Blog Archives
Understanding Seeds in the Bible! How are Spiritual Babies Conceived? Part 9
(Ver 1.5) This is a series of Bible lessons on the significance of understanding how Seeds work. I believe only by understanding how natural seeds work, can we really ever focus on how spiritual things operate. God gave us the natural things in our world to teach us about the unseen spiritual things through the wisdom of His intelligent design. Using many Bible verses and the Seed laws from Genesis 1 I have explored several subjects applying the knowledge of seeds to other scriptures in the New Testament. We have discovered that the Bible says there are multiple things that are all referred to by the title of a “seed”. This is just one of God’s techniques of concealing the truth in plain sight. God calls many things by the same name, title or description. This makes it more difficult for the reader to determine what type of seed He is talking about. From our study we have seen that there are natural seeds, like fruit seeds or grass seeds mentioned in the Bible. We have seen children called seeds all over the Bible. We have seen the male sperm called his seed. We have seen spiritual spiritual things like God’s Word being labeled as the seeds that are spread by teachers in the spiritual soil of a human’s heart. We have discovered that there exists two types of seeds in the Bible; one is the Good Seed and other is called the Bad or Evil Seed. By pattern association we can conlude these can be representative of the good words from God versus evil words from Satan. The Good seed was always sown by God exclusively and the evil seed was always sown by his enemy Satan. These are such important concepts to fully grasp. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning you should stop and go back to start reading with “Part 1” first. If you haven’t read from the beginning you have just missed more than I can possibly teach you in my simple introduction.
Today I want to discuss the previous seed concepts and seed laws in more detail to apply them to how a person becomes a Christian. I have alluded to this subject before in other lessons, but I will address it more completely today filling in some gaps. We have already seen that Jesus told us that the most important parable to fully understand is the Parable of the Sower. From this parable we should now know that God’s Word was the seed that the sower was spreading. We also learned that the soil in this parable was always the hearts or spirits of the men and women in the world. There were 6 revealed types of soil presented to us in this parable; 3 types of soil did not produce spiritual fruit and 3 types of soil did produce spiritual fruit in varying degrees of multiplication. This parable demonstrates Salvation to us very clearly and fully describes how you became a saved Christian. Those that hear the Word of God and allow other factors (spirits, natural attartions, etc) over rule their decision to be a Christian are those that were not saved. Those that hear the Word of God, understand it and choose to believe it, they are the ones that are saved and born again. All of this is really not that complex to me but I guess many people have not understood it and therefore do not apply it to the subject of how people become Christians.
So based upon the intimate knowledge of this parable of the sower, it would appear to say that the more Word of God we know the more fruitful we can become. Conversely the less we know about God’s Word defaults our fate to hell. Hopefully, we do understand this. Jesus teaching the parable of the sower was Him spreading the Word of God to the entire world. Every man, woman and child born from Adam represents the symbolic soil that is responsible to allow or permit God’s seed to be planted. It is much more the human rejection of the Word of God (the Seed) from the soil (the spirit) that causes people to go to hell than anything else that they will ever do. People like to think that sin is the key factor for going to hell, but this is simly not the case based upon the Word of God. The Bible says that everyone has sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom 3:22). If everyone is a sinner there must be another factor for who is saved and who is not and it basically boils down to what type of soil we each choose to be. Do you realize that only you make the choices in your own life and for your life? I can’t do it for you, your wife can’t do it for you, your mother can’t do it for you and even God can’t and will not do it for you either. Do you also know that you have a spiritual enemy that is helping you to make the wrong choices? Only by studying the Bible can we better recognize the devices, plans and traps of this spiritual enemy. Only by continuing to study in the Bible are you able to grow and mature to being the overcomer that God has designed you to be. God is expecting to come back for a victorious church and not a defeated church.
So the Parable of the Sower gives us the basic overview for the whole plan of God for our Salvation. Jesus told us to “Go into all of the world and Preach the Gospel AKA the Word of God” (Mk 16:15). By preaching the Word of God you are sowing the Seed of the Word of God into the hearts of more people who can choose to let it grow. This is salvation or damnation in action. The human heart soil decides its own outcome by what seeds are permitted to enter and this is what determines what kind of fruit that it produces. Let’s look at this in action in the Bible:
1Co 3:6 I have planted , Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
The Apostle Paul is writing to the church at Corinth and to you and I. Paul says that he has planted. So what does it mean to plant something? And What was planted? As you can clearly see these are seed concepts that are repeated for us. Maybe you do not understand these concepts fully because you have never planted a natural garden in your back yard. You always start the process by putting seeds in the soil and you then conintue the process by watering the soil and they grow over time into something that you desired to have. If you look back at the previous verse you will see that Paul and Apollos were “ministers”. A minister is anyone that sows God’s Word by God’s design. If you hear someone speak in church that is not teaching from the Bible they are not a minister of God. If you go to a church and the speaker is teaching from a Reader’s Digest you need to find another church that works like God said it should. Paul sowed only from the Word of God to the people in Corinth and they believed it. Then there came along another preacher named Apollos and he watered the seed that was in the hearts/spirits of the people with more of the Word of God and this helped the seed take root and to continue to grow. But, it also says that it was God that gave the increase. In other words God Spirit caused His Word Seed to Grow! Therefore only God gets any of the glory in the process of salvation of any human. Do you understand that no farmer can take credit for what is grown in his field? Does any farmer fully understand how multiplied natural corn is produced from a single seed? Did the farmer create the seed that produces the corn crop? I think you can see that he did not. Neither the farmer or the minister created the seed they are sowing nor did they invent the growth process that takes place, only God did this. They just plant the seeds, water them and watch them grow like it was a miracle, and it is. However, this is just the supernaturally designeddesigned seed process from God using His created Seed. This is a really amazing concept of how the spiritual New Birth process works. It is a partnership effort with God working through men and women who preach to spread the Seed of the Word of God. So the human that is planting the seed is not as important as God because God created the process. But it is also plainly the word of God being planted that is the critically important part of His whole process. It is really a paradox and a puzzle, without men and women sowing the word of God no one would ever be saved. However, without sowing the Word of God no one is saved either. If you are sowing seeds of Buddhism no one will be saved no matter how much you teach on it. If you are sowing the seeds of Islam you are sowing words that never produce salvation. If you are sowing the words of Judaism you are also not going to be saved. It is not very good news for any world religion out there; God made only One Way into the Kingdom of Heaven and that was through His Son Jesus Christ. So do not throw stones at me, I’m just a farm messenger. I did not write the Bible!
1Pe 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
So I think I have given this verse before in another lesson on seeds, but it bears repeating for our current discussion on how people are spiritually born again. The fact that we have been “Born Again” is attributable to us receiving the incorruptible Seed of the Word of God into our spirits. There are two terms given to us by God in this verse that are critical to understand. These are “Corruptible” vs. “Incorruptible”. The term corruptible means able to “decay” and you can state this to be equivalent to a man’s mortal body. The natural realm is a temporary realm of decaying particles. The laws of thermodynamics dictate that everything around us is decaying and not reorganizing like evolutionists like to believe. If you build a new car today and never drive it; it will become a pile of rusted metal in the course of time. The opposite of mortal is immortal. We have been born again from an immortal seed. You may recall that Jesus said “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Mat 24:35). So the Word of God is immortal, and not capable of being eliminated. The Word of God is the incorruptible SEED that causes us to be born again spiritually.
Corruptible seed can be viewed as either a physical or a spiritual type of seed. The sperm of a man is a corruptible natural seed. But so also are the spiritual words (seeds) of Satan. Satan’s seeds can be used to produce corruption in the human spirit. Jesus does not appear to say that the words of your enemy Satan will be ineffective in the parable. No it appears to suggest the opposite is true by the soil with the weeds. Weeds come from seeds just like fruit comes from seeds. It all depends upon the seeds we allow in our hearts. So every false teaching and false religion can be eliminate fruit.
So we now have a dilemma of sorts of how to discuss natural things so that we do not offend anyone by comparing them to spiritual things. You see if being spiritually Born Again is a comparable pattern to being born in the natural realm the first time, then how are natural babies conceived? You can begin to see my difficulty, can’t you? God created sex for a reason and it wasn’t just to make you feel good. Sex is a part of the reproductive pattern of new life on our planet. So sex must be related to new spiritual life also. So how does natural sex relate to the spiritual New Birth? That is where we are today in this discussion. Get ready for a new concept that you may have never thought of before.
Gen 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
We are informed that Adam “knew” his wife Eve and she conceived his physical seed. This is God’s definition of natural sex in the Bible. By the law of first mention, God again gives us the definition of what it means to conceive revealed in terms of spiritual information and descriptions. God could have described this act differently, but He specifically chose this Hebew word YADA which was translated as “knew”. The definition of this word is therefore very critical for us to understand in order to see how it applies to spiritual things like being born again. The Hebrew Word translated as “knew” means “to ascertain by seeing”. This is truly complex because men are usually visual types of people, they like to see. Women are not normally visual people and they do not want to see anything generally speaking. There is a widely used term for natural sex that is called “carnal knowledge” and this phrase is more suitable with the spiritual realm concept of obtaining word information that we can apply more correctly instead of thinking in human natural terms of having “intercourse”. We should be able to easily transfer God’s definition of natural sex as “knowling” into the spiritual New Birth process. We should be able to do this using our knowledge of the Parable of the Sower that we learned defines the process of order for any human to be spiritually born again. In this parable every soil (human heart) must receive “spiritual Word of God knowledge” from a teacher sowing the Lord God’s Word (Seed). This is not natural sex as many are thinking right now, is it? Of course not. However receiving spiritual seed (hearing words) is still a spiritual sex like act according God’s definition of the natural act. The human ability to “see spiritually” God’s Words causes us to conceive it.
However don’t forget there still exists an enemy to God’s created salvation process, who is trying to steal away the seed before or after being sown. The success or failure of the salvation seed sowing process is completely dependent upon the fact that some people value and choose to understand the Word of God and some people do not. This enemy’s method of causing some people not to understand is revealed more clearly in the New Testament scripture that says “the god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not” (2 Cor 4:4). You see spiritual blindness is the inability to see or literally understand spiritual things. If you recall in the parable of the sower, Satan came immediately to steal the Word of God that was sown in their heart and he was able to do this only because they did not understand it (Mat 13:19). Therefore, clear focused spiritual eyesight is one key to gaining spiritual knowledge and understanding. I could talk a lot more about that part of the subject, but I’m running long in this lesson. I do pray that you are following me on these points and beginning to understand how people are born again. Let me end this lesson with one more verse from Paul:
Gal 4:19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
So here we have another very difficult complex deep scripture to try to swim through. The apostle Paul is not a natural female yet he speaks in the terms of being a spiritual female. Can you see this? Only natural XX Chromosome females give birth, yes? According to what I have seen in the Bible God created only natural females to give birth. So what exactly is Paul talking about? Paul is saying, I have spread God’s seed into your hearts by teaching God’s Word to you, and now I am interceding for your continued thirst for more understanding to take root so that Christ can be formed in you, resulting in spiritual fruit that is viewable from the actions you live externally.
According to God through Paul what is the key to this spiritual birth happening? It was the spiritual ability of a human to see or to gain “spiritual knowledge” who heard the word of God that will determine whether they will conceive Christ and be born again. Paul can sow all of the seed he wants to, but none of it will grow unless the soil of the hearer allows it to stay by understanding what was said. You can easily see how that you can read verses in the Bible and totally miss what is said, can’t you? You can also see that there is an implied reality that Paul is a part of a spiritual woman, called the Bride of Christ. So the complexity of the Bible is so great that it causes many people to stumble. People will never see the spiritual truth of God’s Word trying to figure it out using only their natural minds.
What we can begin to see is that Paul’s (Saul) new birth conversion on the road to Damascus by Christ was not Christ’s.ending final work to bring Paul into full spiritual maturity, but was only the beginning of Saul’s Christian salvation growth experience. Like new born natural babies continue to grow through feeding, Paul was still responsibility to feed upon the Word of God through study to cause his own spirit to mature. Then using this gained knowledge he would become able to share it with others for getting more people born again by sowing the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. Getting more people Born Again by spreading the Incorruptible Seed, should become the goal of every Christian. This goal will result in the expansion of the new spiritual family of God in Christ. And the multiplication of Sowers spreading the Spiritual Seed of God by sowing His Incorruptible Seed into new soil.
Today’s lesson has been some of the basic Bible ideas of how natural people are born again using the laws and concepts surrounding Seeds in the Bible. I know I did not cover everything that I could have, I know I left out many verses that could have been included, but I did the best that I could in a limited time and space forum. God Bless you to see and to understand His Word! Thank you for your time in studying the Bible.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on seeds you can go to “Part 10“.
Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Satan in the Bible
(Ver 2.2) This is Part 2 in a series of reference documents about the multiple Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of named Spiritual Individuals in the Bible. This document will focus only on the subject verses of the enemy Satan found in the Bible. It is not designed to teach anything other than give you a place to search from to find references to Satan in the Bible. This is a living document of references and it will change and be updated as I am led to additional scriptures. A Name is a direct reference to the individual. A Title is a given direct identifying appellation signifying status or function. A Description is something that represents the individual in expressive words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a pattern of the spiritual individual not directly named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes the characteristics or features of a spiritual being that you cannot see or understand without first understanding the symbol. I will now give you the list of my references to Satan in the Bible and if you have others that I have not found yet, please share them with me in a comment.
|
Name, Title, Symbol, Type for Satan |
Description |
Scripture Reference |
| 666 | The Number of the Beast | Rev 13:18 |
| Abaddon | Destroying Angel – Jesus said the thief only came to steal, kill and destroy in John 10:10 | Rev 9:11 |
| Accuser of the Brethren | Legal Opponent in Court of Law – the devil is referred to as our adversary (court opponent) in 1 Peter 5:8 | Rev 12:10 |
| Adversary | The Opponent to the Church in a Lawsuit | 1 Peter 5:8 |
| Angel of Light | Impersonator, Actor, Stage Performer; Masquerader | 2 Cor 11:14 |
| Angel of the Bottomless Pit | Ruler of the Darkness | Rev 9:11 |
| Anointed cherub that coverth | The Winged Angelic Defender | Ezekiel 28:14 |
| Antichrist | Opponent of the Messiah | 1 John 4:3 |
| Appolyon | Greek Name of Hebrew Abaddon; Destroyer | Rev 9:11 |
| Baal | False God of the O.T. Type of Satan | Rom 11:4; |
| Balaam | False Teacher | Jude 1:11 |
| Bear | Kingdom of Satan Symbol | Rev 13:2 |
| Beast | Dangerous Animal; Venomous | Rev 14:9-10; Rev 16:10 |
| Beelzebub | Lord of the Flies; A god of Babylon | Mat 12:24, 27; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15, 18-19 |
| Belial | Worthless One | 2 Cor 6:15 |
| Bird, Hateful | Loveless | Rev 18:2 |
| Bird, Unclean | Foul, | Rev 18:2 |
| Blasphemer | Name of the One Who Vilifies God | Rev 13:1 |
| Cain | Murderer from the Beginning | Jude 1:11 |
| Chief of Demons | Prince of demonic gods | Luke 11:15 |
| Cherub | Winged Anointed of God | Ezekiel 28:14 |
| Cockatrice | The Viper | Isa 14:29, 59:5; |
| Deceiver | The One Who Deceives the entire world including Christians | Rev 12:9 |
| Devil | False Accuser; Slanderer a title and name of Satan identified to be the same individual in Revelation 12:9 | Mat 4:1-11, 9:33, 11:18, 12:22, 13:29, 15:22, 17:18, 25:41; Mk 5:15-18, 7:26-30; Luke 4:2-13, 4:33-35, 7:33, 8:12, 8:29, 9:42, 11:14; John 6:70, 7:20, 8:44-52, 10:20-21, 13:2; Acts 10:38 13:10; Eph 4:27, 6:11; 1 Ti 3:6-7; 2 Ti 2:26; Heb 2:14; James 4:7; 1Pet 5:8; 1 John 3:8-10; Jud 1:9; Rev 2:10, 12:9, 12:12, 20:2, 20:10; |
| Dragon | The Genesis 3:1 Serpent that has increased in power and strength | Rev 12:7-9 |
| Dragon, Great | Symbolic description of the Powerful Fabulous Serpent of Genesis 3:1 now having increased spiritual power and strength | Rev 12:9 |
| Edom | A Type of Satan, twin brother of Jacob, having characteristics hated by God | Eze 32:29; Joel 3:19; Mal 1:4; |
| Enemy | Adversary | Mat 13:39 |
| Esau | A Type Pattern of characteristics that the Lord Hates | Mal 1:2-3; Rom 9:13 |
| Evil One | Malicious; Wicked One | John 17:15 |
| False Light | The Opposite of the TRUTH of True Light Jesus. A description of the moon that makes not light of itself and can only reflect light from the sun who is Jesus Christ the Sun of Righteousness (Mal 4:2) | 1 John 2:8 |
| Father | A Male Parent that has sown “Seed” to produce children. In Satan’s case they are lies of deception that are being sown. | John 8:44; Acts 13:10 |
| Father of Lies | Fabricator & Distorter of the Truth, | John 8:44 |
| Fiery Flying Serpent | Satan | Isa 14:20, 30:6; |
| Fiery Serpent | Satan | Num 21:8; Deu 8:15 |
| Frog | Unclean Spirit | Rev 16:13 |
| Fox | Cunning Spirit | Luke 13:32 |
| Goat, He (devils) | Devils (Hebrew Word for He Goat) | Lev 17:7; 2 Chron 11:15 |
| God of this World | Ruler of the Darkness and Night of all that are asleep to hear the truth | 2 Cor 4:4 |
| Gog | Symbolic Name for the Anti-Christ | Rev 20:8; |
| Great Red Dragon | Original Genesis 3:1 Serpent but now of Increased Power and Strength | Rev 12:3 |
| Herod | A Type of Satan the Murdering King Ruler | Luke 13:31 |
| Judas | Judah The Betrayer of Messiah | John 6:70-71; John 13:2 |
| King of Babylon | A symbolic name for the Ruler of Jerusalem | Isaiah 14:4 |
| King of the Bottomless Pit | Ruler of the Darkness | Rev 9:11 |
| King of Tyrus | Ruler of the Rock | Eze 28:12 |
| Laban | A type of Satan as a Deceitful Man | Gen 31:7 |
| Leopard | Kingdom ruler by Satan Symbol | Rev 13:2 |
| Lesser Light | Moon who Rules the Night and Darkness | Gen 1:16 |
| Leviathan | Serpent Monster of Babylon | Isaiah 27:1 |
| Liar | Falsifier; Deceiver | John 8:44 |
| Lion | Kingdom of Satan Symbol | Rev 13:2 |
| Little Horn | Rising King | Daniel 8:9-11 |
| Lucifer | Bright and Morning Star | Isaiah 14:12-14 |
| Man of Sin | Man faced Trespasser | 2 Thes 2:3-4 |
| Moon | Ruler of the Night and Darkness | Psalm 136:9; Rev 12:1 |
| Murderer | Man Killer | John 8:44 |
| Oppressor | He Who Makes Sick | Acts 10:38 |
| Perdition | The Destroyer | 2 Thes 2:3; |
| Pharaoh | A Type of Satan as someone that rules Egypt a Type of the World | Eze 31:2-18; |
| Power of Darkness | Superhuman Ruler of the Night Kingdom | Col 1:13-14 |
| Prince of the Devils | Ruler of All Evil Spirits | Mat 9:34, 12:24; Mark 3:22 |
| Prince of the Kingdom of Persia | Type of Satan as the Ruler of the nation of Babylon | Daniel 10:13 |
| Prince of the Power of the Air | Ruler of the Authority of the atmosphere needed for the production of Spoken Words | Eph 2:1-2 |
| Prince of this World | Ruler of the Evil Darkness | John 12:31-32; John 14:30; John 16:11; 1 Cor 2:6-8; |
| Roaring Lion | Powerful Sounding King of the Beasts attempting to devour All Christians | 1 Peter 5:8 |
| Ruler of the Darkness | Moon who Rules the Night | Ephesians 6:12 |
| Satan | The Accuser, the Opponent; Adversary | 1 Chron 21:1; Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-7; Ps 109:6; Zec 1:3:1-2; Mat 4:10, 12:26, 16:23; Mark 1:13, 3:23-26, 4:15, 8:33; Luke 4:8, 10:18, 11:18, 13:16, 22:3, 22:31; Jo 13:27; Act 5:3, 26:18; Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 5:5, 7:5; 2 Cor 2:11, 11:14; 1 Thes 2:18; 2 Thes 2:9; 1Tim 1:20, 5:15; Rev 2:9, 2:13, 2:24, 3:9; 12:9, 20:2, 20:7; |
| Seducing Spirit | Imposter; Deceiver | 1 Tim 4:1 |
| Seraphim | The Fiery Serpent an Evil High Ranking Heavenly Angelic Ruler | Isa 6:2 |
| Serpent | Symbolic Name for Satan | Gen 3:1; Rev 12:15 |
| Serpent, Old | Symbolic Name for Satan; First Ruler of the earth | Rev 12:9; Rev 20:2 |
| Son of Perdition | Destruction’s Child | 2 Thes 2:3 |
| Son of the Morning | Satan a son of God’s First or Early Light | Isaiah 14:12-14 |
| Spirit, Foul | Perverted Spiritual Being | Rev 18:2 |
| Spirit, the | Satan a spiritual being | Ephesians 2:2 |
| Spirit, Unclean | Leprous Spiritual Being | Luke 9:42; Rev 16:13 |
| Star | Angel Cast Down to Earth | Rev 8:11; 9:1 |
| Star, Great | Angel Cast Down to Earth | Rev 8:10 |
| Star, Wandering | He Who Departs the Path | Jude 1:13 |
| Tempter | He Who Proves and Tests | Mat 4:3 |
| Thief | Robber; Burglar | Mat 24:43; Luke 12:39; John 10:10 |
| Viper | The serpent Satan | Isa 59:5; |
| Waster, the | He Who Destroys | Isaiah 54:16 |
| Wicked | Law Breaker; Evil Degenerate | 2 Thes 2:8; Eph 6:16 |
| Wormwood | Type of Bitterness | Rev 8:11 |
If you would like to references other documents in this series you may go to one of these:
Understanding the Concepts of Deception Used by Satan!
(ver 2.0) This is Part 2 of a series of Bible lessons on the subject of deception. If you have not read from the beginning, it is suggested that you begin with “Part 1” to begin your study. Let’s read one of the series foundational Bible verses to get us started. This verse reveals a great deal of information about our spiritual enemy, including his identities, and his tactics.
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Today will be a different type of Bible lesson from many others. As you can see from our Key Bible verse above, Satan is called the deceiver that is deceiving the entire whole world. That means, this statement includes Christians and non-Christians alike. Satan is an equal opportunity deceiver, and he shows no favoritism. He is interested in causing us to be deceived from believing and knowing the Truth of God by any means that he can. So, I’m going to introduce you to some new things to think about that God has taught me personally. You will hopefully see that these few things that I present you to think about could be a very effective tool of our enemy Satan. I do hope that you understand that God’s enemies are Christian enemies also. If Satan is an enemy of God, then he is our enemy here and now on the earth. Satan’s greatest weapon on the earth has always been the subtly of deception. But Jesus told us that if we continued in His word we would be His disciples and that we would know the truth and that the truth would set us free (John 8:31-32). That sounds like our freedom is dependent upon us continuing in the word, recognizing the truth, knowing the truth and then using this knowledge of God’s truth to set us free. If Satan can keep you from knowing the truth you will be forever bound by his deception. That is why he is trying diligently to do everything in his power to distract you and to keep you from knowing more about the Bible. In fact deception is one of his only weapons that he has to defeat you. If he can get you to think and believe wrong, he has accomplished his plan of deception, and you are now a party working in conjunction with him to deceive others in the world. There are false prophets, false teachers and false apostles in the world everywhere we look. The numbers of these false distributors of lies are so many today that it is becoming increasingly difficult for Christians to recognize all of the ways that Satan uses to deceive people. I will discuss just a couple of the ways that God has taught me over the years that Satan uses and I pray that you can see them also.
I am going to start with one method of deception which I feel is critical for all Christians to understand. This method of deception is to take a small but critical piece of the truth in the Bible and then to possess it or claim it is something that it is not. False teachers take bits of information out of context and then teach it in a false religion with new imbedded lies attached to it. For example, we can find the “Golden Rule” of the Bible found in almost every religion of the world in some alternative form. Because all of these other religions have attached themselves to this verse in the Bible, they have in essence diluted the true meaning as having come from God and they change it to fit what they prefer it to say. Most Christians just automatically discredit the teachings of Satanism and Cultic organizations. But, where did these false religious organizations get their information and why is it so important for them to claim it all as their own original ideas? Think about this a long time, where did all knowledge come from? Was it not our Almighty God who holds all knowledge? I think I should stop here and tell you that what I am saying I am saying to only mature Christians who have been in Christ for many years. I do not want you to think that it is OK to explore Satanism, or to go and study other religions looking for the truth. That would be very foolish to go to a source of predominately lies and try to determine which words are true and which ones are false. That is exactly what Satan wants you to do. What I am saying is study the Bible and ONLY the Bible and find the truth and then do not reject it because Satan has tried to pervert it. Do the sayings of Jesus from John 8:31-32. Continue in the Word was the first step of the command. That means you do not search history books, you do not search textbooks, you do not search other religions and you only stay with the BIBLE for your total and complete source of the truth!
I am not convinced that Satan has ever had a completely original idea in anything that he does or says on the earth. It would appear to me that Satan takes what God does and perverts into something useful for his purpose of deception. You must realize that Satan is a highly intelligent being that can run spiritual circles around what you know right now. Satan has been in the presence of God and seen what He does firsthand, have you ever stood before the throne of God? I doubt seriously if you have. Satan has been deceiving man for the last 6000 years, how old are you? Does your experiences match Satan’s experiences? I say Satan has had a lot more practice at deceiving people than you have had at resisting him. What Satan likes to do is take little key principles from the Word of God and to pervert them so that many Christians will automatically reject them because they are taught as a part of a cult lesson. Do you understand how powerful this is? By taking a truth and by discrediting it, he can now cause many people to more easily reject that truth and be deceived into believing a lie. This is a common political tactic used in our political system. A candidate for office simply discredits his opponent with some perverted mixture of truth with lies. By discrediting them they make themselves to be a more positive answer for the people. I usually do not like to name names but I will give you an example of this type of behavior of Satan. I was told by a reader that a small part of what I teach is a concept that is embraced by the Mormons and used to promote evolution. Since the Mormon religion is a false cultic teaching, does that make everything that they teach a lie? If I do not teach evolution using this same concept does that make what I say a lie? No, what I say is not a lie, but it has been discredited by a cult taking it and perverting into their lies. Does what they teach discredit everything that I say using the Bible? Again, I am not telling you to go read the Book of Mormon and try to figure out what is true and what is false. That is clearly a ploy of the enemy. The book of Mormon is promoted as ANOTHER Testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ given to a false prophet and written down so that you will not read the REAL Testimony of Jesus Christ. Jesus actually warned us not to read things that people ADD to the bible. Jesus clearly told us not to take away any words or to add any words to those that have been written in the Bible (Rev 22:19). The enemy has produced this book of Mormon simply as a tool to get you to not read the TRUE Word of God and His Holy Book of Truth. As long as Satan can distract you with the false you are never going to recognize the Truth. But, if the Mormons try to teach something that is a part of the truth just to discredit the truth; that does not mean the truth is not present in the Bible.
So let me give you another example of something that I may teach that is perverted by a satanic symbol. A common satanic symbol is a five-pointed star with a symbol of a male goat with horns on it. Why did Satan choose this symbol to pervert it? What is the significance of this symbol and the meaning of this symbol? Why did Satan pick a goat to pervert it? Now anything in the Bible that God uses for the symbol of the goat is tainted with this perverted image. Because the goat and the 5 pointed star symbols are used for a direct reference to Satan, anything that the Bible now attempts to use them for are more easily rejected by Christians. If someone suddenly came to you with a new revelation of what God said a “star” represents; you will more than likely retract from it. Now, if anyone comes to you with a revelation of what a goat is a symbol of in the Bible, you will automatically throw it aside. This is typical human nature to throw away even the good because someone used it for evil. It is an automatic death sentence for any symbolic object that Satan has used to describe himself. This death occurs by the simple association of any truth by associating with the lies or symbols for Satan. All Satan has to do is to get someone in the world to take a Bible symbol and to pervert it into a symbol for Satan and every Christian will automatically run very fast away from it.
The Bible informs us that Satan presents himself as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14). Why would Satan then try to present himself with strong demonic images of himself being a very evil being with a pitch fork, horns and a pointed tail? It is because when he shows up looking like a glorious spectacular supernatural being or even as a normal looking person, he will be able to trick you into believing his lies. After all you are looking for an evil ugly being and not a handsome good looking fellow. It is the classic bait and switch approach to advertising; you present one image and then you switch out another new image that is completely different and try to get people to be a sucker for something they didn’t expect to get. This is a very prominent ploy used in deception. Make people think this is true and then present them with a set of lies that are believable. Satan used people like David Koresh and Jim Jones to deceive people. They looked normal, they sounded normal and presented some very subtle words of deception. As a result, many people died because these men decided it was time to die. Understanding how your enemy Satan operates may save your life someday.
I’ll end this blog with one more example of deception. If you did not know it, the Ram is a Bible symbol for God the Father. However, Satan uses this symbol for himself. Satan is attempting to exalt his throne to the equivalency of that of God’s throne. Satan is trying to deceive people into believing that he is god. When the anti-Christ comes in Revelation he will be setting himself up to be this most high god. So where is God a Ram in the Bible? We can find this several places in the Bible but we will start with Genesis 22:
Gen 22:13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
When Isaac asked his father Abraham “Where is the animal for the sacrifice?” Abraham replied, “God will provide Himself as the lamb”. Jesus is repeatedly called the Lamb of God in the N.T. This is a symbolic name for Jesus Christ our sacrifice Lamb. Who is the father of a Lamb? A Ram is the father of a Lamb! As you can see in this verse in Genesis 22, instead of Abraham sacrificing Isaac God provided a Ram. This Ram was a symbol of Himself being the sacrifice. Abraham sacrifices the Ram a symbol of God coming to the earth in the flesh to pay the price for the sins of all mankind with His blood. So God’s symbol is that of a Ram and Satan now produces this symbol to represent himself. What is Satan trying to do? He is trying to discredit the truth of the Bible. He is taking a real symbol found in the Bible and trying to present you a false symbol. This is a classic ploy of deception. Take the real and pervert it.
So this blog was different, I know! It was an attempt to challenge you to think. Use your brain for something more than a place holder of useless information. Take the real and reject the fakes, the false, and the lies of the enemy. God Bless you to know the difference!
If you would like to continue reading about deception you can continue to “Part 3“.
****************************************************************
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 Seeds in the Bible! The Kingdom of God is Like a Man that Sowed Good Seed! Part 5
(Ver 1.2) This is now part 5 of a series of lessons on seeds in the Bible. Hopefully if you have been reading this series you have started to understand the importance of knowing and fully understanding this subject. Jesus seemed to indicate that this subject was the key to understanding every other subject in the Bible. God has designed and implemented a wide variety of natural objects and laws as views into the spiritual realm that we do not know very much about. The natural laws concerning “seeds” are just one prime example of this revelation. God believes that you can plant just a single seed and expect a vast harvest. God planted the man Jesus Christ as a seed and He has been waiting for all of the fruit of this sown seed for the last 2000 years. Since I can not fully explain everything or repeat everything that is said in every blog, I would strongly suggest that you go back and and start reading with “Part 1” if you have not read from the start.
In the last lesson we discussed that Jesus was a seed. As you may also recall I also implied in a previous lesson that Adam was a seed. However, Adam was a natural seed and Jesus the Last Adam was a spiritual seed. In Genesis 1, God spoke to Adam and told him to be “fruitful” and to “multiply”. These are seed concepts that we have already discussed in some level of detail. Fruit comes from seeds and the fruit has the seeds to produce more fruit. This is the natural law of multiplication. Most seeds that you plant in the ground always produce multiple or multiplied new seeds. If you plant a seed of corn in the ground it will grow a new plant that can have anywhere from one to eight new ears of corn on it. Each ear of corn can contain anywhere from 200 to 400 new seeds. So doing simple math, we can say one kernel of corn seed is potentially multiplied into as many as (8 x 400=3200) new seeds. If you take these 3200 new seeds and plant them; potentially you get 3200 x 3200 new seeds that is more than multiplied growth, it is now becoming exponential growth. This represents the power of a single seed in the Bible. It only takes one seed to have potential explosive growth. God started with just one man named Jesus and this has resulted in a very large number of believers today. This is exactly why Jesus could say the Kingdom of God is like a man that plants a seed.
Today I want to explore some new concepts of seeds in the Bible using another parable that Jesus taught us. In this parable the Kingdom of Heaven is again being spoken of and a man is again planting seeds into the ground. It seems that Jesus used this seed analogy repeatedly to try to teach us new spiritual things. So let’s see what Jesus is saying now:
Mat 13:24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
So while Jesus is declaring another parable about a very similar subject, He is at the same time giving us additional information about the spiritual laws of seeds. In the last parable, Jesus qualified the noun seed with the adjective “mustard” meaning he limited the scope to a specific type of seed. In Matthew 13:24 Jesus does the exact same thing, but this time says this is “good” seed. With the addition of a simple adjective of “good” Jesus teaches us that there are also “bad” or “evil” seeds in the world. In my front yard I sometimes call these weeds, because these can be thorns and thistles and they are never anything that I planted. What we immediately conclude is that not every seed is “good”. Remember what God said was the “good” seed. Jesus taught us in the parable of the Sower that the seed was the “Word of God”. Obviously the Word of God is the Good Seed that potentially produced the Good Fruit. So what is “bad” or “evil” seed? I think we are about to find out:
Mat 13:25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
It is important to note that God’s good seed is planted to produce “wheat”. Wheat is a very specific crop with a very specific purpose. It is critical for you to see if God would have wanted corn, He would have planted corn, if God would have wanted potatoes, God would have planted potatoes. What we learn is that God’s seed is specifically designed to produce a very specific crop for a very specific purpose. Wheat is normally ground up and we create flour with it and this is the key component to making bread. It is interesting Jesus talked about He was the bread of life. We can clearly see an association between Jesus the grain of wheat seed being sown to produce the future bread. After Jesus arose, the explosion of the Word of God grew very significantly. This growth was in both the new written words of the New Testament and the increased understanding of the Old Testament.
Many will try to interpret this parable and say things that it does not say. According to the Bible, God does not sleep or slumber, yet Jesus as a physical man certainly slept. However, now we are not talking about just God anymore. We must recall what the soil represented in the Parable of the Sower. The soil represented people in the world. Now that changes everything. People do sleep both physically and spiritually. Natural sleep is a pattern for spiritual sleep. We all normally sleep at night and work during the day. These are symbols and typology for the hearts of man also. Those in the night are those in darkness and they are spiritually asleep. God has given to us the “Good Seed”, the True Word, but yet God is not here personally to give it out and teach it to us in the flesh anymore. So this is a parable about the good seed creating the new spiritual Kingdom of God. Where exactly is the Kingdom of God located? Many will try to say it is in heaven, but this is not what Jesus taught. If you read in Luke 17:21, Jesus told us that the Kingdom of God is now “within us”. We therefore know that this Kingdom of God is within our spirits, right here and right now. So what do you call those that have the Kingdom of God in them right now? You call them Christians, those that are in the light! The opposite to those in the light are those who are in the darkness. These are those who spiritually sleep and slumber. These are the men who slept that Jesus is talking about in this parable. God didn’t begin to give us the Bible (good seed) for over 2000 years of human history. The Bible has grown over the next 2000 years from a few books into our current 66 books of the KJV Old and New Testaments. This is another example of the multiplication of seed. While men were in the darkness and spiritually asleep, Satan came and sowed tares. We clearly see that the tares came from a false, bad, evil set of words being spoken. You can call them lies, falsehoods, deceptive words, deceits, fabrications and you can even call them “leaven” even though we have not really discussed what symbolic “leaven” is yet. Leaven is something you mix with wheat and it changes the bread makeup. This is a spiritual principle that Jesus taught us to beware the Leaven of the Pharisees. The Pharisees would constantly take the word of God and add their own rules and words on top of the true words. Thus they diluted the truth with lies. I hope that you do understand who this enemy of God is? It is certainly Satan who has sown the seeds of the tares. Satan is a spiritual being created by God who was found to have sin in him. As we have learned that field represents the hearts of man. So we have seen that an enemy has come and planted “bad” seeds into the hearts of people in the world today.
Mat 13:26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
What we have clearly learned from what Jesus taught us is that God has enemies. Spiritual forces that manipulate and deceive people into believing things that are not from God. God has given to us the “Good Seed” and this implies that Satan has sown “Evil Seed”. That means that not everything that comes along being taught is what God said. We can clearly see that false religions in the world are a trick of the enemy to distract and deceive you. We can also understand that false teachers will also come along and try to deceive you with enticing words.
All of this is just the practice of people teaching right or wrong things. The sowers are the teachers in the world today and the seeds are the words spoken. It is very rare that any man on earth teaches the pure Bible concepts without tares. Why is this? It is primarily because no man knows the entire Bible and everything that is in it and everything that it means. There is no man on the planet that is God who knows everything. So therefore, we must all become tolerant of each other’s ignorance and strive to come up higher and learn the truth. We are all on the paths of learning, or at least we should be on these paths. If you are not still learning new things then you are stagnating in a cesspool of ignorance. God tells us all to “Get more knowledge, but with all of your getting, get also understanding”. Jesus taught us to “continue” in the Word. To continue is an ongoing process, a never ending state of learning. Only by continuing, Jesus said you could be called His disciples and only then would you actually know the truth and be set free.
This parable continues to discuss many things concerning the Kingdom of God. God tells us that the seeds of the Kingdom will continue to grow with the tares of the enemy as long as it is not time to harvest. God tells us, if he would have torn out the tares, he could have taken out some of the wheat because the roots can be entangled with each other. However, there is coming a harvest time and I believe it is very near. It would appear to me that those in the darkness are growing stronger in their evil ways. The evil in the world is running rampant and unless God does something soon this will not be a good place to be.
Seed concepts are critical to understand for every Christian. I believe that if you grow spiritually you will be able to know the times and the seasons and be able to recognize the times of the impending harvest.
If you would like to continue reading this series you can go to “Part 6“.
Mine Eyes Have Seen the End to All Perfection!
The Bible says some really strange things. Sometimes I read them and just scratch my head. What do they all mean? Today I am going to teach on one of these concepts that made me think a lot. Often times I have heard many people claim that God is perfect and that when God created our world, God made it perfect originally in the beginning. Both of these are very broad statements with potential conflicts. In your mind, can you come up with a definition to what “perfect” is? Is there anything in our world that qualifies as being perfect? According to the laws of thermodynamics, everything in our world is in a state of decay. Meaning you can build a brand new car today and just put it up on blocks and park it for 50 years and it will be in a complete state of disrepair and aging with yet still zero miles on the odometer. You leave it parked long enough it will become rust and dust. So can you think of anything in our current world that qualifies as perfect? How would you define “perfect”? To me something that is made perfect is something that is incapable of failing.
So if you have ever read my blogs, you know I’m not perfect. If I could become better in any areas, it would be my typing and proof reading abilities. I constantly go back and reread my blogs looking for typing mistakes and for places that I missed it. The other day I wrote a blog about spiritual power and thought I said one thing. But, since I left out one word “NOT” it changed it completely to say something that I didn’t want it say. So if you ever read my posts, especially those that subscribe by email, sometimes the current version on the web has been updated, corrected, improved and hopefully made easier to understand. Why is that? Simply because, I’m not perfect! However, at times it totally amazes me that God uses imperfect people to try to help others. I would guess technically speaking that God has no other choices, we are all just imperfect people on this planet.
Psa 119:96 I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad.
Did you know that if God is making a New Heaven and a New Earth, then there is at the very least some major flaws implied with the Old Heaven and the Old Earth? Have you read in Revelation about these new spiritual and physical places? Have you ever wondered why it was necessary for God to do this? I certainly have. This verse in Psalms 119:96 are the Words of God Almighty written to us. God declares that He has seen the end to all “perfection”. The Hebrew word “perfection” here means “completeness”. Have you ever thought about the fact that if God creates a new heaven and a new earth, what is wrong with these old places? Can’t God ever create anything perfect and incapable of failing? God created Lucifer and he failed. God created Adam and he failed. What is the deal? These are very difficult questions to come up with any good answers for. But, it would seem to me that in order for God to give His creation choices and free will, it would require that they are not created originally to be perfect. When God created our world in Genesis 1, I never see where God said anything was perfect. God said it was good and then very good, but that is a far cry from “perfect”.
Perhaps you have some ideas on this subject and I would be very pleased if you would share them with me. Today’s lesson is just a short thought provoking exercise into causing you to think about things in a new perspective. If God is “Perfect” and this verse in Psalms says “ALL” perfection will end, does that include God Himself? Now that is a very difficult question to answer also. But, as I think about Jesus coming to the earth as God in the flesh, I think that the Bible tells us that He was tempted in every manner as we are, yet without sin. The Bible tells us that God took on sinful flesh, to defeat sin and the consequences of sin. So if God was here on earth in a perfect form of His deity power it would have been impossible to tempt Jesus and it would have been impossible for Jesus to fail. It would have also been impossible for you to kill Jesus on a cross. I believe that Jesus in the form of flesh, was not perfect in the sense that God in heaven was perfect and incapable of failing. But, that is just what I have read in the Bible and I don’t know everything. Maybe you can come up with a better explanation of why God says “All” perfection will end. God bless you as you abide in the Word of God.
Understanding God’s Spiritual Power and the Power of Spirits!
(Ver 1.1) Today is the next lesson, “Part 9” in the series on understanding the Bible subject of spoken words. If you have not read this series from the beginning you should go and start reading with “Part 1“. Most Christians possess the belief that God is omnipotent. “Omnipotent is a theological term that is technically not found in the English translation of the KJV Bible. However the word “Almighty” (H7706, G3841) is found in the KJV Bible and it means “omnipotent. The word “Almighty” appears some 57 times in the KJV Bible with only 10 occurrences appearing in the New Testament and 9 of these are found in the book of Revelation. It appears to me that God emphasized His power and ability more directly in the Old Testament and has given the subject less emphasis in the New Testament based upon His word selection and distribution. The 9 instances of “Almighty” in Revelation seem to be related with God’s sovereign ability to execute judgment. Judgment is not a predominate theme of the New Testament except when you come to the book of Revelation. I did not say that you cannot find judgment in the N.T., I just said it was not the dominate theme of the church age. If you recall when Jesus was walking the earth, people brought a woman to Jesus who was caught in the act of adultery and Jesus’ response should have been that of a judge according to the law; however Jesus was mercy driven with compassion and told those who were without sin, to cast the first stone. However, did you ever think that the only one without sin in this group was Jesus and that He should have been the first one to cast the first stone, but did not? The mercy of God is a much greater predominate theme in the N.T. than the judgment of God. But that is another different subject to discuss at another time. Today we are talking about the subject of spiritual power and the power of spirits. Let’s look at the “Power” of God first. Does God have ALL Power?
2Co 6:18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
The Greek word G3841 translated as “Almighty” is a word meaning “all powerful” or “omnipotent”. God has the power, strength and ability to do anything. The power of God is massively demonstrated throughout the Old Testament. From the creation account in Genesis 1 all the way to the flood of Noah, to the scattering of people at the tower of Babel, to the demonstration of power before Pharaoh in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, to the miracles in the wilderness. There are just too many examples found in the Bible to list them all. So we can easily understand that God has great and awesome power. But, does God hold “ALL” power? That was my question originally. Meaning ONLY God has any power? A lot of religious people think in these terms and miss what the Bible says on the subject.
Let me introduce you to a new concept and another term used to describe nature and character of God other than as the “Almighty”. This new term that I will show you is used in the KJV Bible approximately 48 times; again 38 times in the Old Testament and only 10 times in the New Testament. This term or name of God reveals Him to be the “Most High God”.
Gen 14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.
Reading this verse we can clearly see that God is described as being “Supreme”. Meaning among spirits there is none greater or more powerful than He is. God is at the top of the spiritual food chain, proverbially speaking. What do we learn from reading this verse? If there is a “Most High God”, then there are other gods that are below him in rank, power and ability. That statement might get some people upset at me, but yet I’m just reading the Bible and seeing what is written there. Can you understand what was said by God? You do understand that the author of the Bible does not need to qualify the name “God” with the adjective modifier of “Most High” if there are no other gods that exist? It only takes limited basic logic and very simple reasoning to see what God says in this verse. Of course some will try to say that God is the only “True God” and all of the others are just false imaginary gods. However, the title “True God” is also found in the Bible and it is a different Hebrew word than “Most High”:
Jer 10:10 But the LORD is the true God he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.
We can clearly see that the LORD is called the “True God”. So we can automatically conclude that there are also false imaginary gods that also exist. But this verse also claims God is the “Living God” meaning these false imaginary gods are only defined as those that are dead or have no life in them. A false god would be like when people in the world worship idols, the objects made by the hands of man. These idols are “false and dead gods” and they have no power on the earth whatsoever. Another example of a false god would be like those found in mythology. False, gods like Atlas, Hermes, Mercury and etc. These are gods made up in the minds of men that do not have any basis for existence. So what we have learned is that there are several different types of gods in the world. We created the following list diagram explaining what we have just learned with our God on left and others mentioned or implied on the right.
| Biblical Title of God | Antonym Opposite |
| Almighty God | Limited god |
| True God | False god |
| Living God | Dead god |
| Most High God | Lesser god |
So what is my point? Where am I going with all of this? What I want you to see and learn is there are other gods in the world other than our Almighty God. I am not talking about Greek mythology or Roman mythology or any other kind of imaginary, fictitious of mythological deity powers. What I am about to show you are created spiritual beings in the Bible that God has called other types of “gods”. You can clearly see these gods exist by the implications that we have just read in the Bible from the names given to us by our God. Here is a N.T. verse that you should be aware of, but I’ll remind you of it:
2Co 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
So who blinded the minds of all those that believe not in this world? This verse is not speaking of humans since they are the ones that have their minds blinded. No this verse is speaking of another spiritual power that exists in the world. This spiritual power is Satan and he is called the “god of this world”. This Greek word translated as “god” in this verse means “deity”. It can also mean “supreme”. This word occurs over 1000 times in the N.T. and is most often used for references to our God. For example in Matthew 1:23 where Jesus is described as “Emanuel” translated as “God” with us it contains the same Greek word. However, in 2 Cor 4:4 we have a new mystery being stated using the same Greek word in reference to Satan. Who gave Satan this title? Or did he steal it from someone? If Satan is called a god by the Most High God, do you accept it? In other words is God a liar? You see that is the problem with many Christians, they do not know that Satan exists and who he is. So if Satan is a god, what type of god would he be? He is not the “Most High”, nor is he the “Almighty God”. I cannot call him the “True God” either. He is certainly alive so he might fall into the living god category. It really depends upon your definition of death. Satan is not a physical being so he cannot die naturally. If you do not know it, you cannot kill a spiritual being or cause them to cease to exist. But, yet the Bible does talk about a “spiritual death” which can be defined as a separation from God. I believe that Satan is now and has been separated from God ever since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that if Satan would have known what was going to happen to himself, he would not have crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Cor 2:8).
Is Satan a lesser god than the Almighty God, I believe he is definitely on a lower spiritual plane than God Almighty. Satan is not omnipotent, and he is not omniscient, and neither is he omnipresent. So Satan qualifies as both a “lesser god” and a “limited god”. So the question arises does this god Satan have any power? I had one reader tell me that he didn’t think anyone could create anything other than the Most High God. God is the only being that has the power of creation. I’m not sure if I agree with that statement totally. Where in the Bible does it say that only God can create anything? If you know of a Bible verse like that I would be very pleased if you would share it with me. Also, please do not assume that I am saying anything that I have not said. God Almighty is the creator of everything that we see around us in our world. But, many people think that Satan has no power to do anything and that is just not what the Bible says. At least 3 times in Revelation the beast, the false prophet and Satan are stated as having done “miracles” (Rev 13:14, Rev 16:14, Rev 19,20). A miracle is defined as a “supernatural” sign and wonder. That tells me that Satan has significant abilities that he has not fully demonstrated to us. That tells me that Satan is not powerless. I learned a lot from what Jesus taught about Satan:
Luk 10:19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the pwer of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Apparently Jesus did not think that Satan had no power either. There are two words in this verse, both translated as “power” but they are dramatically different Greek words. The first word translated as “power” (G1849) was spoken to us (the church) and it means spiritual “Authority”. Jesus gave the Church legal jurisdiction over Satan (serpent) and the rest of his demons (scorpions). The second word (G1411) translated as “power” is in direct reference to a symbolic serpent and some symbolic scorpions. These are the symbolic representations for the enemy of the church called Satan and his demons. This word for “power” means “miraculous power” or the “ability to do supernatural miracles”. So what is a miracle? A miracle would be anything that occurs that is not of the ordinary course of nature. If you scrape your leg and it bleeds, it will heal in the ordinary course of time and nature. However, if you lost your leg in a motorcycle accident and it grew back from a stump that is a miracle. So according to Jesus, Satan is capable of doing supernatural miracles. So do you understand that a spiritual being like Satan has a miracle working type of power? Jesus told us in John 10:10 that the thief came not but for to kill steal and to destroy. The thief is again a reference to “Satan”. To have power to kill and destroy something is the opposite power of giving life and creating new things. So does Satan have spiritual power and ability to do something supernatural in our world? I believe that the Bible says that he does. God’s word at the very least implies that Satan has great power in the spiritual realm. However, He is still well under the level of the Most High God in power and ability.
Then there are other references in the Bible that says people are gods. Jesus looked at the Jews in John 10:34 and said “is it not written in your law that I said ye are gods”? Jesus was quoting a scripture verse written in the O.T. in Psalm 82:6 where God told them they were gods. People in the church today struggle with believing that concept. Does man have the power and ability to do things in the spiritual realm or are we just limited to the natural realm? We understand from Genesis 1:26, that man was created in the image and in the likeness of the Most High God. If we were created to be like God Almighty that would mean that we had the similar features and characteristics that God had. If God had all power, we must have been created with the likeness of this power on a lower scale. You might call us gods of a lesser power. Here is another verse found in Psalms that speaks about the creation of man:
Psa 8:5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
As you can see, this verse places man in certain spiritual rank and position of ability. However, the translators really dis a very poor job with this verse ignoring what the original Hebrew language said. The translators did not believe that man had any spiritual significance. You see the Hebrew word (H430) translated as “angels” in this verse is the Hebrew name for God called “Elohiym”. This is the name of the Supreme God used in the O.T. Bible over 2000 times, and it is translated as “God” the majority of the time. What we discover from reading this verse, is that man (Adam) was created to be a little lower than the Supreme Most High God. That does not sound like anyone with No power or ability.
We are children of the Most High but not of the same ability to create worlds, planets and universes. One of our greatest weaknesses is that we lack the knowledge. While knowledge has increased rapidly in these last days that we live in, the ability of man to create real life in a test tube has not even come close to God’s knowledge. Man can create robots and simulated life but, we are not God and cannot create a human body. So man has creative power in a very limited form. Man can write new songs, books and create new movies. While all of these acts demonstrate God’s ability in us, we are still not anywhere close to God’s ability. We are lords, gods, and kings; we recognize our position but do not exalt ourselves above that position. We recognize that we have power, but note the fact that we are NOT all powerful. We can see ourselves as being so valuable to God that He came to purchase us with His own life and blood. We can therefore know that we are not worthless, we are not powerless and that we have great value to God. Knowing who you are and who you are not is very critical to knowing God. Recognizing your correct position in the spiritual food chain is critical for you to know your purpose in life. To know that you are not a nobody, while you recognize that you are also not the Most High.
So who knows how many religious people I have offended by telling the truth. If you are offended I’m sorry, but get over it and learn. We have learned from the words of God in the Bible that there are other spiritual beings in the Bible that are called gods. These spiritual beings have some power or limited power below the scale of the Most High God who holds Supreme Power. But, what is power? How does God define power in the Bible? To our natural minds power is simply someone’s strength and ability to use it. Naturally speaking the bigger your muscles are the stronger you are in this realm and this feature makes others think of you as being more powerful. Take the example of Olympic weight lifting. The strongest man can lift the greatest weight over his head. The winner is the one that lifts the most. That feat makes him the strongest man of the strong. That was a sports analogy of power. But, this is not what God says is power in the spiritual realm. What gives a spiritual being power?
Heb 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
You can read this verse and totally miss what God is saying. In this verse, God is informing us that His Word is His Power. The Word of God = the Power of God. Many modern Bible translations mix the words up in this verse and translate it as God’s “powerful word” or “mighty word”. However, if that is what God wanted to say he would have written it that way. God is not stupid; people are just ignorant and come up with these incorrect translations. The “Word” of His “Power” is exactly what God wanted you to see. This informs us that ALL of God’s power is in His Word. If you translate it the wrong way it only says God word has some of His power and this means that there is other power somewhere else not in His word. So if God’s Words are His Power, what are words? Words are thoughts, ideas, knowledge, understanding and wisdom expressed in a spoken language. I hope that you understand these basic concepts. To say that God is the Most High God would inform us that God holds ultimate knowledge, understanding and wisdom above all other spiritual creatures.
In the book of Revelation, Jesus is described 5 times as a being with a “sharp two-edged sword” coming out of his mouth (Rev 1:16, Rev 2:12, Rev 2:16, Rev 19:15, Rev 19:21). In Bible days when this was written, the sword was the weapon of war and wielded much power and strength by the one that was using it. It would be like someone with an AK-47 rifle today. These verses found in Revelation again confirm and demonstrate the location of the “Power” of God as being in His mouth and His spoken words. In Revelation 19:15 Jesus uses this sword to smite the nations that oppose him. In a recent news article I heard about a group of militia in some state that was arming themselves to help God fight the coming anti-Christ. I just laughed at their ignorance. Your little AR-15 will be no match for the Sword of God. What we have discovered is that God’s word is where His power is located and we can clearly understand this by reading Genesis 1 to observe how the world was created. In Genesis 1, God saw a problem, God said the solution and then the solution was. It is just very basic to conclude that it was the act of God speaking that released God’s power to create. I hope that you understand those concepts because I am not going to explain them in more depth today. Let’s move on to see what God says about this power in other verses in the Bible:
Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Now we learn some new concepts. The sword of God’s mouth is not all of the swords that exist in the spiritual realm. If God’s sword is more powerful and sharper than all the rest, that makes God’s Sword the Sword Almighty, and the Most High Sword. But, do you see that there is more than one sword in the world? That is telling us that Satan has a sword coming out of his mouth, you have a sword coming out of your mouth and I have a sword coming out of my mouth. That implies power of a lesser or limited capacity. These are all just simple concepts, derived from reading the Bible. If you recall in Isaiah 14:13 Satan uses the sword of his mouth to say the following “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit…” and on I could go. Satan was wielding his power and making great plans to raise himself up to the Most High level.
But, God wielded His sword and said “Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit”. Whose sword is sharper? Whose sword is greater? Whose sword will prevail in the end? These are valuable lessons for your life. Humble yourself and do not allow pride to exalt your own power, ability or knowledge to cause you to think that you can also be like the Most High.
If you would like to continue reading about the power of words you can go to “Part 10“.
Understanding Seeds in the Bible! The Parable of the Sower! Part 3
(Ver 1.4) 
This is a very advanced set of Bible lessons about the concepts, laws and information found in the Bible about “seeds”. As we study this subject we discover how these principles apply both to the natural realm as well as the spiritual realm. This is now Part 3 of the series and if you have not read from the beginning, I would suggest that you go and start your reading with “Part 1”. We have already covered a lot of information found in the Bible, some of which you may have heard before, but certainly a lot that is new to you. Studying the Bible on any subject is very difficult. Because God has chosen to hide information, and finding every reference to a subject is very challenging. To study the subject of “Seeds” we really need to search the Bible for every verse with that word in it and determine what it is saying. Since there is more than one thing in the Bible called by the name “seed” we must learn what each one is and determine if they are related to any other. But, that is not all of the verses on the subject. What we must realize is that there are related subjects that go along with it, such as soil, earth, rain, water, light, warmth, planting, sowing, fruit and on and on I could go. Then what about enemies to seeds, such as birds, insects, weeds, drought, rocks, heat, cold, floods and again on and on I could go. There are a vast number of dependent subjects that you should learn to see how they apply to what we learn about “seeds”. I am trying to demonstrate how complicated studying the Bible can be and why so many people do not know what the Bible actually says. In order to study the Bible correctly, you must dig and research the subject as thoroughly as possible. This also involves you doing a significant amount of work to find what God has hidden for you.
Today I am going to continue teaching on “seeds” in the Bible with a new perspective that is certainly very important to know. Jesus taught us many things when He was here physically on the earth. However, He placed an extraordinary emphasis on a certain subject as being a key to understanding all the other subjects found in the Bible. Jesus said that this one concept that He taught was more important to understand than any of the others found in the Bible. This critical subject was based upon “Seeds”. You can find this teaching in three books of the Gospel; in Luke 8, Matthew 13 and Mark 4. Let’s start our lesson by reading Mark 4:26:
Mar 4:26 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;
Apparently the lesson is about the Kingdom of God, so right off of the bat we know it is of great importance. We also understand it is a spiritual Kingdom and not a physical or natural kingdom. At least I hope you understand these types of Bible basics. What does God tell us the Kingdom of God is like? God clearly says it is like a man who plants seeds into the ground. Jesus is teaching using the format of a parable that contains natural things that we can see, to help explain spiritual things that we cannot see. Then consider this, is Jesus a man? Is Jesus THE man that this parable is referring to? I think back and believe that when Jesus was on the earth, He was exactly this man. Since Jesus has returned to heaven, it gets more complicated. Jesus is still the man, but since He is not here physically anymore, He uses people like me who are here on the planet. So while I’m not God, I am a tool used by God. What I want you to see, is that God still uses people today to reach people. Now let’s go back to Mark 4:3 and discover the key Seed lesson that Jesus wants you to see:
Mar 4:3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
Jesus informs us that a sower went out to sow. When you sow, you are doing what? Of course you are planting seeds in a field or a garden. Sowing involves a spreading of seeds into the ground. So Jesus is discussing a farming lesson. I want to jump down to the explanation of the parable and interject the important stuff that we need to see while we are studying the actual parable about seeds. Here is what Jesus says about this parable being a key to understanding all the others:
Mar 4:13 And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?
It would appear to me that if you can understand this parable, then you are at the crossroads of understanding every parable that Jesus taught. This has some vast implications attached to it, so pay close attention. So here is Jesus’ explanation of what the sower is and what the seed is:
Mar 4:14 The sower soweth the word.
Now Jesus begins to let us in on the secret, the sower is planting words. Not just any words, though these are the Words of God according Luke 8:11. However, we can also understand the concept that any words spoken can become seeds. The problem is that many of these words are lies and half-truths and thus plant wrong things. Only God’s Word is Absolute Truth. What we have discovered is that words are seeds. We can also say seeds are words. We can also see that a sower is anyone that opens his or her mouth and speaks words. How do the Genesis seed laws apply to words? We have clearly learned that seeds always produce after their kind. What is the Word of God a kind of? What kind does the Word of God produce? We have also learned that seeds are always in itself. Now let’s examine some more of the parable:
Mar 4:4 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.
What Jesus does is give us some new related topics about the planting of these seed words. However, Jesus starts to shift the focus off of the sower and the seed and they are not technically mentioned after the beginning. Jesus begins to describe the types of soil or ground that are being planted in. Jesus also starts to reveal that the soil, the seed and the sower all have enemies. The fowls of the air come to devour the seed and thus render them harmless, non-productive or ineffective. Since the parable involves symbolic natural representations, we know that the birds of the air represent spiritual beings that we cannot see or perceive with our natural senses. So let’s examine the explanation of Jesus for these new symbolic factors given to us:
Mar 4:15 And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.
Jesus informs us that the soil is representative type of the hearts of people. The human heart is not the physical blood pump organ. The human heart in the Bible is their spirits. Jesus also says that Satan is the enemy that is trying to steal the words of God from our hearts. Ephesians 2:2 calls Satan the prince of the power of the air. The earth’s atomosphere is the current domain of Satan. This verse says that Satan comes immediately to steal the seed from us and that would be really bad news, if Satan could just take the word sown at will. However, by reading in Matthew we learn some additional details on this subject.
Mat 13:19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
This is why it is important to read every occurence of a lesson so that we can learn all of the details. This information in Matthew does not contradict the account written down by Mark, it only helps us to see what God is talking about more clearly. What are the potential outcomes whenever you sit to listen to anyone speak at a lecture or in a class room at school? I beleive that there are potentially three possibilities that can occur and your determination will cause the teacher’s words to either be effective or to be ineffective. You can ignore the teacher, you can hear and listen to the words only, or you can hear the words and get the understanding of them. Hearing anything valuable to know and not understanding any of it does you little to no good. In other words you derive no benefit of knowing the information.
There are a lot of people in the world that know Einstein’s equation of E=MC2, but very few that can actually teach you anything about what it means. So what we discover is that understanding what you hear is the greater key factor to whether the devil can come and take it away from you. That is a very important factor to learn. Understanding of any subject is the key to holding on to that subject. Keep in mind that we are talking about spiritual things here and not natural things. We have spiritual seed which are spiritual words being planted into spiritual beings, which are responsible to hear them and then to understand them or the spiritual enemy, will come and take them from you. Read through the rest of the parable and then I will discuss the symbols given in more detail:
Mar 4:5 And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:
Mar 4:6 But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.
Mar 4:7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
Mar 4:8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.
As you read through the rest of the parable, you discover God’s goal for giving us His seed. God is looking for a people to produce spiritual fruit. The majority of the parable is a lesson of why people either produce this fruit or why they are unable to produce this fruit. If you know anything about farming, you know that the soil is not the master of the seed, but the seed is the master of the soil. Whatever is planted into the soil is that which is harvested. If you are the soil that Jesus is speaking of, then it matters what you allow in your ears. Do you understand why Satan has dominated the TV and radio air waves with lies and perversions? I guess we should stop and examine the soil in more detail. There are actually 6 different types of soil listed in the parable. They are generally representative of 4 different types of people on the planet and the list of soil types does not exclude anyone. If you analyze the list closely you can see that there are actually two groups of 3 that are being mentioned. There are three soils that are representative of saved fruitful Christians and 3 soils that did not receive the seed and let it produce any fruit at all:
| Type of Soil | Description |
| Wayside | These are those that can hear, but that do not understand what is said. Therefore Satan can steal the truth away from them very easily. |
| Stony Ground | These are those that turn away because of affliction or persecution. They lack any depth or foundational root knowledge. They are easily offended. |
| Among Thorns | These are those that care more about the things in the world, the distraction of riches, the natural lusts of the world. |
| Good Soil | These are those that produce fruit. A return of seed is multiplied to produce a bountiful supply. Some 30 times, some 60 times and some 100 times. |
We can learn a significant amount of information about why some people produce fruit and others are unable to. What have we learned? We have learned that God uses people to teach the Word of God and these are those that are sowing “good seed”. However, we have also learned that this good seed has many enemies. These things are designed to keep you from hearing and understanding the truth. Satan is hard at work trying to keep people from bearing spiritual fruit for God. God is looking for the spiritual fruit of the earth and that is one of the key factors that is keeping Him from returning for us today. God sees the harvest field is potentially great on the earth and God wants everyone to come to the knowledge of the truth of God’s Word (2 Peter 3:9). The Bible says God has long patience for this spiritual harvest of fruit (James 5:7). Here are the key symbolic elements listed in the parable and the descriptive meaning of each:
| SYMBOL | DESCRIPTION |
| SEEDS | Spoken Word/Words |
| SOWER | One who teaches with Words |
| Sowing | The process of teaching people |
| SOIL | The hearts/spirits of the people |
| Wayside Ground | Those who are easily deceived, they have no understanding and barely hear it at all |
| Stony Ground | Those that are easily tricked, those that have only a shallow understanding, those that cave to pressure, those who are easily offended |
| Good Ground | Those that hear and understand the Word of God and do not allow it to be stolen from them. |
| Evil Ground | Those that are deceived, lost and asleep in the darkness. |
| Roots | Those who have a strong foundation of the Word of God and are able to drink and partake of the Spirit of God. |
| Birds of the Air | Spiritual enemies that try to take the truth from you. Satan and his demons. |
| Thorns | Natural and Carnal things that take your attention away from the truth. It can be money, sex, drugs, alcohol, food, fame |
| Unfruitful | Those that are spiritually barren, unable to produce spiritual fruit, those who are nigh to burning |
| Fruitful | Spiritual Growth and Maturity, those who are doers of the Word of God and NOT hearers only. |
| Fruit | Spiritual results of those which God is seeking to find and harvest into His barn |
As you can see there are many valuable things to learn from this parable. Seeds play a key role in the spread of the Kingdom of God. Seed laws play a key role in understanding this teaching. God’s word will always produce more people like God. Those that let God’s word in, will grow and mature to be more like the one that gave us these SEED Words. It is the spiritual seed law of Genesis repeated in the spiritual diemension. A seed will always produce after its own kind. The planting of God’s spiritual seed will always produce a spiritual harvest. I think I will end this lesson here for now and expand it in my next lesson.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can continue by going to “Part 4“.
Why Do People Go To Hell? Using the Bible to Answer the Hard Questions!
(Ver 2.3) This is Part 2 of a series of lesson on the subject of “Understanding What the Bible says About Hell“. This is also Part 2 of another series called “Understanding Hard Sayings”. If you want to read the first lesson about Hard Sayings then do that. There are many people in the world today that do not believe in the existence of Hell. However, that does not change the fact that it exists. If you did not read the first lesson in this series about the “Bliblical Evidence for the Existence of Hell” you should start reading there first. I often times wonder when terrorist bombers blow themselves up in the hope of achieving or earning paradise, what they think when they go to hell and are looking around wondering what happened. This is obviously not what they were told would happen if they caused all of this death and destruction to their enemies. I also wonder how many of them would do things differently now that they are locked within the eternal flames of hell, where Jesus told us there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mat 8:12). There is no doubt in my mind that most people who are in hell are there and do not know how exactly that they got there. I hear many people in the world speak of sinners and the people who do really evil things to other people as deserving to be in hell. It seems that the worst the crime and the more innocent people are hurt or killed, the more deserving that people say they are for going to hell. You can think of people like Hitler, Stalin and others who have killed men, women and children in wholesale lots and certainly they “deserve” to go to hell. However, we are all guilty of comparing our sins to other people’s sins and thinking that ours are not bad enough to warrant such a punishment as hell.
I had a reader ask me a question about “Do people go to hell or heaven after they die and why”? If you have read the first lessonthen you should already know that the Bible clearly tells us that Hell exists and people go there. So the question arises, why? This is certainly a legitimate question to ask God. We will discover that God has already answered the question in the Bible. What I want to do first is tell you what is NOT a factor in why people go to Hell. It is not because you have sinned! Being a sinner does NOT send you to hell! However, it does not get you into heaven either. Sin is virtually a non-factor in the process of do people go to heaven or to hell. Yes, there are sinners in hell right now. But, yes there are also sinners in heaven right now. So committing a sin was not the determining factor for going to either place.
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
You can clearly see that the Bible says “everyone” has sinned and failed to achieve to God’s standard of righteousness. If it says “ALL” that would leave no one out of the Sin Camp. That would include me and you also. A verse found in Romans 5:12 basically says the same thing. So we have two witnesses to the fact that everyone is a sinner. So now people like to say, my sin is not as great as their sin, so therefore they deserve punishment, but not me. Unfortunately for you God has already thought of this excuse defense and said the following:
Jas 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
You can be the best sinner in the entire world and have committed the least number of wrong doings and yet God says if you fail in just one place, one point, violating just one rule, you are guilty of breaking them all. Wow! That is very strong! That also is not good news for being the best sinner either. That basically tells us that there are no sins that are greater than any other sins in the eyes of God. What do you do with that information? God makes it sound like a very ominous and hopeless situation that we are all in. I certainly agree with that assessment and I hope that you do to.
So what have we learned? We have learned that there are no good people in the world who deserve to be saved. Everyone is technically guilty of violating the entire law of God and that will not work to get you into heaven based upon God’s standards. You see Islam and other religions in the world like to see things in a balanced scale system where you put your bad deeds on one side and your good works on another side and then see which one is greater and that determines where you go. Wouldn’t that be nice? However, this is not what God calls a system that will work to get you into heaven.
Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
Hopefully you can see what this verse is saying. Salvation or justification is not earned by doing good things. Obeying the law is doing a good thing, yes? But, God tells us that no flesh will be “justified” by doing the good things written in the Law! That basically tells me you cannot do anything to work yourself into this salvation. That means heaven is not guaranteed no matter how many good things you have done in your life. What we have discovered are two things that are not a factor in whether you go to heaven or to hell. It is not your sins and it is not you doing good things. That really shocks a lot of people who have been deceived into believing they can do something to affect their outcome and destiny. So what are the determining factors for being saved and going to heaven? I’d like to tell you it is just a simple a 1 + 1 = 2 problem, but that would be oversimplifying the situation. However, I will make it as simple as I can. It appears to me from reading and studying the Bible that people go to hell simply because they reject salvation and the savior Jesus Christ. Part of the problem comes from the fact that God’s idea of Salvation is not usually your idea of salvation and that is one of the biggest problems you face to getting saved. You see if you were simply presented a choice of believing in Jesus Christ and not believing in Jesus Christ and that is all the choices you had that would certainly make it much more of a simple process. However, there is an enemy in the world, a spiritual being called Satan, who works very hard at tricking you into believing lies. While God plays by the rules, Satan does not and has caused a vast number of people in the world to believe in his lies. So rejecting the savior Jesus Christ could be a simple acceptance of Buddhism as your belief system. Simply by buying into a false religion you could be missing out on heaven and eternal salvation. This is what Jesus says to us:
Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Jesus is trying to get into your heart right now, if you have not let him in already. Jesus is standing and knocking and wants to come into your spiritual house. Did you ever think that if the omnipotent God wants in your heart, why doesn’t He just kick the door down and come in? Isn’t He still God? Doesn’t God always get His will done? Apparently not! You see God is a gentleman who abides within rules and self-imposed limitations. God will never force anyone to get saved. God will try to get your attention, but yet you have a responsibility to first hear Him knocking at your door and then to go open the door and let Him in. So what happens when Jesus comes and knocks and you refuse to hear it? What happens if you ignore Him? What happens if you do not open the door for Him? Believe it or not that is what causes you to go to hell. Here are some more words of Jesus on this subject.
Joh 12:48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
So here is a little secret, Jesus is not going to come to your physical house and knock on your natural door to try to get you saved. Those were all symbolic references to a spiritual situation that will transpire in a way that you would probably not expect. You see Jesus is knocking right now at your heart, if you choose to hear Him. Did you notice what Jesus said in John 12:18? Jesus says that if you reject Him and His Word, it will be the Word that you heard and that you rejected that will judge you in the future. In other words the Word of God is God and if you reject it, you are rejecting God. That causes a lot of people to not find salvation. They do not know how God is speaking, when He is speaking, where He is speaking or even recognize what God is saying. God has purposely chosen to hide himself from your physical view, so that you can be an atheist if you want to be. However, God uses people like me to try to reach you and convince you that He is real.
So I do not know everyone that is in hell right now. I do know how they were deceived. I do not know how many times they rejected the truth of God’s Word. I do not know how many times Jesus knocked and tried to come in. It could have been when they were just 5 or 6 years old. Maybe, it was when they were 12 or 13 years old. All I know is that Jesus said I tried to knock and they would not open the door and let me in. It could have been that they were preoccupied by the distractions of working, going to school, shopping or whatever else people do in the world. I wrote another blog on this subject, if you care to read it about why people are not saved and it was called “The Top 10 Enemies To Salvation! Why People Don’t Get Saved!”
Many people think that God sends people to hell, but that is really not a true statement. The Bible says that Hell was made for Satan and his angels. God knowing that no man could do anything to earn salvation came to the earth in the flesh and gave His life for the payment of every man’s sin. So God by His grace reconciled man back into relationship and favor with Himself. But, yet God still gives man a choice in what they want to do. Then if we put Satan into the picture and see how he has deceived the world into believing his lies, that it the root of the problem of why salvation is not so easily obtainable. God freely offers salvation to everyone, but everyone is required accept it. To accept God is to accept His Words. To receive God’s Words is to allow God to come into your spirit and live. Always remember that Jesus is trying to knock at the door to your heart and get your attention, but the devil is trying to distract you with everything that he can put in front of you. What you decide to do will affect your eternal destiny. God has placed the ball in your court and it is your turn to move. God says now is the time for salvation, today is the appointed day for getting saved. So don’t delay and receive Him while you can. If you think that you have time and can wait to get saved, you are already deceived. If you are interested in learning how to get saved, you can read my page “Salvation How to Know if You are Going to Heaven”. God Bless!
If you would like to continue the study of “Understanding Hard Sayings” in the Bible you may continue to “Part 3“.
Understanding the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ! Part 3 Getting Paul’s Input!
(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 3 of a series of lessons on the importance of believing in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. I have been attempting to give you some new spiritual Bible perspectives into the identity of the Son that was born to the woman Mary and the importance of us believing that she was a virgin. Too many people today who call themselves, Christians have an opinion that Paul never wrote about the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, so they therefore try to conclude that it did not happen, or was not important or maybe even try to stretch to say that Paul didn’t believe in it at all. All of these are just people who are deceived into believing a lie from the enemy. If you have not read this series from the beginning, I would strongly suggest that you go back and read starting with “Part 1”.
While Paul may not have written directly about the virgin birth, that does certainly does not mean he did not believe in it. Nor does it mean that Paul did not write about the virgin birht indirectly using words that are dependent upon the existence of the virgin birth in order to be viewed as the truth. There are literally too many ways to say something without saying somthing directly to say that Paul never understood that the virgin birth was a basic truth. I personally believe that Paul was sent by God to teach the advanced revelation of other truths found in the Bible. Most of these truths could not possibly be true without the existence of the virgin birth so the virgin birth is implied in the writings while never being directly mentioned. Let’s start by analyzing some verses that speak about Jesus and see what they say about him.
Rom 1:3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
There are at least two implied references to the virgin birth of Jesus in this verse written by Paul. Either people do not know how to read or they just do not know what to look for when searching for scriptures on this subject. To say Paul never wrote anything about the virgin birth is denying the original author of the Bible. God uttered the words, and men wrote them down. God is the author of the entire Bible and He says plenty about the virgin birth. In this verse in Romans 1:3 Jesus Christ is called the Son of God. Doesn’t that imply or mean Jesus didn’t have a natural father? So how did He get here and who was He born from? People obviously see what they want to see in the Bible and ignore what they do not want to see in the Bible. Then this verse tells us that “according to the flesh” Jesus was “made” of the seed of David. To be made something is an implied creative act of God. Anything that God creates He has made. So what does that tell us? That means Jesus didn’t come into the world, the natural way like you and me. What we have is an indirect reference to the virgin birth being revealed to us. We have Jesus who came according to flesh as being the Son of David, but according to Spirit, He was the Son of God. How can this be if it was not from a virgin birth? This represents the physical and spiritual union of God and the woman Mary and the result was a man named Jesus Christ.
Rom 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
Anytime Paul writes about Jesus Christ being the Son of God, He is inferring the existence of the virgin birth. Anytime Paul writes that God came in the flesh, he infers the virgin birth. Jesus Christ, who was God, took on the likeness of sinful flesh in order to condemn sin in the flesh. We again see a clear reference to God’s union with the woman Mary to produce the physical man Jesus Christ. It is interesting to think that the Bible says “God is not a man that He should lie, nor the Son of Man that He should repent”. But, yet God becomes a man and a Son of Man. That is a perplexing mystery that causes vast numbers of Jewish people to reject Jesus Christ. You see when Jesus was on the earth in the flesh, He came to John the Baptist and told him to baptize Him. Why did Jesus do this? John was baptizing people for the remissions of sins, yet Jesus had not committed any sins. John tells Jesus in the 3rd chapter of Matthew that he needed to be baptized of Jesus and Jesus tells him do this to me to satisfy all righteousness. Jesus who was God in the flesh, was baptized of John for the “repentance of sin” (Mat 3:11). After John baptized Jesus, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit descended from heaven in the form of a dove and God spoke out of heaven in a thundering voice and said “This is my son, in who I am well pleased”. So why didn’t God do this before Jesus was baptized by John? I think that is a really good question. Perhaps you can read some of my other blogs and get some clues to what happened, but for now let’s continue with the virgin birth:
1Ti 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
You see again that Paul writes a simple statement that God was “manifested” in the flesh. If this is not a clear reference to the virgin birth, then what is it? How did God come to be here in the flesh? The term “manifested” again refers to being “made” in the flesh. So how do you make babies? How does a Spirit being make babies? It is certainly not the same way that you do it. We know that God is a Spirit. We also know God is omnipotent. So how would omnipotent God become a man legally on this planet? I believe that He gets a virgin woman to agree with the plan and to believe that she will have His son. Isn’t it funny how Mary’s response to the angel of God was “Be unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Mary obviously believed it would happen to her even before it happened to her. That sounds a lot like someone with faith, someone who believed, and someone in partnership with God. Because Mary believed the words of God, she received the word and He became flesh inside of her.
Gal 4:23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
Those that claim Paul never wrote about the virgin birth are clearly ignorant and foolish. This verse in Galatians compares two sons born of Abraham. The first is called him that is “born after the flesh” and the other one is called “the promised son”. As you recall Abraham was given the slave woman Hagar to have a child by his wife because Sarah was barren and he did. That is called the child after the flesh. This son however never received the blessing of the firstborn since Sarah miraculously conceived the promised child. While this was not a virgin birth by any stretch of the imagination, it was clearly a miraculous birth for a 90 year old woman to give birth to a son. So what is God saying to us? I believe that God is giving us a prophetic view of the virgin birth. You see Isaac was born in a supernatural way and this is a type of the birth of Christ who was born in a supernatural way. These were just types and shadows of another son that was promised. Jesus Christ’s birth was also prophesied to be a miraculous conception by the type of Sarah and Abraham having the son Isaac. However, Jesus’ birth is a much greater miracle than that of Isaac.
Heb 5:5 So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee.
Again we see Paul writing to the Hebrews and he says a prophetic quote from God “Thou art my Son, today have I begotten thee”. The Greek word that is translated as “begotten”, means to “procreate as of the Father“. What does the term “procreate” mean? To procreate means to bring forth offspring or children. It can also mean to “conceive”, to be “born” or “to give birth”. Anyone with any brains at all can figure out what he is talking about. If God is the Father and Mary is the natural mother, then how did God get this woman pregnant? It wasn’t the natural way. We have already seen very specific scripture that the Holy Ghost caused this to happen and that Mary was a young girl that had never known a man. So it is very clear to me that Paul believed in the virgin birth and thought it was a critical piece of information to learn. In other words it was a foundational part of his theology and his belief system.
Heb 1:5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?
What we have is another witness to the fact that Jesus Christ is “begotten” by God. Never had God done anything like this before and never will he do this again, this is what took Satan by surprise. Satan did not know what to do with this man, Jesus. According to Jesus’ parable Satan thought this was the heir so they had to kill him (Mat 21:38). However, Jesus came into the earth to die and that is what defeated Satan. What you need to do is realize that anytime the Bible calls Jesus the Son of God that is indirectly calling him the one that was born of a virgin. Anytime you read about God coming to the earth in the flesh you are reading about a virgin birth.
Heb 13:20 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
In the first lesson in this series I talked about the resurrection of Jesus being different than other people who were raised from the dead. I asked you to think about why the resurrection of Jesus was so important to our beliefs and our salvation. I showed in Romans 10:9 that it says that if you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and called him your Lord you would be saved. This verse in Hebrews again refers to Jesus being raised from the dead and this is in conjunction with the “blood” of the everlasting covenant of God. So where did Jesus get His blood? You might recall in another blog I talked about the blood of a baby being a union of the father and the mother’s blood type. So why is this important? What made Jesus’ blood an acceptable payment for our sin and the foundational basis of an everlasting covenant? Obviously Jesus’ blood was not the exact same as our blood, but yet at the same time it was. So we have another paradox, and a mystery of Biblical proportions. If Jesus blood was just like our blood then God could have picked anyone to pay the price for our sins. You should really think about the blood of Jesus for a long time, because it is very important and very significant to your salvation. You need to figure out why the blood of Jesus was sufficient to pay for your sins and why your blood is not sufficient payment for your sins. I’ll give you some clues and more information on this subject later.
Paul writes a considerable amount of scriptures about the blood of Jesus Christ and its value and power. What makes the blood of Jesus Christ so special? In order to understand this it comes back to the virgin birth? That is the only difference between my blood and Jesus’ blood. His natural father was the Holy Spirit and mine was not. My father’s lineage goes directly back to Adam and Eve and there lies the problem with my bloodline and yours.
1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Why, is Jesus Christ called the “Last Adam”? To me that was a really interesting thing to discover and to study. What we see is a direct comparison of two men. The first Adam is called a living soul and the “Last Adam” a quickening Spirit. One is said to be physical and natural man and the other is inversely spiritual by nature.
1Co 15:47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
As you read through this chapter you find that natural things always came first in the world and then spiritual things came later. This is a pattern for us to understand how God created this world. We were first born naturally, and then we were born again spiritually. Did you notice what Paul wrote in 1 Cor 15:47? He said the second Adam came from heaven! Uh Oh? We have another clear, but indirect reference to the virgin birth. God says that the body of the first man came from the earth. But, the body of the second man was born here, but came from heaven. We again see an implied reference to God coming in the flesh. This is the Lord of Glory being made a man.
1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
We can see that through Jesus, the Last Adam, He causes all men to have the ability to live. This is in direct contrast to the first Adam who caused all men born on this planet to die. So was Jesus Christ born a man on this planet? If you understand the Bible you know that He was. That means He had to die like everyone else that was descended from Adam. Realizing that Jesus Christ who was God in the flesh came to the earth to die is a basic part of theology that you must embrace in order to understand who Jesus was and why he came to the earth. What we have seen is two individuals, both are called a man, both are called Adam and both were made originally by God. The first Adam was a natural man whose body was formed from the dust of the ground. The last Adam came by the word of God through a virgin woman.
Now I want to talk about the Blood of Jesus Christ and give you some more insight and understanding on how it was able to satisfy the payment for our sins. Paul writes about the blood of Christ in numerous verses. You can read some of them in Romans 5:9, Ephesians 1:7, Ephesians 2:13, and Colossians 1:14. By reading these verses you find out what Jesus bought with His blood. There are many things that were resolved, there were many things purchased, there were many things that were forgiven, and there many things that were accomplished through the blood of Jesus Christ. All of these verses tell us clearly that Jesus’ blood was something of great value, something that would cover the cost of the vast expanse of the sin of all humanity. It also indicates that His blood was more valuable than our blood. Therefore we have reached again a full circle that states Jesus Christ must have been born of a virgin to make Him different than you and I. So what makes the Blood of Christ more valuable than ours? Let’s briefly examine the Bible and find out:
Gen 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
So what makes this flesh uneatable according to God’s commandment to Noah? It is the blood! The Blood of the flesh is said to be the Life of the flesh. Isn’t that interesting? Do you remember what Jesus told us? Jesus said “I am the Life” (John 14:6). Could Jesus have been referring to His blood?
Lev 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
You see we have another confirmation written in the Law of Moses that says the life of the flesh is the blood. So we then see God giving us another key piece of information. The payment of sin comes from the shedding of blood. It is the blood that will provide atonement for us. The Hebrew word translated as “Atonement” is an interesting word that means “to cover”. It can also mean “to forgive”, “to show mercy”, “to reconcile”, and “to cleanse”. These are all the works of God and what He has accomplished in Jesus Christ through His blood.
Heb 10:4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
So we have another mystery given to us. Clearly in the O.T. God implemented a series of laws that showed the people how to make sacrifices of animals for the sins of the people. However, we discover that God would later say that the blood of bulls and goats would never take away our sins. So why did God do this? What we have is another natural pattern that establishes a spiritual N.T. reality in Jesus Christ. Did you notice this verse didn’t say anything about a lamb? Jesus Christ is called the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29)! I’ll wrap this blog up with one more verse about the blood of Jesus Christ:
Heb 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
We have another paradox being presented to us. How can God offer Himself as a sacrifice to Himself? This is some really deep stuff, isn’t it? Maybe we can talk about that in another blog, but for now let’s keep going. If you recall from my last blog, there were three that agreed in the earth. These were the Spirit, the water and the blood. The blood represents the life of the flesh. The Bible also tells us that the body is dead without the spirit (James 2:26). We are now beginning to understand a little bit how the blood of Jesus could satisfy the price of our sin. The man Jesus Christ born of a virgin was God in the flesh. The omnipotent God gave His life, His eternal Spirit and His blood as payment for our sin. As Jesus hung on the cross and bled I am convinced that He was smiling on the inside. He knew what was being accomplished, He knew what was being purchased, and He knew the end result for all of His pain and suffering.
Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
So if anybody ever tells you that Paul didn’t believe in the virgin birth, tell them to go and read those letters again. Maybe you can help them now by telling them what to look for. God Bless!
Why is Believing in the Virgin Birth Essential to Being a Christian? Part 1
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 in a series of Bible lessons on Understanding the subject of the “Virgin Birth” and why it is important and necessary to believe in it to be a Christian. This subject is a potentially explosive and very controversial topic among some Christians and churches. We have many Christians, who fully embrace the virgin birth of Jesus, then we have some who are indifferent to its importance and finally we have others who flatly deny that it ever happened. So can you be a real Christian and not believe in the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ? I read one blogger who thought that you could and in a way I agree with a lot of what he said. However, why is it important from a Bible defense standpoint, to believe in the virgin conception and the birth of son from a woman who has not “known” a man? To me I can say, it is because if there was no virgin birth, then there was no payment for human sin and therefore no salvation, no redemption and we will all die and go to hell with no hope. You see if Jesus was not born of a virgin, then who is He? Or I guess I should say who was He? If He was just another human man, a descendant of Adam like me then I’m in some real big trouble. If you believe that He was just a man like you, then you are also in some major trouble. If Jesus was a man born exactly like every other man on the planet, that would put Him on the same level as a “Confucius”, a “Mohammed”, an “Aristotle”, a”Caesar”, an “Alexander the Great”, an “Ivan the Terrible” or whoever else that you would care to name. You see if you do not believe in the virgin birth, who then is your savior? What makes your savior different than Islam? What is your salvation based or built upon foundationally? To who or what have you placed your confidence in when you die and leave this world? If it is not in anything that God has personally done, and God’s Word, then you are lost in your deception.
Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
If Jesus Christ is not born of a virgin human woman, then He is not God in the flesh as this verse declared. If He was born of a literal virgin human woman without the involvment of a human father, then it is impossible for Him to be anything, but God in the flesh as the Bible teaches in many verses. I know that with modern technology, using test tube babies and in vitro-fertilization methods, it is very possible today for a woman to get pregnant without a man’s direct involvement. However, this was not the case nearly 2000 years ago when it was certainly not possible to get pregnant, except by the natural way that God had created created. If a natural human man was not involved, then God personally must have done something to intervene and circumvent the course of nature to cause the situation that Mary is said to be in in Matthew and Luke. In this verse in Isaiah God prophesies that a “virgin” would conceive. Now a virgin conception is not news, because that use to happen all of the time when she lost her virginity with her husband. But, a virgin woman with her hymen intact giving birth to a child, this had never happened before Jesus came along and entered into the world. The primary relevance from this verse is that there is no natural man mentioned in this future prophesied event in Isaiah other than the son being born. There is however, the direct mention of a spiritual being and that is God. God tells us that He will give us a sign. Signs are something that you are intimately familiar with if learn to drive a car. A sign gives us instructions, knowledge; information, guidance, direction and these are all applicable to God’s message in this prophecy. Do you see how essential the virgin birth is said to be? If you do not have this information or maybe you missed it, or maybe you ignored it, then you are missing an important “Sign” from God on the roadway of life. You have absolutely no foundation for being saved, because you do not know who you believe in or why.
The Hebrew name of the virgin’s son is said to be “Immanuel”, which when looked up, means “God With Us”. This was God in the form of a man. Now we are beginning to understand how a virgin birth is even possible 2000 years ago. However, important this information is, you would think that God would give us many verses that speak to this fact in the Bible. However, I have found that God is not that way. God does not give you overwhelming evidence to anything in the Bible, in order to let you choose what you want to believe in. If God wrote the Bible with clear evidence, you would be forced into believing the truth and that is not how God works by design.
Mat 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
God repeats the prophecy of Isaiah in this verse in Matthew and this is one of the only two times it is directly mentioned in the Bible. The name “Immanuel” in the O.T. is said to be “Emmanuel” in the Greek N.T., but it is the same Hebrew word and as you can see it means “God With Us”. Fortunately for us correct interpretation of the Bible only requires two witnesses to establish any truth. So just because there is only two direct witnesses to this truth does not diminish the importance of the information given to us. There are many ignorant teachers on the internet who like to say, Paul never said anything about a virgin birth, so therefore it is not important. People can be so spiritually blind sometimes. Just because Paul did not say anything directly, does not mean he did not write anything about it indirectly. Maybe I’ll talk more about that later. But, for now let’s continue on with the importance of knowing about the virgin birth.
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.
Ask yourself this question, why is it so important for Satan to try to deceive people into not believing in a virgin birth? Have you ever thought about that? Obviously Satan is hard at work at attempting to get people not to believe in a virgin birth. Satan uses people who say they are Christians, but yet deny the virgin birth and thus they deny God came in the flesh and according to the Bible, this is the spirit of “anti-Christ”. Did you notice what John wrote in this verse of scripture? God tells us that the spirit of anti-Christ will deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Isn’t this the debate that is raging on the internet? Has Jesus Christ been born of a virgin woman? Who is this Jesus Christ? According to the Bible Jesus Christ was God in the flesh. You see Satan is denying that God came in person to the earth. This is directly related to the subject of Christians believing in the virgin birth. Do you understand this? You see if this verse says what I think it does, you cannot be a Christian and not believe in the virgin birth. Otherwise God says you are a part of the “anti-Christ” and that makes you by default as none of His. Now are you beginning to see the importance of believing in the virgin birth?
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.
Again we see that God says there are those in the earth that are debating the deity of Jesus Christ and these are those that have the spirit of “anti-Christ”. In other words they are being used by Satan to deceive others into believing a lie. What benefit does Satan derive from you not believing in the virgin birth? What advantage does Satan possess when you don’t believe that God has come to the earth in the flesh? Satan gains you as his possession for eternity, and that is not a good place to end up. You do not have salvation, if you do not have a virgin birth. If you think you do, you are going to have to explain what you base your faith on.
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.
Let me give you one indirect reference to the virgin birth that is related to the salvation of every Christian. In this verse God says that if you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and confess Him as your Lord you will be saved. What makes the resurrection of Jesus from the dead different than say the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead (John 11:43)? Didn’t God raise Lazarus from the dead after being in the grave for 4 days? Heck, Jesus was only in the grave for three days, it would seem Lazarus was a greater miracle and sign for us to believe in. What makes Jesus different than Lazarus and why aren’t we saved, if we believe that God raised Lazarus from the dead. Most people just don’t think when they read the Bible, I guess? I hope you are beginning to understand the importance of the virgin birth, at least a little bit. You see the only difference between Jesus and Lazarus is one of them was born of a virgin. One of them was God and one of them was not. Guess who that was? You see if you don’t know or your don’t believe it happened; you have no confidence in your salvation or your Savior. There were multiple people raised from the dead in the Gospels. Why don’t any of them save us? The major difference was that none of them were God. They all died again and were buried. But, Jesus is living in heaven seated at the right hand of majesty forever alive. So next time you meet someone who does not believe in the virgin birth, ask them who saved them?
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons about “Understanding the Virgin Birth” please continue with “Part 2“.
Understanding How to Become a Light to a Dark World! Part 3
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 3 in a series of advanced spiritual Bible lesson on “How to Become a Light to a Dark World”. If you have not read it from the beginning, I would highly recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1“. Today I want to discuss briefly a false teaching that has been around in the church for a number of years. I probably heard this taught 20 years ago and I’m sure that it was not an original teaching, but something that has been around much longer than that. Here is the basic teaching, the minister said that the church represented the symbolic moon in Genesis 1:16. Because we were those who were a light to the others that were in the darkness. He based his teaching on the presumption that Christians had no ability to produce light upon themselves and were dependent upon the light from the Sun in order to reflect His glory to others. He based his teaching on the fact that the Moon is said to rule the Night and the Sun is said to rule the Day. In listening to him, he thought that the moon represented the church based upon these few facts derived from human reasoning. Unfortunately for him, he could not provide any scriptures to back up what he taught and that is where it all fell apart to me. You must let the Bible interpret itself. You must get two or three witness in order to establish any truth and you must follow God’s rules or you will remain clueless.
If you have read this series from the beginning you should understand that the moon does rule the night and that the Sun does rule the day. The Sun is clearly Jesus Christ so far we agree with at least part of the erroneous teaching. But, that is where I depart company. I do not recall any scriptures that I remember reading that tells me that the church rules the night. To be a ruler means to be a king or a prince over those people. That means you have authority and power to control what they do. Clearly the church does not do that. Evil in the world is growing at a rapidly progressive pace. There is terrorism and evil happening worldwide. So is the church doing anything to control it? It sure doesn’t look like it to me. So I want to address the identity of the moon from a Bible perspective and look at the physical qualities of the moon to analyze them to see who we can see that they could possibly represent.
Searching for the Descriptive Qualities of the Moon!
The moon is a small object that revolves counter clockwise around the earth. As you may know, the moon does not produce any light on its own ability, other than to reflect what is coming from the sun. The moon is a dead, lifeless object that has no known great value. I recall when astronauts brought back rocks from the moon. If they had any great value other than being from the moon, I believe that we would already have mining colonies on the moon recovering them. I realize that the moon helps determine tide cycles and things like that and has purposes for existence, but why do some planets have multiple moons and we have only one? Ok, let’s take this analogy a little further, the earth revolves around the sun in annual cycles. The moon revolves around the earth in monthly type cycles. So when the earth completes one cycle around the sun, the moon has completed approximately 12 cycles around the earth. This is what I believe, I believe that God created natural things as views into the windows of spiritual things. So what do we learn from what I have said so far? It is very difficult to see how the moon fits a type of a symbolic representation for the church, the apostles or any believers, based upon this information only. The church is not dead, it is not lifeless and it is not the ruler of the night or of the world. Heck the church can’t even vote to elect a Christian to be president, so we control nothing to very little in the world.
Also note this fact, the moon goes in cycles and goes from a state of total darkness to a state of total wholeness or full illumination and then back again to total darkness. Also, note that the moon has a dark side that is not normally seen by man. You see the moon has a symbolic side that has not been revealed to men. This is the dark side that cannot be seen and this is symbolic of the deception and the hidden evil spiritual qualities of someone. Is that the church? Does the church have a hidden dark side? I do not believe that is the case. No this fits a picture of Satan more than anyone else. Did you know that we would not know anything about the existence of Satan, if it were not for the Word of God? Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever seen Satan personally? You see you have not, the only way you know about the existence of Satan, is by the Word of God that reveals him to us. So in order for us to even see Satan, God must give us the light in His Word to reveal him to us. It is only by the light of the Word of God that shines on this symbolic moon that you can see or understand that Satan exists. So that is a very different perspective on what the light represents and the moon represents that God has taught me. You have to realize that there are still many hidden things about Satan, that we do not know, because, God has not revealed more information or given more understanding to us about the information that is written in the Bible. So the dark side of the moon represents the unknown or hidden parts of Satan, the illuminated side of the moon represents the parts of Satan that have been revealed to us by God’s word. The New Moon when the sky is completely dark is representative of the hidden Satan. I struggle with the fact that anyone can think the moon represents Christians, because it reflects the light of Christ to a dark world. The main problem that I have with that logic is the fact when the moon goes into a new moon phase of the cycle, there is no light reflected and thus no moon is seen. Is this what happens to the church? Does the church go through cycles of complete darkness where God is not available to shine on us? If they do, they shouldn’t. Genesis 1:16, tells us that the moon is the entity that rules the vast night sky and this can only be Satan. I guess I haven’t given you very many scriptures about the identity of the symbolic moon, but I’ll fix that soon.
Christians do not live in darkness any more according to what Jesus taught us in John 8:12. So is the moon of the day or of the night? Is the moon seen normally in the light of the day or in the darkness of the night? I know technically speaking, if you can see the moon, then the moon must be getting some sunlight on its face. But, what dominates the moon? Is it the light of the sun or is it the darkness of the night sky? Which is greater? The little bit of sunlight being reflected or the vast darkness of the night sky? According to some people’s logic, the moon reflects the true light of Christ, but yet still lives in and is dominated by the night and the darkness of this world because Christ is not here and therefore, the spiritual sun has set. We can clearly see that this is not what Jesus said and not what other Bible verses teach either. Jesus said you will not be in the darkness anymore, meaning before you believed you were in the darkness and after you believed you were now in the light. Some try to say that the dark night sky are the unsaved people that we are a light to. But, yet the moon is only partially lit and has a dark side that has no light. This just doesn’t fit the church. For the church, a transition is said to have occurred from total darkness to the light of day. This could only correspond to the difference between night and day and no other condition makes any logical sense.
The Same Sun Shines on Both the Good and the Evil People in the World!
Many people have the idea that only Christians have any ability to see the light of God, and this is mostly true. Then they want to take that and try to convince you that only Christian can reflect the light of God. That is where I begin to deviate from that line of thought. But, I guess it does depend upon your definition of what light is. I have already demonstrated to you that Jesus called John the Baptist a light, before there was any Christians. Here is a verse that is also very interesting to this subject. Jesus is speaking and He says something you should see:
Mat 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Jesus said the same Sun shines on the evil as well as the good. Uh oh? If you understand the Bible, you understand that Satan is the originator of all evil. Evil is a synonymous term for the devil. The devil is just another title for Satan. That means if the moon is Satan, that Jesus is telling us it is still possible for the light of God to shine on him. Do you understand that logic? Some people seem to think that Satan is only representative of the darkness and as we can see from what Jesus says, that this is not the case. You see what God is saying, is from our perspective, the sun will shine on everyone equally the same. The Bible says that God shows no favoritism, nor shows any respect to persons. What that is telling us, is that God is a constant and consistent Spiritual being that treats everyone with equal fairness. God is a constant and a consistent source of the light for everyone, that would include Satan also. So using this logic we can see that the light is made available to everyone equally. So there must be another determining factor for who sees the light and which people let this light in. Let’ me give you some scriptures that inform us of Satan’s evil. We do know that Satan is called the “wicked one” in 1 John:
1Jn 5:18 We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.
1Jn 5:19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.
1Jn 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
Here are 3 verses that speak a tremendous amount of information about our subject. The devil is called the “wicked one”. The wicked one is another term for “evil one”. In fact if you look up the definition of the Greek work “wicked” you will see that it can mean evil. So Satan is confirmed to be a candidate for the evil that God’s light also shines on. Then in verse 19, God tells us that the whole world is full of wickedness or evil. This is representative of those who are in the darkness. Finally, in verse 20 we see that Jesus has come into the wicked world and given to us an ability to understand and thus to know Him who is True. Then it declares something very profound, we are said to be in Him that is True and it declares Him to be Jesus Christ the Son of God. So let me ask you this, if we are in Jesus Christ and the Spirit of Jesus Christ is in us, do we just reflect the true light or does the Bible say we are the true light? That statement will probably rock many religious boaters who are afraid to get out of the boat and walk on the water like Peter did. What we need to take away from these verses is the world is an evil place controlled by the wicked one. However, the church is now” in” the True Son, Jesus Christ. Again we have to conclude that, if Jesus Christ is the One that is True, who is the one that is false? Obviously, this is not a trick question, you can see from these verses that Satan is called the evil one! What we have is a classic Good vs. Evil conflict being presented to us.
Finally, in verse 20, it says that Jesus has given unto us an “understanding”. Is this another reference to the Light of God shining inside of Christians? Those who understand the truth? I believe that it is a direct confirmation to what the light is, who gives the light and where the light lives now.
Why Is It Better For Jesus To Go Away?
I think I want to address another point that someone made in a comment. They seemed to think that while Jesus Christ was on the earth, He was the Light and I agree with that part of the statement. But, then they said when Jesus Christ was taken out of the world we now do not have the direct Light and the Sun has set. Which do you prefer, the daylight or the nighttime? Is it better to work during the day and sleep during the night or what? In other words, it would appear that some people think that it would have been better for Christ to stay in the world so that we could have the True Light in all of its direct intensity and splendor. Now that Jesus Christ is not in the world some seem to think that the sun has set and we only live in the darkness with some reflected light off of the moon. However, Jesus taught something that is very different:
Joh 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
As you can read, this verse says that Jesus thought it was more highly beneficial for Him to go away than to stay on the earth. Why is that important to see? Jesus said if he leaves He can send us the “Comforter” which you should know is the Holy Spirit and He will enter into your spirit and abide with you forever. You can read more about the Comforter in John 14:16-26 and John 15:26. What Jesus is telling us, is that my Spirit will come into you and abide with you forever and this is better than if I stay here physically. So did Jesus ever leave? Or did He return and rise internally, inside of us by His Spirit? For God to be inside of me 24×7 is far better than having 5 minutes of physical Jesus’ time externally.
The True Identity of the Moon and the False Light!
I have tried to give you scriptures that back up my statement of the definition of Light and Darkness, Day and Night! Now let’s shift gears and go to see some verses about Satan and see how he is described to us. What does the Bible say about this “False Light” that I talked about earlier:
2Co 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Some seem to think that Satan has no light, however, here is a verse that would seem to say something a bit different than that. In this verse, Satan is spoken of as a spiritual being that “transforms” into an “angel of light”. What does that mean? If I put on a costume, I could transform myself into a Police Officer, but does that make me a true Police Officer? No you see it clearly does not. It only means I am pretending to be a Police Officer. The word “transform” according to the Strong’s can mean to “disguise”. A disguise is of course a costumed fake or a false appearance. Sound Familiar? You can clearly call it a false appearance for Satan to portray himself as an angel of light. The Bible says that God is Light and in Him is no darkness, so we can see that Satan is trying to present himself as a messenger of the omnipotent God. This would appear to be a picture of the moon who reflects the true light, but yet has no real ability to produce the true light in himself. Someone who appears to be light, but is not really light. Is that a Christian? Or is that a good descriptive terminology for the moon as being a false light? Let’s see another definition to learn more:
2Co 11:13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
Here is that same Greek word for “Transforming” that is used to describe Satan in the very next verse of 2 Corinthians, this time used to describe those that are called “false apostles”. Uh oh? It does sound familiar? Those that are false apostles transform or disguise themselves to appear as true apostles. Isn’t this what Satan was said to do? To transform and appear as an angel of light? You can clearly see that Satan is called the “False Light” by these two verses. Satan is referred to in the Bible as a “deceiver” (Rev 12:9) and a “liar” (John 8:44), both of these terms would describe a spiritual being that is attempting to be something that he is not. You can also see an implied meaning of the moon, being given to us. The moon goes through phases of transformation from total darkness to fully illuminated light and then back again to darkness. To transform means and implies a constant change is occurring. You can see Satan today, tomorrow he will appear to be different. On the other hand, God is Light, and He is a constant never changing source of strength and truth to us. Which one is the church suppose to model our lives after? Is the church suppose to transform themselves constantly like the moon? Or are we to remain constant and consistent, growing into the image of Christ who is the Sun? You see the moon cycle only makes sense for the church on the half of the phase that grows brighter and not the reverse phase where it vanishes. The church is never ever is suppose to go back into the darkness. Here is kind of an interesting verse to see:
Rev 16:13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
Satan is clearly described, being called “the dragon” (Rev 12:9) as someone who is associated with the beast and the “false” prophet”. Again we see Satan being called a deceiver, someone who portrays himself as a prophet, but is full of lies. The words of their mouth are described as being unclean spirits that look like frogs. These spirits would try to consume or eat the true words, by a plague of deceptive words. At least what we see is that Satan is in control and heavily associated with the spread of lies and false teaching and boy is that all over the internet.
Mat 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Jesus gives us a word of warning about people who disguise themselves on the outside but are extremely harmful on the inside. These are called “False Prophets” and that would indicate they are “False Lights”. Who do you think controls these liars? It can only be Satan. Here is another interesting verse of Scripture that describes Satan:
Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
So again this verse is talking about Satan our adversary. It clearly calls him the “Ruler of the Darkness” of this world. Who or what are we told, is it that rules the night? According to the Genesis 1:16 it is the “lesser light” AKA the “moon” (Ps 136:9). I do not recall any verse in the N.T. that says the church Rules the Night? Do you know of any? To rule means to dominate, to control, and to exercise authority over. Jesus is clearly the Ruler of the Church, but who rules those that are not Christ’s? It is not Christ and it is not the church, so it must be the moon, Satan. Don’t get me wrong, the church can certainly be a light to them that are in the darkness, but we do not rule them, we just show them the way out of their darkness by preaching the gospel. If they believe it, they are saved and the Sun of God rises in their hearts and now they are no longer living in the darkness either.
Now you can see in 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 and Ephesians 2:2 that Satan is also called the “Prince” of this world. A “Prince” is also defined as a “ruler”, look up the word and see what it means. All this does is tells us who rules the Night and the darkness that is in the world. It is Satan who rules those who live in the darkness and he is the symbolic moon that deceives many into thinking they already have the true light. As long as people believe the lies of the enemy over the truth of God’s word they will remain in darkness and be ruled and controlled by Satan. This is the reality of the spiritual conditions of men’s hearts.
2Pe 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
What we have seen are scriptures and many verses in the Bible that show there are true lights and false lights in the world today. These false lights represents people in the world that teach lies in whole or in part. False teachers, false prophets, false apostles, these are all instruments of darkness , controlled by the ruler of the darkness, used by Satan to deceive those who are easily fooled. People walking in the darkness, easily are tripped up and stumble and they do not know or understand in what it is that causes them to fall.
Perhaps you can find scriptures that back your point of view, however, they will not discount or discredit the verses that I just gave you. God’s word never contradicts itself so if you find verses that says the church is the moon, you will have to change the verses that I just gave you or delete them from your Bible. You can change the meaning of the word of God, simply by changing the definitions of a few words. If you do not use God’s definitions, you are buying into Satan’s definitions. This is what happens everyday in the world and on the internet.
Being the True Light to A Dark World!
So I have taught you that to be a true light to the world you must possess wisdom, understanding and knowledge that others in the darkness need and want to see. It is a well known fact that people do not know, what they do not know and this describes Christians as well as unsaved people in the world. Too many Christians think they know something valuable and try to go give it to others, but end up doing more harm than good. If you have only been saved a short time, guess what, maybe you should go and study and learn something that is worthy for others to know, before you try to be a light for Christ. Here is a verse that speaks volumes about internet bloggers that I compete with.
Heb 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
God says, that everyone should be on a path to be a teacher to others. Everyone should be learning and growing up spiritually. Every Christian should become a light to those who are in the darkness. But, God clearly says it is a process to become this, and it does not automatically happen. Why is that? God writing to the Hebrews said that by now they should have been teachers, but because of their lack of understanding they were clearly not qualified for this task. They needed to go back and study the basics, drinking the milk meant for babies before they could ever attempt to teach anything that had meat in it. Only you and God know where you are and what you are able to do. Check up with Him before you do anything crazy. God Bless!
Understanding How to Become a Light to a Dark World! Part 2
(Ver 1.3) We are studying an advanced spiritual Bible lesson of “How to Become a Light to an Unsaved Dark World”. This is the second lesson in the series and we have already covered many new ways of thinking about this very important subject. If you have not read the first lesson, I would highly recommend that you go and start with “Part 1” since I cannot repeat everything in every lesson or I would never be able to teach anything new. What we have learned so far is that there are two dimensions of spiritual condition. These were called Light and Darkness or Night and Day by God we were introduced to this concept in Genesis 1:16. In this same verse we learned that these realms also had rulers that controlled each. The Sun ruled the Day and the moon ruled the night. I then taught you clear verses that Jesus was the Sun that rules the day and gives us spititual light. We have also uncovered a new Bible definition for what “Light” is in the eyes of God. According to Bible examples, to give light is the method of teaching people the truth. We also learned of the Bible existence of the “True Light” which was just another title for Jesus Christ. However, the existence of any “True Light” reveals the implied presence of “false light” that must also exist in the world by the law of antithesis. We have reviewed approximately 10 verses that confrimed Jesus Christ’s identity as the symbolic Sun that rules the symbolic spiritual realm of the Day, giving you more than enough references to Him in this capacity. Today I want to continue the lesson with information about other lights that exist in the world besides Jesus the true light called the Sun of Righteousness. In knowing this truth, you will suddenly realize that you have a cmpetition to teaching the truth.
Understanding There is More than One Source of Light!
Getting the correct Bible interpretation of the Truth of God is highly dependent us upon getting God’s definitions of the words spoken in the verses being studied. Given our new definition of what light is (teaching others God’s knowledge and giving them true understanding), only God had all light until He started sharing it for others to learn by Jesus teaching them. Now, whoever, hears the truth and understands it also has the same light from God in them in a very limited capacity. So at one time God had all of the light in Him, but each of us who has heard and believed now has a little bit of His light in us right now. I believe I have just introduced you to how to become a light to the world. There is a concept given to us by God in this lesson that if you do not know anything or understand anything in the Bible then you would be classified as someone who is in the darkness (lacking and true light) and I will give you several verses in the Bible to confirm this later. But, when you believe in Christ and have made Him the Lord of your life, you now have heard the Gospel and let that light shine inside of you.
If you look at the night sky, you might realize that most of those star lights in the sky are far greater in size and intensity than our Sun? The only reason they appear so small and insignificant to us, is because of the distance from our planet. There exists well over a billion suns in our universe and most of them are many millions of light years away from the earth. So obviously God did not create a universe with only One True Light source as an example to get us to think differently. This however, does not mean there are many ways to God or many religions that can give you the true light. We just have to learn there are many sources of light in the world, at least one of them is called the True Light, but yet the others still exist and some of these might qualify as even being a false light. If you understand the Bible, the “stars” in some verses can be a symbolic term used to describe “angels” (for example stars in Rev 1:20 , Rev 12:4). These little lights in the sky can be symbolic of angels and guess who Satan was? Satan of course was one of the chief angels. Oh, well maybe we’ll get into that more later. What I want you to start to see, is that Satan can be called a light producing spiritual being. It is very much like the old saying that goes “God taught Satan everything that he knows, but God didn’t teach him everything that He knew”. If Satan holds some knowledge and understanding of spiritual things, then he is by definition a light carrier or spreader. We will talk more about that later.
What I will now attempt to do is show you scriptures that will inform us of the existence of other stated lights in the world. By establishing the existence of other types of lights in the world other than Jesus Christ, we can begin to see how we can become one of the true lights to a dark world that can counter those that are false lights. I will start this part of the lesson with a description that Jesus gives us when speaking about John the Baptist:
Joh 5:35 He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.
Jesus was speaking about John the Baptist using the terms that he was a witness to the truth. Notice that John the Baptist was not an apostle of Jesus. John was not even a member of the church, since the church does not exist yet. Still, John the Baptist is spoken of in terms that were rarely seen to describe anyone in the Bible up until this point. If you study the Bible closely you should discover that John the Baptist was in the ministery category of a “prophet” of God, but yet he was still just a man like you and me. Jesus calls John a burning and a shining light! That sounds a lot like a description for a sun, but it could also represent a torch type of fire light, or maybe even a description for a candle. We know John is not the Jesus the Sun of Righteousness, but yet he is described using similar terminology. What we can clearly see is that he is never described using any of the characteristics of the moon. The moon shines, but it does not burn. I find that very interesting don’t you? So what made John the Baptist a burning light? I believe it was because he went about teaching people to “Repent and be baptized” ? John is said to be the one that was to prepare the way for the Christ. When John was born, his father was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to prophesy about John and Jesus. In this discourse in Luke 1, you can read that John is called a Prophet of God. Then you can see this statement and it tells us why Jesus called John a light:
Luk 1:77 To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,
John’s father prophesied that John would “Give the Knowledge of Salvation” unto the people of Israel concerning “the remission of their sins”. Wow that is some strong information being given to us. John was a light, because he taught people about the coming works of the Messiah. Jesus came to Save His People from their sins and this was very good news for everyone to hear. What we have just learned, is that John was a light, before Jesus Christ was a light to the same dark world. Interesting, isn’t it? You can obviously see that Jesus is not speaking physically or naturally, so Jesus was definitely speaking figuratively and symbolically about the forerunner and this witness of Christ. John brought the knowledge and understanding to the people that the Messiah was coming, so Jesus called him a bright light to the people. John brought the truth and taught the people and Jesus said it was very good.
Mat 5:14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
Jesus also confirms, that we the church are now the light of the world. Here we have Jesus speaking to the apostles, the founders of the church of Jesus Christ, calling them lights, before they were even born again. I find that very interesting to study. This verse in Mat 5:14, is an exact duplication of the same Greek words and phrasing that Jesus used to describe Himself in John 8:12. Jesus said “I am the light of the world”, then in Matthew 5:14 Jesus says “You are the light of the world”. So is Jesus trying to teach us something new? Both of these verses describes us in the same terms of being “Light” as He is the “Light”. This Greek word means to “shine” as with “rays”. It also has an inferred meaning of “fire”. All of this sounds like the sun light and not the reflective moonlight.
Rom 2:19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,
We can clearly see that we are the light to them that are in darkness. I guess you could wrongly conclude that means we represent the moon. The moon is in the night sky being illuminated by the sun and that makes good logical sense. However, this verse does not say we reflect the light of Christ, it says we are the light of Christ. Do you understand the difference? This is almost exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 5:14 that we read right before this verse. Have you ever thought or seen where the Bible says “We are the Body of Christ”? Have you ever given that much thought? To be the body of Christ would indicate that we have the same Spirit in us that Jesus Christ had in Him. If that is true, then we are the True Light and we are not just a reflection of the True Light. Maybe you should go and read, Romans 12:5, 1 Cor 12:12-27, and Ephesians 5, where it describes the Church to be the actual body of Christ. That is actually a very important truth to know. Where you go, Christ goes, because the Spirit of Christ is in you. Here is another very relevant scripture that Jesus describes Christians in terms that we need to understand:
Mat 13:43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
The church is called those who are righteous(Rom 10:10). Therefore the church is spoken of in terms of being the true light from the sun and not just a reflection of that light. If the church is the moon, this would have been a good opportunity for God to tell us that. Instead of saying the church will shine like the moon, we are described in terminologies of the direct sun. I find that very relevant to our understanding of who we are and what we do.
So what does it mean to be called a light of the world? To be a shining light of the world means to be a deliverer of the knowledge of God and a teacher of the Gospel of Christ. The word of God is the Light of God. If you understand it, you can teach it to others. So far in the Bible, I have not discovered any scriptures that describes the church or believers in terms of just being reflections of the light of Christ as the moon does. What you actually see in the Bible is more terms that describe us to be like the sun, than the moon.
Where is the Location of the Light and the Darkness?
Now let’s describe where this light and darkness is located. By understanding the location of the light and darkness, we can better understand what they really are. We of course know that the sky above us is the domain of natural light and natural darkness. But, since I am talking about spiritual things instead of natural things, where is this spiritual light and spiritual darkness? You see if Jesus says we are the light of the world, that could imply that we just glow in the dark in the night, but clearly that is not what the Bible is talking about. Given my earlier definition of light as being “knowledge” and “understanding” where does this exist? You could say in your brain, or in your mind or within your intellect and that would be very closely related to the truth. Your mind is not your spirit and your spirit is not your mind. However, your mind is in contact with your spirit. I have not given a direct lesson on the human makeup, but I have alluded to it in other blogs. People are spirit beings, that have a soul, who live in a body. That just so happens to be a triune being, made in the image and likeness of God. The soul of man is comprised of your mind, your will and your emotions. Your mind/soul exists between your body and your spirit. Sound waves of spoken words enter your physical ears, and are transferred into your mind by your inner ear, which can allow these words to enter into your spirit, if you choose to believe what you hear. These are just basic Bible truths that I hope that you understand already. So let’s continue to locate the spiritual light using the Bible:
Joh 11:10 But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.
Jesus tells us something very profound here, Jesus says a man that walks at night without the light “IN HIM” stumbles. Where is the Light suppose to be? The light is said to be internal, inside your body, this is the location of the spirit of the man. So where is the Night? It is also inside a man in their spirit? How do you stumble in your spirit? That again is a question that you should ask yourself. Obviously this is not a physical light source, if you cut open a Christian’s body you do not see light rays shooting outward. So what is this internal light a symbol of? The internal light is simply a symbolic representation of spiritual knowledge and understanding that we possess. In actuality there are two types of spiritual light that are related, the light that is in us, is the light we possess internally, because we see and understand parts of the Bible. Being a light to the world is taking this light that is in us and sharing it with those who live in the darkness so that they might also know and understand.
So do Christians have this Light IN them always and forever? Jesus gives us very explicitly the location of the light, to be in our spirits. We can see that a man who has no light in him is in darkness and said to be in the Night and he stumbles. Why does he stumble? Because of his mind and his thinking and his lack of knowledge and understanding. What Jesus is talking about are the differences between those that understand the Bible and those who do not understand the Bible. If I understand the Bible, or at least a part of it, I have some light inside of me. This light came from God, and from His Word. There are tons of people in the world who do not have a clue what the Bible says or means and these people all live in the darkness of the night, because of their ignorance and lack of understanding. Here is a very valuable scripture to see in our discussion:
2Co 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
What is darkness and how is it related to Blindness? Both of these are the absence of light or the inability to spiritually see the light. No Light, then you have No Sight! Satan has blinded the minds of ALL of them that believe NOT, this verse says. Because of this blindness in their SOULS/MINDS, they are unable to see the light of the gospel of Christ in THEM (their spirits). Did you notice that the Gospel of Christ is called the LIGHT of GOD? What is the Gospel? It is the good news of what Jesus Christ has freely given to every man, woman and child. So we can conclude that those who do not believe in Christ, do not understand the Gospel, because Satan has deceived them into believing something else and therefore they do not see the light of the Truth in their spirits. The Light is again spoken of in terms of being spiritual knowledge and understanding of God’s Word. Knowing and understanding God’s word would be the ability to see the True Light. Jesus is said to be the giver of the Light, but Satan is at work diligently to block the light. How does Satan do this? He presents false teachings, false religions, false gods, false prophets, and false apostles to deceive you into a lie. Also, Satan can place thoughts, ideas and suggestions in your mind to cause you to be distracted from the truth.
So I have given you two major scriptures that inform us where the light is suppose to be. This location is said to be in the spirit of man. Also, keep in mind where the darkness is located, it is in the spirits of men and women. So to be a light to them that are in darkness is a practice to tell people the truth of the Word of God and pray that they believe it and understand it. If they choose to believe the truth, the spiritual Sun can rise inside of them also, then they will be born of the Day and no longer live in darkness.
Defining Spiritual Night and Day!
We have been talking about the subjects of darkness and light and I have mentioned that these are clearly synonymous terms for night and day. Correctly understanding the Bible means, finding and understanding God’s definitions of the Bible terms and symbols presented. God many times uses these types of natural symbols to teach hidden things that men think they already understand. But, because we do not get God’s definition for the subject, we are usually confused and live with what we think the Bible says. But, if we can get God’s definition for the words, then we can have greater assurance of a more accurate interpretation for what God wanted us to know in the first place. We have already read many scriptures in this lesson so far on this subject, but let’s go find new scriptures that help us to define what Night and Day is to God using His Word.
1Jn 2:8 Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.
As you can read again, Jesus is referred to as the “True Light”. But, it also says that to those who have accepted Him, the darkness has passed. Meaning Christians no longer live in the realm of darkness or in the spiritual night. Therefore if the light is present in us, the spiritual sun (Jesus) has not set, He has only risen internally in our spirits. Day and light and night and darkness are synonymous symbolic terms. Therefore from this verse we can see by implied antithesis that the day has appeared in us. The term “True Light” infers the existence of “False Light” as we have already discussed. People can of course dispute this or explain it away by their human reasoning and their definition of the word “True”. However, in my way of thinking if something is said to be true it would have to be something that was the opposite of a lie, or the opposite of that which is false. Any cleaver lie can appear very real on the surface and be taken by many to be true. It is very much like watching a Hollywood, movie. Everything in the movie is usually based upon lies, but they are presented in a format that appears to us to be so absolutely real. This is exactly how deception is presented in the world by Satan.
What you need to do is see what the Bible says. In this verse in 1 John 2:8, there is a direct connection to the Word of God and the light that shines in us. John writes a new commandment to us, yet this new commandment is more directly called the Word of God which gives us the light. These words are said to be True in Christ and now also in us! All of these words are in direct relationship to the spiritual light that is now shinning in us, because we have heard and accepted it. We have already seen the location of the light as being “In Us”. So we can conclude that the reason for the light that is now shinning in us, was given to us from us hearing, knowing and understanding the Word of God.
2Pe 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
Reading this verse carefully, it describes a spiritual process that has occurred within every believer. Our hearts use to be called a” dark place” without Christ, that would indicate that we were of the night and did not understand the Word of God. However, now it says that the “Day Star” has arisen in our hearts and the Day has Dawned within us. Do you understand that the sun rises every day and that begins the daylight hours? Jesus is called the “Day Star” and this is representative of our closest star that we observe during the daylight hours. So does the spiritual Day Star ever set in Christian hearts? I have not found any verses that say that occurs, in fact we just read a verse that said the darkness had passed. So the light is always present, when it arises in us, it is there for good. This is just another reason to see that we are not the moon who goes completely dark. The Christians are now described as being of the spiritual Day, because of the “Day Star” that has arisen within us. That would indicate that wherever we go Christ the Day Star goes also. It would also mean that we now have understanding of the Word of God in our sprits that it is permanently resident there.
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.
As you can see in this verse we (the Church) are again confirmed to be of the Day and not of the night. The moon only shines at night and not normally during the day so we have to fit what we believe to what we read in the Bible. I hope that you are seeing and understanding these verses. This verse says that we are the children of the Light, which infers there are also children of the night, but these are not Christians. You can clearly see that there is an established division being stated. This separation between Day and Night is very explicitly defined. The day is a 12 hour period of light, the night a 12 hour period of darkness. These are two separate and distinct spiritual conditions. I believe that the earth symbolically represents both those who are saved and those who are lost. You can understand how I got to this conclusion by studying the parable of the Sower in Mark 4. Jesus tells us that the earth or the soil represents the hearts of people. Now think in terms of the earth and the earth’s counter clockwise rotation. Those on the dark side of the earth that have turned away from the Sun, represents those who are lost. Those who have turned to the Light they are the ones that are saved. Those in the night are ruled by the moon who they can occasionally see at night. The moon appears to be a reflection of the True Light, but yet it has a dark side that is not revealed to people. However, the Sun represents God and His light radiates in every direction lighting the good, the bad, the pretty and the ugly at the same time. The Sun rules the Day and those who are in the light and they do not see the moon, only the Sun. The Sun shines during the day and the moon is seen mostly in the night. It is just so obvious to me, that I can see it so very clearly. I guess I can understand how difficult it is to see for others who are new to these Bible verses.
Rom 15:21 But as it is written, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand.
Here in this verse we can see that it is prophesied about a people who will begin to see. That would be the opposite of blindness and those in darkness. But, it also declares that they will hear with their ears and understand what is said. So we have a people spoken of that were spiritually blind, but now understand and know the truth. Those that see because of the Light of God and those who do not see because they live in darkness.
Eph 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
Here is another witness to what the light is representing symbolically. In this verse the “eyes of your understanding” is spoken of as being something that is spiritually able to see or perceive the knowledge of God. Just as your body has natural eyes that observe physical light rays, the spiritual eyes have ability to perceive the truth or lies presented to it. All I am trying to do is to get you to see why I described what light and darkness meant in the symbolic usage that we have clearly observed in the Bible.
Eph 3:4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ
What we observe in the N.T. is a repeated pattern, that the Bible contains mysteries and things which are difficult or impossible for the natural man to see and understand. This information is concealed from them that do not believe for a purpose. But, to them that are open, God grants light to see and understand these hidden mysteries.
Eph 4:18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
There are just so many verses in the Bible that speak of this spiritual situation of darkness and the inability to understand, that I cannot give you them all. I hope and pray that I have given you enough to see them for what they are. Spiritual blindness is a condition of the heart/spirit whereby men are incapable of understanding anything that is spiritual. In this verse in Ephesians, knowledge is spoken of in terms of a beneficial way to the life of God. It is also reported that ignorance or the lack of knowledge is a determining factor that keeps people from the life of God. All of this is spoken of in terms of the ability of the spirit of man to see and to understand. I’ll just do one more scripture and I’ll quit trying to get you to see the definition of light and darkness, day and night.
Col 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
God’s Word and His Spirit are again implied to be the Light that is rising within the hearts of these people to bring them wisdom and all spiritual understanding. That is an awesome prayer to pray for yourself and those that God sends you to. What you must realize is that if there is “spiritual understanding” that it must be different than “natural understanding”. People want to look at natural things and use human logic to determine the meaning of life. However, God says these people are just blind and they do not know where they are going or why they stumble and fall.
So we have seen a number of verses that inform us that there exists two spiritual dimensions. One is called the Day and one is called the Night. These two dimensions of light and darkness represents two groups of children. Those that are children of the day are the children of God. Those who are children of the night are children of Satan. You can theoretically pass from either state or dimension to the other simply by choosing to believe or disbelieve. I hope this is has been an informative lesson and that you have learned a lot. In the next lesson on this subject I will specifically talk about the symbolic identity of the moon. God Bless!
If you like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 3” now.
The TOP 10 Reasons Jesus Christ Came into the World?
(Ver 1.4) Many times we study the Bible and only see one perspective, because that is where our focus is. Our minds, our preconceived thoughts and prejudices can cause us to miss what the Bible actually says. People’s Bible study approach is very much like my approach to proof reading my blogs. Many times I type what I think I should say, but when I go back and reread it a few days later, it turns out what I typed was not actually what I had originally intended. Also, many times my typing errors are missed, because I read what I thought I typed and not what it actually says. All this does is prove that people can look right at the words written on a page and still not ever tell what they exactly said or meant. Students in school prove this everyday with their textbooks. This is why I believe that many times people do not see what the Bible actually says either. They see what they think it says and ignore what it actually says and they end up missing what God wanted to teach them in the frist place..
I have already blogged on the fact that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh. God purposely becoming a man can cause many people to stumble. The Creator becoming a part of His creation, that just boggles many people’s minds. However, God did this and you either have to accept it or choose to reject it by your onw freewill. Today I want to discuss some of the top reasons that I have found, why God did this. What does God and the Bible say, were the top reasons for God’s personal appearance on this planet? If you think it was just for one reason, you would be greatly mistaken. God rarely does only one thing at a time for a single threaded purpose or plan. God is a highly complex and intelligent being that can accomplish many things with one simple act. We just have to be smart enough to read and find out what these were and then why God said that He came to visit us. While I do not profess to know every reason I will give at least 10 of the top reasons that I have discovered from the Bible.
1. To Die
I believe the number one reason why Jesus came to the earth and was born a human man, was so that he could die. Did you know that it is impossible to kill God? God is a supreme spiritual power and it is impossible to eliminate God from existence. But, that does not mean that God as a man could not die a normal physical death. It is pretty obvious that Jesus proved that after hanging on the cross. When Jesus said it is finished, He fulfilled His number 1 purpose for coming into the world. His death accomplished more than you can imagine right now, but read this verse:
Heb 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of Jesus, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
Jesus Christ was born a human male on the earth so that he could taste death for all of us. The Bible says that it is appointed unto every man, once to die (Heb 9:27). In becoming a man we can clearly see that God did not intend for Jesus the man to live on the earth forever or to set up a natural kingdom or rule in this dimension of time. God specifically came to the earth in a very temporary capacity, on purpose with the set goal to die after 33 years of being present as a man. Death is also a separating force that terminates covenants. You can learn this by reading the words of Ruth, when she says “Until death separates me from thee”. If God wants to die on the earth, you can conclude that He wants to end whatever covenants that He was previously tied to. I know that is not a popular teaching, but it is a logical deduction based upon the facts established in the Bible. You do realize that the living mortal man Jesus of Nazareth did not establish a New Covenant with anyone while He was here in His mortal physical state? You see the New Covenant was implemented by the risen from the dead Jesus Christ. The Risen Jesus is now an immortal and omnipotent spiritual being and only He can implement a new eternal covenant that never existed before. This is a fact that you rarely hear taught in church. Jesus Christ is the first born from the dead and the heir of everything (Heb 1:2). What is an heir? An Heir is only someone who inherits what someone who died has left. Uh oh? Who died? What was left? Who are the heirs? You see why the Bible is so difficult to understand for most people? The Bible is more complex than most understand.
2. To Save Sinners
I believe the number two reason Jesus came to this planet in a physical form was so that He could save us. We of course are like everyone else and we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). Even though we are not really worthy of salvation, God chose to save us anyway. I have heard many people in the world say we just want what we are deserved. In other words in their minds the government owes them something and they deserve to get it all just because they belong in this country. That is an attitude that is based upon pride and error. You do not want what you are deserved, you are far better off asking for mercy.
1Ti 1:15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
Sin was a separating force from the righteousness of God. God had to do something with the sin problem of man, if we ever were to have any hope. God does this by becoming the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). God’s own personal blood was shed to pay the price for our sin. The Bible says without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin (Heb 9:22). It also goes on to say that the blood of natural bulls and goats cannot take away the sins of the world. So it required a higher price and only the blood of God Himself could satisfy this price.
3. To Save That Which Was Lost
This reason I will probably not be able to elaborate on fully in this lesson. Many will read this next verse that I give and think that it is talking about the previous reason, but I do not personally think that is what Jesus was talking about. Jesus did tell us that He was sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel (Mat 15:24). So we do understand that people are spoken of in the Bible as being lost. What I think is that it was more than that, which Jesus was talking about in this next verse.
Luk 19:10 For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Did you notice that this verse does not say, “Those Who Were Lost”? Why is that important? Why is that necessary to see? What was lost? What must be saved? Many just think we the people were what was lost and that is the only thing that God came here to save. That of course is a very narrow minded focus on what God is capable of doing. Let me answer these questions by asking you a question. Why is it necessary for God to create a new heaven and a new earth? You should really give that some serious thought before you try to answer that question. Could it be that is what was lost? I only buy a new car because something happened to my old car, either a wreck, or just old age and it died. Some people trade cars like they buy new underwear or socks, but God is not this way. You have to realize that there is a major problem with the old, if God implements a new anything. I mean think about it, can’t God ever create anything that lasts? Is He not God? It would appear that something happens to the old heaven and the old earth that causes God to create a new physical and spiritual realm. So I do not deny that people are also lost. In 2nd Corinthians 4:3 it says “If our gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost”. But, this word can mean “destroyed” or “perishing”. So while you could say people are lost, you actually find this statement:
Col 1:20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
You see you can find more scriptures about people having been reconciled back to God in the New Testament than you can find scriptures that speak about people being lost.
Rom 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
So the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ’s death is that we have been reconciled back in right relationship with God. I think I will leave the rest of this discusion to a future lesson on the subject.
4. For The Resurrection of the Dead
God told Adam, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and said that in the day that you do, you will surely die. That of course represents the poor choice that Adam made that perpetuated death upon the entire human race. Death ruled man, man feared death, death is an enemy to man and God came to solve the problem of death. Here is a scripture verse that helps us to see this:
1Co 15:21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
Jesus Christ is called the “Last Adam” and because the first Adam brought death into the world, Jesus was able to come as a second man to end death’s domination over us. You see death was a separating force that kept us from God because of Sin. Adam sinned and sold himself into the bondage of sin and Christ came and paid the cost for our redemption with His blood. It is an awesome work of God that He has accomplished. The immortal God becomes mortal and dies so that the mortal men and women in the world can become immortal and live with Him forever. It’s all a part of God’s great exchange offer. Exchange your life for His life and you become the winner!
5. To Undo the Works of the Devil
I hope that you do understand who the devil is? I hope you also understand that Satan is not on God’s payroll and does not work for God. You see God has the power to tell Satan what to do, but yet is this the way God is? Is God pulling all of the strings in heaven and causing everything in the world to happen exactly like He wants it to happen? You see I do not think so. You do understand that the Sovereign God is able to give man “freewill” by His choice and design? If you do not understand that man has a “freewill” you do not understand that it was you that chose to get out of bed this morning and not God. If you think that God controls what you do every day, then you need to come to understand the Bible with greater clarity. Let’s keep going and look at what the Bible says about Satan:
Heb 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
1Jn 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
Both of these verses speak of God attempting to “destroy” the devil or the works of the devil. Why would this be necessary, if God is in control of the devil already? You see the problem that some seminaries teach, don’t you? The term “destroy” does not mean to obliterate into non-existence as you would think it does. It means to “loosen”, “dissolve”, “undo” or “reverse” the actions of the devil. In other words Jesus came to undo the consequences of something that Satan directly caused. I hope you understand the concept of “cause” and “effect” found within the physical sciences. I think I first learned this concept in a High School Physics class, that every effect that we can observe always has a root cause. For example, when you see waves in a pond, you can deduce that something was thrown into the pond to cause the waves. It is not a hard concept to grasp. What you have to ask yourself is what were the effects of Satan’s work that God had to come personally to reverse? This is a tough question to answer in this lesson, so we will continue on.
6. Jesus Came and Died, So that the Holy Spirit Could Come In and Abide
This is a simple truth, but yet very important to understand. Without Jesus’ death we would not have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us today. Of course the Holy Spirit is only in those who have received Him and not in everyone. God does not force His entrance into the spirits of anyone. Here is a verse of scripture that tells us something that Jesus said to us personally:
Joh 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
Jesus said in Revelation 3:20, “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear my voice and will open the door, I will come in a sup with him”. So Jesus said I will come inside, if you open the door to your house and let me in. This is a symbolic representation of the heart of man. The comforter residing on the inside is a benefit, that nobody possessed before Christ died. Jesus told us that it was better that he go away so that he could send us the Comforter (John 16:7). While Jesus was here in the flesh, that would have been really cool to see. However, Jesus clearly tells us that it is better the way we have it now than the physical Jesus when He was here. You see a physical Jesus was the manifestation of the omnipotent God of Creation with limitations. Jesus could only talk to a limited number of people at a time. Jesus could only say one thing to everyone at the same time. Jesus had to eat, sleep and do other business, just like we do every day. Jesus was God with severe limitations and restrictions. If you do not understand that statement, I’m sorry I do not have time to explain it. Now that every Christian has God on a personal internal level, they have a teacher, the guide, the comforter and a true friend on the inside that cam speak to everyone independently and say something different to each of us at the same time. That is the benefit of the Holy Spirit over the physical Jesus.
7. To Fulfill the Law
Jesus made several statements about the law that are very profound. One of them was that heaven and earth would pass away but the law (God’s Word) would never pass away (Luke 21:33). This would indicate that the Word of God is something that is eternal. What does it mean to fulfill something said? I believe that it means to perform that which was spoken.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
God’s words are prophetic and contain information about coming events. God tells us that the “End is declared from the Beginning” (Isa 46:10). God therefore knows the outcome even before He started. God always recorded the outcome in the Bible for us to see before it actually happens on our timeline. Before God did anything, God spoke and then it happens. Jesus spoke repeatedly about the words of the prophets being fulfilled while they were walking about. Jesus declared that everything written about him would be fulfilled. We can therefore logically conclude that Jesus came to fulfill the Words of God that were prophesied about him.
Luk 24:27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
As you can see the Old Testament Law of Moses is said to be words that describe Jesus and what He will do and accomplish. These are very important things to note.
8. To Reveal the Hidden Wisdom and Words of God
The Natural Nation of Israel and the Natural Jews have held the Words of God for thousands of years and yet they still do not understand what they say. Jesus tried to teach as many who would hear the truth, but not very many people actually grasped the truth. What you must realize is that the Bible was written in a manner that concealed information making it difficult for natural men to understand. I believe that Jesus came to give us understanding and teach us the truth. Now that Jesus is raised from the dead, I believe this understanding has been made available to us by the work of the Holy Spirit within us.
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.
God has recorded many of the hidden wisdoms of God in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Jesus came and taught about natural things in the form of parables that revealed vastly profound spiritual truths, yet most of the listeners did not understand them.
Luk 24:27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
You can go into many of the verses in the New Testament and see what Jesus revealed to His disciples. Jesus went through the Old Testament starting with Genesis and showed these followers that He was written about on almost every page. All of this was secrets hidden from the plain view of man. I call this hiding the truth in plain sight. God used many techniques to disguise the truth, but yet it was right there for us to see. Did you know the term “mystery” only occurs in the New Testament? While God wrote the mysteries in the Old Testament, God did not specifically tell anyone that they were there. Jesus came along and read the scriptures and could see and understand the hidden secrets in the Word of God, since the Author of the Word was inside of Him. Jesus took these secrets and opened them up for people to see and after He was raised from the dead the disciples finally got it.
9. To Build a New Spiritual City
Jesus Christ became the chief cornerstone to a new spiritual City of God, called the New Jerusalem. This spiritual city reflects a new beginning, with a spiritual people who are called those who are righteous in the eyes of God. This organized spiritual structure is a new spiritual family of God and many of the old family members of God’s previous family have been omitted. That is not very good news for them.
Heb 11:10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
You see even as Solomon built God a temple in Jerusalem as a type and pattern for the future spiritual work of the One that is greater than Solomon, Jesus came to the earth to become the builder of a new name of God. As the Son of God, a son’s responsibility is to marry and carry on the family name.
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.
God tells us very clearly that each of us in the church is a “Living Stone” in a “Spritual House”. Do you understand this type of building project? Probably not, but yet God is using natural things to describe a spiritual structure made up of people. This new spiritual house is the Bride of Christ, called the New Jerusalem in Revelation. If you want to learn more about that you can go and read my blog on that subject, “The Bride of Christ Revealed“.
10. To Divide
Here is my reason number 10 for the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. This is of course a controversial reason for the coming of Jesus Christ, because it is not widely taught nor understood by many. As you read this statement that Jesus makes, it would appear to contradict what the Bible says in other places. Let’s just read and see what Jesus said personally about coming to the earth:
Luk 12:51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
Jesus is called the Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6), yet here in Luke Jesus said this is not why I am here. That is a pretty radical statement being made by the Son of God. God says I came to divide the earth and not to bring peace on the earth. What is God talking about? If you have read my other blogs you may already know the answer, but I will tell you again briefly. On the 4th day of creation God divides Day from Night and gives the Sun to Rule the Day and the Moon to Rule the Night. The Night is a 12 hour period of darkness, the Day is a 12 hour period of Light. These two separate divisions are symbolic representations for what Jesus is talking about in this verse in Luke. Jesus is called the “Sun of Righteousness” (Mal 4:2). Jesus is called the “Light of the World” (Jo 8:12). Jesus is called the “True Light” (Jo 1:9). Jesus is called the “Day Star” (2 Peter 1:19). Jesus is called the “Bright and Morning Star” (Rev 22:16). All of these are synonymous terms for the Sun that produces light on our planet. Jesus came into the world as the spiritual Light of the World and His Word causes illumination in the hearts of men and women so that they no longer live in darkness. Being children of the light and children of the day, we are the ones that have been divided from those that remain in the darkness (1 Th 5:5). All of this is a division that is taking place in the spiritual realm. God is dividing those who belong to Christ from those who belong to Satan. The end result is said to be completely different for both of these groups.
Mat 25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
Jesus speaks of two divisions of people in this one basic statement. Those that are righteous go to a realm of life everlasting, and those that are unrighteous to everlasting punishment. Two different results, two different people, two different divisions. This was one of the key reasons Jesus came to the earth and God declares it. You can choose to believe it or reject it.
The Hidden Jesus in Genesis! Jesus Revealed in the Hidden Patterns of Genesis!
(Ver 1.5) Jesus makes a very profound and awesome statement in the Gospels while He was speaking to the people of the natural nation of Israel. These are such tremendously important words that we (Christians) need to grasp and fully understand what they say and what they mean. Please read with me this statement spoken by the Almighty God personally to humans:
Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
A witness is someone who testifies in court of law. A witness in a court of law is someone who comes in and testifies about what they know, what they have seen or for something as an expert that is relevant and pertains to the case in question. An expert witness in a court case is someone who can speak with a certain level of authority on the specific related subject about the case. So God’s claim in this verse appears to indicate that the Bible is an expert witness for God’s case that He is presenting to us about the existence of Jesus Christ and His true identity. We should be able to clearly see what God is saying about the purpose of the Bible. God claims that the Old Testament contained hidden information about who Jesus was and what He is going to accomplish before He was done. 
Jesus also clearly informed us that we needed to search the scriptures to find this information. If we are required to become a “Sherlock Holmes” type of Christian doing a search of the written word in order to find these facts, that would mean that this information is not always clearly presented on the initial surface reading. This would also indicate that the information about Jesus was purposely hidden either from someone or for someone like us to find. For example, why do parents hide Easter eggs for their young children? Is it to protect the candy from being discovered? No actually it is more for the fun of seeing their children search for them with eager expectations of finding them. The purpose of hiding eggs is not to keep the children from ever finding the candy but it does simply create a challenge for them that provides the parents the pleasure of seeing the excitement derived from their discovery. This is a key concept that is needed to fully grasp about the words found in the Old Testament. The Bible contains literally many hidden secrets about Jesus and these concealed clues were placed there by our Heavenly Father for us (His children) to search and discover.
The Law of Moses was given to Israel on Mt Sinai and they carried these words for many hundreds of years. The Jewish people preserved them and cared for them and then when the author of the book appeared before them in the flesh they killed him. Why is this, I asked myself? I can see Jesus in the Old Testament, why couldn’t they see Jesus in the same way? That of course is a really good question to consider. I would guess that it is extremely more difficult to see what you do not know personally exists. For Christians who know Jesus personally, they have a much greater advantage over the people in Jesus’ days on the earth. They did not know Him like we can know Him so it is much easier for us to discover Jesus in the hidden verses in O.T. books like Genesis. The rest of this lesson will be about something that I have blogged on before, but maybe not in this direct context and under this specific title. This lesson will focus on the hidden Jesus in Genesis and I will give you at least three really good examples of Him that maybe you have not seen before. I will focus only on the first two chapters of Genesis and you will certainly be amazed if you can see it. Before, we start, I pray that the eyes of your understanding be opened and enlightened to see God’s truth.
Genesis 1:1
Let’s start with Genesis 1:1, where it says “In the beginning God created, the heaven and the earth”. Did you know Jesus was Hidden in this verse in Genesis by the Author? However, unless you read and study it in the original Hebrew language you probably did not specifically know this. The 4th word of the original Hebrew text is a word that has been completely omitted from the English translation and this one word reveals Jesus in this verse in a very profound way. The Hebrew word omitted in this verse is actually not a real word at all and thus the reason for the omission of a translation to the English language. The translators simply did not understand what to do with it, so they omitted it. This omitted word consists of only two Hebrew letters. These two letters are the “alef” and the “tav”. These two Hebrew letters just so happen to be the very first and very last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Does that help you to see Jesus better now? What I am saying is that Genesis 1:1 should have read “In the beginning the A-Z God created the heavens and the earth”. The translators did not understand the significance and they ignored the word being connected to the name of God.
Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
This new information should start to illuminate many spiritual light bulbs inside your heart and mind. You see , here in the book of Revelation chapter 1 and verse 8 Jesus calls Himself the “Alpha and the Omega”. It just so happens that these are also the very first and very last letters of an alphabet, but here it is of the Greek Alphabet. If the translators would have converted these two Greek letters to English properly Jesus would have said “I am the A and the Z”. Now do you see the connection more clearly? Also consider the fact that Jesus was a Hebrew. He spoke predominately Hebrew to the Jewish people. Therefore, when spoken this verse in Revelation could have been written in Hebrew and said “I am the Alef and the Tav”. Since it was written in Greek the Apostle John did the inspired thing to convert into Greek letters from the original spoken Hebrew. The English translators could have followed His example and legally translated it as the A and the Z.
What God is doing is revealing who created the world that we live in. Jesus Christ was the Word of God and He created ALL things that we can see and observe. Without Him was nothing that was made, made (John 1:1-3). So Jesus is clearly identified as the creator God, the “A-Z God” who created everything that was created. This is a very profound and priceless conformation of the identity of the Messiah to be the man Jesus Christ. In the Beginning the A-Z God created the heavens and the earth. That is how this verse should have read, now let’s go find Jesus in some other verses in Genesis.
Genesis 1:15-19 Day 4 of Creation
Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
I want to skip down in chapter 1 of Genesis to the described Day 4 of creation. This day is one of the most important hidden references to Jesus in all of Genesis. I do not profess to know every hidden reference to Jesus in Genesis, but I feel this one is one of the most important to see based upon my current understanding of the Bible. You see on Day 4 of the creation account, God tells us of two opposing lights. What God is doing is speaking symbolically and prophetically in these verses about Jesus Christ and what will be accomplished by His appearance on the earth.
In studying the days of creation I learned that every day of creation represented a prophetic day of man’s future on the earth. Since the beginning of Adam’s creation it has been approximately 6000 years. 6000 years can be divided evenly by 1000 giving us an answer of 6. These 6 equal periods of 1000 years represent a prophetic day in the definition of God’s timetable for man. We learn in 2 Peter 3:8 where God gives us a definition of a prophetic day that is a direct quote of a verse found in Psalm 90:4. God defines that a day to Him is exactly like 1000 years to humans. So the 6 days of creation plus the 7th day of God’s rest turn out to be prophetic days of all of man’s history on the earth. So what happens on the 4th day of creation? God assigns a greater light to rule the day and a lesser light to rule the night. The greater light is of course a synonymous title for the Sun and the lesser light is certainly the moon. But, God is not talking about only natural things, God is prophesying about two spiritual kingdoms to come. Jesus was born on the earth some 4000 years after Adam and this can be easily translated as during the time of the 4th day of creation. God is prophesying that Jesus will rule the kingdom of day and be the Sun light of our world. God is further stating that Satan (the symbolic moon) will rule the kingdom of the night and all those people that live in this darkness. There are so many scriptures that can be found in the Bible that speak of this profound revelation. I will not attempt to give you them all, but I will go through a few to get you started. You can read other blogs that I have written to find more information on this subject. Or just search your Bible on your phone or computer and look for words like night, day, darkness and light.
Mal 4:2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
In Malachi 4:2 Jesus Christ is prophesied as coming again in a very similar way that was being described in Genesis 1. Here Jesus is called the “Sun of Righteousness” that will “arise”. In this verse He is not spoken of as the “Son of God”, but here He is in direct connection to being the “Sun of God”. You can understand that God is speaking symbolically again about far greater spiritual truths. These are clues to knowing the truth but we are required to search and put them together correctly with the Lord’s help of course.
Joh 1:7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
Joh 1:8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
Joh 1:9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
In John 1:7-9, the Bible talks about John the Baptist and Jesus and calls Jesus the “True Light” in verse 9. You see if you think about this logically you can see that our sun in the sky is our physical natural true light that rules over the day and the moon represents the opposite realm that rules over the night. This is a direct comparison of the two great lights in the sky mentioned in Genesis 1. In John 8:12 Jesus is speaking and He calls himself the “Light of the World”. He then says that those who follow Him will not walk in darkness (night) where the unstated moon (Satan) rules. You can again see a spiritual reference to a truth that is revealed in Genesis on the 4th day of creation. These opposing truths are called Day vs. night, the Sun vs. the moon, and the Light vs. the darkness. These are all symbolic representations of the hearts and spirits of men and women in the world today. Two spiritual dimensions and conditions that are directly opposed to each other and ruled by opposite spirits. Again in John 12:46 Jesus says, “I am come as a light to the world, that those who believe in me should not abide in darkness”. Jesus says those who do not follow Christ and His ways are those that are walking and living in the darkness and who are ruled by the night and Satan. This CANNOT be speaking of Christians. There is absolutely no logical way this can come close to the truth for those that believe the moon represents Christians. I have heard this belief from several people before, but it just does not balance with scriptures. A Christian is either ruled by Jesus in the Day or governed and ruled by Satan in the darkness..
2Pe 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
Here we have another great verse that declares Jesus to be the Sun that arises and shines in human hearts to light our spirits so that we can see and understand His truth. Notice the keyword connection “arise” given here that matches what Malachi prophesied about the “Sun of Righteousness”. That is NOT a coincidence. These are all profound confirmations to the 4th day of creation. Notice that this verse in 2 Peter is speaking about previously written prophetic words concerning a light arising in a previously named dark place. We have to search and look for these words and find them, could this be those that we found mentioned in Genesis and Malachi? All you have to do is read it and see what it says about these two lights to see how much is related to what we have observed.
That is part of the difficulty in correct Bible interpretation. The Sun is called by many different names, titles and descriptions in the Bible so we have to be wise enough to see the connections and find them all using God’s help. In Genesis the Sun is called the “Greater Light”. In John the Spiritual Sun was called the “True Light”. Here in 2 Peter the Sun is called the “Day Star”. You do understand that our sun is our closest star to our planet and normally this start is the only one we can see during daylight hours? These are just some of the ways that God uses to hide information in the Bible for us to find. In Revelation 22:16 you can see Jesus being called the “Bright and Morning Star”. This again is a new symbolic reference to the Sun in Genesis 1 and Malachi 4 that arises in the hearts of men. These are all extremely important things to learn and to understand. I hope and pray that was sufficient to at least motivate you to go learn more.
Genesis 2 Adam and Eve
Another way God uses stories in the Old Testament to hide spiritual information concerning Jesus is through the use of typology. These are true natural stories of real natural people, places and things that have greater spiritual meanings attached to them to reveal to us hidden things that we cannot see. Sometimes types and shadows can be hard to recognize and difficult to discover or understand. However, God has given to us some clues in the Bible to help us and to point us to what to look for. Always trust the Holy Spirit to help you in your Bible study. He is the only one that truly knows what it means. In the 2nd chapter of Genesis God gives us the detailed account of the creation of man and of the woman, the law of marriage and the story of the beginning of the first human family on the planet. This entire chapter is a more detailed view of Day 6 of creation described in Genesis 1. Why is this detail information important and how does this relate to the claim of Jesus to be hidden in Genesis? That is a really good question. So here is the beginning of the primary reason why this is so important to know:
1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Here is a direct clue from God showing us a direct connection between two different men both called Adam. This verse compares the first created man Adam to the man Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ here is being called the “Last Adam”. Why is that? What you discover when you study Genesis 2, is that the first natural man Adam was a natural pattern for the last spiritual man Adam that was to come. So whatever God did to and for the first man Adam, is what will happen to the Last Man Adam in the spiritual realm. That of course is some totally new information to many Christians and it may be hard to accept at first, but just keep studying and you will see that it is true.
God created Adam’s wife and took her body from his body. You will recall God put Adam asleep and took from his side the bone to create a woman. As a result of what God did, Adam says “She is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”. In other words, Eve was called the “body of Adam”. According to the law of marriage given to us in Genesis 2, it says “The man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh”. One flesh is just another way of saying “One Body”. Many people know that the Church is called the Body of Christ in the N.T. and yet they do not know how we became the Body of Christ. We can answer this mystery very easily if we see that by the law of marriage and the pattern of the first man Adam Genesis 2, the church has now become the Body of Jesus by a new covenant of marriage. You can see this very clearly by reading verses in Ephesians 5 about husbands and wives and then God reveals that this is a mystery that concerns Christ and the church.
Remember when Jesus was hanging on the cross? He died on that cross and in the N.T. this is often referred to as being asleep (1 Cor 11:30, 1 Cor 15:51). Jesus Christ being dead (asleep) on the cross was pierced in His side by a Roman soldier’s spear. Does this sound familiar to what we read in Genesis 2? Out of His side flowed Blood and Water. These are two powerful elements of our salvation to become His bride. Jesus Christ is the spiritual Last Adam who marries a wife who becomes His Body born out of His side. Because Eve is a woman that births every natural and physical being on this planet she represents a natural type of another spiritual woman who will birth spiritual realities in God’s new covenant family. I have many other blogs that talk about this in much more depth if you are interested.
Gal 4:19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
Conclusion
These were just 3 of the examples of the hidden Jesus in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. I hope that you learned something and can now begin to see how to learn to search out other hidden references to Jesus in Genesis trusting in God’s guidance. Many times these hidden references are not obvious at all, so we have to search for scriptures and find references, definitions, types and patterns revealed in other parts of the Bible. Jesus told us to search the scriptures, for these are they that testify of Him! The evidence for God can be found in His Word. God Bless!
God’s Word Based System! Are ALL Spoken Words Prophetic?
(Ver 1.1) Today will be another lesson (Part 6) from the Bible on the spoken words of God and man. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start reading with “Part 1“. As we read the Bible we can clearly see that God assigned certain men in the Bible with a gift of “prophecy”. These men were called the “Prophets” of God and they wrote vast amounts of scriptures about future events. So a prophetic word is one that could be taken as a future prediction of events to come. I’m really not a big fan of that definition of Prophecy. You see you can very easily confuse the words of “Nostradamus” as being future predictions, but did they come from God? Were they “Prophetic” or were they just someone writing down random thoughts of what they think will happen? I personally do not think they were prophetic or from God. Here is what I believe about prophecy and the realm of time. I believe that God lives outside of the limitation of time and space. The Bible says “In the beginning, God created….”. So we know before the beginning of time and space, God already existed. I believe that God can see all of humanity in a single view from start to end. The Bible says “I make known the end from the beginning”. Therefore, I believe that when God showed men in the Bible what to write about concerning future events, in the eyes of God, they had already happened from God’s perspective and God was just reporting what happened, before it actually happens in our time line. This is of course very difficult to comprehend how this is possible, yet men like Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein probably could better see it with many of the things that they have written about, to name a couple of modern day people who think outside of the box. So God’s prophecies are not predictions of things that might happen, they are just news reports of things that have already happened on our timeline. This is of course not predestination either. God did not cause all of them to happen, many times God just knew what men would do and used that for His purpose and plan. There is a major difference in the two perspectives of Prophecy. Every day, economists and people on Wall Street predict where the market is going based upon world events and factors that they observe around them. However, many, many times they are totally wrong so what they say did not come from God and was not prophetic and God did not perform what they said to fulfill it.
The complexities of the Bible are so huge that this is a very difficult subject to teach on. There are many factors and dependencies that we need to be aware of that it is impossible to teach on everything at once. Right now I am primarily concerned with the subject of Spoken Words so that will be my main focus of the rest of this lesson.
A while back I wrote a blog on “Speak to your Rock” and then I wrote a follow-up to that about “Idle Words“. At the very least, it would appear that God is trying to teach men, that what they say has significance to what happens in their lives. So I had a reader ask me this question, “Are words spoken by people prophetic because God showed them what will happen and therefore, they speak it and then it comes to pass in their lives”? Today’s blog will be an attempt to answer this question and hopefully explain what I meant in the other blogs that preceded this one on Spoken Words.
We can clearly see that every word spoken by people does not immediately happen to them. I believe this is by God’s design, if things happened exactly like people say, very few would have made it past a very young age. You see we have many people who say things out of ignorance and they generally do not mean a thing. You have many other people in the world who lie and these words generally do not mean anything. You have many other people who say things as a joke to be funny and these generally don’t mean anything either. Then there are words of slang that have crept into our mainstream that say the opposite than what they normally mean. Michael Jackson use to say “Ilm Bad” when he really meant “I’m Good”. There are just too many examples of people saying things that never happen so how do you balance that with other specific examples of men and women who have said something and it actually happens, exactly like they said? Was it a coincidence or an accident or was it something greater? In one blog I told you about Elvis Presley who was heard more than once to say that he would never out live his mother’s age when she died. Elvis died in 1977 at the age of 42, His mother had died in 1958 at the age of 46. So did what Elvis say cause what happened to him, or was it just a prediction that accidently occurred? You have to at least think about it and see that it is pretty amazing. I also gave you another example of my personal grandmother. She was getting older and did not like to drive her car in traffic. She was over heard by some other family members to say that “Some crazy driver would be the death of me”. One day as she was leaving one of her son’s houses and on the way back home, she pulled out in front of a couple of teenagers who were racing on the street where they should not have been. They broad sided my grandmother’s car and she was killed instantly. So again, we have to ask the question, did what she say cause it to happen or was it just an amazing coincidence? I could give you more examples like these, but I think we should shift focus to the Bible and see what we can find there about this subject. What the Bible says is far more important than any personal testimonies of people you cannot verify what they said.
In the O.T. in the book of Numbers chapter 13, God gives us an example that is very profound and has great significance to our current subject of spoken words. In this chapter, God tells Moses to send out 12 spies into the land that He has given to them. Their job is to look at the land and see if it is good and come back and report it to the people. Moses chooses 12 men, one from each of the tribes of Israel and they go and spy out the land. They then return to make their report back to the people after 40 days bringing large clusters of grapes. The twelve spies were divided into two groups. Ten said that there are strong people and walled cities. Two of them Joshua and Caleb said, “Let’s go up and take it, we are well able”. But, the ten said “We are not able, for they are stronger than we are”. The ten spies said “We are but grasshoppers in their eyes”. The ten spies stir up the majority of the people to believe they were unable to take the land that God had given to them. As a result of the “Evil Report” they began to say “Let’s go back to Egypt, and it would be better to die in the wilderness”.
In Numbers 14, Joshua and Caleb try to convince the people that they are able because God is with them and the defense of the inhabitants of the land has departed from them. What can we learn from this lesson found in the Bible? The Bible says these things happened and were recorded to be examples for us, the church. Two spies said “We can do it” and ten spies said “We are not able to do it” and both of these groups of people got exactly what they said. This is a lesson that you should begin to apply to your life and see how it applies to the things that you say. Review what you have said in the past and see if it is not what you are getting right now!
Let’s look at another example of a Bible story, so that in the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established. In 1 Samuel 17, the story of David and Goliath is a classic Sunday School story of how God used David to kill the giant Goliath. But, how was God able to do this with David and not with any of the other thousands of soldiers in the army of Israel? What was different about David? If you notice when you read this chapter, David was not afraid of this giant and all the other men in the army were terrified. Does this sound familiar with the story of the 10 spies? Weren’t they all afraid of the giants also? If you read this chapter closely you will also notice exactly what David said that made the difference to allow God to use him and not anyone else.
1Sa 17:37 David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee.
This is the beginning of a series of positive things that David says. David has great confidence in God’s ability to deliver. David has great confidence in God’s covenant. David says “God will be with me and deliver me from this Philistine”. Isn’t this like what Joshua and Caleb were saying? Can you tell the difference between a good report and an evil report? Both are spoken words, but one says “I will win” and the other says “I will lose”. Does what you say have any bearing on what God is able to do? If you do not understand that it does, you will forever be deceived into thinking that you have no responsibility in the outcome of your life.
Now let’s examine the real battle of David and Goliath. In Numbers 17:43 Goliath who also has a mouth full of words for Israel, starts to speak to David and asks “Am I a dog that you send out a boy with a staff?” Goliath curses David with his gods and tells David what he is about to do to him and his flesh. Can you see this is the real battle? David could have believed what Goliath said and run back home to watch the sheep and said forget this war stuff. Instead, David says this:
1Sa 17:45 Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
These are the words that permit God to do mighty things. Because of David’s faith in God and God’s ability to save, David continues to speak and declare the end even before the beginning:
1Sa 17:46 This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.
As you can see David got exactly what He said. The stone left his sling and hit the giant in the only exposed spot on his body that was vulnerable and David ended up taking the giant’s head off with the giant’s own sword. As a result of David’s victory the rest of Israel suddenly got religion and remembered the God of Israel and were not afraid anymore. The army of God was victorious over the Philistines that day because of the words of a shepherd boy who would eventually become King. Did David’s words have anything to do with David becoming King? You bet they did exactly that. There are many Bible lessons that speak of things exactly like this. Because you have never looked for them, does not mean they do not exist.
What you discover by digging deep into the Bible, is that the world is based on a word and faith system. God tells us in the Bible that everything we see was created from things that we cannot see (Heb 11:3), these things that we cannot see are words. The words of God became the things that we see around us. If you look at Genesis 1, you will notice the Bible repeatedly would say “And God Said….”. These words that God spoke originated from God’s Spirit and became the things that we perceive with our natural senses. If Words created our universe that we live in, then Words can still change it. Of course are these changes only limited to God’s Words or does the words of others effect what happens in the world? That is a big question to consider. Many religious people like to think that God controls everything that happens in the world. A huge volcano eruption that was God’s work, so they think. A big hurricane, that was also an act of God, so they think. I guess what we need to figure out is, is this what the Bible says?
Jesus Christ is called the Word of God in Rev 19:13. Then in John 1:1 it says “In the beginning was the Word and the Words was with God and the Word Was God!”. So we cannot separate God from His word, they are said to be one in the same. In John 1:14, it says “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” in speaking of God becoming a man in Jesus of Nazareth. John 1:14 gives us an example of how God’s word, by His Spirit can become something natural and physical. So God is His Word and the Word of God is God! God’s Word can also become a physical something that we can perceive with our senses. So far so good?
Then we see Jesus teaching us a farming lesson in Mark 4. The parable given there is about a farmer who throws seeds into different types of soil and some of the soil produces fruit and some does not. There are numerous symbolisms given to us in this parable, the soil is said to be the hearts of man. The birds of the air are demonic forces that attempt to eat the seed so that it will not produce. Finally, Jesus tells us that the seeds that are being planted are “The Words of God” (Mark 4:14). Now let me ask you a simple question, if God’s words are seeds, are all words that are spoken seeds? Is this possible? If you read another parable you might begin to see that it is entirely possible. In Matthew 13:24, Jesus tells us another parable about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is like a man who sows good seed in his field…”. Remember the fields are the hearts of men. The Good Seed is the Word of God. What is the opposite of Good Seed, I believe it would be Bad or Evil Seed. Uh Oh, remember the “Evil Report”? So in verse 25 of Matthew 13 Jesus says “an enemy came in and sowed tares among the wheat”. If you read on you find that the tares have become the children of the enemy and the wheat the children of God. Who is the enemy? Satan would qualify as the enemy of God who has sown the bad seed or evil words into the world. So now we have two different kinds of seed being spoken of, one evil and one good. Those from God are good seeds, those from Satan are evil seeds. I hope that you are understanding that people now have a choice of what to speak. They can choose to speak the “good seed” or they can choose to speak the bad or “evil seed”. In Deuteronomy 30:19, God says “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life that you and your seed may live”. Did you notice the reference to seed again? This is a double reference to two different things simultaneously. Seeds can be your children and seeds can be your words. In this verse this is spoken of in terms of blessing and cursing again and we can see more implied references to your spoken words. Jesus cursed the fig tree and blessed the little children with the same mouth. Jesus gave us object lessons of how a mouth can produce two completely different results based upon the seeds that they sow. One was a blessing to the children and one was a curse to the fig tree. So man can choose to live or die by their spoken words. Is this what the Bible says? If you read in Proverbs you find a very powerful truth being spoken of and it says “Death and Life are in the Power of the Tongue, those that love it shall eat the fruit thereof”. So did you notice what this verse said? It said your tongue has power and your words are the seeds that produce results, either good or bad. Do you understand this?
So words are seeds that are planted in your heart that produces some result or crop in your life. You can plant good seeds from God’s Word or you can plant evil seeds from Satan. The soil of your heart really does not know the difference. Someone asked me if I thought that your words were prophetic? I would ask you, if a farmer planted a field full of corn seed, is that the crop he will harvest in the process of time? Did the farmer prophesy “corn” into existence or was it the fact that he planted the seed and the crop grew up and produced what was put in the soil. So Words are seeds and produce either the good or bad things that were spoken or planted in your heart? I of course oversimplified this lesson because it takes more than just speaking words to get something to happen in your life. Faith must also be present. Faith is the belief and expectation of something or someone that you do not see or feel with your physical senses. You believe in God and that He exists, even though you have never seen Him, that is faith. You believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and was raised from the dead, and that is faith, since you were not there to witness it personally.
What people say with their mouths and believe in their hearts, that is what will happen in their life, either positive or negative. It is the law of Faith. Faith always existed in the world from Adam until now. Galatians 3:23 tells us that “Faith was Revealed” in the New Testament, meaning it was present in the Old Testament, but hidden from man and they did not understand it. So the Law of Faith existed when God told Moses to Speak to the Rock and God said that because you did not believe, you will not enter into the promise land. Moses did not believe, that is the opposite of faith. God told Moses what to do and Moses didn’t do it.
This is why God did not reveal the secrets of the Bible to the Old Testament saints. If they would have figured out how spiritual things worked back then, before Jesus came and provided salvation, we could have been in some real big trouble. God is now revealing how spiritual things work in these last days before Jesus comes back. Those who are spiritually mature will be able to see them and understand them, and those who are still childlike will reject them more than likely. I pray that you have understood these Bible verses and the spiritual laws revealed in them and now can apply them to your lives so that you can get Good Results and you and your seed will Live!
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on spoken words, you can go to “Part 7“.
The Sword of Our Mouth! Our Words Cut Two Different Ways!
(Ver 2.0) I have taught on this subject of the significance of the spoken words of our mouth a couple of times now. Today’s lesson will be Part 3 in the series and I will be talking about something that is completely new and different to many Christians. However, if you haven’t read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“. This lesson will be focused upon God’s usage of the symbolic nature of a “double edged sword” to describe spoken words. If you have read through the Bible you should already be aware of how God teaches us very clearly that Jesus has a double-edged sword coming out of His mouth. We will see verses in this lesson that describe Jesus is able to destroy those who oppose Him with this symbolic sword. This double-edged sword is widely accepted by theologians as a figurative representation of the power of God’s word spoken. If we do not understand this concept, I will attempt to expound next in this lesson on this subject to clarify it and to help us better understand the concept of the power of spoken of words. Let’s start by reading some foundational verses found in Revelation:
Rev 19:21 And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
God is truly an awesome God! It shocked me a while back when I heard about a group of people in the U.S. that were getting together to form a militia to help God fight the coming Anti-Christ. They were gathering guns and ammo like it would be useful to God’s victory over evil. Where do people get these types of foolish ideas? I really have no clue. These people obviously do not know God, the Bible or understand the omnipotent power of God. This verse in Revelation 19 reveals to us that the LORD Jesus will be sitting on a white horse and He will be able to kill everyone opposing Him, simply by speaking some choice directed words at them. That is a clear example of the power of God in action. God says something and then it happens. Pretty awesome, isn’t it? You can learn concept this from reading the Bible starting in Genesis 1 and going all the way through to Revelation 22. God’s spoken words will always prevail and will always come to pass. Let’s examine some additional verses because the Bible instructs us to establish every truth in the mouth of two or three witnesses (Mat 18:16):
Rev 2:12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;
Rev 2:16 Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword1 of my mouth.
Jesus speaking to the church in Pergamos, warns them to change or else they will also see the sword of His mouth come against them. We can easily understand that God is a Spirit (John 4:24) and that God is not talking about a literal physical sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus. 
We must therefore, conclude that this described sword is a symbolic representative for the spiritual force that exists in the power of God’s Spoken Word. I really hope that you understand this concept. Did you notice that God says this figurative sword has two edges? Two edges describes a weapon that can cut in either of the two directions depending upon which way a person swings it. Two edges could could also symbolically mean something else. The words of our mouth can be a blessing to someone or a curse to someone. There exists two possible realms of opposing types of words in the world. In the last Bible lesson we observed two types called “idle” or “lazy” words versus “working” and “productive” words. But there are others like “good” words or “bad/evil” words, “positive” words or “negative” words and words of “blessings” or words of “cursing”. All of these are examples of a sword that can be used for two different purposes.
I find it fascinating that the English word “sword” is the letter “S” followed by word “word”. I believe the letter “S” can stand for “Spirit” and we will learn more about this very soon. The power of any sword or spoken word is always the same. It is non-existent until used or spoken. Therefore the power of any weapon will forever be dependent upon the directed purpose of the user. In much the same way how a natural gun is used in the hands of the shooter, a spiritual weapon can be used for two completely different purposes. The natural gun can be used as a positive weapon to help feed or protect people or as a negative weapon to hurt or rob from people. These are parallel truths concerning the words of our mouth. What I would like to do is give some additional scriptures that help to confirm what I have just said so let’s take a look at these:
2Th 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
God is speaking prophetically in this verse about the coming events in Revelation. The wicked one described here is the future antichrist who will soon be revealed. The double edge sword we read about in Revelation in the mouth of Jesus is now called something completely new and different in this verse. The symbolic double-edged sword of Revelation is now defined to be the “Spirit of His Mouth”. This is still the same equivalent description of God’s Spoken Word that is infinitely powerful. God’s spoken word has ALL of the ability to destroy or literally consume anyone who is opposing Him. Do you understand that God’s spoken words are His Spiritual Power released? This is an awesome revelation of something that is found within the character and nature of God the Almighty. God is often described in the Bible to be omnipotent, but what is that makes God this way is what we will explore now:
Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
You can see a second confirmation that the Spoken Words of God are Spirit! This verse was Jesus speaking to us and He says that His words are this Spirit that quickens. To quicken is an old English term that means to give life to us. God’s words are declared to be a force of life to us. Because of what God has spoken to us we can live. Now recall, what we previously read in Revelation. In those verses God states His spoken Words are something that produces death. These represent the same spiritual power directed two different ways for two different purposes. This is an example of a double-edged sword. A knife can be used to kill someone or it can be used to save someone’s life if used in a wise knowledgeable way by a surgeon. Wow, these are very important lessons to learn and apply to our spoken words.
You will notice if you study the Bible, that Jesus chose His words very carefully and never shot off His mouth with random thoughts. His words were always focused, directed and had a purpose. Much of what Jesus said to people were words recorded by the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. In John 12:49 Jesus said He was told what to speak by His Father in heaven. How many of us can say that? How many of our words come from the God in heaven? We should learn to become more like Jesus because, God’s words were always active, relevant and important. Now let’s look at what the Bible says about the Power of God?
Heb 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
We can now see and learn from another verse about the Word of God. This time God reveals to us that “All” of His Power is in His Word. The Greek written here does not say “His powerful Word” it says “The Word of His Power” and that makes a huge difference. Some translators tried to change the meaning to “powerful” word but the KJV Bible stayed true to the original Greek and preserved it as an accurate truth. Here is the difference, does God’s Word have power or is it His Power? Can we try to think why this is important? If God said I am LOVE it would be completely different than Him saying I have love. I believe this principle is what God was saying to us in Hebrews 1:3 to His spoken Word. I believe that God is attempting to give us a revelation that His Word is His Power and His Power is His Word.
Therefore, we cannot separate God the omnipotent from His omnipotent Word or we could say His Word is God (John 1:1)! This is why John 6:63 said the Words that Jesus spoke to us were from God’s Spirit and they contain His life giving Power for those who received them. Always remember that God’s Words are Spirit! God’s Words are Life! God’s Words are His Power! As we have seen before they are also a weapon against His enemies. So we can all begin to understand that the Spoken Words of God can give life to some that will receive them and can take life away from others who do not accept the free gift of salvation. That is the nature of a double=edged sword. One aspect and application is always positive and the other is very negative. That was a summary of several foundational truths that the Bible teaches us about the Word of God and the Sword of the Spirit.
So how does this apply to us? What good does all of this information do me? Are there any benefits to speaking God’s Word for me? In other words what’s in this lesson for me? We all know that God is all powerful, so how does this power help me? Start by asking yourself this question. Why did God give us a huge book of His Written HOLY Words? Does the written Word of God have any visible power rising out from the pages? Obviously not! Therefore, these written words can only help me if I can learn to speak them. I beleive that only by learning to believer and speak His Word will it ever help us. I beleive this is “one” of the main reasons why God gave us His written Word. God gave us His Word so that we can put it in our minds (Eph 4:23). He also gave us the Word so that we could put it in our hearts (spirits) to believe it. Finally, I believe that He gave us His Word so that we can now choose to put it in our mouths to speak it (Mat 12:34).
Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than ANY two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of( soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Let me introduce you to a hidden secret, in the Bible it says God is not the only one with a “two-edged” sword in his mouth. In fact we do not have to think very hard or for very long before we figure out that every created human in the world can open their mouth and speak words either positive or negative. This also includes other created spiritual beings like angels, demons and Satan. All of these beings were created with mouths which emit words that come from their spirits (Mat 12:34). But, this verse in Hebrews says plainly that God’s sword is sharper and more powerful than any of the others that might exist. This verse clearly informs us that the other mouths have power in them, but implies that they are in a limited capacity compared to God’s spoken Words. Do you get this concept?
If man was made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26), like the Bible clearly says we were, and if God’s Words are sharp and powerful, then our words must have a limited resemblance to His. But, here is the major part of God’s contribution to man, God gave us His spoken words written in a book form in order to permit us to put them in our mouth to speak them. And the Bible says that God watches over His word to perform it (Jer 1:12). Wow, I hope you understand what I just said. The implications are far reaching if you can accept it and believe it.
Eph 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
In Ephesians chapter 6, God commands the church to put on the armor of God. 
Each of the armor pieces described to us is a symbolic representation of a spiritual truth of the completed freely given work of God to and for humans. In fact every piece of armor is something that God has already provided to us freely. It is now up to us to make the freewill choice to take each item and put it on. This aromor included the Shield of Faith, the Breastplate of Righteousness, the Belt of Truth, the Helmet of Salvation, and the Shoes of Peace. God is telling the church that there is a spiritual war and we must get ready for it. So far all of the weapons of armor that I just mentioned were defensive types of weapons to keep us safe from the blows of the enemy Satan. But, then in verse 17 of Ephesians 6, God finally tells the church to take the “Sword of the Spirit”, which is directly defined to be “the Word of God”. How is this Sword of the Spirit going to help us? I believe very firmly that we now have the direct implied connection to our mouths! Can’t you see this? The only way that we can use the Spiritual Sword of the Word of God against an unseen spiritual enemy to our advantage is to speak it. Leaving the Bible on our coffee tables will do nothing to keep the devil out of our houses. This is a very powerful, spiritual Bible law being revealed to us. What you say is far more important than what you can possibly imagine or know right now. Take a look at this verse in Isaiah:
Isa 59:21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.
God is prophesying an awesome new covenant reality that is now established with us in the church and God says that He will put His Spirit upon us and His Words in our mouth. Can you see the direct connection between our mouths speaking His spoken words with His Spirit?
God literally says that these words will not depart from our mouths, nor from the mouths of our seed. Who are those called the Seed of Abraham? We in the church are the seed of Abraham (Gal 3:29)! Who is the Seed of the Woman? You probably do not know this, but Jesus was the chosen Seed and we the church are in that Seed of the Woman (Rev 12:17). God’s Word will not depart from our mouths and we will overcome Satan by His Blood and His Word that He has given to Us (Rev 12:11)! I taught you earlier that this was a Biblical Spiritual Law being revealed to us. Let’s look at an Old Testament example of this.
Jos 1:8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
The lessons found in the Bible through intense study are usually very deep and complex and have many hidden truths associated within them. Because we do not understand them completely we can easily just read over a truth and not grasp that these words apply to us and what we should be doing today. Here in the book of Joshua God uncovers the secret to a human’s success on this planet. It is a basic spiritual principle and law that is not very difficult to follow if we can understand it. God tells Joshua that He should speak His word both Day and Night. We could say that means constantly and continually or every waking moment. God was teaching Joshua about the Sword of the Spirit that will cause him to be a great success in this world. But, there is also an implied opposite truth found in this verse. God says by impled antithesis that if we do not speak the Word of God we will not be a success. Do we want to be prosperous and successful in life or dismal disappointed failure? God is telling us how to do both, right here! We have to make the choice. We are not forced to do either but usually being passive results in failure and this is many people’s wrong defaulted selection.
Remember when Jesus was tempted by Satan in Luke 4:1-13? Three times the enemy came to tempt him into a subtle trick. But, here is the lesson learned from this example. Every time the enemy Satan came with a temptation, Jesus brought out the Sword of the Spirit called the Word of God and said “IT IS WRITTEN”. Wow, that is extraordinarily critical to learn from and apply to what Satan does to us. You see the Bible says that Jesus was tempted the very same way that we are tempted (Heb 4:15). But, He was wise enough to use the sword correctly as a living example. I pray that this will be a benefit in your life today.
I guess I have gone long enough in this lesson and given you plenty of new things to think about. The sword of your mouth is either going to be a blessing or a curse to you and to those you direct it at. While your negative words will never be able to put a curse on me, they will cause curses to come upon you and your children. What we say is so completely important that it cannot be emphasized enough for us to think before we speak. If we do not have a Bible verse that backs up what we are about to say, we probably should not say it.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on spoken words you can go to “Part 4“.
What Does God Think About Homosexuality? What Does The Bible Say?
(Ver 1.3) This is “Part 1” in a series of advanced Bible lessons on the subject of “What does God think of homosexuality”. This of course is a hot topic and one that is fiercely debated, even in churches. There are so many controversial subjects that people just want to ignore, because they do not want to offend anyone. I never recall Jesus avoiding any issues that were brought before Him but, I also do not recall Jesus ever directly addressing sin in any area of people’s personal lives. People need to understand what Jesus said in John 3:17. Jesus claimed that He was not sent into the world to condemn the world but through Him the world might be saved. This of course, people are very quick to point out, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality and I have even heard people try to accuse Jesus of acting like a homosexual. It is amazing how foolish people can become when they want to justify their erroneous ways and their sinful lifestyles. While Jesus rarely addressed sin, you will find that after He healed people, He would sometimes say, “now go and sin no more unless a worse thing come upon you” (John 5:14). To the woman caught in adultery Jesus said “go and sin no more” (John 8:11). So Jesus never said that sin was OK and acceptable. Jesus never justified sin, nor would He tolerate people doing everything they wanted to do. So it comes down to a question of the definition of what sin is and this varies tremendously from person to person. Some think their sin is better than someone else’s sin and thus they justify themselves to be righteous in their own eyes. The basic modern argument for homosexuality being forced down our throats is a statement that claims this is who we are. They claim that God created us this way. This is the only sin that I know of that makes these assertions. So that is why I am writing about homosexuality and not about adultry today. I have never heard someone caught in adultry say this is just who I am and you will have to accept me this way. Therefore, I am not here to discuss all types of sin today, I just want to focus in on what the Bible says about homosexuality and see if we can determine if God thinks this is a sin, based upon the Bible and not my opinion or yours.
While some people like to claim that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality they quickly forget that Jesus was God in the flesh and that He said plenty about the subject in many other parts of the Bible. While Jesus was walking the face of the earth in the flesh, you will notice that one of the only things that Jesus ever confronted was religious people who thought they knew more than He did and proclaim themselves to be better than everyone else. Self-righteousness still abounds today even in the church. We have church people protesting Homosexuals and Abortionists and in doing so, they proclaim themselves to be perfect. As a result Christians are portrayed on TV and in the news as the hate mongers. Christians are viewed as those who are hateful towards others and intolerant towards minorities. Is this what Jesus did? Didn’t Jesus tell the crowd of potential stone casters, “He that is without Sin, Cast the first stone”? I think you could legitimately change that to say, “To Him that is without Sin, Pick up your Signs and Posters and hold them up!”. It just doesn’t make much sense what people think is right to do, if you think about it. Christians should change and become more like Christ and less like those in the world. In Jesus’ lesson about fishing for men, you must conclude that you never try to clean a fish, until you first catch one. Too many people are trying to get clean fish first and then take them to God to be saved and this is not how it works.
What are Christians suppose to do? I believe that Christians should just tell the truth and that would be a great place to start. The truth is a very difficult thing to tell people sometimes, because it is not easily accepted by many who do not wish to hear it. The truth is often times rejected on purpose so as to deflect blame, shame or guilt away from their lives. While there are many who want to portray an openly gay life style with open pride today, there are equally as many who are ashamed of their ways. People do not like to tell about their childhood experiences, where a grown up abused them and did things to them that they should not have done. These are the areas of life that hurt people and cause emotional and psychological damage and people think that many times they are better left unsaid and swept under a rug somewhere. Because I do not know you, I cannot speak about you. I can only tell you about my personal experiences and you of course can believe them or not.
A male family member that I know of was molested as a child by an older male relative. I know this, because I was there. It was the middle of the night and this male relative tried to molest me too, but I was too big for him and I said leave me alone. Because I did not know what to do, I did nothing to stop him from molesting this other relative. As a result of this attack, this young male family member later turned to a homosexual life style. But, I know where it started and how it started and this was not how he was born. This is rarely talked about in the world, in the news media and on TV. That is unless it is committed by someone in the church. Then it is run up the flag pole like, look at these people who say they are Christians, they are just perverts who molest our children. Because people do not normally talk about these events in their young lives, most pretend that they never happen. What people do not understand, is many Gay men want sex with young boys and that is widely swept under the rug and never discussed. We can easily understand that being a pedophile is a sin, or at the least against the law. But we ignore the bigger problem, that there is a heart issue, a mind issue and an emotional issue that is not being addressed in the victims of these molesters.
As a teenage male growing up in America in the sexual revolution 70’s, I was targeted by older males. Satan also attempted to get me into this lifestyle. I was picked up and did not know what was happening before it happened. These guys were aware that I was under age and did not care. That is why they picked me to begin with. Being naive is both a blessing and a curse, you are kept from knowing what people really want, but when approached you are easily tricked into being somewhere you should not be. Because, I was young and naive, I was a candidate and an easy target for these predators. So how many Gays are talking about this kind of behavior openly, not any that I know of? I am very thankful to God that these creeps did not scar me for life or get me to change who I really am. I am also thankful to God for not allowing them to hurt me more than they did. People rarely talk about these kinds of things, and it is very difficult for me to even admit that I was there. I could have very easily been drawn into the deception of this wrong life style. I could have been deceived into believing that I was just like them. So I have given you my personal experiences with this issue. Gays would make sex with young males legal if they could get away with it. I would venture to say that most Gay men have been molested somewhere in their childhood and have been deceived into the lifestyle, but do not discuss it.
So the title of my blog is “What Does God Think about Homosexuality?” Just based upon what I have written, so far about my experiences what do you think that God thinks about what men do to children? Or even what women do to little girls? Do you think that it is OK, in the eyes of God? Is this how God created people to act? That of course is a very loaded set of questions. God loves everyone, but does not approve of everything that people do. It is not OK to do something’s, just because you are able to and you want to. There are many things in the world that are here, not because God created them for us, but because, man wanted them for their pleasure and self-indulgences. What does God think about “homosexuality”? Let’s look at what God says in the Bible and just see some of the examples of God’s thoughts toward the subject.
Rom 1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
Churches, who ordain gay ministers, must ignore vast parts of the Bible. Here is God speaking about women who are making a critical mistake. God calls it “vile affections”. These are women who have sex with women for their own selfish pleasure. God calls sex “natural”, but only between a man and his wife. The natural use of a woman is not to have sex with another woman. If you do not know how to read, you can obviously make up excuses and attempt to explain away what God says very plainly. The term “vile” means indignity, shame, reproach, dishonor and disgrace. Those are some pretty strong words for something that God does not look upon with favor. The term “affections” can mean “lusts”. I will talk about this word more as we look at the next verse in the chapter:
Rom 1:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
Now it starts to become much more more obvious to what God is talking about. God is definitely saying that sex between a husband and his wife is natural. However, God says that sex between two males is a clear “error”. The term “unseemly” in this verse means “indecency” . What is indecency? We have heard the term used “indecency with a child”. That means that in the eyes of the law, you are doing something that you should not do to a little child. This can include touching them inappropriately to speaking suggestively to them, or whatever. “Indecency” in the eyes of God is what happens when a man has sex with a man. God calls it something that should not occur. It is an abuse of the specifically designed sexual reproduction principles established by God. You have heard of drug abusers and alcohol abusers, well God is calling men who have sex with other men sexual abusers. God is saying sex has a purpose and was designed in a certain way to be between a husband and wife and anything else is abuse of the design. People ignoring God’s moral standards have sought to establish their own definitions of morality. The term “error” in this verse means to be “deceived”. God is saying that men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women have been “deceived”. Who is the deceiver? Of course the deceiver is Satan. Satan has caused men and women’s minds to be tricked into believing a false reality of who they really are. If you know how to read and to look up the definitions of the words in the Strong’s Concordance you will see that I am telling you the truth.
So now let’s discuss what God says is the reason for this deception and how it works. The Bible says that these men “burned in their lust” one toward another. What does that mean? What does it mean to burn? What is lust? If you look up the word translated as “lust” in Strong’s it is very interesting. Lust means “excitement of the mind”. I have often times heard it said that the mind is the devil’s playground. This is how he is allowed to work to deceive people. Do you know that it is illegal for the devil to appear to you and try to trick you naturally? I guess I won’t go there today, but Satan uses people’s thoughts to entice them into doing things that they should never do. You know that men who molest children or just have sex with other men do not start out that way, they have done it hundreds of times in their minds before they ever act it out in the natural. Doing wrong things outwardly are all just manifestations of inward fantasies, projections and thoughts. The reality of acting out a “lust” is always the result of a previous repeated fantasy of someone’s imagination. What you continually think about, is what you will eventually do. Think wrong things, you will eventually do wrong things, this is how God designed the human mind to work. If you put the right things into your mind, you will get more positive things to come out of your mind into your actions. But, if you put Garbage into your mind, you will always get garbage out of it in what you do. Why do you think the Bible says for us to put forth an effort to “RENEW OUR MINDS”? (Rom 12:2) The renewal process of the mind means a renovation or the replacement of the old previous thoughts in your mind to think new and improved ones from God’s Word. You could call it a mind thought upgrade to think higher spiritual thoughts. By replacing the old carnal thoughts, with new spiritual thoughts we can eventually change what we do. People wonder why we have such problems in our schools and never place the blame on the fact that we have taken God and the Bible out of our schools and are now are reaping the results of producing spiritually ignorant children without morals and standards. Ok, I got off the subject, I was talking about homosexuality and how people become homosexuals and told you about your mind being the cause and then went into schools. Sorry about that. I started this paragraph speaking about lust and I need to get back on track..
Lust is a longing for, something that is highly desired to someone. Did you know if you do everything that your flesh longed for, you would be in really bad shape? Lust is something that is a normal human emotional state, but what you lust after is always the root cause of every problem. The verse in Romans was talking about the unnatural sex between people of the same sex as being a result of unnatural thoughts that were acted out. So why do some men lust for men and others do not? Why do some men lust after alcohol and some do not? The Bible says we are all carried away with different things, there are many different temptations in the world (James 1:14). For the most part, it came about from something that happened in their childhood, their parents could have been alcoholics and it was passed down. This is a factor that you should realize. The sins of the parents are often times passed to the children. Let’s change the focus and go back and see if Jesus ever said anything about homosexuality:
Mat 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
Jesus asks a very basic question about creation and I wonder why Gay people do not see that He is talking to them. While some people say that Jesus never talked about homosexuality, I am about to prove them wrong. Jesus in effect is saying “Are you STUPID”, can’t you READ?” In the beginning did God create them MALE and MALE or FEMALE and FEMALE? Or did God create them Male and Female? Somehow, God must have changed His mind somewhere in the course of human history. I can only guess that this is that these homosexual proponents must think today! They obviously declare that God created me this way. I’m Gay because I was born Gay! The lies and the deception from Satan are very deep when it comes to this issue. People seem to think that God has changed somewhere during the last 6000 years, and the Bible clearly says that God never changes (Mal 3:6). So what do we do with Bible stories like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19)? In this story two men show up at Lot’s house and the house is surrounded by the men of the city. These men demand for Lot to send the men out so that they can have sex with them. However, these men were angels and they strike the homosexuals blind and later destory the city. I guess we just ignore these stories and pretend that they are not in the Bible and let these people continue with their lie. We are just all suppose to get along and become more open and tolerant and just look the other way and pretend that it is not happening. After all God must have intended to created Adam and Steve, instead of Adam and Eve, He just made a mistake.
1Co 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
People can be exceedingly foolish, sometimes. They think you have to have overwhelming evidence to the fact of anything in the Bible in order for it to be true. Just because some people cannot find 15 to 20 Bible verses about the subject of homosexuality, they feel it is not worthy of mention and deem it to be insignificant to their view of God. However, God does not view it this way. In fact God says we only need at the minimum, two verses in the Bible to establish any truth. If you can find just two verses it is an established truth from God’s perspective. That is the Bible law of interpretation and you can ignore it, if you want to. Here is another very clear verse in 1 Corinthians and it says something that is profound if you look up the definitions of all of the words. God starts by declaring that He is talking about the “unrighteous”. Unrighteousness is the opposite of being righteous. To be “righteous” means you are in good standing with God. The Bible declares that true Christians have obtain the righteousness of God, so we know that this verse is not talking about true Christians. The word translated as “unrighteous” means “heathen” and “wicked”. So the unrighteous are clearly warned that they will not inherit the kingdom of God. The verse then goes and defines who these unrighteous people are. Most of the descriptions of these next terms are sexually based. So right there we have a major problem being presented to the church. I’ll start with the word “fornicators” and that word means “male prostitute”. Isn’t that interesting? This is someone who sells their body for the sexual pleasure of others. This word can apply to homosexual prostitutes as well as heterosexual prostitutes. But I do not see the need for most women to buy a prostitute so this is not what God is talking about, is it? Now let’s skip to the word translated as “adulterer”. The word in the Strong’s carries the “male” gender for a word that is a derogatory definition of a “male lover”. Again this is not a good word for men. Now let’s continue to the next word translated as “effeminate”, we can already see the negative implications on this word. The Strong’s defines this word as a “catamite”. A catamite is defined as a boy that is kept for the sexual pleasure of an older man. This is the definition of a homosexual and you can ignore it if you want to stay in your sinful ways, but it does not change the truth. Finally, the last Greek word in the verse tops off the list with the most plain conformation and definition, this word is translated in the KJV as “abuser of themselves with mankind”. Already we see a pattern of definitions that is clearly not an endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle. This Greek word is defined in Strong’s as a “Sodomite”. This is just so clear that those who do not want to know the truth have been blinded by Satan to not accept what God is saying to them in a clear warning. Sodomy is male sex with a male. I mean give me a break, the only way a male has sex with a male is either orally or anally. Males are not designed this way and God tells you very clearly that it is an abuse of the original sexual design of humanity. So those who want to continue to be how they say they were created will probably not change no matter how many scripture verses I give them. Gay men and women will always ignore the truth for whatever they want to do. Either they will see the truth and change or they will encounter the error of their ways for an eternity. This is what the Bible says, so accept it or choose to reject it and die in your sins, it will always be your choice. I’m sorry if I’m being very blunt, but it is time to be plain, sound a clear warning and tell the truth.
1Jn 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
We have already clearly seen the relationship of lust to homosexuality, if you do not understand the relationship of the two, then you do not want to know the truth. What is homosexuality? What is the definition of homosexuality? It is the sexual relationship of two people of the same sex. So why do people do this? The Bible calls it the lust of the flesh. To lust after flesh is said not to be of God, but is said to be of the world. God is giving you some very clear information about homosexuality in a non-direct way. If you think that you can lust after a man and be a Christian man at the same time, God says this is not of Me.
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
This is what churches are doing who let in Gay ministers. They ignore God’s truth and preach their own version of godliness. They do not want to have to change, so they change the Bible to fit what they desire. The subject of lust is widely discussed in the Bible, and you should be able to see how it applies to homosexuality. If you do not, it really doesn’t matter what God says to you anywhere, you have already made up your mind to stay where you are at. Did you know God will let you do that? God never forces anyone to change.
I could give you many, many other Bible verses on the subject that are far more direct and speak clearly on this subject, but I have gone long enough for now. I suppose I will hear some criticism about what I have written. I know there are churches in America that stand up and allow homosexual leaders to teach and preach and to be ordained as God’s chosen ones. These people have gathered together teachers who justify what they want to hear and have chosen to ignore the truth. Do not be deceived with them. If you are going to a church that promotes sin as something good, you are going to the wrong church. I always get amused at people who do not like what God says in the Bible. People like to attack the messenger and want to kill them for bringing them the bad news. God says certain things about homosexuality that will not be popular with those who wish to continue in their ways. I did give you enough information in this one blog to show you how you change what you are doing, if God is talking to you today. If you do not agree with what God says in the Bible, then I prefer not hear the words of fools and idiots, so do not leave me any negative comments. Take up your negative comments with God and not me, I did not write the Bible.
It is difficult not to have an opinion on this subject of homosexuality. We cannot go anywhere, where it is not thrown in front of us. If you have been on vacation to any of the popular destinations in our country, you have been confronted with homosexuality on every street corner. San Francisco has widely been held as the capital city of the Gay community, put we were confronted with it in Key West, Florida and even north in Martha’s Vineyard, then certain districts of New York City. We were in Orlando Florida at Disney World, one year and it just so happened to be the same time that Disney held Gay Pride Day or something like that. There are Gay Pride parades and events in every major city now and they dress up and cross dress and do as many perverted unnatural things as they want to call it all normal behavior. Very few places in the world are now not open to the blatant show of in your face sin. Almost everyone in the media, and on TV and in the Movies have come up with a direct homosexual agenda that is being rammed down the throats of God fearing Christians. The News media likes to put homosexuality in the same category as racial bigotry and hatred. I do not know how they can confuse the two issues and think we can lump these into the same level of intolerance. One is a Sin and the other is the color of someone’s Skin. Is there a difference, you bet there is. The homosexual lifestyle is portrayed as a valid alternative lifestyle on TV. Homosexuals have come out of the closets in droves in the last 50 years. Gay marriage is being pushed in every state as a violation of their rights. Acceptance and equal rights is the agenda of the Gay community. All calling for acceptance in who they say they are. This is the way we were born, this is how we are, it’s in our DNA, and so they would like to try to convince us. They are claiming to have been born with a Gay gene. Now having said all of that, I do not think Christians should go around and hold up signs, telling Gays that God Hates Them. That is idiotic and not helping anyone. Where in the Bible does it say that God hates Gays? Christians should not be in the Gay bashing or hatred realm of existence. We are to preach the good news, like Jesus did in a way that might help some. I believe that Christians are to stand up for what is right and base what we believe solely on the Bible. So have you ever read the Bible? What does it say about Homosexuality? I have not found anything favorable or tolerant about this sin, have you? However, it is still just a sin like every other sin and God views all sin in the same light, on the same level plane. One sin is not greater than another if you study your Bible, you will see that God does not rate sin in varying degrees like people do.
So if you are struggling with this issue and thinking there is no hope, you are wrong. You do not know the power of God to change the hearts and minds of people who want to change. If you want to stay where you are and do what you do, God will let you. I have given you enough information in this blog on what it takes to change. With God’s help you can do it.
If you want to go and read the next lesson in this series you may go to “Part 2“.
Deception the Greatest Weapon of Satan!
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 of a series of lessons on the subject of deception found in the Bible. Today I want to discuss how Satan causes people not to see the truth of God’s Word. It is a common practice in military training for Generals and commanders to study their enemies. By understanding an enemies strengths and weaknesses you are better able to defend against them or better yet to defeat them. The more you know about your enemies the better off you are. So does the church have any enemies? You must be an ostrich Christian with your spiritual head stuck in the ground if you do not see that we do. There is a spiritual force of evil in the world that is bent on taking the church down. They have specific tactics and tools that they use to try to defeat the church. We know that the Bible says that we “wrestle not against flesh and blood” so we know that people are not the source of our opposition, even though Satan does use people to try to get to us. We know that those forces of evil that we fight against are the “principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph 6:12). So just because flesh and blood comes against the church with accusations and verbal or physical attacks, these people are controlled by a spiritual force that we cannot perceive with our physical senses.
2Ti 2:26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
We can understand that Satan, our enemy uses “snares” to come against us. A snare is a trap, a trick or strategy that causes us to become captive or a prisoner. If every trap was obvious, we would never be caught. So these traps must be hidden or covered so that we do not see them clearly. I believe that Satan’s primary weapon is the deception of thoughts that are placed in our minds. What is deception and how it is used against us, will be my subject for today. Let’s start by defining the word “deceived” from the Bible:
G4105
From G4106; to (properly cause to) roam (from safety, truth, or virtue): – go astray, deceive, err, seduce, wander, be out of the way.
That is a very interesting definition for the word “deceived” found in the N.T. This word means to “cause to wander or roam from safety, truth or virtue”. If you have ever been hiking in the woods, you know that usually there are designated trails and established pathways. However, if you become adventuresome, and attempt to deviate and make your own way, this is normally where your failure and deception begins. Many times a path will have a fork in it and if it is not clearly marked you better have a good map. Sometimes walking down a path you encounter what looks like a good way to go and it suddenly turns into a dead end. When I was younger, my wife and I started climbing a mountain in Colorado. It took a good part of the day to get to the top. We did this on a whim and were not planning on being gone as long as we were. We took no food or water and on the way back down the mountain decided to try to take a short cut. If this short cut would have worked, we would have been back to camp in time for dinner. However, we ran into a cliff and a steep terrain that there was just no way to continue. So we ended up going back up the way we came and finally back the way we climbed up. This little analogy has vast spiritual implication on it. Jesus told us that he is the “Path”, “The Way” and He revealed there is no other way to God (John 14:6). So where did all of these other religions in the world come from? Who gave us these religions and why are they here? You do know there are well over 20 major religions in the world and within these 20 or more religions there are further divisions or sects and all of these just cannot be the truth. The variation in what they believe and teach is so radically different that there is no way they are even related. This is what I believe about these religions, and why they exist. I believe they are an attempt of the enemy to provide information overload. By providing you so many options and so many possible ways of thinking you are easily overwhelmed to know which one is right. How do you know which one to choose? So God comes to the earth and gives you the truth and tells you that Jesus is the way, but all of the other religions of the world say no, that is not right, we have the only truth. Wow, what a trick! What a major distraction! What a way to get people to not see the real way! Who is responsible for all these lies? The Bible tells us very clearly, that there is one individual, a spirit being that is responsible for this dissemination of invalid and false information and it is Satan:
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
So we can clearly see that the “great dragon” who is called Satan is responsible for the deception that is being perpetrated upon the human race. People are being led down paths away from the truth and in directions that are directly opposite from the truth, into a realm of darkness and they do not even know it. These deceptions are being instigated at every level and every location on the globe. Satan is interested in deceiving everyone, because why? Is Satan just a really bad guy who does evil just because he can, or is there a greater motivation and purpose to his behavior? You should really think about that question and determine Satan’s motivation, since that is not my primary subject I will not try to elaborate on it for now. However, I will talk about a related subject and mention this:
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 have already seen that Satan is the chief initiator of all deception. However, as I said before, Satan uses people to get his messages out. Satan is a spiritual being that controls and manipulates natural people. So we have people, even in churches today that stand up and teach things that are lies. Here is one of the ways to determine if they are telling the truth or not. It would seem that Satan is highly opposed to letting people believe that God came into the world in the flesh, in the form of a man named Jesus of Nazareth. Why is Satan so opposed to this message? Did God’s presence on the earth cause something to happen to Satan that Satan wants to try to undo? Let me ask you this, if I said that the Holocaust never happened in Germany like some idiots try to say in the world, does that mean it is not true? No it doesn’t change the fact that it occurred just because you don’t believe it occurred, does it? But, what happens is it changes your perception of reality and therefore it changes your results and you lose any benefit of believing the truth, because you have bought into the lie. This is the net result of telling people God did not come to the earth in the man Jesus Christ. By telling people that Jesus was just a normal human male, you take away His ability to save you and forgive your sins. As a result you are lost with no hope of salvation and that is really bad news for you.
So this next part will not be particularly popular with some Christians, but yet I believe it needs to be said. Deception involves someone speaking false words. False words is a nicer way of saying lies. A liar is a deceiver. A deceiver is a liar. They go hand in hand. Where one is, the other is also present. They are the Siamese twins of Satan.
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Jesus speaking to the Jews reveals some very strong words of truth, and says they are of their father, the devil. Since that is not my subject I will not go there today. Then Jesus tells us that Satan is the father of all lies. That is just another way of saying that Satan is the initiator of lies. However, it is interesting to note that not everything that Satan says is necessarily a lie. Jesus said “When Satan lies” not “When Satan speaks”. There is a major difference. It also makes deception much harder to recognize. When Satan speaks 10 truths mixed with one or two lies, how do you know which is which? If you notice back in Genesis 3, when Satan spoke to Eve he said some things that were true, but then he also mixed in a lie. This is how Satan operates, mixing truths with lies so that you become deceived into believing the lie. Here is a definition of one of the Greek words translated as “lie”:
G5574
Middle voice of an apparently primary verb; to utter an untruth or attempt to deceive by falsehood: – falsely, lie.
To utter an untruth. In other words to speak a lie. What is truth? Truth is based upon the Word of God, because the Bible says that it is impossible for God to lie (Heb 6:18). So God only speaks the truth. What God says we can take as the truth. The Bible contains the truth of God, but not everything in the Bible is truth. That statement shocks some Christians also, but you have to understand when you watch the 6:00 evening news, is everything that they say or report true? What if they interview a known criminal and he says I’m innocent, I did not kill that woman. Should you believe it just because it was on the news? So it is with the Bible, not every recorded word or statement of men and women in the Bible is the truth. It is true that they said what they said, but it did come out of the mouth of God so why are we suppose to believe it all? Job said some stuff that God reprimanded him for and asked him, were you there when I made the heavens and formed the stars? If you read Job 38:2 God says “Who is this that darkens counsel with words without knowledge”. That doesn’t sound very good for Job’s words, does it? We have the recorded words of Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar Ananias, Pilot, just to name a few men who were not saved, nor were they prophets of God. So truth come from verses that say “Thus saith the Lord”. Truth comes from the Words in Red in the N.T. Also truth comes from the mouth of God’s prophets.
So a lie is an untruth. A statement not based upon facts or clear evidence. A lie is a statement of “fiction”. That is why I avoid reading books labeled “fiction”. They are the words of someone’s imagination, either based upon some facts or no facts. We are surrounded by Fictional movies, books and other examples of entertainment that challenge our Christian faith. There is so much of this in the world today that it is amazing we can think at all. Satan is the author and originator of “fiction”, “untruth”, “lies” and “deception”. That is why I debate the fact that some authors call themselves “Christian Fiction Writers”. To me that is just another oxymoronic term for a true lie. I told you this was not going to be popular, but we need to consider what we feed on. Just as we should watch we eat physically, we should also watch what we put into our spirits. Here is a scripture that confirms this:
2Ti 4:4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
This verse is speaking about Christians who knew the truth at one time, but have now followed fables. The Greek word translated as “fables” means “myths”, “tales” and “fiction”. Do you see the danger of “fiction”? Satan can use it to lead you off of the path of eternal salvation back into a path of darkness. That just can’t be good, right?
1Ti 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith:
We are again warned of the introduction of “fiction” into our lives that results in us questioning our faith. This verse tells us that truth “edifies” or “builds up our faith” and we can clearly see that “fiction” does the opposite.
2Pe 1:16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
Cunningly devised “fiction” will lead some into paths they do not want to go. To say something is “cunning” and “devised” means that it is purposely designed to lie to you and bring you down. In other words fiction is more than just entertainment, it has a purpose and a design intended to do harm to you and to deceive you. You can certainly see why this is not popular, but yet it is in the Bible, so what do we do with it?
So is deception becoming less prevalent or is deception in the world growing? Are there less options or are the number of possible lies being exponentially increased in our daily lives? I believe that with the advent of the internet and the information explosion era that we are living within, we are faced with an increasingly difficult levels of deceptions. Sometimes the false information is blatant and obvious, but other times it is subtle and very tricky to see. There is such a diverse set of false information on the internet and TV, that it is very difficult for most people to figure out what is real. This is what the Bible says about deception:
2Ti 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
The amount of deception in the world is increasingly growing at a rate that is difficult to comprehend. The number of ways to be deceived, the number of ways that lies are presented are exploding on TV, movies, the internet and the other media sources, that there is no way to keep track of it all anymore. If a Christian wanted to discredit all of them they would not be able to. What Christians need to understand is that we are not called to teach against lies, we are just called to present the truth. Those who believe will be saved and those who do not believe, will not be saved (Mark 16:16).
Eph 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
Just as natural children are more easily tricked than adults, spiritual children are more easily deceived than mature Christians. We are admonished to grow up spiritually and to become mature in Christ. Otherwise we will be tossed around easily with the trickery of Satan. You do know that Satan has been around a lot longer than you have, don’t you? You do understand that he has more experience with what to do, than you do. So if you are depending upon your ability to deflect the lies that he will present you, you are already deceived. In this verse in Ephesians God tells us not to accept every teaching that is thrown at us. I found the word “sleight” of men to be very interesting when I looked up the definition. It means “dice”, or “a gambling cube”. The implication is given that these men are gambling with your lives and theirs. They are rolling their cubes and playing a game that is not easily won. The next term in the verse is that of “cunning craftiness”. This term means to be “subtle”. If you recall this is the way Satan came to Eve in Genesis 3. Satan used specific thoughts to deceive the woman and that is Satan’s only weapon against you. All Satan has to do is trick you a little bit, distract you from the truth by just a minor difference and you are now off the true path.
Rom 16:18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
This verse is so amazingly true to our world that we live in, that I am shocked at the reality of our current government. We seem to have a President who speaks “fair” words that have deceived the hearts of the simple minded people of our nation. He says one thing and does an entirely different thing. Simple refers again to those who are not mature, those who are not grown up. To those who are still childlike. It is amazing how many people qualify for this labeled description. It is a very sad statement to the condition of our nation.
Flattering Words, Cleverly Designed Fables, Subtle Words of Deception, these are the tricks of the enemy, Satan. He overwhelms you with information that is contrary to the truth that you have difficulty recognizing the truth. The tricks of the enemy are the same as when Eve was deceived, the words and the number of words is the only difference depending upon your situation and circumstances. Learn to recognize deception and choose not to be deceived.
If you would like to continue reading in this lesson series on this subject of deception, you can go to “Part 2“.
****************************************************************
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 Bible Definition and Purpose of the Law of Moses! PT 1
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 in a series of Bible lessons on Understanding the Purpose for the Law. Why was it necessary for God to give Moses the Old Testament Law? The reason for these spiritual rules of do’s and don’ts are critical for Christians to understand. While Christians do not rely on keeping the law to be saved, they should still be intimately familiar with what they mean and the underlying reasons for God giving them to the natural nation of Israel. God says my People are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6), so the more we learn and understand the less likely we are to being destroyed in this world. So let’s learn about the O.T. Law and determine what it is and why it was given using the Bible:
Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
God declares a truth about the law that is essential to understand. The O.T. law is based upon “Works”. Works is man’s attempt to do something that they think pleases God by doing without something that they really want to do. I hope you understand what I just said. Every religion in the world is “works” based. Man trying to achieve a state of self sacrifice in order to appear pious or worthy in the eyes of God. In some religions men beat themselves with whips and chains until they bleed. They think through this self inflicted pain and suffering that they have achieved favor with God. They have been deceived into stupidity and foolishness. This religion also teaches that life is like a balance scale and the good deeds that you do will be weighed against your bad deeds and if the good deeds outweighs the bad, you have earned your salvation. This is just another example of Satan’s deception. In Galatians 2:16, we see works being contrasted with true Christianity. True Christianity is based upon Faith in Jesus Christ and what He has done and provided for us. That is completely different than the law of works and the works of the law. This verse clearly tells us that nobody will make it to heaven based upon their works. That is not good news for natural Israel or the other religions of the world.
Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
We can clearly see one of the primary reasons that God gave the law. God declares that No flesh will be saved by obeying the law. So we immediately discover that the law was not given to save us. We can take this reason off of the list of potential reasons for the law. Then God says that by the law is the knowledge of sin. What does that tell you? Before the law was given into the world, no one really knew what sin was. It was only because the Bible said “Thou shalt not commit murder” that you would know that this is not an acceptable thing to do. To know that there is a law that has consequences for doing something and then to do it anyway is the act of a fool. However, to do something that is still not right, but there is no law against it is still sin, but yet God said how would you know it. So one of the primary reasons for God giving the law is to teach everyone what sin is and that these sins have consequences. With the Law comes the Knowledge of Sin!
Rom 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Here is another witness to what I just said. This verse clearly tells us the same thing and gives us another example. By God saying “thou shalt not covet”, we know it is a sin to lust after what our neighbor owns or possesses. So the Law is not an evil, bad or negative thing, but a good thing. It helps us to learn and know what is good and what is evil. The law helps to guide us into what are the right things to do.
Rom 7:12 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
So the Bible again confirms what I just said about the law. The law is Holy, the law is good and just. The law is a positive thing meant to teach us the difference between right and wrong. God gave us the law to show us that we cannot make up our own rules and think that we are good in our own sight. That is exactly what most people in the world do, they reason in their own minds what is good and what is right and they follow their own desires and God says that is wrong.
Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
The word “transgression” means violation. If you get arrested in our world, it is usually because you violated some law that was passed by the lawmakers of the city, state or federal governments. So again we see a principle being established for why the law was necessary. Without law there is no “violation” being committed. People in the world usually pass laws to make people stop something that is potentially harmful or hurtful to themselves or others. For example, driving too fast in a car can cause loss of life and property. So people have developed laws to limit the speeds that cars can go in certain areas. The speed limit varies depending on where the area is located, like it is slower in front of school zones. If you are caught speeding you are charged and if found guilty, you pay fines and there are consequences such as points on your license. So without laws, people could go 100 MPH through a school zone and cause great damage and loss of life and there would be nothing that the government could do to them. This is a key lesson of why God gave the law, so take note of it.
Rom 5:13 For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Without laws in the world (physical, natural, spiritual and governments), the world would be in a state of chaos. Everybody doing whatever they felt like, whenever they wanted to, to whoever they wanted to and there would be no consequences legally speaking that they would ever be faced with. I do think that without law we would also see a vigilante retribution being enacted and people would be forced to come up with their own definition of justice. But, Romans 5:13 informs us that sin has been in the world, before the law existed. But, then it says that these sins would not be charged to their account without the existence of the law. When you read and learn verses from the Bible like these you should automatically think how do these apply to me? How does this apply to Israel? How do these apply to Satan? How do they apply to all of the other spiritual entities in God’s spiritual realm? If you do not think in these terms you will miss out on what God is trying to teach you. Let me ask you a question and get you to thinking. If it is as the Bible says and Satan was found with sin in him from the beginning, what can God do about this, if there is no law against it? I believe you can start to understand the problem that God had. Legally speaking there is nothing that God can do with Satan, unless he is put under the law. That is an amazing thing to consider and probably a key reason for why the law was given. Learn to think while you read and to ask questions and you will learn so much more than just reading it. I’ll get into this more later.
Rom 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
This is an interesting twist and is highly informative. God tells us that the law applies to the spiritual realm and not just the natural realm. We know that God gave Moses the law on Mt Sinai and that it was written down in the natural realm by a man. But, think about it, God is a Spirit and the words that He spoke to Moses came from the spiritual realm. God is clearly telling us that these words found in the law apply to all spiritual beings, including God himself, the angels, you and I and Satan and his demons.
Gal 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
Here is a very scary statement about the O.T. Law. God says that anyone under the law is under a curse, if they do not obey all of the law. Do you know of anyone that has obeyed all of the law? For one thing I do not think you know all of the law and the other thing is you certainly can’t do it all consistently, I do not believe anyone on earth is capable of it. The law is more than following 10 simple commandments, the O.T. law is 5 large books of rules, commandments, instructions, and it is vastly not understood even by the Jews who read it every day. I may be wrong but I believe that this is one of the reasons for God giving the law, to show man that he is incapable of making a perfect score. It is impossible to bowl a perfect score in the game of life playing according to the rules of the “works of the law”. I assume natural Israel has not yet gotten the news yet, they must still think they are able to save themselves.
Jas 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
Here is a second witness to the reality that man is required to keep all of the law. If any man offends or violates a single commandment, this verse in James says that he is found guilty of violating every commandment. I am certainly glad that is not the way our courts work. We would have to have everybody in a prison cell and there would be no free people in the world. If you drove your car too fast you could be sentenced to life in prison. That is what God says about his law in the O.T. Too many times people like to rate and compare sins. This sin is bigger, or greater than another. This sin is just a little one and that isn’t as bad as doing this or that. But, God says every sin is equal, there are no big ones, and no small ones. These are very tough rules to follow. In fact they are impossible for man to follow.
Gal 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
So God says that the Law was designed to be a teaching tool for mankind. An instrument that was intended to point them to Christ. Is this the way the nation of Israel views the law? Obviously not! Is this the way you should view the O.T. law, absolutely. You should use it as a teacher who is pointing you to a savior, the Messiah.
1Ti 1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient,for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
God tells us who the law was given for. To me every human would potentially qualify, but also this sounds more like Satan’s resume than anything else. You do realize that this is why our government passes laws, don’t you? If nobody did bad things you wouldn’t need any laws against doing them. So we pass laws to keep people from doing stupid, foolish things. This is another one of the key purposes of the O.T. law. Because, there are bad, evil people in the world, because there is a bad, evil spiritual force in the world, God was forced to enact spiritual laws. I hope you are getting what I am saying.
Let’s review briefly what we have learned so far and make a list of the key items concerning what the Bible says about the law:
- Sin will always Sin with or without the existence of Law.
- God’s Law is a Positive Thing that Helps us to see.
- The Law is Works Based. Obeying the Law is man’s attempt at earning Salvation.
- No Flesh can achieve Righteousness by the O.T. Law.
- Therefore, no one can be saved by observing the O.T. Law.
- However, Sin is not put on your account, if there is No law.
- Without the Law, no one knows what Sin Is.
- Without the existence of the Law there is no legal consequences for Sin.
- If you violate even one Law you are guilty of violating EVERY Laws!
- The Law given in the natural realm is Applicable in the Spiritual Realm.
- The Law was designed to teach us we need a savior and to point us to Christ.
- The Law was given because of the evil that existed prior to the law.
That was a quick synopsis of the information we have learned from the few verses about the law. We start to begin to understand what the law is and why it was given by understanding these verses. There is of course much more to learn about the law. There is different types of laws. Human laws, laws of nature, laws of science, and spiritual laws, just to name a few types of laws. Let’s continue this lesson with another verse found in Romans:
Rom 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
This is one of the most outstanding and revealing verses in the Bible about the Law of Moses. It reveals some hidden spiritual principles that are critical for Christians to understand. The principle is given to us that the law only applies to them that are under the law. In other words Mexico cannot pass a law that affects me, because I live in the USA. Now, if I go to visit Mexico, then I am under that law system, but as long as I stay in the USA, nothing they do can affect me personally. That is what Romans 3:19 is saying. God tells us that the law is only effective over those that are under that system of spiritual government. USA laws do not affect Chinese citizens or companies unless they come to America. Think about that and ask the questions that I asked you to think about earlier. Does the O.T. law affect you? Does the O.T. law affect the natural Jews? Does the O.T. law affect Satan or any other spiritual entity? Is God bound by the Laws of the O.T.? These are all important questions to consider. You see if Satan is not under the O.T. law, then there is still no punishment for his sins that God can convict him of in any heavenly court. You need to consider these questions and determine, did God somehow put Satan under the Law in order to convict him of his sins? If you do not realize that God is a legal minded God who does everything in a fair and just way, you do not know God very well. God will not throw Satan into hell without him being found guilty and being convicted for his crimes of sin. If God did this, then he would be more like a foreign country that throws people into prison because they just don’t like the way they look. Think about the character of God and realize that God is the supreme judge of all spiritual matters. In the heavenly judicial system, there must be laws that can convict someone like Satan or God would be unjust. God says in Romans 3:9 that the law was given, so that every mouth could be stopped. You see if Satan was unjustly accused of God, he has a legal defense against such actions. However, if Satan is under the law and can see clearly that he is in violation and guilty, he no longer has a defense against such charges.
I think I will end this lesson on that note. I hope and pray that you learned something that was of benefit to your walk with Christ. I’ll try to continue this lesson in a future blog.
If you would like to continue reading this lesson, you can go to “Part 2“.
The Abrahamic Covenant and the Promised Seed!
(Ver 1.1) Today will be a little bit different perspective on a familiar old subject. This subject is widely taught in many different circles and it is interpreted very differently in most of them. We will look at some familiar verses using the light of the Word of God to see what they mean. Using the Bible to interpret the Bible, we will begin to see and understand the truth of the Word of God. The basis of our lesson today comes from the book of beginnings, Genesis chapter 15. As with many things written in the book of Genesis God uses symbolism to convey hidden spiritual information. This chapter of Genesis is certainly no different. In this chapter God tells Abram that he will have a son, who will be his heir. God tells him that the number of his seed will be as the stars of the heavens. In other words God declares that Abram’s descendants will be innumerable, more than he could count. While these words can certainly be taken completely naturally, I believe that God is speaking about spiritual things in a prophetic way. If you have not ever realized it, God is more interested in spiritual things than He is with natural things. If God can fix you spiritually, then you will do the right things naturally. That is the root cause of America’s problem and the rest of the unsaved world. People want to raise children and think they can do it without God and ignore the Bible and then they are surprised to find our prisons overflowing. You will never fix the sin problem, until you allow God to fix the spiritual problem within the hearts of man with His Word. Teach the Bible in school to your children and see if the world doesn’t change.
Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
We can learn much, by reading God’s commentary in the Bible. God purposely gives us clues in the Bible to what other verses mean. Often times these explanations are revealed in the New Testament. This verse in Galatians is very interesting, since our subject is the Abrahamic Covenant and I just mentioned the Seed of Abraham. We can now begin to see and understand that God was speaking prophetically and in a very tricky manner when talking to Abram about his seed. Seed is one of those types of words that can be either singular or plural and you can’t really tell the difference by just looking at it. However, God reveals that Abraham’s seed was singular and this was symbolic of the one man called Christ Jesus. So we know that Jesus Christ is the Seed being referred to in Genesis 15.
Gen 15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
What we begin to see is another example of a Biblical Paradox or Puzzle being given to us. How can one man, Jesus, the Seed of Abraham number beyond the number of stars in the heavens? That of course is a very difficult puzzle to try to answer in a single blog like this. Unless you start to think spiritually and consider what the New Testament reveals to us you will never understand it. Galatians and other books of the New Testament speak of the church as being the children of Abraham. The N.T. reveals that Abraham is the spiritual father of the many people who have come into the church. This is the beginning of understanding this spiritual paradox.
In Genesis 15:9-10 God instructs Abram to take 5 animals and kill them. God tells him to split three of the animals into halves. Now we have a bloody mess on our hands. God tells Abram to spread them out on the ground. We then discover that birds try to come and devour the animals and Abram has to drive them away. These are also all key symbolic references and they symbolize spiritual things. The bloody animals killed represents the covenants of God. The birds of the air represents the demonic forces attempting to prevent the covenant. Blood is always symbolic of the forgiveness of sins. Also in Bible covenants, the animals were split into pieces and they were saying, “thus it be done to me, if I brake this covenant”. So we see that God is revealing to us some very important information about Bible covenants. When two parties would enter into a covenant, they would pass between the bloody pieces of the animals and “cut an agreement” that was mutually beneficial to both participants. Both parties in the covenant were required to follow the terms of the agreement and to be faithful to it. If one party in the covenant had need of something that the other had in their possession, then it would be freely available to the other party. It is exactly like a marriage between a husband and a wife who now have joint ownership of everything. But, did you notice what happens in this covenant in Genesis 15? Who does it say walked between the pieces to cut the covenant with God?
Gen 15:12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.
After Abram drives away the birds, the sun goes down and it gets dark. It says Abram enters into a deep sleep and he is overwhelmed with darkness. Darkness never represents God, but the opposite of God. Darkness always represents Satan and his domain. God gives Abram some prophetic words about his natural children being in bondage for 400 years, but tells him they will come out at a certain time. These verses 13 thru 16, no doubt contain symbolism and information beyond the natural, but I will not attempt to teach what I do not know fully. So let’s look at verse 17, for it is really getting good with this verse.
Gen 15:17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.
As you recall Abram killed 5 animals and laid the pieces upon the ground. Now normally if this covenant was between God and Abram, God and Abram would now be walking between the pieces and cutting the covenant with God. However, we find that Abram is asleep on the ground and two different symbolic people walk between the bloody pieces to cut the covenant. What does this tell us? I believe that it tells us that Abram was incapable of keeping the covenant that God wanted to make, so God makes a covenant with himself. Did you notice what the two symbols were that passed through the pieces? One was a “Smoking Oven” and the other was a “Burning Lamp”. I really do not know how these two symbols can represent anything other than God. Both are God in different forms and using different descriptions. Much like God the Father and God the Son are one God but both are unique and separate at the same time.
In Hebrews 12:29, it informs us that God is an all consuming fire. I know this is not exactly a smoking oven, but you can get there mentally if you think about it. People in Bible days did not have electric power and they cooked with fire. If you look up the term translated as “Oven” you will find that it means a “Fire Pot”. So fire is involved in cooking with an ancient Oven. In Deuteronomy 9:3 God is again called a “Consuming Fire” who destroys. However, everything in the Bible has symbolic meaning if you can find it. In Deuteronomy 4:24 God is again called a consuming fire, but it then further stipulates why. God is said to be a “Jealous God”. That means God does not like it when His wife sleeps around like Israel was guilty of. It is very difficult to actually say that the smoking oven represents God, because we cannot find a direct reference in the Bible that says that. However, if you do a word search and look for the word “oven” in the Bible you will see that it more often than not, refers to a place where wicked and evil people are consumed. People who are consumed by the fire of God. God is certainly the fire, but the smoke could be the evil being burned up and consumed. So it is a little more complex than we can imagine right now to declare that God is covenanting with himself. We can look up the word “Smoking” and see what else it reveals in the Bible:
Exo 19:18 And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
It would appear the “Smoke” is associated with the Old Covenant since “Sinai” is mentioned in this verse in Exodus. We know that God gave Moses the law on Sinai. We know that this verse says God is again the fire that descended upon the mountain. The Smoke is equated to that which ascends upwards. We can again derive, that which is consumed by the fire of God is evil and whatever is left would be the ashes and the smoke, that which remains after God’s burning. Fire normally consumes, oxygen, fuel, oil, or whatever is placed in it. God is definitely the Fire, the flame, the heat, the light. But, the oven and whatever is consumed is a different substance than God. If God is the all consuming fire as we have seen in the Bible, the smoke would be representative of that which is burned up or consumed by God.
Psa 18:8 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
God is again compared in terms of being a device that produces smoke, like an oven, a furnace or any other similar fire burning device. Out of the nostrils of God comes smoke from something that is burned up or consumed by the fire of God’s mouth. It is a very interesting symbolic representation being given to us.
Psa 37:20 But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.
You see the same terms being repeated in this verse of Psalms 37 and it says God’s enemies who are the wicked, shall be as the fat of the lambs, and they shall be consumed into smoke. Verses like these are helping me to see that God’s covenant in Genesis 15 is God walking between the pieces of animal flesh. So we have in a roundabout way identified one symbol that has been said to walk between the pieces and cut the covenant.
The Lamp on the other hand is more easily interpreted using verses in the Bible. We can find several good examples that declare that God is the burning lamp. A lamp of course is a light in the darkness or night. A lamp involves fire, oil and light. All of these symbols are used for symbols of God in the Bible. Let’s find some of these verses and review them:
2Sa 22:29 For thou art my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness.
This verse is exactly what I just said and refers to God as the Lamp that gives us light in the darkness. Darkness again represents the spiritual domain of Satan. People are born into the world that is ruled by Satan. The hearts of men and women are said to be in darkness until they are saved and Jesus Christ shines spiritual light into them.
Psa 119:105 NUN. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
You cannot separate God from His Word, they are one in the same. God is light and in him is no darkness. God is also His Word! God’s word is a spiritual light unto our spirit man within us. By reading and studying the Bible we bring light to areas that have never seen the glorious light of God. God and His Word are the Lamp that is lit to show the way unto righteousness.
Pro 13:9 The light of the righteous rejoiceth: but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.
So many verses in the Bible are very informative and this one has hidden meaning within it. If God is the lamp and the light, what is this verse telling us? The light of the righteous will be GLAD, and the lamp of the wicked will be put out. If Satan is the evil one that rules the darkness, His light or lamp of God has now been put out. To put out a lamp means it is deprived of oxygen or oil or starved of any substance that causes it to burn. This involves any means of causing the flame to be extinguished. We can clearly assume that Satan use to be in the light of God, but God has now turned that light out. It also has spiritual implications to those in the world that refuse God’s salvation and they also walk in the same darkness of spiritual night.
Isa 62:1 For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.
God prophesies that a burning lamp will come out of Jerusalem. This lamp will burn with the light of Salvation. This very bright lamp will also establish righteousness. So who do you think God is talking about? This is a prophetic statement for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ that was to be crucified in Jerusalem to bring salvation to the world.
Joh 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Jesus speaking to the nation of Israel, says He is the bright burning lamp that contains the light of the world. But, Jesus then said that men loved darkness more than this light so they were unable to see the light. Jesus equates the evil deeds of men to be of the darkness of the world. God is therefore being contrasted as being the source of good, the initiator of kindness, goodness, grace, mercy, love and compassion, but the men of Israel as a whole, chose to reject these good things and to remain in their evil darkness.
Joh 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Jesus is again very clear in telling us that He is the Lamp that lights our spiritual paths. Jesus says that if we follow Him, we shall not walk in darkness. We could say in modern language that Jesus is the Flashlight of the present dark World. If you have ever been camping in the forest, with no electricity you better take a flashlight or two. To walk in the woods without one would be crazy. This is how people are in the world, without Jesus and the Bible. They are walking in spiritual darkness and they do not know where they are going or what they bump into or stumble over. The symbolism within the Abrahamic covenant is very powerful, the spiritual implications are very informative. We can see that God, the lamp of the world makes a covenant with the smoking oven that contains the consuming Fire of God. It would appear to me that God in His infinite wisdom took the place of Abraham in the covenant and made a covenant with Himself. In this way God could implement an agreement that both parties were capable of keeping. Abraham was a physical natural man and incapable of keeping the covenant at the level that God wanted to establish, so God made a covenant that He could keep in the spiritual realm with Jesus Christ who was the promised Seed that now establishes our eternal covenant with God. So what was God’s solution for man not being able to keep a covenant? The human race is sin prone, error driven, ignorant of spiritual things and God’s ways. How is God going to make a covenant with people who are prone to errors and mistakes? God’s solution is to became one of us, a man who is both human and God to implement an unbreakable covenant with Himself and His eternal man. We then can see that God has used Jesus Christ, the Promised Seed to bring the rest of the human race back into right standing with God. Everyone that accepts the free gift of salvation will be included. It doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, the door is open to all. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or if you are poor, the door is open to all. It doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, the door is open to all. Because of what Jesus has done, we have now have the opportunity of a life time being presented to all of us. I pray that you make the right choice.
The Bible is so complex that it is impossible to know everything that is in it and to comprehend what everything in it means is also impossible. So we do the best we can, with God’s help in figuring out what it all means. We would be lost without His help, so I am eternally grateful and I hope that you are too.
Speak to Your Rock! Pt 2 – Do Idle Words Keep You Out of The Promise Land?
(Ver 1.6) Today is the second lesson on the subject of the significance of our spoken words. I know this is a very controversial subject and one that many Christians do now subscribe to believe in. However, regardless of what we believe about it, our beliefs do not change what God and the Bible says and the results that we get from the God’s established Spiritual Laws that are found within the Bible. In the last lesson on this subject, we learned about “Why Moses Didn’t Enter Into Promise Land”. God said it was because of Moses’ unbelief, He told him that he would not be able to lead God’s people into the promised land that He had already given to them. Unbelief is one of a Christian’s greatest enemies in receiving a promise from God. This can include the unbelief of what the Bible says or the unbelief of what the Spirit of God is leading us to do. It could even be the unbelief of what a Bible teacher teaches us from the Bible. I am not saying that I am anything important personally in you hearing from God, unless I say what the Bible says and that should make what is said important. All we need to do is read the Bible and see what it says and then believe it, to see that what is written is true or not (Acts 17:11). People should recognize that there are crazy people on the internet doing the same thing that I am doing to help people, many automatically discount what is said as being the same crazy ramblings. By automatically dismissing what someone says, many people at times miss what God had wanted them to know. Not everyone on the internet is crazy, and some of them have some very profound deep things to teach if we are open to them. Learn to judge every teacher by the Word of God and remain open and prepared to change your thinking and beliefs. God is doing some really great things in the world today and those who are open to them will enjoy their benefits. If you would like to read this series from the beginning, I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.
So today I want to discuss more about the Bible topic of “Spoken Words”! But not just any spoken words, let’s talk about those that Jesus called “Idle Words”. What are “Idle Words”? Let’s start by reading the lesson’s foundation Bible verse.
Mat 12:36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
Wow! That is an amazingly strong statement from Jesus. Jesus is obviously directing our attention at our spoken words. But, not just any spoken word, but rather one specific type. God tells us personally that the “idle words” that we speak will be judged by God on judgment day. I mean that could be a very scary statement for some people to even think about. Obviously I can see too many people do not believe what Jesus said or either they do not understand what the verse means. Otherwise, they would probably keep silent more often. 
In today’s world idle words are all around us, on our cell phones, on our tablets in our emails, on internet websites, on Facebook and Twitter on TV, on radio, raining down from our satellites, printed in our magazines, news papers and fictional books. I mean we are bombarded by idle words coming at us from a multitude of different ways. How many of these text messages that we get or send can be considered idle words? Try to examine your Facebook experience and see how many words are crossing your path that can be called idle words. I know of some people and I won’t mention any names that appear like they are never quiet. To hold a phone conversation with them is impossible, because they are the only one speaking and you just have time to say “yea” or “uh?” occasionally. Some people spend hours and hours on the phone talking to everybody about everything. How many of these kind of people do you know? I pray that you are not one of them. It would appear on judgment day that we may have to sit or stand around and listen to everything that people said on this earth for a very long time. Doesn’t that sound fun? No! I do not think any of us will be very happy on judgment day.
I am generally a quiet person. It has been my personality to listen more than to speak. If you knew me, I believe that you would agree. I know many Other people are different, I know that and I do not fault them for being different. But, nevertheless I believe we need to learn what the Bible says about the definition of “Idle Words”. These are the words that God says we will personally have to account for, so what are they? It would appear that we need to learn to avoid these types of “idle words” like the plague. But that can only begin with us first learning about what they are. Here is the definition of the word from Strong’s:
G692
From G1 (as a negative particle) and G2041; inactive, that is, unemployed; (by implication) lazy, useless: – barren, idle, slow.
The concepts given to us in the Bible can so easily go over our heads. Because we don’t understand them, we may simply ignore them. This Greek word G692 means “unemployed” or “inactive”. That is a concept that most Christians do not have a clue what it means. The Greek word is the combination of the negative particle combine with the Greek word G2041 that literally means to work or toil.
I’m not going to do any jokes right here either, because that would be an example of more idle words. You see idle words are contrasted to be opposite to “employed” words “productive” words, “active” words or “working” words. These are all employment, work and job related terminologies but now they are being related to us in association to what we speak. God is saying that our words ought to be working for us and not just be idle or lazy. What we should learn are working words change things. God used His working words to change darkness to light in Genesis 1. Does God expect us to do the same? The answer is Yes! So how do we get our words work for us? 
Working words are a concept found in the Bible word “edification”, where we use our words to build up like as in a construction project. In the last lesson about Moses’ big mistake, God told Moses to Speak to the Rock and this is an example of working words. Instead of obeying Moses spoke to the people and called them rebellious. God said to Moses to speak to the Rock and get the answer and instead Moses spoke the problem and did not enter into the Promise Land. If you did not read this lesson you should, it is one of the best ones that God has given to me up to this time. What Moses did was an example of “Idle Unemployed Words”. Instead of using his words to work for him and get the answer, Moses spoke the problem and failed to enter into the promise land.
So we can start to understand now that God says every, lazy, idle, useless, unemployed, inactive,and non-constructive word that we speak we will be judged for all of them. How many words in the course of day do we “employ” that are “productive” to get good “results”? The clear implication to this verse is for us to change what we say to words that “work” for us! As Christians we should become aware of the words that we speak. We should think about what we say before we say it. Just because a thought comes into our mind, that doesn’t mean that we should speak it out. This is a common trick of the devil. Satan gives people thoughts in an attempt to get them to speak them out. Why is this so important for Satan to do this? Believe it or not your spoken words gives Satan entrance to come in and kill steal and destroy from you.
People do not understand what God said in Numbers 14:28, that whatever I hear you say that is what I will do to you. People do not realize that God is listening to what they say. People do not realize that God does to them whatever comes out of their mouths good or evil. That is very strong! Many times people like to think that God is in complete and total control of everything that happens to them. In their thinking they do not believe that they have anything to do with what happens in their lives. 
They believe that it was either bad luck, or just a coincidence, or an accident or just an unfortunate set of circumstances that they are faced with. But, God has established and given to us spiritual laws in the Bible and this is one of them that every believer needs to grasp immediately. You can very easily discount what God says and what the Bible says. But, if you do that it still does not mean that what happened to you is not something that you at least contributed to making it happen.
Let me give you another New Testament verse that repeats what Numbers 14:28 says. This is a Bible verse that is obviously very controversial and hard for many believers to grasp and believe. This verse is found in Mark chapter 11:
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 gives us the spiritual definition of Numbers 14:28 and clarifies a few details that were not clearly given to Moses. Many times we will learn that God teaches things in progressive stages. He will give us a little bit in one place and let us take it in in small parts and then He will give us a little bit more as we are able to chew and swallow it. This way we are not overwhelmed or choked with too much of the new Words of God. Paul taught this way also. Paul told some I wanted to feed you meat but you were unable to partake and I fed you just soft milk (1 Cor 3:2). So God teaches us a few meaty things in Mark 11:23 about how the spiritual law of spoken words work. I guess I should start by giving you the context of this verse in Mark 11. Jesus was traveling through the countryside and He sees a fig tree with leafs on it. Jesus then goes up to the fig tree looking for figs to eat. Finding none, Jesus speaks to the fig tree to curse it and the disciples heard Him. The next day they all walk by the same fig tree. Suddenly one of the disciples notices that the tree was withered and dried up from the roots upward. So what was Jesus doing? Was Jesus just mad or upset at the tree because it didn’t have any fruit on it? No, I do not think so. Was Jesus showing off and saying to them “look what I can do and not you”? No, I do not think so. Did Jesus say “This happened because I’m God and you are not”? Again, No, I don’t think so. Or was Jesus teaching them and all of us an object lesson on the spiritual law of spoken words? I believe that Jesus was telling them a spiritual secret and demonstrating the spiritual law of spoken words to His disciples so that they would learn a valuable lesson in life. You’ll have to make up your own mind in what you believe and figure it out if Jesus was talking to you also. I would personally pray and ask Him to show you what it means. Jesus is no respecter of persons and what He did for one he will do for everyone.
You can see that a “disciple” of Christ is a word that means a student, a learner, a pupil. Are you one of these? Maybe you think you know everything and you are the master? If you do you are in trouble and being covered and blinded by your ignorance. If you are a Christian you must be a Christ follower forever, a student of Christ forever, or in other words His disciple forever. Only He knows everything and we don’t. So whatever Jesus says to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, I believe He is talking to you and I also! Please do not think that you know more than they do. Learn what Jesus was trying to teach them and we will become what He wanted us to become, more like Him.
So what was the lesson of Mark 11:23? Jesus told them and us that if we would speak to the mountain and believe that what we say would happen, we would get exactly what we say. There are so many lessons to learn from this one verse that I cannot teach them all, nor do I claim to know them all. A mountain is a symbolic representation of a negative situation or set of circumstances that we are facing, possibly an obstacle, either physical, mental, spiritual, financial or whatever we are faced with that appears to be a challenge. Jesus told us to speak to it and tell it to be removed and it would obey us, if we believe. Why is it necessary for us to both speak and believe? What we say and what we believe represents us putting our faith to work. That is the opposite of being idle or unemployed. All people both speak and believe either positively or negatively about things that around them. They either speak an expect good things to happen or speak and expect bad things to happen to them. Speaking and believing involves a decision that we make that even though the problem looks big and impossible to move, Jesus said that it would have to obey us and what we said to it would have to be done!
How many Christians believe this truth? I can see there are a growing number, are you one of them. If you are not one of the ones that believes the LORD JESUS then begin to notice what you say and believe and see if it is not what you get eventually. This principle works for you or against in the positive or the negative, because it is a spiritual law! I know this boggles the minds of religious unbeliever who do not believe what Jesus said. You see I did not write these verses in the Bible, I’m just a news reporter doing my best to show them to you with a greater emphasis of importance. These verses have been in the Bible for hundreds of years and people have just ignored them. We are responsible for the information that they say and how they apply to our life. God told Moses in Numbers that the Rock would obey his spoken working words, but Moses spoke to the people and called them “rebels”. God told him his words would bring the answer and he ended up enlarging the problem. Moses didn’t believe God and didn’t enter into the promise land and this is definitely a lesson for us all today.
Let’s look at some more example verses with the Greek word G692 translated as “idle” just to obtain a greater subject knowledge. This Greek word occurs only in 6 verses and is only used 8 times in the N.T. Jesus used this word in describing the man in the parable that went out to hire workers in his field. He goes to men and asks them why are you idle? They answer no one has hired us and then they go to work for the man. It is self-evident what the word means by studying this parable in Matthew 20:1-6. Not working is the definition of “idle”. Therefore, here is another verse in the N.T. that contains this same word:
2Pe 1:8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Greek word for “Idle” is found in this verse in 2 Peter 1:8. However, it was translated as “barren” in this verse. “barren” might mean the basic same thing as inactive or unproductive. But, I believe that God is seeking that we should avoid this situation of unemployed word from occurring in our life. I know it does not directly say “words” in this verse, but think about what the verse is saying, “in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus”? Isn’t that words? Isn’t “knowledge” obtained by words and we can’t say anything unless we have knowledge to do so” Also it would seem that “Idle” could be considered to be synonymous to being “unfruitful”. God is telling us in this verse in 2 Peter that we should not be either of these. You see to be “barren” can also mean to not bear any fruit. Jesus cursed the fig tree in Mark 11 because it was barren. Do you think he was symbolically giving us some valuable clues to spiritual things? It is also interesting to see the context of this verse. Let’s look back at a preceding verse:
2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
The promised land, symbolically represents these “exceeding great and precious promises” that God has given to us in His word. As this verse says, that these promises have already been given, we are now required to possess them. To become a partaker is the same as to become a possessor. God had given Moses and Israel the promise land and told them to “partake” of it. They did not believe God and therefore failed to obtain what was freely given. The promise land represents the blessings of God. The promises of God also represent the blessings of God. Because Moses did not believe he remained in the curses in the wilderness and died there. This is a powerful type and shadow of what we have facing us today. There are giants in our spiritual promise land today trying to intimidate us and keep us out of possessing it. How do we do this? We speak only words that are “useful”, “employed”, “working”, “productive”, “active”, “positive” and “fruitful” words. Then we avoid all spoken words that are “idle”, “unproductive”, “inactive”, “negative” and “unfruitful” words. This is the lesson of Moses found in Numbers 14 and Jesus and the fig tree in Mark 11. These are the words of Jesus found in Matthew. Avoid these “Idle Words” and you will be very glad when it comes to the judgment day and you have a much better opportunity to possess the promises of God in your life today. Thank you for studying the Bible on this website and please leave a comment if you would like to share your experiences in this area of life. God Bless!
If you would like to continue to read this series of lessons on spoken words, you can go to “Part 3“.
Many Will Be Called, But Few Chosen! Predestination Debunked!
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 2 in an important series of Bible lessons addressing the erroneous belief of extreme “Predestination”. If you did not read “Part 1” I would highly recommend that you start there and come back to this lesson. Today I will address the erroneous philosophy of “predestination” again using the Bible. In my last blog I talked about how some believe that God intentionally hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that God could work great signs and wonders in Egypt. I guess some people think that God was just wanting to show-off! I do not know how people can get such mixed up ideas, but I guess it takes all kinds. In this blog I want to talk about another “hard saying” found in the Bible that appears on the surface to indicate that God has preselected some people and others He has purposely rejected. It appears to me that some even take it and twist this message to say that God has predestined some for salvation and others for damnation. This of course to me is clearly in error and it violates the character of God and it turns Him into something that He is not. If this was true, it would make God the Great Nazi Deity in the sky, who kills the inferior races and only selects those who are worthy or superior enought to be saved. Isn’t this what Hitler did? Is God the same as Adolf Hitler? I do not think so! What we have is a classic example of what I call “taking ‘a’ truth and trying to make it ‘the’ truth”. This is a widely popular error found throughout the church body where men choose to wrongly divide the Word of Truth in order to believe in their incorrect interpretation of the Bible. People need to realize that there is more than one truth found in the Bible and in order to correctly interpret any verse you have to take into account all of the other related verses. This of course is a very challenging problem we all face, because none of us knows every related Bible verse. Bible study is like building a house or a building. You must start with a basic firm foundation of Biblical truths to begin. If you try to build on anything else your house of interpretations will fall down too easily. So what we do is learn everything that we can about the basics and then start to build upon what we know and correctly apply these things to the new things that we learn. That is the best that any of us can do. Truth always builds upon truth yielding a sound and tight fitting construction, which will result in a structure that is not easily blown down. True Bible Interpretation is not a house of cards that can be toppled easily. So let’s look at one of these Bible verses that seem to indicate “predestination” on the surface.
Mat 20:16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.
Here we have Jesus, God in the flesh speaking to us directly and you can very easily take it the wrong way. You can use your limited human mind to conclude that God is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient and therefore, whatever God wants is what happens to everyone. You can take this statement by Jesus to mean that God has chosen some and others He has rejected. I mean on the surface it really looks like this is what it could be saying. However, if you think about it more closely you will see that interpretation is a house of cards. You see why would God call “Many” and only choose a “Few”? If God was only going to select a very few, you would think that God would already know who was going to be selected and not bother calling those that would not be selected! Don’t you think that makes logical sense? Why even call them if they are not being selected? That would make God a teaser and a tempter. Hang some bait out in front of someone and then yanking it away right before they get to it. Sorry, you were not selected! Is that your God? That is not my God, so either we have different Gods or one of us is deceived! However, there are other hard sayings found in the Bible that are equally hard to accept on the surface and here is one of them:
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
This is a difficult verse on the surface. How can God choose one son over another? You could take this as a predestination act of God, if you wanted to. The verse before this one says that while the children were still innocent and were even still in the womb, that God said the “elder shall serve the younger”. What people do not realize is there is a major difference between “predestination” and “foreknowledge”. There is a major difference between causing something to happen and knowing what will happen. God clearly tells us that He makes known the end from the beginning. Is this because God has predestined the end, or is this because God lives outside of the dimension of time and can forsee the end results. I personally believe that God can see the end and this is what He reports, especially when it comes to the knowledge of what people will do like Jacob and Esau. God already knew the character traits of each child and what they would do and what they would not do. However, “predestination” would dictate that God predetermined what each child was purposed for and preselected one and rejected the other. In other words in the “predestination” theology man plays no role in who God selects. I talked about God being the great puppet master in the sky, pulling everyone’s strings making them do this or that depending on what God wants done at that time. This is a common religious philosophy that is widely taught in some churches. These people subscribe to a “no fault” religion. They believe whatever happens to them in life, it is just not their fault! They did not do anything to cause it and they could do nothing to stop it! That is very ignorant to believe like that, but many people do it any way! After all it relieves them of any responsibility or accountability for what they do.
So why would God choose Jacob and not Esau? If you recall Esau ended up selling his birthright. Jacob probably did some unethical tricks to get his father’s blessing but nonetheless Jacob has became the rightful heir to his father’s name and fortune. You also have to realize that Jacob and Esau and this story is a spiritual foreshadowing of events to come. This story has parallels in the natural that are patterns and types of what God was going to do in the spiritual realm. Jacob is a type of Jesus Christ. I believe Esau is a type of Adam, Jesus Christ’s older brother. But, I know I do not have time to teach this and I probably already opened a can of worms that is causing some readers to draw back, so I’ll stop there for now. What we must realize is that Jacob was selected by God, because of what Esau had decided and the actions that he had chosen. People play a role in what God does through people more than most people realize. What people want and desire, what people think, what people say and do all play a key role in whether God is able to use them. If you want to live in sin and be mightily used by God, guess what, God is not going to hesitate to look for someone else. You are the determining factor to whether God is able to use you!
So why would God hate one son and love another? What does God hate? Let’s look in the Bible for the answer to that important question:
Deu 16:22 Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the LORD thy God hateth.
It would appear that God hates it when people serve false gods and idols. Hate is a very strong word. If God hates something it must be very bad. Do you think that Esau could have been involved with another god or idol? Do you know that it is exactly possible, here is another verse that speaks about Esau found in the New Testament:
Heb 12:16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
This verse in Hebrews is interesting, isn’t it? The verse is talking about “fornicators”. In the Greek this word means “male prostitutes”. Because Esau compramised his integrity and sold his birth right God selected Jacob. You should use your Bible search program and go through and study the verses you can find out about “Esau” for there are many references in the Bible to him. He is a natural type of something in the spiritual realm that God hates. But, also look for verses that refer to “Edom” for this is the nation of children that came from Esau and see what God says about them. It is a fascinating study. Maybe after you read all of these verses you can begin to see why I believe that Esau represents Adam and Satan.
So let’s move on to some verses found in the Bible that directly challenges the theory of “predestination”. These verses will cause a conflict that must be resolved in order to correctly interpret the Bible. I’ll start with one in Proverbs:
Pro 24:23 These things also belong to the wise. It is not good to have respect of persons in judgment.
You see on the surface you ask, why is this verse related to our subject and that is why the Bible is so difficult to understand for many. They just don’t put the pieces of the puzzle together correctly so they end up confused and wrong. This verse ends in a statement that a judge should be fair to everyone. If a judge gave one man a 10 year sentence and let another man off for no time for the exact same crime, would that be fair to the one that got 10 years? Does God have mercy on some people like this and others He does not let off the hook and throws them into hell? Isn’t God the Supreme Judge of the Universe? So does God judge differently than you should? Why do you think that God came to the earth in the flesh in the first place? I believe it was to set an example that we should follow. So we should be attempting to become just like God? I believe that we are. So if God tells us to judge without respect to persons, God is already this way! Do you get it?
Act 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
So God tells us what Peter the Apostle discovered. Peter says that God shows no “respect of person”. This Greek word has the following definition from the Strong’s:
From G4381; to favor an individual, that is, show partiality: – have respect to persons.
This Greek word is pretty clear in its definition. To be partial to someone means you look favorably towards them. It means you place a higher preference or priority upon one than the other. It means you esteem some and look down upon others. This is the Bible definition to having “respect of persons”. It is clear that this is not an attitude that we should possess towards anyone. But, that doesn’t mean we should accept everyone as they are either. If you do, you will have to let your pedophile teachers, teach your Sunday school classes and that would be crazy wouldn’t it?
Rom 2:11 For there is no respect of persons with God.
Unless you are spiritually blind you cannot read a verse like this and still believe in the philosophy of “predestination”. This verse clearly says that God does not show favoritism towards anyone. God does not play favorites. God does not grant favors to anyone. God is fair and treats everyone the same or God is being unfair. You of course can ask a lot of questions and refuse to believe that this applies to God, but you would be failing to see what God is saying in the Bible and that is a huge mistake. So God has said for us to be fair towards everyone, because I am fair to everyone. So what is the determining factor of why God chooses one and not the other? As we saw with Jacob and Esau, it had more to do with what they did and not so much with God forcing the decision. Here is another interesting verse that is certainly relevant to our subject of “predestination”.
Luk 10:42 But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
Jesus is at Mary and Martha’s house teaching and Martha comes to Jesus and complains that her sister is not helping fix the food for everyone. What was God’s response to this question? Did God say, “Mary I have chosen her and not you, I have done all of this for a purpose and a plan that you do not understand”? You see that would be a true “predestination” theologian’s viewpoint. Fortunately for us God did not say this. But, God says “Mary has chosen to hear the good things and I will not take it from her”. It appears that Martha could have chosen the same thing that Mary chose and asked Jesus to feed them when they all got hungry, but she didn’t do that. Jesus seemed to think that Mary’s choice was better than Martha’s choice, can’t you see the difference? Did what Mary choose to do affect her personally and the results that she got? Did what Martha choose to do affect her personally and the results that she got? The answer to both of these quesdtions is, YES! The decisions people make are directly involved in God’s ability to use them and that determines what they get. People have more to do with what God does, than they can possibly imagine.
Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Apparently God wants to come in and have dinner with you! If God wants in the door, do you think that God is not powerful enough to come in? Why would the omnipotent God be standing on the outside knocking if He really just wanted to come in to eat with you? The answer to that question is because God is a Divince Gentleman. God will not force anyone into anything. They must choose to open the door to let Him in. Do you see how ignorant people can get with their invented religious ideas that God is in control of everything that happens to a man, to his house and him opening the door to let God in? If God was in complete control He wouldn’t be knocking and waiting for someone to let Him in would He? God is God and He is all powerful, but He does not violate your freewill choice. God will not force you to open the door to your heart and let Him in. You have the responsibility to open the door and invite Him in. If you do not do this, God is a perfect gentleman and will not kick the door down like a thief or a robber.
Let me end this blog with this new and different perspective to the subject of predestination. Many times people do not think when they read the Bible so here is something new to consider. If God only chooses some why does this Bible verse say what it says?
Psa 69:28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.
You see you can very easily read a verse like this and completely miss what it says and think that it does not apply to anyone or anything. However, Jesus thought it was important enough and says this about it:
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.
So what does this have to do with predestination? It is because you do not see, that you do not understand. This verse says everyone’s name was written down in the “Lambs book of Life“, but that some of these names have now been blotted out. In other words, God expected everyone to be saved, but obviously there are many who did not accept the free gift. You see God did not write your name in the “book of life” after you got saved. The Lamb’s book of life had every name of every human that was supposed to be here on this planet already enter into it. We can therefore conclude that God wanted everyone to be saved and those that overcame are the only ones that their names now remain in the book. So if God predestined anything or anyone, God predestined everyone to succeed and to be saved, but some chose to reject God’s plan and do their own thing. The word “Blot Out” means that the name was already there and removed or covered over using “God’s Whiteout”. People who are young do not understand the concept of “whiteout”, but those who are older do, before computers were around people would type pages manually and have to cover mistakes up with a white liquid paper product. I think you can still buy this product, but I doubt if it is very widely used for anything. This is however, the concept given to us in Word of God. God writes every name in the Lamb’s book of life and then depending upon their actions and decisions, God is forced to remove their name, if they so choose. It is truly amazing what the Bible says when you can see it! God Bless you and may you be blessed with the knowledge of Him that freely gives us all things!
If you would like to continue to read about this subject you can go to “Part 3“.
Introduction to the Trinity of God, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!
(Ver 1.4) Today’s lesson is “Part 1” in an essential Bible series of truth concerning the revealed triune nature of the Godhead. This lesson will be focused upon an essential introduction of the subject. Because there are new Christians all the time, I realized people are like me and do not know everything. There are new people choosing to come into God’s family every day that need to learn the fundamentals of Christianity. Furthermore, this seemingly simple subject can become immensely technical and deep. So I will occasionally teach on basic Bible concepts that everyone should become intimately familiar with. By building a strong foundation on the Word of God, you are better able to defend your faith to others who may raise questions to why you have chosen to place your hope in and believe in the Bible (1 Peter 3:15). If you do not know anything the Bible says you are not able to share with others to help them enter into His truth. So today I want to introduce another basic foundational Bible concept. How can one God be viewed in three different ways? It is really not too difficult to understand these three personalities of God, if you research them in your Bible. They are easily seen, frequently named and usually only ignored by people who do not want to accept them. God is called first and foremost a Spirit (John 4:24). Therefore every other manifestation of God must originate from His Spirit. You see one manifestation of God is accomplished by Him giving Himself a new titled description for His Spirit. God the Father is a title or a name for the Spirit of God who procreates and has covenants, a family and children. God is the Father of all spiritual beings (Heb 12:9). If you have a spirit (and you do), it came from only God’s Spirit given to you in your mother’s womb at conception. This truth delegates the responsibility of all human spirits to acknowledge God to be the original Father of their spirit.
Then there is God the Son. This manifestation of God occurred when the Spirit of God came upon Mary the virgin and she conceived a male child named Jesus (Luke 1:35). The body of Jesus came about as a union of the Seed(Word) of the Father God and the egg in Mary’s womb. The combination of these two (physical egg and Spoken Spirit Word) produced a child that was not God, but yet had the Spirit of God in Him. It might seem rather confusing at first, if you have never been taught this way. You see the Bible says that “No Man” has ever seen God (1 Jn 4:12). But we know many men and women saw physical Jesus Christ when He was here on earth. But they all technically just saw the body that contained the Spirit of God and they never actually saw God who is a Spirit as we learned from John 4:24.
The plot thickens however, because Jesus did say “when you have seen me, you have seen the Father” (Jn 14:7). So Jesus did not separate Himself from the Father at any time. Jesus repeatedly said that He and His Father were One (Jn 10:30, Jn 17:11). So when Jesus walked the face of the earth and spoke to the people, whatever He said was God speaking, because Jesus was God in the flesh (Mat 1:23). Or we could also say that the Spirit of God was in the flesh of Jesus.
BIBLE FACT 1: ONLY ONE GOD
I think I will begin this lesson by establishing Bible verses that clearly declares that there is only one true God who created everything. There can be a potential problem when studying the trinity because of these three titles, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. These three titled manifestations of the God can easily lead some to believe we have 3 different Gods. But this not true. Only One God created everything we see and God gives credit to the operation of all three divine descriptions to have participated in creating us. Let us start with a basic law from God in the Old Testament:
Deu 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
This is a classic verse written in the Law of Moses. God declares that He is One Lord! The children of Israel widely accepted this verse and believe in this One True Lord! However, when He visited them personally in the flesh, they put Him to death on a cross. Why didn’t they recognize their God? That is an obviously good question to consider and answer. It seems the Nation of Israel is still stumbling over the same things as they did back then. I have talked to Jews and they hate Christians and put them down as a false religion. Little do they know that they are the ones now in the false religion of works that will not save them.
Mar 12:29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
Jesus, who was God in the flesh did not contradict the Old Testament law, but further confirmed that there was only one Lord God. Many times people have a tendency to limit what God can do and put God in their very small and limited religious box. God can do something so very radically different that the things we can think of with our simple natural minds.
In fact God has already done some very radical things that we are just now discovering in the Bible. But, these people in Jesus’ day did not recognize their God, because they did not expect Him to be standing in front of them in this humble form. Perhaps they had read about God in the burning bush speaking to Moses, or in the cloud on top of the mountain meeting again with Moses and they think that this is the way God always talks to men. So heaven forbid if God does something so new or radically different to come in person in the flesh and stand before them and speak! That just doesn’t make any natural sense for an omnipotent God to do, does it? Of course the Jews were not privy to all of the facts either. They did not know that the angel Gabriel had visited Mary when she was a virgin and said she would conceive a child by the Spirit of God. They were not privileged to know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the city of David and the prophesied birth place of their Messiah.
The Jews only knew that Jesus was a man from Samaria and a city of Nazareth. They understood how, He had grown up like every other child in the region and nothing appeared to be different or unique about him. They assumed Jesus was just like the other children in the family of Joseph and Mary and no different than His natural half-brothers or His natural half-sisters. The Jews made wrong assumptions and never attempted to find out the truth by asking relevant questions. They were deceived by Satan and they killed the God who came to save them. Thank God, they did because we now are saved because of it. Obviously, God foreknew how they would react and what they would do, since He purposely chose this specific time in human history to be born into the world.
Mar 12:32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:
Here is a verse of scripture that confirms what the Jews believed. They knew that the Bible said there was only One True God! This scribe declares that there are no other true gods except Him. But, yet he was talking to Him personally and never realized it either. That to me is a very sad story.
Jas 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
The devils and Satan know there is only one True God! They are extremely fearful of Him. In fact they are doing everything they can legally and illegally do to try to keep the plan of God against them from coming to pass. It is interesting to see how many men and women in the world are so passive toward God. So many could care less if there is a God, they are consumed with their own agendas. People’s priorities sure need to change, don’t you think?
Mal 2:10 Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?
Here is an interesting verse of scripture. It tells us that there is one true Father God. Then it also says there is only One True God who created us! The Bible is a very complex book and tells us many things that are difficult to wrap our human thinking minds around. The trinity of God is one of these concepts that is difficult to fully grasp for human thinkers not thinking in a higher spiritual God kind of way. How can one God be manifested in various ways using different names and titles? You see this verse calls God the One Father, but yet Jesus in John 8, in talking to the Jews said “ye are of your father the devil”. So obviously Jesus did not see them as his true spiritual brothers. Jesus clearly said that He had a different spiritual Father than they did. This partly demonstrates an ongoing problem of many religions in the world today. The Jews thought that God was their father, but Jesus declared something that was completely different than what they thought. So they were wrong and Jesus was right. Many people today want to be all inclusive and say every religion is just another path to the same god. But, they are also wrong. Let us look at another verse from 1 Timothy:
1Ti 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
You see the Bible declares something very different than what people think. That is why Christians are many times accused of being hateful and narrow minded. Those who see the truth, know that there are not many paths that lead us to the True God. For example, this verse in 1 Timothy declares the opposite. God says there is only one path way to God and that is only through the man Christ Jesus. The Messiah Jesus was God in the flesh! God came to the earth personally to accomplish everything that He needed to accomplish and He did it personally to insure that it was done correctly at the right time in the precise way. The term “mediator” is an interesting Greek word so let’s look up the definition and see what it reveals:
From G3319; a go between, that is, (simply) an internunciator, or (by implication) a reconciler (intercessor): – mediator.
The word “internunciator” carries a meaning of someone who speaks on the behalf of someone else. “Inter” can mean between and “nunciator” is someone who speaks. So Jesus became the one in between man and God who is authorized to legally speak to each opposing party. So a “mediator” is someone who is also a go between of the two parties often times in a legal battle. Both of these titles fit the situation the human race was in. We needed someone to be our legal attorney to plead our case for us, because we did not have a legitimate case without this help. God provided Himself an intercessor, a spokesman for the human race when we had no chance of salvation. Because God became a man, every man and woman now has a chance to talk with God personally. Humans were incapable of saving themselves and we were in dire straits without a hope of any future. God provided the way out of our dilemma, before we ever understood what a dilemma we were in.
You cannot be narrow minded when you read the Bible, if you are you will not be able to accept some of the radical concepts that God introduces you to. God is One God, but comes to us in different ways for different purposes.
Remember that the Bible says that “No Man” has ever seen God, but that doesn’t mean we cannot come to know Him. God being a Spirit, makes it difficult for natural men and women to grasp all of the hidden qualities of His nature and personalities. What we must do is become spiritually open to what God wants to do and realize that whatever He does will probably be different than anything we could have imagined. Learn the lesson of the Jews who did not recognize their God when He chose to walk in their presence in the flesh. You see the Bible says God is not a Man (Num 23:19)! That was a completely factual truth when these words were recorded in the Old Testament. But that does not mean that God could not become a man if He choses to do so. Jesus Christ was the Word (God) made to be a flesh body (Jn 1:14) and it was this human body that contained the Holy Spirit of God. But I do not believe that this manifested physical body containing God limited God in His spiritually manifested form to only be in the body of Jesus. In fact the Bible clearly tells us that every Believer who has accepted Jesus as their Lord now has the Spirit of God living on the inside of them. So obviously God’s Spirit is bigger than the individual body of Jesus Christ alone. Part of the Spirit of God is in me right now! If you are a real believer, then a part of the Spirit of God is also in you! Because the Jews put limits upon God and would not let Him out of their small mental box, they were unable to see Him clearly. Do not be guilty of putting God in your small box and miss Him either!
1Co 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
There are so many verses that declare and name God as being One! This verse speaks of two parts of the trinity as both being this One God that we are learning about today. God the Father, is the original spiritual father. But, Jesus Christ, the Son of God is also this same One Lord God! Notice that this One Lord Jesus Christ created all things. So you cannot separate the two manifestations of God and say they are two different Gods or Creators, they are just two personalities of the same One True God. Now let us shift focus from seeing God as being just Two to see how God claims to actually be Three in One.
TRIUNE = THREE IN ONE
1Jn 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
This is one of the greatest scriptures in the Bible directly naming all “three” members of the unified trinity and calling each of them all One! However, notice that the Son of God is called the Word of God in this verse and that is a revelation that you need to get a hold of. In John the 1st chapter verse 1, God tells us very Clearly that God and the Word are One in the same. Then in verse 14, God tells us that the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. So we can now begin to understand how God could become a man called His Son in the flesh and still be God Almighty. I guess I should address the fact that this verse is widely reported to be false because it is not found in every manuscript. However, this is the ploy of Satan to attempt to delete these words to cause doubts in the minds of people. You see you can find this basic information in several other verses in the Bible and therefore I am confident in all of these verses of truth. Check in John 5:37 and see where God the Father is being a witness of God the Son. Read about Jesus being called the Word of God in Revelation 19:13. Look at 1 John 4:14 where it speaks of God the Father and God the Son. Look at John 15:26 where Jesus the Son of God describes the Spirit of God coming forth from the Father God to “testify” of the truth of Jesus. A witness in the Bible is always someone who can testify in a court of law under an oath, so again we see the trinity in very revealed self-evident terms. There are many verses in the Bible like this but I’m not going to do all of your Bible study for you today in this introductory lesson, so please make the effort and go and search to find more of them.
CONCLUSION
So this has just been a quick and simple introduction to the subject of the trinity of God. I concentrated mostly on scriptures that declare that God is One True God. But, I also introduced you to the fact that God can do things differently than we expect, if He wants to. It is interesting that God always worked in the Old Testament through a mediator, a go between. Either Moses, or another prophet would go to God and get the message that He wanted them to hear. God used this principle and pattern of a go between for literally hundreds of years. But, when God became the “go between” in the form of the man Jesus Christ, the majority wanted nothing to do with Him. God did something the same way that He had always done it, but implemented it in a different way and they automatically rejected Him because He was so different than what they thought. Jesus Christ became the Moses mediator of His day on earth and God’s own people refused to listen to Him. I guess being “narrow minded” applies to many people in the world. Everyone thinks they know what they need to know and when God does something different, we like to criticize it and brand it as a false teaching. What the Jews should have done was to search the scriptures and find out what God was going to do and then verify if what Jesus said went along with it. Instead of thinking they knew what was right and what was wrong, they should have been open to some new viewpoints of truth. We as Christians also need to search our Bibles and see what God is going to do and remain open to Him potentially doing something that we did not expect Him to do.
Finally, the Bible says that Satan will do everything that he can to deny the deity of Christ. The antichrist we are told in 1 John 2:22 will deny that Jesus is the Christ and claim that God had no Son. God says very specifically that this antichrist will deny the existence of both the Father and the Son. There is a major reason for this denial of truth, which I cannot get into today in this lesson. If it were not important God would not have warned you about this. I will say briefly two major religions of the world deny God had a Son and these are the Jewish and Islamic religions. That is very important for you to know if you miss the rapture. It is clear to me that Satan will do everything in his power to deny the trinity of God and will cause many people to fall into deception to believe this lie that there is not a trinity. You need to understand that this is why it is important to know and study this subject so that even you will not be deceived when this occurs. Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us at Agapegeek.com. God bless you and please share this lesson with everyone you know. Press “Like” also and all of this will help others find us. God Bless you until next time.
If you would like to continue reading in this series, please proceed to “Part 2” now.
The Sin Unto Death! Part 2 The Unpardonable Sin!
(Ver 1.3) Today is Part 2 on the subject of “Once Saved, Aleays Saved”, “Eternal Security”, or “Unconditional Security” of the believer after salvation. I will continue to talk about this subject today in greater detail giving you a new perspective on the subject that I call the introduction of the unpardonable sin. Does an unpardonable sin exist? Can a Christian commit this sin and even lose their salvation? In the first lesson on this subject I contrasted the teaching of some churches that is often called the doctrine of “once saved, always saved”, to a new but clear reference found in the Bible of what God calls the “Sin Unto Death”. In that lesson I taught that God instructs us not to even pray for a person that has commited this type of Sin Unto Death. If you did not read this first lesson, I would strongly suggest that you go back and start your reading with “Part 1” and then continue forward to today’s lesson.
So what is the “Sin Unto Death”? As you recall from Part 1 of this series I determined that man still possessed a free will choice and that they could decide at any point in time not to be saved. This action would result in their rejection of the saving grace of God. That which God has given to them for free can be freely given back to God at any time. People will never lose the right to choose between good and evil, God and Satan, light and darkness even if it is an extremely stupid choice to make the wrong decision. I do not think that the people who teach “once saved, always saved” have taken this reality into account. They simply want to rely on the divine omnipotence of God to make all of their choices and decisions for them but God just does not do this. There are several references in the Bible that indicate people must strive and contend for the faith (Jude 1:3). That there is a struggle and an armed conflict raging in the spiritual realm (2 Tim 4:7). We have a spiritual enemy doing all that he can to deceive us and cause us to turn back to our previous ways. There are numerous scriptures that clearly inform us that people are not once saved and then can never make the choice to go back to their old life styles. For example:
Heb 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
This verse in Hebrews is another prime example of someone who was saved by the shed blood of Christ and who has now wilfully chosen to go back to sin. Wilfully displays a choice of their freewill. This verse describes a Christian that has learned the truth of God’s Word, but now decided to ignore it. I gave you another verse in the last lesson and it was interesting to see that this person was described as someone who has trodden or walked on the Son of God in verse 29. This is a common Bible term that is used for when someone defeats an enemy. So to this person, Christ is no longer their savior, but has become their enemy. When a person turns back to this old way, you can read here in vese 26 that there is no more sacrifices that can save them. This verse says that they had accepted the one true way to God but have now turned away from the truth and as a result have lost their salvation without any hope for salvation. That is a clear definition to what an unpardonable sin is. God clearly tells us that there is only one sacrifice for our sin, not two, three or more. Christ died one time on the cross, so do not take it lightly, thinking that it is OK to walk away from Christ and that you can come back whenever you like. This is the sin unto death that God is speaking of.
Here is a new problem that I was recently introduced to. One persons tried to explain away all of these verses in Hebrews 10 as not applying to Christians because they said this book was only written to the natural Jews or the Hebrews. Wow, people can become so deceived, can’t they? How ignorant do you have to be to not see this book was written to church? That means it was written to me! That means the scriptures apply to me. If you used their logic then the book of Timothy only applies to Timothy and we should it ignore it also. Using their logic the book of Romans was only written to the people in Rome so we should iginore that one also. I could go on and on like this through every epistle in the N.T. and explain each of them away using some ignorant human reasoning. I’ve seen this type of behavior by Christians and even seminary graduates repeatedly. Whenever they do not want to embrace a truth as being applicable to them, they say it was written to someone else. Heaven help them to see the truth!
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN
Now is the time to get into my new main subject verse that is very important for you to understand. Here is another key verse of scripture that has great significance to our subject of eternal security and to what I have been teaching on subject of the sin unto death. The Eternal Security Extreme Grace message is based solely upon the theory that there are no sins that are possible for a Christian to commit that will cause them to lose their salvation. I mean that would be a radical message, if that is what Jesus believed. However since Jesus didn’t even believe that I think I will not write off His words to believe in a false eternal security. Look here in this verse in Matthew, and see that Jesus is speaking and that He says some things that are very hard to accept for my Grace teachers so they have to ignore them or explain them away:
Mat 12:31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
Apparently, according to what Jesus just said there is at the least one sin that will not be forgiven of anyone that commits it. If you did not understand that this was an all-inclusive statement that leaves no one out, then you are not reading it correctly. This verse would have to apply to all Christians as well as to all non-Christians equally since Jesus did not qualify the target audience. Jesus informs us that there are a whole bunch of different kinds of sins and blasphemies that will be forgiven a man or a woman on this planet. But, Jesus then says that there is one that will not be forgiven any man or any woman at any time and that is when they blaspheme the Holy Ghost. Therefore, if there is just ONE SIN that is unforgiveable, then salvation is no longer unconditionally secured, but has been transformed by definition to a conditional salvation. Remaining saved would then be totally dependent upon you not commiting the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost. That clearly changes salvation to an unsecured CONDITIONAL event! So let’s define this word blaspheme, using the Strong’s:
G987
From G989; to vilify; specifically to speak impiously: – (speak) blaspheme (-er, -mously, -my), defame, rail on, revile, speak evil.
Obviously, according to this definition, blasphemy is the spoken words of a person, that are directed against the character of God. As you can see it implies that God’s character and nature is good and yet I hear men constantly speaking of Him in terms of being an evil being. I would be very careful with what you say about God, after reading this verse. If you walk about speaking of God as being evil or being the reason for evil you do not understand the Bible and are in jeopardy of being guilty of blaspheming the Holy Spirit of God. I heard people speak of God being responsible for the 9/11 attacks of the terrorists and that to me is blasphemy. I have heard people claim God is responsible for the earth quake in Haiti, and that to me is also blasphemy.
Satan uses whatever he can to try to deceive you. I have been guilty of this in the past. Because of my ignorance of the Bible, Satan used my ignorance against me to his advantage when I was young. I remember when I was a kid growing up in church, a traveling minster came into the church and spoke. I do not recall everything he was talking about, but I do know that he spoke about the “unforgiveable sin”. Later in my life, as I was getting close to 21 years old, I was faced with a very hard set of circumstances. I was recently married and my father fell unconscious in his living room. It appears later that we found out that he had a stroke. They rushed him to the hospital and he lay there for a few days still unconscious. Now my father was a preacher a big part of my life. He went to Bible school and had a church that he was the pastor of and seemed to me to be doing the right things. One day as I drove by the hospital I was very discouraged and down about the situation and I said out loud “if this is the kind of God you are, I don’t want anything to do with you”. You see we had many Christians praying and God was not appearing to answer. What I did not know was all of the things that God had tried to do months earlier to get my father to change and fix the problem that was causing these results. My father either out of pride or rebellion did not heed the warning given to him by a great man of God that tried to help him. My father was sitting in a Bible class with this man one day and God showed the teacher that my father was going to die. God told the teacher what to say to him and asked my father to come see him privately to talk about it. This man prayed for my father in public, but did not tell anyone what he saw or what God said. Months later this same man spoke at my father’s funeral service. God put the responsibility of what happened to my father in my father’s hands and my father chose to ignore it as being unimportant. You do realize that God leaves your destiny up to you and you alone?
So now the years went by and Satan used the fact of what I said to God to convince me that I had committed the unpardonable sin against God. Satan used the words of a minster from my childhood to convince me that I could no longer by saved. Ministers need to learn to be careful what they say to who. If they are not careful they can affect someone just as easily negatively as they can positively. There were times that I thought of suicide and had a desire to just end it all. But, thank God for His mercy and His grace! You see later in my life I had another situation come up that I had no other place to turn, but to God. In crying out to God for help I started to seek Him to know Him better and to see if I could still be saved. I learned from my mother that God had tried to help my father months before he died in that Bible class. So it was not God’s fault that my father died. So even though I blamed God for it, it was because of my ignorance of the situation that caused me to say what I did to God. God as a result did not hold it against me and God could still and did forgive me. One night with my wife, after I had been seeking for more of God, God came upon me and then filled me with His Spirit on the inside. This was a manifestation of His Spiritual divine power like I had never experienced before or since. God solved Satan’s plan of deception with an experience that left no doubt in my mind that God was real and that He was on the inside of me and I belonged to Him. I now knew for sure beginning that night that I had not committed the unpardonable sin and that God cared about me personally enough to prove it. So I cannot guarantee you that God will do for you what He did for me in the exact same way. Rarely have I ever seen God do the same exact thing twice in the precise same way. However, God knows how to reach you if you are interested in being reached. If you believe in God, like I did you have half the battle won. If you want more of God and are truly hungry and thirsty for more of His Spirit, you are on the right path to allowing God to work in you, however He sees fit to make Himself real to you. God is sovereign and God is omnipotent. But, God will not override your will or your choices. God will remain hidden, until you make the choice to seek Him diligently.
So I gave you a mini version of my testimony and I usually do not talk about me in my blogs. My blogs are not about me! However, I think my experience might be able to help someone so I included it in hope that the right people would find it.
1Jn 5:16 If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.
If you are concerned that you have already committed the unpardonable sin, but are questioning it and reading this blog, you probably have not. Satan is very tricky, he definitely uses what you do not know to hurt you and deceive you any way that he can. Satan uses your thoughts against you. He puts doubts and thoughts in your mind to mislead you into destruction. Be hungry for the truth! Seek God with all of your heart! God will not let you down, He actually wants to show you how real He is.
Rom 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
There will always be a choice set before you as long as you are on this earth in the flesh. God will never take your ability to choose away from you. You can choose to obey Him and His Word or select to go your own independent way. This verse in Romans clearly says that you still have responsibility and the choice to make and this verse was specifically written to Christians. There is still a “sin unto death” and this is also called by the synonymous title of the “unpardonable sin” that Jesus spoke of in Matthew. If you still do not understand what these are you should go back and reread these lessons and look up every scripture in your own Bible and study them more until you get them on the inside of you. I’m not through with this subject because God says many more things in His Word that we need to know about it. So I will continue “Once Saved Always Saved” in the future. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading on the subject of Once Saved Always Saved you may continue with “Part 3“.
God In 3 Dimensions, God For Us, God With Us, God In Us!
(ver 1.1) The Bible speaks of God in many different aspects with various described characteristics. The New Testament also states that we in the church today are now in a better covenant than the one that came before (Heb 8:6). What makes our covenant better now than the one that was established with the natural nation of Israel? I will not attempt to fully answer that question, but I will give you some pertinent clues to why I think it is better now. In the Old Testament God was certainly for the nation of Israel. God was certainly with the children of Israel. But, I do not think that God was ever in the children of Israel. God dwelt with the nation of Israel only in things that were built with the hands of men. Moses made God a temporary dwelling place using tents. Solomon built God a temple in Jerusalem. But, all of these things were just temporary patterns made by men for something that was to come that was made by God. Let’s examine the Bible today for God’s realities and why we have a basis of a better covenant now.
We will start with God being with us and look for Bible verses to establish God’s presence with His people. What does it mean for God to be “with” us? One definition of the term “with” is to be in the company of. In other words to be in the same company. God is said to be in our company. You could say that God is said to be our companion. Here is a Bible verse that appears to convey this thought:
Psa 46:7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
God is the Lord of hosts and this verse establishes the idea that God was with the children of Israel in the Old Covenant. We can read stories in the Old Testament when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, how God went before them in the day as a cloud and a fire by night. So we can clearly see how God was present with them during their time in the wilderness.
Isa 8:10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
We can clearly see that there are implied benefits for God being with us as this verse says that God was with Israel. This verse is speaking about the subject of spoken words and this verse implies that they can be weapons against us. But, elsewhere in the Bible God also said that no weapon formed against us will prosper, so we can see this is possible because God is with us. God is on our side, by our side and that is a very good thing. We have specific benefits, because God is with us.
Mat 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
This verse in Matthew is a little different than the others. This time God is spoken of in terms of becoming a man like us and walking around with us on this planet. God in the flesh, walking around looking just like us. That is the powerful story of the salvation and redemptive plan of God. If God never came to be with us, we would all still be in dire straits. Let’s shift gears and look at the next dimension of God, God For Us!
Rom 8:31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
It is said that God is “for” us. This is contrasted as an antonym to the word to be “against”. I am certainly glad that God is not against us. However, I think that many religious people struggle with the concept of God not currently acting as the judge, the jury and the executioner. Whenever, 9/11 happened and terrorist flew planes into NY and Washington D.C., I heard many Christians try to say it was God’s judgment upon us. However, these are ignorant Christians who do not understand that God is “For” us and not “against” us. If God was “against” you and that was His judgment, no one would be alive to tell the tale. There is coming a day of judgment, but that is in the future. Right now Satan is responsible for all of the killing and murder going on in the world, not God! Satan is against you, God is for you. I could give you many more verses that speak to God being for us and not against us. But, I want to move on to the third dimension of God that makes our covenant much better than the Old Covenant God had with Israel. You see God was “with” Israel and “for” Israel, but never “in” Israel. We have this gift of God and it makes our covenant much better than the old.
Rom 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
You see in this verse in Romans, God is saying that those who are born again, have the Spirit of God dwelling in them. God further stipulates that the Spirit of God is also called the Spirit of Christ. You cannot separate Christ from God nor God from Christ, they are one in the same. What is the difference between Old Testament prophets and New Testament Prophets? Both have a prophets anointing, but the New Testament prophet has God living on the inside of them and the Old Testament prophet did not. An anointing is like an outward pouring of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God comes “Upon” a human and is anointed to do a specific job for God. David was anointed to be King by Samuel. The prophet poured the oil over the head of David and this was symbolic of how the Spirit of God came upon him. If David would have had the Spirit of God on the inside of him, David would have had to drink the oil. Little details like these are often times missed when casually reading the Bible.
Rom 8:11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
This is another verse in the same chapter of Romans, that declares that the Spirit of God dwells in the believer. This of course is very hard to describe to someone who doesn’t believe. I can tell them that I have sensed the presence of God within in me at times, in the past sometimes very strongly, like my insides were on fire. Other times I have felt nothing at all. But, regardless of the feeling or sensations that I perceived with my senses, I know He is there because His word says He is. He said He would never leave me nor forsake me, so I know He is there all the time. God can give you sensations that can be physically felt if He so desires and thinks that you would benefit from them. However, it is dangerous to pray and ask God to do this, because Satan can also manifest to deceive you. I never prayed or asked God to make me feel like I was on fire on the inside of my chest, God choose to do this because I guess He thought I needed it. Be very careful what you pray for, make sure it is based upon scriptures. I do not know of any verses that says God will give you any specific feeling in your flesh to confirm His presence.
Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
There are many verses like this one that I could include, but they just go to confirm the fact that the Spirit of Christ now dwells in those that believe. This is truly a mystery to the world and to the natural Jews. They have never experienced this, but they do have the opportunity to participate in this great mystery if they choose to. The free gift of life and salvation is open to whomsoever will. What does it mean to have God dwell in us? To dwell somewhere implies a place or a location that we live. Say a specific address or a specific city. I dwell in Dallas, TX, some might be able to say. A dwelling also implies a home. God has made his home in us. We are now the new home of God. Where we were not His home we have become His home. This is really an awesome difference between the New Covenant and the Old Covenant. The church is the New Jerusalem, the spiritual city of God’s new home. We have become this spiritual city built up in Christ, Jesus Christ the chief cornerstone, where in we all fit together being built up in the spiritual realm.
So God is For You! God is With You! and God is In You! if you are a believer and have made Jesus your Lord and Savior.
Bible Creation Revealed! Pt 4 – The World that Was PT 2!
(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 4 of a series of advanced Bible study lessons about the creation timeline using God’s perspectives. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning I would recommend that you go and start with “Part 1“. In my last blog I introduced you to the “World that Was”. There are numerous Bible verses when viewed correctly, that reveal to us a civilization on our planet that was completely destroyed by God. This previous world system helps to explain the age of the universe, dinosaurs, and other factors that science conflict with what some Christians seem to teach about creation. You cannot look at a star in the night sky and say that it is only 6000 years old. It took significantly longer than that for the light from that star to reach where we are so that we can see it. Astronomers and scientist using radio telescopes, the Hubble telescope and other methods can look out into space and can view things that occurred millions, even billions of years ago. I have heard some Bible teachers claim that God only created things with the appearance of age. In other words they were saying God was a deceiver of mankind. Create a world that looks really old but call it new. Is this what your God would do? Does this fit the character of God’s integrity? I do not think so! So we have to put the pieces of the puzzle together correctly to see what God reveals to us about creation in the Bible and that is what I have been trying to do. I am attempting to put the puzzle pieces given to us in the Bible to discover the truth of creation.
There are many Bible verses that we need to see that speak to us and give us clues about creation and Genesis. Let’s look at some additional verses found in the Bible that at least imply other worlds existed other than our present world. Here is a verse that has clear implications written within it:
Gal 1:4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:
Do you understand that you do not need to qualify the noun “world” with the adjective qualifier “present evil” if this is the only world that ever existed or ever will exist? What we see is an implied reference to both a world that was before our current world and a world that will be after our present evil world. You have to be smart enough to see what the Bible says. Think about this, if there are only two world systems, the evil world and the good world to come, you do not need to add the word “present”. You only need to add the word “present” world if there existed a “past” world. Otherwise, you could differentiate our world from the good one to come by the one adjective “evil”. Do you understand this logic? The Bible is very tricky that way. God is so much smarter than us and He knows exactly how to say something so that you can gain a tremendous amount of information from just a few words, while making it difficult for you to see at the same time. If you can see all of this it will help you to understand other Bible verses. Here is another Bible verse that is more direct about the world that is to come:
Eph 1:21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
You have to be blind not to see that God is telling us that we are living in a temporary world system right now that is not going to be the same world system in the future. God will implement a change and recreate the world system. God calls this a new heaven and a new earth in Revelation. If there will be a new heaven and a new earth and a new world system that is to come, you have to admit that it is at least possible that there existed an older world prior to our current world also.
Eph 2:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
Here is one more verse that speaks of a world to come. This is the same Greek word translated in other places as “world”. It speaks of a coming time where God will bless those who are in Christ Jesus.
Heb 1:2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
We have seen several verses now that imply there is or was more than one world created by the Words of God. In this verse in Hebrews 1:2 we can again see a reference to us being in the last days of our current world. We can also see that Jesus created this world. But, since the word for “worlds” is plural in the KJV Bible as it should be, we can understand that not only is there another world that will come in the future by the Word of God, we also know that there was a previous world that was also created by the Word of God in the beginning.
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.
I believe I gave this verse earlier, but I want to emphasize the plurality of the word “worlds” in this verse. Some might try to say that this is only speaking of our solar system and the other solar systems in the universe and that is the plurality. That is an interesting misinterpretation of this Greek word. If you recall there are two words translated as “world” in the New Testament. One meaning an “orderly arrangement” and the other meaning an “age”. This word in Hebrew 11:3 means “ages”. As in multiple slices of time. We are living in a current world age, there is a coming world age and we have clearly seen that there was previous world age before Genesis 1:2.
So what happened to this world system that came before Genesis 1:2? Who destroyed it and why? We are not given a lot of clues in the Bible, but we are given some clues so let’s look at some of them:
Isa 14:16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
Isa 14:17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
These verses found in Isaiah are widely believed to be a description of Satan. I firmly believe that is exactly who these verses are talking about. But, then you also have to notice what they say about Satan. They are not prophetic words of any coming events, but they are more like the words of a news report of a past historic event. These verses speak of a catastrophic event that occurred within earth’s history. It speaks of a complete and utter destruction of a world system. A system with inhabitants, with organized cities, and all of the other qualities that we possess now. A city implies roads, buildings, walls, safety and security. It implies an organized government and the rule of kings with kingdoms. All of these things were destroyed between the verses of Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 because of Satan. Let’s back up in the chapter and view the conformation to who this is speaking about and what God reveals to us in his description:
Isa 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
Let’s analyze the first part of this verse. It declares that God is speaking about a spiritual “fallen” being named Lucifer. The Hebrew word for “fallen” means “to cast down”, “to perish”, “to overthrow”, and “to die”. We can clearly see that something happened to bring Lucifer down. This Hebrew word for Lucifer is also a fascinating word with a specific and direct meaning. It implies “brightness” like the sun. It also has the literal meaning of “the morning star”. The morning star is not Venus or some other bright star like object in the night sky. The “morning star” is our sun that rises in the morning. This is a very significant name and title. This verse calls Satan the “son of the morning”. I hope that you understand that the word “morning” means “early light”. God is giving us a very significant clue to the identity of Satan. God is calling him his son. We know in the New Testament that it declares that God is Light! So being called the son of the “early light” implies a son of God from a very long time ago. This verse has direct implications of being a long time ago by the word “early”. This implies “first light” or the time when light begins to form in the sky before the actual sun rises. If you have ever witnessed the sun rise, you can learn a very important lesson to what God is telling us about Satan. Satan was one of the first, if not the first creatures created by God. He would have been the equivalent to Adam the first creature of our world. Lucifer would have been a pattern or a model of Jesus that was to come. If you search your Bible you will find that Jesus gives us the same information in the book of Revelation for the name of Lucifer. Jesus informs us in Rev 22:16 that He is the true “Bright Morning Star” because He is the root and offspring of David. What Lucifer use to be, is what I really am, says Jesus.
Heb 1:5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?
This verse in Hebrews is an interesting contradiction to what I just said or is it? If you look closely at this verse God is speaking about angels. We know that Lucifer was the chief angel. So God is making and demonstrating a major difference between angels and His Son Jesus Christ. God did not become a natural Father to any creature except to Jesus. Because of the virgin birth of Jesus, Jesus has become the only son of God born of a natural woman. This makes Jesus radically different from Lucifer doesn’t it? Lucifer was never born naturally, so while he was a spiritual son of God, he was never a natural son of God. Jesus was both a spiritual and natural son of God and this makes Jesus the true “morning star”.
1Jn 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
For this reason Jesus Christ came to the earth, to undo the works of the devil. What works were these that caused God himself to come to earth to undo what had already been done? That is an amazing question to ponder. This verse in 1 John tells us that Satan had been sinning from the beginning. Now that we have seen evidence for another world system that Satan caused to be destroyed, we can begin to understand why God created another new world system and came to earth personally to make sure it worked this time. So we can assume that Satan was sinning from the beginning of time and not just from the foundation of the current world. We must begin to understand that these two events are different times and different worlds.
Here are some more verses that are specifically related to the subject of the Bible account of creation. These verses that I will show you will further confirm the existence of the previous world and what happened to it. We will begin to read starting in chapter 4 of Jeremiah and verse 23:
Jer 4:23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
I hope that you can see the significant similarities of this verse with Genesis 1:2. If you do, you will see they are directly parallel descriptions speaking of the exact same time period. This verse is God’s commentary to Genesis 1:2 and gives us additional information that is related to what happened to cause this condition of destruction. We can also see the declaration that the earth was covered with darkness. It is assumed that there is something blocking the sunlight from penetrating to the surface, something like very thick clouds or very deep water or both. We can clearly see that this verse is directly speaking of Genesis 1:2 and 1:3. In Genesis 1:3 God says “let there be light”, this would be God’s answer to the problem of “no light”. Let’s move to the next verse and see what else God is describing to us:
Jer 4:24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
I am not really sure how to take this verse, it says there were mountains, but yet it declares they were moving lightly. To me that would seem to indicate that the currents of the oceans caused them to move and shake. But, here is the verse that I want you to start taking note of for what it says:
Jer 4:25 I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
Now we have a major clue that God is talking about Genesis 1:2. God says in this verse that there was no man or no Adam. The Hebrew word “man” is the same Hebrew word for “Adam”. God is saying there is no Adam yet and all of the birds that were in the sky have vanished. Why would God speak of birds vanishing before there was no man named Adam in the same sentence? Adam was created on the last part of day 6 of the recreation account in Genesis 1. The birds and other animals come on the 5th day of God’s recreation. So we can clearly see that whatever time God is speaking of is before both of these have occurred. Yes? There must have been birds back in Genesis 1:1 that all disappeared with the rest of God’s creation. There really is no other logical explanation for this verse. Now it is really going to get good, let’s read verse 26:
Jer 4:26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.
So what cities is God speaking of that was before Adam came along? Again we have to be smart enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together correctly, but this is a major clue to what happened in Genesis 1:2. God declares that the world that was changed from a fruitful place to a wilderness. God specifically says that in this world there existed inhabited cities. The Hebrew word for “city” in this verse means a place that is guarded by a watch. This implies a government, organization, leadership and a lot of inhabitants. But, God also informs us that these were all broken down. This Hebrew Word for “broken down” has the following definition:
A primitive root; to tear down: – beat down, break down (out), cast down, destroy, overthrow, pull down, throw down.
Isn’t that what God said to Lucifer? How are thou “fallen”. In this word it clearly means someone destroyed these cities intentionally. They were leveled as if they had never existed. God declares that He was extremely angry and this is why that world was destroyed. Because of the sin and ungodliness that existed in that time God had to destroy it.
Jer 4:27 For thus hath the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.
In the next verse, God is still speaking of the time before Adam and says that world was completely destroyed and perished. The Hebrew word for “full end” can mean “completeness”. What God is saying is that just because that world perished, it was the not the end of all time. There was more to come, a new world that Adam would be given. All of these statements were given to us as clues to what happened in Genesis 1:2 before Adam was put on this planet. God specifically speaks of a destruction that occurred that caused the world to be “void” and “without form”. These are the descriptive terms given to us and they help us to see that these verses in Isaiah and Jeremiah are God’s commentary on the Bible creation account found in Genesis 1.
Because many people do not understand how God wrote the Bible, they do not know how to look for the hidden clues in the Bible. The Bible is not in chronological order, nor does it have all information on any given subject in any one location or book. God spread out clues in the Bible in widely dispersed random patterns, hiding them in and around verses that are not always related. God can jump from one subject to another subject using a wide perspective of time periods, people, natural vs. spiritual things, places and many other ways that He has used to conceal information from his enemies.
So all that I have been trying to do is to read the clues found in the Bible and put them together logically to help us understand what God is really saying. It involves work, research, study and a major effort to find all of these verses and then additional effort to understand them and put them together correctly. I know it is not easy to see, I know it can be taken other ways, I know there are many other possible interpretations, I know you can believe what you want to despite what I said. God will always allow people to be wrong. So I have presented a new perspective and at least given to you some new things to think about and to consider. I pray that you will study to show yourself approved unto God and not rely on me to do your Bible study for you.
There are still many questions that come to my mind about this world that God describes as being before our world. Here are some of my questions, maybe you can come up with some others.
- Why didn’t God come to the earth and offer salvation to that world?
- Who were these multitudes of earth inhabitants that perished? Angels?
- Did they all go to heaven after God destroyed this world?
- If the Bible says that death came by Adam, how could this world be destroyed and animals, birds and all the other creatures, plants and living organisms all have died?
- Why couldn’t God just throw Satan into Hell with his followers before He created our world?
There are just so many very tough questions to answer still. Obviously the Bible is a very complex book full of answers if we can figure them out or better yet when God shows us in the Word what it all means. I’ll end this blog with this verse of Jesus speaking:
Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Jesus Christ is speaking and calls himself the beginning and the ending of all things. The Lord that is, that was and the Lord which is to come. We can again clearly see the significance to three different and separate worlds mentioned in this verse. It says within the realm of time, Jesus existed in the world that now is, the world that was and the world that will be coming in the future. The Bible has many verses like this all over it, if you can find them and relate them to the subject. I never try to provide every scripture reference to a subject that I teach, that would be a very difficult task for anyone to do. So I try to provide at least two or three good references to help establish every word that I teach from the Bible. By doing this we can be assured that it is correct and then can go and try to find other confirming verses. If you know of other verses that I did not include I would be happy to hear about them. God Bless.
What in the World is God Waiting For? 3 Things God is Waiting for Before Jesus Returns!
(Ver 2.1) Did you know that God is waiting for specific things to occur before Jesus comes back? If you did not know this you could be a potential hindrance to when Jesus comes back. I know that doesn’t sit well with a lot of religious minded people. People widely believe that God is sovereign and because God is sovereign they believe that He also gets whatever He wants, whenever He wants it. Nothing happens they believe unless God commits it or permits it. If this was the way God really was, He would remind me more of an immature two year old who always wants their way and screams when they do not get it. I do not think God acts like a two year old. A two year old has no patience! But, God is described to be the God of Patience in Romans 15:5. You do understand that if God was not waiting for anything to happen, then God would have no need for the virture of “Patience”, right? The association of God with the term Patience reveals that God waits for things to occur and that He does not cause these things to occur. Of course it is more complex than this, because even the farmer has patience for his crops, but yet he is the one that planted the seeds to cause the predetermined future outcome of his crop. This is really a better anaology for God’s patience also. God awaits for His outcomes to come to maturity that He has planted and we will see this more clearly as we continue through this lesson. I hope that you understand what I just said about the concepts of paitiece and what the word means. You see, I do believe that God is sovereign, but I also believe that God has character, morals and principles that place self imposed limitations upon Himself to what He does and when He does it. This is called self-control and this is a clear sign of physical and spiritual maturity. Patience is also a Christian developed attribute or fruit that God is awainting to manifest in all of us.
There is a popular church doctrine called preminence that states Christ’s return is emminent and at hand. Meaning there are no scriptures left to be fulfilled in all of Bible prophecy for His soon return. There is two erroneous assumptions dictated in this doctrine. The first problem is that you assume that you know and understand every Bible prophecy and this is clearly a mistake from someone who has raised themselves beyond where they are presently in spiritual knowledge. No one but God knows every prophecy and understands them all. Are you God? Then there are the verses in the Bible like the ones that I’m going to give you today, that these types of teachers must explain away or ignore completely to hold fast to their doctrine of preimence. So what does the Bible tell us are the certain specific things that God is patiently waiting for to happen before Jesus returns? Today I am going to discuss three things that God is waiting for. When I read verses like these, I ask myself, if God wanted them to happen, why doesn’t He just make them happen? That of course is an excellent question. Apparently God is not in total control of everything like some people think He is. Before we start let’s define waiting. What is waiting?
WAITING: remaining inactive in one place while expecting something to happen
According to this defintion , the word waiting means to sit inactive in one place while expecting something to happen. Does God do this? To think of God being inactive blows my mind, and I know it is hard for people to conceptualize. However, you might be surprised that God does do this. You should actually read your Bible more closely and pay attention to find out what God does and what God doesn’t do instead of just assuming you know.
1. GOD WAITS FOR THE PRECIOUS FRUIT OF THE EARTH
Let’s look at an important verse found in the book of James that clearly tells us something that God is patiently waiting for, before Jesus returns to the earth:
Jas 5:7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
What is this precious fruit of the earth that God is waiting for? This verse is clearly saying God is waiting for something in relationship to a prerequisite requirement that must occur before Jesus’ return. You do realize that God is the husbandman in this symbolic filled verse? One interpretation for this verse is telling us that God is waiting for people to get saved before Jesus returns. God wants everyone to get saved according to 2 Peter 3:9. If you read 2 Peter 3:9 you will find the word “longsuffering” associated with God and this is again referring to God’s great patience in waiting. If God wants everyone to be saved, why isn’t everyone saved already? Apparently it is up to others to go tell people so that they can get saved. Apparently people have to accept the free gift of salvation. So apparently God has done everything that He is going to do to get people saved and He is now waiting on us to go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mk 16:15). This verse in James tells us that God has “long patience”. Did you know that patience is a sign of maturity? If you do not make people do the right thing, then sometimes it takes patients to give people the opportunity to learn to do the right thing. This is one of the greatest qualities of the Omnipotent God! God wants people to get saved, but will not force anyone into making this decision. So God is waiting with great patience for as many people to get saved as can. There are many days on earth I look around and see all of the evil things going on and ask God “What about today? Send Jesus back today!”. But, I know there are so many more people who can be saved if we try to reach them.
The salvation process is also being called a farming process. A husbandman is the owner of a field where a crop was planted. The husbandman plants specific seeds into the field that He desires to see grow to produce specific mature crops and this created process always requires time to develop. What does a farmer do after planting his crop? Mostly a farmer waits for the crop to come up. This is an inactive time befor the coming harvest season. Is God’s crop ripe yet? Has this planted crop fully matured? You do know that the harvest season is upon us?
2. GOD WAITS FOR HIS ENEMIES TO BE MADE HIS FOOTSTOOL
So we have seen that God has long patience and can wait for what He wants to happen without forcing them to happen. What else is God waiting for, before Jesus comes back? In this next verse God informs us of something that is potentially controversial, yet I still believe what it says:
Heb 10:13 From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
God is waiting for His enemies to put under His feet. A footstool is where you put your feet to rest them. The coming time of rest is a 1000 year millennial time period that corresponds to the 7th day of creation when God rested from His work in Genesis 1 and 2. God expects His enemies to be made His footstool before this happens. Where are God’s feet? The feet are in the body of Christ. Christ is the head, but the church is the body of Christ so where is God’s feet? Who are God’s enemies that He is expecting to be under our feet? It is Satan and his demonic host of angels. God expects them to be placed under our feet. Jesus will not return until this happens and I know that is a very controversial part of my blog. I have heard many preachers claim that Satan was put under foot by Jesus on the cross. However, the Bible has so much more to say about that and I will not attempt to elaborate on all of these verses in this blog. If you desire to learn more about this you can read my blog on “The Seed of the Woman, The Seed of the Serpent“. So the Bible says God is waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool, when is this going to happen? How is this going to happen? What is God waiting for, is it you again? I’ll give you a very quick overview to help get you started:
Rom 16:20 And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
I will close this section with this verse helping to prove Satan is not underfoot yet. At the time of the writing of this book of the Bible, the Apostle Paul claimed that Satan’s head was not yet bruised. Paul wrote this well after Jesus was raised from the dead and had returned to heaven. The majority of preachers today teach that Jesus was the seed of the woman that bruised the head of Satan, but they have to ignore Romans 16:20 to adhere to that interpretation and that is a major problem. Therefore we can easily understand that Satan has not yet had his head bruised. If you recall this was a prophecy that God made in Genesis 3 speaking to Satan. God told Satan that the woman and her seed would bruise his head. Who is this prophetical woman and what is her seed? If you read the Bible study above you have a good idea already that this is the church body. The church is the bride of Christ called the coming woman in Genesis 3:15 and she is the woman that will bruise the head of the serpent.
3. GOD IS WAITING FOR THE MATURITY OF THE CHURCH
We are now at the third thing that God is waiting for before Jesus comes back. Again, we have more controversy with these verses, because they are difficult for many immature Christians to accept. It is many times like discussing Algebra with a 4 year old. They are just not ready to accept it and do not have the basic understanding of all of the necessary subjects to discuss these advanced topics. Nevertheless, here I go and I hope you will understand it:
Gal 4:1 Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;
Gal 4:2 But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
There is a parallel being given to us in these two verses of scriptures. They state that a child is not ready to rule until he or she has grown up and matured. As long as they are still a child, it says they are no different than a servant, even though they are ruler of everything. Children require teachers and governors so they do not hurt themselves or others either by accident or on purpose. Children do not have the maturity God is looking for to put His enemies under His feet. God is waiting for the church to grow up and to become mature. Quit bickering and fighting over trivial childish things and become a mature Christian. The church is the joint heirs with Christ that this verse is paralleling. Even though we are these heirs, many Christians are still developing and in need of maturation. God is waiting for us to grow up.
Rom 8:19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
God is waiting for the manifestation of His children. Even as a natural child is born physically and needs constant care and attention, over time they begin to develop skills that allow them to take more and more responsibility over what they do and how they do it. This is a natural process that corresponds to a spiritual process that God is trying to get us to see and understand.
1Co 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
In this verse God says that He could not talk to the people in Corinth about spiritual things, because of their immaturity. God is saying that every Christian starts as a baby Christian, but He expects them to grow up and mature. An immature Christian is mostly concerned with carnal or natural things. A mature Christian is more concerned with spiritual things. This is one of the signs of maturity in the body of Christ. Where does this put you in the spiritual growth chart?
Heb 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
God’s word is spiritual growth food for your spirit. But, this spiritual food comes in two extremes of basic milk formula for children and strong meat for mature Christians. A new baby Christian requires to focus on the very basic milk concepts of God’s word in order to grow. God’s word has both basic milk simple subjects and complex advanced meat meat subjects. These advanced topics are the strong meat that God is referring to and a baby Christian will choke if you try to feed them these subjects. Just like little natural babies cannot eat any solid food for many months, spiritual babies cannot understand the strong meat of God’s word. Natural babies are introduced to small quantities of soft non-milk food and they eventually will develop enough to be able to eat anything. This makes it very difficult to teach any subject, since we are all in varying stages of spiritual development. I have a tendency to teach advanced subjects, but some people do not understand them simply because of where they are in their spiritual growth.
1Co 1:7 So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:
So if you are like me, we are all waiting for Jesus to come back and take us out of here, but who is waiting for who? You have to ask yourself what can I do to help this process along. Is there anything God is needing me to do today? Do I need to grow up and become more spiritually aware? Do I need to mature spiritually? Do I need to do anything to allow God to put His enemies under my feet? Do I need to go and tell someone about Jesus today? Do I have anything to do with when the return of Jesus is? I hope that you see that you do. Share this lesson with your friends today to help them grow and learn that there are things that God is waiting on patiently before Jesus returns for us and by us cooperating we could help God end this thing more quickly. God Bless you and thanks for reading my Bible lesson today.
How Satan Uses People to Set Traps for You!
(ver 1.3) A trap is the hidden trick of an enemy to take you captive or prisoner. To trap wild animals, some have used a spring like device that usually has a concealed danger with an enticing lure or some type of tempting bait. Many times people would dig a big hole in the ground and cover it with branches and leaves so that others do not recognize the pit fall dangers as they travel in that area. People have walked down this path being unfamiliar with the danger and many have fallen into it and were caught. Whether you realize it or not, you are walking down a figurative trail in life and Satan has placed many concealed traps in your path in order to take you captive. We must learn to recognize these potential traps. In order to do this I believe that we need to become familiar with the examples found in the Bible of what Satan has used on other people. Only by learning and studying the devices and methods of our spiritual enemy, can we even begin to become familiar with the certain impending traps that will be presented to us. Only when we learn to recognize the traps can we learn how to avoid them.
Job 18:10 The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way.
While natural traps are hidden dangers to your physical well being, spiritual traps are hidden pitfalls that are intended for your spiritual harm. Since Satan is not physically present in this world (at least until the anti-christ is revealed) and it is illegal for him to be in physical manifestation to harm you, he has adapted and changed up his attack and trap methods. Satan uses physical people in the world to set traps for other people. Satan works very hard to deceive everyone, but many times he concentrates on a select few which are easier to be deceived. These types of easy targets are usually the most ignorant of the truth found in God’s word. Satan then traps them into believing his lies and then uses them to deceive the others through their enticing baited words of partial truths. Let’s go through an example of this in the Bible:
Exo 23:33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.
Here we have a great example of the deceived people on the earth deceiving God’s people. Many people have been deceived into believing that God has provided many religions and many paths that lead us to Him. However, God did not EVER say this, this was only man’s reasoning based upon them buying into Satan’s deception. Just because many religions exist in the world today does not mean that God started them, God endorses them, God accepts them or God subscribes to them. That is just a common planned trap of the enemy. Flood the world with the false to counter the True from God. In this verse in Exodus God warns the Nation of Israel that these foreign gods found within the other nations they encountered would become a “snare” to them. In other words this snare was another technique of their enemy to take them captive. By serving their false gods, God’s people would be deceived from knowing the truth and even depart from it. By serving the false, they would be led captive away from their true living God. So evidently every religion is not the right way to God! Clearly God was warning His people that these people did not know Him or His ways but were put there to be traps for them. God was clearly revealing the methods of entrapment and this information can still be applicable to us today in the church. Let’s take a look at another verse in Exodus:
Exo 34:12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:
By associating with the wrong people and joining themselves together as one nation, God informs Israel that if they were not careful to avoid this, they would again become trapped into a situation that they do not want to be in. This is again speaking of a spiritual snare, a trap that the enemy has presented them using natural people. These people since they are not God’s covenant people would present themselves as friendly and introduce them to new ideas, concepts and things that God declares would become a trap to deceive them. This is a spiritual principle and a method that Satan still uses today with Christians. Become friends with the wrong people, hang around the wrong people long enough, and what they do and what they say will eventually become what you do and what you say. The bad influences in life will always drag you down to their level and you will not be able to pull them up to your level so beware of this trap.
Let me talk about another aspect of what this verse is saying. A covenant is a marriage in the eyes of God. You can learn this by reading Malachi 2:14. God reveals to us it matters who we marry. When a Christian marries a non-Christian they usually regret it. Many times a Christian lady will marry a man thinking he will change and go to church with her and this is usually a vast disappointment when this does not occur. The man may even promise and say the right things right up until the wedding day, but after the wedding the bride has joined herself to an unbeliever and become deceived. This is a common deception revealed to us in the Bible and if you learn now before you get married, you will avoid this trap.
Psa 38:12 They also that seek after my life lay snares for me: and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long.
The traps of the enemy are many times laced with enough truth and good that it appears to be something desirable. If you wanted to kill an animal you would not throw it just poison and hope that they ate it. No you wrap the poison in a steak, or something that is very desirable to the animal. This is a common practice of the enemy. They usually do not start with the blatant obvious lies, they always start with the truth and mix in a few lies here and there. By doing this they have disguised the lies and made them harder to recognize and easier to accept. This verse in Psalms tells us that Satan uses people to hurt people. This could be a physical pain or an emotional pain as this verse is talking about. By using words from one person to hurt and offend another, this is a common trap that people fall into, even in church. It could be an intentional hurt or an unintentional hurt, but the result is often times the same. Satan is working day and night to get to you and he will use anyone that he can to do this. It might be your pastor or your best friend, but do not fall into the trap. Recognize what it is and pray for them, do not confront them personally or you may be repeating the offense in a reverse attack. Do not let Satan use you to get back at someone that did you wrong.
Psa 119:110 The wicked have laid a snare for me: yet I erred not from thy precepts.
Here is a prevalent method of the enemy. To try to distract you from the truth of God’s word. All the enemy has to do is to get you interested in something else. Cause something else to become a higher priority than God’s Word. By distracting you, you become interested in the wrong things. It could be movies, it could be books, it could even be doing good things like feeding the poor. Whatever, it takes to distract you from what is suppose to be most important to you, that is what Satan will use to set a trap for you. The Psalmist says that he stayed focus on God’s Word and did not take the bait that was presented to him. Recognize where your priorities are right now. Evaluate yourself and examine what you think is important. Prioritize your life and make God and His Word number one and strive to keep Him at the top of your priority list.
The Biblical Evidence for the Existence of Hell!
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 in a series of lessons on the subject of “What Does the Bible Teach Us About Hell”. I’ve have heard more than one person say that hell does not exist. Many like to say that hell is a figurative or symbolic place that really doesn’t exist. They have even tried to tell me that nothing in the Bible says there is a hell. In fact they have gone so far as to try to explain that the word “hell” is not even in the Bible, if you read the original text. There is no end to the deception that Satan has promoted on the earth to give people the assurance that they do not need to do anything to prepare for eternity. What I will attempt to do is show you Bible verses that talk about this place called hell. I will show you that the Bible tells us where it is and what it is. I will demonstrate that the Bible also tells us who will be going there. I believe if you do the research that Jesus while present on the earth actually talked more about hell than He did about heaven. I easily found over 30 different verses in the Gospels with the words in red ink that spoke about hell directly. I believe we should try to pay attention to what the creator God taught us about why He created this place and who it was designed for. Let’s start reading in the Old Testament:
Psa 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God.
The Hebrew word translated in the KJV Bible as hell is the Hebrew word “sheol” or H7585. Obviously, reading this verse and the Strong’s definition of this word it would appear that this word would seem to indicate a place that has been reserved for those who qualify as being “wicked”. The wicked would include all those who were labeled as unrighteous. The word translated as “wicked” in the Hebrew means “morally wrong” and that is probably everybody at some point in their lives. The word also means a bad person or a guilty person. So far I believe everyone in the human race would qualify at one time as one of these definitions. The Hebrew word for “hell” has the following definition from the Strong’s:
H7585
From H7592; hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranian retreat), including its accessories and inmates: – grave, hell, pit.
We can clearly see from the definition that it refers to a place known as “hades”, called the place of the dead. It is also given to us to be a subterranean location. Subterranean means, beneath the surface of the earth. Scientist and most every human alive has at least heard of or seen volcanoes in action. These geological phenomena’s are the external proof of the extreme heat within the earth’s core. We know that these eruptions come from cracks in the earth’s layers that allow this molten material to leak out. I feel like this is God’s way of trying to warn people that hell actually exists. I do not believe that God causes volcanoes, but I do know that they do exist. There are numerous scriptures in the Old Testament that refer to this place of the dead and even give us the location of this place. Here are some of these:
Job 11:8 It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?
We can see clearly in this verse that heaven and hell are described as two separate and distinctive places. Meaning they are not the same place or even in the same location of space. In fact the two could be called opposites. Heaven is described as being a place that is UP! A place that is high above us. Hell on the other hand is described as a place that is DOWN! A place that is beneath our feet. Interesting, isn’t it?
Psa 16:10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
This verse is of course somewhat controversial. You see in some Christian circles it is taught that Jesus did not go to hell. However, this verse would seem to indicate the complete opposite. I personally believe if Jesus did not go to hell, then you and I will have to go. If Jesus did not take the full punishment for our sin, then we still owe a debt that we cannot pay. It was either paid in full or not paid at all. Jesus said before He was crucified that even as Jonah was 3 days in the belly of the whale, that the He was going to be 3 days in the belly of the earth (Mat 12:40). You cannot take that very many ways that would not seem to say, He was going to hell. If you still do not believe that Jesus went to hell for you, so that you do not have to go, I guess that will be your problem and not mine.
Psa 55:15 Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.
We can again see a verse of scripture that clearly locates the position of hell and also confirms who it was made for. God tells us clearly that the “wicked” will “go down”. I guess anyone that reads this and still doesn’t believe me must think that they do not qualify as one of these wicked. Maybe people think that my sin is not as bad as the sin of others so I must be OK! However, the Bible says that if you even violate any single one part of God’s law, you are now guilty of sinning against ALL of the law (James 2:10)! According to God’s written Holy Word no matter what sin you did, big or small, the consequences are just the same.
Psa 139:8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
There are so many verses in the Bible like these that I have shown you. They all indicate that “heaven” is UP! and that hell is DOWN! This verse speaks about the “omnipresence” of God and says no matter where you go, God is everywhere. Yet it clearly tells us that some will go up and some will go down.
Pro 15:24 The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.
If you continue to read the many verses like these that I have been presenting to you and still refuse to acknowledgeme the existence of hell, you have been greatly deceived in your midnd not wanting to see the truth. This verse in Proverbs clearly says a wise man is one who acknowledges the ways of life and departs from the way that leads him into hell, below. Again we see two places mentioned, one is implied to be good and the other is definitely not a good place to go to. If a wise man goes Up, then that implies that a “foolish” man or a fool goes “down” by their own choices that they have made.
Isa 5:14 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
Sadly this verse seems to indicate that hell will not be an empty place. The indication is given to us that it will be full of fools and idiots who thought they knew better. I’m sorry I do not know what else to call people who have refused the free gift of salvation. In this verse in Isaiah the path to hell is again said to be down. To descend means to go beneath the surface of the earth. Jesus said “Wide is the gate and broad is path that leads unto destruction and many are those that choose this path” (Mat 7:13). But, then Jesus tells us “that straight is the gate and narrow is the way to life and few are they that find this path” (Mat 7:14). You can see that Jesus is describing two separate groups of people. You can clearly understand that Jesus says one group will live and the other group will die. This of course is a spiritual reality and not a physical one. A spiritual death would be a separation from God who is the author of life. Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). What was Jesus telling us in this verse in John? Jesus was saying He was the only way to achieve true life. Meaning that every other way that people think they are going is the wrong way. It is a very simple yet profound truth that many still refuse to accept. I can’t make you believe it, I can’t make you see it, even though I wish I could.
There are so many verses in the Bible that speak about hell that I just can’t go over every one. I would strongly suggest that you get your Bible search program and look for them and read everyone carefully. Study to show yourself approved, a workman unto God! I will leave this blog with this profound story given to us by Jesus himself. In the book of Luke Jesus tells us a real story of two real actual men who lived on the earth in the past. In this story we are told the direct name of one man who was named “Lazarus”. We know from the story that Jesus says that the man Lazarus was not well physically and was called a beggar who sat at the door of a rich man who had things very nice and lived very well. Lazarus wanted just some crumbs from the rich man’s table to quench his hunger, but it appears the rich man did not give him any or much at all. Jesus tells us that both men died physically and were buried. It also tells us something else that is very profound:
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;
You see in this verse we can see two men who died. We know from when Jesus was telling us this story that He was still ministering physically to the nation of Israel. Therefore, we know that Jesus was not yet crucified and that the payment for sin was yet to be accomplished on the cross. Jesus told us in John 3:13 that no man had ever gone to heaven where God was up until this point in time that He spoke that statement. This means after people on the earth died before the shed blood on the cross, they must have gone somewhere else. We can clearly see that the beggar is said to be carried by the angels to this temporary place and it was called “Abraham’s bosom”. We can also clearly learn that this was not the beggar’s body that was taken to this place, but that it was his spirit that was relocated to this temporary location with Abraham. In this verse we are informed that the rich man also died and his body was buried. Where then did the rich man’s spirit go? We can read the next verse and find the answer:
Luk 16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
We can clearly see that the rich man goes to hell, a place that is intentionally described as a place of torment. Torment is not a good or a positive word is it? Torment implies torture, pain and suffering. Before Jesus was crucified we can see that the beggar was somewhere, not heaven but yet not hell either. It is a place that is described to be a far off from hell, yet the rich man could still see it. Did you also notice that these verses said that the rich man’s body was buried, yet the rich man went to hell? If you do not understand that you are spirit that lives in a body you need to get a hold of that fact fast. After your spirit leaves your body you can see from this story, you still exist, you still have feelings, you still can see, you still can talk, you still can do many of the things that you can do today physically, except get saved. It is now too late to get saved.
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.
So the rich man hasn’t really changed has he? Even being in hell he thinks he is better than the beggar Lazarus. He asks for mercy from Abraham, his natural father, but yet ask for Abraham to send his brother Lazarus to hell to cool his tongue with water. In this verse we can again clearly see that hell is a place that is described as very, very hot. It is described as being surrounded by flames of fire. So what was Abraham’s response to the rich man?
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.
So we can learn some valuable lessons if you want to see them. Jesus told us, “How hard it is for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God” (Mat 19:24). Why is that? Because they think that they do not need God or salvation. They are consumed with a life of luxury and want and need nothing. They make themselves out to be better than others who have nothing and most of the time do nothing to help them. We can clearly see in this story that the lives of these two men of example on earth are in stark contrast and opposition to each other. When one cried out for mercy on the earth, the other refused to give it. Then now that the tables are turned, the other cries out for mercy and yet nothing can be done to help him, even if they wanted to.
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.
Jesus tells us that Abraham told the rich man that nobody could cross the vast expanse that was between them now. It sounds like this area represents a spiritual barrier or even a prison wall like structure. Nobody can get in and nobody can get out. Once you are there you are there, at least until judgment day. You see there is a day when the Bible says that “every knee will bow and call Jesus the Lord God”. When presented with the truth, I assume many will still not believe it, but yet they will still be forced to bow their knee. It would be much wiser to bow your knee voluntarily right now, than to wait until later and be forced into this position.
Luk 16:27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:
The rich man is not through asking for stuff and trying to negotiate a better outcome. Now the rich man asks for Abraham to send Lazarus back to the earth to his father’s house. Funny how rich men like to ask other people to do stuff for them all the time, isn’t it? Did you notice that in verse 25, Abraham said to the rich man “remember”? Do you know that the rich man in hell, without his body could still do this? Do you understand the significance to that revelation? People in hell can still remember and reflect back on everything that they had and the things that they did and still know everyone that they had met here on the earth. What is more astounding is the fact that the rich man knew who Abraham was and He had never met him before. Abraham lived many hundreds of years before this man and yet he still knew him.
Luk 16:28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
Now the rich man in the middle of hell realizes that the time of decision making was on the earth. Since he has found that nothing can be done to help his situation, he wants Abraham to send Lazarus as a witness to his brothers on the earth so they will not come to the same place. No doubt his brothers were also wealthy men who were raised to disregard others.
Luk 16:29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
Now we have some more amazing information. Here we have Abraham speaking about a future son named Moses. How did Abraham know Moses? Apparently Moses was there in the same place as he was and had heard the stories that Moses spoke of. Moses and the prophets wrote God’s word down hundreds of years after Abraham lived and Abraham knew what they had done. I find that absolutely fascinating. Here we have a spiritual law of sorts being revealed to us. We can see who ever lives and dies later will meet those and speak with those that went before. An exchange of information is assumed and everyone will know everyone else who is there also. But, did you notice that Abraham is not going to respond to what the rich man said, the way the rich man wanted him to. Abraham tells him that God’s Word is where it was at, that was the only way to know God and to be saved. Abraham never said anything about Buddha did he? Abraham never said anything about any other way or religion did he?
Luk 16:30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
The rich man is very persistent and continues to ask for someone from the dead to be sent to his brothers so that they will hear first hand testimony of this awful place of torment. Then if they hear someone personally say look I died and saw hell and it is not good place, they would repent. Did you know that would really not help most people. You see if people do not believe the Bible, how would they believe someone who came up to them and said “I’ve seen hell and it is a really bad place”. Do you think they would believe it then? I do not think it would make any difference. Let’s see what Abraham thought about it:
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.
You see Abraham had the same opinion that I did, he tells the rich man that if they do not believe the Word of God, they will not believe someone who was raised from the dead. That is such a strong Word of Truth to consider. You see there are not many ways to God, Abraham never said anything about Islam or any other religion. Abraham said the key was the Bible. This is what salvation is based upon.
We are not told very many things in the Bible about people who are directly said to have went to heaven or to hell. Very few times are we actually given the names of specific individuals. In fact I cannot think of anyone’s name that is said to have gone to hell. We are told that Abraham and Lazarus was in a place not associated with hell and it implies that Moses and the prophets were also there. From other stories in the Bible we can assume that Elijah was a specific individual that qualified as a prophet, but was someone who was caught up in a chariot by God. We know from New Testament scriptures that Enoch was also said to have been taken by God. Other than these few named individuals the Bible is purposely vague on the subject. For example, I have heard Sunday School teachers teach about Adam and Eve and how someday we will see them in heaven. However, I have not seen a Bible verse that says that they made it. Just because your name is in the Bible doesn’t guarantee that you were saved. There are a lot of names in the Bible that would appear to indicate that they were in hell right now. How about Goliath, the giant?
So according to the Bible, hell is a very real place! Jesus himself confirmed to us the existence of hell. Jesus said, hell exists because it was created for Satan and his demons calling it eternal fire (Mat 25:41). However, from the evidence in the Bible we can also clearly see that that there will be men and women that will also be in hell. I could give you many more scriptures, but if you do not want to see it, it will do no good. I knew a preacher, a man of God that I would call the greatest man of God that I have ever seen on this planet in the last 50 years. This man’s testimony goes something like this. As a teenager he was sick because he was born with a malformed heart condition. This man lived to be a teenager and died, left his body and went down to hell just like the story of the rich man in Luke 16. He could see the flames of fire and the large gate into this place of torment. He said he saw a creature that was about to escort him into hell and suddenly something happened. He said that before he went in, that he heard a voice saying something that was not English and he started going back up to the earth passing through the darkness. He then came back to his bed in his bedroom and entered back into his body. I can’t tell this as good as he could, but he is no longer with us, so I choose to tell it for him. This story was an example of someone who died and came back to tell us personally, like Abraham said you would not beleive. This man was saved and became a preacher of the gospel trying to get you not to go to this place. I do not know how many, have heard this story of his experience, but God allowed him to come back and try to tell us the truth. I believed his story, but I also believed the Bible before I heard this story. I saw the fruit of his ministry and the effort that he would go through to help people to see the truth. You of course can be like many others who have chosen not to believe and as a result have taken the wide gate and broad path to their own destruction. People will either be saved or will perish based upon what they do right here right now here on this planet.
I wish I could say that I believed that everyone on the planet would be presented the opportunity to make the correct decision and have a chance of a fair opportunity to make this decision for God to go to heaven. However, too many things in the world have proved otherwise. Vast numbers of people have died not having heard the gospel and good news of salvation. Children, babies and those that are too young to choose have been killed unfairly and in an untimely fashion. I do not recall reading in the Bible that God said life is fair or just and that you will be given any such chance to make an informed decision. I do not recall anywhere in the Bible that says God will allow you the opportunity to explore every religion to determine which is the best one and the one that is true. If you think that you have a lot of time to figure it all out, it might already be too late for you. Evil in the world is escalating. Satan is feverously working to try to save himself from hell’s flames. As a result, terrorism is on the increase, murder, suicide and other crimes against humanity are being perpetrated at increasing and alarming rates around the world. If you think it is bad now just wait until the Christian are taken out of the world and then you try to figure out what is happening. There will be a lot less informative blogs on the internet when that happens.
If you you like to continue reading in this series about the subject of hell you may go to “Part 2“.
The Bible Definition of Apostasy and the Apostate Church!
(Ver 1.4) In reading wall posts on Facebook and Christian blogs on the internet I have discovered a popular common theme on many of them. It appears that there are a tremendous number of self-righteous people who think they are the only true church and everyone else is just promoting or following a false god. That sounds like a very smug and an arrogant attitude that proves to me that they do not know Christ or have the love of God in them. My Bible tells me that if you do not have the love of God for your brother that you can see, how then can you possibly have any love for your God that you have never seen (1 John 4:20)? My Bible also says that if you have the Spirit of God in you then He is the one that teaches you to love your brother (1 Thes 4:9). Therefore, loving your brother is more than a suggestion; it actually appears to be a requirement for your salvation based upon the words of Jesus in John 13:34. These verses imply that if NO Love is present then NO God is present either. If no God is present then you are just walking in darkness and Satan controls your life and your destiny. Love is a predominate subject found in the New Testament and people want to treat it with disdain to ignore it like it is not important or relevant to me. Many of these blogs like to take the woman in Revelation 17 called the whore of Babylon and call her the “apostate church”. So far I have not heard ANY of them give us any scriptural backing for their statement of beliefs. Without scriptural backing it is obviously just some man’s opinion and what is commonly called a private interpretation of the scriptures (2 Peter 1:20) which is not allowed. That is a very shaky foundation to build your house of religious theology cards upon, if you ask me. What we need to do is to look to the Bible and seek the answers from God’s word and see what God thinks about the subject of apostasy. That is what I will do today. Jesus gives us a clear example and it exemplifies God’s definition of what an apostate Christian is in the book of Luke.
Luk 18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
We can see Jesus talking about a Pharisee in this verse who obviously thinks very highly of himself. Also notice that according to Jesus this proud man is praying to hiimself and not to God. God does not even acknowledge his words at all. Did you see that? This Pharisee claims that he is not like other men. He is thankful that he is not an extortioner, or an unjust man who cheats others, or even an adulterer who cheats on his marriage covenant. This man looks at others and judges his own state of righteousness by what is observed in the visible lives of the others around him. This man is beginning to sound like a lot of the internet bloggers that I have read recently. One of the key words in this verse is the Greek word translated as “adulterer” and it has the following Greek definition from the Strong’s:
G3432
Perhaps a primary word; a (male) paramour; figuratively apostate: – adulterer.
If you understand this word it means someone who is married, but who commits adultery on their spouse. It is a word for a man who is unfaithful to his wife or for a wife that is unfaithful to her husband. We have all seen a lot of examples of this type of behavior in the media in the past few months. Really famous people with beautiful and famous wives and they choose to sleep around and be unfaithful not being satisified with what they have. That is the meaning of this word. But, it also says it is a figurative definition for someone who is called an “apostate”. Does that sound familiar?
This Pharisee man was calling someone else an apostate man just like those on the internet are doing today. Isn’t that interesting? Here is the Pharisee praying loudly so that everyone can hear him and telling us how great he was and how he was so much better than the publican who was standing nearby. You can clearly see that this Pharisee was exalting himself above all others. He thought himself to be better than the others, smarter than the others, the one that had all knowledge of the truth and everyone else was just ignorant fools. Jesus continued in his discourse in this chapter 18 of Luke and told us about the publican and how that he humbled himself and asked God to be merciful to him a sinner. Clearly there is a major difference between these two contrasted attitudes. One man was very proud and one man was very humble. Which one of these two men got the attention of God and was justfied? Let’s read and find out, here is the conclusion that Jesus derives from these two men’s words of prayer:
Luk 18:14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
So Jesus claims that the publican went away being justified by God, because he had humbled himself before God. The implication is clear that the Pharisee was put down and called an idiot by God. The Pharisee man that thought he was righteous and so much better than the others around him was deemed by God to be the lowly one. The man that actually humbled himself was the ONLY one that God raised up. So who was right? Obviously it was not the Pharisee! Therefore, who is Jesus calling the “apostate”? Obviously it was not the Publican that was called an apostate by the Pharisee! Did you notice that Jesus did not agree with anything that the Pharisee said? The Pharisee called the Publican the apostate and Jesus reverses this decision. This lesson from Jesus teaches me that just because someone believes something is right or even true that does not necessarily make it right or true in the eyes of God. I do not believe that the Pharissee thought he was wrong. I beleive the Pharisee honestly believed he was better than the Pulican. However that was not the correct attitude to take, was it? This is a very clear Biblical example of what is occurring on Facebook and many of the blogs that I have found all over the internet. They exalt themselves and their religious faith, church or denomination to be the ultimate true church that is far wiser, knowledgeable or better than everyone else. Everyone else in their eyes are labeled as the false religious deceived ones. Everyone of these websites call themselves the “true church” and all the others the “apostate church” simply because they teach something different than they believe is the truth. Who exactly died and made them God? Do they know everything just because they think they know everything? If they are NOT God then they actually know very little of the whole truth like everyone else in the church. Even Paul said that he saw through a glass darkly (1 Cor 13:12). Therefore, no one sees everything in the Bible clearly and no one today is greater than Paul who wrote 2/3 of the N.T. These types of Christians teach the Bible from their ignorance of the Bible just like I do, but yet they still feel like they are superior to everyone. That is exactly a Pharisee type of attitude and God’s response to it would be the exact same today as Jesus gave us in this example in Luke 18.
The dictionary gives us some definitions of the word Apostate. I guess it would not hurt to review this information and see if it matches the Bible definition.
- deserter: a disloyal person who betrays or deserts his cause or religion or political party or friend etc.
- not faithful to religion or party or cause
So we can see a lot of similarities between these words and the Bible definition of an “adulterer”. An adulterer is someone who is unfaithful to their spouse. An apostate is someone that is unfaithful to their religion. They are quite similar definitions. So what is the problem? We have a large group of people on the internet that call themselves Christians but sound like “Pharisees” while doing it and I do not think they have all the answers either. I do not think they they are God that knows everything. Who are they to judge another ignorant Christian believer? That is an example of an idiotic foolish Pharisee type of behavior and it is clearly a very dangerous attitude to exhibit, if you ask me. You see Saul went around and persecuted the early church of Jesus Christ as one of these religious Pharisees that thought he was so right and what happened to him? Jesus appeared to him and personally asked him, “Saul why are you persecuting me!”. Jesus took the persecution of the Pharisee Saul very personally, didn’t He? So who are these Pharisees on the internet that are persecuting Christianity, thinking they are the true church and no one else is saved? I’ll tell you who they are, they are fools in the grasp of Satan’s control like Saul. Pawns of darkness that are soon to be sacrificed in their dangerous religious chess game. They walk after their own religious mindsets and exalt themselves much too highly. Their end will not be a good one!
Here are two more Hebrew words found in the Old Testament that give us further light on the definition of “apostate”. We can learn a lot by studying the Bible, if you want the truth you should be looking for it in the Bible.
H7726
From H7725; apostate, that is, idolatrous: – backsliding, frowardly, turn away
H7728
From H7725; apostate, that is, heathenish or (actually) heathen: – backsliding.
We can see a clear pattern from both of these words. They imply someone that was right with God, but has now become unfaithful. The term “backsliding” is even used. This term speaks about someone that has fallen into sin. Someone who is dominated by old habits that they were delivered from. They clearly speak of someone who does wrong after knowing right. So how is this the “apostate” church that is portrayed on the internet? From what I can tell the “apostate” church to these Pharisees are just the people who do not believe exactly like they do. If they find someone that believes anything differently than they do they claim them to be in error, rather than studying the Bible with humility to see if it could be possibly them that is in error. That is an example of a Pharisee attitude. You see there are no perfect men or women in the world today. There are no men or women who know everything or can do everything without committing a sin or even keep from making a little simple mistake sometimes. Your attitude will either make you a Pharisee or a Publican. What I believe is that we need more “Publican” Christians and a lot less “Pharisee” Christians in the world today. Of course calling a Christian a Pharisee Christian is an oxymoronic term that really does not exist. What I did was to contrast two groups and put symbolic titles upon them for you to see and understand where you are today. Can you choose to change? Will you judge yourself and make the determination which kind of Christian you are today?
Rom 14:13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.
The Greek word translated in this verse as “stumbling block” is G4348. According to Strong’s, it can be defined as “an occasion for apostasy”. This word has a Greek root word that is G4350. This Greek root word means to strike at or to surge against as water. Both of those are describing precisely what the Pharisee was doing to the Publican. The pharisee was striking down the Publican with his harsh erroneous words causing an occasion for apostasy. So we can see how judging others is a factor in causing others to stumble and fall away. The body of Christ should be attempting to help others and not to put them down or pull them apart from the body. In this verse in Romans, God is speaking directly to the church and telling them not to stand in judgment of fellow Christians. We can see that becoming a stumbling block will only cause the one who is causing the other to fall to be judged by God. Read these words of Jesus found in Matthew very carefully:
Mat 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
To offend a believer in Christ and call them the apostate church in error is an act of grave consequences in the eyes of Jesus. Jesus clearly told us that it would be better for that man to have been cast into the sea with a mill stone around his neck than what is about to happen to them for what they have done to another. That sounds very serious to me. God is taking note of who you offend and who you call an apostate today. If you are wrong, the consequences will be extremely severe, is that really worth it to call anyone an apostate when you are not God and do not know their heart?
Wake up and realize that only God is God, you do not know everything and you do not understand most of what is in the Bible. If you think you do you make yourself out to be God and exalt yourself beyond your own ability. The Publican was humble enough to just call himself a sinner and to cry out to God for His mercy. If you learn to do this, you can change from a Pharisee and become a Publican who was justified in the eyes of God. Paul did it and you can too. Learn from Paul’s example, and you will be very glad that you did. Thanks so much for studying the Bible with me and share this message with a friend on Facebook that is saying someone is an Apostate to possibly help them turn into a true Publican. God Bless!
The Agapegeek Blog 