to death for being a whore, but when Tamar shows up at his house she has his signet ring, staff and bracelets that show who the father is and Judah cannot not deny it because of these facts she presented to him. Judah then makes this statement:
Gen 38:26 And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more.
You can clearly see that Judah was calling her deception a “righteous justified act”. Because, of this woman’s trickery the family line of Jesus has been preserved and Jesus can still come into the world as God had designed. You can clearly see this honor by reading the genealogy of Jesus given to us in the book of Matthew chapter 1. There are only 6 women mentioned by name in this list of father names and Tamar is one of them. She earned a mention of prominence by a simple act of righteous deception. Tamar has arisen to the level of rock star status in the Bible because she used deception for the good of someone other than herself. This is a very important part of deception that is rarely taught and seldom mentioned. Here is another mention of her name in the Book of Ruth:
Rth 4:12 And let thy house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah, of the seed which the LORD shall give thee of this young woman.
Tamar is again mentioned in the book of Ruth as being a righteous woman who did great things for the good of mankind and the house of Israel. You cannot deny that this was deception, but God elevates her to a level of importance for doing this deception that few have understood until today. At no time did God accuse this woman of committing any sin for what she did, do you see this?
I actually have many more Bible verses to go into this subject of deception, but I have gone too long for today. So I will wrap this lesson up with that story of Tamar and hope that you can now see and understand that not every deception found in the Bible is a negative sin in the eyes of God. In my next lesson in this series I will give you some more examples found in the Bible of “Righteous Deception” and these will help to establish the truth in the mouths of two or three witnesses. I hope and pray that you have learned something from today’s lesson that you can take away in growing in your relationship with your God. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series on deception, you can go to “Part 4“.
****************************************************************
If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?
Understanding Spoken Words in the Bible! Elijah’s Words and Prayer for Rain! Part 11
(Ver 1.3) Today is Part 11 of a series of very advanced lessons on Understanding Spoken Words in the Bible. You may have noticed if you read my Bible lessons that I teach a lot on this subject and one reason is that the Bible says a lot about this subject. I figured out that any subject that God emphasizes this much must be an important one for me to learn about and to know. Therefore, I spend a lot of time looking at these verses on this subject and they have shocked me into changing what I say dramatically. If you understand this subject just a little bit you will know this is true for you also. I will warn you that today’s lesson is potentially very advanced and only for mature spiritual Christians. This is because the topics and things said may be hard to swallow for younger immature Christians. So please judge yourself before you continue reading this Bible lesson. If you are not comfortable with controversial topics then please just go read someone else’s blog for today. If you have never studied this series of lessons on Spoken Words, I would strongly suggest that you go back to “Part 1” and start your reading there first.
When you study the Bible, you do not read but 1 chapter in Genesis and you can see that God speaks words in order to create our world that we live in. At least seven times in this chapter of Genesis it says “And God said” and God would say something and then shortly it would come to pass. It is interesting to note and to analyze what God said and then to see who He was speaking it to. Did you ever realize that in Genesis 1 you cannot find where it says that God was ever speaking to anyone in particular? In other words God was not speaking to someone specifically in a conversation like we have them between ourselves. God would speak words directed at no one but a problem that He perceived and then things would change based upon what He said. Therefore, no one had to hear God’s words spoken for them to be effective and to cause something to change. It’s kind of like the old saying if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? According to what the Bible says, the tree heard it even if no one else did. For example, God would look at the darkness that covered the earth and say “Light Be” and then light was. So obviously the darkness heard what God said even though we did not. So we learn from this that your words have the same potential and they do not have to be directed at or heard by anyone in order to effect changes in your personal world. God spoke the answer before the problem and then the answer was made manifest. Read Genesis 1 and see what God says “Let there be light”, “Let there be a firmament”, “Let the waters be divided”, “Let the earth bring forth grass” and on and on. Every one of these cases represents a problem followed by a spoken solution. This is a concept taught in the Bible where God describes as “calling those things that be not as though they were”. Do you understand this concept? If you do not understand this concept you should go and read Roman 4:17 and the surrounding verses to see what God says about this subject of speaking words before you see them happen. The concept of calling for what is not seen is exactly what God did in Genesis 1. God saw there was no light and said there was light and then the light came in. You can see this principle demonstrated in Genesis 1:3, 1:6, 1:9, 1:11, 1:14, 1:20 and 1:24. It is a very powerful lesson from God being given to us. God plainly sets us an example of what we should be following in the world today. Then in Genesis 1:26, God said “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness and let them have dominion…”. So if God said this, did this happen like the other 7 times God said? You can clearly see that everything God said in Genesis 1 came to pass exactly like he declared it, so these words spoken about man would be no different. If man was designed by God to be like God, then we would have to be open to operate like God does. We of course do not always have to believe this, but this is usually just because we have not been taught these concepts from the pulpit.
Today’s lesson is concerning prayer and spoken words; their relationship and their essential unified association to each other. It is usually self-evident to most people that prayer should involve speaking words to God. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray like John taught his disciples, Jesus gave them some example words to speak to God. Many times people take this example prayer that some call the “Lord’s Prayer” and just parrot the words back up to God like this is being effective. However, this was not what Jesus was teaching us to do. You can teach any parrot to say these words and that would not be praying at all. God is not stupid; He has heard these words before, so these words are not intended to replace your words that you normally speak. Also, Jesus taught more than one set of verses on the subject of prayer so we must try to put all of them together and then learn from them all. Here is something else that Jesus said about prayer:
Mat 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
As you can see Jesus says for us not to be vain in repeating the same words over and over to God thinking that we will be heard. This verse implies that it matters what we say in prayer. If you pray the Lord’s Prayer repeatedly in your prayer life, are you not being vainly repetitive? So that sounds like a problem to me. Do not use a model prayer as the only basis for what you pray. You may certainly at first use this prayer as a model construction for your prayer and then change it to your own words. The Lord’s Prayer starts with praise to God and the acknowledgment to who God is and then the prayer asks for God’s will to be done in the earth. Finally, the prayer gets to us asking for what we need in our lives and the forgiveness of our sins is one thing that we should ask for. But then you should also understand that this prayer was taught to the disciples before Jesus died on the cross. Therefore, this was a model of an Old Testament prayer to God and not necessarily a New Testament prayer to God. For example, Jesus said to pray that the Kingdom of God be established in the earth; and guess what the Kingdom of God is inside of me right here and right now, so this prayer has been answered, so why would I pray that again? I’m smart enough to know that the Kingdom of God has come inside of me already so I do not need to ask for this to happen again. If God has already fulfilled it, then you do not need to pray for what has already occurred. Do you understand this? You might can pray that the kingdom of God be expanded and grow, but technically speaking Jesus never taught us to pray that sinners would get saved. The only verse that I have found about praying for sinners in the Bible is when Jesus tells His disciples to “Pray the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest”. This is the salvation principle of God sending sowers, a preacher or worker to speak the truth in love to an unsaved person so that they can hear and believe in Jesus and then be saved. So prayer is an awesome subject to study in the Bible and we will get to more of this subject later. But, today I want to speak on specifically about spoken words in relation to prayer. You cannot technically pray without using words, but we also speak words all day long and how do these words affect what we pray?
I cannot find anywhere in the Bible where God honors silence or silent prayer. In fact when I was studying about angels it would appear that the scripture says if the man would have been silent, the angels would not have been sent. You can read this in Daniel very clearly. Daniel prayed to God and fasted for 21 days until the angel of God finally showed up with the answer to his prayer. So Daniel’s silence would have resulted in no angels being sent, the angel Gabriel told Daniel for your words I was sent (Dan 10:12). This is a problem in many religious circles where they hold a moment of silence for some individual that maybe has just died. This might be considered giving someone respect or honor but your silence is doing no good other than that. What if when Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus and stood before it in a moment of silence and then left? Would Lazarus had been raised from the dead? No, I do not believe that he would have. So we can then see what Jesus did to cause Lazarus to be raised, can’t we? Jesus makes the statement to God, “I thank thee that you have heard me”. Jesus implies something that is very important to our lesson today, and that is God is listening to your words. You then see Jesus speaking to the dead man and calling his name “Lazarus come forth”. Was Jesus calling Lazarus alive with his mouth and the words that just came out? So silence would not have brought the answer to Lazarus. To give honor or respect to someone is probably not a bad thing to do, but it will not change the situation. It is like here in the south when we see a funeral procession going by we normally pull over in our cars and stop out of respect for those who are driving by. This is a common practice in the southern parts of the United States and I believe it promotes an attitude of Christian love towards those who have just lost someone from this world, so I believe it is a positive thing to continue doing even though there are no Bible verses that say to do this.
Jas 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
This is one of my key Bible verses today that introduces the rest of the subject of prayer to come. You can clearly see that God is instructing us to pray and not just for ourselves. This verse ends in the statement that the prayers of a righteous man or woman have great power in them. Because Christians do not believe this, they do not do it. Many times it is a self-image problem; they do not feel like they are righteous enough to ask God to do anything. Fortunately for us it is not our righteousness that we are depending on; if it was we would all be in trouble. It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that permits us to come boldly before the throne of God without guilt or shame (Heb 4:16). So here is the next verse that follows this one about your prayer:
Jas 5:17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
So here I go today with the basics on this lesson about prayer and words. As you can read in this verse, God says that Elijah was a man just like one of us. What people should understand is that the people that God uses in the Bible were not special or different or unique in their appearance, characteristics, problems, situations, challenges or life’s little nuances from us today. Too many Christians think in the terms that prophets like Elijah possessed something special that we do not have that allowed him to accomplish great things in the Bible that we simply cannot do. However, that is certainly not what this verse is saying, is it? Elijah according to God and James who is writing this account is said to have prayed to God and this caused it not to rain on the earth for a period of 42 months. This is actually a very interesting statement that God makes to us, since if you have ever read the story of Elijah you can’t find where Elijah ever prayed this in a way that we would call prayer. So what is God trying to teach us from this statement? I believe God is saying sometimes we need to expand our definition of what prayer is.
Jas 5:18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
So here is another verse that says Elijah prayed and God caused it to rain again. We have now seen two verses that said Elijah prayed and God answered the prayers because they were effective. It sounds like to me that this would be a good subject to go back into the Old Testament and see what God says to us about how Elijah accomplished these miracles of no rain and then rain again. You can find this story of Elijah starting in chapter 17 of 1 Kings:
1Ki 17:1 And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
Here is the beginning of some words that Elijah spoke that almost floored me. This is the exact same Elijah that James wrote about so get that first and foremost into your head. Then realize that this verse is the very first verse in the Bible that mentions the name of Elijah. So therefore, we can conclude that there are no prayers of Elijah to God that are mentioned in the Bible up to this point. So we have a major problem that needs a resolution; either God did not record Elijah’s prayer in the Bible or Elijah did not pray the way that we would consider prayer to be performed. I personally believe the second is true and God gave us the exact information in the Bible that we needed to know to learn about what prayer is and what prayer is not. Remember what Jesus said “Father I thank thee that you heard me”. Do you think that God was listening to the words that Elijah said to Ahab? Let’s reexamine what Elijah says; God tells us that Elijah was speaking to Ahab and Elijah said “The Rain will obey my Words!” I know this was my paraphrase of what he said, but it is very close to exactly what He says to Ahab. I mean did you see it? Elijah had to believe something in order for him to make this kind of statement; the drought had not started yet so these words could be considered to be a prophetic prediction of something that has not occurred. Or as we have seen in Genesis 1, John 11 and Romans 4, it could be that Elijah was calling those things that be not as though they were. We of course know that Elijah was a prophet of God, but remember what James said, the New Testament says Elijah was man just like one of us. In other words what Elijah did, we can do. Wow, I don’t know if you believe that or not, but I do. I know that just blows the minds of religious people to think this way, but I’m just reading the Bible.
In reading this chapter of 1 Kings you can see that God speaks to Elijah and tells him what to do only after he has spoken to Ahab. God tells Elijah to go to a brook where God will sustain him and Elijah goes there and stays until the brook dries up for a lack of rain on the earth. God then tells Elijah to go to a city where a widow woman has been commanded by God to provide for him. The widow is obedient and God blesses her and even when her son dies, the prophet of God raises the child back to life. So God is definitely heavily involved in this chapter of the Bible and this is how this chapter ends:
1Ki 17:24 And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth.
The Widow woman says “The Words of the Lord in your mouth are true”. It is very interesting to see what this woman saw and says. Keep in mind that James said this was a man like us, and then reread this chapter with this in mind, looking for what he says. Are the words that come out of your mouth, can they be considered the truth of God’s Word? The words that you speak, will a stranger woman that you just met see that they are the words of God? Your words that you speak are much more important than you can possibly imagine. I believe your words help to identify you.
1Ki 18:1 And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth.
Here is the first time that God tells Elijah to go back to Ahab and tell him that it will rain again. You cannot find where Elijah asked God to do this, can you? This appears to be a God initiated conversation and not Elijah’s prayer for God to send rain, doesn’t it? So how did God tell Elijah this? Was it some loud audible voice from heaven or is this not how God speaks to you? God only spoke to me once in an audible voice so I believe this is not how God normally speaks to His people in the earth. Every other time that God speaks to me it has been as a still small voice in my spirit and I believe this is how God spoke to Elijah in telling him what to do also. Otherwise God is doing something different or something special for Elijah that he doesn’t do for us today and this is not what James told us in the New Testament. It is also special to note and to understand that prayer is not about just you speaking to God. If you are the only one speaking in a prayer conversation with the Almighty then you have a major problem on your hands. You should be quiet enough to let God speak back to you since He is so much smarter than you are. It would be much more valuable to hear what God says at prayer time than for Him to hear what you have to say constantly. Do you understand this concept of listening in prayer? Just pay attention and give God the opportunity to speak, you might be shocked at what He says for you to do.
1Ki 18:41 And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain.
In this chapter of 1 Kings, Elijah goes to king Ahab after God told him it was going to rain and makes some more statements that are absolutely faith based words. In this chapter Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to a Godly duel of power exhibitions and demonstrations. This was an exhibited display of the confidence that Elijah had in his God’s ability. Why were there 450 prophets of Baal in the camp of Israel? Why did Israel put any of their confidence in these false religions and religious leaders? That is a very good question to consider! In this chapter Elijah calls down the fire of God to consume the sacrifices that were drowned in water first. Keep in mind we have just had a drought of over 3 years long and Elijah is pouring water on his altar. Does this sound like the actions of a man in a drought? Here we see in chapter 17 that Elijah told the king that it will not rain for my words and then in chapter 18 and verse 41 Elijah says that he hears the sound of the abundance of rain. Yet it has not rained a drop in over 3 years. Is this a problem? Or can you see that what Elijah is doing is what God did in Genesis 1? I’m going to ask you this more than once today; are you a man or a woman that is also like Elijah? You should really read James 5 a few hundred times before you answer that question.
1Ki 18:43 And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times.
These lessons found in the life of Elijah are very profound. Elijah told Ahab there was a sound of rain when there was no rain. Then Elijah tells his servant to go and look for the rain and the servant comes back and reports he did not find any rain and Elijah tells him to go and look seven more times. What is Elijah doing? Is there anything that you should learn when faced with a drought in your life?
1Ki 18:44 And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.
So the seventh time the servant went to look to the sea, he comes back to Elijah and tells him that he saw a small cloud coming out of the sea. Do you understand how rain is formed? These are the water cycles of the earth’s evaporation from the seas that forms clouds and then the weather patterns that carries this moisture in the atmosphere to then fall back down to the earth as rain? Here we have Elijah knowing how this weather phenomenon works before there were any modern weather forecasters. What was Elijah doing? Do you remember what Elijah said in 1 Kings 17:1? Elijah told the king that the rain would obey his words. Elijah said that it would not rain for these years until he said it would rain. The prophets of Baal and the things that God did to them were some of the reasons that Elijah could make these claims that God could back his words, but this is the lesson that Elijah and God is trying to teach us today. I believe that this lesson applies to us in the modern world. Elijah said he heard rain when there was not rain then said go and look for the rain until they say a cloud form.
1Ki 18:45 And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel.
So what is God trying to say to us? Elijah said it would not rain and it did not rain, Elijah then said it would rain and it did rain a bunch. I did not see one time in these two chapters of 1 Kings, where it said Elijah prayed for no rain or rain. Only James calls what Elijah did prayer and that is a very profound revelation. I only saw one time where it could be implied that Elijah may have asked God for rain and this was in verse 42:
1Ki 18:42 So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees,
You can clearly see in this verse that Elijah assumed a position of humility and this is associated with an attitude of prayerful inclination towards God. However, I’m going to be really picky and tell you that it does not say Elijah prayed and it does not give us any words of prayer that Elijah said to God. So what do we do with this lack of information? We can assume that Elijah prayed and God thought that this prayer was not important enough to include in the Bible or we can assume that Elijah didn’t pray like we think of prayer and then we have to go back to James and figure out how did James know that Elijah did pray since God does not say he did in 1 Kings? Did James assume like others or did God teach James a greater definition of what prayer was? You also have to understand that God told Elijah that it was going to rain in 1 King 18:1 so why pray for what God has already said will happen. Do you understand this concept? I believe that these two chapters of 1 Kings should expand our definition of what prayer is in the eyes of God. Your words are heard by God and then God uses these to fulfill what you have said. I know that does not go over big with everyone, but I believe this is what God is saying.
So how do you apply this story of Elijah to us today? I believe that it crosses over into many things that we do in many ways. A couple of years ago the region of the country where I lived was going through a drought situation that was becoming significantly greater. Over the course of a few months, the lake levels had dropped lower than they had been since I lived here. Water rationing was mandatory and you could not water you grass or outdoor plants, wash your cars or do things to waste water. It was getting crazy here so I finally decided to do something about it. That sounds pretty arrogant doesn’t it? That statement makes me sound like I am God or something. However, I learned from the story of Elijah the principles given to us from James that I could do what Elijah did. So one day during the drought I looked out at the clear blue sky and started talking to the weather patterns, jet streams, pressure zones and the climatological situations to change in order to bring us rain on my house and city. So did it change overnight? Like the story of Elijah I went out and looked at the sky several times before it finally rained but then the drought was over and it rained a bunch. You see I believed the Word of God was true and that what God said Elijah did, I could do. I never prayed a prayer and asked God to send rain; I only looked out at the problem and spoke to it to change to bring me rain. You of course could say that this was just an amazing coincidence that I did what I did at just the right time before it rained or you can look at the Bible and declare with me that God is not a liar. After over 3 years of no rain Elijah said he heard the sound of an abundance of rain and after a few more days it occurred. So either what happened to Elijah was an amazing coincidence also or you are just stupid and don’t want to see what God is saying in the Bible to us. Here is a verse found in the Bible that directly applies to what we just read about in the life of Elijah:
Mar 11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Jesus makes a radical statement here that most religious people readily reject. Jesus says if you speak to a mountain and believe what you say will come to pass, it will happen. So is speaking to rain any different than speaking to a mountain? Are they not both inanimate objects without the ears for hearing? However Jesus clearly implies that they can hear in this verse found in Mark. This is a paradox of Biblical proportions. You see if you are a commander in the army and issue an order you just expect it to be obeyed and carried out. This is the same type of reasoning that Jesus is giving to us in this verse in Mark 11:23. Jesus is implying that the mountain is waiting for an order to obey in order to be moved. If no order is given, then no movement is made. If you speak to it and tell it to go and believe what you say will happen, then Jesus clearly said the order will be carried out. You are not concerned with how it is carried out, only the fact that it happens like you said. Mountains can be symbolic representations of problems in your life, even like a real drought. Can you see how this verse applies to what Elijah said in 1 Kings? Everything that Elijah said was what happened in the earth, because he believed it would happen. Elijah obviously believed in his words and they came to pass just as he had spoken. God called this prayer in James 5 and you should understand this drastically changes what we should be saying in our daily lives. Too many Christians pray and ask God for help and then go around speaking the opposite of what they prayed. It would sound like to me based upon what we learned from Elijah that these words cancel each other out. If you pray for God to help pay your bills and then look at your bills and say I can’t pay you, then you have canceled your prayer out. What we have learned in the story of Elijah is God’s definition of prayer is much greater than our definition of prayer. Your words of prayer could be the words that you speak to a king in the earth and tell him that it will not rain for your words. These are powerful concepts that are being transferred to us from God and if you get a hold of them they will change what comes out of your mouth. So I’ll end this lesson with this question again; Are you like an Elijah? God Bless!
Understanding Seeds! Planting Financial Seeds! Part 12
(Ver 2.2) Today is now Part 12 of a very important series of lessons on Understanding Seeds in the Bible. We have covered a lot of very significant information that will not be repeated so I would highly recommend that you go back and start your reading with “Part 1”. I almost purposely left this part of this subject of seeds out of the series because it is so popularly preached on TV that it gives many a negative perception on a positive subject. However, money and finances are clearly found in the Bible so I will touch on it today. I believe if you study the Gospels you will see that Jesus taught on money more than any other subject. I have heard many preachers, especially TV preachers, jump all over this subject and it appears to come across that they do it because they are only after your money. Of course I do not judge them because I do not know their hearts, only God knows a man’s motivation for doing what he does. It could be that God told them to teach this subject with great emphasis and I would sound like a fool if I would criticize what God does. So, I cannot say or will not judge if this is true or not, I just said it just appears to many to be this way because of the emphasis that they are placing on a minor part of a much greater subject about seeds. It would seem to me that to only pick one part of a subject and teach that causes the wrong perceptions to be given and to many people it is true that perception becomes reality and this is not a good image to portray to the world. So far, I have given you eleven different lessons about seeds in the Bible and have not mentioned money or finances even once. I guess since I do these Bible lessons for free and never ask you for money, is the one reason that I can include this lesson on money in the series today.
In searching the Bible for any form of the word “seed” I found approximately 257 verses in the KJV that directly mentioned this word. Out of this total I counted less than 20 verses that speak about money or that can be applied to money directly. Of course this is a subjective number of verses depending upon your desire to try to apply verses from one topic to another. This is certainly a legal method of Bible interpretation; God does it all the time. You can find that God used the same word seed to describe at least 10 different things in the Bible and the laws and principles that govern them are universal truths that cross over into each topic area. But, it is always difficult to teach some subjects like money and not sound like you are asking for money, especially in light of what the Bible says on this subject. That is just the inherit problem with this subject and I will do the best that I can in spite of this appearance. I hope that you can see the difference in what I say since there are no names or ministry names attached to this website and no donate buttons anywhere that allows you to give money to me. If you are a Christian you should be giving your money to where you go to church and are being fed spiritually; we’ll see more about this as we go into this lesson.
So even though seeds of finance are a minor part of this subject in this entire seed topic realm, it is still a valid concept that applies to your money. First, off think about this, farming and agriculture were common methods of income in Bible days. The seed concepts of sowing and reaping applied whether you planted corn or raised sheep. If you farmed then you raised crops or animals that could be sold or traded to others. So the seed concepts found in the Bible about farming must also apply to modern day money and finances directly, also. Farmers used seeds to grow crops and these crops produced more food than the originally planted seeds. So the principles of sowing seeds into good ground, seed increase and multiplication are clearly applicable to our modern money. In the world of finances money would represent the seed. Today we can take money and invest it in the stock market or whatever expecting it to grow over time. This is a seed principle that works when you plant your seeds in good ground. You see good ground in the financial world are the companies that are going to be profitable. If you place your money in a company that is foolish then it can go out of business and you lose your investment and that is the definition of planting your seed into bad ground. In America we have many people who buy lottery tickets. These are people who are hoping to hit it big and win millions of dollars overnight. I have not found that concept in the Bible. In the Bible if you want millions of dollars you must start with what you have and plant it to cause it to grow into millions of dollars. This is the Bible concept of financial seed planting and reaping an increase. These are clear Bible farming concepts that you need to learn and to apply to your life and what you do in the world. If you are expecting to hit it big and get rich over night the odds are that it will not happen. Yes, the lottery does occasionally reward someone with a large payment that gives the appearance of the possibility that it can happen to anyone. However, mathematically speaking the odds of it happening to you is extremely low; in fact it is more likely that you will get hit by lightning and die than to think that you will win the lottery. So let’s examine some scripture that can apply to money and finances in relation to seeds.
Gen 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
While this scripture does not directly mention money it can be applied to money very easily. This verse states a Bible law that establishes the concept of planting seeds and reaping harvests as long as the earth exists. This would seem to imply that this principle will exist in the new earth to come also, so it seems to me to be a concept that we need to learn. God tells us that our world was designed to be a seed world of sowing and reaping. If you plant your seeds in good ground you will always harvest an increased crop or return on your initial investment. Your seeds sown are always your initial investment that you risk losing. The same enemies that you find in the natural world of natural seeds also apply symbolically to the financial world. The concept of weeds, insects and the birds of the air that eat your seed; these are all symbolic enemies to financial dealings. Before you can invest money anywhere you should first determine if this is good ground to plant in. Too many times people put money somewhere and then change it to something else before they make anything where it is planted. This would be like planting corn seed in the ground today and then digging it up tomorrow to take it to another field that you heard was better ground. If you think this is stupid to do, you are right, but in the financial world people do it everyday.
Lev 26:16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
What I wanted to do was to show you that every seed sown can have an enemy. Here we have God telling the children of Israel that the seeds they have sown will be eaten by their enemies. This was usually caused by a reckless disregard for obeying the Word of God. Whenever the children of Israel disobeyed God, this would open the door and allow enemies to come in and take what they had worked for. So this is a lesson for Christian to learn from as a bad example of what not to do.
Deu 28:38 Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.
So you can see another verse where insects can come and eat your seed. Here God says that you will take a lot of seeds into your field and harvest very little of them because they were all eaten by an enemy. In our world today, financial enemies abound all around us. There are false investment schemes that take your money and you can lose everything. A man in the U.S. is serving jail time right now for taking billions of dollars from people and spending it on himself and his family. His lavish lifestyle lasted for several years until it finally caught up with him, but most of the people that put their money in his false funds all lost their money. These are some of the potential enemies to financial transactions and many of them are backed by satanic influences that causes you lose your money.
Deu 14:22 Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year.
So here is another verse that does not mention money directly, yet clearly applies. The word tithe means to give a tenth. The word increase is a numerical financial term of positive results. This verse also says that your field brings forth year by year. So this is a principle of being faithful to do what you know to do in a consistent manner. Being consistent is a seed principle. There are many factors to planting seeds in the natural that apply in the financial world. For, example, one key factor of correct seed planting is timing. Did you know you can plant the right seed in the right ground at the wrong time and totally fail and lose everything? So knowing when to plant is a key to getting positive results. There are of course other seed concepts that also apply to money. You can under seed a field and not reap what you should have. You can over seed a field and also cause your crop to be unprofitable. There are really too many factors to consider about seeds that apply to investing that I cannot go into them all. It is not my goal to teach you how to invest your money; it is only my goal to introduce you to Bible concepts and to note the things that God has created in the world that give us views into spiritual laws. I’ll take you to one more Old Testament verse before I move to the New Testament:
Isa 55:10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
Here is a verse that is speaking of natural things and spiritual things simultaneously. It can also clearly be applied to financial things. The blessings of God are many times manifested in the natural realm in financial blessings. You can see this concept in the Book of Job when God blessed Job in the end with more than he had in the beginning. You can also see the concept repeated in the life of Abraham when God blessed him exceedingly and abundantly so that his herds could not coexist with his nephew Lot’s herds because the land would not sustain them both since they were so blessed. You can see the blessing of God on the life of Jacob when he worked 7 years for Rachael and his father-in-law tricked him into seven more years. Jacob’s father-in-law saw that he was blessed because of Jacob’s presence and tried to manipulate his income and cheat him out of his blessings from God. So we can see this pattern repeatedly found in the Bible that God blesses people financially with an increase in the natural realm. So the verse in Isaiah can be applied to natural seeds, spiritual seeds, and financial seeds and so on. If God gives us seed and bread these are clearly symbolic of financial things that represent income producing and life sustaining factors. Let’s look at some New Testament verses about seeds and money:
2Co 9:6 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.
Here we again find a verse that crosses subject topic boundaries. This verse applies to many things and it represents a spiritual law of God. The basic law presented to you is this; you will always reap what you sow. If you sow a little bit, you get a little bit back. If you sow a lot you get a lot back. These are just basic seed laws found in the Bible. You can see that this verse does not mention seed directly, however to sow is to plant seed; therefore the seed is indirectly related. Let’s see what else this chapter says about seeds of finance:
2Co 9:7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
What is a cheerful giver? You can again apply this to many things, including money. Being a cheerful giver involves primarily your attitude. If you have a right positive attitude you will be blessed in what you do. Have you ever read the story of Joseph in Genesis? Here is a man that was handed some very rough set of circumstances in life and he maintained a great attitude through them all. Joseph always expected God to fulfill his words that were spoken to him, so even though his brothers sold him into slavery he continued to believe in the best outcome. Joseph spent a great amount of time in prison, but wherever he was, the blessing of God was upon him and he was raised because of his attitude. This is a very powerful example for Christians today. It tells us that we do not always have it exactly the way that we would like it to be all the time, but we can still expect God to work it all out to cause it to be good for us in the end. So this verse is all about your positive attitude and your faith in God. You can read the other verses in this chapter and hopefully see the connections to money and finances, but I’ll end this chapters’ discussion with this one more verse:
2Co 9:10 Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)
As you can clearly see the term seed sown is self-evident. The term increase is also self-evident. The “fruits” of your righteousness is of course symbolic of your harvest. So this verse clearly applies in the spiritual realm to our effort to grow in spiritual maturity. However, this verse will also cross over in the context of the natural realm and must be related to our financial blessings from God. It can also mean emotional blessings. It can further apply to our seeds that we plant in the lives of other people that allows God to grow them and produce fruit in their lives. There are just a wide variety of applications for almost every verse on seeds. This is why I teach that money is just a small part of the bigger picture of seeds given to us in the Word of God. So let’s examine another chapter of the N.T. about seeds:
1Co 9:7 Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?
As you can see from this verse, God is comparing several similar concepts of financial matters. God says nobody finances their own war. God says nobody plants a crop and not also eats from it. Nobody raises sheep and not drink the milk of the flock. These are all symbolic representations of a spiritual set of realities found in the Bible. We the church are in a spiritual warfare with a spiritual enemy named Satan. Then Paul was a sower of the word of God and he says that anyone who sows will eat from that which he has sown. Then sheep are a widely symbolic representation of the people of God in the Bible. So the clear implied meaning is Paul fed the sheep and the sheep fed him back. This is not rocket science so grasp these simple concepts and learn to live by them.
1Co 9:9 For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?
Here we have a Bible concept that is very profound being explained. Many times God writes a Bible verse about natural things that cross over into the spiritual realm and this is a prime example of this. Paul is saying that God wrote about oxen and corn but that these apply to him and to us. In other words God did not write this verse for the benefit of the oxen, it was written for our benefit so that we can learn from it. Oxen when treading corn are said to be partakers of the corn and this is a Bible principle given to us from God. If the oxen are working then they should eat from their labors of work.
1Co 9:11 If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?
So this is a popular TV preacher verse found in the Bible. However, Paul is not writing this asking for their money he is only explaining a very powerful concept of sowing and reaping. Paul was sowing spiritual seeds into their lives and Paul said it was good for them to give back carnal or natural things back to him. In this verse Paul is claiming to be like the oxen that was working and that he should be a partaker of his own labor. However, what we see here are two principles being exercised simultaneously. To give to Paul would cause Paul to receive a harvest from what he has previously spiritually sown from the Word of God. For them to give financially to Paul is a concept of them planting back natural seeds into good ground; therefore they can also expect a harvest for what they have planted. In other words if they wanted Paul to continue to bless them with spiritual things it was good for them to give to Paul of their natural things like money, food, etc. so that Paul could live on the earth to continue to preach and not have to work to eat.
1Co 9:13 Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?
As we continue to read in this chapter, Paul and God is giving us a key principle that ministers of the gospel are partakers of those which they minister to. In other words this was a designed system of church government by God. It promotes a minister who is focused on you and not himself. If your minister had to work for a living in the world, you and the rest of the church would be a secondary thought to his primary time taker of working for a living. However, if the church pays for his wellbeing and financial needs then the minister can focus on God and the church and ministering to the sheep of God and not have to worry about where he will eat tomorrow.
1Co 9:14 Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.
God again says what I just tried to say. The minister of God should be paid by the people who he ministers to. This is clearly the concept of sowing and reaping for both participants. The minister should minister in faith that the people will meet his financial needs and the people should give to the minister in faith that the God of their salvation will give them increases from the seeds that they have sown. So here is the flip side of the coin that also goes with this subject of sowing and reaping:
1Co 9:18 What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.
God in this verse clearly says that anyone who preaches and charges you money for the information is being an abuser of God’s designed plan. Paul very clearly says that he should not charge anyone to preach what God has given to him for free. This is what discourages me about many TV preachers that I listen to. While they say good spiritual things for 20 minutes, they end their show with a request for you to buy the rest of the message on CD or DVD and it always costs much more than it does to produce these and to send them out. A DVD can cost $20 plus postage and handling fees and this is clearly outrages for a piece of plastic that costs maybe 20 cents in bulk. Clearly these ministers of God are looking to your purchases of their messages to fund their TV ministries. So I understand and I am not stupid that TV cost a lot of money, but yet in what they do and the way that they do it, it gives the appearance of being an abuse of power that God says was not acceptable. It also promotes a philosophy that only the rich can afford to know the truth of the Gospel and that is not a fair thing to do. As you can tell this bothers me a great deal and I think it is very wrong. Here is what Jesus said on the subject:
Mat 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.
Jesus tells us that God did not charge us for the information that we learned to preach, so we should not charge others to hear it also. That is why I do a free blog on a free website and I never ask for money or request you to send me a donation. Money is not a motivational factor and why I do what I do. However, that does not mean you should not do what God says to do either. Wow, this is a very complex subject that involves the participation of everyone doing what they should do, when they should do it and then everything works according to God’s designed plan. So that is why I did not want to include this lesson in my series about seeds, because it can very easily be taken wrong. I probably ended this lesson and sounded like you should give me something for the spiritual seeds that I have given to you; and that is not what I said at all. I said that I do these lessons for free because I love being a blessing to others. So I try to do the right things according to the word of God and you should do the same. If you noticed this blog is called the “Agapegeek” Blog and not my name. That means I am anonymous and you do not know me or my address to send me anything. I do this on purpose also. How you can bless me is to tell a friend about what you have learned and increase the traffic on my web site. That would be one of the greatest ways that you can be a blessing to me. If you learned anything about giving and sowing financially then you should give to your local pastor to help support your church to grow. We have just briefly covered a much broader subject of sowing and reaping financially from the Word of God. This is a complex subject and one that is not easily understood by many. Many people find it very difficult to relate their money to be like a seed that can be planted into ground to grow and increase. However, you can certainly find this concept in the Bible therefore you can personally choose to participate in it or to ignore it. Thanks for reading my Bible Study and God Bless!
Understanding Seeds! Seeds and Weeds! Part 11
(Ver 1.4) Today is Part 11 of a very important series of lessons on Understanding Seeds in the Bible. We have covered a lot of very significant information that will not be repeated so I would highly recommend that you go back and start your reading with “Part 1”. Today is a follow up to some concepts that I have talked a little about before. However, today we will get into the aspect of weeds in a much more in depth study from the Word of God which will certainly challenge you to think. I will probably introduce you to several brand new concepts found in the Bible on this subject so be prepared to learn. Let’s start by stating the basic concepts of weeds. Weeds are plants that you did not plant! This is the basic concept that is critical to understand. If you wanted thorns and thistles growing in the front yard you would have planted them. But, if you are like me you put out weed killer to eliminate these types of plants so that your grass will grow and be healthier. Weeds grow in the same soil as plants from good seeds and in fact weeds also come from seeds, but just not the seeds that we plant intentionally. I personally believe that weeds are a result of the sin of man and God’s curse and we will probably talk about this more as we go. I would venture to say that weeds are a caused effect. Nothing happens by accident in the world. There are always causes and effects to everything. These are basic laws of physics implemented by God’s design. If you see waves in a pond of water you know that something caused the waves. So you must realize that God when He created our world and looked out on it and said “It was very good”, that God did not create weeds. I do not consider weeds to be good, but maybe you do. It is a highly subjective topic. Regardless, if weeds are present we know that something caused them to be here. So let’s review some things that we covered before and then go into more details in other parts of the Bible.
If you recall we covered several parables on seeds and one that Jesus taught that said the Kingdom of God is like a man who planted wheat seeds in his field. This parable is often called the parable of the Wheat and Tares. In this parable, while the man was sleeping an enemy came and sowed the seeds of tares among the seeds of wheat. It is interesting to note that by only looking at the ground at this point in time you cannot tell this was done. The implication was given to us that this was done secretly when the owner was away from the field and the owner only finds out about these weeds after time goes by and both kinds of seeds come up and grow together. In this parable the owner of the field is clearly God. The field can be viewed as the mass of humanity which is a type of the soil of the earth that we live in where seeds are planted. The good seed is again the Word of God. The weed seed was sown by God’s enemy Satan and these are the words not from God. The good seed produces the desired crop of righteous people on the earth; these are those who have chosen the narrow path and the weeds are those people who have been deceived and chosen the evil wide path to destruction. In this parable the servants (symbolic angels), go and ask the owner if they should pull up the tares, but the owner says let them grow together, or when you pull up the tares you also take out some of the wheat. So the harvest is representative of the end of the age that we are currently living within and the time for this harvest is extremely short. The harvesters are the angels of God who will gather God’s crop into God’s barn in heaven and then cast the weeds into the fire to be burned. You can read this parable in Matthew 13:24-30 if you would like to, but I covered the greatest parts of it in enough detail that you should understand these concepts pretty well. What we learn from this parable is a fact that God did not plant the weeds. God did not cause the weeds to be planted and in fact this parable states that God had nothing to do with the weeds. That is one of the key pieces of information from this parable to understand, so get a hold of that.
In the parable of the Wheat and Tares God introduced us to the concept of both seeds and weeds and this is my primary subject today. How are they related, where did they come from and who is responsible for each. It is clear in this first parable that the weeds are the evil people who have bought into Satan’s deceptions and are not saved. The wheat plants are the good people who have been saved by accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior and these are called the righteous seed in the Bible. So in this parable the concept of weeds is related to people. However, in another lesson the concept of weeds is potentially something completely different. Maybe you recall in the Parable of the Sower that Jesus taught us some more seed concepts that were extremely important to know. In the parable of the sower, the soil was the hearts of men and women in the earth. The good seed was of course the Word of God still. The sower was the preacher that would proclaim the Gospel of Christ and the Word of God. This parable also contained the concept of weeds being introduced in it, but this time the weeds were not specifically people, they were the things that caused people distractions in this world so that they did not produce fruit unto to God. It is critical to understand the difference in these two parables and to also put them together correctly so that you understand the similarities and the differences. Both parables are about the primary subject of seeds and both parables contain the concept of weeds. However, if you look at the first parable you could attempt to claim that the weed people were predestined to be weeds and the wheat people were predestined to be God’s harvest, but that interpretation contradicts the information given to us in the parable of the Sower. We must balance both parables to understand the subjects being taught. In the Parable of the Sower, everyone had the same opportunity to hear and understand the word of God, but clearly only three out of six soil types produced any fruit unto God. Here was Jesus’ explanation of these weeds:
Mat 13:22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.
The first thing that you need to understand from this verse is that thorns are weeds; something that was not planted by the original farmer. So we can see that Jesus calls seed among the thorns to be those people who care more about things in this world than they do the eternal things that God says in His Word. Part of the root of this problem is given to us as being the deceitfulness of wealth and money. Often when people get a hold of money on the earth, they think they are in need of nothing including a savior. You can read about this parable of the sower in Matthew 13: 3-9. So we have two different parables with seeds and weeds using two different perspectives. However, they have more in common than you can imagine. They are actually the same people from two points of view. Those who are the tares in the first parable are those who have let the weed seeds of Satan dominate them. In fact the first three types of soil are all tares in the first parable that we looked at. These are those who have rejected the truth, refused to hear the truth, let others in the world talk them out of the truth or as we have seen love things in the world more than they love the truth. Both of these parables resulted in the same two separate groups of people, those who are weeds and are burned and those who produce fruit unto God and are harvested into heaven by the angels. So let’s examine this subject in other areas of the Bible and see what else God says to us about weeds and seeds. Where is the first mention or implied reference to weeds in the Bible? I will give you a clue and tell you that it can be found in the Garden of Eden.
Gen 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Here we have the description of God’s creation. God planted a garden and caused to grow every tree that was good for food the Bible says. This subject so far sounds very similar to the two parables that we just read about where Jesus told us of God’s attempts at planting seeds into His gardens from two different perspectives. Both of these parables involved planting good seeds that came from God to produce good crops and an enemy comes into the garden to cause weeds to try to overcome God’s garden. Isn’t this what happened in Genesis 2 and 3? I believe that it is exactly what happened in these two chapters and we will begin to see that more clearly as we go. In Genesis 2:15 God describes the man’s purpose for being in His garden was to “dress” it and to “keep” it. Both words denote delagated human resposibility and accountablity. The first word is a word that means “WORK”! To work a garden implies one thing, that there are potential enemies and weeds that may come in and therefore you must do something about them to keep them out. Work involves two aspects in gardening, first caring for the plants that are good by feeding and watering them and eliminating the enemies and the plants that are bad to protect the good. The next Hebrew word translated as “keep” is very similar to work and it means to “watch” and “protect” the garden. A watcher or protector is someone who is given the task and responsibility to not only work the garden, but is required to protect it from any enemies who could potentially come and destroy it. Wow, two words of instructions was all that is necessary from God and they say so much to us in light of the parables that we have just seen about seeds and weeds. What we begin to understand now was that it was not God’s responsibility to keep the enemy out because that was given to Adam for him to do.
Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Here in chapter 3 of Genesis we now are deeply into the subject of an enemy coming into God’s Garden where he should not be. Therefore, we are currently entrenched in the middle of the parable of the wheat and tares that we have looked at in the beginning of this lesson. We see this enemy, the symbolic “serpent” coming to Eve and he begins to plant weed seeds into her mind that caused the doubts of deception to grow. These are examples of the weed seeds of the enemy that God was teaching us about in the two parables we just reviewed in Matthew 13. God places a man in His garden and then leaves him in charge and goes away and now the man is responsible to “dress” and “keep” it. Satan brings the evil seed of the tares to Eve and she speaks them out for her husband to hear and he willfully hearkens to the voice of his wife and they are now captive to the deception of their enemy. Adam had the opportunity to guard and protect the garden of his heart, but he allowed Satan’s words through his wife’s voice dictate his decision to intentionally sin. I hope you understand what I just said as an overview of this story. If not, you can go and read my detailed lessons on Genesis 3 and hopefully you will grasp these subjects more clearly. I will drop down in Genesis to help you see a part of what I just said:
Gen 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Here is a key verse that reveals to us God’s actions for the intentional sin of His man Adam. You can clearly see that God says Adam listened to Eve’s voice and not to Satan’s voice. There is no mention that Adam ever heard Satan speaking directly. Do you understand this? Probably not, because of the erroneous teaching of many tells us that there was a physical talking snake in the garden and if Adam was there he would have heard it all. However, that is not what the Bible says at all. You should go read my lesson on “Was there a Talking Snake In the Garden?”. Then you can see that God says something else about the ground being cursed for Adam’s sake. God then says that Adam will eat from it all the days of his life in sorrow. What was “IT” that Adam is said to be eating from. You can potentially say the ground that God just cursed, but I do not see it this way in the light of other verses found in the Bible. I believe God was saying because you Adam chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will eat from it all the days of your life. Isn’t this what Adam was just found guilty of partaking from? So what was the ground in the two parables that we looked at? The Garden soil was clearly the hearts of men and women. So what does all of this mean? If you search your Bible and read the references for this Hebrew word that is translated as “cursed” they almost always have something to do with someone who disobeys the Word of the Lord. God says something for them not to do and they do it and a curse is brought upon them as a consequence for their sins. However, curses are just the opposite of blessings. So how does God or people for that matter bless someone or curse someone? If you have read my other lessons you know that you bless people with the words of your mouth and you also curse people with the words of your mouth. James 3:10 said “blessing and cursing from the same mouth, this ought not to be”. So curses are spoken words that produce negative results in our lives or in the lives of those the words are spoken to. I think I will continue to the next verse in Genesis just to show you the connection to weeds again in this story.
Gen 3:18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
Thorns and thistles are clearly both weeds produced from evil seeds. They are not produced by the Word of God so we can assume that these are produced from the seeds that Satan has just sown in God’s Garden of man’s heart. In the parable of the sower God repeated “thorns” for us to make the connection to this story in Genesis. What were thorns in this parable? God said thorns represented “the cares of this world” and the “deceitfulness of riches”. Do you think these apply to Adam in this story? I certainly do. I believe that God had just given the man and his wife the earth and Adam now believed that he was self-sufficient and did not need God’s help anymore . Adam at this time thought he had everything under control, but soon he would find out that he did not have anything under control when his Son Cain would kill his first born son Able. This was the beginning of Adam’s realization that what he had done was not so great after all. The sin that Adam introduced into the world was only beginning and the evil seed influence was only going to get worse before it got any better.
So God tells Adam that “IT” will produce thorns and thistles. So let’s back up and determine what “IT” is? If you recall the Bible says that Eve spoke words to her husband and God said that Adam “hearkened to the voice of his wife”. To hearken means to obey or do what she said to do. If Adam did something that he should not have done because his wife said for him to do it, what was this thing that God is talking about? Let’s back up and see what the Bible says Eve said.
Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
These are the only spoken words of Eve recorded in this chapter. So either this is the key to what she said or it is not. I believe that it is! If Eve said to the serpent then she spoke words that potentially her husband could hear. These words were partially correct but yet they contained some subtle differences to what God had said. God did say you could eat of the trees of the garden, but God never said that you cannot touch it. God simply said you shall not eat it or you will surely die. So how is the middle of the garden different than the garden? If God plants a garden and tells Adam every tree that is good for food I have given you for food but says this one in the middle of the garden is not for you, what is God saying? If you read my other blogs you already know this answer, but I’ll go into some new perspectives to help you see it a new way. I believe God was differentiating between two gardens in these statements. There is a major difference between natural things and spiritual things and you should understand this if you are a Christian. God gave man natural things as food and Jesus said that it is not what you put in your mouth that makes you unclean, so we know it was not anything that Adam physically ate that caused him to sin. If you do not understand this you should go read my lessons on “Does Eating Fruit Kill You”. So where is this middle garden that God is talking about where the tree of knowledge of good and evil is present? Let’s do a word search for the Hebrew word translated as “midst” and see what we find. I’ll start with one that I like in Proverbs because it is definitely related to my subject today:
Pro 4:20 My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.
Pro 4:21 Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.
Remember that the Word of God is the Good Seed of God. So what does God tell us to do with this seed? God starts by saying “attend” and this is a critically related word that can mean to “hearken”. Sound familiar? This is an intentional act of listening, hearing, understanding and doing. God then follows this up with “incline” your ears unto my seeds (words). Then God says for us to keep them before our eyes and then to keep them in the “midst” of our hearts. The word “midst” is the exact same Hebrew word used to describe the location of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2 and 3. Do you get a hold of what God is trying to say here? It is the heart of man that is the location of God’s garden. It is the heart of man where God wants His seeds to grow. It is also the heart of man where weeds grow from the enemy of God, Satan. You can read about the heart of man being the middle of man in Psalm 22:14, 40:8, 40:10, and 143:4. Some of these are difficult to see because the same Hebrew word is translated as “within”. But, you should be able to find it if you look for it and see that within you is the spiritual heart location of God’s garden. Knowing this fact you can now begin to see that where spiritual fruit comes from as well as where spiritual weeds are also grown. These are spiritual concepts of seeds and weeds and are completely relevant to our discussion today.
Please allow me to take you to some more words of Jesus that are clearly and directly related to the story of Adam and Eve in the garden and hopefully this will help us to see the connections a little clearer of seeds and weeds. You might recall that I spoke these next words in connection to two groups of people in the world and here is what Jesus said to us about them:
Mat 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at:
Mat 7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
So we can clearly see that these two groups of people are traveling separate paths. Those who are not of God are going down the easy path through the wide gate and the broad way to destruction. Those who God calls saved are those that are traveling down the narrow path and way through the narrow minded gate of righteousness. These are two distinct groups, two ways and two paths; one leading to life and the other leading to death everlasting. These are symbolic representations of either seed paths of good or the seed path of evil. There are many more opportunities in the world for evil seed than there is for the good seed. God only wrote one book of Good Seed and the internet, libraries and book stores are full of millions of books that you can choose to read that distracts you from the good seed. So let’s examine the next verse and see how it fits with what we are talking about in this lesson:
Mat 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Here is a word of warning from Jesus our God that we need to watch out for certain types of people in the world. The people specifically mentioned in this verse are called “false prophets”. A False Prophet would be the opposite of a True Prophet. A prophet is always someone who prophesies so we learn that not everyone that prophesies is from God in this verse. What are prophecies? These are spoken words aren’t they? Spoken words are a type of seeds, get it? God says beware the seeds of the false prophet and do not allow them to grow in your heart. These types of people will come in the form of harmless looking sheep, but they will secretly be wolves. So they disguise themselves to appear harmless and this is the first part of deception that you should become aware of. Now learn the connection in the next verse that I was attempting to get to in the previous 3 verses of Matthew:
Mat 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Jesus says you will know people by their fruit. In other words when people come to you in sheep’s clothing and speak subtle words to you, stop and observe them for a time period to see what kind of fruit they are producing in their life. In this verse Jesus connects or technically disconnects real fruit from weeds. Jesus says that you do not get grapes from thorn bushes and you do not get figs from thistles. Why did God use the exact same words in speaking to Adam that ‘it” would produce for him? God clearly tells Adam that thorns and thistles would result from something that he has done and now we are clearly given the location of these weeds and as we can see from what Jesus said these are spiritual weeds and they are the opposite of bearing spiritual fruit. Are you beginning to see and understand the connection that God is making to us in the Bible? Do you understand spiritual weeds better today than you did before you read this? I pray that you take this and continue to study the subject and go and find more verses that reveal and confirm this spiritual reality. I hope you enjoyed my advanced Bible lesson on Seeds and Weeds and please go and tell a friend what you learned. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on Seeds you can go to “Part 12“.
Understanding Angels! The Negative Aspects of Angels! Part 8
(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 8 of a series of studies about the spiritual reality of angels found in the Bible. We have covered a lot of information that is not going to be repeated, so if you have not read these lessons from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1” and read forward to this lesson. We have primarily been focused on the angels of God only and only the positive things that they do for the people of God on the earth. We saw for instance how angels delivered Lot and his family from the pending disaster of Sodom. We saw the angel of God assist Abraham’s servant in finding his son Isaac a wife. We saw angels bringing messages to Daniel and Joseph from God with words that came from heaven. But, today I want to discuss some negative potential impacts that angels can have against those who are not always doing the right things in the earth. In a previous lesson I talked about the two angels who were sent to Lot to rescue them from impending doom and disaster. But, you may also recall that the angels said they were the ones sent to destroy both of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and they did it very well. So we can clearly see that angels have significant power and ability to do both positive things like save Lot and his family and then extremely negative things like wipe out two large cities of ungodly residents. Wow, that is very important information to know as a Christian. As a Christian you should always be aware that you are not doing something that will provoke God or your angel into doing something negative to you. So today instead of discussing how angels can be a blessing to Christians, let me give you the flip side of this coin and show you how they can also be your worst nightmare. If you read in the book of Numbers and chapter 22 you find the story of Balaam. The King of Moab comes to this man and asks him for his help to curse the children of Israel. Balaam was told by God not to do it, but Balaam eventually yields to the King’s pressure and goes with him. We can pretty clearly see that God says don’t go and Balaam ignores God and goes anyway. This was clearly a great mistake to disobey God’s Word and this is what the Bible then says happened to Balaam:
Num 22:22 And God’s anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.
You can very clearly see that God was not happy with Balaam and the same angels of God who were sent to minister for those who would be heirs of salvation can also become Balaam’s adversary or enemy because Balaam was doing things that he should not be doing. This proves that angels can either work for you or against you depending upon your spoken words, decisions and actions in the earth’s realm. If you make the right choices and do the right things they will prosper you and make your way successful and if you make the wrong choices you may find yourself in the predicament that Balaam was found in of an angel with a big sword in hand ready to strike you down. One of the key factors to this story of Balaam is not so much what he did but who he was going to do it to. The children of Israel were God’s covenant people and they were at this time married to God the Almighty. You do not go and mess with God’s wife and expect to live. This is a grave mistake that people in the earth make today. I have seen many news media people attack anointed men of God and this is cursing them like Balaam was going to do. I would not want to be one of these news people in what they are doing to God’s wife on the earth. You may recall that Jesus takes attacks on the church very personally. When Saul persecuted the church and killed them, Jesus showed up and said “Saul, why do you persecute me”! This could have been really bad news for Saul but, Saul repented and called Jesus his Lord and his life changed dramatically for the better. If he would have continued in his previous ways and ignored the words of Jesus then it would not have gone well for Saul. You might also recall that even though Saul repented, that he went away from the meeting with Jesus as a blind man.
Num 22:23 And the ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.
Nowhere does it say that Balaam saw the angel, but clearly the ass that Balaam was riding on either sensed the presence of this spiritual being or somehow knew that she should not go where Balaam wanted her to go. You can read this story and see that Balaam whips his stubborn animal into submission and it almost cost him his life. This angel had a sword in his hand and would have killed Balaam if he did not change and do what God said for him to do. This is a very powerful lesson about angels either working for you or against you and how it is up to you to determine which one that they do. You can clearly see that Balaam had a freewill choice that he could have made. Balaam could have continued on his way in error and died or Balaam could humble himself and change. This is where many people in the earth miss it and die. Out of pride they cannot admit their mistakes and continue with the path they are on and they reap the consequences of disobedience.
Num 22:31 Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.
We can see that God in his mercy suddenly allowed Balaam to have a spiritual vision into the reality of angels. Suddenly from this entire story Balaam could see what the ass saw and knew that He was in jeopardy. This also represents another way that men can see angels while on the earth. Angels do not always have to manifest in our physical presence for us to see them. The Bible very clearly tells us that God opened Balaam’s eyes so that the angel could be seen. However, either angels must manifest into a physical form or God must open our spiritual eyes so that we can see them or you will never know that the angel may be standing right in front of you trying to keep you from doing the wrong things. You should definitely learn the lesson of Balaam and see how you can be effecting what your angel is doing. So let’s look at another story quickly found in the Bible. What we experience in this next verse is a fact that even the greatest men of God in the Bible can fail and cause angels to do negative things. Here in 2 Samuel you can read the story of David’s sin. David makes a choice and does what God said not to do. So let me ask you this, if God tells David not to do something does God want that to be secretly done? That is the reasoning of some ignorant people, however I always believe that God says what He means and means what He says. So in this story David numbers the children of Israel and God had told David not to do this. So God sends a prophet to David and tells him to choose between 3 negative consequences and David does:
2Sa 24:16 And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD was by the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite.
So as you can read in this verse God sent an angel and this angel is on the verge of destroying Jerusalem and God recalls him before this occurs. What we learn from this story is even the greatest men of God can make mistakes. David we are told in the Book of Acts was a man after God’s own heart. However, clearly David made a huge mistake that cost lives. So we can learn from this lesson that no one is immune or too good from the negative impacts of angels. While the angel did not attack David personally, since David was the King in charge of his people, the angels hurt David more than if he would have attacked him physically. David repented before the Lord and God withdrew the angel. There are probably many other Bible verses that we could look at that convey the strength and potential negative impacts that angels can have. If you study the Book of Revelation you will see angels administrating severe consequences upon the earth as the vials are poured out. Do not be deceived into believing that angels do things only by God’s design. We have seen too many cases already where people determine what an angel does in the earth. Those who obey God’s words are favored and the angels help and work for them to make them successful. Those who are disobedient or ignore God’s words will cause angels to work against them.
- Angels are not normally visible to the natural eye
- Angels can still be present even though we cannot see them
- Angels have weapons, power and ability to do great good or great harm
- Angels can be sent because of God’s anger of man’s disobedience
- Therefore man’s disobedience can cause negative things to happen to them or others by angels
- God had to open the spiritual eyes of the man Balaam to see the angel
- Even David caused negative things to happen from an angel
- This means you are not immune to the same results of the angel’s work in the earth
Those are a few very important statements to know. It is also interesting to note that this story of Balaam proves God is not in control of what men in the earth do. These verses clearly say that God said not to go and Balaam made the purposeful and intentional decision to disobey so God had to send an angel to stop him. God told David not to count the children of Israel and David intentionally disobeyed and felt the consequences. These stories clearly demonstrate the “Freewill” of man to obey or disobey God’s instructions. That is the problem in the world today still, men and women want to clearly disregard God’s words and instructions for their version and definition of morality. I do not know if God still sends angels to deal with this reckless disregard to God’s standards, but somehow I believe that it still applies. I heard one minister say that he was praying and God told him to go to another minister and give him a message of warning. This minister did not want to obey God but, he did it anyway. The message that God gave him for this other minister was for him to judge himself and change his ways. What his ways were was not revealed to us, but God got the point over in a very clear way. However, this minister disregarded God’s attempt to help him and guess what this minister died at a very young age. Was this the work of an angel? I do not know and cannot say what killed him other than disobedience. If you understand the stories of Balaam or David then you understand that the root of the problem was always “disobedience”. Disobedience always has consequences eventually. This is just a very basic spiritual law given to us in the Bible. God says the wages of sin is death and sin can be reduced to simply being disobedient. So I know I’m not perfect, but I try to be aware of my words and my actions so that I do not provoke my angels to do something because God is angry with me. I hope you are beginning to see the important parts that people play in what happens to them in the earth. These are just some of the basics found in the Bible that are very important to know. God Bless!
If you would like to continue in this series of lesson on angels you may go to “Part 9“.
Understanding Symbolic Sheep in the Bible! Are You Once Saved and Always Saved?
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 3 in the series of lesson on the subject Once Saved Always Saved and what others have called unconditional eternal security. If you have not read all of the lessons from the beginning I would recommend that you go back and start reading with “Part 1“. Today is a response to a reader’s comment, who thinks that I know nothing about sheep in the Bible among other topics that I may get into later. However, this man wanted to chastise me for not following his steps of hermeneutical Bible study. He claimed that I clearly did not know what I was talking about when I taught on Predestination and Once Saved Always Saved, because He had figured out the magic formula for Bible interpretation. However, this man failed in one minor detail, he gave me no Bible verses for his method of interpretation so therefore I categorically reject his methods completely. You can read from my other Bible lessons how I interpret scriptures based on other scriptures found in the Bible. This is called letting the Bible interpret itself. There are many basic laws of interpretation given to us in the Bible and I am totally guilty of following these the best that I know how to do. So you can find many blogs on my methods of Bible interpretations so go and read them and learn. Any man can invent rules for Bible interpretation and that is the problem with most of them that you find on the internet. The Bible says that no scripture is of any private interpretation and this is what most people are guilty of. Today’s lesson will be an obvious example of how two people can read the same scriptures and get two opposite interpretations and why. You see all you have to do is ignore certain key words in these next verses and you can get the exact same interpretation that he gave me. However, if you try to do it correctly and pay attention to every word you come up with a major difference in perspectives. Here are some of the Bible verses that this man said I do not understand:
Joh 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
Joh 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
Joh 10:29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
Joh 10:30 I and my Father are one.
In this chapter of John and John is one of my favorite books of the Bible which I have studied more than any other except maybe Genesis, I find a very interesting set of statements being made. This man said that these verses prove that people are “once saved and always saved” by God and can never lose their salvation because that is just what it says. However, if you look very closely and examine the wording and context that is not what it says at all. Sheep are of course symbolic of people in this chapter. The sheepfold is the symbolic world that we live in. Jesus is of course the Chief Shepherd that is in charge of all of us sheep. These verses start with the statement that “My sheep hear my voice”. So right there we learn the first lesson. Not everyone is “His” sheep. You do not have to qualify the noun “sheep” with the adjective “My” if all sheep can hear His voice. Do you get it? So let me ask you a simple question, are you one of His sheep? How can you tell if you are one of His sheep? Is it just because you say you are? I believe our current President proves that is a lie in his actions every day. Saying you are a Christian does not make you a Christian ever. You might recall in the book of Acts that some men came up to a demon possessed man and said “In the name of Jesus that Paul preaches come out of him”. However, the demons said to them “Paul we know and Jesus we know but who are you” and they made them sorry that they confronted a being more powerful than they were (Act 19:13-15). These were examples of men who were not His sheep, but tried to act like it anyway. So you either are one of His sheep or you are not one of His sheep! What is it that determines this fact? It really is not that complicated, if you can hear His voice then you are, if you do not hear His voice then you are not. So let me ask you this, do you hear His voice? I know for certain that I hear His voice on a daily basis, what can you say about this? So the first thing that you learn is not everyone is His sheep and then only His sheep can hear His voice. So let me ask you this, if someone speaks and you are not paying attention do you ever miss what is said? My wife accuses me of this every now and then. She says something and I am sometimes distracted or not paying attention like I should and I miss what was said. Has this ever happened to you? Just because you can hear does not mean that you heard. This is proved every day in church. People sit in the congregation listening to the preacher and I would guess that only a small handful actually hear what is being said and understand it. So hearing is not the complete answer given here, I believe it takes more than just hearing. You can learn this from the Parable of the Sower when Jesus taught on the 6 types of soil, 3 types of soil produced some fruit and 3 types did not produce any fruit. But, they all heard the same words of the sower who was planting the seeds. So obviously there is much more involved than just hearing. Do you get it?
So the next statement that Jesus makes is “I know them and they follow me”. So if you hear His voice Jesus says “He knows you”. However, then He says “They follow me”. Uh oh? Is that another potential problem? What if they don’t follow Him or His voice? Do sheep ever have a “freewill” choice of whether they follow the Shepherd or ignore the Shepherd’s voice? I mean come on, do people ever lose the right to choose? You see you clearly do still have a choice to make even after becoming one of His sheep. There is a clear implied meaning given to us here in this verse that sheep still have choices to make even after being saved out of this crazy world. I mean come on and think a little bit with your brain! If they choose to follow Jesus they can choose not to follow Jesus also. The only way that this would not be possible is if God tied a rope around the neck of every one of His sheep and then dragged them wherever He went whether they wanted to go or not. That would be forced “predestination” and forced “eternal salvation”. Does God forcibly enforce His will upon all Christians and all people in the world? There are many confused Christians who think that He does. If this is the type of God that you serve then you are highly deceived and very ignorant. God is not forcing any of His sheep to follow Him. If you know anything about being a good shepherd, they always walk ahead of their sheep calling to them and the sheep normally follow them. The sheep are therefore highly trustworthy of their master that He is not going to lead them to the wolves. However, sheep do still have a choice not to follow. Once Jesus told this story found in the Bible that is very relevant to our current subject today about sheep:
Luk 15:4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?
Is Jesus talking about sheep in this parable? I don’t think so! Jesus is again using sheep as an example of people. However, it is very clear and self-evident that sheep can wander off and away from the voice of the shepherd that was guiding them. This tells me that Jesus the Great Shepherd is not in complete control of everyone on this planet and what they do. Any sheep at any time has the choice or chance to walk away. Do you get this concept? This is called “FREEWILL”. These are saved people who have walked away from Jesus’ voice and no longer are able to hear it. Do you GET IT? Of course Jesus says any good shepherd will leave the 99 and go and look for the 1 that is LOST! So here we go again. Does this mean the shepherd when He finds this lost sheep drags him kicking and screaming back to the flock by force? If you think it does then you again do not know the loving compassionate merciful God who allows His sheep to do as they will. Sure a sheep could wander off accidently and be totally glad to get back to the safety of the flock and the shepherd. But, still people are not sheep, they are people and they can do what they want, when they want, to who they want at any time. If a sheep wanders off and commits suicide there is no getting that sheep back even if the shepherd wants it back really bad. If while away from the safety of the shepherd a wolf comes and eats that sheep, it is also gone forever. These are basic sheep principles of shepherds and their flocks. People want to think that God is in control of everything, but if this was true and God is the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Almighty, He would have never let one of His sheep get lost in the first place. In this parable, it is clear that a sheep got away and the shepherd did not know about it until He stopped and counted and said I only have 99 and I started with 100 so one got lost. Wow, what do you do with people who ignore what the Bible says for their version of reality? It sure makes it difficult if you can’t see the words that written on the pages, doesn’t it?
Let’s further examine the emphasized subject in verses 28 and 29 of John 10 that we were looking at first. If you can see, then you can understand that both of these verses are about the Power of God vs. the power of Satan. Both of these verses say that God is able to keep those that have chosen to follow Him. Remember that choosing to follow was an important prerequisite to the next two verses. So the next two verses are only applicable if you continue to follow by your freewill choices. As long as you are with the shepherd you are clearly SAFE and no one including Satan can come and force you away. This would be the opposite of forcible salvation; it would be called forcible damnation. If it is illegal for Satan to force you to hell, guess what it would be illegal for God to force you to go to heaven. This MUST be a two way street that goes both ways and the only determining factor which way you go is by your own choice of continuing to follow your faithful Shepherd.
So did we learn anything today? I bet my commenter didn’t hear a thing that I said and that is really a sad state of the world that we live in. My Bible says “Whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not”. It is almost impossible to get a blind man to see. What you must determine is a basic question; do sheep still have any freewill choices to make in the real world after being saved? Can they do what they want rather than do what God says? Before you answer this question you should go and read your Bible and see if there are any people in there who God said not to do this and they ignored it and went and did it anyway. There is Balaam, there is all of natural Israel, there is even Moses who God said speak to the rock and he hit it instead. There are too many examples in the Bible of people disobeying God’s voice. Why did God pick sheep as a type or symbol of people in the world? You should study more about sheep and learn how they are a picture of people. For example, sheep are pretty dumb animals, I have to admit that and that speaks a lot for God’s opinion on what people think in the world. You should be smart enough to first see that God’s intelligence is so far above your intelligence that it is barely comparable to a man vs. a sheep. So having said that your opinion is worthless! What you think about the Bible is totally irrelevant! There is no significance to your thoughts unless they become God’s thoughts. So what have we learned about sheep today?
- People like Sheep are DUMB!
- Sheep still have a free will!
- Not ALL Sheep belong to God!
- Sheep still have to pay attention and understand the words of the Shepherd.
- A Sheep can Get LOST accidently or on purpose!
- God will try to go and find the lost sheep!
- Not every sheep has to follow the Shepherd!
- No one can force a sheep away from His Shepherd as long as it hears and follows.
These are the basics found in these verses about sheep in the Bible. You of course can disagree with what I just said and ignore the facts if you want to. But, please do not write me any more ignorant comments about my lack of understanding of the Bible and go pull the plank out of your own eye before you try to take the speck out of mine. God Bless!
If you want to continue reading about Once Saved Always Saved and the Eternal Security subjects you may go to “Part 4“.
Understanding the Difference Between Being the House of God and Being In the House of God!
(Ver 2.2) Today I will teach on a Bible basic truth that every Christian should know. There is an interesting difference between being in the house of God and being the House of God that many preachers that I have heard must not clearly understand. I have been in numerous church services where either the pastor or the worship leader gets up behind the pulpit and says “It’s good to be in the house of the Lord”. I guess I know what they are trying to say, but technically speaking that is a very false statement and directly contradicts what the Bible says in so many aspects. That statement also portrays a false reality to unsaved people that is easily taken wrong or misunderstood. Those types of statements leave people with the impression that if they come to church, they have satisfied their religious obligation to God. However, the Bible says that the church building that you are meeting in is not the house of God! You see the Bible clearly says that God does not dwell in the buildings made by the hands of men anymore. We know this is what God use to do in the Old Testament when God told Moses to build Him a temple and the Ark of the Covenant. Jesus in Matthew taught that David entered into the house of God to eat the show bread. But, these were all natural symbolic representations for a much different spiritual reality that was to come. Here is one of my key verses for today’s lesson and I hope you can see what it says:
Act 7:48 Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,
So here we have a major problem with the statement that too many preachers make. God clearly tells us in the Bible that it is impossible for man to build or make anything that is worthy of God’s dwelling place. If you read the next verse and the context you will see what I am talking about. God does not dwell in your man made church building; so when you say He does you leave a very false image in the minds of your listeners. However, there is another reality that God may show up at your church service if you invite Him in and then choose to let Him come in. I’ve heard ministers describe the presence of God at their meetings appearing like a cloud that would roll in over the people and then amazing things would happen. However, some people saw the cloud and others did not see the cloud. There are many examples of this type of cloud in the Bible if you look for them (Exo 16:10, Exo 19:9, Exo 24:15). I gave you 3 instances found in Exodus but God appears as a spiritual cloud several other times in the Bible as well. Then there are also literally many church buildings around the world that God does not ever show up in, because He is not welcome. Oh, sure they pretend that they are doing the right things and singing the right songs and acting out the parts pretty well. However, they neither know God nor are known by God so they worship with their lips, but Jesus said their hearts are far, far away. Jesus warned some religious people like this in Matthew 23:27 calling them “whited sepulchers that are beautiful on the outside but inwardly were unclean and full of dead men’s bones”. So God is not interested in your external religion or your outward religious ideas of being righteous. Just as God did not show up in the Jewish temple anymore, God will not show up at your church if your heart is not right before Him. These are examples of how important it is to be precise in exactly what you believe and to know what the Bible says. So where is the house of the Lord now? Or maybe I should have asked who is the house of the Lord now? If you study your Bible you will find that it says the people in the church are now this house of God:
1Ti 3:15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
As you search the Bible you find verses that read much differently than what some men preach and teach. Here is one of those examples. You of course can take this verse literally or figuratively. I believe that this temple is symbolic based upon the scriptures that I will show you in a minute. First, let me ask you what is the church of God or again I should say who is the church of God? Let me give you a few quick scriptures that hopefully will make my point that you can see for yourself:
Rom 16:5 Likewise greet the church that is in their house. Salute my wellbeloved Epaenetus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia unto Christ.
Here is God calling the people that meet in the house the church and not the building where they meet. This can get more complex than this, but this is the basics of the lesson today. You see the people that meet together in a building can be holding church services, but technically this is not the church. God clearly calls the people in the building the church and never is there any physical building called by this name or title in the Bible. This is really a very important difference to recognize.
1Co 1:2 Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:
Again we have the people living in the city of Corinth being called the church of God and not a building. It further qualifies that not everyone in the city is the church, but only those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. So it is much more important to be in Christ than it is to be in a building with a name on the outside. This is the mistake that pastors are leaving people with when they tell them they are in the house of the Lord today. They should be saying it is good to be in Christ Jesus and be the house of God.
1Co 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
This is the last verse that I will show you today that says the church are the people that Paul persecuted and Paul did not burn down buildings or deface a building. When Jesus appeared to Saul on the road and said “Saul why do you persecute me?” Jesus was telling him He took it personally because these people that he persecuted were the church and the body of Christ where God lives today:
1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Here is the main reason that I wanted to get to today that clearly tells us where the Spirit of God is today. You can clearly see that God is not living in the buildings that are made by the hands of men anymore. God has designed and created our bodies to be His temple and dwelling place. So wherever we go God goes. Where ever we are the church is, if you are a true Christian. You see when you become a Christian the Spirit of God comes inside of your body to live and to bear witness with your spirit that you are now a child of God (Romans 8:16). This is exactly why when you tell people they are in the house of God a building made by man’s hands that it contributes to a lie. You can hold church in a hotel and God will be there if He is inside of you. You can hold church in a tent and God will be there if God is inside of you. God is not interested in your building projects, however God will help you build one if that is what you like. I have to say that it is much nicer meeting in nice churches with climate controlled environments than sweating or freezing outdoors. Just build your church building and don’t call it the house of God. I am the house of God and you are the house of God we are a spiritual building made of living stones being built up into an eternal spiritual city of the Most High God. Here is a Bible verse that says what I just tried to say:
1Pe 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
The term “lively stones” literally means stones with life in them. This makes us complexly a very unique chosen building material for God’s house. You can clearly see that we are being “built up” to become a spiritual house for God. This is one of the key accomplished works of Jesus Christ. Why was it necessary for God to build a new spiritual house? I have taught on this before, but I’ll say it again for those who do not understand it yet. You see you only build a new house if you have something wrong with your old house. Heaven was the previous spiritual house of God where there were an enumerable number of angels dwelling. So what do you do when some of your angels have been found with sin in them? You should really think about that before you try to answer it. God is a just God and God is God who does not lie and break promises with those in His family. So God’s old spiritual house and family has a major problem occurring internally within it and this causes God to decide to build/create a new House through His Son Jesus Christ. I’ll talk and teach more on this subject soon, so please keep a look out for it, the Bible says some very important things on this subject for Christians who desire to understand.
Let’s get back to God’s new spiritual building project where you can clearly find in the Bible that Jesus is building this new house for God using us the church. We know in 1 Peter 2:5 that it says we are being “built up” a spiritual house. This implies a foundation and then subsequent building layers. Who is the spiritual foundation for this new spiritual house? Of course it is God Himself to some degree who is our foundation as well as a few other chosen individuals that are mentioned in this verse:
Eph 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
Again we can clearly see that we the people of God in the church building are being built upon a foundation that consists of three spiritual entities. Jesus Christ is clearly called the most important stone in the new building and He is described as the “chief corner”. This was usually in ancient building projects the first stone that was laid and one that all other stones are aligned from. So the first thing that you should grasp is that Jesus Christ is also a stone in this new spiritual house. God became one of us so that we could be made again like one of Him. The next thing that you should observe in this verse is that the Apostles of Jesus and the prophets of God from the O.T. are also living stones that makeup the foundation for this new building. Do you understand this? This is very important that you see. Here is another verse that gives us an additional perspective on the subject:
Rev 21:14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
In this chapter of Revelation God describes another place or actually the same place that we have been discussing but in different terms. In this chapter God describes a spiritual city called “New Jerusalem” and “Holy Jerusalem”. Both of these are the names given to the new spiritual dwelling place of God. If you noticed in this verse that this city contains a foundation of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ. That sounds very similar to what we just read in Ephesians 2:20. What we can see are some amazing parallels that are certainly not found here by chance or accident. Both Ephesians and 1 Peter spoke of a building project that is being created by God. We are called the temple of God in the letters written to the church, however in Revelation God speaks of us in terms of being a city. Both are structures with walls and foundations and are built with stones. Here is another verse that certainly applies to our subject today concerning this city found in Revelation 21:
Rev 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
This verse is pretty amazing. It speaks of us as being the tabernacle of God. Tabernacle is a term meaning God’s tent. Isn’t this what Moses built God in the Old Testament? Moses built a tent which clearly meant a temporary dwelling place. What Moses made was a temporary dwelling because it was made by men. Anything that a man makes will be temporary. However, we are now found to be an eternal dwelling place for our God made not with the hands of men. When we leave this planet we will be given eternal glorified bodies like the one that Jesus possessed after His resurrection. This will be a body that will never fail or fade. Therefore it will be a permanent dwelling place for the Spirit of God. God is saying in Revelation 21:3 that God’s new house will be “with” men. The term “with” in this verse means to be joined to Him in marriage and become one flesh with Him. What we see today is a small taste of what we will see in eternity. The Spirit of God being in us today is a pattern for what we will experience forever in eternity. Therefore, God’s New Jerusalem is a spiritual city of People in covenant with Him where He lives and dwells throughout eternity. We will be His people and He will be our God and according to the Bible no eye has seen nor have we even begun to imagine the great things that He has planned for us (1 Cor 2:9). I hope and pray that you enjoyed my short and basic Bible lesson on God’s spiritual building project and have learned that we are that project here today and right now. So the next time when you go to church remember you are not going to the house of God, YOU ARE THE HOUSE OF GOD who is going to a building to meet with the rest of God’s house for fellowship, praise and worship of Him who is In US! God Bless!
Understanding the Power of the Spoken Word in the Bible! Keeping Your Mouth Pure!
(Ver 1.1) Today is “Part 10” in a series of lessons on spoken words found in the Bible. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1”. Truly one of the most important subjects found in the Bible is the power of spoken words. God clearly created everything that we can see in our world by His spoken words and the Bible says in this same chapter of Genesis 1 that God made man in His image and after His likeness. So man possesses the same capabilities and characteristics that God possesses in of course a controlled set of circumstances and in a more limited capacity. In other words we are not going to go out and create any new worlds like God did with just our words. But, that does not mean we do not control our personal view of this world with our words. I guess most Christians just ignore verses in the Bible about this subject and refuse to believe them and that is very unfortunate for them, because God’s Words are still true and they work for them or against them whether they understand them or not. It is very much like the laws of gravity. I do not fully understand the law of gravity, but I know enough to cooperate with it so that I do not fall off of a cliff and hurt myself. I could spend a lot of time on this subject and probably will, but today I’m going to start in an O.T. book of the Bible that is not widely taught from by many preachers. This is the book of Ecclesiastes and we will read in chapter 5.
Ecc 5:1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.
Here we have a verse that is easily misunderstood and ignored by Christians. What is the primary subject of this verse? This verse is primarily about your personal relationship with God. But, it also has some very important instructions given to us concerning our relationship with God. Did you notice what this verse says? It says it is better to listen than to speak when holding a conversation with God. Why would this be important? Did you know that you cannot learn anything or even hear anything important if you are the one doing the talking? You might think that you know something worthy of God’s time and ear, but God clearly says that you do not. What is the “Sacrifice of Fools”? If you study the Bible you can see that God says the words that we speak to God in praise are called the sacrifice of our lips to Him (Heb 13:15). So what is the opposite of the sacrifice of praise to God? I believe the opposite would be you speaking the words of self-exaltation, or any words promoting something other than God. In other words stating with your opinion or your personal thoughts and ideas of what the truth is to you, these would be the words of a fool according to God. That is one of the primary reasons that I do not watch much reality TV on our channels here in America. These are the words of fools who do not understand that what they are saying is evil. Isn’t that what God just said in this verse? Here is a very good definition of what is evil in the eyes of God. These are people speaking things without any basis of factual information or knowledge of the truth? These are empty words from people with empty minds. These are fools in the eyes of God. God clearly tells us as Christians we should be swift to hear and slow to speak (Jas 1:19). So this verse has some very important instructions given by the inspiration of God for us and we can learn from them or we can choose to ignore them like many do. These are strong words from a strong God and it gets even better than that, read this next verse:
Ecc 5:2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
Wow, it is so incredible what the Bible says, isn’t it? God implies that He hears every word that you speak and in fact in previous lessons on this subject you might recall that I taught that we will all give an account for every idle word that we have spoken according to Jesus himself (Mat 12:36). This verse starts with do not be “rash” with your mouth! Did you know that you can be rash with your mouth? In previous lessons on words I taught on the sword of your mouth being able to cut two ways; either blessing someone or cursing someone. This is the power that you have in your mouth according to the Bible. You should always speak blessings over your children and encourage them with your words. There are many children in our world that have never heard their parents say they were proud of them. There are many children in the world that have never been told that they have great potential to do great things in the world. These are the children that have been cursed by their parents saying they are stupid, dumb and incapable of anything positive. These would be examples of “rash” words being spoken in the world.
The next statement in this verse demonstrates an old principle that I have previously taught on in the series. This part of the verse says let not your heart be hasty to utter, say, speak, declare, etc.! Wow, again did you understand the connection? The words that we speak came out of us from the abundance of the understanding in our hearts (spirit) (Mat 12:34). This is again why it is better to listen to God and allow Him to speak, since His understanding is infinitely greater than yours. This is a very important principle being given to us. The words that you speak come from what you have deposited in your spirit. So if you do not like what you are saying you are in need of a heart transplant, spiritually speaking of course. Jesus you might recall said “The words that I speak to you, they are spirit…” (John 6:63). If Jesus’ words were spirit, then guess what your words are also spirit, just understand the difference that many times your words are coming from an ignorant spirit and most definitely are not the words of an unlimited knowing Spirit like God. I say that but you can change that by learning to speak the written words of God and that makes your words seem wiser even if you do not yet fully understand the full meanings. Finally this verse again confirms that it is best for us if we let our words be few when speaking to God. This is always a good idea whenever dealing with anyone in the world. If you are the one doing all of the talking then you will never learn anything new. So being a good listener is the key to learning the truth. I’m going to skip down to verses 4 and 5 for my next point on spoken words:
Ecc 5:4 When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.
Ecc 5:5 Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
These are very important concepts to learn from concerning your spoken words. God is giving us a very specific principle in these two verses. What is that principle? It is to say what you mean and then for you to literally do what you say! In other words don’t tell someone I’ll meet you at 2:00 in the board room and never show up. What does that make you if you say one thing and then do something else? It is called being a liar and that is not a positive characteristic for anyone in the eyes of God. In these two verses it very clearly says that it is better for you to not say anything than it is for you to say something and to never do it. The example given is clearly about your money. If you tell God you are going to give Him something and then you never do it then you have made yourself a fool in the eyes of God. This is a very important life lesson. I worked with a man who would tell people I’ll have that for you tomorrow and something would always happen and he never could fulfill what he promised. The character of that man was now in question by everyone and everyone soon learned that you could not depend on anything that he said. People need to be able to place their confidence in your spoken words. If God said “I will do this for you” and then never did it, what would that make God’s character like? That would not be good for God’s reputation would it? If you cannot backup your words with your actions then you need to shut up and stay quiet. It is much better to be perceived as an ignorant man then it is to open your mouth and prove it to everyone. Here is another verse that speaks to us along these lines of our actions
1Jn 4:20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
Is God talking about your words and your actions in this verse? You bet He is! If a man says “I love you God” but yet treats everyone in the world with contempt, God says that man is a liar. A liar is someone who speaks words and then does not follow through with the effort to make them happen or to display them to others. There is a direct connection between your words and your actions so learn the lesson of God and see what He says. You should learn from God’s Word that He is faithful to perform what He has promised because God’s character is never in question.
Ecc 5:6 Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?
Here we have another verse that declares the importance of your words. Did you know your mouth is what causes your flesh to sin? If you did not know this then you just learned something very important today. Your mouth is connected to your spirit and your spirit is the eternal part of you that will be judged someday by God. God does not judge your flesh, get it? Did you know that you are not a body? Your body is the flesh and bone house of your spirit so your flesh is not responsible for your sin, you are! Here we have a principle being given to us and it has far reaching consequences. How are people saved? This is not a trick question, but one that most Christians cannot answer correctly. People are saved by their words that they speak. If you read Romans 10 you will see the connection between your words and salvation. If you confess the “Lord Jesus” with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dean, you shall be saved! Here is the heart and mouth connection being given to us again in relationship to being saved. So what is the opposite of being saved? It still involves a heart and mouth connection but it is the complete opposite of those words found in Romans 10. Instead of Jesus being your Lord, you think that you are the lord of your life and do not require anyone else. So you think wrong and speak wrong and thus are not saved. People like this are deceived by Satan who is really in control of their lives and he is their lord whether they believe it or not.
If you have been reading my series of lessons on angels you already understand a little bit about the importance of words spoken and angels doing, working or being sent by God to help you. So what is the connection of this verse with the previous two about vowing to God? Why does it say you are speaking to your angel? Have you ever seen an angel and have you talked with one? Most of us have not so this verse implies that angels are listening to your words the same as God is listening to your words. So you cannot say “I vow to God” and then say “Oh, I made a mistake” and expect God or the angels to help you. If you say something you always have the choice of whether or not you will do it. God will not force you to do anything. However, this verse in context with the others that we just read about words clearly tells us that your voice can cause God to become very angry with you and He can “destroy” the work of your hands. The work of your hands is the job that you do to make money, your business, your employer, your income producer, etc. God can bless this or God can cause it to fail and it is clearly linked to your mouth in determining which one God will do. If you do not understand this you need to study the Bible a lot more and learn how to be blessed by God.
So today I took you through 5 or 6 verses found in Ecclesiastes about spoken words and their connection to your relationship with God as well as showing you the need to aligning your words to your actions for the continued blessings of God to come upon you and overtake you. What you say has more bearings on what you get out of life than anything else that you do here. Learn today to be quick to hear from God and slow to speak so that you can continue to learn from Him. Let your words be few in general to everyone, unless you are told to speak to people and say something from God like I was today. I pray that you will continue in the Word of God and continue to be led by the Spirit of God in everything that you do. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading this series of lesson on spoken words in the Bible you can continue with “Part 11“.
Understanding Angels! Protecting Angels! Part 7
(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 7 of a series of studies about the spiritual reality of angels found in the Bible. We have covered a lot of information that is not going to be repeated, so if you have not read all of these lessons from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1” and read forward to this lesson. In the past we have been discussing the physical makeup of angels, where angels come from, the dimensions of angels, the assignments of angels and we have learned that they are intended to be a beneficial spiritual force that works for us and with us. Christians and the angels of God are on the same spiritual team and we have the same God. But, we have also seen battles, conflicts and the realities of other angels that are not working for God. These evil or unclean angels are God’s enemies and we will discuss them more in the future. Today I want to discuss a different purpose of angels of God found in the Bible. I believe that God has assigned specific tasks and responsibilities for angels to follow. These are generally followed for our benefit, but angels never override your will unless there is eminent danger. If you recall we studied the story of Lot in Sodom and God sent two angels to his house to get him and his family out before the city was destroyed. These angels practically had to drag this family away from the city by the hand, because they did not want to leave. I do not know if it was a case of core unbelief or just the fact that they thought they belonged there in the city. We did see that Lot left two daughters in the city that were married and they would not leave with them, so this might have contributed to the hesitation. However, if they would have stayed in Sodom they would all have been killed that very day by the falling fire and brimstone from heaven. Of course the only reason they were saved was because God talked with Abraham and Abraham asked God to spare them. So really Lot had nothing to do with his salvation other than allowing the angels to guide them out. He was very fortunate that he had an uncle that knew a God who was merciful. Many times angels will do this for your unsaved relatives also if you ask them to. So what we learn from God’s story of Sodom is that angels can protect people from a pending disaster, either natural or supernatural. Therefore, one of the key assignments of angels given to them by God is to protect those who are heirs of salvation.
Of course it is always much more complicated than trying to make that simple of a statement trying to say that an angel’s job is just to protect us. We can clearly see in the world that even Christians die in plane crashes and terrorist attacks. In fact children are killed every day in our world and they have not yet come to the age of accountability to make a decision for Christ. So where are all the protecting angels for these children? These are very difficult questions to try to answer since we do not know all of the facts or circumstances surrounding any one’s death that occurs in our world. So how can we attempt to explain why something happened if we do not know all of the information necessary about what caused this to occur? That is our challenge, since the Bible says that we are looking through a glass darkly and only see partially the spiritual realm, we must do the best that we can from what information God hsd given to us. I do not believe that we can know everything unless God somehow shows them to us and many times these things are personal items between God and that person and God will not tell you their secrets just because you want to know them. God says in Deuteronomy 29:29 “that the secret things belong to the Lord” so don’t go asking God to reveal to you things that do not concern you personally. So today I ask the question do people have guardian angles assigned to them by God? Here is an interesting statement that Jesus said about angels:
Mat 18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Here we have a verse where Jesus is speaking about the little children that have been brought to Him to be blessed. Jesus tells us that these little children all have “their” own angel. These angels go from here to heaven and when in heaven they check with God and see what God says for them to do. Since God does not show any favoritism to anyone we must logically conclude from this information that every child born on the earth has an angel assigned to them. The population of the earth is currently less than 7 billion and in the book of Hebrews God tells us that the total number of the angels in Heaven are innumerable. Men can easily count to a billion and even a trillion if they had enough time or could just use a computer. According to Revelation 12 we know that 1/3 of the angels have been cast down with Satan to the earth. Therefore, we can clearly observe that even taking away 1/3 there are potentially more than enough angels to go around to watch over 7 billion people.
Let me tell you about some personal experiences that I believe that angels have come to my aid in my past. One day as a young man I sat in my car at a red light in the left turn lane waiting for the light to turn green. I was the first one in line and just sat waiting for a green light to go. Suddenly a dump truck ran over the front of my car and crushed it. It seems this truck was coming down the hill to my left and lost his brakes and the driver of the truck could not get it to stop when the light was changing. I never heard anything or saw anything that was about to happen. So the driver came down the hill without brakes, without sounding his horn and he was trying to weave and dodge everyone as he came down the hill without any brakes. He missed most everyone except my car. However, if I was 5 or 6 feet closer into the intersection or the light had turned green I would not be here today. A man I knew saw me right after the wreck of my car and stopped to talk to me. He said I was very lucky to have escaped harm and he was right. You see I did not see any angels present that day, but yet looking back on it I can see the hand of God that spared me so I conclude that an angel was at work that day doing something to help me. It could have been just to cause the light to stay red long enough for me not to go forward. It could have been to tell me to stop and not inch any closer into the intersection. It could have been helping the driver of the truck to know how to turn and when to turn the wheel to keep from killing anyone. I mean we do not know all of the possibilities that could have been affected by an angel’s help. It is very difficult to know when something like that happens all of the factors that went into that day’s activities for everyone involved. I mean I could have been a few minutes later and missed everything or I could have been a few feet forward and been killed.
Then later in life I was attending a church gathering at a large convention center in downtown Dallas Texas. It was very late at night and the service was still going on, but I decided to take my kids home to get them into bed. So we left early and started for where I parked my vehicle about three blocks away. I noticed as I walked down the sidewalk that there was no one else around anywhere and that concerned me. We had to go close to 3 blocks to get to my car and it was very dark except for street lights. Suddenly I noticed two teenaged punks up ahead of me nearly a block away on the other side of the street. Then I noticed them looking at me and taking something out of their ankles like knives or weapons of some sort. I knew this was not a good situation to be in with two small young children. I was carrying my youngest child and my eldest son walked by me. I saw that the punks crossed the street so I crossed the street at the same time in the opposite direction. They suddenly realized that I had changed my course as they were coming towards me. I remember praying to God and “pleading the blood of Jesus” over my situation. I grabbed the hand of my son and we turned to walk back towards the convention center down the middle of the street. Suddenly a group of people appeared out of nowhere. There were probably four of them, two men and two women so I started walking towards them and arrived at them at the same time as the two teenaged punks so I turned and stood by them and we all stopped to look at the punks. The teenagers were outnumbered at this point so they asked some dumb questions acting all innocent and then ran off. I walked with this people for a little while never saying anything to any of them about what just happened. Suddenly again one of the women turned to me and said “Thank you” and they went on into the night and disappeared. So why was someone that I did not know telling me “Thank you” with me not saying anything to them at all? I have asked myself that question many times and can only come to the conclusion that it was because I prayed and ask that God cover us with His shed blood. So were these angels sent from God or were these just people who happened to be at the right place at the right time for me? I don’t know! I just believe that God answers prayer and how He does it is not up to me. I cannot tell this story without tears coming to my eyes thinking about it.
So those were just two examples of how angels could have affected a positive outcome in a potentially negative set of circumstances. One time I saw nobody and the other time there were people involved that I saw. I have heard many times a minister of God say this, “People are looking for the spectacular and all the time missing the supernatural”. In other words they read their Bibles and want God to do something like part the Red Sea for them or appear in a burning bush and God does not have to do something like this to cause a supernatural event to transpire and save your life. I’ll give you one more example of someone I knew. He was working very late one night at the office and he had his little daughter with him there at work. They decided to go home and of course it was dark and everyone else was already gone. As he loaded his daughter in the car and put her in her car seat a man with a gun came up and told him let’s go back inside the office building. This man that was being robbed with his daughter was the type of man that carried a licensed firearm with him for protection, but it was in his brief case in the front seat of the car. So he told the gun man I have my wallet in my brief case and reached in and his hand fell on the gun in the exact perfect way so that he just grabbed it and pointed it and began to shoot it at the robber. The man was hit several times but did not go down. The robber pointed his gun at the window of the car where the daughter was and pulled the trigger and guess what, the bullet bounced off of the window. The car did not have bullet proof glass and this should not have happened. So was this a chance accidental occurrence that everything just worked out like it did for the child? You have to be pretty blind to think that it was. I am confident that the angel of God was present there to help and to save the little girl who is still our friend today as a 13 year old young lady. Can angels stop bullets? I believe that they can, what you believe is your choice.
Psa 34:7 The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
So God tells us in the Bible that the angels of the Lord are present around those that have respect for God. Therefore, those who do not fear God might have a problem. It would be good to hear God say that we have an angel that is with us, but it also much better to hear Him say that one of their assignments is to help deliver us from something? What we need to figure out is what it is that they deliver us from? I believe that we only need deliverance from something that is intended to do us harm or hurt. Do you understand this? What is this trying to tell us? If angels can deliver you then other angels can also do things to you to cause you harm. That is just a basic reality found within the spiritual realm. Satan wants to kill you and God wants to save you and we have the classic battle of good vs. evil in our world transpiring all around us every night on the evening news. So how does Satan cause things to happen to take you out of the world? Many times Satan influences and uses people to hurt other people. Just as good angels can influence good people to do good things, Satan can influence and suggest that evil people do bad things to hurt other people. We have not discussed demons and evil spirits yet, but the Bible says they exist and we will definitely talk about them later.
Exo 14:19 And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
You can read another story of angelic involvement with the children of Israel leaving Egypt. In this story God says that an angel appeared before them to help guide them. The children of Israel make a camp and the angel moves to the rear of them for protection. We can clearly see that angels give God’s people a layer of protection from their enemies of Egypt who were pursuing them to take them back. This is not ministering “to” them; this is another example of angels ministering “for” them. We can clearly see that “protection” is one of the primary responsibilities for angels. You can also assume that Satan was influencing Pharaoh to pursue God’s people to do them harm. This is another example of how angels can affect the outcome of what happens in the world.
Exo 23:20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
So I hesitate to mention this verse, because it says the angel was guiding Israel in the way that they should go. However, it will be a good opportunity to teach you something about the role of angels in the church. Angels can clearly give people direct messages from God. We can seen this happening repeatedly in the Bible. These words from God can be considered guidance. You can even see this in examples found in the New Testament. However, many times these angels brought news from God about pending disasters. For example, Paul’s ship wreck in Acts 27:23 was foretold to him by the angel that he would live through it. But, here is the problem; I have not found a verse of scripture that tells us to pray for angels to lead us. The Bible in the New Testament says that those who are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God (Rom 8:14). So it appears to me that today we are to be primarily led by the Spirit of God that lives in us. This does not mean that God cannot still send you an angel if He chooses to do so. However, it is God’s choice and not yours. Do not put God in a box and think that an angel is the only way God can do anything for you, just leave the option open if God so desires. I have heard stories of people who prayed for angels to appear and Satan shows up to give them a message like it was from God and this was nothing but a way to deceive them into doing something not in line with the will of God. The Bible clearly says that Satan can disguise himself to appear as a messenger of light (2 Cor 11:14). So if you pray and ask for angel and are not promised one in the Word of God, then you are asking and praying for something out of the line of God’s purpose and plan and this normally just opens the door for Satan to come in to deliver his message of deception.
There are many verses in the Bible where angels are used by God to protect and deliver His people, so I will not go through all of these. I will briefly talk about Peter being thrown into prison by Herod in Acts 12:5. In this chapter you can see that Peter was being persecuted for preaching the truth. Thus we have Satan influencing Herod to do God’s people harm and Herod later finds out this was a mistake that he should not have made. In verse 5 of Acts 12 you see that the church was praying for God to deliver Peter and they continued to do this until Peter showed up at their door one night. God ends up sending an angel to wake Peter in the jail and this angel walks him to the house where the church is meeting. The angel is able to bypass the guards, release his physical bonds and open doors supernaturally to get Peter out of prison. This is a supernatural event of the divine intervention of God of how an angel can be used to deliver anyone from harm. Peter would have been executed the next day if not for the angel of God and the prayers of the church. This is another example of how angels are sent for the words of people on the earth. If there had been no prayers or words spoken there would have been no deliverance for Peter and we would have a few less books of the Bible to read today. Please notice that spiritual angels can affect an change physical things and outcomes.
I’ll end this lesson with another example of how angels can potentially work in the earth and you not see them or know of their involvement. In an earlier lesson I told you that the towers in NY on 9/11 were amazingly empty compared to normal capacity. My wife knew one man in NY that was supposed to be in the tower giving a presentation for his company. This was a very important meeting and one that he should never have missed. However, something transpired that day that was not expected at home and he was forced to stay home with his family that day. Because he stayed home we can only assume that this saved his life. The company that he worked for and the company that he was presenting to both vanished that day and do not exist anymore. So what appeared to be important that day turns out was not very important in the grand scheme of life. Were angels involved in this one case, again we do not know but yet something happened out of the normal course of life that caused a dramatic different result. I personally believe it was an angel, but you can believe whatever you like.
So I am personally convinced that angels do supernatural things to help people when someone asks God to help them. It doesn’t have to be you praying for yourself either. It can be like Peter when it was the church that prayed for his deliverance or Abraham speaking to God for Lot’s benefit. Ask God to get involved in the lives of your friends and relatives and see what happens. I am a firm believer that we are not done with evil in the world. I believe the terrorist and evil people of the world are hard at work coming up with new ways to hurt people. By releasing the angels of God to help protect us is one of the best defenses that we can possess against this spiritual evil. If you have personal stories of how angels helped you out of a bad situation I would be very happy to hear about them. I’ll end this lesson here for today and pray that you have a very blessed day.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on angels you can continue with “Part 8“.
God and Computers! God Challenges the Kings of the Earth!
(Ver 1.1) Today I’m going talk about a subject that I have taught before. This is a very important subject found in the Bible and it helps us to explain many of the challenges we are faced with in the church today. This subject helps us to understand why there are literally thousands of church denominations in the world and why some believe so radically different than others. So today I am going to talk more about the hidden mysteries of the Word of God. Do you like to solve puzzles? To me the more difficult the challenge the more interested I am in trying to solve it. This doesn’t mean that I am the most intelligent or the highest I.Q. person in the world; I just like to solve problems. But, maybe that is just me as a problem solver type personality that comes from my computer programming experiences. As a computer programmer, I was constantly challenged with difficult problems to come up with solutions for writing computer programs. If you did not know it, computer programming is simply a computer programmer’s attempt to solve a very specific definable and repeatable problem. Sometimes we are creating new solutions and sometimes we are just inventing fixes for existing older problems. Problem solving is a Godly principle that makes humans vastly different from the rest of creation. Humans generally want to learn and are curious to want to know things and how they work. People also generally like a challenge and whether it is just doing a simple puzzle or solving a complex riddle we like the sense of accomplishment that comes with solving these types of enigmas. Did you know that God is a problem solver? If we are made in the image and likeness of God then we have His problem solving ability built within us in a lesser degree.
Problem solving can either be positive or negative. If you create a code system it is different than if you figure out how to break the code. However, both of these actions are creative problem solving abilities from a different perspective. You can see this in a computer hacker’s mentality. People are constantly trying to invent a new more complex code but, that just becomes a greater challenge for someone else to try to break into it. So let’s shift gears and talk about the Bible code system. God has actually come up with an ingenious system of message hiding in a plainly written word arrangement. I believe this was a demonstration of His ability to create an ultimate encoded word system that hides many spiritual truths using natural ideas, words, symbols, types and terms in the Bible.
An enigma is of course a strange word that some may not understand what it means. It means a perplexing or mysterious coded puzzle; something that is difficult to understand and almost impossible to explain on the surface. Did you know this is how God designed and wrote the Bible? God purposely designed the words in the Bible to hide a vast amount of spiritual information that we in the church still fight over daily trying to figure out what they all mean. Why do we fight over this information so much? It is primarily because too many men and women want to take natural things spoken of and try to interpret these words with their own natural human understanding. This method will not work and will only result in confusion since God is not writing at a man’s natural level. I guess I should rephrase that statement, I believe that God is writing about highly complex spiritual things at the level that a natural man cannot understand.
I believe that natural people do not understand spiritual things until their spiritual eyes of their understanding have been opened to see it by the Spirit of God. This is one of God’s guarantees of making His Word known at the exact right time that He wants it to be known. Did you know that God has thrown down a challenge for all humans on the earth? I guess technically it is not a challenge to every human, only those who want to know the truth. There are many, many people in the earth who are not interested in the truth; they are too consumed with their version of reality to care about what is really true. So you must decide today which category of people you fall into. Are you one that wants to know the truth? If so then here is God’s challenge to us in this verse:
Pro 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
You can clearly see that God has purposely hidden and concealed information in the Bible for us to find before He comes back to the earth. Are you diligently looking for it already? What does it mean to “search out a matter”? It means you have to “WORK” to find it. It also means it is not easily found. It also means you don’t know it already. Uh oh? That goes over really big with a lot of religious theologians who think their doctorate degrees give them an advantage over the rest of humans.
I believe these concepts of God hiding information in the Bible for us to find with all of my heart. Jesus when He walked the face of the planet close to 2000 years ago told us that if we would continue to study the Word of God that we would eventually come to know this truth that God has hidden for us (John 8:32). Verses like these two that I just mentioned tell me that we do not know all of the things that God has hidden yet. Here is another statement that Jesus made that had direct bearing on our subject today:
Luk 8:17 For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.
You can clearly see that Jesus is speaking of hidden and concealed secret heavenly information. This has to be valuable spiritual knowledge for us to know before we go to be with the Lord. This has to be something that will help us now in our spiritual battle against Satan. You may recall that I did a blog on “Understanding Spiritual Warfare”. In this lesson I told you that the battle was over the Word of God. Satan is doing everything that he can to keep you from knowing what God wants you to find out. Satan thinks if he can stop you from finding the truth, he has a chance of survival and I think that is a partial truth. Fortunately for us we have God on our side who is our guide and teacher, so we cannot fail. Here in Luke 8:17 Jesus said everything that God has concealed will be made known. The deep spiritual secrets of God will be revealed so that we can understand them. I strongly believe that the time is very short for us to find these hidden truths but, that God is also doing things in the earth to help us to see and know these hidden truths, like the invention of computers. I am convinced that computers are a tool given to us by God for His good and His purpose of learning and spreading the truth to the world.
When I was a computer programmer many years ago I remember a time that I was faced with a difficult challenge. It seems one of our system’s programs was missing the source code and therefore we could not make any significant changes to this program. You might not understand computer programming, you always first start coding and create a source language file and this is compiled into the machine’s object language code and this is what the computer uses to execute the instructions that you wrote it to do. Programmers never write programs using the machine’s language anymore like they did with very early computers. Today’s computer programming languages are much higher level than machine language. A single line of program code can be compiled into a whole bunch of machine instructions. Back to my story, we lost the source code to a key part of our system. But we were fine without the source code as long as we did not want to make any major modifications to the programmed operations that we previously used to create the executable. I’m going to show my age a little bit here and tell you we use to do something called “ZAP” the object code to make minor modifications to it. You could change the machine’s operation by changing instructions or addresses or eliminating the instructions all together with NO OPERATION replacement codes. So I would do this to our IBM main frame operating system so that it would not roll over the date when midnight came along, for example. You see IBM didn’t give us their source code so if we wanted to change it from rolling over the date we had to change the executable machine codes and that is what I did. It amazes me what we could get away with back then. If auditors would have been smart enough to understand the power that we had they would have had a cow! Today is of course a little bit better and different more secure world to some degree. So back to my story about losing the source code, this was a challenge to me and I was bent on solving it. So I took the object code and reverse engineered it back to the original source code as best as I could make it out to be. Of course I had learned a few things about the programming standards that were in place so that made it easier to reverse engineer it back to the original source code. This of course would be a much more difficult operation in our modern world, since most programmers only use very high level object oriented languages that are not as easy to create source from the executable programs.
So why did I tell you a story about old time computer programming and solving problems? God taught me so much from my computer programmer experiences that applies to the Word of God that it is incredible. You see God knows computers better than we know computers. I am convinced that God gave man computers for a purpose of the end times. Therefore, God knew that we would have computers in these final days before He returns and we could use them and their principles in our attempts at understanding the Bible. So I believe that God used computer laws and principles to help hide information in the Bible. One principle that I have blogged on before is that there are established spiritual laws that govern everything that God does. I called this a “Rules Based Approach” to Bible interpretation. God implemented and created the laws that govern correct Bible Interpretation and we are required to first discover them and then to follow them in order to understand what is written correctly. Another computer design principle used in any valid application development is called “Application Standards”. These are generally speaking repeatable patterns that occur in a uniform fashion or approach that can always be counted on to be followed. We live in a world full of standards. They make standard bolts and nuts, the large portion of the world has adopted weights and measurement standards around the metric system, there are also standard bar code systems that are used in our grocery stores to help speed out check out and other inventory control systems and we could go on and on about standards and that they are around us everywhere. In my early programming we had “Naming Standards” and other standards that are probably too technical to talk about in a Bible study that goes out to many who are not that computer literate. However, the concept of standards is a design concept that is also encapsulated or employed by God in the Bible. For example, there is the Bible concept of Types and Shadows found predominately in the Old Testament stories and the Gospels. These are real stories of real people, places and things in the world that exhibit a view into a spiritual reality that we cannot observe with our natural eyes. The Bible is full of repeatable patterns in many aspects and dimensions. Take the concept of “seeds” if you have not read my blog on “Understanding Seeds” you should. Seeds are repeatable standard found within the Bible that applies across the board to many aspects including complex spiritual things that you did not know of.
So if you are a computer programmer, today I challenge you to begin to study the Bible using computer science laws and knowledge. Examine the Bible using object oriented concepts of encapsulation, inheritance and abstraction. Take your computer knowledge and apply it using God’s methods and knowing God understands computers better than you do. See if you cannot find new things by using this new approach to Bible study. If you are not a computer programmer fear not, do not be downcast or feel inferior, I believe that God will use what you have and what you know to get you to see new things also, maybe even things that I do not see.
Today’s lesson was a reminder to you that God’s word contains many, many hidden spiritual secrets. That is the most important thing that you need to take away with you today. Then you need to figure out how God has hidden these things in the Bible. God did not use an unreadable code system like governments do to try to guard secrets, so that means that God used some very difficult different methods to conceal the truth in plain sight. I started writing a series of blogs of “Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight” which reveal some of the techniques used by God in hiding information in the Bible. If you have not read this series I would suggest that you go and read them as an introduction to some very basic techniques used by God. These are not a complete list, so do not expect them to tell you every secret utilized. If I knew them all I would already know everything that I need to solve every Bible debate that exists today and no one is at that point yet. However, I am a firm believer that before Jesus returns the church will make herself ready and will become one in harmony like Jesus prayed and asked to happen. If you are interested in making this happen then stay in the Word of God and continue to study to find the truth. God Bless!
The Agapegeek Blog 